Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa02833; 24 Jun 90 6:11 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa07192; 24 Jun 90 4:46 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa00499; 24 Jun 90 3:43 CDT Date: Sun, 24 Jun 90 2:50:35 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #451 BCC: Message-ID: <9006240250.ac29917@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 24 Jun 90 02:49:42 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 451 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe [Erik Naggum] Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe [Dave Newman] Re: Manhole Covers (Was: 10-NYT and 10NJB) [Jim Rees] Re: NYNEX Info-Look [Nathan Glasser] Re: Information Needed: Panasonic Model KT2445BE [Irving Wolfe] Re: AT&T 'COCOT' Style Payphones [Dave Levenson] Re: AMR Meter Reading, No Test Trunks, and Call Forwarding [Ken Abrams] Re: Uniform International Dialing [Charles Hawkins Mingo] Re: "Columbo" TV Episode, 6/10/90 [Charles Hawkins Mingo] Can One Disable Call-Waiting If *70 Doesn't Work? [Lenny Tropiano] Computer Underground Digest to Join Usenet [Chip Rosenthal] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 23 Jun 1990 16:32:31 +0200 From: Erik Naggum Subject: Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe Prelude: "Octothorp" (sans final `e') is listed in (Merriam) Webster's Third New Int'l Dictionary with etymology "octo + thorp, of unknown origin; from the eight points on its circumference". "Thorp(e)" is archaic for "village, hamlet", but that can't be it. I've heard the `=' sign referred to as "quadrothorp". (I have not seen the natural extensions for `-' (bithorp?) and `.' (monothorp?).) Anyone know what "thorp" is? Kari Hardarson writes in TELECOM Digest V10 #449: >I thought that the : # sign was called a 'Hash' mark before I came to >the states. Maybe that's British English? Here in the States, a lot of >my colleagues refer to it as the 'Pound sign', something that I can't >understand since the pound sign is distinctly different. In UK-ASCII >tables, the pound sign usually gets placed where the # is in American >ASCII, that may explain something. Incidentally, in my language >(Icelandic) we refer to the sign as 'The mill'. ; Ah, I remember the first time I heard about it as the "pound sign". To me, that's the "Libra" symbol used by the British to denote their currency symbol, which is what they have in IA5 location 2/3 (that's ASCII 0x23 to you folks :-). However, I heard, much to my surprise, that the `#' symbol's meaning is context dependent: #5 means "number five" 5# means "five lbs (pounds)" This has later been confirmed by several good dictionaries and reference works (read: theory), but I've never seen in it practice. The Norwegian pager service uses the octothorpe as a regular "end-of- number", which is explained in the taped recording you hear when you dial the service as "the sqaure key" ("quadrilateral key" is closer to the Norwegian term "firkanttast", literally "four-side-key"). To paraphrase the last few words spoken at the end of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon: "Matter of fact, they're all quadrilateral." I have to ask someone around here what they call it in Norwegian, I've forgot. I don't think it's used other than in telephones around here. Which reminds me ... The Norwegian key layout is like this: 7 8 9 4 5 6 1 2 3 0 * # When you dial somewhere around two hundred digits a day, and you find yourself in the U.S., where it's generally completely different (except for 4, 5, and 6), it would have been faster to use a rotary dial (except they are different from the Norwegian ones, too). Is there any interest in the particularities of Norway, and especially Oslo? [Erik Naggum] ------------------------------ From: Dave Newman Subject: Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe Date: 24 Jun 90 01:20:10 GMT Reply-To: David Newman Organization: UTexas Computation Center, Austin, Texas Some people I know call it (the 'octothorpe') a 'sharp'. I think this is the result of a very similar character's use in musical scores. (I don't know, since I don't read music.)+ Has anyone thought to check with someone in typography? F'rinstance, Donald Knuth might know, or you might find the character referenced by name in one of his books on TEX. Dave ------------------------------ From: rees@dabo.ifs.umich.edu (Jim Rees) Subject: Re: Manhole Covers (was: 10-NYT and 10-NJB) Organization: University of Michigan IFS Project Date: Sat, 23 Jun 90 19:35:10 GMT In article <9180@accuvax.nwu.edu>, "Paul S. Sawyer" writes: >Has anyone ever noticed non-round manhole covers? Nashua and Hudson, >N.H. have TRIANGULAR ones - don't know what service or utility. I think this has been discussed before. Round covers are popular because it's impossible for the cover to fall into the hole. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Jun 1990 10:53:31 EDT From: Nathan Glasser Subject: Re: NYNEX Info-Look In article <8307@accuvax.nwu.edu> synsys!jeffj@uunet.uu.net (Jeff Jonas) writes: >NYNEX has an information gateway service. It's essentially a >dataswitch. There are numbers in area codes 212, 718, 516 and 914. >1) Has this been tried elsewhere? (I recall some slight mention of >other failures of similar programs). Info-look is also available in MA, from New England Telephone, also a subsidiary of NYNEX. There was a blurb about it included with last month's phone bill. I called the 800 number and had them send me the package containing the info and disks, etc. >You login with your New York Telephone calling card number. It shows >up on your phone bill under the "Data services" heading. It's like >900 numbers for your computer. Each service charges by the minute, >and shows up on your phone bill. I haven't actually used this yet, but here it is the New England Telephone calling card which is required. I've had an AT&T calling card for years, and now have an AT&T Universal card, and will probably cancel the other one as soon as I get around to it (can't see any point in keeping it...). But (from talking to the rep), it seems that you are required to have the NET card to use the service. Seems pretty pointless to me. The charges are not cheap (IMO), btw. The basic charge is $.05/minute, when doing nothing but sitting at the main prompt. When you are doing anything else at all, the typical charge seems to be $.15 or $.20/min. The most expensive seems to be $3/min for fax service ("Let the VAX send your FAX documents"), and next highest being $.95/min for the "guilty confessions" line. I can't see any particular reason for me to get a NET card I don't want/need in order to use these expensive services. >800-338-2720 is the customer service number. >Free software is provided (for Mac or PCs). It emulates a vt100, and ... Right ... A free call to an 800 number produces some paper documentation and a free floppy disk. That almost made it worth the effort. :-) Nathan Glasser fnord nathan@{mit-eddie.uucp, brokaw.lcs.mit.edu} YP-17 Nate on IRC, Forum, and Bitnet Relay Beware the DDG! Pulsar on Abermud ------------------------------ From: Irving Wolfe Subject: Re: Information Needed: Panasonic Model KT2445BE Date: 21 Jun 90 02:54:22 GMT Organization: Happy Man Corp., Seattle johns@happy.uk.sun.com (John Slater) writes: >(Nigel Roberts 0860 578600) writes: >>U.K. law says ... there's nothing requiring that beep >a follow-up question I've got a KT-1427 This won't really answer your questions, but it may point out the way the world is going and may show you how -- at some cost -- to solve the problem. _I_ have a KX-T2634. It is user-programmable to turn the beep on or off. Probably in the old days (mainly U.S. market) Panasonic either didn't know any better or thought it had to have the beep built it to cover itself as not encouraging "illegal" activity. Perhaps it has become aware of differing rules elsewhere and is using that as an excuse to make the superior product available everywhere. After all, that's what international companies are for, right? Irving Wolfe irv@happym.wa.com 206/463-9399 ext.101 Happy Man Corp. 4410 SW Pt. Robinson Road, Vashon Island, WA 98070-7399 ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: AT&T 'COCOT' Style Payphones Date: 23 Jun 90 21:32:25 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article <9132@accuvax.nwu.edu>, cjp%megatek.UUCP@ucsd.edu (Christopher J. Pikus) writes: > From article <9093@accuvax.nwu.edu>, by foxtail!kravitz@ucsd.edu > (Jody Kravitz): ...regarding AT&T charge-a-call phones on which... > > the keypad was turned off when I called U.S. Sprint. > I thought that this was illegal. I seem to recall hearing that > the Supreme Court decided that while COCOT phones were legal they > could not block access to 800 numbers that access alternate services. > Am I wrong or am I wrong? I think you are right. But could AT&T be right on a technicality? They didn't block access; you reached U.S. Sprint, didn't you? Ah, but you wanted the phone to send touch tone signalling after you reached them! Well that wasn't specifically mentioned by the court decision, now, was it? Perhaps they're only required to give you a connection to the carrier of your choice. The generation of tone signals is left up to the customer. Dave Levenson Voice: 201 647 0900 Fax: 201 647 6857 Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] ------------------------------ From: Ken Abrams Subject: Re: AMR Meter Reading, No Test Trunks, and Call Forwarding Date: 23 Jun 90 13:42:51 GMT Reply-To: Ken Abrams Organization: Athenanet, Inc., Springfield, Illinois In article <9071@accuvax.nwu.edu> covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert) writes: >"No test" afficionados will remember an interesting interaction >between "no test" and call forwarding, at least in No 1 and 1A ESS. >When a call is initiated to a number via a "no test" trunk, if the >line is call forwarded, the "no test" trunk will not seize the line; >reorder is returned. This was intended to tell operators doing busy >verification that busy verification can't currently return information >consistent with dialled calls due to call forwarding. [Interesting story deleted] >Now, of course, the impact of this on AMR is that if someone goes out >of town and uses call forwarding for a while around meter reading >time, it won't be possible for the no test trunk to get to the meter. Maybe it worked this way once-upon-a-time but it doesn't now. The reorder tone is supposed to be an un-ambiguous indication that the line is forwarded (recoginizable by human operators/test persons and mechanized line testers alike) but it does NOT prevent the normal no-test connection to the line requested. After the burst of 120ipm, the line connection proceeds. Ken Abrams uunet!pallas!kabra437 Illinois Bell kabra437@athenanet.com Springfield (voice) 217-753-7965 ------------------------------ From: Charles Hawkins Mingo Subject: Re: Uniform International Dialing Date: 24 Jun 90 03:36:22 GMT Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA In article <9135@accuvax.nwu.edu> [the Moderator] writes: >[Moderator's Note: Are you sure the international operator assisted >code is not '01' ?? That is what we use here. PT] Yes. '01' is the code when you wish the call to be billed to the number you are calling from. '001' is used when you wish to bill the call to a credit card. (I double-checked this with my AT&T operator to be sure.) If you use '01' for international operator-assisted calls, how do you place non-operator-assisted international calls? Charlie Mingo Usenet: mingo@well!apple.com 2209 Washington Circle #2 CI$: 71340,2152 Washington, DC 20037 AT&T: 202/785-2089 [Moderator's Note: In the United States, 011 plus international number is for dialed direct, bill to phone being used calls. 01 plus international number is for any and all operator-assisted international calls including credit card and third number billing; collect calls; and person to person calls. 00 defaults to the long distance/international operator, if your long distance company supports an operator service. On 01 calls, at least in Chicago, the credit card number cannot be entered via the tone pad, but is passed orally to the operator who answers. I just tried 001, and was cut-off after the 00 part and sent to an AT&T operator. PT] ------------------------------ From: Charles Hawkins Mingo Subject: Re: "Columbo" TV Episode, 6/10/90. Date: 24 Jun 90 03:24:49 GMT Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA In article <9138@accuvax.nwu.edu> chris@com50.c2s.mn.org (Chris Johnson) writes: >I don't know what tests are really used in a courtroom to determine >admissible evidence, but I believe it would be foolish to allow FAX >machine logs. FAX machines are _user_ programmable devices. I think you are assuming that evidence must be unimpeachable to be admissible; generally any evidence that is material and relavent is admitted, and the jury is allowed to give it the consideration it is due. A more serious problem is that it would be hearsay (an out-of-court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted); however it falls within an exception to the hearsay rules. Rule 803(6) of the Federal Rules of Evidence (on which most state rules are patterned) contains an exception to the hearsay rule for 'business records,' which are defined to include a data compilation, in any form, of acts [or] events made at or near the time by, or from information transmitted by, a person with knowledge, if kept in the course of a regularly conducted business activity, and if it was regular practice of the business activity to make the ... data compilation. The reasoning behind this exception is that business records which were made at the time and in the ordinary course of business are reliable enough for the jury to be allowed to consider them. Note that this rule applies equally to manually made and electronic business records (e.g. hotel registers as well as fax machines). Charlie Mingo Usenet: mingo@well!apple.com 2209 Washington Circle #2 CI$: 71340,2152 Washington, DC 20037 AT&T: 202/785-2089 ------------------------------ Subject: Can One Disable Call-Waiting If *70 Doesn't Work? Organization: ICUS Software Systems, Islip, New York Date: 23 Jun 90 14:44:43 EDT (Sat) From: Lenny Tropiano Can one disable call waiting in New York if the *70 tone block feature didn't work? Is there another way, this reeks havoc on data calls, as you can imagine. I hate call waiting, that's why I wouldn't ever get it, but one of my news feeds has it, and it's quite annoying for him. Thanks, | Lenny Tropiano ICUS Software Systems lenny@icus.ICUS.COM | | {ames,pacbell,decuac,sbcs,hombre,rayssd}!icus!lenny attmail!icus!lenny | +------ ICUS Software Systems -- PO Box 1; Islip Terrace, NY 11752 ------+ [Moderator's Note: I don't think call waiting can be suspended if *70 does not work, since that is what *70 is all about. But why would someone have ordered call waiting on a line used for a news feed in the first place? He should call telco and have it removed. PT] ------------------------------ From: Chip Rosenthal Subject: Computer Underground Digest To Join Usenet Date: 24 Jun 90 03:47:02 GMT Organization: Unicom Systems Development, Austin, TX In article <9163@accuvax.nwu.edu> peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes: [Re: Computer Underground Digest] >Would it be possible to get this Digest gatewayed to a newsgroup? Or >do you want to retain the right to control its distribution? I brought it up with Jim Thomas, and he is much in favor of the idea. A message was just posted to the USENET "alt.config" group proposing the creation of an "alt.cud". See my message there for more details. If all goes well, USENET readers should be able to get it in a week or so. Chip Rosenthal chip@chinacat.Unicom.COM Unicom Systems Development, 512-482-8260 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #451 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa15898; 25 Jun 90 9:24 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa21792; 25 Jun 90 7:53 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa07786; 25 Jun 90 6:49 CDT Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 6:34:14 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #452 BCC: Message-ID: <9006250634.ab20455@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Mon, 25 Jun 90 06:33:28 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 452 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Can One Disable Call-Waiting If *70 Doesn't Work? [John Higdon] Re: Can One Disable Call-Waiting If *70 Doesn't Work? [Ralph Sims] Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA [Samuel Lam] Re: 800 Surcharge [Samuel Lam] Re: Uniform International Dialing [John R. Covert] Re: AT&T 'COCOT' Style Payphones [John David Galt] Re: Junkmailed! [John David Galt] FCC Responds to Individual Complaints About AOSs [Wm. Randolph Franklin] Information Wanted on Key Set [Scott Fybush] Disaster Recovery and Restoration Seminar [TELECOM Moderator] Message Corruption [TELECOM Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Can One Disable Call-Waiting If *70 Doesn't Work? Date: 24 Jun 90 06:40:31 PDT (Sun) From: John Higdon Lenny Tropiano writes: > Can one disable call waiting in New York if the *70 tone block feature > didn't work? Is there another way, this reeks havoc on data calls, as > you can imagine. I hate call waiting, that's why I wouldn't ever get > it, but one of my news feeds has it, and it's quite annoying for him. It used to be possible to get "feature" (second) dial tone on a 1/1AESS before the outgoing call supervised. You could then make a call to a non-sup busy test, flash the hookswitch, then call the number for the desired party without adding it back on three-way. Call waiting would be disabled. When this was no longer possible, one could call the desired party, flash the hookswitch, dial a silent line termination within the switch, flash the hookswitch again (adding in the silent line) and call waiting would be disabled. This currently works from my phone, which doesn't have *70. The silent termination must, however, be in the same switch as the line you are attempting to disable call waiting on. Otherwise, another feature of the 1/1A comes into play: the ability to receive call waiting while on a three-way call! The above method also works on incoming calls. Simply three-way in the silent termination at any time; call waiting will be suspended. Obviously, you must have three-way calling to do this. I am curious, though. Why would anyone have call waiting on a data line? John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Can One Disable Call-Waiting If *70 Doesn't Work? From: Ralph Sims Date: Sun, 24 Jun 90 10:02:38 PDT Organization: The 23:00 News think!ames!icus.ICUS.COM!lenny@eddie.mit.edu (Lenny Tropiano) writes: > Can one disable call waiting in New York if the *70 tone block feature > didn't work? Is there another way, this reeks havoc on data calls, as > you can imagine. I hate call waiting, that's why I wouldn't ever get > it, but one of my news feeds has it, and it's quite annoying for him. One of the easiest is to set the modem's S9 and S10 registers to a value that ignores the break in the data stream when the incoming call is sensed. This value could be 20 or more (2 seconds). This allows the modem to stay connected, even though carrier is momentarily interrupted. For best effect, the modem yours is connected to should have the same scheme implemented, but many call-waiting implementations now don't cause the break in communications once noticed. I have heard that in some areas, a type of call-waiting is available for lines that may use data, where the calling party can't detect any break. Note that this does not_disable_ call waiting, but defeats it. As an aside, call waiting is a pain in the neck. If I call someone, I do not feel right in placing a call on hold. If someone calls me, they have to function on my terms. Call waiting seems intrusive. I have learned to ignore it. My wife, on the other hand, as well as my teenagers, can't seem to get along without it. I guess I _would_ miss a number of calls, if we didn't have the service. Ah, ambivalence... ------------------------------ From: skl@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca (Samuel Lam) Subject: Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA Date: 24 Jun 90 07:58:27 GMT Reply-To: Samuel Lam Organization: Balliffe Intersystem, Vancouver, B.C., Canada In article <9153@accuvax.nwu.edu>, langz@eng.sun.com (Lang Zerner) wrote: >... PacBell has finally >given in to my incessant whining and removed the "value-added" fee for >Touch-Tone service. I guess they finally caught on to the fact that, >as the designers of Touch-Tone predicted, the necessary telco hardware >is cheaper if people don't use pulse dialing. >Now, if I can just get them to be reasonable about custom numbers >(they charge you every month for a vanity number -- makes about as >much sense as charging for Touch-Tone). The telephone company here in B.C. charges for unlisted numbers in much the same way. They charge an installation fee of several dollars and then charge you several dollars *per month* for keeping your number unlisted. Now, this might have made sense in the old days when the telephone book is maintained by hand and when directory assistance had to look up your number in a big book manually just to find it marked unlisted. But with the phone directory maintained by computers these days, all it takes should be a flag associated with each directory entry marking it listed or unlisted. The phone book printing program can then skip the unlisted entries while directory assistance's lookup program could either clearly flag the unlisted numbers as such or not display it at all. And with Call Management Services promised for next year, it's hard to believe that they haven't eliminated much of the overhead associated with providing unlisted number service. ...Sam Internet: UUCP: {van-bc,ubc-cs,uunet}!wimsey.bc.ca!skl ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Jun 90 01:44 PDT Subject: Re: 800 Surcharge Organization: Balliffe Intersystem, Vancouver, B.C., Canada From: Samuel Lam Reply-To: Samuel Lam In article <9154@accuvax.nwu.edu>, Paul Schmidt wrote: >I stayed at a hotel recently and received a $.50 surcharge for >phone call to a 800 number. It was my impression that it was illegal >to charge for 800 calls. How can they do this? Does this only apply >to pay phones? >[Moderator's Note: It does *not* apply 'only to payphones', or only to >anything else. It is a dispicable practice which AOS companies get >away with because no one will sue them to make them stop doing it. PT] I stayed in a U.S. hotel recently and they charged me $.75 each for the 800 calls I made there. However, inside my room's service directory it clearly stated that all calls made through their phones to non-long-distance destinations outside of their PBX's reach will be charged $.75 each. Now my question is: Is it illegal for a hotel to charge for the use of their PBX's external trunk if that use happens to be calling an 800 number? Since even an 800 call will still tie up some of the PBX's outbound trunk capacity for the duration of the call, could the hotel charge (perhaps at a lesser rate) for that resource's consumption? I am not for the hotels charging for 800 calls (I ended up making my 800 calls at a nearby coin-phone, which required no quarters for those calls), but I would be interested to know what exactly does the law says about this type of situations. ...Sam ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Jun 90 07:09:13 PDT From: "John R. Covert 24-Jun-1990 0957" Subject: Re: Uniform International Dialing Charlie Mingo and/or the operator he spoke to is confused. International calls from phones in the United States and Canada are placed as follows: 011+ station to station, billed to the number you are calling from or coin paid 01+ for any operator service or credit card billing. In the U.S., 00 does not accept additional digits, and connects you to the operator (if any) for your default long distance carrier. I have just verified that this behaviour is correctly implemented in Washington, D.C., Lanham, Md., and Fairfax, Va. The Moderator writes: On 01 calls, at least in Chicago, the credit card number cannot be entered via the tone pad, but is passed orally to the operator who answers. I'm not sure why it didn't work for the Moderator; I just tried 01+ from an exchange in the Chicago Loop area and was presented with the "bong" and was able to enter a calling card number. TSPS has a database of which phones have TT service; the bong is presented to those phones, and not to phones that don't have TT service, but you should see the same behaviour on 0+inter-LATA and 01+overseas. /john [Moderator's Note: Well, *when* do you enter it, after the international number has been dialed as you would on a domestic call? With international numbers of variable length, how is it known where the international number ends and the credit card number begins? Do you enter the international number, then hit the pound to terminate the dialing and then enter the card number following the bong? On zero plus domestic calls here following the ten digit number we get a different sort of tone, followed by a mechanical voice saying 'enter your card number now.' If you enter it incorrectly, she repeats herself, adding 'the card number you dialed is not valid.' PT] ------------------------------ From: portal!cup.portal.com!John_David_Galt Subject: Re: AT&T 'COCOT' Style Payphones Date: Sun, 24-Jun-90 14:49:26 PDT I have seen AT&T no-coin charge-card phones at a hotel which block 950 calls to MCI. If this is illegal, I would like to see something done about it. It was in New Orleans in September '88. ------------------------------ From: cup.portal.com!John_David_Galt Subject: Re: Junkmailed! Date: Sun, 24-Jun-90 16:03:56 PDT David Tamkin's piece of 6/18 really bugged me. Here is a guy who objects to the use of a service (the 900 number to defeat call ID) to keep your name off the lists merchants use to make junk phone calls; and yet he gets upset at the person who sent him an ad for the service, because it is junk mail! In my view, unsolicited business ("junk") phone calls are a lot more serious a nuisance than junk mail. When you get junk mail, you can just throw it out. Most advertisers even help you do this by using bright colors and the like, so very little time is wasted; and you choose the time to go and get your mail. Junk phone calls, on the other hand, can interrupt you at any time, even when you are asleep, and you have no legal recourse. When I moved two years ago, and got my present phone service (Pacific Bell in "Silicon Valley," Calif.), I asked the service representative to put the notation "NO SOLICITORS PLEASE" in my listing in the phone book. She laughed and refused. I wrote to the PUC and they sent a reply saying in effect, we know about the problem but don't care enough to do anything about it. The only solution I have found at present is to put a rude answering machine on the line, and let it answer all calls unless I'm expecting to hear from someone. Even then, I sometimes get stung. In my view, making this type of call to someone who doesn't want it is trespassing, and should be covered by the same laws as computer "cracking." If the lawmakers don't want to act, perhaps a boycott of all firms who make these calls is in order. If you agree, tell them so when they call you. John David Galt ------------------------------ From: Wm Randolph Franklin Subject: FCC Responds to Individual Complaints /about AOSs Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY Date: 24 Jun 90 23:13:16 GMT The FCC does respond to individual complaints about AOSs. Last summer I got some other company after dialling 10288 in a hotel room. I wrote the FCC a short note. Several months later they sent me a copy of AOS's reply to them about my complaint. The AOS said I was mistaken. Fair enough. Nevertheless the FCC continued. Apparently they had also asked the hotel and the hotel had ignored them. Last week the FCC copied me a stiff second letter they'd sent the hotel, asking for their side of the story. Right on, FCC! It's nice to see someone checking into violations by these AOS slimeballs! Before writing my letter, I telephoned both ATT and FCC to determine the law. FCC said unequivocally that the hotel phones must handle 10xxx properly. However ATT waffled; they commiserated with me but didn't they that the hotel had to connect me to them. Why would they not assert their rights? Again, (at least sometimes) polite complaints from individuals are listened to by the government. Wm. Randolph Franklin Internet: wrf@ecse.rpi.edu (or @cs.rpi.edu) Bitnet: Wrfrankl@Rpitsmts Telephone: (518) 276-6077; Telex: 6716050 RPI TROU; Fax: (518) 276-6261 Paper: ECSE Dept., 6026 JEC, Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst, Troy NY, 12180 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Jun 90 21:47:46 edt From: Robert Kaplan Subject: Information Wanted on Key Set I've come into possession of a neat piece of telecom equipment. The label on the bottom identifies it as a "Stromberg-Carlson Image 1 and Image 2 DTMF Key Telephone Equipment, FCC Reg. No. AS493N-69878-KX-T." It's a largish brown box with a standard twelve-button tone pad as well as two rows of ten buttons each. It terminates in three 25-pin connectors. Now...next year I will be living with five people in a suite with six phone lines, one per room. Can this be used in our living room to access any of the six lines? And, if so, how do we witre it? E-mail me any suggestions; I'll summarise anything that might be networthy. Thanks... Scott Fybush kaplanr@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Jun 90 22:32:52 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Disaster Recovery and Restoration Seminar A two day seminar this fall will be devoted to the topic "Disaster Recovery and Restoration For Telecommunications Facilities and Networks". The seminar will examine where potential flaws lie in telecommunications networks. It will help you inventory what resources are available for preparing and executing a disaster recovery plan. The seminar is being given by the Data-Tech Institute of Clifton, NJ. The cost for the seminar is $695 which includes all seminar sessions, workbooks and other materials needed. The dates for the seminar sessions are: Altanta, GA September 10-11, 1990 Chicago, IL September 13-14, 1990 Hartford, CT September 17-18, 1990 St. Louis, MO October 9-10, 1990 Denver, CO October 11-12, 1990 Orlando, FL October 18-19, 1990 Some additional sessions are being planned in other cities, depending on demand during September and October. In addition, this organization will conduct a private seminar at your place of business for key employees of your choosing. For more information, phone the registrar: 1-201-478-5400 Or you may Fax the registrar: 1-201-478-4418 Ask for your copy of the twelve page booklet which describes the Disaster Recovery seminar in more detail. If you prefer to write: Data-Tech Institute Lakeview Plaza PO Box 2429 Clifton, NJ 07015 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Jun 90 22:57:24 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Message Corruption A few of the comp.dcom.telecom readers have sent me examples in recent days of some terrible corruption of messages going on. Typically, the messages are readable, with some effort, but the words are full of extra letters in some cases; missing letters in others cases, or full of stuff like {{ symbols. I have no idea what is causing this, but some site along the way handling the comp.dcom.teleocm newsfeed obviously has some problems. I hope it gets corrected soon, but in the meantime I wanted to let you know I am aware of it. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #452 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa29403; 26 Jun 90 3:43 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa08253; 26 Jun 90 2:04 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa30208; 26 Jun 90 1:00 CDT Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 0:10:12 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #453 BCC: Message-ID: <9006260010.ab17743@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 26 Jun 90 00:09:08 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 453 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: What is the Purpose of Loops? [Lee Derbenwick] Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA [Eric Varsanyi] Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA [John Higdon] Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe [Steven King] Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe [Danial Hamilton] Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe [Carl Moore] Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothrope [Kevin Mitchell] Re: Can One Disable Call-Waiting if *70 Doesn't Work? [David Albert] Re: Can One Disable Call-Waiting If *70 Doesn't Work? [Randal Schwartz] Re: Manhole Covers (was: 10-NYT and 10-NJB) [Paul J. Zawada] Re: Manhole Covers (was: 10-NYT and 10-NJB) [Norman Yarvin] Re: Message Corruption [minar@reed.bitnet] Re: Junkmailed! [siegman@sierra.stanford.edu] New Area Code in Italy, Atlanta, Omaha, Detroit & Paris [TELECOM Moderator] Going Off Line For a Few Days [TELECOM Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 24 Jun 90 20:43:02 EDT From: Leland F Derbenwick Subject: Re: What is the Purpose of Loops? Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories In article <9156@accuvax.nwu.edu>, vaxb.acs.unt.edu!ie09@cs.utexas.edu writes: > [ ... ] Also could someone explain to me what loops are used for? > [Moderator's Note: Loops are used to test circuits from a remote > location. [ ... ] The Moderator appears to be confusing "loops" with "loop-backs", perhaps because he's forgotten that some people are new to telephone company talk? The "loop", in telephone terminology, is the circuit between the central office switch and the subscriber. Both "loop" and "circuit" denote the same concept, but "circuit" has become the standard for everything except telephones. (The "loop" is also sometimes called "subscriber loop".) -- Speaking strictly for myself, -- Lee Derbenwick, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Warren, NJ -- lfd@cbnewsm.ATT.COM or !att!cbnewsm!lfd [Moderator's Note: Your point is a good one, but two considerations factored into my answer: One, it would seem unlikely to me that anyone would ask 'what is the purpose of the pair of wires which is connected to your phone from the central office?'. Two, the term 'loops' was used in the same message as the phrase 'test numbers', and these things are closely related, and are neighbors in most telco numbering schemes. Therefore I concluded he was talking about loop-BACKS, since these are commonly known things, but their purpose is not always clear to the people who know about them. PT] ------------------------------ From: Eric Varsanyi Subject: Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA Date: 25 Jun 90 17:29:14 GMT Organization: Cray Computer Corporation In article <9153@accuvax.nwu.edu> langz@eng.sun.com (Lang Zerner) writes: >[...] PacBell has finally given in to my incessant whining and removed >the "value-added" fee for Touch-Tone service. Is this happening anywhere else? Is it a win for phone companies with lots of old switches and rural subscribers (rural implying old equipment here)? Eric Varsanyi (ewv@craycos.com) Cray Computer Corporation ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA Date: 25 Jun 90 11:41:07 PDT (Mon) From: John Higdon skl@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca (Samuel Lam) writes: > And with Call Management Services promised for next year, it's hard > to believe that they haven't eliminated much of the overhead associated > with providing unlisted number service. Just a gentle reminder: few, if any, services provided by telcos are charged for based on cost. We have gone around on this many times, but the conclusion is always that cost-to-telco is not related to charge-to-consumer. Examples: How much do you suppose call-waiting, call forwarding, etc., ad nauseum cost the telco to provide? (Hint: $0) But you pay handsomely every month for these services with nary a complaint. Oh, the telco had to install the switch that could handle it, but since all modern CO switches can now handle such things, eventually this cost will become moot. And how about rural telephones? With certain exceptions, rural customers pay about the same as their urban counterparts -- for service that costs the telco many times the amount to provide. If anyone is going to protest TT charges on the basis of cost, he/she must be consistent and object to Custom Calling charges as well. After all, unless you are served out of a switch that can handle custom calling intrinsically, your local telco must install adjunct tone receivers to enable TT calling. As for unlisted charges, it is still considered a "value enhanced" service by most telcos and I doubt that you will see its end any time soon. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Steven King Subject: Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe Date: 25 Jun 90 20:41:19 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc. - Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL In article <9204@accuvax.nwu.edu> erik@naggum.uu.no (Erik Naggum) writes: >However, I heard, much to my surprise, >that the `#' symbol's meaning is context dependent: > #5 means "number five" > 5# means "five lbs (pounds)" >This has later been confirmed by several good dictionaries and >reference works (read: theory), but I've never seen in it practice. On the rare occasions when I need to write the weight of something (say, when I'm putting meat in my freezer) I'll use the "5#" notation to indicate "five pounds". I think I picked up the habit from my father. Since I can't recall the last time someone else had to read my notes I can't say how widely known the notation is. I prefer calling it the "sharp" sign. It doesn't get confused with the British pound, and is much less of a mouthful than "octothorpe". That last sounds like it should be on the menu at a seafood restaurant. Steve King, Motorola Cellular (...uunet!motcid!king) ------------------------------ From: Danial Hamilton Subject: Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe Date: 25 Jun 90 20:54:10 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL I did some work on some telephone firmware where the ASCII value for the '#' was equated to the symbol "MESH". I don't know if that is a common name for '#' or just the original program author's personal favorite. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 9:02:53 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe Yes, the # is the musical "sharp". ------------------------------ From: kam@dlogics.COM (Kevin Mitchell) Subject: Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe Date: 25 Jun 90 14:38:30 GMT Organization: Datalogics Inc., Chicago In PostScript the name of the character is /numbersign. Kevin A. Mitchell (312) 266-4485 Datalogics, Inc Internet: kam@dlogics.UUCP 441 W. Huron UUCP: ..!uunet!dlogics!kam Chicago, IL 60610 FAX: (312) 266-4473 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 09:47:16 EDT From: David Albert Subject: Re: Can One Disable Call-Waiting if *70 Doesn't Work? Reply-To: albert@endor.UUCP (David Albert) >> Can one disable call waiting in New York if the *70 tone block feature >> didn't work? Is there another way, this reeks havoc on data calls, as >> you can imagine. >One of the easiest is to set the modem's S9 and S10 registers to a >value that ignores the break in the data stream when the incoming call >is sensed. This value could be 20 or more (2 seconds). I have the opposite problem: trying to get call waiting to work while I'm on a data connection. I live in a dorm where I can only get one phone line, and since I'm on the computer several hours a day and don't want to be cut off from calls, I deliberately set my modem's S10 register to a small value so that I *will* be cut off. The problem is that the switch I'm on currently sends such a short tone that even a value of S10=3 (three-tenths of a second) is not always enough to cut me off, while S10=2 causes my refrigerator to cut me off each time it cycles on. S10=3 seems to be my best bet, but sometimes I have to manually turn off my modem when I see the distinctive eight or ten characters that the call-waiting beep translates into. And sometimes the screen starts filling up with garbage -- perhaps a parity bit gets lost or something? ------------------------------ From: Randal Schwartz Subject: Re: Can One Disable Call-Waiting If *70 Doesn't Work? Reply-To: Randal Schwartz Organization: Stonehenge; netaccess via Intel, Beaverton, Oregon, USA Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 16:16:30 GMT In article <9217@accuvax.nwu.edu>, john@bovine (John Higdon) writes: | I am curious, though. Why would anyone have call waiting on a data | line? Cuz sometimes we use voice lines for "data" lines. I live in GTE-land (boo hiss!) and they only recently added call-waiting disable to my home phone exchange (switch?). Before that, I simply forwarded my phone to my answering service. That's the other way around it -- get call forwarding. =Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503) 777-0095 =========== | on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III | | merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn | ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 09:05:38 -0500 From: Paul J Zawada Subject: Re: Manhole Covers (was: 10-NYT and 10-NJB) unhd!unhtel!paul@uunet.uu.net (Paul S. Sawyer): > In article <9096@accuvax.nwu.edu> 0004133373@mcimail.com (Donald E. > Kimberlin) writes: >>I have walked in the streets of Paterson, NJ and seen manhole covers >>marked, "New York Bell." this, of course, is plant long since taken >>over by NJ Bell, but it is the physical remnants of that history and >>time when NYTel ran the phones in northern NJ. >>Perhaps some of our more intrepid readers would engage some vicarious >>manhole-cover-reading. Might be of trivial interest. How about it? > Throughout our campus, the manhole covers have the Bell logo and say > "Bell System", although we own them and the cables/conduits below.... > They were installed in 1985 by the people who USED to be the Bell > System - we figure they were just leftovers. Back in the early 70's, when Illinois Bell provided service to Northwest Indiana (Gary, Hammond, East Chicago), they deployed a number of manhole covers with the Bell System logo and the initials I.B.T. This, of course did not leave any historical reminders when Indiana Bell took over the service area in the mid-seventies. Has anyone ever seen a "recycled" Bell System manhole cover? I've seen a few of these in West Lafayette, IN, which is served by GTE North. (The rest of the manhole covers have the GTE logo on them.) The "recycled" covers have no noticeable logo, but upon closer inspection one can see a faint Bell System logo and the name "Bell System". It looks like the name and logo were ground off somehow. Paul J Zawada | zawada@ee.ecn.purdue.edu Titan P3 Workstation Support | ...!pur-ee!zawada Purdue University | Engineering Computer Network ------------------------------ From: Norman Yarvin Subject: Re: Manhole Covers (was: 10-NYT and 10-NJB) Date: 25 Jun 90 20:52:46 GMT Reply-To: Norman Yarvin Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept, New Haven CT 06520-2158 rees@dabo.ifs.umich.edu (Jim Rees) writes: >>Has anyone ever noticed non-round manhole covers? Nashua and Hudson, >>N.H. have TRIANGULAR ones - don't know what service or utility. >I think this has been discussed before. Round covers are popular >because it's impossible for the cover to fall into the hole. This also holds for triangular covers. (only if they are equilateral, though.) Norman Yarvin yarvin-norman@cs.yale.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 14:38:15 PDT From: minar@reed.bitnet Subject: Re: Message Corruption Organization: Reed College, Portland, OR Actually, message corruption is/was a netwide problem. comp.dcom.telecom (what DOES dcom stand for, anyway?) was one of the worst, but other newsgroups were afflicted.. Specifically, a low bit was getting munged on xmissions. One suspects a gateway was destroyed somewhere. For what its worth, it seems to be better now. \/ minar@reed.bitnet ------------------------------ From: siegman Subject: Re: Junkmailed! Date: 25 Jun 90 16:28:02 GMT Organization: Stanford University In article <9223@accuvax.nwu.edu> news@accuvax.nwu.edu (USENET News System) writes: >In my view, unsolicited business ("junk") phone calls are a lot more >serious a nuisance than junk mail. When you get junk mail, you can >just throw it out ... so very little time is wasted... >... Junk phone calls, on the >other hand, can interrupt you at any time, even when you are asleep, >and you have no legal recourse. Hear, hear!! Postal junk mail performs a potential service; let it bloom (so long as it pays its fair share of postal costs). Junk phone calls are an unmitigated annoyance, and should be banned. My solution (when the answering machine doesn't solve it first) is to say, "Wait a minute, I've got to turn off a stove burner"; spend as long away from the phone as I think the caller will tolerate; then _politely_ tell them we absolutely boycott any busines, or charity, that uses telephone solicitation. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 8:01:43 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: New Area Code in Italy, Atlanta, Omaha, Detroit & Paris In addition to Atlanta, Paris, Omaha and Italy, also involved in this area code change will be Detroit and Elkhart, among other places. Jim Hogg will be getting a new area code, which will be shared with Ben Franklin, Ben Wheeler and the White House residents. Uncertain and Telephone are included in the change. Would the Moderator try to bull-jive you? See the next issue of the Digest today for details. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 6:51:43 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Going Off Line For a Few Days As of July 3, TELECOM Digest/comp.dcom.telecom will be off line for several days while I am out of town on other business. There will be no issues on July 4,5,6,7 and 8. An effort will be made July 3 to clear everything remaining from the mailbox. Please use the remainder of this week to REspond to existing topics and present articles which need little or no REply. Messages received starting July 3 will be held over until my return, and will probably go out July 9. Please DO NOT send messages to telecom during this period. Thank you. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #453 ******************************  ISSUES 454 AND 455 REVERSED IN TRANSMISSION. 454 COMES AFTER 455 WHICH IS NEXT IN THIS ARCHIVE.  Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa01092; 26 Jun 90 4:45 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab21981; 26 Jun 90 3:09 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ac08253; 26 Jun 90 2:04 CDT Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 1:43:22 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #455 BCC: Message-ID: <9006260143.ab04472@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 26 Jun 90 01:42:39 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 455 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Report on First Major Panel Switch Installation [Jack Winslade] Phone System Query [Michael Rubin] Infoworld, AT&T and Rumor Squelching [tk0jut2@niu.bitnet - CU Digest] Caller-ID in Emergency Calls [Carl Moore] Connecting an AT&T ISDN Phone-modem to a DECstation [Ramon F. Herrera] Re: Junkmailed! [David Tamkin] Off Line For Five Days! No Messages, Please [TELECOM Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 23 Jun 90 22:31:42 EDT From: Jack Winslade Subject: Report on First Major Panel Switch Installation Reply-to: Jack Winslade@f666.n285.z1.fidonet.org Organization: DRBBS Technical BBS, Omaha, Ne. 402-896-3537 A couple of months ago I wrote that I would key in this article and send it in. It has to do with a bit of telephone trivia (and local-interest Omaha trivia) that I stumbled upon. As I said, I have been fascinated by the 'panel' switches ever since being served by an aging one and seeing one in operation. We've all heard the story of how the competing undertakers resulted in the up-and-around step switch, but little has been said about the switch that was the first to incorporate 'common control' features that stored dialed digits and routed calls through the switching apparatus. The 'panel' switch was designed primarily for larger metropolitan areas. To see one in action was an unforgettable experience. It reminded me of something that Rube Goldberg would have designed. Motor-driven rollers drove contacts on rods up and down in front of panels (hence the name) of contacts. Pulsing mechanisms kept track of the positions of the sliding rods, and when the position was correct, the contact was 'tripped' onto the appropriate set of contacts on the frame. The panel system, although regarded as quirky and far from perfect, was Ma Bell's mainstay until (and after, in many cases) the introduction of #1 crossbar in 1938. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (From _Omaha_World-Herald_, Sunday, December 11, 1921) SAY IT WITH FINGERS TO GET 'AT' WITH NUMBERS Seventy-six Hundred Phones of ATLantic Exchange Now Are Automatic MOST MODERN IN U.S. Omaha at midnight became the first city in the United States to have a commercial machine switched telephone service. In several cities automatic phones are in use but the system installed here is the last word in machine switching, according to experts. Seventy-six hundred subscribers of the ATLantic exchange are effected by the change from manual to machine switching. Bancroft Gherardi, vice president and chief engineer of the American Telephone and Telegraph Co., and F.B. Jewett, chief engineer of the Western Electric Co. personally made the final inspection and gave the word to 'cut em over.' Jewett said the company plans to install the system in several other cities, including Chicago, Kansas City, and Patterson [sic] New Jersey. Old Operating Room Deserted For the first time since 1893, the operating room of the old telephone building was quiet and deserted. Promptly at 11:59 o'clock 100 trained electrical workers took their places, each with a special duty to perform, and at a signal, each did his particular task and the 'cut-over' became history. This morning 100 operators, clerks, desk attendants who were handling the business of the ATLantic exchange went to work in the other exchanges or are engaged in some new duty connected with the new system. A.F. McAdams, district commercial manager, was emphatic in stating that no employe [sic] will lose a position because of machine switching. The machine switching equipment was secured at a cost of approximately $2,000,000 and is the result of ten years work in designing by some of the most prominent electrical engineers of the country. Urge Limiting Calls Omaha is the first city to have a complete unit. Parts of the present system have been used, but as a unit it is the first time any city has used it. The equipment was ordered in the fall of 1917 when the need for new equipment to handle the volume of business became apparent. While highly pleased with the manner in which the change to machine switching service last night, telephone people are urging ATLantic subscribers to limit their calls for a few days to only those which are necessary, because the operating forces which handle the calls which originate in the ATLantic central office and terminate at some one of the manual switchboards are entering upon their new duties for the first time. Under the new service, he will take the receiver from the hook and listen for the 'dialing tone', a humming sound which will indicate that the call mechanism is ready to receive his call. Having heard it, he will insert his finger in the hole in the dial through which the letter 'H' may be seen, pull the dial around to the finger stop and release it. He will then repeat the ... [copy unreadable - dialing letters and numbers] ... the figures 0, 5, 1 ... Shortly after dialing the last figure he will then either hear a 'brrrring' sound, indicating that the bell at the called telephone is ringing, or a 'buzz-buzz-buzz' sound indicating that the line called is in use. Enough lumber was used in the crates necessary to ship the equipment to have built seven two-story houses of the standard eight-room type. Seven times around world. Wire used, if stretched out to a single strand, would be sufficient to encircle the world seven and a half times. The establishment of machine service in Omaha not only meant the installation of a tremendous amount of equipment in the central offices, but it meant equipping 378 private branch exchange switchboards with the relays and other necessary equipment to provide machine switching service over these boards. In addition, it was necessary to change a large number of telephone instruments by substituting telephone instruments with dials for ones without dials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Two photographs accompanied the article. The first was a photo of one of the selector frames. If it is turned 90 degrees to the left, it looks correct (upright). The newspaper staff printed it horizontally, making it look somewhat like a monstrous Foosball table. The second photo showed the 'girls' (their words, my quotes) at the new 'B' boards for the new system. Their job was to receive manually- switched calls from other exchanges in the city (and elsewhere, I assume) and complete the calls to the machine-switched lines. The contrast is poor, but the boards look like they are operated with push-buttons that resemble the keys on the old 'armstrong' adding machines. Historical note, compiled from odd sources: In the 1920's the panel installation was expanded to include all of the downtown Omaha exchanges. Part of the panel installation, including what was the ATLantic office, was replaced by #5 crossbar in the late 1950's (another source says 1961). The rest of the panel was replaced by 1 ESS in 1970. Parts of far north Omaha had manual ('numberrr pleeeazzze') service until a #1 crossbar installation in 1956. Good Day! JSW [1:285/666@fidonet] DRBBS Technical BBS, Omaha (1:285/666) --- Through FidoNet gateway node 1:16/390 Jack.Winslade@f666.n285.z1.fidonet.org [Moderator's Note: Thank you for an excellent article on the history of telephones. More articles like this are always welcome. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 16:04:19 EDT From: Michael Rubin Subject: Phone System Query Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Summit, NJ Several years ago I heard about a PBX system in which every phone had a magnetic stripe reader that would read your employee badge. Whenever you walked into a room you would swipe your badge through the phone and your calls would be forwarded there. You could also swipe your badge through the phone and push an "I'm busy" button which would presumably forward your calls to the answering machine. Was this system ever produced and used, by whom, and does it work? Are there any privacy problems, e.g. management surreptitiously using it to time lunch breaks? Mike Rubin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 16:21 CDT From: TK0JUT2%NIU.BITNET@uicvm.uic.edu Subject: Infoworld, AT&T and Rumor Squelching Many of us are still seething about the Infoworld blurb in "Notes from the Field." I have also received an inquiry about a newstory apparently reporting a recent press release in which AT&T is now claiming that hackers, not sofware, was responsible for the January long distance crash. I called a number of AT&T sources in the past few days. The most authoritative was Gary Morgenstern from the New Jersey public relations office, who has handled all the information regarding the crash of AT&T long distance service in January. He re-affirmed that the problem was caused by an error in the source code, the problem was replicated in the labratory, they fixed it, and it was replaced and working fine. He indicated that neither he nor anybody else from AT&T ever claimed that hackers were responsible. So: contrary to rumors that have come to us, there has been no press release put out, and AT&T stands unequivocally behind their statement. It also seems that Robert Cringely's account was inaccurate in many respects. First, the crash occured in January, not February; second, neither the LoD nor any other hacker was involved in the LD breakdown; third, the attempt to link LoD to the theft of sourcecode belies the facts in the Len Rose and other cases; fourth, the LD crash occured this year, but the Secret Service began their investigation two years ago (minor sequential gap here); Finally, the attempt to link both the unix source code and the publication of the E911 glossary belies the facts available from all sides of the issue. It's one thing to print a "rumor" column in which people can freely provide information without fear of retaliation. But when rumors fly in the face of existing facts readily checked, and when defendants may be forced to respond to irresponsible rumors, the purpose of such a column as Infoworld's should be challenged. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 17:50:43 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Caller-ID in Emergency Calls Notice appears in the San Francisco, California call guide (Pacific Bell?) warning that your address and phone number are subject to being displayed if you call 911. It goes on to say that if you do NOT want such information displayed, you should call the seven-digit emergency number. [Moderator's Note: Here in Illinois, the state law which required 911 service to be installed statewide ASAP also required that all emergency service agencies maintain an administrative seven digit number for the reasons you note. PT] ------------------------------ From: Ramon F Herrera Subject: Connecting an AT&T ISDN Phone-modem to a DECstation Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 04:15:58 GMT AT&T has this nice (relatively) new phone which comes with a DB-25 connector and a built-in modem. DEC has a (kind of) new, asymmetric, 6-conductor connector used in most of their recent small computers' and workstations' serial ports. Both RS232 and RS422 standards are supported. They call it DEC423. I recently went through the process of making these devices talk to each other, specifically for a host computer that receives incoming calls. It is very straightforward, except if you want what I call the 'complementary features': the computer should automatically log you out if the call is lost and conversely, the modem should hang up whenever the user logs out. Since there are a couple of tricky steps, such as making a few changes to both hardware and software, I can E-mail specific instructions to anyone interested. Please reply via E-mail. Ramon F. Herrera Department of Civil Engineering Massachusetts Institute of Technology ramon@iona.mit.edu ------------------------------ From: David Tamkin Subject: Re: Junkmailed! Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 0:05:09 CDT Someone who signed himself John David Galt (I see "John Galt" as a CB handle quite a bit, so it must be the name of some fictional character, and thus might not be the submitter's actual name) wrote in volume 10, issue 452, completely misunderstanding my position: | David Tamkin's piece of 6/18 really bugged me. Here is a guy who | objects to the use of a service (the 900 number to defeat call ID) to ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ?? | keep your name off the lists merchants use to make junk phone calls; | and yet he gets upset at the person who sent him an ad for the ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ?? | service, because it is junk mail! Slow down, Galt (whether that's your real name or not). You've made some very wrong guesses not only about my stand, but also about my emotions. You're the only one who is, per your own word, bugged. I didn't object to the use of 900-STOPPER; I objected that Private Lines, Inc.'s, took my address from my .signature here in Telecom Digest and sent me advertising. I did say that 900-RUNWELL was unneeded at present because there is as yet no Caller-ID on international calls anyway. But if you think I was knocking 900- STOPPER for domestic calls, you were reading with closed eyes. No, I was not upset. I was amused: amused that Private Lines, Inc., who are out to stop telemarketing calls, themselves send out unsolicited mailings. A service and the manner in which it is promoted are not the same thing. In this case, they are not only distinct, they are incompatible! And the emotion was not directed at a "person who sent [me] an ad." The cover letter and the envelope were Private Lines, Inc.'s, own stationery. The amusement was directed at Private Lines itself. Anyone who wishes to use the service is welcome to it, and despite the words that Mr. Galt is struggling with all his might to cram into my mouth, I have no complaints about its existence nor about anyone's use of it. I think you're wasting money if you use the international service right now, since it doesn't do you any good yet, but that's purely a financial consideration, not the moral or religious one Mr. Galt is trying to accuse of me of holding. Note, readers, that Mr. Galt didn't include any of the original text from my submission as it appeared in volume 10, issue 444. He couldn't bear the risk of your seeing that I had in fact said nothing of the kind. Yes, he posted from Portal, and yes, Portal's news software is very restricted, but I'm a Portal customer myself, and it is not at all difficult to include and cite the text to which one is responding. I used to do it all the time when I read news there. Galt went on to detail some differences between junk phone calls and junk mail. Yes, junk mail is much less intrusive and much more easily dismissed and discarded. Galt, this will disappoint you, but I agree fully with the rest of your submission ... starting with the SECOND paragraph. David Tamkin Box 7002 Des Plaines IL 60018-7002 708 518 6769 312 693 0591 MCI Mail:426-1818 GEnie:D.W.TAMKIN CIS:73720,1570 dattier@chinet.chi.il.us ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 1:13:23 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Off Line For Five Days! No Messages, Please As mentioned earlier, beginning Wednesday, July 3, TELECOM Digest and comp.dcom.telecom will be OFF-LINE for about five days while I am out of town. Until July 8, please DO NOT send messages to telecom, as they will have to be held over, and because of the backlog when I return, most will probably not be printed in a timely way, if at all ... For the remainder of this week, please REply to existing messages only, so that an orderly shut down can occur with few or no unfinished discussions in progress. Thank you. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #455 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa01098; 26 Jun 90 4:45 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa21981; 26 Jun 90 3:08 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab08253; 26 Jun 90 2:04 CDT Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 1:05:46 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #454 BCC: Message-ID: <9006260105.ab17727@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 26 Jun 90 01:05:17 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 454 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Uniform International Dialing [Spyros C. Bartsocas] International Calls Using Credit Card and Equal Access (10NXX) [A. Jensen] Re: Canadian Prefixes (was: Exchanges Taken Out of Service) [Nigel Allen] Re: Exchanges Taken Out of Service [Jack Winslade] Re: "Columbo" TV Episode, 6/10/90 [Mike Riddle] Re: Leonard Rose Update: His Prior Conviction [Mike Riddle] Re: 800 Surcharge [Edward Greenberg] Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe [Nigel Allen] 903 NXXs Place Names Table [William Degnan] Answering Machine Security [Chris Ambler] Changing CO, Changing Suffix [Jerry Leichter] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 09:32:27 EDT From: "Spyros C. Bartsocas" Subject: Re: Uniform International Dialing >[Moderator's Note: Well, *when* do you enter it, after the >international number has been dialed as you would on a domestic call? >With international numbers of variable length, how is it known where >the international number ends and the credit card number begins? Do >you enter the international number, then hit the pound to terminate >the dialing and then enter the card number following the bong? On It uses timeouts just like calling from home. To call number 234-5678 in Athens, Greece using a calling card you would enter: 01-30-1-234-5678-[Timeout or #] {bong AT&T or whatever} [Calling card number] {Thanks for using AT&T or whatever} On a related question, although I have been successful doing the above in the past, I recently tried it from a Boston payphone. To my surpise after the thanks for using AT&T recording, an AT&T operator answered the phone. She said that I could not use my calling card to dial that country from that payphone. So I moved to another one, tried again, same thing. This time the operator said that the country I am calling has disabled calling card calls. This does sound right to me. Trying the same thing from a hotel room was successful. Can anyone explain the above? Spyros Bartsocas scb@brownvm.brown.edu scb@cs.brown.edu ------------------------------ Reply-To: allen@audiofax.com From: Allen Jensen Subject: International Calls Using Credit Card and Equal Access (10NXX) Date: 25 Jun 90 18:44:22 GMT Organization: AudioFAX Inc., Atlanta I would like to find out how International calls are made using the equal access LD Carriers. Does one just, for example, dial 10222011+ and if this is so, where does the credit card number go ? How about alternate overseas vendors - 101XX codes ? Anyone have any examples ??? Thanks, P. Allen Jensen AudioFAX, Inc. / Suite 200 allen@audiofax.com 2000 Powers Ferry Rd. emory!audfax!allen Marietta, GA. 30067 ------------------------------ From: Nigel Allen Subject: Canadian Prefixes (was: Exchanges Taken Out of Service) Date: Sun, 24 Jun 90 10:37:54 EDT Organization: Contact Public Unix BBS. Toronto, Canada. In-reply-to: cmoore@brl.mil (VLD/VMB) > In notes I made based on a 1982 AT&T tape, (519) 873 and 786 > were both Forest, Ontario. The Forest exchange is operated by the People's Telephone Company of Forest, one of about 30 independent telcos in Ontario. > I had never heard of (819) 484 Purtuniq before. Many communities in northern Quebec and the Northwest Territories have dropped their European names and adopted Cree or Inuit names. Frobisher Bay (819 something), the largest community on Baffin Island, is now Iqaluit. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Jun 90 22:13:20 EDT From: Jack Winslade Subject: Exchanges Taken Out of Service Reply-to: Jack.Winslade@f666.n285.z1.fidonet.org Organization: DRBBS Technical BBS, Omaha, Ne. 402-896-3537 In a message of <19 Jun 90 02:46:26>, Woody writes: >In the midst of the vast numbers of nxx prefixes put into service each >year, does anyone have examples of nxx prefixes taken out of service? I ran into two such examples last year when I was attempting to make up an >>ACCURATE<< prefix list for the Omaha dialing area. The one that they published in the phone book was a joke. Even a cursory inspection by Joe Average would find some omissions. (BTW: This year's official Ma Bell phone book does NOT contain such a list.) It seems like pulling teeth to get an official list. The droids in the business office told me to look in the phone book and swore it was accurate. Sysops need these lists for nodelist processing software. The 402-541 prefix is evidently defunct. Coincidentally, my office phone was on this prefix about ten years ago on a (gag!) 101 ESS Centrex slaved off of a 5 crossbar office. All of the crossbar hardware has now been deep-sixed from the downtown Omaha area, and it looks like 541 went with it. This next one is a real goodie. It showed up as valid in last year's directory but results in an intercept (at the originating switch) when dialed. Looking through some back directories showed that the 402-281 prefix has only had ONE working number assigned to it, and that was the main number for the Union Pacific Railroad headquarters. Numerical directories back to the 60's showed 281-5822 (U.P. Hqtrs) as the only number on the office. All other U.P. numbers (DID or Centrex) were, and are still on, the 271 prefix. This is not a typographical error. It's been this way from the late 60's through the 80's. Oops. Forgot one. Make that three in Omaha. There was a short-lived choke prefix -- 894 -- in downtown Omaha for a while. I only know of it being used for a dial-in weather recording. Good Day! JSW [1:285/666@fidonet] DRBBS Technical BBS, Omaha (1:285/666) --- Through FidoNet gateway node 1:16/390 Jack.Winslade@f666.n285.z1.fidonet.org ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Jun 90 22:10:21 EDT From: Mike Riddle Subject: Re: "Columbo" TV Episode, 6/10/90. Reply-to: Mike.Riddleyour.namef27.n285.z1.fidonet.org Re: Evidentiary Value of Computer Logs and Fax-Machine-Generated Records. The Federal Rules of Evidence, and most State rules, allow such to be admitted. In the case of computer logs, any printout is considered "original." BUT -- and a big BUT -- when using them, the party offering the logs as evidence needs to "lay the foundation." Someone has to explain what they are and the significance (relevance and materiality in legal terms) to the issue being decided. If there is an easy way to fake the product, the opposing party has an opportunity to show that. If the opposition is strong enough, the judge may decide not to allow the evidence in. It's like a lot of other things in life -- you may use it, but it might not have much value. Ybbat (DRBBS) 8.9 v. 3.11 r.3 [1:285/27@fidonet] The Inns of Court 402/593-1192 (1:285/27.0) --- Through FidoNet gateway node 1:16/390 Mike.Riddle@f27.n285.z1.fidonet.org ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 23 Jun 90 22:11:52 EDT From: Mike Riddle Subject: Re: Leonard Rose Update: His Prior Conviction Reply-to: Mike.Riddle@f27.n285.z1.fidonet.org Whether or not "theft" is the correct term to use when discussing unauthorized acquisition of a computer program or data is an interesting question. While I recognize the semantic difficulties, it seems to me that "theft" is as good a term as any. There are also parallels in older, more established law. Compare the computer programs involved to copyrighted material or to trade secrets. The law is reasonably well-settled in both of those areas. The company owning the copyright or trade secret is entitled to control the distribution, as long as it takes reasonable measures to secure it. If someone gains access and uses the copyrighted material or trade secret without permission, when a reasonable person should know the information is confidential or distribution is restricted, then that person has taken something of value from the orignal owner. I submit that "theft" is the unauthorized taking of something of value -- so the term fits to folks who access computers without authorization and make personal copies of the contents. While there are many more difficult issues involved with the technological revolution (witness Caller-ID), we still ought to be able to recognize a taking for what it is and label it as such. Since more and more of us store valuable information in our computers, and those computers are connected to networks, we all have an interest in preventing our valuable commodities from being stolen. Ybbat (DRBBS) 8.9 v. 3.11 r.3 [1:285/27@fidonet] The Inns of Court 402/593-1192 (1:285/27.0) --- Through FidoNet gateway node 1:16/390 Mike.Riddle@f27.n285.z1.fidonet.org ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 07:56 PDT From: Edward_Greenberg@cso.3mail.3com.com Subject: Re: 800 Surcharge Regarding hotels charging for 800 numbers, Patrick writes: >[Moderator's Note: It does *not* apply 'only to payphones', or only to >anything else. It is a dispicable practice which AOS companies get >away with because no one will sue them to make them stop doing it. PT] Actually, it is usually a despicable practice that the HOTELS themselves are getting away with because nobody will vote with their pocketbooks to make them stop doing it. ------------------------------ From: Nigel Allen Subject: Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe Date: Sun, 24 Jun 90 10:36:16 EDT If you refer to the symbol on the # key as a "tic-tac-toe sign", you may not come across as terribly sophisticated, but you will be understood. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 24 Jun 90 08:08:36 CDT From: William Degnan Subject: 903 NXXs Place Names Table In a message of John R. Covert 08-Jun-1990 1402 (covert@covert.enet.dec.com ) writes: JC>Does anybody on the net have a list of the prefixes that will JC>soon be in the new 903 NPA in Texas? "Area Code 903? Wherezat?" On November 4th, the 903 Number Plan Area (NPA) will be established in North and Northeast Texas. The 903 area code will serve some 200 exchanges outside the Dallas metropolitan area. The Dallas metropolitan area will remain 214. With the exception of the area code, the remaining seven digits of telephone numbers in 903 will stay the same. Without this change, forcasts indicate that available 214 telephone numbers would exaust in 1991. Callers may begin dialing 903 instead of 214 on November 4, 1990. The change becomes mandatory on or about May 1, 1991. The area code change will not have an effect on long-distance rates, however changes may still need to be made to route and cost tables. 765 Alba 697 Annona 859 Arp 675 Athens 677 Athens 796 Atlanta 627 Avalon 562 Avinger 684 Avery 925 Bagwell 762 Bettie 322 Buffalo 636 Big Sandy 678 Beckville 728 Bloomburg 695 Blooming Grove 894 Bullard 982 Blossom 965 Bells Savoy 325 Ben Franklin 583 Bonham 833 Ben Wheeler 632 Bogata 852 Brownsboro 582 Brashear 945 Birthright 645 Bardwell 499 Cayuga 527 Caddo Mills 382 Celina 568 Celeste 382 Celina 568 Celeste 849 Chandler 427 Clarksville 994 Cumby 862 Campbell 468 Commerce 886 Commerce 567 Canton 536 Centerville 488 Como 395 Cooper 429 Collinsville 654 Corsicana 872 Corsicana 974 Corsicana 693 Carthage 860 Cypress Springs 766 De Berry 622 Deadwood 652 Deport 415 Denison Homestead 463 Denison Homestead 465 Denison Homestead 846 Douglassville 667 Dekalb 645 Daingerfield 476 Dorchester 878 Dry Creek 674 Detroit 961 Ector 896 Edgewood 764 Elkhart 633 Elysian Fields 354 Emhouse 473 Emory 425 Eustace 389 Fairfield 682 Frost 876 Frankston 685 Gary 854 Good Springs 843 Gilmer 588 Gladebranch 845 Gladewater 433 Gunter 454 Greenville 455 Greenville 457 Greenville 768 Golden 523 Gordonville 962 Grand Saline 743 Hudson 639 Hughes Springs 668 Hallsville 378 Honey Grove 657 Henderson 547 Hooks 532 Howe 777 Harleton 769 Hawkins 483 Italy 848 Jackson 586 Jacksonville 589 Jacksonville 665 Jefferson 967 Jim Hogg 626 Jewett 498 Kemp 983 Kilgore 984 Kilgore 338 Koon Kreek 679 Karnack 396 Kerens 367 Ladonia 863 Laneville 295 Longview 297 Longview 759 Longview 563 Longview 643 Longview 236 Longview 237 Longview 738 Longview 753 Longview 757 Longview 758 Longview 825 Lake Palestine 882 Lindale Swan 756 Linden 662 Lone Oak 587 Leonard 657 Lone Star 344 Leona 585 Maud 887 Mabank 755 Mims 898 Minden 569 Mineola 493 Milford 459 Miller Grove 489 Malakoff 572 Mount Pleasant 577 Mount Pleasant 549 Montalba 469 Murchison 776 Merit 479 Martin Mills 529 Marquez 927 Marshall 930 Marshall 935 Marshall 938 Marshall 835 Marietta 822 Mount Enterprise 527 Mt. Vernon 795 Maydelle 865 Myrtle Springs 628 New Boston 584 Neches 966 Negley 897 Naples 726 New Summerfield 895 New London 836 Oak Hill 829 Oakland 545 Oakwood 884 Omaha 968 Ore City 834 Overton 877 Owentown 732 Paris 737 Paris 784 Paris 785 Paris 359 Pecan Gap 797 Pine Acres 866 Pickton 723 Palestine 729 Palestine 731 Palestine 889 Pine Hill 857 Pine Mills 598 Point 673 Purdon 861 Price 673 Pritchett 856 Pittsburg 786 Pottsboro 451 Payne Springs 356 Quinlan 763 Quitman 362 Richland 858 Red Springs 671 Redwater 326 Rice 345 Roane 725 Rosewood 683 Rusk 346 Roxton 868 Sherman 870 Sherman 892 Sherman 893 Sherman 485 Shirley 478 Slocum 885 Sulphur Springs 439 Sulphur Springs 543 Simms 629 Sandy Creek 599 Streetman 947 Tatum 477 Tawakoni 664 Telephone 397 Talco 546 Tom Bean 928 Tennessee Colony 432 Tool-Seven Points 989 Trenton 778 Trinidad 847 Turnertown 842 Troup 538 Tucker 735 Texarkana 792 Texarkana 793 Texarkana 794 Texarkana 798 Texarkana 334 Texarkana 831 Texarkana 832 Texarkana 838 Texarkana 566 Tyler 531 Tyler 535 Tyler 571 Tyler 592 Tyler 593 Tyler 595 Tyler 597 Tyler 534 Tyler 561 Tyler 581 Tyler 789 Uncertain 482 Van Alstyne 963 Van 672 Vivian 648 Weaver 496 Wolfe City 564 Whitesboro 839 Whitehouse 364 Whitewright 560 Wills Point North 873 Wills Point Trgle 342 Winnsboro 623 Windom 524 Winfield 687 Waskom 365 Wynne 383 Yantis --------------- William Degnan -- via The Q Continuum (FidoNet Node 1:382/31) UUCP: ...!natinst!tqc!William.Degnan DARPA: William.Degnan@Tqc.FidoNet.Org ------------------------------ From: cambler@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Fubar) Subject: Answering Machine Security Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 1:4:49 GMT Reply-To: cambler@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Fubar) Organization: Fantasy, Incorported: Reality None of Our Business. I have one of those answering machines with the autoretrieve code feature. This feature cannot be turned off, nor can the code be changed. Someone is calling my home and retrieving as well as erasing my messages. Anyone have any ideas what I can do? ++Christopher(); --- cambler@polyslo.calpoly.edu --- chris@fubarsys.slo.ca.us ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 08:50:06 EDT From: Jerry Leichter Subject: Changing CO, Changing Suffix Something in TELECOM Digest recently reminded me of a question I had many years ago to which I never got a satisfactory answer. About 15-20 years ago, my parent's CO in Queens, NY was upgraded - or perhaps they were just moved to a new CO. We had two lines at the time, both in the "AXtel-1" exchange. Both were moved to the "380" exchange, where they remain to this day. Now the oddity: The suffixes on both lines were changed ever so slightly - in one case, the last digit changed from "0" to "1"; in the other, the last digit changed from (as I recall) "7" to "5". Can anyone come up with a plausible reason for such a change? The only explanation I've been able to come up with was that there was a massive reorganization of exchanges; AXtel-1 was split and parts recombined with other exchanges into "380". Someone in one of the other exchanges had our old suffixes and won out for the right to keep them. While this explains the observed facts, I find it hard to believe, especially as I've heard of no other cases anything like this since then --- and growth in the telephone system has certainly been much more rapid recently than in the early '70's. Jerry ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #454 ******************************  DUE TO ERROR IN TRANSMISSION, ISSUE 455 APPEARS AHEAD OF 454 IN THIS ARCHIVE. ISSUE 456 COMES NEXT.  Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa23023; 27 Jun 90 4:19 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa27807; 27 Jun 90 2:20 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab25476; 27 Jun 90 1:16 CDT Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 0:52:46 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #456 BCC: Message-ID: <9006270052.ac03946@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 27 Jun 90 00:52:03 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 456 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA [Isaac Rabinovitch] Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA [Heath Roberts] Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA [Dave Levenson] PacBell to Eliminate Touch-Tone Charges [Alan Millar] Re: AT&T 'COCOT' Style Payphones [Charles Buckley] Re: AT&T 'COCOT' Style Payphones [Jeffrey M. Schweiger] Re: Motorola Plans Global Cellular Thrust [Chicago Tribune via S. King] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Isaac Rabinovitch Subject: Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA Date: 26 Jun 90 16:22:49 GMT Organization: NetCom- The Bay Area's Public Access Unix System {408 241-9760} In <9235@accuvax.nwu.edu> john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: >How much do you suppose call-waiting, call forwarding, etc., ad >nauseum cost the telco to provide? (Hint: $0) Wait just a moment. Your assumption seems to be that since the current hardware can provide a service without additional operating cost, the service costs the nothing to provided. But the day-to-day costs aren't the only cost; there's also the cost of developing these extra features. True, once they went to the new digital technology, these extra feature were a minor addition, but they still required *some* development. Why should the telco spend even a little extra for a feature if they can't charge extra for providing it? By your argument, no software package for a personal computer should cost much more than $25: the cost of the diskettes, printing the manual, and packaging. Which ignores the cost of *developing* the package. It is true that if they just passed the extra cost of call waiting, etc., on to all customers, it'd add a trivial amount to the monthly bill. But I hardly need to explain why no private business works that way. ------------------------------ From: Heath Roberts Subject: Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA Reply-To: Heath Roberts Organization: NCSU Computing Center Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 03:04:45 GMT In article <9235@accuvax.nwu.edu> John Higdon writes: >How much do you suppose call-waiting, call forwarding, etc., ad >nauseum cost the telco to provide? (Hint: $0) But you pay handsomely >every month for these services with nary a complaint. Oh, the telco >had to install the switch that could handle it, but since all modern >CO switches can now handle such things, eventually this cost will >become moot. This isn't quite true. Telephone companies have to pay quite a bit for the software (and sometimes hardware) to provide these advanced features. Software from NT often costs as much as the switch. And it's not a one-time expenditure. BNR releases four new BCS's per year. >And how about rural telephones? With certain exceptions, rural >customers pay about the same as their urban counterparts -- for >service that costs the telco many times the amount to provide. The utility fee is based in _average_ costs, not the "last unit" cost. Is it fair to charge more to people who happen to live farther from the telco's line concentrator? I should point out that this wouldn't necessarily have anything to do with how far away from the center of a given metropolitan area, only how far you were from a piece of equipment arbitrarily located by some engineer. This also brings up the point that telephone service is often considered a necessary utility; it may be worth it to society in general to make the service available to as many people as possible. >If anyone is going to protest TT charges on the basis of cost, he/she >must be consistent and object to Custom Calling charges as well. After >all, unless you are served out of a switch that can handle custom >calling intrinsically, your local telco must install adjunct tone >receivers to enable TT calling. ANY switch requires more tone receivers to support more TT lines. They're getting cheaper, so this is becoming a moot point. The current-break detector used for pulse-dial lines is still cheaper, though. Once again, the software required for custom calling features costs the telco quite a bit. Then again, TT dialing saves the telco money since wrong numbers are less common and dialing is faster, thereby reducing overhead (non-talk) time to complete a call. My point is simply this: providing custom calling services _does_ cost the telco more than Plain Old Telephone Service, primarily in software and support but, also in the higher-power processors and additional RAM required for the switch. And neither hardware nor software from NT or AT&T is cheap. Heath Roberts NCSU Computer and Technologies Theme Program heath@shumv1.ncsu.edu ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA Date: 27 Jun 90 04:16:38 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article <9219@accuvax.nwu.edu>, skl@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca (Samuel Lam) writes: > The telephone company here in B.C. charges for unlisted numbers in > much the same way. They charge an installation fee of several dollars > and then charge you several dollars *per month* for keeping your > number unlisted. It probably costs the telco more money to answer all those directory-assistance requests they get when people have unlisted numbers than it does to list numbers in the paper directory. Also, they lose revenue when the people who would have called you don't because they can't get your telephone number. Dave Levenson Voice: 201 647 0900 Fax: 201 647 6857 Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] ------------------------------ From: AMillar@cup.portal.com Subject: PacBell to Eliminate Touch-Tone Charges Date: Mon, 25-Jun-90 23:57:22 PDT Here's what it says in the flyer I received with my phone bill (I left out the parts mentioning the other issue, the size of the local calling area): ------------------------ In October 1989, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) .... agreed to eliminate separate charges for residential Touch-Tone Service, and indicated it would consider eliminating separate charges for business Touch-Tone Service as well. (CPUC Decision D.89-10-031) The CPUC asked Pacific Bell and other interested parties to submit their plans to implement these decisions including proposals to recover costs associated with these changes. In April, Pacific Bell filed the first phase of its plan. We recommended that the changes take effect within the next year. We will notify you after the CPUC decides how and when these changes will take place. [....] - Touch-Tone Service charges eliminated - Most residential customers have Touch-Tone Service and pay $1.20 per month for it. The connection charge is $3. Those charges will be eliminated under the CPUC order, and all residential customers will receive Touch-Tone Service automatically. [....] Also, we are proposing that business customers receive Touch-Tone Service as part of their basic service. Our proposal on this is awaiting a CPUC decision. Business customers pay a one-time connection charge of $5 and $1.70 per month for Touch-Tone Service today. The CPUC will consider our proposal and others during the next few weeks and might decide to hold evidentiary hearings, in which the parties present evidence on their plans, July 30 and 31 at 505 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco, CA 94102, If you wish to be notified in the event hearings are required, write to: Public Advisor's Office, CPUC, 505 Van Ness Ave., Rm 5303, San Francisco, CA 94102. For information about Pacific Bell's proposal, write to: Pacific Bell, Technical Filings Manager, 140 New Montgomery St. Rm 911, San Francisco, CA 94105. -------------------- So it hasn't happened yet, but it's on the way. Although I am only guessing, I think it is fair to say that as part of the proposal, residential customers will face an increase in basic monthly service of $1.20 and business customers will pay $1.70 more.... ;-) Alan Millar AMillar@cup.portal.com P.S. And the basic connection cost for a line will go up by $3 and $5 for residential and business.... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 06:19:16 PDT From: Charles Buckley Subject: Re: AT&T 'COCOT' Style Payphones >blake@pro-party.cts.com (Blake Farenthold) writes: >I always figured if anyone hated COCOTS it was AT&T. Well I found >what I'd call an AT&T COCOT. I have encountered AT&T "Charge-a-Call" phones at an airport recently which cut off the keypad only when certain 800 numbers were called. I could call my paging service and use the keypad, but the keypad was turned off when I called U.S. Sprint. I can't blame them, but I was very surprised. Even worse, I recently made a call on a NY Tel payphone in Kennedy airport, which cut off the keypad *after* I had dialled in 0 vvv nnn-nnnn, so I couldn't dial my credit card number. We were all queued up as cattle, and people on either side of me were having trouble too. I learned quite a few card numbers to use, should I ever think of doing such a thing. I called up repair and asked why this was being done, and the first thing the person on duty said was "Are you a phone company employee?". I told the truth, and said no, so she wouldn't say why, but something funny was going on, for sure. I can't decide: drugs, espionage, or long distance competition (against AT&T). Any ideas? ------------------------------ From: "Jeffrey M. Schweiger" Subject: Re: AT&T 'COCOT' Style Payphones Date: 26 Jun 90 16:16:35 GMT Reply-To: "Jeffrey M. Schweiger" Organization: Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey CA Here's a question for our Moderator or other readers of the Digest: Do the AT&T 'Charge-a-Call' phones fall under the same (or similar) rules as COCOT's? It is not clear that they are customer owned, and they are obviously not "coin operated". Jeff Schweiger Standard Disclaimer CompuServe: 74236,1645 Internet (Milnet): schweige@cs.nps.navy.mil ------------------------------ From: Steven King Subject: Re: Motorola Plans Global Cellular Thrust Date: 27 Jun 90 01:17:05 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc. - Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL Here's the second article published about the Motorola orbiting cell-site plan. This is from the {Chicago Tribune}, Tuesday, June 26 1990. Again, this is all I know; and again, all typos are mine. ---------------------------- MOTOROLA PHONE NET TO DIAL 77 SATELLITES (by Marianne Taylor) By the end of the decade, Motorola Inc. envisions equipping a Chicago-based business executive with a cellular phone that works just as well when he steps off a plane in Melbourne, Australia, as it does when he makes a call on the way to his Arlington Heights home. What stands in the way of this vision is about $2 billion in investment, the launch of a flotilla of 77 low-orbiting satellites, and a vast array of complex technical considerations. But if a system is developed as outlined by a Motorola executive Monday, it would place the Schaumburg-based manufacturer of sophisticated communications equipment firmly in the lucrative realm of providing cellular phone service. Durrell Hillis, Motorola vice president and general manager of satellite communications, said the company intends to form a consortium of four or five organizations, including Motorola, that will fund and develop the first global satellite-based cellular telephone system. The company has dubbed the venture "Iridium" (naming it after the chmical element that, past and present high school chemistry students will remember, has 77 electrons). Speaking in advance of a Tuesday briefing, Hillis said three organizations have signed agreements with Motorola to study the venture, although none has committed funds. These organizations have passed tough licensing tests that permit them to transmit voice and data signals by satellite in certain areas, including the U.S., so that Motorola won't have to seek separate licenses in those areas. Hillis said Motorola hopes to have firm agreements with its partners in the venture, as well as funding commitments, by the end of the year. If Motorola signs with four other partners, its initial investment would be $400 million, Hillis said. Motorola plans to launch a network of 77 satellites that would orbit the earth at a relatively low altitude -- about 414 miles -- to provide mobile-phone service to parts of the U.S. and the world where current land-based mobile systems cannot, or have not yet been able to, reach. The firm plans to launch two demonstration satellites by 1992, all 77 by 1994, and have full service as early as 1996. The satellite system not only would provide access to such hard-to-reach areas, but also would provide worldwide coverage via satellite for cellular customers, enabling a caller using a portable phone to communicate anywhere else, Hillis said. In some areas of the world where traditional phone service is sorely limited by outdated or scarce equipment, Motorola hopes its new network will provide more basic telephone service. "In some Eastern Bloc countries, for instance, there is a tremendous need for communications systems," Hillis said. With a satellite-based system, "the infrastructure would be overhead, in space," so that a government need only issue appropriate licensing for an auxiliary phone network, which would then open the way for a new market for telephones and the satellite service. Motorola intends to retain an ownership interest in operating the system, as well as to build the telephones and eventually about half the replacement satellites, Hillis said. The first batch of satellites will be built by a yet-to-be-named subcontractor, Hillis said, but Motorola hopes to build half the satellites thereafter at its plant near Phoenix. The company already has announced an expansion of its mobile-pohone manufacturing capacity, with plans to build a new facility in north suburban Libertyville. Motorola expects the cellular telephone market to grow to 100 million customers worldwide by the end of the decade, Hillis said. The company hopes to snare a small portion, or 1 million, in that time for its satellite-based network, although the system will have a capacity for 10 million customers. The first handsets for the system will cost about $3,000, said Ray Leopold, Motorola's systems manager for the Iridium project. Although the fees per minute to use the system will be determined by whoever contracts with the Motorola consortium to provide the service in different areas, Motorola estimates that a call at first will cost $3 a minute -- about 10 times what it costs to make a call on existing mobile-telephone systems, which use land-based transmitters. The three companies agreeing to cooperate in the early stages of the venture are American Mobile Satellite Corp., a Washington, D.C.-based space technology company that holds a Federal Communications Commission license to provide mobile satellite service to users in the U.S.,; Telesat Mobile Inc. of Canada, which has similar agreements north of the border; and International Maritime Satellite Organization of London, an international consortium that has rights to transmit signals to ships at sea, as well as on land in several countries. ----------------------- Sidebar: "Global network for cellular phones" Motorola's Iridium satellite system will allow people with portable cellular radiophones to communicate anywhere on earth. "Satellite system" The $2 billion plans include a network of 77 small satellites ringing the planet in low-earth orbits. "Placing a call" Portable cellular phones with small antennas will transmit signals directly to the closest satellite. After the caller is verified as a subscriber, the call is routed through a series of satellites to its destination. Steve King, Motorola Cellular (...uunet!motcid!king) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #456 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa24112; 27 Jun 90 5:07 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa14088; 27 Jun 90 3:25 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab27807; 27 Jun 90 2:20 CDT Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 2:03:28 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #457 BCC: Message-ID: <9006270203.ab08467@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 27 Jun 90 02:03:15 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 457 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Can One Disable Call-Waiting If *70 Doesn't Work? [Fleming] Re: Can One Disable Call-Waiting If *70 Doesn't Work? [Keith Vitek] Re: 800 Surcharge [Greg Monti via John R. Covert] Re: Junkmailed! [Peter da Silva] Re: FCC Responds to Individual Complaints About AOSs [Paul S. Sawyer] Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe [Rob Warnock] Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe [Kari Hardarson] Re: Manhole Covers (was: 10-NYT and 10-NJB) [Rob Warnock] Re: Sprint Users Now Get Immediate Credit [Jason Chen] Re: Uniform International Dialing [Norman R Tiedemann] Re: Uniform International Dialing [Greg Monti -and- John R. Covert] Re: Uniform International Dialing [TELECOM Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: portal!cup.portal.com!fleming Subject: Can One Disable Call-Waiting If *70 Doesn't Work? Date: Mon, 25-Jun-90 04:55:17 PDT I have also seen recommendations to try '70*' '#70' '70#' and '1170'. Certainly, on modern 5ESS and DMS100, '*70' does the trick, but apparently standardization was late in coming. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 08:30:37 CDT From: Keith Vitek Subject: Re: Can One Disable Call-Waiting If *70 Doesn't Work? In-Reply-To: message from ralphs@halcyon.wa.com If *70 does't work, use the pulse dial 1170 ... works in most areas like: atdp1170 (and bbs or other number...) UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!kvitek ARPA: crash!pnet01!pro-party!kvitek@nosc.mil INET: kvitek@pro-party.cts.com Keith Vitek | Voice: 512/852-1841 5914 LiptonShire | or: 512/852-1780 Corpus Christi, TX 78415 | FIDO: 1:160/40 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 18:06:42 PDT From: "John R. Covert 26-Jun-1990 2110" Subject: Re: 800 Surcharge From: Greg Monti Date: 26 June 1990 Subject: Re: 800 Surcharge > Regarding hotels charging for 800 numbers... Yes, hotels can get away with charging $0.25 to $1.00 or so for 800 calls because people just pay them. It's small compared to the price of the room, and most business travelers wouldn't complain much. If you are dialing an 800 number to get to your LD company's switch, the charge is a downright *bargain* compared to what the hotel's AOS would charge you if you direct-dialed the call from your room! The AOS would inflate the price of each minute of the call by 200% or 300% while the charge for the 800 call only inflates the price of the first minute. This brings up a related subject, that of COCOTs whose keypads are cut off after dialing, thwarting you from using any long distance company but the AOS which kicks back to the premises owner. As long as this number isn't itself blocked, there is exactly one reasonably-priced long distance company *that I know of* which can always be accessed from phones like this: US Sprint. If you dial their FONcard access number (800 877-8000) and then do nothing, the dial tone will expire after 15 or 20 seconds and you will be connected to a Sprint operator. Just say you're calling from a rotary phone and give the numbers you're calling from and to and your 14-digit Sprint FONcard number. Local operating company (and AT&T) cards not accepted. There's a premium operator-assistance charge of around 50 cents (on top of the 75-cent FONcard charge) for the whole call. But it avoids the per-minute AOS inflation. Handy. Sprint calls this "rotary access." This could work with other LD companies *provided* they (1) offer routine operator services and (2) they have an 800 number to reach that operator. MCI misses on item (1). AT&T misses on item (2). Greg Monti, Arlington, Virginia; work +1 202 822 2633 ------------------------------ From: Peter da Silva Subject: Re: Junkmailed! Reply-To: Peter da Silva Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 16:34:22 GMT I notice the author of this article has an unlisted email address. So, who is John Galt? Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. PS: Yes, I get the reference. ------------------------------ From: "Paul S. Sawyer" Subject: Re: FCC Responds to Individual Complaints About AOSs Organization: UNH Telecommunications and Network Services Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 11:33:14 GMT In article <9224@accuvax.nwu.edu> wrf@mab.ecse.rpi.edu (Wm Randolph Franklin) writes: >Before writing my letter, I telephoned both ATT and FCC to determine >the law. FCC said unequivocally that the hotel phones must handle >10xxx properly. However ATT waffled; they commiserated with me but >didn't they that the hotel had to connect me to them. Why would they >not assert their rights? Maybe it's because ATT's PBX's (e.g. System 85) can't handle 9-10288, etc.... Paul S. Sawyer uunet!unh!unhtel!paul paul@unhtel.UUCP UNH Telecommunications attmail!psawyer p_sawyer@UNHH.BITNET Durham, NH 03824-3523 VOX: +1 603 862 3262 FAX: +1 603 862 2030 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 07:08:50 GMT From: Rob Warnock Subject: Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe Reply-To: Rob Warnock Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA In article <9204@accuvax.nwu.edu> erik@naggum.uu.no (Erik Naggum) writes: | 5# means "five lbs (pounds)" | This has later been confirmed by several good dictionaries and | reference works (read: theory), but I've never seen in it practice. It is often seen in the U.S. in the trucking/shipping/hauling environments. It's quite common for packages or crates to get their weight in pounds marked on the side with crayon or chalk in the "#" form, usually as the package is accepted into the shipper's system. (Many forms of shipping are weight-based.) Rob Warnock, MS-9U/510 rpw3@sgi.com rpw3@pei.com Silicon Graphics, Inc. (415)335-1673 Protocol Engines, Inc. 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94039-7311 ------------------------------ From: hardarso@weiss.cs.unc.edu (Kari Hardarson) Subject: Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe Date: 26 Jun 90 19:44:12 GMT Reply-To: hardarso@weiss.cs.unc.edu (Kari Hardarson) Organization: University Of North Carolina, Chapel Hill I want to collectively thank everyone that set me straight on the american definition of the pound. I am much the wiser now. Kari Hardarson 217 Jackson Circle Chapel Hill, NC 27514 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 07:14:49 GMT From: Rob Warnock Subject: Re: Manhole Covers (was: 10-NYT and 10-NJB) Reply-To: Rob Warnock Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA In article <9180@accuvax.nwu.edu> unhd!unhtel!paul@uunet.uu.net (Paul S. Sawyer) writes: | By the way, what about a non-sexist term like "utility access cover"? | ("person hole" just doesn't make it.... B-) The city of Sacramento, California, has recently decided to call them "maintenance holes", which -- besides being decently neuter and even descriptive -- means they won't have to change the hundreds of City bluprints which have them marked as "M-H"! Rob Warnock, MS-9U/510 rpw3@sgi.com rpw3@pei.com Silicon Graphics, Inc. (415)335-1673 Protocol Engines, Inc. 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94039-7311 ------------------------------ From: Jason Chen Subject: Re: Sprint Users Now Get Immediate Credit Date: 26 Jun 90 16:57:29 GMT Reply-To: Jason Chen Organization: Bellcore, Piscataway, NJ You can get immediate credit ... if and only if you can get through their always-busy customer service. Yup, they have not changed a bit since I dropped them three years ago. Jason Chen ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 14:03:51 EDT From: Norman R Tiedemann Subject: Re: Uniform International Dialing Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories -The Moderator writes: -On 01 calls, at least in Chicago, the credit -card number cannot be entered via the tone pad, but is passed orally -to the operator who answers. -John Covert responded: -I'm not sure why it didn't work for the Moderator; I just tried 01+ -from an exchange in the Chicago Loop area and was presented with the -"bong" and was able to enter a calling card number. TSPS has a -database of which phones have TT service; the bong is presented to -those phones, and not to phones that don't have TT service, but you -should see the same behaviour on 0+inter-LATA and 01+overseas. -[Moderator's Note: Well, *when* do you enter it, after the -international number has been dialed as you would on a domestic call? -With international numbers of variable length, how is it known where -the international number ends and the credit card number begins? Do -you enter the international number, then hit the pound to terminate -the dialing and then enter the card number following the bong? On I'll comment on a few of the above claims based on personal experience, On 01 calls in almost all cases you will be electronically requested for the card number with the bong. This all assumes your long distance carrier is AT&T. It may be different for others. This does not matter if you are set up for TT or dial pulse. I have only Dial Pulse at home and I always get the bong. (At which time I flip the little switch on my phone and touch tone in my card number.) (Yes I do do this from home sometimes to charge to different number). The digit collector mechanism has a timer which will time out when no more digits are entered (normally this is about 5 seconds). This is how the switch knows to start collecting the credit card number instead of the number to call. You may also hit the # key, which will terminate the number immediately. This may not work for the moderator, since Northwestern University has their own "goofy" PBX system, which allows and doesn't allow some strange things. (My wife is a graduate student there, so this is based on her experiences.) Also if the default LD carrier is not AT&T, this may be the reason why the "bong" is not heard. Norm Tiedemann AT&T Bell Labs IH 2G-419 att!ihlpy!normt 2000 Naperville Rd. normt@ihlpy.att.com Naperville, IL 60566 [Moderator's Note: But I don't use NU's phone system in any way, except to call into the dialups ... I am served out of the Chicago-Rogers Park office. But international calls like that are rare for me: Either I dial direct or I call via my employer's call-extender, and bill it to the office that way. That's why I reallt didn't know. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 18:05:30 PDT From: "John R. Covert 26-Jun-1990 2059" Subject: Re: Uniform International Dialing From: Greg Monti Date: 26 June 1990 Subject: Re: Uniform International Dialing "Spyros C. Bartsocas" writes: (Regarding trying to call Greece via calling card from a pay phone in Boston:) > To my > surprise after the thanks for using AT&T recording, an AT&T operator > answered the phone. She said that I could not use my calling card to > dial that country from that payphone. So I moved to another one, > tried again, same thing. This time the operator said that the country > I am calling has disabled calling card calls. This does sound right > to me. Trying the same thing from a hotel room was successful. Can > anyone explain the above? Because other countries (and long distance companies in the United States) *do* have the right to reject, out of hand, the credit of callers from or to certain other countries. I guess that Greece does it because of previous problems with fraud, in which they spent money to complete calling card (01+) calls into Greece and then found that the LD company(ies) which sent the calls had been defrauded and that no money was ever collected so they never got their share. If you call AT&T International Long Distance Information (800 874-4000) (this is *information*, not *directory assistance*) they can probably send you a booklet on international calling. There's a chart in it showing, for every country on earth, whether they accept direct dialed calls to or from the USA and whether the countries accept calls made with calling cards from each other's country. Last version I saw was being given out at an AT&T booth at a convention center in early 1990, but the instructions in it seemed to be several years old (like no direct dialing to Soviet Union). The hotel probably used an AOS to take your card number, direct dialed the call itself, and then paid the bill for direct dialed call from the money it got from you when you paid the AOS charge as part of your local phone bill. There's a lot less fraud in direct dialed calls than in calling card calls, so the direct dialed call was accepted by Greece. You could have probably gone home and direct dialed (011+) the call a lot cheaper from there; but you give up the convenience of using the calling card. Greg Monti, Arlington, Virginia; work +1 202 822 2633 Addendum from John Covert: Actually, the AT&T operator who stated that it was the other country that wanted the calls stopped is mistaken. Since it was AT&T calling cards that were involved, there is no bilateral agreement involved. What's actually going on is that AT&T (and other carriers) are red-lining certain exchanges and countries because of a high volume of calling card fraud from those areas to those countries. AT&T accepts the AT&T (or local telco) calling cards for calls to all countries served by AT&T without exception. At least from non-coin phones. Bilateral agreements only affect whether the AT&T card can be used to call back home from those countries, or whether the distant country's calling card is accepted by AT&T for calls from the U.S. to the distant country. Specific example: last fall, as I was trying to call Hong Kong from JFK airport, I discovered that the exchange containing the NYTel payphones was red-lined. However, the AT&T Card Caller phones nearby were on a different exchange which was not redlined, thus the calls could be placed. /john ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 1:46:48 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Re: Uniform International Dialing John Covert and Greg Monti, in the message before this one, discuss the rationale behind AT&T's refusal to honor their own credit agreement with their subscribers when they 'red-line' certain countries or certain prefixes from the use of the Calling Card. When you encounter a situation like this, from an AT&T coin phone, my suggestion is that you SUE them. They have lost in the past on this, and they will lose on your case. And they will settle with you. There is NOTHING in any tariff which gives AT&T the right to refuse Calling Card service on a prefix by prefix basis. There is NOTHING in the tariff which says any given country can be excluded from receiving outgoing calls from the United States via the Calling Card. They refer to the Calling Card as universal. They have never sent you, or me, or anyone else the written explanation required by the Federal Trade Commission when they deny you credit after having previously authorized said credit. In their own literature, they claim their phone card is good *everywhere*. Sprint used to get sued all the time for pulling this sort of stunt from the payphones at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City. AT&T was sued in one case by someone who attempted to call Iran from (I think) JFK in New York. AT&T refused to accept his Calling Card *which had a credit balance* on it. He sued AT&T for fraud, and filed complaints with both the Federal Trade Commission (relating to denial of credit) and the Federal Communications Commission (relating to lack of authority by tariff for AT&T's posture in the matter.) AT&T settled with him for $1000; sort of an expensive item for what would have been a $15-20 call to Iran! You might try the same sort of aggressive stance, until they get off their tangent. PT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #457 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa25222; 27 Jun 90 5:59 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa31145; 27 Jun 90 4:31 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab14088; 27 Jun 90 3:25 CDT Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 2:35:36 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #458 BCC: Message-ID: <9006270235.ab27550@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 27 Jun 90 02:35:20 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 458 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson V & H FORTRAN Routines [Mike Riddle] I Need a Way to Verify Autodial Numbers [Jeffrey Jonas] Japanese Quality in Japan [Jim Gottlieb] Avoiding Unlisted Number Charge [Richard Kaplan] Number of NXX in Each NPA [Dave Esan] AT&T Ad is Correct [John Higdon]a International Calls Using Credit Card and Equal Access [Greg Monti] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 21:57:53 EDT From: Mike Riddle Subject: V & H FORTRAN Routines Reply-to: Mike.Riddle@f27.n285.z1.fidonet.org The following routines were mentioned by Jim Riddle in a recent Digest article. The response has already been substantial; however, Jim has no easy way of sending files through the Internet. Since several people have already responded, perhaps you could run them in the Digest or mention they are available wherever you put them in the archives? C TO CONVERT EITHER EARTH-CENTERED TO LAT/LON OR VICE VERSA SUBROUTINE M2CONV (OPT,NUMPTS,LATS,LONS,XLIST,YLIST,ZLIST) INTEGER*4 OPT,NUMPTS,I REAL*8 LATS(NUMPTS),LONS(NUMPTS),THETA,PHI,DTR REAL*8 XLIST(NUMPTS),YLIST(NUMPTS),ZLIST(NUMPTS) PI = 3.141592653589793238462643 DTR = PI/180. IF (OPT .EQ. 1) THEN DO FOR I = 1,NUMPTS THETA = LONS(I) * DTR PHI = (90.0D+0 - LATS(I)) * DTR XLIST(I) = DCOS(THETA) * DSIN(PHI) YLIST(I) = DSIN(THETA) * DSIN(PHI) ZLIST(I) = DCOS(PHI) ENDDO ELSEIF (OPT .EQ. 2) THEN DO FOR I = 1,NUMPTS LATS(I) = 90.0D+0 - DACOS(ZLIST(I)) / DTR IF (XLIST(I) .EQ. 0.0D+0) THEN IF (YLIST(I) .LT. 0.0D+0) THEN LONS(I) = -90.0D+0 ELSE LONS(I) = 90.0D+0 ENDIF ELSE LONS(I) = DATAN(YLIST(I)/XLIST(I)) / DTR IF (XLIST(I) .LT. 0.0D+0) THEN IF (YLIST(I) .LT. 0.0D+0) THEN LONS(I) = LONS(I) - 180.0D+0 ELSE LONS(I) = LONS(I) + 180.0D+0 ENDIF ENDIF ENDIF ENDDO ENDIF END SUBROUTINE LLAXYZ(LAT,LON,ALT,X,Y,Z) C SUBROUTINE TO CALCULATE ECI FROM LAT/LON/ALT C C RE IS RADIUS OF THE EARTH C RE = 3437.75 NAUTICAL MILES, MORE OR LESS C 1 NAUTICAL MILE = 1852 METERS (EXACT) C 1 STATUTE MILE = 1609.344 METERS (EXACT) C SUBROUTINE _DOES_ REQUIRE ALTITUDE -- CHECK THE LOCAL AIRPORT (!) C INPUT REQUIRED IS LAT, LON, ALT OF POINT AND RETURNS X, Y, Z C REAL LAT,LON,ALT RE = 3437.75 C RE = 3437.75 * 1.852 FOR KILOMETERS C RE = 3437.75 * 1852/1609.344 FOR STATUTE MILES C ON MOST MACHINES YOU MAY WANT TO GO DOUBLE PRECISION, BY THE WAY RANGE = RE + ALT CLAT = COS(LAT) SLAT = SIN(LAT) CLON = COS(LON) SLON = SIN(LON) Z = RANGE * SLAT X = RANGE*CLAT * CLON Y = RANGE*CLAT * SLON RETURN END C CONVERTS LAT AND LONG TO EUCLIDEAN COORDINATES SUBROUTINE M2EUCL REAL*4 DEGRAD, PI, ECLX(N), ECLY(N), ECLZ(N) REAL*4 LOND(N), LATD(N) INTEGER*4 NUMPTS,I PI = 3.141592653589793238462643 DEGRAD = PI/180. DO FOR I = 1,NUMPTS ECLX(I) = COS(LOND(I)*DEGRAD)*COS(LATD(I)*DEGRAD) ECLY(I) = SIN(LOND(I)*DEGRAD)*COS(LATD(I)*DEGRAD) ECLZ(I) = SIN(LATD(I)*DEGRAD) ENDDO RETURN END SUBROUTINE M2DIST(XPT,YPT,ZPT,NUMLST) C INTEGER*4 NUMLST,N,INDEX C CALCULATE DISTANCES (GREAT CIRCLE) FROM A LIST OF POINTS TO A FOCAL C POINT C XPT, YPT, ZPT ARE X, Y, Z COORDINATES OF THE FOCAL POINT C XLST, YLST, ZLST ARE LISTS OF X, Y AND Z COORDINATES C RADIUS IS RADIUS OF THE EARTH REAL*4 XPT,YPT,ZPT,CSQRED,CTHETA,XLST(N),YLST(N),ZLST(N),DLST(N) DO FOR INDEX = 1, NUMLST CSQRED = (XLST(INDEX) - XPT)**2 + (YLST(INDEX) - YPT) 1 **2 + (ZLST(INDEX) - ZPT)**2 CTHETA = 1.0 - CSQRED/2.0 DLST(INDEX) = ACOS(CTHETA) * RADIUS ENDDO RETURN END Ybbat (DRBBS) 8.9 v. 3.11 r.3 [1:285/27@fidonet] The Inns of Court 402/593-1192 (1:285/27.0) --- Through FidoNet gateway node 1:16/390 Mike.Riddle@f27.n285.z1.fidonet.org ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 05:51:37 -0400 From: synsys!jeffj@uunet.uu.net Subject: I Need a Way to Verify Autodial Numbers A very strange thing happened to a neighbor. Her parents have an auto dial phone and it must have misdialed her number because a stranger answered the call and was very rude to them. They called the police to check up on her. All was well after she got back from shopping and calmed her parents down. Now for the technological question: how can you check the programming of an auto dialer? I find a need for a dial-it service that would tell you what number you dial to it (either DTMF or pulse). That way, I'd call the number and then autodial the other numbers and hear them read back. It might work like this: I dial "dial-huh" and hear some message like "I am ready to tell you what you are dialing". Then I press the button to autodial a number (say, New York information), and I hear the number read back in English "one two one two five five five one two one two." That's an excellent way to verify that the emergency numbers are programmed correctly without bothering the police/fire/hospital. I have seen Penril modems that allow you to have 'secret' numbers where once programmed, you cannot view the telephone number, it is not displayed while dialing and the speaker is disabled. This is probably ment to protect unlisted support lines. Well, I admit this is a way around that security. But how many of you ever really use that feature? I know that there are now phones that display the number you are dialing, and there are line monitors that can display the number as it is dialed. The July "Modern Electronics" magazine has schematics for a phone mate that captures DTMF as dialed, times the call, can hold the line, and rings. It is also a clock. But this requires somebody to buy/rent the equipment and get it to the customer premesis. What I need is a service that Joe Smith, Anytown USA can use from his existing equipment. As to telephone fishing: "Look, pa I caught one! It's a trimline." "Ya hooked it through the transmitter, son. Lemme unhook it. Throw it back, it's not FCC registered." "Yahoooo! I got me a whopper! A 4 line multiline at least." "You caught it by the linecord. That makes 'em real mad." Jeffrey Jonas jeffj@synsys.uucp ------------------------------ Reply-To: Jim Gottlieb Organization: Info Connections, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan Subject: Japanese Quality in Japan Date: 26 Jun 90 18:52:59 JST (Tue) From: Jim Gottlieb irvine@ecn.pudue.edu (Brent the Grate) writes: > I have heard that the quality of consumer goods manufactured > in Japan is different for 'export' and 'dometic' consumption. > Specifically, foreign consumers get a slightly better quality > product than Japanese. > Can this be true? This is definitely true in telephone instruments, a field I'm well-acquainted with. The single-line telephones sold here by such big names as Hitachi and Sony are complete pieces of junk. They aren't much better than the free phone you get for ordering Time Magazine. But this is one of those areas where the Japanese consumer seems to feel that form rather than function is important. The phones on the market here definitely look nice. But no thought seems to be put into designing them to work well. Note, for example, that the Panasonic KX series of phones and answering machines that are some of the best anywhere are not sold in Japan. In an article dankg@tornado.berkeley.edu (Dan KoGai) writes: >Give the Japanese "Consumer Reports" and "60 Minutes". I bet their >attitude will change [in a] matter of days... Which brings up a good point, and that is that Japan doesn't seem to even have a magazine like "Consumer Reports" that they can turn to for unbiased advice. I guess the zaibatu (big conglomerates) wouldn't like that :-). I wonder why this is. The magazine "Trendy" does however give price comparisons between brands and stores and even includes prices from the U.S., often showing the Japanese consumer how far they are being taken to the cleaners. Jim Gottlieb Info Connections, Tokyo, Japan or or Fax: +81 3 237 5867 Voice Mail: +81 3 222 8429 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 10:17:37 EDT From: Richard Kaplan Subject: Avoiding Unlisted Number Charge I noticed a few messages lately indicating displeasure at charges for an unlisted number. I was wondering if there is a way to get around this unreasonable behavior on the part of the local phone companies. Could I not tell the phone company that I wish my number to be listed as Hugo Gorschonavitz? Or as my own name spelled backward? Or as Mr. Unlisted K. Number? Or do they insist that I use my legal name as it appears on my bill? Richard Kaplan, M.D. PO Box 217 Rochester, MN 55903 (507) 281-1689 (Voice) (507) 281-1989 (BBS) [Moderator's Note: Generally, telling them the phone will be listed in your roommate's name (or mother's name, etc) will work provided the name is (in their sole discretion) reasonable, 'real sounding' and unoffensive. If they suspect you are merely trying to circumvent the charge for a non-pub number, they may ask you to produce the person in whose name the service is to be listed, or offer proof that the name is correct. PT] ------------------------------ From: Dave Esan Subject: Number of NXX in Each NPA Date: 26 Jun 90 18:06:30 GMT Organization: Moscom Corp., E. Rochester, NY Six months ago I posted a list of NPA's with the total number of NXX's in each. Well I just go it the 7/15/90 BellCore V&H tape, and here is the updated list. The NPA's noted with an asterisk (*) are those scheduled for a split. Reasons are obvious. Those with a plus sign (+) have gone to 10 digit dialling for intra-NPA, non-local calls (there may be more, these are all I know of). NPA # of NXX NPA # of NXX NPA # of NXX NPA # of NXX * 213: 709 717: 464 704: 324 808: 248 * 214: 705 804: 455 914: 321 518: 242 * 201: 682 305: 443 319: 321 608: 236 + 301: 679 414: 442 304: 321 509: 229 * 212: 653 306: 441 618: 316 603: 227 + 404: 642 513: 438 504: 316 901: 216 * 415: 629 816: 436 801: 315 417: 192 + 919: 611 913: 428 209: 314 308: 191 + 416: 609 412: 412 912: 312 802: 174 512: 608 317: 404 517: 311 707: 171 313: 605 312: 399 715: 306 506: 171 205: 604 402: 398 918: 302 706: 169 403: 585 907: 396 908: 301 607: 159 215: 580 916: 395 819: 301 719: 153 602: 579 515: 395 505: 294 307: 146 + 202: 576 614: 388 905: 293 413: 129 501: 559 601: 385 915: 290 401: 128 714: 551 718: 382 815: 282 906: 109 206: 542 407: 364 408: 282 302: 106 604: 540 617: 362 702: 278 807: 105 216: 532 616: 362 218: 275 917: 0 + 703: 531 508: 359 409: 273 911: 0 405: 525 418: 356 208: 269 910: 0 713: 515 716: 354 613: 267 909: 0 615: 511 516: 354 812: 266 811: 0 314: 505 316: 353 712: 265 810: 0 503: 500 217: 344 805: 263 711: 0 612: 499 701: 343 609: 261 710: 0 303: 486 204: 341 705: 260 611: 0 809: 481 818: 339 606: 259 610: 0 803: 480 219: 338 903: 258 511: 0 708: 480 519: 336 902: 257 510: 0 813: 476 502: 332 814: 254 411: 0 904: 470 406: 331 507: 253 410: 0 817: 470 207: 330 309: 253 311: 0 619: 468 605: 328 709: 252 310: 0 203: 467 419: 326 806: 251 211: 0 514: 466 318: 325 315: 251 210: 0 --> David Esan {rutgers, ames, harvard}!rochester!moscom!de ------------------------------ Subject: AT&T Ad is Correct Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: 26 Jun 90 12:41:43 PDT (Tue) From: John Higdon AT&T NEWS BRIEFS Tuesday, June 26, 1990 AD WIN -- The National Advertising Division ruled in favor of AT&T in the latest round of long distance ad wars. US Sprint challenged a print ad for AT&T's long-distance service that stated: "On average, MCI and US Sprint take over 50 percent longer than AT&T to set up a long-distance call." ... NAD said AT&T data supported the claim that MCI and Sprint can take nine seconds or more to set up a long-distance call [and] agreed that the seconds can add up to hours where business offices are involved. ... Advertising Age, p. 48. ------------------------------- So, of course I had to do a little testing on my own. Picking some busy-test numbers around the state and the nation, I timed the interval between the pressing of the last digit and the appearance of the busy signal. The results of many trials were quite consistent: AT&T completes in an average of 3-4 seconds while Sprint and MCI complete in an average of 6-8 seconds. I could detect no significant difference in the speed of call setup between MCI and Sprint. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 18:06:13 PDT From: "John R. Covert 26-Jun-1990 2109" Subject: International Calls Using Credit Card and Equal Access (10NXX) From: Greg Monti Date: 26 June 1990 Subject: International Calls Using Credit Card and Equal Access Allen Jensen writes: First of all,it's 10XXX, not 10NXX. The "N" means "digits 2 thru 9 only". In fact, any combo, from 000 to 999 is valid after "10", providing a long distance company with that code exists and serves that area. > I would like to find out how International calls are made using the > equal access LD Carriers. Does one just, for example, dial 10222011+ > and if this is so, where does the credit card number go ? No. You would not dial 011. It would be 10222 + 01 + country code + city code + local number + #. Immediately after the # sign, you would receive the "calling card tone" and would dial your USA 14-digit calling card number (the one issued by your LOCAL phone company, not the one issued by MCI, which is LD company 10222; the MCI card number is for 950- and 800-access calls only). Assuming the call and card number were both valid, and that MCI accepts card calls to that country and provided that that country accepts carded MCI calls, you would hear "thank you for using MCI" or somesuch and it would ring through. You would pay MCI card usage charge (probably around $0.75) plus the direct dialed MCI per-minute rate for the call itself. It would appear on the MCI "casual usage" page of your LOCAL phone bill. > How about alternate overseas vendors - 101XX codes ? Anyone have any > examples ??? There are no "different" vendors for overseas calls and for domestic calls. US regulations (the Modified Final Judgment) state that, from any US phone, the whole world is divided into just two areas: intra-LATA and inter-LATA. Overseas calls are obviously in the second category. Therefore, competitive long distance companies carry them. The heirarchy for dialing instructions with and without 10XXX being appended first is (supposedly) exactly the same. Note that the above will not work from a *pay* phone *owned by the local operating company* if you dial 10222 + 011 + etc. "011" from a pay phone of necessity implies that this is a CASH call. The only LD company that handles cash calls from LOC payphones is AT&T. More than likely, if you try this, the "10222" will be ignored and you will be routed to the AT&T recording saying how much money to put in (bring your rolls of quarters!). Greg Monti, Arlington, Virginia; work +1 202 822 2633 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #458 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa18807; 29 Jun 90 1:58 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab19282; 28 Jun 90 23:40 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa30711; 28 Jun 90 0:42 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab09724; 27 Jun 90 23:38 CDT Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 23:02:49 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #459 BCC: Message-ID: <9006272302.ac11608@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 27 Jun 90 23:02:07 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 459 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Off Line Until July 8 [TELECOM Moderator] Strange Things in Ottawa, Ontario [David Leibold] Telephone Timer [Sam Cramer] Need Strapping Info for 400D KTU [Warren Tucker] What is Intellidial? [John Wing] BellSouth Wins New Zealand Contract [Henry Mensch] Comments For V&H FORTRAN Routines [Mike Riddle] Re: Number of NXX in Each NPA [Carl Moore] Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA [John Higdon] Re: AT&T 'COCOT' Style Payphones [Carl Moore] Re: US/Canada Only One Digit Code? [Henry Troup] Re: Sverige Direkt [Henry Troup] Re: Junkmailed! [Tom Perrine] Re: Infoworld, AT&T and Rumor Squelching [Robert M. Hamer] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 22:08:46 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Telecom Off Line Until July 8 TELECOM Digest and the comp.dcom.telecom newsgroup have suspended operations until July 8, due to my absence from home for a period of several days. Do not send messages to this newsgroup until July 8. Messages received during the period July 3 through July 7 will be held over until my return. Messages appearing here through July 3 are items in transit at this time. Patrick Townson TELECOM Moderator ------------------------------ From: woody Subject: Strange Things in Ottawa, Ontario Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 23:13:07 EDT Strange things are afoot in Ottawa, Ontario these days: 1. From phones on the 238 exchange (payphones in the downtown area for instance), dialing up a wrong exchange will not only get a recording, but it seems other people dialing wrong exchanges as well. Thus, it would seem if you don't mind sharing a voice conference centre with Bell recordings in two languages, there seems to be a party line. 2. There are some mystery exchanges like 327 which are dialable from Ottawa phones, but neither ALEX's rate/place name feature nor any other sources seem to know what that is (it would be in 613 as the 819 area code version is long distance from Ottawa-Hull). The whole plan of an Ottawa-Hull exchange, split over two area codes (613 and 819) is something of a mysterious thing itself. 3. Many payphones also feature an experimental voice message system that kicks in if a call is busy or not answered. You are given the option to record a message, for which the Bell system will call your target phone every fifteen minutes for two hours attempting to deliver it. There are a few bugs with it, as it is possible to flash a switchhook after dialing up a wrong number recording, then getting the recording asking if you want to record a message or not. Wonder where the message goes from there if the number doesn't exist ...??? Any bugs mentioned above are subject to fixing, perhaps even by the time this gets read. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 09:34:29 PDT From: Sam Cramer Subject: Telephone Timer I've been getting calls (possibly from a fax machine or autodialer) at home at annoyingly early hours. I'd like to find a simple timer-controlled device which would disconnect the phone from the phone line. Can anyone recommend such a device? An off-the-shelf solution is great, but I'm willing to do a bit of soldering if it is fairly straight-forward. Sam ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 14:16:31 EDT From: Warren Tucker Subject: Need Strapping Info for 400D KTU I have pieced together an ancient 1A2 KTS from many collectors of fine junk and have it working (sort of). Two of my lines are serviced by 400H KTUs and work just fine. The third line uses a 400D and the lamp doesn't wink on ring. It has been 15 years since I installed any key systems and I have forgotten how to strap 440Ds. I would appreciate e-mail from anyone who has information on how to strap the 6-style clips mounted inside the card handle. Hey, I am sticking with Only The Best: 2565 phones. (Anyone know where I can find a 50-line 630 Call Director :-) ?) I tried to find an old 1A relay-laden klunker (the one with the aluminum can covering the relays), but couldn't. Any information would be greatly appeciated. Warren Tucker, TuckerWare gatech!n4hgf!wht or wht%n4hgf@gatech.edu ------------------------------ From: John Wing Subject: What is Intellidial? Date: 27 Jun 90 23:07:20 GMT Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Can anyone please explain what Intellidial is?? Thanks, John Wing; Digital Equipment Corp.; 150 Coulter Drive; Concord, Mass. wingj@social.dec.com -or- ...!decuac!social.dec.com!wingj [Moderator's Note: Intellidial is sometimes called 'Starline', depending on the telco selling it. It is a package of centrex features for residential telephone lines, including such features as intercom calling between phones on your premises; pick up a ringing line from any other line on your premises; transfer calls between lines, etc. For more information, see the Telecom Archives file on the subject. The Telecom Archives is accessible using 'ftp lcs.mit.edu' and then when on line, 'cd telecom-archives'. Get the file 'index.to.archives' for a complete directory. You can also get archives files from the archives mail server 'bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu'. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 10:28:18 -0400 From: Henry Mensch Subject: BellSouth Wins New Zealand Contract Reply-To: henry@garp.mit.edu Spotted on the {Times} wire ... BellSouth Corp. said Tuesday it had been awarded one of three licenses to provide cellular telephone service in New Zealand. Two consortiums identified as Ready Form No. 43 Ltd. and Write or Wrong Ltd. won the other licenses. A spokeswoman for BellSouth, based in Atlanta, said the company did not know what companies had sponsored these applications. The New Zealand Commerce Ministry, the agency that issued the licenses, could not be reached for comment. # Henry Mensch / / E40-379 MIT, Cambridge, MA # / / ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 22:00:06 EDT From: Mike Riddle Subject: Comments For V&H FORTRAN Routines Reply-to: Mike.Riddle@f27.n285.z1.fidonet.org [Moderator's Note: This message was intended to accompany the V&H Fortan routines which appeared in Digest # 458 early Wednesday. Unfortunatly it was delayed in transmission and arrived here later. PT] The file in the accompanying message contains the routines I mentioned. It contains several Fortran subroutines which should be quasi-obvious to implement. If you don't code Fortran, you could probably understand them from either BASIC or Pascal; if you can't comprehend the math involved, then you may be in over your head already. When using the coordinate system, it is NOT necessary that you have the same X-Y grid as the phone company so long as you are using statute miles, nautical miles, furlongs, picometers or whatever consistent with their distancing measurement. The most convenient way to do it is probably to use real-Earth latitudes and longitudes and PAY ATTENTION TO WHICH ROUTINES USE DEGREES AND WHICH ARE IN RADIANS. If you really want a polished, finished product, I really can't comply as I am under some conflict of interest restrictions (sounds nebulous because it is). Thanks for the bevy of responses I received. Jim R. --- Ybbat (DRBBS) 8.9 v. 3.11 r.3 [1:285/27@fidonet] The Inns of Court 402/593-1192 (1:285/27.0) --- Through FidoNet gateway node 1:16/390 Mike.Riddle@f27.n285.z1.fidonet.org ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 9:44:02 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: Number of NXX in Each NPA "10 digit" should apparently be "11 digit". (In the following lines, "included" does not refer to unused area codes; list includes all N0X/N1X codes except N00.) 908 is already included? 201/908 split hasn't taken place yet. 903 is already included? 214/903 split hasn't taken place yet. Does 202 still include Md. and Va. suburbs? 704 apparently does NOT require 11 digits for ALL toll calls? 919 does. 706 and 905 included? (They are still used at this time for Mexico?) 602 (Arizona) requires 11 digits for toll calls within it. 313 (Michigan) reduced toll calls within it to 7 digits. Perhaps you meant + to mean "has N0X/N1X prefixes, but no split planned yet". 201, which does have a split coming, has N0X/N1X prefixes, but uses seven digits for toll calls within it. ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA Date: 27 Jun 90 03:02:04 PDT (Wed) From: John Higdon Isaac Rabinovitch writes: > Why should the telco spend even a little extra > for a feature if they can't charge extra for providing it? Maybe just to provide more up-to-date service. > It is true that if they just passed the extra cost of call waiting, But what IS this extra cost? You can't get a generic for any switch today that doesn't have the usual custom calling features built in. Frankly, I anticipated that there would be at least someone who didn't read what I said. But a better example was this: Heath Roberts writes: > This isn't quite true. Telephone companies have to pay quite a bit for > the software (and sometimes hardware) to provide these advanced > features. Call waiting, call forwarding, and three-way calling are not, repeat not advanced features. They have been part and parcel of stock generics for over twenty years. Try to buy a switch without them. > Software from NT often costs as much as the switch. And which release does not contain the usual custom calling? How much cheaper is it than that which does? Are the fees based on how many customers are subscribing to the features? If not, wouldn't it be better for the telco to charge everyone (spread the cost around)? > ANY switch requires more tone receivers to support more TT lines. > They're getting cheaper, so this is becoming a moot point. The > current-break detector used for pulse-dial lines is still cheaper, > though. Are you saying that there are electronic (analog or digital) CO switches out there that are not 100% TT equipped? What backwater telco could possibly be that cheap (or stupid)? I'm not being a wise guy; I'd really like to know. Not even Pac*Bell would be that silly. > Once again, the software required for custom calling features > costs the telco quite a bit. Then again, TT dialing saves the telco > money since wrong numbers are less common and dialing is faster, > thereby reducing overhead (non-talk) time to complete a call. My original point was: if telcos are expected to charge for custom calling, then why not TT? To say that TT reduces costs for various reasons is disingenuous. It could just as legitimately be said that call waiting increases revenues for the telco by allowing calls to be completed that would otherwise end in busy signals. Or that forwarding allows the telco to charge twice for one call, or that three-way encourages more calls (and more call revenue). As a sidebar, GTE Mobilnet dropped all of its monthly charges for all of its six custom calling features and just provide them as part of the service to its contract customers (at a reduced overall monthly rate at that). If features cost so much to provide (or don't intrinsically generate revenue) why would Mobilnet bother? John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 9:08:23 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: AT&T 'COCOT' Style Payphones I don't understand this stuff about cutting off the keypad (I saw a note saying this happened on a NY Tel payphone in JFK airport in New York after 0-xxx-xxx-xxxx). That self-service credit-card-number- entry was put in in the first place because overheard credit card numbers are a prime source of fraud, right? ------------------------------ From: Henry Troup Subject: Re: US/Canada Only One Digit Code? Date: 27 Jun 90 18:51:35 GMT Reply-To: Henry Troup Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ltd. In article <9169@accuvax.nwu.edu> bcsaic!carroll@beaver.cs. washington.edu (Jeff Carroll) writes: > I understand that one of the (multiple) phone systems in Saudi >Arabia is based on the North American digital hierarchy, and that AT&T >has had people operating telecom in that part of the world for years. Ahem, Bell Canada has the contract for building and operating the Saudi telephone system, and has had for some time. Obnoxious patriotic Canadian... Henry Troup - BNR owns but does not share my opinions ..uunet!bnrgate!hwt%bwdlh490 HWT@BNR.CA 613-765-2337 ------------------------------ From: Henry Troup Subject: Re: Sverige Direkt Date: 27 Jun 90 18:47:35 GMT Reply-To: Henry Troup Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ltd. In article <9087@accuvax.nwu.edu> foxtail!kravitz@ucsd.edu (Jody Kravitz) writes: >dan@sics.se (Dan Sahlin) writes: >>The list of countries and numbers for "Sverige Direkt" are as follows >> Canada 1800 463 8129 >> USA 1800 345 0046 >I couldn't resist trying these numbers. The Canadian 800 number was >intercepted with "Your call cannot be completed as dialed >6194T". Well, from Canada the Canadian number gave an unfamiliar but European dial tone. I hung up before it was answered. Henry Troup - BNR owns but does not share my opinions | Not one of 100% of ..uunet!bnrgate!hwt%bwdlh490 HWT@BNR.CA 613-765-2337 | Americans ------------------------------ From: Tom Perrine Subject: Re: Junkmailed! Date: 27 Jun 90 17:49:32 GMT Reply-To: Tom Perrine Organization: Logicon, Inc., San Diego, California In article <9298@accuvax.nwu.edu> dattier@chinet.chi.il.us (David Tamkin) writes: >Someone who signed himself John David Galt (I see "John Galt" as a CB >handle quite a bit, so it must be the name of some fictional >character, and thus might not be the submitter's actual name) wrote in >volume 10, issue 452, completely misunderstanding my position: John Galt is the name of a primary character in Ann Rand's novel _Atlas Shrugged_. **SPOILER WARNING** Not to provide any killer spoilers: (some of which may even be remotely telecom related, in light of the recent discussions of LoD, search and seizure, etc.) This novel is centrally concerned with issues of freedom, personal choice and personal responsibility. As the society becomes increasingly coercive, and those who can't increasingly *demand* services from those who can, those who can "drop-out" and refuse to be slaves to the society. John Galt is the "leader" of those Atlases who refuse to be slaves of the society in which they have no say, and "shrug" the burdens that are imposed on them. All in all, an excellent book. Tom Perrine (tep) |Internet: tep@tots.Logicon.COM Logicon |UUCP: nosc!hamachi!tots!tep Tactical and Training Systems Division |-or- sun!suntan!tots!tep San Diego CA |GENIE: T.PERRINE "Harried: with preschoolers" |+1 619 455 1330 Home of the _Tower Operator Training System_ as seen in the SunTech Journal. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 12:25 EDT From: "Robert M. Hamer" Subject: Re: Infoworld, AT&T and Rumor Squleching On Mon, 25 Jun 90 16:21 CDT, TK0JUT2%NIU.BITNET@uicvm.uic.edu wrote: >Many of us are still seething about the Infoworld blurb in "Notes from >It also seems that Robert Cringely's account was inaccurate in many >respects. First, the crash occured in January, not February; second, If anyone wants to tell Robert Cringely how unhappy he or she is with the story, his e-mail address is cringe@mci.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #459 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa23515; 29 Jun 90 4:33 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa31362; 29 Jun 90 2:56 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa14168; 29 Jun 90 1:48 CDT Date: Fri, 29 Jun 90 0:52:11 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #460 BCC: Message-ID: <9006290052.ab24864@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 29 Jun 90 00:50:19 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 460 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Manhole Covers [Sean Malloy] Re: Manhole Covers [C. D. Covington] Re: Manhole Covers [Mark Brader] Re: Manhole Covers [Jerry Leichter] Re: Uniform International Dialing [Alan Sanderson] Re: 800 Surcharge [David E. Bernholdt] Re: AT&T 'COCOT' Style Payphones [J. Philip Miller] Re: Sprint Users Now Get Immediate Credit [William Kucharski] Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA [Lang Zerner] Re: Avoiding Unlisted Number Charge [Eric Varsanyi] Re: Avoiding Unlisted Number Charge [Leonard P. Levine] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Malloy Subject: Re: Manhole Covers Date: 27 Jun 90 14:08:21 GMT Reply-To: Sean Malloy Organization: Navy Personnel R&D Center, San Diego In article <9206@accuvax.nwu.edu> rees@dabo.ifs.umich.edu (Jim Rees) writes: >>Has anyone ever noticed non-round manhole covers? Nashua and Hudson, >>N.H. have TRIANGULAR ones - don't know what service or utility. >I think this has been discussed before. Round covers are popular >because it's impossible for the cover to fall into the hole. You're missing the other reason -- manhole covers are round because it reduces the complexity of the decision the workers have to make when putting it back. Sean Malloy Navy Personnel Research & Development Center San Diego, CA 92152-6800 malloy@nprdc.navy.mil ------------------------------ From: "C. D. Covington" Subject: Re: Manhole Covers Date: 27 Jun 90 14:53:43 GMT Organization: College of Engineering, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville In article <9276@accuvax.nwu.edu>, yarvin-norman@cs.yale.edu (Norman Yarvin) writes: > rees@dabo.ifs.umich.edu (Jim Rees) writes: > >>Has anyone ever noticed non-round manhole covers? Nashua and Hudson, > >>N.H. have TRIANGULAR ones - don't know what service or utility. > >I think this has been discussed before. Round covers are popular > >because it's impossible for the cover to fall into the hole. > This also holds for triangular covers. (only if they are equilateral, > though.) I can't keep from jumping in on this last comment. I don't believe this to be true. The property of round covers that keeps them from falling through is that of constant width. There exist an entire family of possible closed curves of constant width, the most obvious being a perfect circle. An equilateral triangle is not one of them. On the other hand, if you take the vertices of the equilateral triangle and use a compass to construct three arcs, each passing through two vertices and using the other vertex as a center point, then an alternative curve of constant width results. That is, if the points A, B, and C are equidistant from each other. The place the compass point on A and draw an arc from B to C, and repeat this process with the point on B and then C, drawing arcs to the remaining points. A manhole cover constructed in this way will not fall through. Try it by cutting this shape out of a piece of cardboard and dropping it against the hole you made cutting it out. It works! C. David Covington (WA5TGF) cdc@uafhcx.uark.edu (501) 575-6583 Asst Prof, Elec Eng Univ of Arkansas Fayetteville, AR 72701 ------------------------------ From: Mark Brader Subject: Re: Manhole Covers Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto Date: Thu, 28 Jun 1990 05:25:42 -0400 >>I think this has been discussed before. Round covers are popular >>because it's impossible for the cover to fall into the hole. >This also holds for triangular covers. (only if they are equilateral, >though.) Hold the lid with one edge vertical, and it will go in just fine if placed next to one edge of the opening. So an equilateral triangle *doesn't* work. What does work is a "Reuleaux triangle", where each side is not a straight line but an arc centered on the opposite vertex. This is the second-simplest (after the circle) of what are called "curves of constant breadth", any of which will also work. However, round covers have the additional advantage that there is no wrong way to put them in the hole. Mark Brader SoftQuad Inc., Toronto utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 12:03:03 EDT From: Jerry Leichter Subject: Re: Manhole Covers Norman Yarvin claims that a triangular manhole cover cannot fall through its own hole "if it's equilateral". As Spock said in Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn - he displays two-dimensional thinking. Stand an equilateral triangle up on one corner so that one side is perpendicular to the ground. Its maximum cross-section is now the height of the triangle, which is quite a bit less than the length of one side. (sqrt(3)/2 times as large, about .866). It can thus easily be dropped through its own hole by keeping it resting along one edge of the hole. There ARE geometrical figures other than circles whose cross-section is constant at all points - Scientific American's Mathematical Games section had articles on this years ago, with speculations about carriages with wheels of this shape. The simplest such figure is easy to draw: Start with an equilateral triangle. From each corner, draw a circular arc joining the other two corners. The resulting "bulging" triangle has the required property. As a result, it cannot fall into its own hole if used as a manhole cover. As I recall, such covers are actually used somewhere! BTW, someone brought up the issue of "non-sexist" names for manhole covers. There was an article in the paper about this a couple of days ago. It seems that some city - San Diego? - has adopted new language for the things on all official city maps and drawings - something like "service access portal". The change started out as a joke which someone took seriously. -- Jerry ------------------------------ From: Alan_Sanderson Subject: Re: Uniform International Dialing Date: 27 Jun 90 17:51:22 GMT Organization: HP Pacific Technology Park - Sunnyvale, Ca. While traveling in the San Diego area, I attempted to use a pay phone to call into Mexico using a calling card. Instead of a "bong", I was connected to an operator, who informed me that I could not make a calling card call to Mexico from a pay phone, because the pay phone was located in a "high fraud area", and suggested that I find a residence phone to use. Alan Sanderson Hewlett-Packard AMSO alans@hpams0a.HP.COM US Snail: 1266 Kifer Rd. MS102F MaBell: 408-746-5714 Sunnyvale, CA 94086 FAX: 408-746-5571 Disclaimer: [Moderator's Note: I wonder what made the idiot operator think that if you had had a choice of residence or payphone to use you would have chosen to stand in their filthy phone booth instead of sitting in comfort in your home? This odious practice -- of denying credit card calls willy-nilly from payphones, particularly after phone credit cards were advertised as a way to use public phones without having to worry about having change -- will only stop, eventually, once the telco in particular has been sued often enough and had to answer enough Federal Trade Commission and FCC complaints. Please note telcos have *no authority by tariff* to make a blanket denial of credit based on the location or type of service (coin phone). They are violating Federal Trade Commission rules everytime they issue you a credit card and then refuse to honor it without sending you a written letter of denial explaining why. Of course, they are not about to explain in writing why they will serve the UK without question and why they refuse to serve callers to (for example), Iran on the same basis. Telcos *hate* Small Claims Court (hint, hint). They consider it beneath them. Take them there whenever you are denied credit in a discriminatory way by an operator and inconvenienced as a result. Force one of their attornies to have to spend the morning there, or responding to an inquiry about illegal credit practices from the FTC. AT&T has already settled with at least one customer on this. PT] ------------------------------ From: "David E. Bernholdt" Subject: Re: 800 Surcharge Date: 28 Jun 90 15:49:51 GMT Reply-To: "David E. Bernholdt" Organization: University of Florida Quantum Theory Project In article <9339@accuvax.nwu.edu> covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 457, Message 3 of 12 [ description of US Sprint operator assisted dialing for customers on rotary phones ] >This could work with other LD companies *provided* they (1) offer >routine operator services and (2) they have an 800 number to reach >that operator. MCI misses on item (1). AT&T misses on item (2). MCI has had similar capabilities for a while now. I very rarely have occasion to use it, so I don't remember the details and costs exactly, but the method was essentially the same as Sprint's and I seem to recall that if you said you were on a rotary phone, they wouldn't charge the operator-assist fee. David Bernholdt bernhold@qtp.ufl.edu Quantum Theory Project bernhold@ufpine.bitnet University of Florida Gainesville, FL 32611 904/392 6365 ------------------------------ From: "J. Philip Miller" Subject: Re: AT&T 'COCOT' Style Payphones Organization: Division of Biostatistics, Washington Univ., St. Louis, MO Date: Thu, 28 Jun 90 17:20:06 GMT In article <8955@accuvax.nwu.edu> blake@pro-party.cts.com (Blake Farenthold) writes: >number and it locks out the keypad (it really was annoying as the one >call I made on it was to my voice mailbox and I couldn't retreive my >messages). When I was on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon all of the Pay Phones were by Mountain West. Some were traditional old style, and a number had a LCD display attached. What I found fascinating was that the card on the phone indicated that since they did not provide long distance service you needed to consult with "your long distance carrier" for instructions about how to dial long distance calls - even the phone books carried no instructions about how to make long distance calls :-( In fact 0+ dialing gave me ATT long distance :-), but when trying to access an 800 service which required tone input, it would regularly disconnect me after entering tones :-( J. Philip Miller, Professor, Division of Biostatistics, Box 8067 Washington University Medical School, St. Louis MO 63110 phil@wubios.WUstl.edu - Internet (314) 362-3617 uunet!wuarchive!wubios!phil - UUCP (314)362-2693(FAX) C90562JM@WUVMD - bitnet ------------------------------ From: William Kucharski Subject: Re: Sprint Users Now Get Immediate Credit Organization: Solbourne Computer, Inc., Longmont CO Date: Thu, 28 Jun 90 19:09:54 GMT In article <9345@accuvax.nwu.edu> Jason Chen You can get immediate credit ... if and only if you can get through >their always-busy customer service. Yup, they have not changed a bit >since I dropped them three years ago. When's the last time you used Sprint -- three years ago? I've had reason to contact Sprint customer service a few times over the last few months. Twice I got right through, once I had to wait all of fifteen seconds or so. Big deal. | Internet: kucharsk@Solbourne.COM | William Kucharski | | uucp: ...!{boulder,sun,uunet}!stan!kucharsk | Solbourne Computer, Inc. | = The opinions above are mine alone and NOT those of Solbourne Computer, Inc. = ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Jun 90 15:24:11 PDT From: Lang Zerner Subject: Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca. In article <9183@accuvax.nwu.edu> john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: >Lang Zerner writes: >> ... PacBell has finally ... removed the "value-added" fee for Touch-Tone >Oh? When did they remove it? I'm still paying it, last time I checked. OK. To be precise, PacBell announced in a bill-stuffer that Pac Bell has applied to the PUC that the charge be removed. The proposal still gets to go through an open hearing and all the rest of the red tape. Unfortunately, I did not save the notice, since it is not all that important to me. Nevertheless, John's message encouraged me to get mor detailed info for others who may be more interested than I. The Pac Bell employees I spoke with did not seem to know much about application, except that it had been sent to the CPUC (they no doubt got the same notice in their bills :-). The CPUC was a bit more helpful. After calling the CPUC (415/557-0647) and getting connected to the telecommunications dept., I was transfered to Mr. Galen Dunham, "the man who really knows about that." While courteous and affable, Mr. Dunham did not even know the application number of the proposal. He was able to tell me that similar proposals have come up in the past and failed to make the tariffs mainly because of the cost of new plant. Mr. Dunham explained that eventually, the justification for the fee (cost of new plant) will not be there anymore, at which point the tariff change will go into effect. Mr. Dunham then referred me to Ms. Pat Ma (415/557-3766) and Ms. Sheila Otteson (415/557-1580), "the people who really know details about the proposal"). I have been trying to reach them to get the application number, but to no avail. I've left a message with them, and if they call back I will post what I learn. Otherwise, I won't bother, but interested parties now know how to contact them. Be seeing you... Lang Zerner langz@prodigal.sun.com 415/594-9268 ------------------------------ From: Eric Varsanyi Subject: Re: Avoiding Unlisted Number Charge Date: 28 Jun 90 19:54:18 GMT Organization: Cray Computer Corporation In article <9352@accuvax.nwu.edu> rkaplan@nlm.nih.gov (Richard Kaplan) writes: >Could I not tell the phone company that I wish my number to be listed >as Hugo Gorschonavitz? Or as my own name spelled backward? Or as Mr. >Unlisted K. Number? Or do they insist that I use my legal name as it >appears on my bill? I didn't feel like paying the $2/mo to be unpublished, so I told USWest that we wished to be listed under my wife's maiden name, which (conveniently) was 'Smith' (I looked for the name with the most pages in the directory). Since her name is Ami we are now listed as 'A Smith', no address. They didn't hesitate or ask for any kind of proof. They did allow me to not be listed in criss cross directory for no charge. All this after a long argument about paying $2/mo. So far the only call we've gotten for A Smith was from 611 repair (you would think they have access to the actual records). Eric Varsanyi (ewv@craycos.com) Cray Computer Corporation ------------------------------ From: Leonard P Levine Subject: Re: Avoiding Unlisted Number Charge Date: 29 Jun 90 02:51:07 GMT Reply-To: levine@csd4.csd.uwm.edu Some years ago we listed our phone in the name of our cat, Mehitabel. We received many calls for Ms. DeKatte, and we generally responded that she was out in the garage under the car, or in the front yard climbing a tree, true responses generally. The only time we had a problem was when, one dark and stormy night, a salesman came to call on our cat with a life insurance offer. He was wet through, and I did not have the heart to tell him who he was looking for (he wanted Miss Mehitabel Dekkett) and we let him go back in the rain. A good time was had by all. This was the most fun I ever had since the time I declared my house to be on daylight savings time and demanded evening rates one hour earlier than the rest of Minnesota from the phone company. I made the Minneaplis Star(?) on that one. | Leonard P. Levine e-mail levine@cs.uwm.edu | | Professor, Computer Science Office (414) 229-5170 | | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Home (414) 962-4719 | | Milwaukee, WI 53201 U.S.A. FAX (414) 229-6958 | ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #460 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa23585; 29 Jun 90 4:37 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab31362; 29 Jun 90 3:00 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab14168; 29 Jun 90 1:48 CDT Date: Fri, 29 Jun 90 1:36:03 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #461 BCC: Message-ID: <9006290136.ab12166@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 29 Jun 90 01:35:35 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 461 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson TELECOM Digest/comp.dcom.telecom Off-Line [TELECOM Moderator] Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe [Robert Kinne] Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe [Jerry Leichter] Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe [Jim McCauley] The Elusive Octothorpe Explained [Steve Pershing] Re: Answering Machine Security [Roy M. Silvernail] Re: Can One Disable Call-Waiting If *70 Doesn't Work? [Chris Williams] Re: Avoiding Unlisted Number Charge [John Higdon] Re: Junkmailed! [Dave Mc Mahan] Re: Infoworld, AT&T and Rumor Squelching [Sharon Fisher] Re: Last Laugh! "Telephone Fishing" [Jim McCauley] Phony Bell Wanted (Not a Bell Phone) [James Deibele] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 29 Jun 90 1:02:33 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: TELECOM Digest/comp.dcom.telecom Off-Line TELECOM Digest and comp.dcom.telecom are off line at this time while I am away from my home for several days. Publication of this news group will resume on July 7 or July 8. Please do not send messages until July 7, as they cannot be printed until I return and will only sit in an over-loaded mail queue. Messages appearing from now through July 3 are simply REplies to previously published articles. Patrick Townson TELECOM Moderator ------------------------------ From: Robert Kinne Subject: Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe Date: 27 Jun 90 14:45:54 GMT Reply-To: Robert Kinne Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder In article <9204@accuvax.nwu.edu> erik@naggum.uu.no (Erik Naggum) writes: >Prelude: "Octothorp" (sans final `e') is listed in (Merriam) Webster's >Third New Int'l Dictionary with etymology "octo + thorp, of unknown >origin; from the eight points on its circumference". "Thorp(e)" is >archaic for "village, hamlet", but that can't be it. I have a lurking suspicion that the derivation may be from a proper name. Thorpe is a rather common family name in the UK and the US. Perhaps at some earlier era a telephone engineer named Thorpe combined the octo (eight) with his name to designate the symbol in a way which avoids the confusion of some of the other usages which vary from country to country. Anyone have any knowledge, ideas, or folklore along these lines? >I've heard that the `#' symbol's meaning is context dependent: > #5 means "number five" > 5# means "five lbs (pounds)" The latter is American usage. The same symbol is also referred to as 'sharp', based on its usage in music (actually the symbol for sharp is a bit skewed, but the octothorpe is a good approximation, as well as can be done with ASCII or typewriters). Most Americans will still refer to # as 'pound sign'. In the US, of course, pound is a unit of force in the British Gravitational System of units (now archaic except in the US). Now everyone should be confused! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 12:03:03 EDT From: Jerry Leichter Subject: Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe Several people noted (ahem) that # and the musical sharp sign were "the same". This is not quite true. The musical sharp sign is normally smaller and has its four lines at an angle to the vertical and horizontal - often almost a 45 degree angle. Even more noticable is that the sharp is a superscript - it's not placed quite as high as, say, a superscript 2 for "squared" - for one thing, it's bigger - but it is definitely well above the baseline. Obviously, different fonts will choose slightly different representations for each character, so there may be some overlap. However, the character is never raised (much) above the baseline when used for "number" or "pounds", but is always raised when used for "sharp". BTW, yet another name for "#" is "hash mark". Knuth uses that in The TeXbook, for example. Both "number sign" and "pound sign" appear in the index marked "see hash mark". (On the other hand, so does "sharp sign". However, an example in the book defines a \sharp macro as a hash mark - but a hash mark raised above the baseline by .4 ex, .4 times the nominal height of an "x" character in the font.) -- Jerry ------------------------------ From: Jim McCauley Subject: Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe Date: 27 Jun 90 20:42:37 GMT Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino In the index of `The TeXbook', Donald Knuth calls the <#> character "hash mark." Jim McCauley jem@hpulpcu3.hp.com (408) 447-4993 Learning Products Engineer Hewlett Packard Company, General Systems Division MS 48SO, 19447 Pruneridge Avenue, Cupertino CA 95014 Disclaimer: My opinions are my own, not my employer's. ------------------------------ Subject: The Elusive Octothorpe Explained From: Steve Pershing Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 21:49:39 PDT Organization: The Questor Project hardarso@weiss.cs.unc.edu (Kari Hardarson) writes: > I thought that the : # sign was called a 'Hash' mark before I came to > the states. Maybe that's British English? Here in the States, a lot of > my colleagues refer to it as the 'Pound sign', something that I can't > understand since the pound sign is distinctly different. In UK-ASCII > tables, the pound sign usually gets placed where the # is in American > ASCII, that may explain something. Incidentally, in my language > (Icelandic) we refer to the sign as 'The mill'. ; The most creative name I ever saw for the # symbol was defined by Northern Telecom, and as many readers know, it was "octothorpe". The meaning of the word was defined by NT as "an eight-cornered figure". Since there are so many different names for the # symbol around the world, NT wanted to be unique, and indeed they were. I doubt that anyone actually calls it by their name (octothorpe) *anywhere* in the world. Some years ago, after Bell Labs had defined the Touch-Tone dial, the CCITT adopted it and the standard tones generated by it as a de facto standard. (Various branches of the US military use a different tone matrix on similar dialling pads.) The CCITT displayed (in the White Book, I believe), a 12-button Touch-Tone dial with the # symbol appearing more as a slightly stylized square, rather than identical to the #. They then wisely designated that symbol as the "square" symbol, and the key, as the "square key". Since my reading of that definition, I have always referred to it as the "SQUARE KEY", and hardly anyone from anywhere in the world has ever had any trouble figuring out what I was referring to when my computerised answering device asks them to touch it. So folks, why don't we all forget "pound", "number", et alia, and start calling it what the official World Standard is. Nothing like being able to communicate clearly, eh wot? Internet: sp@questor.wimsey.bc.ca | POST: 1027 Davie Street, Box 486 Phones: Voice/FAX: +1 604 682-6659 | Vancouver, British Columbia Data/BBS: +1 604 681-0670 | Canada V6E 4L2 [Moderator's Note: Long-time Digest readers will recall that over a year ago I put out a special issue entitled "Everything You Wanted to Know About Octothropes" ... If I get many more messages on this topic this time, another special issue will be required. PT] ------------------------------ From: "Roy M. Silvernail" Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 04:44:38 CDT Organization: Villa CyberSpace, Minneapolis, MN Subject: Re: Answering Machine Security cambler@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Fubar) writes: > I have one of those answering machines with the autoretrieve code > feature. This feature cannot be turned off, nor can the code be > changed. Someone is calling my home and retrieving as well as erasing > my messages. Anyone have any ideas what I can do? I'm afraid your only choice is to replace the machine. Is it one of those that takes a single digit code? While we're on this subject ... why _aren't_ those codes changable? My Code-A-Phone 2600 has a 3-digit code, which is a tad bit more secure, but I still cannot alter it. Seems a small 3-gang rotary switch, or even some jumper blocks, would be easy enough to design in. Roy M. Silvernail | Opinions found now available at: | herein are mine, cybrspc!roy@cs.umn.edu | but you can rent (cyberspace... be here!) | them. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 15:24 CDT From: Chris Williams Subject: Re: Can One Disable Call-Waiting If *70 Doesn't Work? >Can one disable call waiting in New York if the *70 tone block feature >didn't work? Is there another way, this reeks havoc on data calls, as >you can imagine. I hate call waiting, that's why I wouldn't ever get >it, but one of my news feeds has it, and it's quite annoying for him. >[Moderator's Note: I don't think call waiting can be suspended if *70 >does not work, since that is what *70 is all about. But why would >someone have ordered call waiting on a line used for a news feed in >the first place? He should call telco and have it removed. PT] Here in Texas, where GTE is the phone service, (at least in a couple of places I know of - Denton and Irving are examples) you *must* have call-waiting. You can't get rid of it. I just recently moved here from Fort Worth (SW Bell area), and now I discover that I'm plauged with call-waiting!!!! aaauuugghhh! People who live here have told me that I'm just stuck with it, that it was a fault of the switches GTE uses... so, is there any way I could get my telco to remove it? chris williams, 'gilligan' CGW@UNTVAX{.bitnet} cgw@vaxb.acs.unt.edu programmer/operator NTVAXB::CGW UTSPAN::UTADNX::NTVAXB::CGW university of north texas at&t : +1 817 565-4161 denton, texas 76203 ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Avoiding Unlisted Number Charge Date: 27 Jun 90 21:31:06 PDT (Wed) From: John Higdon On Jun 27 at 2:35, TELECOM Moderator writes: > [Moderator's Note: Generally, telling them the phone will be listed in > your roommate's name (or mother's name, etc) will work provided the > name is (in their sole discretion) reasonable, 'real sounding' and > unoffensive. If they suspect you are merely trying to circumvent the > charge for a non-pub number, they may ask you to produce the person in > whose name the service is to be listed, or offer proof that the name > is correct. PT] Pac*Bell seems to take a slightly different stance on this. Recently, I discovered that because my billing number on a consolidated group is not the "public" number (a recent change) and the billing number is unlisted, the "public" number (in my .signature) can no longer be listed. In essence, I am now forced to pay for unlisting even though I would like to have one of my phones listed. My options (as suggested by the Pac*Bell rep): 1. Deconsolidate the billing. 2. List the billing number in a phony name (to avoid unlisting charges). 3. Make the "public" number the billing number. 4. List the billing number in a phony name (making it a "listed class of service") and then list my "public" number in my real name. Number 4 is my avenue of choice, although the rep suggested that I would start getting junk calls directed to my phony "person" on my private line. Note that not only will they allow a phony listing, but the rep even suggested it. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Dave Mc Mahan Subject: Re: Junkmailed! Date: 28 Jun 90 02:55:47 GMT Organization: Dave McMahan @ NetCom Services In a previous article, dattier@chinet.chi.il.us (David Tamkin) writes: >Someone who signed himself John David Galt (I see "John Galt" as a CB >handle quite a bit, so it must be the name of some fictional >character, and thus might not be the submitter's actual name) wrote in >volume 10, issue 452, completely misunderstanding my position: [Stuff deleted here] Yes, John Galt is a fictional character from the novel, "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rynd. (I'm not sure of spelling of the author's name. It's been about fifteen years since I read the book). The plot was kind of thick, but basically the guy was thought (until the end of the novel) to be a fictitious person. In the book, it was very common to see the phrase, "Who is John Galt?" scrawled as graffiti in a decaying world. As I recall, he turned out to be a brilliant engineer who had dedicated himself to saving the world and was using a very non-conventional approach. -dave ------------------------------ From: Sharon Fisher Subject: Re: Infoworld, AT&T and Rumor Squleching Date: 28 Jun 90 21:39:10 GMT Reply-To: sharon@asylum.UUCP (Sharon Fisher) Organization: The Asylum; Belmont, CA In article <9369@accuvax.nwu.edu> HAMER524@ruby.vcu.edu (Robert M. Hamer) writes: >On Mon, 25 Jun 90 16:21 CDT, TK0JUT2%NIU.BITNET@uicvm.uic.edu wrote: >>Many of us are still seething about the Infoworld blurb in "Notes from >>It also seems that Robert Cringely's account was inaccurate in many >>respects. First, the crash occured in January, not February; second, >If anyone wants to tell Robert Cringely how unhappy he or she is with >the story, his e-mail address is cringe@mci.com This was being discussed on another system I visit. I used to work at InfoWorld, so I gave Bob a call to let him know what was happening. He says he's gotten *lots* of calls about this -- including some from AT&T -- telling him how wrong he'd been. However, his source for the story continues to swear it's true. (As of last week.) Anyway, I suggested that he could give me some sort of reference to pass out to people who could provide information about this -- in other words, that InfoWorld might want to assign a story on this (as opposed to a mention in a gossip column) and that I'd be glad to propogate the contact information. However, he hasn't gotten back to me about who would handle the story. If it weren't for the insistence of the source, though, he said he would have been perfectly willing to run a retraction on it. ------------------------------ From: Jim McCauley Subject: Re: Last Laugh! "Telephone Fishing" Date: 27 Jun 90 20:22:23 GMT Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino Last Laugh (not-so-funny dept.): Magneto-type telephones remain to this day a favorite instrument of torture in many nations throughout the world. The wires are attached to the genitalia (of both male and female prisoners). Graduated application of voltage is considered a fine art among torturers, many of whom were trained at American taxpayers' expense by our international ambassadors, the CIA. Amnesty International has documented the use of these instruments. It's not pleasant reading. Jim McCauley jem@hpulpcu3.hp.com (408) 447-4993 Learning Products Engineer Hewlett Packard Company, General Systems Division MS 48SO, 19447 Pruneridge Avenue, Cupertino CA 95014 Disclaimer: My opinions are my own, not my employer's. ------------------------------ From: James Deibele Subject: Phony Bell Wanted (Not a Bell Phone) Date: 27 Jun 90 21:14:21 GMT Reply-To: James Deibele Organization: TECHbooks - Beaverton, Oregon - Public Access Unix I have call-waiting on my phone line. When someone calls, I get a little beep in my ear, but the person I'm talking to doesn't hear anything. Where I had phone service before, the caller could hear a noticeable click. Many people knew what that "click!" meant, and would pause and ask if I needed to get the other call. Since I don't have the click anymore, and some people don't ever give me the chance to get a word in edgewise, I'd like to have a bell that sounds like a phone ringing --- I'd like to keep it next to the phone, and push (or pull or turn) it as needed. Of course, if I could use it to escape from telemarketers and assorted other goons, well, that would be OK too. Has anybody seen such a thing? At a reasonable price? Thanks! jamesd@techbook.COM ...!{tektronix!nosun,uunet}!techbook!jamesd Public Access UNIX at (503) 644-8135 (1200/2400) Voice: +1 503 646-8257 Technical books mailing list --- mail "techbook!tbj-request" ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #461 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa07917; 30 Jun 90 9:32 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa27182; 30 Jun 90 2:22 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab16606; 30 Jun 90 1:12 CDT Date: Sat, 30 Jun 90 0:06:13 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #462 BCC: Message-ID: <9006300006.ab19604@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 30 Jun 90 00:04:05 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 462 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson AT&T Red-Lining of Card Calls From Payphones [TELECOM Moderator] Re: International Calling Using Credit Card [Subbarayu Darisipudi] Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA [Tim Steele] Re: FCC Responds to Individual Complaints About AOSs [Ronald L. Fletcher] Re: Number of NXX in Each NPA [Bob Goudreau] Re: Number of NXX in Each NPA [Dave Esan] Cringely's Not the Enemy (Was: Infoworld, ATT Rumor) [jt] Re: Cellular Multiplexing & Cellular Modems [pyuxp!towernet!rigel!tiprvt] What is Telex? Is There an E-Mail Interface? [Allan B. Spiegel] TELECOM is Off Line Until July 8 [TELECOM Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 29 Jun 90 23:12:16 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: AT&T Red-Lining of Card Calls From Payphones In recent issues of the Digest, people have mentioned their inability to use the AT&T Calling Card from certain payphones in the United States to call certain foreign countries. Sometimes payphones reject credit card calls to one country, while allowing the same type of call to other countries. Is this sort of red-lining legal? Is it discriminatory to block calls to, for example, Mexico or Colombia, while allowing the same payphone to handle calls to the UK or France? Is it discriminatory to allow residents in one part of town to make credit card calls from payphones while refusing other credit-worthy citizens in another neighborhood the right to do the same thing? Since the Universal Card is a bona-fide credit card (in addition to its role as a phone card), are there violations of Federal Trade Commission regulations when AT&T refuses to extend credit (in this case both as the credit grantor as well as the seller) based on arbitrary red-lining of certain neighborhoods? In a phone conversation Friday with AT&T Public Relations, I asked these questions and more. Someone is supposed to get back to me soon with answers. You will be the first to hear them, once I get back from out of town next week ... provided AT&T has replied. Patrick Townson TELECOM Moderator ------------------------------ From: Subbarayu Darisipudi Subject: International Calling Using Credit Card Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK Date: Fri, 29 Jun 90 15:30:36 GMT With reference to the discussion going on to make international calls using calling/credit cards, let me relate my experiences. I have tried making calls both long distance within the US and overseas with a couple of different cards. Using AT&T card: For long distance calls: From pay phones: Dial 0 + Area Code + Number. A tone or message follows. Then punch in the calling card number. This is valid from pay phones with AT&T as their long distance carrier. If the carrier is not AT&T, then precede the above procedure with 10288 to access AT&T. For international calls: Dial 01 + Country Code + Area/City Code + Number. When prompted with tone or message enter the calling card/credit card number. Using the Universal Card of AT&T: For long distance within the US: Dial 0 + Area Code + Number. Then enter the calling card number and the "PIN" (Personal Identification Number) after the tone. If the phone does not have AT&T as the long distance carrier, then precede the above process with 10288 to access At&T. For international calls: The same process is applied except that instead of starting with 0 , you dial 01. Note: If you dial 011 when calling international numbers, the call is sent to the operator who then directs the call after taking your number and calling card number orally. Using the MCI card For long distance calls within the US: Dial 950-1022 to access the MCI network. A tone follows indicating that you are using MCI. After the tone dial 0 + area code + number. After a few seconds another tone follows. Now enter the 14 digit calling card code. At the end of the 14th digit, a confirmatory tone is heard if the code is correct and then the call is setup. If the code is incorrect a message follows asking you to verify the code. For international calls: Dial 950-1022. After tone dial 01 + Country Code + City Code + Number. After tone, dial the 14 digit code. All these work only on touch tone phones. When you use a rotary phone, dial 950-1022 and wait for the operator or dial 1-800-950-1022 and the operator will complete the call. Using Sprint card: For long distance calls within the US: Dial 1-800-877-8000. Wait for the "COMPUTER" tone. Dial 0 + Area Code + Phone number. Wait for the tone. (Is it another "COMPUTER" tone??!!!) Then dial the 14 digit code to set up the call. For international calls: I have tried to call up India using the card and a message follows immediately after the country code that you cannot call India using a calling card or from a pay phone but you can call only if you have a direct Sprint line connected to your phone. As far as their instructions go, the following process needs to be adopted: Dial 1-800-877-8000. Listen for COMPUTER tone. Dial 01 + Country Code + City Code + Number + # button. Listen for tone. Dial 14 digit code. This is based upon my experiences using the different calling cards from Norman, Oklahoma. The procedures may probably vary in different locations. Subbarayudu D [Moderator's Note: Although we know that Sprint will not accept their own Foncard using one plus (when defaulted to Sprint) or 10333 dialing, what about MCI? Can they handle their card calls via 10222 and/or one plus defaults? PT] ------------------------------ From: Tim Steele Subject: Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA Organization: Tadpole Technology plc Date: 29 Jun 90 11:13:17 Point in favour of British Telecom (gosh, they need them!): TT service is FREE on those exchanges that are TT equipped (conversion is taking some time, but many exchanges are now TT compatible). Point against: the charges for "Star Services" (three way, code calling &c) are confusing (they charge more than their brochure says!), convoluted (I defy anyone to work out what a particular package will cost!) and too high (but then I would say that, wouldn't I?!). The full package (from memory) is UK#16.52 per quarter plus 15% VAT (sales tax). Too much. Tim tjfs@tadtec.uucp ...!uunet!mcvax!ukc!tadtec!tjfs Tadpole Technology plc, Science Park, Milton Road, CAMBRIDGE, CB4 4WQ Phone: +44-223-423030 Fax: +44-223-420772 Telex: 817316 TADTEC G ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Jun 90 12:38:36 EDT From: Ronald L Fletcher Subject: Re: FCC Responds to Individual Complaints About AOSs Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories In article <9224@accuvax.nwu.edu> wrf@mab.ecse.rpi.edu (Wm Randolph Franklin) writes: > >Before writing my letter, I telephoned both ATT and FCC to determine > >the law. FCC said unequivocally that the hotel phones must handle > >10xxx properly. However ATT waffled; they commiserated with me but > >didn't they that the hotel had to connect me to them. Why would they > >not assert their rights? In article <9341@accuvax.nwu.edu>, unhd!unhtel!paul@uunet.uu.net (Paul S. Sawyer) writes: > Maybe it's because ATT's PBX's (e.g. System 85) can't handle 9-10288, etc.... Of course they can. They can dial any number they have been allowed to dial by the dial plan and routing administration. If there was an equal access number that had been restricted through hard-coding, I can assure you it would not be 10288. Ron Fletcher att!mtgzy!rlf ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Jun 90 13:43:41 edt From: Bob Goudreau Subject: Re: Number of NXX in Each NPA Reply-To: goudreau@larrybud.rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) Organization: Data General Corporation, Research Triangle Park, NC In article <9363@accuvax.nwu.edu>, cmoore@brl.mil (VLD/VMB) writes: |> 704 apparently does NOT require 11 digits for ALL toll calls? 919 does. When 11-digit intra-NPA long distance dialing became mandatory earlier this year in NC, an insert in my Southern Bell phone bill said it applied to BOTH area codes (919 and 704). Bob Goudreau +1 919 248 6231 Data General Corporation 62 Alexander Drive goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 ...!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!goudreau USA ------------------------------ From: Dave Esan Subject: Re: Number of NXX in Each NPA Date: 29 Jun 90 19:16:12 GMT Reply-To: Dave Esan Organization: Moscom Corp., E. Rochester, NY In article <9363@accuvax.nwu.edu> cmoore@brl.mil (VLD/VMB) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 459, Message 8 of 14 >"10 digit" should apparently be "11 digit". Actually 10 digit is correct. The eleventh digit is the access code, which technically should not be included. >908 is already included? 201/908 split hasn't taken place yet. Ah, but the 908 NPA is diallable from many places in the US, and is already included in the BellCore V&H tape. As a matter of fact it has been there since 1/15/90. >903 is already included? 214/903 split hasn't taken place yet. The 903 NPA was included in the 7/15/90 tape. >Does 202 still include Md. and Va. suburbs? Virginia was excluded early this year, Maryland by October. >704 apparently does NOT require 11 digits for ALL toll calls? 919 does. I noted that I was not sure of all the NPA's requiring the NPA for inter-NPA calls. >706 and 905 included? (They are still used at this time for Mexico?) They will be in use until 2/91. >602 (Arizona) requires 11 digits for toll calls within it. >313 (Michigan) reduced toll calls within it to 7 digits. Please note my comment above for 919. >Perhaps you meant + to mean "has N0X/N1X prefixes, but no split >planned yet". 201, which does have a split coming, has N0X/N1X >prefixes, but uses seven digits for toll calls within it. No, I said what I meant, and I meant what I said. (Ooops, I stole that from Dr. Seuss in "Horton Hears a Who".) The plus meant that 10 digit calling was required for intra-NPA, non-local calls. I can check for NPA's with nxx's that look like npa's, but I did not chose to at this time. --> David Esan {rutgers, ames, harvard}!rochester!moscom!de ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Jun 90 16:43 CDT From: jt Subject: What Is Telex? Is There an E-Mail Interface? Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Summit, NJ 07901 From time to time an article will give someone's telex number. What is this, how does it work and how do I use it? Is there some magic e-mail address that I can send mail to that will turn it into a telex like I can do for fax numbers? Thanks. I prefer e-mail responses. [Moderator's Note: Telex, and its close relatives TWX and telegrams are the oldest forms of e-mail in the world! Telegrams go back over a century, and Telex/TWX, which is simply the use of the 'telegraph network' directly by subscribers, without operator handling or intervention, goes back over half a century. Western Union's network, i.e. the (Tel)egraph (Ex)change was met with competition from the old Bell System's (T)ype(W)riter E(X)change many years ago. Bell sold TWX to Western Union. And of course, in recent years there are numerous other telex companies operating here and in other countries. And yes, there are 'magic email addresses' you can use: Both AT&T Mail and MCI Mail offer telex <==> email <==> FAX <==> US Mail interconnections. In case you were wondering, FAX is the (FA)csimile E(X)change. You can also subscribe to EasyLink, which is Western Union's own email service, and have a 'virtual TWX connection' in the process, with a TWX network number aliased to your EasyLink mailbox. You can likewise have a Telex number aliased to your AT&T Mail or MCI Mail box. Sprint's GTE/Telemail likewise offers in/outbound telex. Telex/TWX are gradually becoming obsolete and out of favor with business people who prefer the speed of email at 2400/9600 baud and the preciseness and literal qualities of FAX. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Jun 90 22:57:17 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: TELECOM is Off Line Until July 8 TELECOM Digest and the comp.dcom.telecom newsgroup is off line until July 8, since I will be away from home most of next week. Digests published between now and July 2 will include 'last minute' messages and REplies to earlier messages. You may resume sending messages to this newsgroup after July 7. Patrick Townson TELECOM Moderator ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #462 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa27305; 1 Jul 90 12:21 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab32110; 1 Jul 90 10:25 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa25233; 1 Jul 90 9:21 CDT Date: Sun, 1 Jul 90 8:33:22 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #463 BCC: Message-ID: <9007010833.ab28153@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 1 Jul 90 08:32:14 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 463 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Mysterious Disconnection [Rob Warnock] Telephone Company/Credit Card Tie-Ins [Jeff Jonas] Power Out Device [David Dodell] DTMF Decoder [John Lefor] Re: Manhole Covers [Marc T. Kaufman] Re: Motorola Plans Global Cellular Thrust [Michael Gammal] Is Santa Barbara Completely Destroyed? [TELECOM Moderator] Temporary Re-route and Resulting Problems [TELECOM Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 30 Jun 90 04:12:34 GMT From: Rob Warnock Subject: Mysterious Disconnection Reply-To: Rob Warnock Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA A mysterious thing happened to me a couple of days ago. I woke up to discover my primary home telephone was dead -- no battery voltage. (My modem line was still o.k.) After checking to make sure I'd paid my bill (!), I called repair service. [From the old-Telco-habits-die-hard file: Them: "What time will someone be home to let the repair person into the house?" Me: "I've checked at the demarc and there's no dial tone and no battery voltage." Them: " Oh. Okay. Is there a number where we can we call you to let you know when we've fixed it?" Me: "."] About an hour later I get a call on the mobile. It's the repairman, who says it's all fixed. Now here's the strange thing. He says that out on the pole the "jumper" [didn't say whether it was a bridging clip or a real pair of wires] was missing! Just gone. Not there. He declined to provide any speculation as to how such a thing had happened. My question: Do such things happen often? I can understand the horror stories I've heard about pair-starved apartment buildings in downtown Chicago or New York, but this is in a medium-low-density "single-family dwelling" neighborhood 25 miles away from a "real" city. (O.k., San Mateo's a city, but it's not San Francisco or San Jose. It's not even Palo Alto!) I have a 6-pair drop cable to the house (of which only two happen to be live these days). Is this likely to have been an installer's random goof? ... or some sort of vandalism? ... or a prelude to a burglary? Just paranoid I guess. Rob Warnock, MS-9U/510 rpw3@sgi.com rpw3@pei.com Silicon Graphics, Inc. (415)335-1673 Protocol Engines, Inc. 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94039-7311 [Moderator's Note: Is it possible it was somehow loose / not properly attached and eventually worked its way off and fell to the ground? Have you noticed any difference in the behavior (or lack of it) in the other pairs which you say are not currently active coming from the pole? I would attribute it to error. PT] ------------------------------ From: Jeff Jonas Subject: Telephone Company/Credit Card Tie-ins Date: 30 Jun 90 05:14:50 GMT Reply-To: Jeff Jonas Organization: Jeff's House of Electronic Parts A news item from AT&T's newsline (800-2ATT-NOW): AT&T's Universal Card has gotten twice the response anticipated. [surprise! When were AT&T's forecasts ever right, such as anticipating the demand of the PC6300 during the employee fire-sale?] Citibank and other banks are trying to retaliate, crying "foul" that AT&T is in the credit card business. In response, Citibank is now offering a tie-in between MCI and its VISA card, but has no intention of reducing their fees. (Did Citibank switch from AT&T to MCI in response to the Universal Card offering? Some feared that AT&T offended some of their banking customers by competing with them in the credit card arena. Then again, some financial institutions made their own telecommunications network, such as the NY Teleport as reported in the TELECOM Digest.) American Express has offered MCI's "Expressphone" for a while now, so the link between credit cards and phone service is not new. The AT&T Universal card is free for those who enroll this year, and offers 10% discount on calling card calls. The others offer no discounts. I'd say that AT&T succeeded in upsetting Citibank and all the other overpriced credit cards. Good going! The phone company is not just technology. It's finance too. Jeffrey Jonas jeffj@synsys.uucp ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 30 Jun 90 09:45:56 mst From: David Dodell Subject: Power Out Device I am looking for a device that I could plug into my home's AC outlet, and if power goes off, it would automatically dial a programmed phone number, and perhaps say with a synthesized voice: "The power is out". I know this would have to be battery operated (or at least a float). Any suggestions? David St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, Phoenix, Arizona uucp: {gatech, ames, rutgers}!ncar!asuvax!stjhmc!ddodell Bitnet: ATW1H @ ASUACAD FidoNet=> 1:114/15 Internet: ddodell@stjhmc.fidonet.org FAX: +1 (602) 451-1165 [Moderator's Note: There are commercial devices available which allow what you want, and also accept incoming calls to tell you about the temperature at the place where the device is located, then allow you to listen to background noise for thirty seconds or so. In the event of some problem (usually a choice of three or four problems) they call out to up to four(?) different phones, and keep calling until someone presses certain tones on the phone to reset the device. PT] ------------------------------ From: John Lefor Date: Sat, 30 Jun 90 21:05:28 BST Subject: DTMF Decoder In a recent issue, a Telecom reader asked for a service which would be able to decode DTMF tones. My understanding was that he wanted to be able to figure out what number an autodialer was dialing without risking calling the local fire department. I have rigged up what I call a DTMF decoder service that anyone is welcome to use but I would appreciate a few tests before announcing it to the world. If you think this would be useful to Telecom readers and are willing to be a tester here is how it works: 1) Call 716-248-5269 2) An answering system will answer with a message "You have reached Tele-Ware Corporation for ...." 3) At this point you can press "4" on the touch pad and you should get the message "DTMF decoder enter DTMF tones now" (or something like that). 4) Wait about 0.5 seconds then send some DTMF tones. 5) About 5 seconds after the last key is pressed you will get a message "You sent ...." reading off the tones you sent. The system will accept a maximum of 22 keys per sent tones. The "*" reads as "asterisk" and the "#" reads as "number". 6) You get sent back to the "DTMF decoder ..." message and you can enter more DTMF tones or hang up. All this for just the cost of a phone call. Please understand this is the answering system for my business. It gets very little traffic so I am happy to offer this service. If things get out of hand I will have to discontinue it. But if it looks interesting and useful I have no objection to making it available. PS - The system is actually an IBM PC with the IBM Voice Communications Option (the worlds most expensive answering machine). I programmed the answering system and I add feature as I see fit. This one seemed fun and useful. I program ... therefore I am. John Lefor University of Rochester Dept of E. Engineering 716-275-8265 jal@ee.rochester.edu uunet!ur-valhalla!jal ------------------------------ From: "Marc T. Kaufman" From: kaufman@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Marc T. Kaufman) Subject: Re: Manhole Covers Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University Date: Sun, 1 Jul 90 04:23:07 GMT In article <59794@bu.edu.bu.edu> msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) writes: >Hold the lid with one edge vertical, and it will go in just fine if >placed next to one edge of the opening. So an equilateral triangle >*doesn't* work. Uh ... on that basis, a circle doesn't either. The diameter will allow a circle of the same diameter to pass edge on. On the other hand, most REAL *hole covers I have seen are set into a flanged ring that has a smaller diameter than the maximum diameter of the cover. Presumably this is to insure that the covers stay flush with the street, and don't fall to the bottom of the hole. I imagine that triangular covers are installed similarly. Based on this discussion, I think I am glad that computer scientists or telephone engineers did not design these things. Marc Kaufman (kaufman@Neon.stanford.edu) ------------------------------ From: Michael Gammal Subject: Re: Motorola Plans Global Cellular Thrust Organization: None Date: Sat, 30 Jun 90 04:41:12 GMT I don't trust Motorola's world-wide plans! (World Cellular) Sounds like a nice way for espionage! Think about it... Every single user has their own coding.... Thus can locate any individual anywhere! Talk about tracking ... among other things.... Such as the fact that since it can receive calls the tracking is simple since no need for the phone call to originate with the user. FBI, CSIS, CIA, KGB, you name it! It is will also be useful when they develop cellular mini-belt and watch phones. Terrorists can be tracked in seconds!!! Anyone on a plane can be tracked and won't even know it. A hijacking is what I refer to. Michael Gammal Apple //e & Atari Enthusiast Dawson College gammal@altitude.CAM.ORG qp qp qp qp qp qp qp Montreal, Que. db Support Nature db Canada ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Jul 90 8:23:10 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Is Santa Barbara Completely Destroyed? Word has been reaching us the past few days of the tragic fires burning though parts of California, and the most disturbing news is that apparently much of the town of Santa Barbara is in ashes. Perhaps someone in the area could let us know what the effect has been on telco service in that area, and other parts of the state. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 30 Jun 90 23:43:34 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Temporary Re-route and Resulting Problems Due to a temporary problem with the Usenet gateway machine here at Northwestern, the comp.dcom.telecom messages are being re-routed via another account at cs.bu.edu. When I found that messages were not leaving here and being accepted and re-distributed by accuvax (the news machine at nwu), I took over thirty messages (three issues of the Digest) to my account at cs.bu.edu to send them out. Then the fun began: Although Pnews at cs.bu did accept the messages, an old .signature file had been forgotten about, and it reared its ugly head at the bottom of each message in issue 460, which explains the odd additions the Usenet people saw on those messages. But that is not all: Since some of the messages had been sitting in the queue here, waiting for accuvax to accept them for a couple days, a few places on the net have received no comp.dcom.telecom messages for three or four days. Now I suppose they are getting flooded with them from the backlog. Of course when no messages go out, I get no messages in return, which explains the skimpy issue you are reading now. Just the kind of trouble I need two days before leaving town! Please remember telecom will be off-line through July 8. Please HOLD new messages until next weekend before sending them in. Thanks. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #463 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa01795; 2 Jul 90 7:32 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa19534; 2 Jul 90 2:31 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab26371; 2 Jul 90 1:26 CDT Date: Mon, 2 Jul 90 0:59:03 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #464 BCC: Message-ID: <9007020059.ac21856@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Mon, 2 Jul 90 00:58:31 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 464 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: What Is Telex? Is There an E-Mail Interface? [Donald Kimberlin] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 1 Jul 90 22:56 EST From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: What Is Telex? Is There an E-Mail Interface? Organization: Telecommunications Network Architects, Safety Harbor, FL In article (Digest V10, Iss 462), Allan Spiegel writes: >From time to time an article will give someone's telex number. What >is this, how does it work and how do I use it? Is there some magic >e-mail address that I can send mail to that will turn it into a telex >like I can do for fax numbers? Thanks. I prefer e-mail responses. ..and our Moderator provides a short summary. Here is mine, attempting to flesh out the matter for better understanding ... and hopefully, use, by this readership. In fact, this writing is extemporaneous, so there are gaps some others may be able to fill: As our Moderator's response said, Telex certainly should be called the original form of E-Mail. Far from "dead" on a global basis, UN reports published in the "Brittanica Book of the Year" indicate there are about three million Telex lines around the globe. Contrary to the impression international telephone people like to create, direct, immediate access via Telex still exists to more of the world's political entities than does telephone. This has been the case for many years. (Totalitarian governments must like Telex; they have been known to shut down telephone service, but not Telex. The suspected reason: It can be monitored with hard copy easily, and has often been done,too. Of course, they themselves use it for military messages.) Telex sprang from the same source as the Volkswagon automo- bile: The creative growth era of the early Third Reich. It was devised as a means to distribute military command and control messages and data in a time before we even had a structure for data processing machinery. What existed at that point in time was 45.5 bps Baudot automatic telegraphy and dial-pulsing telephone exchanges. The original Telex was essentially (director-controlled; yes, the Europeans were doing that then) rotary telephone switches modified to carry DC telegraph lines, providing a switched service for teletypewriters in the same way as was done for telephones. There was one major difference: Intercity transmission facilites were expensive and in short supply, and one analog telephone circuit between cities could carry 24 (and in some applications, 25) telegraph channels bearing Telex. The economics are obvious, and probably are what keep Telex important in the Third World today. In that era of transparent analog transmission lines, Telex was easily able to use telephone dial-pulsing on the local telegraph loops followed by Baudot teletype for the messages ... and it did. Hence, this form of Telex operation became known as "type A Telex signaling." It is still used that way in many nations. In those you will see a teleprinter with a control box that has a telephone dial. When Western Union decided it had should enter into Telex in the U.S., it adopted the original style and Type A signaling. Similarly, many other Europeans adopted Type A operations, among them the U.K., France and Belgium as well as others. Meantime, (I think it was L. M. Ericsson leading the move for) others saw an opportunity to simply use the numerics on the keyboard for call set-up, thus some nations adopted what became known as "Type B" Telex. By this time, the CCITT had taken charge and was setting international agreements, one of which was to set the speed of international Baudot circuits at 50 Baud, instead of 45.5. Some few nations were many years behind in upspeeding. In this writer's experience, Cuba and Pakistan are remembered as still running 45.5 Baud Telex trunks even into the 1970's. Telex grew around the world very rapidly ... long before automatic telephony, again most likely due to its economics of channel usage. Considerable networks of Telex on HF (shortwave) radio to then-remote areas of Africa, the Middle East and Asia were established by the government-owned PTTs, operating non-stop with error-correcting, retransmitting time division multiplexers per CCITT Recommendation R.44 (so what's new about TDM ... Baudot built his first one in 1873, three years _before_ Bell's telephone. Check it out, unbelievers!), with the common name "TOR" for "Telex Over Radio." Readers who are SWL's certainly hear of TOR, SITOR and Telex Mux on shortwave radio today ... there's still plenty around and on the air. Also, the broad reach and universality of Telex around the world lead to the CCITT establishing the global network of International Telegram (commonly called Cablegram; RCA's product on its original shortwave radio was the Radiogram) channels on a switched network overlay of Telex called "Gentex." That's right: Your international cablegram goes on Telex, too. It's simply Telex channels dialed up permanently between telegram offices. The beauty is that of any switched service: Restoration in case of channel failure is simply dialing up another call. The result of all this is that Telex was, and remains in many nations, _the_ mediumn of communications for business and both civil and military government use. Airlines using the PARS (and internationally IPARS) reservations systems still run Baudot code today (although many lines have changed to high-speed modem traffic), because their plain-language text transmissions use only 7.5 bits per character, compared to the 11 bits of CCITT International Alphabet 5 (known as ASCII in colloqial North America). The economics are obvious. In many nations, the total minutes of international Telex still today exceeds that of international telephone traffic. Business uses Telex more than most Americans understand. West Germany has had more than 400,000 Telex lines for years, while the U.S. at its peak could count only 345,000 Telex _and_ TWX subscribers. Americans simply grew up as sociological prisoners of "the phone," under a hegemony that taught them anything else must be insignificant. Almost in parallel with the 1930's development of Telex, Bell interests saw the possibilities and decided to do Telex one better. Bell Labs was commissioned to develop a simialr service, using dial pulse selection. It became known as Teletypewriter Exchange Service, or TWX. (In fact, Bell beat WUTCo to the marketplace punch and WUTCo came along later with Telex in the U.S.) The original TWX ran 75 bps with Baudot code and dial selection, until Bell Labs got its second generation ready. That one, called "four-row TWX" in telephone parlance, used *modems* called "101 Data Sets" (that's right, Daddy of the 103!) on two-wire ordinary telephone subscriber lines run to special exchanges called a WADS (Wide Area Data Service) exchange in each major city, where the billing and such was done. Actually, a WADS exchange was a partition of one local telephone exchange in the city. Because it was using the Public Switched Telephone Network (DDD in American parlance, TWX was given reserved area codes ... 510, 610, 710, 810 and 910. Some few remote locations on TWX are still on those area codes. Four-row TWX used 11-bit characters to provide an expanded code set including "control characters" that permitted the TWX machine to be operated much like an office typewriter ... more so than Telex and its Baudot limitations that at best used CCITT-standardized "character strings" to provide some degree of functionality beyond plain text (see the CCITT F, R and S Series of Recommenda- tions). The control characters of TWX provided paragraph indents, form feeds and such that Telex never really had. And, with Four-Row TWX, transmission (on the 101 Data Set) was upped to 110 bps, and the code provided VRC "parity" error-checking. (One can show that 110 bps with 11-bit characters is equivalent to about 140-150 words per minute, a typing speed only Olympic-class typists could achieve on mechanical typewriters.) Even so, the "TWX code" had only 93 of its 128 possible characters assigned. It just so happened that when the computer era came along, Bell's Teletype Corporation (at Skokie, Il, purchased from Dr. Kleinschmidt to get a supply of teleprinters for TWX) had its Model 33 teleprinter in production for TWX. That was, in its time, the cheapest keyboard instrument readily available for the then-"new" computer business. The Model 33 teleprinter and its mechanically- embedded TWX code became the _de_facto_ I/O device for the computer. The computer people early on wanted use of all the character combinations in the code, so Teletype obliged with modifications for computers. Thus ASCII was born of TWX code, and it ultimately became CCITT International Telegraph Alphabet Number 5. The IA5 definitions in the CCITT books vary from ASCII only in wording. Study of both ASCII and IA5 can show roots of most of the character combinations back to Baudot (or its CCITT character strings) and even manual telegraphy. However, computer programmers and computer mux makers who don't understand this have often done some horrible things to uses of the code, causing products that alienate people from data communications; wondering why their products don't migrate well or why people have trouble understanding them. There is a certain beauty of human logic in using these codes properly. They grew out of manual operations in sending messages. One can even see in IBM's BCDIC and later EBCDIC an emulation of what was in the telegraphic codes, but I doubt IBMer's for their part would admit that. While Telex was the rest of the world, insular America grew with its parallel Telex of WUTCo and TWX of Bell. Because Bell was strictly limited to dial telephony only for international business, and because WUTCo had given up its international operations in a 1939 deal to monopolize domestic telegraph business by taking over ITT's Postal Telegraph (which was a thorn in WUTCo's side), the U.S. developed a unique sort of "international telegraph" company known as an "International Record Carrier." The IRC's were an interesting catch-all sort of firm; an American answer to "how do we get a regu- latory handle on all these characters?" Some were US-based, like WUTCo's "Cable System" that became Western Union International when sold off as a result of the 1939 Postal Telegraph deal. Others had "just been there," like ITT's World Communications that had been a gaggle of companies with names like Federal Telegraph, All American Cables and Radio, Globe Wireless, Press Wireless, and the common carrier part of Mackay Marine. RCA Communications had been around specializing largely in spanning the Pacific with radio as well as generally reaching ships and other places by radio telegraphy; today it is the RCA Globecom subsidiary of MCI (as is WUI, calling itself MCI International). Tropical Radiotelegraph grew out of putting radio telegraph on shipboard before WWI so its owners, the United Fruit Company of Boston could divert shiploads of bananas to the best market, expanding to communications to its plantations, then becoming in some nations the public telegraph and international telephone company of the nation; today it is TRT Telecommunications. The French Telegraph Cable Company, owned by French investors in the PTT had been in the U.S. since the days of Monsier Puyer-Quartier laying telegraph cables from France to the U.S., hence its telegraphic routing address, PQ. Even the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company owned its own IRD, the Trans-Liberia Radiotelegraph Company, operating HF radio from Akron to its rubber plantations in Liberia. (TL is still there in Akron, as a matter of fact.) All these firms formed the U.S. IRC business and enjoyed a period of regulated competitiveness for thirty years or so. They were the Telex interface between the U.S. and the world, all connecting out to WUTCo Telex and (by performing "protocol conversion" long before computers did so,) Bell TWX. International Telex users were confronted with some typical American confusion ... they had to prefix their Telex calls to America with added digits to steer their call via the IRC of their choice (in most nations) and then to either Telex or TWX for the U.S. domestic connection. All that had to change when Congress "deregulated" the IRC's in 1982, four years before telephony had a similar change. Restric- tions on AT&T providing only telephony were lifted; the IRC's were freed to operate anyplace as compared to a limited number of "gateway cities," WUTCo was permitted to go international once again, and everybody could compete for any kind of business. That's what has happened in America, so you can call FTCC (formerly French Cable) as well as relative newcomers to the U.S. market like Cable & Wireless (from the U.K.) and ask them what deal they will offer in competition to AT&T or WUTCo, either domestically or internationally, for voice, data or video. International Telex remains a basic business. The various companies made various deals to interface to their Telex connections. MCI's is, of course, via WUI, the first IRC that MCI bought. AT&TMail's is via TRT. Along the evolutionary course of the later days of the IRC business, a firm was established called Graphic Scanning (IRC's have always tried to do something with facsimile, long before Group III machines made them the Office Toy of 1990, and Graphic Scanning got into the IRC field in this way), and Graphnet is Telenet's Telex connection. As our moderator said, the E-Mail services all "alias" your E-Mail address to their IRC connection. It's usually your numeric E-Mail address with a fixed prefix. Example: My own AT&TMail numeric is 7281481. Its Telex alias is 157281481. On MCIMail, my numeric is 4133373,and its Telex alias is 650-4133373. The global Telex network has had since inception a handy "confirmation' convention called "Who Are You?" and each Telex machine is encoded with an "automatic answerback" that lets you know on connection and whenever you ask (WRU in Baudot; in ASCII) what machine you are connected to. So, if you are an E-Mail user, your overseas correspondent will want to know your "network"and "answerback." That's usually the Telex code for the IRC you're with and your E-Mail aplha address. So, mine on MCIMail is MCI UW dkimberlin and on AT&TMail mine is TRT UT dkimberlin. Really rather simple, when you understand the meaning and purpose of the IRC and international Telex. One last word for this top-level exposition: Telex isn't so cheap compared to E-Mail. If you have a regular correspondent in another nation and want to DDD to batch files, or if you have an X.25 or Teletex route to another nation (WUTCo's Easylink E-Mail does, but the other E-Mails seem to say,"huh? Teletex?"), that may well be cheaper than Telex. It runs at 50 bps, just 66 words per minute, and you get billed at the Telex output rate. All that said, then why bother? Well, Telex is still there and readily accessible from your E-Mail, and it reaches those 3-1/2 million or so machines in offices of foreign nations you may have only occasional traffic for. And, those machines are in global directories like the Jaeger u. Waldmann directories so you can look them up from home. And, those machines are in hotels all around the world, so you can get a message to the traveler who hasn't been able to get a phone line out for three days. And, those Telex lines connect to all the cablegram offices that will for their high price, still send a messenger to _find_ your missing salesman (unlike the US' rapidly deteriorating telegram service). As well, they reach the ships at sea with your Telex to roust up the staffer who's on an ocean cruise. No matter where in the world they are; no matter what time zone they are in, no matter if they are on the Gregorian or Moslem or Hindu or Bhuddist calendar, your message routed by Telex should get to them far more efficiently than random dialing of the phone. So, while most Americans discovered some of these advantages when the Group III fax came along, but still need to find a "fax number" that's not in a directory like Jaeger u. Waldmann, your E-Mail connection to international Telex is a potentially useful tool. (For those who may want a fuller, more detailed explanation, Datapro Research offers reprints of a 22-page 1986 report they had me author, numbered MT20-510-101, by calling (800) 328-3776. Readers who have Datapro's "Nanagement of Telecommunications" service may have this at hand.) A final riposte: Our Moderator said in commenting to the question: >In case you were wondering, FAX is the (FA)csimile E(X)change. Au contraire, notre cher moduerateur. While some marketeers of recent facsimile service offerings may have made that linkage, the term "fax" has been used generically by the much more limited group of facsimile (including telephoto) users from telecomm time immemorial. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #464 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa13552; 3 Jul 90 3:22 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa29575; 3 Jul 90 1:39 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa02273; 3 Jul 90 0:35 CDT Date: Tue, 3 Jul 90 0:05:13 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #465 BCC: Message-ID: <9007030005.ab27296@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 3 Jul 90 00:04:36 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 465 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: AT&T Red-Lining of Card Calls From Payphones [Robert Gutierrez] Re: Is Santa Barbara Completely Destroyed? [Art Berggreen] Re: Is Santa Barbara Completely Destroyed? [Darren Griffiths] Re: Is Santa Barbara Completely Destroyed? [Scott King] Re: Phony Bell Wanted (Not a Bell Phone) [Paul Krzyzanowski] Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA [John T. Grieggs] Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe [Dell H. Ellison] FAX Isn't Facsimile Exchange, is it, Really? [Edward Greenberg] Who Is John Galt? [Peter da Silva] Monitoring Device Information Needed [Bruce W. Mohler] Bellcore Number Down During July [Carl Moore] Answering Machine Recommendations Wanted [Bill Darden] Telecom is OFF LINE Until July 8 [TELECOM Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: gutierre@noc.arc.nasa.gov Subject: Re: AT&T Red-Lining of Card Calls From Payphones Date: 2 Jul 90 00:24:02 GMT Reply-To: gutierre@noc.arc.nasa.gov In article <59816@bu.edu.bu.edu>, the TELECOM Moderator writes: |> In recent issues of the Digest, people have mentioned their inability |> to use the AT&T Calling Card from certain payphones in the United |> States to call certain foreign countries. |> Sometimes payphones reject credit card calls to one country, while |> allowing the same type of call to other countries. This is very true of MCI. The red-lining entirely depends on the amount of fraud traffic of the previous week that the security department catches. A good instance is San Francisco. They are red-lined to the Phillipines, and always have been for the last three years. This was because of the LARGE fraudulent calls to that country. But calling from across the bay (Oakland and Berkeley) will let you get to the Phillipines, since the red-lining is by switch, and the Hayward switch covers those cities. Now, if you called 800-950-1022, because of a quirk in the DMS-250's, those card calls had to go to the Dominguez Hills, CA. switch, in which they were not red-lining the Phillipines (as of a year ago). (The quirk, I was told, was that the DMS-250's cannot return tone on FGD's, which the 800 calls come in on, as opposed to FGB's, which the regular 950-XXXX calls come in on...). Oh, how do they determine, by the _week_, which is the highest fraud country??? Well, any calling-card international call over a set amount of minutes is automatically tagged, and the home phone number of the account in question is called. Well, if they're using a calling card to begin with, they're probably not home, so the card is cancelled until the account holder calls back. But when the account holder calls back, he/she finds out that the card can't be reinstated until 3am the next day, when the CAC's (Card Authorization Computers) update themselves for new calling card numbers. I heard AT&T does the same thing, but can reinstate in thirty minutes to one hour. Is that true? |> Is this sort of red-lining legal? Is it discriminatory to block calls |> to, for example, Mexico or Colombia, while allowing the same payphone |> to handle calls to the UK or France? Is it discriminatory to allow |> residents in one part of town to make credit card calls from payphones |> while refusing other credit-worthy citizens in another neighborhood |> the right to do the same thing? My understanding is that a calling card is a privlege, as opposed to direct-dial access (so called FGD access). |> ....Since the Universal Card is a |> bona-fide credit card (in addition to its role as a phone card), are |> there violations of Federal Trade Commission regulations when AT&T |> refuses to extend credit (in this case both as the credit grantor as |> well as the seller) based on arbitrary red-lining of certain |> neighborhoods? This one is a good question. How much liability has AT&T assumed when it issued VISA/MC credit cards, and allowed payments of your calls on them. Do they have a disclaimer in their FCC Tariff stating "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" in re: Calling Card calls. Again, C/C calls are tariffed, but are they a right, or a privlege? Robert [Moderator's Note: All extensions of credit are considered a privilege and not a 'right'; however, extensions or denials of credit must be based on *legal* criteria. I can deny you the privilege of credit because you have not the ability or willingness to pay your bills; but I cannot base my decision on your ethnic background or country of origin, which seems to be what telco is doing by denying (for example) Iranians the right to call their homeland from JFK; residents of Colombia from calling home from Miami, or Mexicans calling from southern California while allowing people of British origin to call the UK from the very same payphones. By the way, AT&T did not call me back today. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 90 10:03:08 PDT From: Art Berggreen Subject: Re: Is Santa Barbara Completely Destroyed? Organization: Advanced Computer Communications, Santa Barbara, California In article <59846@bu.edu.bu.edu> TELECOM Moderator writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 463, Message 7 of 8 >Word has been reaching us the past few days of the tragic fires >burning though parts of California, and the most disturbing news is >that apparently much of the town of Santa Barbara is in ashes. Perhaps >someone in the area could let us know what the effect has been on >telco service in that area, and other parts of the state. Rest assured, Santa Barbara is still here. We're not exactly a "town". The general area has approx. 150,000 people. The fire was BAD though. Almost 500 homes were destroyed (and got too close to mine as well). The phone system did get very overloaded during the fire, causing problems for emergency services. Art Berggreen ACC ------------------------------ From: Darren Griffiths Subject: Re: Is Santa Barbara Completely Destroyed? Date: 2 Jul 90 22:39:25 GMT Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca. In article <59846@bu.edu.bu.edu> telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes: >Word has been reaching us the past few days of the tragic fires >burning though parts of California, and the most disturbing news is >that apparently much of the town of Santa Barbara is in ashes. Perhaps >someone in the area could let us know what the effect has been on >telco service in that area, and other parts of the state. Well, I'm not from the area, but I used to be and still have many friends there so I know a bit about what's going on. The fire started on highway 151 near Painted Cave. It burned down the highway and the San Marcos valley. A major residential area sits at the bottom of this valley and was entirely destroyed. Of the 500+ homes with major damage about 300 were completely destroyed. As far as phone service is concerned it was incredibly good. Many of my friends were evacuated, some for two days and they found out about the condition of their homes by calling and seeing if the answering machine picked up. The night the fire started the phones were out to the Hidden Valley area for a few hours, this was the area of about 3000 homes close to the path of the fire. The next day many calls into the area were greeted with a message "Due to the forest fire in the area you are calling your call cannot be completed at this time, please try your call later." If you called two or three times in a row you did get through though, also switching to a different long distance carrier sometimes helped. AT&T, as is my experience with most phone service, was the most reliable path into the town Cheers, --darren ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 90 19:37:21 PDT From: Scott King <6500king%ucsbuxa@hub.ucsb.edu> Subject: Re: Is Santa Barbara Completely Destroyed? In reguard to your posting about Santa Barbara... I live here, and I have seen the damage. I believe that Mark Twain said "the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated". Granted, there are around 470 homes destroyed, but most of those were in the hills and asking for it (eg. surronded by a lot of brush) There were about ten businesses destroyed, but each only employeed about four people. Although the "sundowners" (a local version of a Santa Ana wind) were resposible for the damage on the first day, they quit on the second day and allowed the fire to be contained (the sundowners had been blowing for about 3 weeks). All in all, I would say that we should stop whining and start to count our blessings. The whole city would be gone had this happened a week prior. In summary, I would say that 1200 people lost their homes, 50 people lost their jobs and 100,000 people stepped in to help in some form. Scott King ------------------------------ From: paul@alice.UUCP (Paul Krzyzanowski) Subject: Re: Phony Bell Wanted (Not a Bell Phone) Date: 2 Jul 90 20:05:59 GMT Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ In article <59815@bu.edu.bu.edu>, jamesd@techbook.com (James Deibele) writes: > would pause and ask if I needed to get the other call. Since I don't > have the click anymore, and some people don't ever give me the chance > to get a word in edgewise, I'd like to have a bell that sounds like a > phone ringing --- I'd like to keep it next to the phone, and push (or This probably isn't what you want, but I recently saw a small device at a card store that produces one of four sounds depending on the button you press: a ringing telephone (a call on another line), static (bad connection), a nasal secretary ("you have a call on line 4"), and a busy office (lots of phones ringing). - Paul Krzyzanowski paul2allegra.att.com ------------------------------ From: "John T. Grieggs" Subject: Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA Date: 2 Jul 90 20:58:59 GMT Reply-To: grieggs@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (John T. Grieggs) Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA >Lang Zerner writes: >> I don't know if anyone has reported this yet, but PacBell has finally >> given in to my incessant whining and removed the "value-added" fee for >> Touch-Tone service. Another data point: I recently moved to a PacBell service area from a GTE service area (finally!). The customer service rep was a lot friendlier than I am used to, and was a LOT more knowledgable about stuff. I refused Touch-Tone service, to see if tones would work anyway, since the start-up fee and monthly service fee are no different whether you get them right away or later. Tone dialing works, so I saved the $3.00 startup fee and the $1.20 monthly service fee. Nice to win one. John T. Grieggs (Telos @ Jet Propulsion Laboratory) 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, Ca. 91109 M/S 301-320T (818) 354-0871 Uucp: {cit-vax,elroy,chas2}!jpl-devvax!grieggs Arpa: ...jpl-devvax!grieggs@cit-vax.ARPA ------------------------------ From: "Dell H. Ellison" Subject: Re: On the Trail of the Elusive Octothorpe Date: 2 Jul 90 21:22:12 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL In article <9236@accuvax.nwu.edu>, motcid!king@uunet.uu.net (Steven King) writes: > In article <9204@accuvax.nwu.edu> erik@naggum.uu.no (Erik Naggum) writes: > > #5 means "number five" > > 5# means "five lbs (pounds)" > >This has later been confirmed by several good dictionaries and > >reference works (read: theory), but I've never seen in it practice. I thought everyone used 'lbs.' I guess I was wrong. > I prefer calling it the "sharp" sign. It doesn't get confused with > the British pound, and is much less of a mouthful than "octothorpe". > That last sounds like it should be on the menu at a seafood > restaurant. I've found that most people (at least in the states) call it a pound sign. But I like to call it a Number Sign, because it's hard to confuse it with something else. (Many people are not familiar with music terminology.) .. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 90 08:42 PDT From: Edward_Greenberg@cso.3mail.3com.com Subject: FAX Isn't Facsimile Exchange, is it, Really? I think that FAX is just shorthand spelling for FACSimile, and has nothing to do with a particular "Exchange". ------------------------------ Subject: Who Is John Galt? Date: Sun Jul 1 18:44:21 1990 From: peter da silva John Galt is a sort of Buckminster Fuller on cocaine: an eccentric engineer who mixes philosophy and engineering in equal doses ... but instead of a sort of proto new-age without the flakiness, Galt's philosophy is a aggressive mix of social darwinism and sociobiology. Oh yes, he's also only a character in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged", a political statement thinly disguised as fiction. ------------------------------ From: "Bruce W. Mohler" Subject: Monitoring Device Information Needed Date: Mon, 2 Jul 90 9:47:10 PDT Patrick, In an article (Volume 10, Issue 463, Message 3 of 8), you write (as a postscript): > [Moderator's Note: There are commercial devices available which allow > what you want, and also accept incoming calls to tell you about the > temperature at the place where the device is located, then allow you > to listen to background noise for thirty seconds or so. In the event > of some problem (usually a choice of three or four problems) they call > out to up to four(?) different phones, and keep calling until someone > presses certain tones on the phone to reset the device. PT] Could you please point me to a source for these devices? Bruce W. Mohler Systems Programmer (aka Staff Analyst) bruno@sdcc10.ucsd.edu voice: 619/586-2218 [Moderator's Note: The last time I saw one advertised (a week or so ago) it was in the Global Computer Supply mail order catalog. I wish I had it here now -- I tossed it out -- so I could quote you the page and other details. I think it can tell if there is water in the vicinity (because a probe gets wet; a contact is shorted, etc); if there is a fire (because the temperature gets very warm in the area); if there is a break-in (because output of burglar alarm device is fed to this unit), and more. These units are also used in cold storage warehouses to tell if the power went off, i.e. the temperature is above a certain point. When you call in, a synthesized voice says "the time is 12:34:56 7/8/90". The temperature is X degrees. Everything is normal. Now listen!" ... and the built in microphone lets you listen for familiar (and unfamiliar) noises in the room. They also call you when activated, and chant their message over and over until you shut them off. Try Global (they have an 800 number), or other computer peripheral supply houses. Maybe someone with their catalog or a similar one will write you with info. Please, someone? PT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 90 10:35:23 EDT From: cmoore@brl.mil Subject: Bellcore Number Down During July On Saturday June 30, I called the Bellcore number at 201-644-5639, and the synthetic voice said that the person working on it is on vacation in July and to try again in August. The recording does identify Bellcore. ------------------------------ From: Bill Darden Subject: Answering Machine Recommendations Wanted Date: 2 Jul 90 23:20:33 GMT Reply-To: Bill Darden Organization: Northrop Research & Technology Center, Palos Verdes, CA I would appreciate recommendations on answering machines. Thanks, BiLL...... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Jul 90 22:50:45 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Telecom is OFF LINE Until July 8 This is just a reminder that TELECOM Digest and comp.dcom.telecom are off line this week while I am out of town. The messages appearing in this issue and the final one(s) Tuesday evening are what was left in the queue. *Please hold further articles until July 7 or 8 before mailing them in to this newsgroup* .... thank you! Patrick Townson TELECOM Moderator ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #465 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa28176; 4 Jul 90 1:20 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa22700; 3 Jul 90 23:48 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa27086; 3 Jul 90 22:44 CDT Date: Tue, 3 Jul 90 22:13:24 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #466 BCC: Message-ID: <9007032213.ab00475@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 3 Jul 90 22:12:14 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 466 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson PacBell Coinphone False Info [Ron Schnell] How Are 800 Numbers Assigned? [Jody Kravitz] Re: Motorola Plans Global Cellular Thrust [Roy Silvernail] Re: FCC Responds to Individual Complaints About AOSs [Paul S. Sawyer] Re: What Is Telex? Is There an E-Mail Interface? [Kari Hardarson] Re: Sverige Direkt [New Zealand] [Pat Cain] Re: Is Santa Barbara Completely Destroyed? [Lars Poulsen] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ron Schnell Subject: PacBell Coinphone False Info Reply-To: Ron Schnell Organization: MIT EE/CS Computer Facilities, Cambridge, MA Date: Mon, 2 Jul 90 08:34:51 GMT While at a country club on Saturday, I needed to make a phone call. I found the payphone, and was relieved to see that it was Pacific Bell and not one of the private companies. I double checked the "information card" which all of the coin phones in CA. seem to have these days, and indeed it said that BOTH coin calls AND calling card calls would be handled by AT&T. HOWEVER, when I entered in the calling card number, I head a male voice saying, "Thank you for using Com Systems." I never thought I would see a BOC payphone which displays misinformation like this one did. I immediately called AT&T at (800) 222-0300 (knowing that this wasn't the right number but hoping they would know the right number). After a few minutes, she connected me with someone who asked me for the phone number and the hours of business. She then told me that in the future I should call Pac Bell, and that they are the ones who should know about it. I explained to her that AT&T is the one being hurt by this and they should want to know about it. She refused to believe that it had anything to do with AT&T and she kept telling me that "They can choose any long distance service they want." Am I crazy here? #Ron ronnie@eddie.mit.edu (213) 443 - 9688 [Moderator's Note: No, you are not crazy. You should have heard the referrals I got when I asked about red-lining certain neighborhoods last week. I was told to call New York Tel, Pac Bell, GTE, South Central Bell, you name it. Anybody but AT&T. It was the fault of the phone companies. One AT&T rep said it was 'The Mexico Telephone Company which asked us to disallow those calls ...' ... and when I called Corporate Public Relations and asked them, they promised to call back ... and haven't so far. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Jul 90 00:20:50 PDT From: Jody Kravitz Subject: How Are 800 Numbers Assigned? I recently received a note from my mortgage company explaining that they had changed long distance carriers. It included a new phone number which was 800-736-xxxx. It would appear that which carrier "gets" which 800 calls is still done on an exchange-by-exchange basis. It would appear that only one carrier (AT&T ?) can get 800 information calls. Has anyone ever been explained in the Digest how 800 information works? Does anyone know which carrier gets 800-736-xxxx ? Jody Internet: foxtail!kravitz@ucsd.edu uucp: ucsd!foxtail!kravitz [Moderator's Note: In the Telecom Archives there is a file which identifies each 800 prefix with the carrier using it. See the Guide to Area Codes file. The assignment of prefixes within 900 is also included in that file. The Telecom Archives can be reached from any Internet location using the command 'ftp lcs.mit.edu'. PT] ------------------------------ From: "Roy M. Silvernail" Subject: Re: Motorola Plans Global Cellular Thrust Date: Mon, 02 Jul 90 04:43:01 CDT Organization: Villa CyberSpace, Minneapolis, MN gammal@altitude.cam.org (Michael Gammal) writes: > I don't trust Motorola's world-wide plans! (World Cellular) > Sounds like a nice way for espionage! > Think about it... > Every single user has their own coding.... > Thus can locate any individual anywhere! An interesting idea, indeed. The way I saw the plan presented, though, I'm not sure how closely a sat-cell call could be tracked. I'd like to find out more about this system. Perhaps someone could point out some references or post a summary of the technical details to the Digest? Roy M. Silvernail | Opinions found now available at: | herein are mine, cybrspc!roy@cs.umn.edu | but you can rent (cyberspace... be here!) | them. ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jul 90 13:24:07 EDT (Mon) From: "Paul S. Sawyer" Subject: Re: FCC Responds to Individual Complaints About AOSs Organization: UNH Telecommunications and Network Services In article <59819@bu.edu.bu.edu> you write: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 462, Message 4 of 10 >In article <9224@accuvax.nwu.edu> wrf@mab.ecse.rpi.edu (Wm Randolph >Franklin) writes: >> >Before writing my letter, I telephoned both ATT and FCC to determine >> >the law. FCC said unequivocally that the hotel phones must handle >> >10xxx properly. However ATT waffled; they commiserated with me but >> >didn't they that the hotel had to connect me to them. Why would they >> >not assert their rights? >In article <9341@accuvax.nwu.edu>, unhd!unhtel!paul@uunet.uu.net (Paul >S. Sawyer) writes: >> Maybe it's because ATT's PBX's (e.g. System 85) can't handle >> 9-10288, etc.... >Of course they can. They can dial any number they have been allowed to >dial by the dial plan and routing administration. If there was an >equal access number that had been restricted through hard-coding, I >can assure you it would not be 10288. Well, that was MY reaction, too, (as a mostly innocent bystander who just keeps the billing computers going) but if you know how, I wish you would tell our telecom specialist who administers the switch, our ATT account rep, and Carmine at RMATS who have all been trying to figure it out for some time now. ATT says it's the switch software, and the best they have done is suggest some kludgey workarounds using speed numbers, which so far are not of a kind which the user community would adapt to. Thanks. Paul S. Sawyer uunet!unh!unhtel!paul paul@unhtel.UUCP UNH Telecommunications attmail!psawyer p_sawyer@UNHH.BITNET Durham, NH 03824-3523 VOX: +1 603 862 3262 FAX: +1 603 862 2030 ------------------------------ From: hardarso@currituck.cs.unc.edu (Kari Hardarson) Subject: Re: What Is Telex? Is There an E-Mail Interface? Date: 3 Jul 90 19:17:43 GMT Reply-To: hardarso@currituck.cs.unc.edu (Kari Hardarson) Organization: University Of North Carolina, Chapel Hill If I want to send someone a telex message from Usenet, is there a service that will do it for me? If it has to be Easylink, how do I get in touch with them from the net? Are there alternatives? (I used to access a U.K. service called One-to-one from X.25, I wouldn't mind accessing them from the net either). Thanks to anyone who might reply. Kari Hardarson 217 Jackson Circle Chapel Hill, NC 27514 [Moderator's Note: Since Usenet is a 'free' service, and telex messages require payment, there is no direct connection where someone will take your message here and convert it to telex. There were a couple of sneak approaches using the gateway between Internet and AT&T Mail, but the discovery of this abuse was one reason AT&T Mail clamped down on accepting Internet traffic. You can obtain a telex number for incoming telex stuff from AT&T Mail or MCI Mail. You can use either of those services to send telex messages, at a surcharge. You can do the same via GTE/Sprint Telemail. You would then send the message from what you termed a 'Usenet' site to your own account at MCI or AT&T Mail, and on its arrival there, forward it to a telex address yourself, at the prevailing rate for the service, billed to your account on the commercial email service. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Jul 90 19:49 M From: Pat Cain Subject: Re: Sverige Direkt [New Zealand] >Sweden has recently introduced a service called "Sverige Direkt" >(Sweden Direct) which is a list of free telephone number that you can New Zealand has recently introduced this service too, although there seems to be problems with it such as: * bad connections * having to wait a long time (several minutes) for an answer * operators not being able to speak English (I suppose this doesn't matter as people calling France would speak French anyway). >The list of countries and numbers for "Sverige Direkt" are as follows > New Zealand 000 946 >It is interesting to see the irregularity of the telephone numbers above, >which makes it almost impossible trying to remember them. In New Zealand the 0009 prefix is used for the international Direct-Dial service. The format is 0009 with the exception of USA & Canada who are 000911 and 000919 respectively. The 800 number system exists in New Zealand, so I'm not sure why Telecom didn't use an 800 number. Perhaps it is because they wanted to keep the direct-dial service separate from the national free-call system. I know that Telecom here give out cards that have a list of countries and the numbers that you can direct dial to New Zealand from. I think that most people would rather carry these when going overseas than trying to remember numbers. Anyway, most people don't go overseas too often. If they do it is often to the same country, so they shouldn't have problems remembering the direct dial number used in that country to call home. >As I can understand there are two reasons for this irregularity: >1. There is no generally used "800-number". Some similar numbers >are used in >2. The telephone numbers for each national "800-number" are allocated > locally, so it is not so probable that the same number can be used >An alternative solution that would make it possible to dial the same >number toll free anywhere in the world would be to introduce a pseudo >county number for toll free calls. The country code "800" seems to be >ideal for this purpose. There are still problems with such an idea. Many countries have adopted different standards. In New Zealand 800 numbers are only 6 digits (eg. 0800 123456), whereas in the States, I think there are 7 digits. And they are preceded with a 0 whereas other countries have different prefixes. New Zealand is moving towards a seven digit numbering system and cleaning up the strange numbering systems we have here, so I suppose eventually we will see Direct Dial numbers being the same throughout the world. pat cain; snarky@st1.vuw.ac.nz | | cs200cap@st1.vuw.ac.nz Voice +64 4 698330 | Modem +64 4 661231 ------------------------------ From: Lars Poulsen Subject: Re: Is Santa Barbara Completely Destroyed? Organization: Rockwell CMC Date: Tue, 3 Jul 90 20:04:14 GMT In article <59846@bu.edu.bu.edu> telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes: >Word has been reaching us the past few days of the tragic fires >burning though parts of California, and the most disturbing news is >that apparently much of the town of Santa Barbara is in ashes. Perhaps >someone in the area could let us know what the effect has been on >telco service in that area, and other parts of the state. The reports .. have been much exaggerated. About 4000 acres of coastal foothill shrub burned, along with about 525 residences. The fire started at 18:02 PDT on Wednesday night; it is unclear whether it was deliberately set, or somebody just tossed a cigarette out their car window. The area has been suffering under a drought for about 4 years; water is severely rationed, and the city of Santa Barbara is checking out pricing for ferrying water down on ships from Canada. The chaparral was tinder dry and two days of 100-110 degree temperatures had brought it to a flash point. A "sundowner" wind condition (similar to a "Santa Ana") engulfed the hillside along highway 154 (San Marcos Pass road) in 40-foot high flames in minutes. The wind carried the flames downhill towards the city; within 40 minutes after it began near the top, it jumped across US-101 (the Camino Real freeway) near the county jail between Santa Barbara and Goleta, and a residential area where the railroad crosses "main street" went up in a firestorm; I heard the gas lines exploding from my house a half mile away. Throughout the evening, many neighbourhoods were evacuated. The fear was that the fire would burn out the Hope Ranch neighbourhood, a two-acre ranchette subdivision from the 1950's; but shortly before midnight the wind died down, and the fire stopped spreading. For the next several days, the hillside kept burning (I believe it was finally declared "controlled" this morning). Thursday night, there was some fear that another sundowner wind might drive the fire down towards the city through a different canyon. But the wind was much less severe, and actually drove the fire back to the already burned-over area. Thursday night around 9PM the wind died down, and we all breathed easier. --------------------- TELECOM RELATED STUFF --------------------- The E911 response center was located in the county complex in the fire zone, and had to be evacuated early on, along with the fire command post. This created a severe logistic problem, but fortunately, there were backup sites for both: The city had a command post downtown, and the county had a backup command post downtown. The GTD-5 system was heavily loaded; at one point, the dial tone delay was almost 30 seconds. The system went short on intercity trunks, but apparently the software can allocate the available trunks on a priority basis to the class-A emergency lines. My wife was in Texas, and I tried several times to reach her, alternating between MCI and ATT; mostly ATT worked better. (Probably due to ATT giving priority to OUTGOING calls). The telephone switch never failed, and service has not been disrupted since the fire. Our local college station is a training ground for Rock'n'Roll DJs, and has no useful news staff. Our "local" NPR affiliate is a repeater for the San Luis Obispo station, and our local APR affiliate is a repeater for KUSC, a classical station in Los Angeles. But one of the commercial stations hooked their AM ("talk radio") and FM ("adult album") transmitters together, and went live-all-news without commercials for 27 hours. On the second day they started a pledge drive for a relief fund and raised $80,000 before the sun went down. The local television station also suspended regular programming, but did not have quite as good information during the critical hours. (When the fire zone partitioned the town, and one reporter could not get back to the studio, he drove 40 miles away to Santa Maria to get an uplink, and I don't think he ever got back on the fire line). I am very impressed with the way GTE handled this disaster. This area may not be typical, but we really have had outstanding service since the GTD-5 system was installed four or five years ago. Lars Poulsen, SMTS Software Engineer CMC Rockwell lars@CMC.COM [Moderator's Note: Your mention of the need to evacuate the emergency response center and fire command post itself was interesting, and brings to mind the fire here in Chicago, October, 1871. The Western Union agent on duty downtown that Sunday night stuck around the office until is was apparent the building was going to be on fire soon. In an interview in the {Chicago Tribune} in 1901, he remarked on the bell in the steeple of City Hall. The City Hall Fire Alarm Office had an operator on duty at all times to ring the bell alerting residents to a fire. The bell was actually operated by a mechanical device, and the setting of the gears detirmined the cadence of the bell, which in turn gave a coded reference to the fire location. Four rings (pause) was a general alarm. Long after most of City Hall had burned to the ground and the fire alarm operator had fled in terror, with the streets in the area deserted, that bell continued to sound. The Western Union guy said it was 'the eeriest thing I had ever encountered ... the bell tolling with no one to listen or heed it ... and finally the steeple itself caught (fire) and the bell crashed to the ground with a monstrous clang ... '. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #466 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa29971; 4 Jul 90 2:17 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa21145; 4 Jul 90 0:51 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab22700; 3 Jul 90 23:48 CDT Date: Tue, 3 Jul 90 23:04:32 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #467 BCC: Message-ID: <9007032304.ab20816@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 3 Jul 90 23:04:06 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 467 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Mitch Kapor and "Sun Devil" [Emmanuel Goldstein] Re: Who is John Galt? [Erik Naggum] Recessional: That's All, Folks! [TELECOM Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 4 Jul 90 00:00:00 gmt From: dunike!isis!well!emmanuel (Emmanuel Goldstein) Subject: Mitch Kapor and "Sun Devil" It's real disturbing to read the comments that have been posted recently on TELECOM Digest concerning Operation Sun Devil and Mitch Kapor's involvement. While I think the moderator has been chastised sufficiently, there are still a few remarks I want to make. First of all, I understand the point he was trying to get across. But I think he shot from the hip without rationalizing his point first, thereby leaving many of us in a kind of stunned silence. If I understand it correctly, the argument is: Kapor says he wants to help people that the Moderator believes are thieves. Therefore, using that logic, it's okay to steal from Kapor. Well, I don't agree. Obviously, Kapor DOESN'T believe these people are criminals. Even if one or two of them ARE criminals, he is concerned with all of the innocent bystanders that are being victimized here. And make no mistake about that - there are many innocent bystanders here. I've spoken to quite a few of them. Steve Jackson, Craig Neidorf, the friends and families of people who've had armed agents of the federal government storm into their homes and offices. It's a very frightening scenario - one that I've been through myself. And when it happens there are permanent scars and a fear that never quite leaves. For drug dealers, murderers, hardened criminals, it's an acceptable price in my view. But a 14 year old kid who doesn't know when to stop exploring a computer system? Let's get real. Do we really want to mess up someone's life just to send a message? I've been a hacker for a good part of my life. Years ago, I was what you would call an "active" hacker, that is, I wandered about on computer systems and explored. Throughout it all, I knew it would be wrong to mess up data or do something that would cause harm to a system. I was taught to respect tangible objects; extending that to encompass intangible objects was not very hard to do. And most, if not all, of the people I explored with felt the same way. Nobody sold their knowledge. The only profit we got was an education that far surpassed any computer class or manual. Eventually, though, I was caught. But fortunately for me, the witch-hunt mentality hadn't caught on yet. I cooperated with the authorities, explained how the systems I used were flawed, and proved that there was no harm done. I had to pay for the computer time I used and if I stayed out of trouble, I would have no criminal record. They didn't crush my spirit. And the computers I used became more secure. Except for the fear and intimidation that occurred during my series of raids, I think I was dealt with fairly. Now I publish a hacker magazine. And in a way, it's an extension of that experience. The hackers are able to learn all about many different computer and phone systems. And those running the systems, IF THEY ARE SMART, listen to what is being said and learn valuable lessons before it's too late. Because sooner or later, someone will figure out a way to get in. And you'd better hope it's a hacker who can help you figure out ways to improve the system and not an ex-employee with a monumental grudge. In all fairness, I've been hacked myself. Someone figured out a way to break the code for my answering machine once. Sure, I was angry -- at the company. They had no conception of what security was. I bought a new machine from a different company, but not before letting a lot of people know EXACTLY what happened. And I've had people figure out my calling card numbers. This gave me firsthand knowledge of the ineptitude of the phone companies. And I used to think they understood their own field! My point is: you're only a victim if you refuse to learn. If I do something stupid like empty my china cabinet on the front lawn and leave it there for three weeks, I don't think many people will feel sympathetic if it doesn't quite work out. And I don't think we should be sympathetic towards companies and organizations that obviously don't know the first thing about security and very often are entrusted with important data. The oldest hacker analogy is the walking-in-through-the-front- door-and-rummaging-through-my-personal-belongings one. I believe the Moderator recently asked a critic if he would leave his door unlocked so he could drop in and rummage. The one fact that always seems to be missed with this analogy is that an individual's belongings are just not interesting to someone who simply wants to learn. But they ARE interesting to someone who wants to steal. A big corporation's computer system is not interesting to someone who wants to steal, UNLESS they have very specific knowledge as to how to do this (which eliminates the hacker aspect). But that system is a treasure trove for those interested in LEARNING. To those that insist on using this old analogy, I say at least be consistent. You wouldn't threaten somebody with 30 years in jail for taking something from a house. What's especially ironic is that your personal belongings are probably much more secure than the data in the nation's largest computer systems! When you refer to hacking as "burglary and theft", as the Moderator frequently does, it becomes easy to think of these people as hardened criminals. But it's just not the case. I don't know any burglars or thieves, yet I hang out with an awful lot of hackers. It serves a definite purpose to blur the distinction, just as pro-democracy demonstrators are referred to as rioters by nervous leaders. Those who have staked a claim in the industry fear that the hackers will reveal vulnerabilities in their systems that they would just as soon forget about. It would have been very easy for Mitch Kapor to join the bandwagon on this. The fact that he didn't tells me something about his character. And he's not the only one. Since we published what was, to the best of my knowledge, the first pro-hacker article on all of these raids, we've been startled by the intensity of the feedback we've gotten. A lot of people are angry, upset, and frightened by what the Secret Service is doing. They're speaking out and communicating their outrage to other people who we could never have reached. And they've apparently had these feelings for some time. Is this the anti-government bias our Moderator accused another writer of harboring? Hardly. This is America at its finest. Emmanuel Goldstein Editor, 2600 Magazine - The Hacker Quarterly emmanuel@well.sf.ca.us po box 752, middle island, ny 11953 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Jul 1990 17:02:37 +0200 From: Erik Naggum Subject: Re: Who is John Galt? In TELECOM Digest V10 #465, peter da silva , writes: > John Galt is a sort of Buckminster Fuller on cocaine: an eccentric > engineer who mixes philosophy and engineering in equal doses ... but > instead of a sort of proto new-age without the flakiness, Galt's > philosophy is a aggressive mix of social darwinism and sociobiology. To be fair, the philosophy has a polarizing effect on people. Some hate it, some love it. Those who have seen it, seldom choose anything in between. The above description is typical of the way people will describe it. Keep the intensity and change the attitude, and you have the other camp. > Oh yes, he's also only a character in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged", a > political statement thinly disguised as fiction. Atlas Shrugged was first published in 1957, and still sells briskly. Many people enjoy it for its fictional qualities. A huge number of people have heard about it, but only second-hand like the above from Peter, or second-hand from someone who loves it, but that usually results in reading it. Beware of the followers. There is a strong religious element in the "official" following, almost cult-like. There are also reasonable people who hold this philosophy, but they're much less likely to be missionaries. There are also some professional philosophers working with it. [Erik Naggum] [Moderator's Note: I'd like you to know that in 1957, when I was a second year student in high school, our debate class invited Ayn Rand to speak at a school assembly about her new book, and she accepted our invitation. Atlas Shrugged had just gone into print, and she was on the circuit promoting it. I introduced her, and afterward, our debate teacher Arthur Erickson and I took her to dinner before taking her back to the airport. I remember to this day sitting in the restaurant across from her, with her long cigarette holder as she seemed to stare straight through me. I smoked cigarettes also, since it was glamorous, and a sign of sophistication. Arthur praised me as the teacher's (his) pet, and Ms. Rand said, "You are such a smart young man! You are too smart to believe in Gott ..." She autographed my copy of her books (I also had a copy of The Fountainhead with me). PT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Jul 90 20:27:43 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Recessional: That's All, Folks! My thanks to Emmanuel Goldstein for his interesting message to the group today. It is worth some thought, particularly on Independence Day. And Erik Naggum's comments are also appropriate today. As soon as this Digest is in the mail and out to the net, I am leaving town, to return sometime early Sunday, July 8. We will be traveling down to southeastern Kansas, in the Coffeyville and Independence, KS area to be exact. But the business there will take just a couple days at most, and we will be heading back this way by car sometime late in the day Saturday, I suppose. Do have a pleasant and happy Independence Day holiday, and be certain to shoot your firecrackers in a safe and discrete way. *Please DO NOT send any messages to comp.dcom.telecom until the weekend.* Thanks. Patrick Townson TELECOM Moderator ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #467 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa22801; 8 Jul 90 19:39 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa16356; 8 Jul 90 18:14 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa07809; 8 Jul 90 17:10 CDT Date: Sun, 8 Jul 90 16:50:22 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #468 BCC: Message-ID: <9007081650.ab25552@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 8 Jul 90 16:50:13 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 468 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson AT&T Interstate Rates [John R. Covert] Pentagon Moved to Area Code 703 [Greg Monti via John R. Covert] Public*Phone [John Higdon] Plain Ol' Telephones [Ron Pfeifle] Using the "O" Operator to Defeat 800 ANI and Caller*ID [Steve Rhoades] Touchtone History [Roy Smith] HPPI (High-Performance Parallel Interface) Info Needed [R. Manghirmalani] Motorola 9000 Handheld [Rick Farris] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 6 Jul 90 10:44:58 PDT From: "John R. Covert 06-Jul-1990 1345" Subject: AT&T Interstate Rates AT&T's new rates as of 1 July 1990: Residential Reach-out-America: Night & Weekend Plan: Makes the night period begin at 10 PM instead of 11 PM. $7.15 per month includes first hour of N/W calling. $6.60 per additional hour, billed at .11 per minute. N/W/Evening Plan: $7.80 per month includes the Night & Weekend Plan. Provides an additional 15% discount on evening rates during the 5 PM to 10 PM period. Hourly charge Boston to Washington $7.43 Charlotte $7.62 Los Angeles $7.63 Honolulu $10.94 24-Hour Plan: $8.70 per month includes the above plans, provides a 10% discount on daytime rates, and increases the extra evening discount to 25%. Hourly charge Boston to Washington $6.56 Charlotte $6.73 Los Angeles $6.73 Honolulu $9.65 Calling card inclusion: $2.00/month. AT&T handled calling card calls obtain the discount. Call charges and the .80 calling card surcharge are discounted by the appropriate 10%, 15% or 25% during the day and evening period. During the Reach Out night and weekend period, no surcharge applies, and call charges are applied to the base and overtime rates. Only available in certain areas. Standard Rates: Mileage Initial Minute Additional Minutes Rate Periods 1-10 .18 .1206 .10 .17 .1139 .0975 D: M-F 8A-5P 11-22 .1975 .1340 .1130 .1975 .1340 .11 23-55 .1975 .1454 .12 .1975 .1454 .12 E: Sun-Fri 5P-11P 56-124 .2160 .1457 .12 .2150 .1454 .12 125-292 .2160 .1457 .1215 .2150 .1457 .1215 N: Every day 11P-8A 293-430 .23 .1457 .1250 .23 .1457 .1225 All day Saturday 431-925 .2390 .1495 .13 .2390 .1495 .1260 Until 5P Sunday 926-1910 .2490 .1496 .1325 .2490 .1496 .13 1911-3000 .2490 .1496 .1350 .2490 .1496 .1325 3001-4250 .31 .2077 .1650 .30 .2010 .16 4251-5750 .33 .2211 .1750 .32 .2144 .17 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Jul 90 15:58:06 PDT From: "John R. Covert 07-Jul-1990 1858" Subject: Pentagon Moved to Area Code 703 From: Greg Monti Date: 6 July 1990 Pentagon Moved to Area Code 703 Prefixes of the Pentagon-Department of Defense telephone Rate Area have been moved from Area Code 202 to Area Code 703. Up until now, the Pentagon has been one of those rare odd men out in the North American Numbering Plan. The Plan, at least for the US, states that area codes don't cross state lines. The Pentagon, located on land owned by the Federal Government in Arlington County, Virginia, got the 202 Area Code, presumably due to it being the only major Government agency with its headquarters in Virginia at the time Area Codes were established. It got 202 like the other agencies. (Many more Federal agencies have been located in Northern Virginia since; they all have 703 numbers.) Only phones which are extensions of the Pentagon PBX had 202. Private, outside lines, pay phones and private businesses in the Pentagon have 703 numbers. For local callers, the Pentagon's Area Code has been unimportant due to the 7-digit dialing used for local calls in the Washington area. With the advent of 10-digit dialing for local calls across state and Area Code lines, which becomes mandatory 1 October 1990, confusion could have reigned if nothing were done. Would local callers dial 10 digits for local calls which cross *state* boundaries or *area code* boundaries? Suppose your local call crossed only one of the two boundaries? (From DC to Pentagon, you would cross a state line, but not an Area Code boundary. From Virginia, you would cross an Area Code boundary but not a state line.) What would be the dialing rule then? That confusion has been eliminated. The following 202 prefixes have been moved to 703: 545(?), 692, 693, 695, 696, 697 and 746. One old Pentagon prefix, 202-694, could not be moved because there already is a 703-694 prefix in Stuart, Virginia. A new Pentagon prefix, 703-602, was opened, presumably to absorb the users booted off of 694. Previously, the Pentagon was its own Rate Area for billing purposes. Now that its Area Code is the same as the surrounding county, it may be moved into the Alexandria-Arlington Rate Area. The new 602 prefix is already listed in the Northern Virginia and DC directories as Alexandria-Arlington. To test whether the move was complete, sample Pentagon prefixes were dialed from both 703 and 202 phones (all local) as both 7 and 10 digits. As of 30 June 1990, none of the sample Pentagon prefixes could be reached by dialing 202-NXX-XXXX from Virginia but all of them could be reached by dialing 703-NXX-XXXX from Washington, DC. All could be reached by dialing just seven digits from either place since that is still allowed until October. Dialing 703-694 from a DC phone produces an immediate, "you must first dial a 1" intercept without even waiting for the last four digits. 1-703-694-XXXX would be the correct way to dial Stuart. Presumably, 202-694 will be closed, if it isn't already, or kept for some other purpose. Greg Monti, Arlington, Virginia; work +1 202 822-2633 ------------------------------ Subject: Public*Phone Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: 7 Jul 90 22:09:38 PDT (Sat) From: John Higdon An amusing COCOT incident: Needing to reach Pac*Bell over some matters with my residence phone, I spotted what looked like a standard Pac*Bell pay phone. It turned out to be a [Public*Phone] (tm) with colors and logos that are borderline actionable in their resemblance to Pac*Bell. They have blue rectangles in the upper left corner and an embossed logo on the coinbox cover that from more than ten feet away looks exactly like the puckered asshole logo of Pac*Bell. Anyway, I dialed 811-5700 and was told that I had dialed an "invalid number" by the grainiest digital excuse for a voice you have ever heard. Then I dialed 211 and explained that I couldn't reach 811-5700. She asked me to hold and then I heard a touchtone digit which made the phone go dead. A moment later she came back and said that the phone did not indicate any money lost. I told her I didn't put any money in and that 811-5700 should be a free call anywhere in the state of California. She went off the line again, and then came back and said that I would have to use another phone. I explained that there were no other phones anywhere in the vacinity and that I was going to express my displeasure over the inconvenience with the store proprietor. Suddenly, her tone changed and she said, "just one moment." The next thing I heard was "Pacific Bell, may I help you?". So, as the guru and mentor would say, "what have we learned, my children?" Perhaps, the COCOT robber barons are just a bit sensitive about suckers--er, customers complaining about their one-arm bandits to those who might have the power to have them removed. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Ron Pfeifle Subject: Plain Ol' Telephones. Date: 4 Jul 90 20:41:51 GMT Organization: Teleride Sage, Ltd., Waterloo, Ontario What happens on a two-wire telephone line when a call is being completed in terms of the two wires? I'd like a description like: The CO signals such-and-such across the wires. Because of this-and-that the telephone rings. When the receiver is picked up, A-and-B happens which tells the CO that the phone is off-hook. At this point voice out goes through wire blah, voice in comes through wire bleh, etc.. I just want to know what such-and-such, this-and-that, A-and-B etc... are for a two-wire subscriber line in terms of signals on those wires. Thanks, Ron Pfeifle : Teleride Sage Ltd : Waterloo, Ontario : watmath!tslwat!ronp ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Jul 90 09:54:22 PDT From: riot!slr@csvax.caltech.edu Reply-To: "Steve L. Rhoades" Subject: Using the "O" Operator to Defeat 800 ANI and Caller*ID When calling an 800 number from my Pasadena, CA exchange (818-794 - 1AESS), I have found that I can prevent the called party from receiving my number simply by routing the call through the "O" operator (Pac*Bell's TOPS). Normally, when I call one of MCI's, SPRINT's or AT&T's 800 numbers, my number will show up on the called party's call detail. If I simply Dial "O", and "have trouble reaching 800-xxx-xxxx" the call detail doesn't have my number. (Yes, the TOPS operator does have it.) I've only tried this with the above-mentioned 800 providers. My question: Is this just a fluke ? Is there some type of convention for TOPS to pass the calling number to the 800 service provider ? Has anyone else tried this ? Does it work elsewhere ? On a related question: For those of you with Caller*ID, what happens when you get a call routed through the "O" operator ? (the called party being someone that you would normally get a calling number from on your Caller*ID display). Steve US mail: Post Office Box 1000, Mount Wilson, Calif. 91023 UUCP: ...elroy!cit-vax!riot!slr Internet: slr@riot.caltech.edu voice-mail: (818) 794-6004 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Jul 90 15:05:47 EDT From: Roy Smith Subject: Touchtone History When were the first touchtone phones installed? I always thought the answer was that were introduced at the 1964/65 New York World's Fair. The fair opened in the summer of 64, so those were probably installed in late 63 or early 64. However, I recently watched a documentary about the desegregation of the University of Alabama (the incident in which Governor George Wallace vowed to "stand in the schoolhouse door" to prevent two black students from registering for classes) which proves me wrong on that theory. A touch-tone phone was clearly visible in President Kennedy's oval office in numerious bits of footage shot at the time. The year was 1963 and the students were trying to register for the summer session, so I would put the date at about May or June 1963. The phone that Kennedy used most of the time was a multi-line key set with a rotary dial (looked like about 25 lines) and a speakerphone attachment. Sitting on the table behind his chair were about 3 or 4 single line desk sets, one touch-tone, the rest rotary. Was touch-tone in general use in May 1963, or did the President just have a pre-release model? Another bit of interesting telecom related trivia was a shot of the US Deputy Attourny General (I forget his name) on location at the U of A wanting to place a private phone call to JFK to discuss tactics as the situation developed. You see him getting into his car and asking (telling, really) the press to get back so he can have some privacy. Then you see another shot of him, sitting in the car, talking on the phone. You clearly hear him saying something like "OK, they can't hear me now", and clearly hear JFK's voice responding! This is all real on-location footage, not some recreation. It's not clear if the phone line was tapped, there was a bug in the car, some sound man had a good parabolic mike, or if some reporter had simply slipped a mike into the car window without the DAG noticing. ------------------------------ From: Ravi Manghirmalani Subject: HPPI (High-Performance Parallel Interface) Info Desired Organization: Vicom Systems, Inc., Fremont, CA Date: Thu, 5 Jul 90 19:41:16 GMT I am currently researching the usability of HPPI (High-Performance Parallel Interface) for high speed local area networks. The only reference I have found, so far is "Overcoming Network Bottlenecks - Wayne Hathaway", UNIX Review Vol. 8, No. 4 (April 1990). I am interested in knowing about any available hardware/software products as well as any ongoing research/development work for HPPI concerning networking, disk-controllers, protocols, as well as their relationship to traditional networking, etc. Any leads would be greatly appreciated. ravi@vicom.com {ames|apple|sun}!vsi1!ravi (415) 498-3377 ------------------------------ From: rfarris@serene.UUCP (Rick Farris) Subject: Motorola 9000 Handheld Date: 8 Jul 90 02:50:07 GMT Reply-To: rfarris@serene.uu.net (Rick Farris) Organization: Serenity BBS, Del Mar, California Greetings, I finally took the plunge and acquired a cellular phone. I needed a handheld (or at least transportable) because I bought it not for use in the car, but to enable clients to reach me when I'm working on-site at another clients premises. I looked at the Radio Shack CT-301, as recommended by various c.d.t'ers, and it certainly was attractive at $500. The Motorola 9000 (which I ended up buying) seemed much nicer but was priced $400 higher. I even looked at the Motorola Micro-TAC, (for about $1100), because the idea of being able to carry a phone in my shirt pocket was alluring. Unfortunately, contrary to the rumors that abound here, the Micro-TAC is nowhere near small enough to fit in a shirt pocket. In particular, with the battery attached, it is quite thick. As the salesman pointed out to me, the Micro-TAC was really designed to fit in a woman's purse -- if a phone is big enough that it won't fit in your pocket, then you'll have to carry it in your hand or your briefcase, and there's not much sense to pay the big premium for the size of the Micro-TAC. That narrowed it down to the CT-301 and the Motorola 9000. (Ok, there was an OKI for about $700 that looked nice, but it didn't the quality feel of the Motorola, nor did it have the battery life nor come with as many accessories. Although the 9000 was $400 more expensive than the CT-301, it came with two antennas and two battery packs and a carrying case, which narrowed the price difference somewhat. The fact that programming information is readily available here in c.d.t for the CT-301 was a big draw for it, but finally, quality won out and I purchased the Motorola 9000 handheld. So now I'm here in c.d.t begging for more information about my phone. Does Motorola sell manuals for my phone? (To the public, I mean.) Does anyone else have a 9000 who would be willing to share info about it? After my phone was delivered, I realized that they hadn't told me the six-digit security code (normally unchangeable by the user) which is used to modify the three-digit lock code and to access various other features. I called the sales office and the supervisor there told me that she was sure my code was 000000 because that is what they set them all to! Does anyone know how to change it? Thanks! Rick Farris RF Engineering POB M Del Mar, CA 92014 voice (619) 259-6793 rfarris@rfengr.com ...!ucsd!serene!rfarris serene.UUCP 259-7757 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #468 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa28114; 8 Jul 90 22:52 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa09951; 8 Jul 90 21:18 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa14213; 8 Jul 90 20:14 CDT Date: Sun, 8 Jul 90 19:16:13 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #469 BCC: Message-ID: <9007081916.ab19117@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 8 Jul 90 19:15:02 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 469 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA [Wes Plouff] Re: PacBell to Eliminate Touch-Tone Charges [John A. Hammond] Re: Number of NXX in Each NPA [Jim Ray] Re: Buying Telecom Tools [Bob Vaughan] Re: Sprint Users Now Get Immediate Credit [Shailesh Shukla] Re: PacBell Coinphone False Info [Edward Greenberg] Re: Manhole Covers [Clive Feather] Re: Mitch Kapor and "Sun Devil" [Peter da Silva] Re: International Calls Using Credit Card and Equal Access [PCI] Re: Finland Direct (Some Problems) [Kauto Huopio] Re: Who is John Galt? [John David Galt] Plantronics Jackset [David Brightbill] Reference Book Wanted on Telephones [Adnan Yaqub] My Trip to Kansas [TELECOM Moderator] Good For a Laugh: Polish Payphones [Donald E. Kimberlin] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: plouff@kali.enet.dec.com Subject: Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA Date: 4 Jul 90 16:58:11 GMT Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation In article <9364@accuvax.nwu.edu>, john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) writes... >Isaac Rabinovitch writes: >> It is true that if they just passed the extra cost of call waiting, >But what IS this extra cost? You can't get a generic for any switch >today that doesn't have the usual custom calling features built in. ...and... >Heath Roberts writes: >> This isn't quite true. Telephone companies have to pay quite a bit for >> the software (and sometimes hardware) to provide these advanced >> features. >Call waiting, call forwarding, and three-way calling are not, repeat >not advanced features. They have been part and parcel of stock >generics for over twenty years. Try to buy a switch without them. Historical questions: when was the last date that AT&T sold switching equipment _without_ 100 percent tone dialing coverage? Competitors? When was the last date AT&T sold switches without at least some "custom calling" features as standard? Competitors? References such as magazine articles would be most appreciated. This is a relevant question for those of us who live with backwater telephone service from NYNEX, as well as arteriosclerotic regulation by the Mass. PUC. Wes Plouff, Digital Equipment Corp, Maynard, Mass. plouff%kali.enet.dec@decwrl.dec.com Networking bibliography: _Islands in the Net_, by Bruce Sterling _The Matrix_, by John S. Quarterman ------------------------------ From: "John A. Hammond" Subject: Re: PacBell to Eliminate Touch-Tone Charges Date: 6 Jul 90 18:11:02 GMT Reply-To: "John A. Hammond" Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego Several years ago, my daughter informed me that the pulse/dial telephones that I purchased would work in the tone mode. Since that time, particularly since we gave all of the rotary units back to PacBell rather than pay exhorbitant monthly rental, I have been using touch-tone dialing exclusively. There has never been an additional charge for that usage or an installation charge. I have had the same telephone service for roughly 25 years with the only change being the result of the divestiture. I suspect that the switch was replaced with a new one and touch-tone was available for use. I just didn't make the mistake of signing up for it! ------------------------------ From: Jim Ray Subject: Re: Number of NXX in Each NPA Organization: Harris Semiconductor, Melbourne FL Date: Wed, 4 Jul 90 21:34:45 GMT Does anyone have a list of the NXX's in each NPA? This list gave the number of NXX's in each NPA but not each one and area location. Is this information generally available? Jim Ray Harris Semiconductor Internet: jdr@mlb.semi.harris.com PO Box 883 MS 62B-022 Phone: (407) 729-5059 Melbourne, FL 32901 [Moderator's Note: You are asking for very large, extensive files, but yes, they are available. If David Leibold (woody), our Canadian correspondent is reading this, please write Mr. Ray and send your files to him if he *really* wants all of them as he thinks. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 July 90 01:44:26 pdt From: Bob Vaughan Subject: Re: Buying Telecom Tools Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA In article <7444@accuvax.nwu.edu> you write: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 327, Message 11 of 11 >I wanted to get a tracing beeper, an inductive pickup, and a modular >adapter (to bring the modular pins out in order to attach a test set.) >I found that Graybar in San Jose won't sell to anybody who doesn't >have a California resale certificate. I thought that the days of >phone-paranoia were over. >Does anybody know of a source that publishes a catalog from which I >can mail order items such as these? Hello Direct just won't cut it. Try this place: Time Motion Tools 410 South Douglas St El Segundo , Ca 90245 213-772-8170 Bob Vaughan - techie@well.sf.ca.us - {apple,pacbell,hplabs,ucbvax}!well!techie ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Jul 90 12:16 CDT From: Shailesh Shukla Subject: Re: Sprint Users Now Get Immediate Credit Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services In article <9345@accuvax.nwu.edu>, jchen@dduck.ctt.bellcore.com (Jason Chen) writes: > You can get immediate credit ... if and only if you can get through > their always-busy customer service. Yup, they have not changed a bit > since I dropped them three years ago. Not true! That's partly the idea behind the instant-credit service. You don't have to dial customer service (1-800-877-4646). The 00 operator can give you all the credit you want. Shailesh Shukla ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Jul 90 08:21 PDT From: Edward_Greenberg@cso.3mail.3com.com Subject: PacBell Coinphone False Info Ron Schnell writes: >..I never thought I would see a BOC payphone which displays >misinformation like this one did. >She then told me that in the future I should call Pac Bell, and >that they are the ones who should know about it. Ron goes on to suggest that AT&T should have done something about it, and, indeed, they might have taken a report, but then, they'd have to do the same thing that they suggested ... Call Pacific Bell. I found a payphone in a restaurant recently, that was labelled AT&T, and gave some sleezy LD service instead. I called Pacific Bell Repair Service and reported it, and it was fixed the next day! Since they control the programming, I wouldn't think of calling AT&T for the problem. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Jul 90 07:13:21 bst From: Clive Feather Subject: Re: Manhole Covers People have been talking about constant width curves (such as a triangle with curved sides, each centred on the opposite vertex). The UK 20p and 50p coins are seven-sided constant width curves in shape. The constant width property means that the coin will still roll ! Clive D.W. Feather | IXI Limited clive@x.co.uk [x, not ixi] | 62-74 Burleigh St. ...!uunet!ixi!clive | Cambridge CB1 1OJ Phone: +44 223 462 131 | United Kingdom ------------------------------ From: peter da silva Subject: Re: Mitch Kapor and "Sun Devil" Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Date: Sun, 8 Jul 90 16:37:38 GMT In article <9452@accuvax.nwu.edu> it is written: System) writes: > You wouldn't threaten somebody > with 30 years in jail for taking something from a house. AT&T and DEC aren't houses. Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. ------------------------------ From: PCI@cup.portal.com Subject: Re: International Calls Using Credit Card and Equal Access Date: Fri, 6 Jul 90 18:50:43 PDT Greg Monti states: >There are no "different" vendors for overseas calls and for domestic >calls. US regulations (the Modified Final Judgment) state that, from >any US phone, the whole world is divided into just two areas: >intra-LATA and inter-LATA. Overseas calls are obviously in the second ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >category and therefore the long distance companies carry them. ^^^^^^^^^ This is not quite accurate. LEC's are not allowed to provide inter-LATA service. They are allowed to provide intra-LATA and International service. This situation in very familiar to the carriers that serve the Hawaii market. One of the largest IRC's (International Record Carriers) in the region is GTE Hawaiian Telephone (HawTel) the local LEC. When competing for service between Hawaii and other Pacific points (including U.S. points of Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas and American Samoa) we find our LEC (which has a monopoly for local service ... both dialup access and leased line local loops) is also the IRC competing with us. In order to prepare a bid, we must notify our ... [Moderator's Note: This is the way I received the above message. It appears the last sentence or two have been truncated. PT] ------------------------------ From: Kauto Huopio Subject: Re: Finland Direct (Some Problems) Date: 7 Jul 90 21:43:44 GMT Organization: Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland My brother is as an exchange student in Lawton, Michigan. He has tried to call our family here at Finland via the Finland Direct service (quite equal to Svergie Direct) Our PTT has advertised these two numbers: 1-800-232-0358 via ATT 1-800-283-4652 via MCI My brother hasn't got through, at least when he did try the ATT number. He got a recorded message: "Your international call couldn't be completed" or something like that. Now I have several questions: 1) Is it true that there can bee 1-800 numbers NOT ACCESSIBLE via either ATT/MCI 2) If 1) is true, can my brother access another carrier to make the 1-800 call and does he get any additional charges on that? 3) Do these numbers work at all? (PLEASE, I don't want to get such news that 4000 telecom readers blocked the Finland Direct service just to test if it works..) Kauto, OH5LFM ****************** Kauto Huopio (huopio@kannel.lut.fi) ********************** *US Mail: Kauto Huopio, Punkkerikatu 1 A 10, SF-53850 Lappeenranta, Finland * *WARNING! We have holiday season here, so be patient with my answers.. * ***************************************************************************** ------------------------------ From: ames!ames!claris!portal!cup.portal.com!John_David_Galt@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: Who is John Galt? Date: Sat, 7 Jul 90 15:19:05 PDT You guessed right about where I got the name, but I am a real person and am not quite the same as either Rand's character or da Silva's description. I invite philosophical discussions under alt.individualism -- this is not the place for them. For the record, John David Galt is my real name, which I took in 1981. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Jul 90 02:55:46 -0400 From: David Brightbill Subject: Plantronics Jackset Does anyone know how to connect a Plantronics js-0180-1 jackset to a plain old 500 style instrument? I sort of got it working by guess and by golly but ... I suspect that there are different pinouts depending on the type of instrument it gets connected to. Dave Brightbill Rt. 7, MLC-9 Tallahassee, FL 32308-9802 904.878.3746 djb@fsucs.cs.fsu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Apr 90 11:13:41 EDT From: Adnan Yaqub Subject: Reference Book Wanted on Telephones Could some kind body please point me to a suitable reference which describes the signaling between the main office and my home phone. I would like to know such things as how much power is provided, what the ring signal is like, how the click for call waiting is done, etc. Adnan Yaqub Star Gate Technologies, 29300 Aurora Rd, Solon, OH, 44139, USA, +1 216 349 1860 [...cwjcc!ncoast ...uunet!abvax ...ism780c ...sco ...mstar]!sgtech!adnan ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Jul 90 18:38:10 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: My Trip to Kansas My trip earlier this week to the land of Ah's went off mostly without a hitch, although my cellular phone from Radio Shack (CT-301) with service from Ameritech gave me some hassles. From Chicago going down I-55 we have Ameritech here at home and again in the Springfield, IL area. Some other small cell carrier comes in further downstate, which I belive is Contel Cellular, which is a division of some other cell carrier. Shortly before St. Louis. Southestern Bell came in, then Missouri was served in a sketchy way by United States Cellular over much of Route 54. The trouble is, I could make no outgoing calls (or receive incoming calls via Ameritech's 'follow me' roaming feature) on the way down. It seems even tough I told Ameritech earlier in the week to turn on the 'Fast Track Follow Me Roaming' feature (which they did), since this was my first trip out of town with the cell phone, for some reason Ameritech got paranoid when they picked up my signal from central Illinois instead of Chicago ... so ... they cut me off immediatly. Being the Fourth of July, there was no one in their office to complain to, but Thursday morning, July 5 I was on their 800 numbber at 9 AM sharp to raise cain. I got a call back an hour or so later from a man who apologized and said I had inadvertently been placed on the 'abandoned listing'. On the way back everything worked fine, except that on a few occasions when between carrier areas, the roaming light (as opposed to 'no service' light) would come on, leading me to believe there was service at that point when there was not. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Jul 90 22:03 EST From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> To: Telecom Moderator Subject: Good For a Laugh: Polish Payphones ..Here's a mini-laugh just arrived here as republished in TE&M magazine for July 1, 1990: "A recent article from Knight-Ridder newspapers describes the payphone situation in Poland: "`Want in on the best little bargain in a changing Eastern Europe? Step right up: A local call at a Polish payphone is still only 20 zlotys -- about one-fifth of a penny in U.S. terms. "`Don't have a 20-zloty coin? Not to worry. With some shrewd dealing you can buy one for as low as 200 zlotys.'" (I make that out to be about 2 cents U.S. !) "`Since Polish payphone mechanisms were increased to 20 zlotys several months ago, 20-zloty coins have gone into hiding. "`Not all 20-zloty coins, mind you. Just the ones that fit payphones. There are three sizes of 20-zloty coins in Poland,along with a 20-zloty bill. (Don't ask; explaining all of this is going to be complicated enough.) "`The payphone-sized 20-zlotycoins are selling on the streets for 200 to 1,000 zlotys apiece.'" (I still say cheap at a thousand zlotys -- about a dime U.S., isn't it?) "`The whole thing might strike you as it strikes Miroslawa Firlej, 35, a Polish waitress who recently coughed up 1,000 zlotys for a coin to call her son's school to report he was sick. Of the payphone situation, she remarked, "It's crazy." "`A great many Poles, like Firlej, have no phone in their homes, so they rely on payphones. And with the breathtaking inflation that has resulted from the country's sudden change to a free-market economy, 20-zloty coins don't circulate much because they aren't worth much, except in a pay phone. And there, incidentally, they are a good deal, considering that a local call from a private phone is now 150 zlotys.'" Seems I recall a similar situation in Greece, where the local payphone rate was a few drachmae, a price so cheap that coins of such a small denomination were hard to come by. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #469 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa15484; 10 Jul 90 3:04 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa32312; 10 Jul 90 1:26 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa05968; 10 Jul 90 0:23 CDT Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 23:34:08 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #470 BCC: Message-ID: <9007092334.ab06654@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Mon, 9 Jul 90 23:33:39 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 470 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Using the "O" Operator to Defeat 800 ANI and Caller*ID [Dave Levenson] Re: Public*Phone [David Tamkin] Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA [John Higdon] Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA [Heath Roberts] Re: Touchtone History [John Slater] Re: PacBell to Eliminate Touch-Tone Charges [smb@ulysses.att.com] Re: Pentagon Moved to Area Code 703 [Carl Moore] Re: Finland Direct (Some Problems) [John R. Covert] Re: My Trip to Kansas [Doug Davis] Re: Good For a Laugh: Polish Payphones [John Higdon] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Using the "O" Operator to Defeat 800 ANI and Caller*ID Date: 9 Jul 90 01:13:09 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article <9481@accuvax.nwu.edu>, riot!slr@csvax.caltech.edu writes: > On a related question: For those of you with Caller*ID, what happens > when you get a call routed through the "O" operator ? (the called > party being someone that you would normally get a calling number from > on your Caller*ID display). Here in New Jersey, local calls placed through the operator are displayed as "OUT OF AREA" on the Caller*ID display. This makes them indistinguishable from calls which originate out of the LATA or from CO's which are not equipped with SS7. This is also true of calls dialed as 0+ and charged to a calling card, without any communication with a human operator. Dave Levenson Voice: 201 647 0900 Fax: 201 647 6857 Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] ------------------------------ From: David Tamkin Subject: Re: Public*Phone Date: Sun, 8 Jul 90 21:04:33 CDT In TELECOM Digest, Volume 10, Issue 468, John Higdon wrote: | An amusing COCOT incident: | Needing to reach Pac*Bell over some matters with my residence phone, I | spotted what looked like a standard Pac*Bell pay phone. It turned out | to be a [Public*Phone] (tm) with colors and logos that are borderline | actionable in their resemblance to Pac*Bell. They have blue rectangles | in the upper left corner and an embossed logo on the coinbox cover | that from more than ten feet away looks exactly like the puckered | asshole logo of Pac*Bell. Around metropolitan Chicago, COCOTs originally looked like something untoward, but after a while all new ones installed were made to appear deceptively similar to Illinois Bell coin phones. One frequently has to get close enough to see that the logo in the white space in the upper left of the card is not IBT's before recognizing one of the buggers for sure. The guise backfires in Centel's satrapy, where telco pay stations have a distinctive boxy solid brown or gray housing and a prominent instruction card in a different position from the IBT payphones and the COCOTs. Since there don't seem to be any COCOTs manufactured to look like the pay phones of independent telqi, the COCOTs in Centel territory (usually outside gasoline stations or inside restaurants, but far sparser than in IBT country) stick out like sore thumbs. David Tamkin Box 7002 Des Plaines IL 60018-7002 708 518 6769 312 693 0591 MCI Mail: 426-1818 GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN CIS: 73720,1570 dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA Date: 8 Jul 90 21:27:33 PDT (Sun) From: John Higdon plouff@kali.enet.dec.com writes: > This is a relevant question for those of us who live with backwater > telephone service from NYNEX, as well as arteriosclerotic regulation > by the Mass. PUC. Moo, moo, moo! Come to California some time if you want backwater. Come to California if you want arteriosclerotic (or just plain silly) regulation. F'rinstance -- I just talked to one of my major upstairs Pac*Bell contacts. He says that CLASS will hopefully become available second quarter 1991. He says that hardware is in place, but that there is still nothing resembling a tariff. So much for regulation. Now for backwater. Pac*Bell is still saddled with major amounts of crossbar (mostly in northern CA). In order to continue to use this junk, they were forced several years ago to install the NAC CONTAC to the switches which mainly enables FGD. Wonderful, you say. However, there were side effects. Unadorned crossbar has no trouble counting pulse dialing at 20 pps. CONTAC must see 9-12 pps. Outside of this window is not permitted. Also, Pac*Bell has just decided that post-dial delay resulting from the CONTAC operation may be too long. What an understatement. For a DDD call to LA using AT&T it take three seconds to connect on my ESS and ten seconds on my crossbar line. That's more than 300% longer! BTW, there are eight prefixes of crossbar left in my CO alone! (Crossbar for all of you outside of tel-hell [CA] is that electro-mechanical stuff you read about in books that now have yellow pages.) Now what was that about backwater? John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Heath Roberts Subject: Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA Reply-To: Heath Roberts Organization: NCSU Computing Center Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 20:14:42 GMT In article <9487@accuvax.nwu.edu> plouff@kali.enet.dec.com writes: >Historical questions: when was the last date that AT&T sold switching >equipment _without_ 100 percent tone dialing coverage? Competitors? >When was the last date AT&T sold switches without at least some >"custom calling" features as standard? Competitors? References such >as magazine articles would be most appreciated. >This is a relevant question for those of us who live with backwater >telephone service from NYNEX, as well as arteriosclerotic regulation >by the Mass. PUC. I can only speak directly of Northern Telecom, but I am assured by customers who work with AT&T equipment they ATT's systems are similar. To the first question: all switches come with tone receivers. But you need more than one tone receiver for a large switch: if you provide touch-tone service to 10,000 lines, you might need twenty of them. If your customers use the phone a lot, you might need thirty. The more lines you want to connect to tone receivers, the more tone receivers you need. Only one line can send tones to a given receiver at a time. The hardware to detect current loop (off-hook or pulse dialing, which is just a bunch of closely-spaced off-hook signals) is present on the line card itself: there's one per subscriber loop in the switch. So you can't really just ask about "100% coverage". It doesn't work that way. Trying to provide more touch-tone service without adding capacity is like trying to push a thousand cars an hour down a two lane road: things back up, everybody gets slowed down, etc. You have to add extra lanes in the long run. On the issue of software: switches are like cars. There's the basic model (switch o.s., no call processing) and then there are the features. Call processing is a popular one, so everybody orders it. ;-) In fact, a telephone switch would be useless without it. But beyond the basic POTS and switch O/S, everything's optional. Just like cars, there are attractively priced packages of common options, but they still cost extra. It always takes more hardware (and software) to provide these features -- you don't get something for nothing. The price of the hardware is coming down, but you need more and more of it (you can actually put four Gigabytes of RAM--memory, not disk space--on your DMS-100 now if you need it). Software's also getting to be more and more complex, so telcos are spending proportionally more on software than they used to. These costs are the reason I think I'm justified in saying that CLASS features, although not "advanced" in concept, and even though they're pretty common, cost operating companies more to provide than POTS. Heath Roberts NCSU Computer and Technologies Theme Program heath@shumv1.ncsu.edu ------------------------------ From: John Slater Subject: Re: Touchtone History Date: 9 Jul 90 08:44:35 GMT Reply-To: John Slater In article <9482@accuvax.nwu.edu>, roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes: >Sitting on the table behind his chair were >about 3 or 4 single line desk sets, one touch-tone, the rest rotary. Er, shouldn't that be "one push-button, the rest rotary"? Unless you heard the tones when JFK made a call, it could just be a pulse-dialler. In the UK, push-button pulse-dialling phones have been around for years, long before touch-tone came along. John Slater Sun Microsystems UK, Gatwick Office ------------------------------ From: smb@ulysses.att.com Subject: Re: PacBell to Eliminate Touch-Tone Charges Date: Mon, 09 Jul 90 09:31:05 EDT John Hammond writes of Touch-Tone service suddenly working on his line, and speculates about a switch upgrade. More likely, the switch hasn't been upgraded. My understanding is that with crossbar switches, Touch-Tone has to be enabled for groups of 100 lines at a time. Thus, if a ``neighbor'' has the service, you can have it, too. This is in contrast to modern digital exchanges, where all lines physically can have it, but a configuration bit tells the switch whether or not to honor the tones. A year or two ago, NY Telephone announced that they were going to start looking for people who used Touch-Tone without paying for it, and send them a bill. I haven't heard of this actually happening yet. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 16:31:08 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: Pentagon Moved to Area Code 703 A recent message in telecom from Greg Monti said that the Pentagon picked up offices which used to be in Washington, thus (sometime way back) it was given DC instead of Virginia prefixes. What place name will be used for the Pentagon prefixes which have now been put in area 703? Switching from Washington to Arlington/Alexandria would cause some changes in the fringes of the calling area. From the prefixes (other than DC & Baltimore metro) in the Maryland fringes such as Gaithersburg and Laurel, DC is local but Virginia is long distance. And a previous message from me in telecom notes that, despite the (soon to go away?) ability to make long distance calls to all-but- outermost Va. & Md. suburbs using area code 202, the already-working NPA+7D scheme for local DC-area calls will permit area 202 to be used only for DC prefixes. I noticed that this NPA+7D can be used even in one's own NPA in DC-area local calls. Please correct me if any of this is wrong: The Pentagon was already reachable as 7D in those extended-area calls from "Prince William" area. (Stuart is way down near the North Carolina border, so there is no danger of prefix duplication involving 694.) The extended-area calls the other way around now are dialed as 1+703+7D from the Pentagon (they are long distance from DC proper), and could LATER be reduced to 7, not 10, digits, given that the Pentagon prefixes are now in 703 area. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 14:22:57 PDT From: "John R. Covert 09-Jul-1990 1658" Subject: Re: Finland Direct (Some Problems) >My brother is as an exchange student in Lawton, Michigan. He has tried >to call our family here at Finland via the Finland Direct service. >Our PTT has advertised these two numbers: >1-800-232-0358 via ATT >1-800-283-4652 via MCI When I call either of these numbers, I reach a tone _in_Finland_ that I am not familiar with, but it may simply be a "please wait" tone. I suspect the problem is with the grade of service provided by the operators in Finland. The tone is roughly 500ms of 950 Hz, 250ms of 950 Hz, 1.5 sec of 1400 Hz. After a long time of no revenue due to no answer, AT&T gives up and says "Your call cannot be completed at this time in the country you are calling." On MCI it eventually times out to a reorder (120 interruptions per minute). >1) Is it true that there can bee 1-800 numbers NOT ACCESSIBLE via >either ATT/MCI Any carrier can provide 800 service, but I can verify that 232 is the AT&T prefix and 283 is the MCI prefix. >2) If 1) is true, can my brother access another carrier to make the >1-800 call and does he get any additional charges on that? No. But that wouldn't help, since the problem is obviously in Finland, and not here. >3) Do these numbers work at all? (PLEASE, I don't want to get such >news that 4000 telecom readers blocked the Finland Direct service just >to test if it works..) It may just be a matter of being patient enough to wait for the Finland Direct number to answer, though if you're put at the end of the queue of all the people in Finland calling the international operator each time you call, you may never get through. One of the main reasons for USA Direct (the first Home Country Direct service ever implemented) being established was that it often took a very long time for operators in many European countries to answer; Americans are used to operators answering in something between two and ten seconds. Your brother should probably simply call the AT&T operator and place a collect call. /john ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 13:37 CDT From: Doug Davis Subject: Re: My Trip to Kansas Organization: Logic Process, Dallas Tx In article <9507@accuvax.nwu.edu> TELECOM Moderator writes: >On the way back everything worked fine, except >that on a few occasions when between carrier areas, the roaming light >(as opposed to 'no service' light) would come on, leading me to >believe there was service at that point when there was not. This is usually due to a phone being programmed to scan the b and a carriers, sometimes they mistakenly lock on a (insert opposing carrier)'s signal and roam to it. The solution is to program your phone to only scan the correct ( b [wireline] or a [non-wireline] ) carrier for whomever you have a roaming agreement with. Also sometimes on the CT-301 (and all the other phones made by Mobira) a close proximity tower of the other carrier will cause your phone to roam on it, if that tower overpowers the correct carrier for your phone. On most phones this is a user option and can be changed "on the fly" without going into program mode. Doug Davis/4409 Sarazen/Mesquite Texas, 75150/214-270-9226 {texsun|lawnet|texbell}!letni!doug or doug@letni.lonestar.org ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Good For a Laugh: Polish Payphones Date: 8 Jul 90 21:35:53 PDT (Sun) From: John Higdon "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> writes: > "`Don't have a 20-zloty coin? Not to worry. With some > shrewd dealing you can buy one for as low as 200 zlotys.'" > (I make that out to be about 2 cents U.S. !) On a trip to La Paz (Mexico) last year, a local teenager demonstrated how to make a call if one didn't have the correct change (or didn't want to actually expend the funds). One takes the coin, (US coins seem to work for this purpose as well) and insert it partially. When the telephone appears to have recognized the coin, simply remove it. Many of the payphones there didn't even require that much effort--they just provided free calls. Obviously, the Mexican telephone company doesn't consider public phones to be the gold mine that they are in the US! John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #470 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa16704; 10 Jul 90 4:07 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa14505; 10 Jul 90 2:30 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab32312; 10 Jul 90 1:27 CDT Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 0:28:50 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #471 BCC: Message-ID: <9007100028.ab22544@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 10 Jul 90 00:27:57 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 471 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Legion of Doom Members Plead Guilty [Eduardo Krell] Canadian Hotel Revises Phone Call Rates [Marcel D. Mongeon] Merlin Question [Roy M. Silvernail] Radio Shack CT-102 [Doug Faunt] NAMFAX Info Wanted [Eric Varsanyi] Telebit T1000 Modem at 9600 Baud [Phil Ngai] How Do I Wire a 500 Set? [Roy M. Smith] Curious About Overseas Call Responses [Subbarayu Darisipudi] Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? [Tom Neff] Re: International Calls Using Credit Card and Equal Access [G. Monti] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ekrell@ulysses.att.com Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 16:14:38 EDT Subject: Legion of Doom Members Plead Guilty Extracts from an AP news wire: Three members of the Legion of Doom group pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges Monday. U.S. Attorney Joe Whitley said the group disrupted telecommunications, stole computer source codes and information, stole credit card information and fraudulently obtained money and property. In May, authorities in Indiana prosecuted a juvenile who pleaded guilty to 11 counts of fraud and agreed to testify against the three Atlanta men, in a trial scheduled to start today. Instead, the three pleaded guilty. They are E. Grant, 22 and Robert Riggs, 22 (both from Atlanta) and Franklin E. Darden Jr, 24 of Norcross. Whitley said in a statement that they illegally accessed various BellSouth computers between Sept. 10, 1987 and July 21, 1989. Grant and Darden also monitored private telephone conversations. They were carged with conspiracy to commit computer fraud, wire fraud, access code fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property. Darden and Riggs pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy each and face a maximum of 5 years in prison and a $ 250,000 fine. Grant pleaded guilty to possessing 15 or more BellSouth access devices with intent to defraud and faces up to 10 years in prison and a $ 250,000 fine. Eduardo Krell AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ UUCP: {att,decvax,ucbvax}!ulysses!ekrell Internet: ekrell@ulysses.att.com ------------------------------ From: root@joymrmn.UUCP (Marcel D. Mongeon) Subject: Canadian Hotel Revises Phone Call Rates Date: 9 Jul 90 15:35:02 GMT Organization: The Joymarmon Group Inc. I administer a hotel PBX (please no flames about hotel charges until you read this whole posting). The hotel is located in Ontario Canada which means we have only one long distance supplier - Bell Canada (A first cousin of AT&T). With the proliferation of long distance companies in the United States and the large number of guests that we attract from the states, we have been getting a *lot* of inquiries concerning accessing alternate long distance companies. In a few cases (MCI and Sprint to be exact), we do let the guests know about the 1-800-950-1022 and 1-800-877-8000 telephone numbers to access these two services. However, I would like to provide our guests with a much more complete list. Therefore I would appreciate e-mail or postings to this group of such numbers (remember they have to be accessible from Canada! - a lot of US 800 numbers will not work from Canada). In addition to the American long distance providers, I would also like as many of the "Overseas" 'Direct' numbers, including AT&T's USA Direct. Finally, as to the charges that we levy: some of you will recall a posting some time ago on this subject from myself. AFter overcoming the shock of the vehemence of some of the replies, I examined what people were saying and then ran a test period of a new charging scheme. That scheme is the following: Local Calls -- No charge. Directory Assistance -- $1.00 (after all every room has a telephone book and we have to pay $.75 for these calls). Credit Card Calls -- No charge. Operator Assisted (not charged to the Hotel) -- No Charge. Operator Assisted (charged to the Hotel) -- Actual charges plus a $1.00 surcharge (if you don't want to pay the surcharge put it on your credit card). 800 Calls -- No charge (This includes 800-950-1022 and any other LD access numbers). Guest Dialed Long Distance (charged to the room) -- Actual DDD charges plus 50% plus a $1.00 surcharge ($2.50 for international calls) (see description below). 900 and 700 Calls -- Blocked in the switch Generally the policy is simple, if the hotel doesn't have to pay for the call (notwithstanding monthly trunk charges etc.) neither does the guest. In the case of Guest Dialled Long Distance, I am sure that there are some people who might start screaming "Rip-Off" with the 50% and $1 surcharges. However, before you start doing this, let's compare the cost to making a credit card call: My telephone book tells me that all station-to-station credit card calls completed by an operator have a surcharge of $1.50 and $3.75 for a person-to-person. In addition, there is a minimum 34 cent charge for the call on top of that. Charges are rounded up to the next whole minute whereas our call detail recorder only charges 10ths of a minute. Therefore, the surcharges we tack on are in keeping with those placed on a credit card call. Finally, for those who think that these surcharges still leave us sitting on a mountain of money we have to take into consideration what the inavailability of answer supervision means for the charging of short calls. Answer supervision is what makes a pay phone grab your quarter when the other party answers and give it back to you if they don't. If the phone company can provide it to every blessed pay phone, you wonder why they can't make it work for a call detail recorer in a hotel. The bottom line is they can't (or maybe they won't?). Therefore, in charging calls to our guests, we have to program two additional numbers, the minimum time that a call must continue before it is eleigible to be charged and the time to be deducted from the total length of the call which represents the setup time (the switching and the ringing). If these numbers are set too low, then a lot of calls that were never made will get charged with a lot of guest complaints to boot. Set the number too high and a lot of calls that were made and completed properly will not get charged with the attendant loss of income to the hotel even though the phone company will charge us for those calls. Our philosophy has been to set up the numbers on the high side. Since doing so, we have almost eleiminated complaints of calls being charged that were never completed. On the other hand, our comparisons of what was charged to guests versus what was charged by the phone company indicates that there is a small revenue loss. We make up for this loss with the surcharge. In other words, all people who make long duration long distance calls end up subsidizing thos who make short calls which are not charged for. If anyone can convince the phone company to provide us answer supervision no problem, we can get rid of the surcharge. Until then, it's the best solution that I know of. ||| Marcel D. Mongeon ||| e-mail: ... (uunet, maccs)!joymrmn!root or ||| joymrmn!marcelm ------------------------------ Subject: Merlin Question From: "Roy M. Silvernail" Date: Mon, 09 Jul 90 21:15:51 CDT Organization: Villa CyberSpace, Minneapolis, MN An associate has asked a question I cannot answer, so I would like to call on any Merlin gurus reading this group. He doesn't know the model number, but is discussing adding a line card to a Merlin system. I believe this would be a 820 KSU. The question is... are there any third-party voice terminals available for the Merlin system, or must he use the AT&T model? E-mail responses would be fine, as I doubt this is of great general import. Thanks in advance! Roy M. Silvernail | Opinions found now available at: | herein are mine, cybrspc!roy@cs.umn.edu | but you can rent (cyberspace... be here!)| | them. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Jul 90 20:33:16 -0700 From: Doug Faunt N6TQS 415-688-8269 Subject: Radio Shack CT-102 The Radio Shack CT-102 is for sale for $299. What does the Telecom collective conciousness think of the unit? Are there better deals available in the SF Bay area? What is the lowest base cost rate available for service in the Bay Area? Thanx for the information. ------------------------------ From: Eric Varsanyi Subject: NAMFAX Info Wanted Date: 9 Jul 90 13:52:48 GMT Organization: Cray Computer Corporation A while ago someone posted about the NAMFAX guide to programming various cellular phones. I called them (they are in the Bay Area) and asked for details on what type of information they had on each phone, but the person I talked to was not very knowledgable and just answered that they have all the information I would ever need. Has anyone out there actually bought NAXFAX? If so, what level of detail do they have on the Motorola 750. I have all the info on reprogramming the NAM and getting into maintenance mode (shorting a pin on the back to GND), but Motorola would not give me any of the details on what other neat things you can do from maintenance mode (like how to change the six digit internal lock code). Does the NAMFAX guide have this level of detail? On other phones too? Is it worth the $100/$150 for someone with a single phone? Eric Varsanyi (ewv@craycos.com) Cray Computer Corporation ------------------------------ From: Phil Ngai Subject: Telebit T1000 Modem at 9600 Baud Reply-To: Phil Ngai Organization: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Sunnyvale CA Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 07:47:07 GMT A couple years ago, I went from 2400 to Telebit for dial-in, interactive use. I was unimpressed. I found the packetization disturbing. The average delay from when I did something to when the first character of a response came back seemed greater. After that, of course, the characters came in faster. But I think the delay to first character is what's important. I can't read at 2400 anyway. If there was no way to select what I want to display then it would be nice to display the stuff I don't need faster, but usually I can skip to exactly what I want and after that, the difference between 2400 and 9600 is not that important. For UUCP, Telebit is probably worth considering but for dial-in, I didn't like it. Phil Ngai, phil@amd.com {uunet,decwrl,ucbvax}!amdcad!phil PALASM 90: it's not the same old PALASM any more! ------------------------------ From: roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) Subject: How Do I Wire A 500 Set? Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 12:18:18 GMT I have a good old basic rotary desk phone (500 set) that works fine except for the ringer, which doesn't ring. I suspect that somewhere along the (time) line it might have been disconnected to avoid REN-count detection, and put back on the wrong terminals on the network block. Can anybody tell me how to wire the ringer so it works? Tip and ring I now have on L1 and L2, although there seem to be many combinations of terminals to which I can connect T/R and still have the phone work, modulo the ringer. I experimented with various places for the red and white wires from the ringer, but havn't found the magic combination yet. Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy ------------------------------ From: Subbarayu Darisipudi Subject: Curious About Overseas Call Responses Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 18:37:54 GMT Just curious, wondering how the phone system works. When I call up India using the University phones I dial 8 and after a I get a different tone I enter my billing code and I get back to the usual tone. Now I press 01 - Country Code - Area Code - Phone number. The call usually takes a couple of seconds to set up. When the call is not set up, I get a message which goes something like this: "YOUR INTERNATIONAL CALL DID NOT COMPLETE IN THE DESTINATION COUNTRY DIALLED. PLEASE TRY YOUR CALL LATER 405 2 T" Two questions: 1. Is the message due to the reason that the party called is busy or is it due to the reason that there were no lines available to India at that instant? ( Note: When I call up from a friend's phone with a direct AT&T line or from a pay phone using AT&T or MCI card, the call is usually set up promptly but from the university phone, it literally takes forever!!) 2. The numbers at the end of the message, are they indicating the originating area code. I am calling from (405)-XXX-XXXX. As I said, just curious. Nothing more. Thanks, Subbarayudu D. ------------------------------ From: Tom Neff Subject: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? Date: 9 Jul 90 10:19:07 GMT Reply-To: Tom Neff In this summer's movie DIE HARD 2**, which supposedly takes place in Dulles International Airport (Washington DC), the payphones have a prominent Pac*Bell logo on them. Do they really provide the service in Dulles? Or was this an unavoidable glitch due to shooting in LA? Or just a plug for the highest bidder? (GTE was featured prominently on the in-flight public phone, and hundreds of other vendors had their little plugs too -- this has become par for the course in movies.) ** Mini review -- not as tight as the first one, even less believable, but still good for laughs and ouch! type thrills. See it on a hot, boring afternoon. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 13:54:32 PDT From: "John R. Covert 09-Jul-1990 1654" Subject: Re: International Calls Using Credit Card and Equal Access From: Greg Monti Date: 9 July 1990 Subject: Re: International Calls Using Credit Card and Equal Access (Regarding what kind of carrier, inter-LATA or intra-LATA, carries international toll calls. I had stated that international calls were inter-LATA): PCI@cup.portal.com writes: > This is not quite accurate. LEC's are not allowed to provide > inter-LATA service. They are allowed to provide intra-LATA and > International service. > This situation in very familiar to the carriers that serve the Hawaii > market. One of the largest IRC's (International Record Carriers) in > the region is GTE Hawaiian Telephone (HawTel) the local LEC... > ...we find our LEC (which has a monopoly for local > service) ... competing with us. You are right, I wasn't clear enough. The Modified Final Judgment which governed the breakup of AT&T affected (and still affects) only AT&T and the *Bell* Operating Companies (BOCs) which were once *majority*-held by AT&T. Technically speaking, the concept of a LATA applies only to *BOC*s. "Independent" LECs can either be "associated with" a nearby BOC's LATA or can be in their own "area" which acts like a LATA, like the "Rochester Area" referred to in New York Telephone directories. There are states that have no BOCs operating anywhere within them. Alaska and Hawaii are two of them (the only two?). GTE, since it is not a BOC, but is an "independent" does not have the same line-of-business restrictions on it that the MFJ has over a BOC. That's why companies like GTE can do international service, why Centel can run cable TV service (which broadcasters and cable operators are trying to keep BOCs out of) and why Contel can run a competitive domestic satellite data company (Contel ASC). I believe that GTE is subject to a different (non-MFJ) consent decree which *does* require it to offer equal access, even where its one-time long distance company (Sprint) was one of the equal competitors. So the same restrictions don't apply to BOCs and independents. Greg Monti, Arlington, Virginia; work +1 202 822-2633 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #471 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa08672; 11 Jul 90 3:20 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa09827; 11 Jul 90 1:43 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa28392; 11 Jul 90 0:37 CDT Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 23:47:17 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #472 BCC: Message-ID: <9007102347.ab15536@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 10 Jul 90 23:46:11 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 472 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Die Hard 2 Dies on Telecom [Blake Farenthold] Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? [Clayton Cramer] Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? [Amanda Walker] Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? [Greg Monti via John R. Covert] Re: Touchtone History [Jim Budler] Re: Touchtone History [Clive Feather] Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA [Jim Olsen] Re: Pac Bell to Eliminate Touch-Tone Charges [Dave Johnston] Re: New Area Code in Italy, Atlanta, Omaha, Detroit & Paris [Keith Pyle] Re: ATT New Reach Out Rate [Curtis E. Reid] Re: Radio Shack CT-102 [Lars Poulsen] Re: Manhole Covers [John V. Zambito] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 09:57:21 CDT From: Blake Farenthold Subject: Die Hard 2 Dies on Telecom Over the holiday I saw Die Harder: Die Hard 2. When you go, leave your telecom background at home. You know you are in for it when you see 2 telecom 'continuity' errors within the first five minutes... 1) Bruce Willis uses a PAC*BELL payphone in what is supposed to be Dullas airport in Washington DC. 2) Bruce Willas uses the PAC*BELL payphone to make a call TO an AirPhone (the phones that are springing up on airplanes that only allow OUTGOING calls) Later in the movie we see Willis FAX fingerprints to LA for identification. I wish my FAXes came in clear enough to ID a fingerprint. I can usually can barely read them ... and that's when they are sent in FINE mode. I can understand accepting the BIG flaws as a necessary 'willing suspension of the little things' right. I'll take the job for half a mil on Die Hard 3 ... so if any of the Digest readers have some Hollywood connections... UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!blake Internet: blake@pro-party.cts.com Blake Farenthold | Voice: 800/880-1890 | MCI: BFARENTHOLD 1200 MBank North | Fax: 512/889-8686 | CIS: 70070,521 Corpus Christi, TX 78471 | BBS: 512/882-1899 | GEnie: BLAKE ------------------------------ From: Clayton Cramer Subject: Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? Date: 10 Jul 90 21:20:00 GMT Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA In article <9549@accuvax.nwu.edu>, tneff@bfmny0.bfm.com (Tom Neff) writes: > In this summer's movie DIE HARD 2**, which supposedly takes place in > Dulles International Airport (Washington DC), the payphones have a > prominent Pac*Bell logo on them. Do they really provide the service > in Dulles? Or was this an unavoidable glitch due to shooting in LA? > Or just a plug for the highest bidder? (GTE was featured prominently > on the in-flight public phone, and hundreds of other vendors had their > little plugs too -- this has become par for the course in movies.) Somehow, I suspect it's because people in Hollywood don't realize that the whole world isn't California, and therefore didn't catch this minor flaw. The movie also references a plastic pistol undetectable by airport metal detectors, called the Glock 7, made in West Germany. (For those of us read Time, Newsweek, or one of the other major sources of falsehood in America, there is no Glock 7 -- there are Glock 17, 19, 20, and 21 models); it is completely detectable by metal detectors and X-ray machines; and it's made in Austria, not West Germany). Clayton E. Cramer {pyramid,pixar,tekbspa}!optilink!cramer Disclaimer? You must be kidding! No company would hold opinions like mine! ------------------------------ From: amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker) Subject: Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? Reply-To: amanda@mermaid.intercon.com (Amanda Walker) Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation, Herndon, VA Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 14:54:48 GMT In article <9549@accuvax.nwu.edu>, tneff@bfmny0.bfm.com (Tom Neff) writes: > In this summer's movie DIE HARD 2**, which supposedly takes place in > Dulles International Airport (Washington DC), the payphones have a > prominent Pac*Bell logo on them. Do they really provide the service > in Dulles? As far as my friends & I could tell, none of the interior scenes were shot at Dulles (in particular, the ticket lobby isn't even *close* to how Dulles looks :-)). We figured it was either LAX or Denver Stapleton. Last I knew, phones in Dulles are either C&P payphones or ATT/MCI/Sprint credit card phonettes. Amanda Walker InterCon Systems Corporation ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 14:47:24 PDT From: "John R. Covert 10-Jul-1990 1747" Subject: Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? From: Greg Monti Date: 10 July 1990 Subject: Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? Tom Neff writes: > In this summer's movie DIE HARD 2**, which supposedly takes place in > Dulles International Airport (Washington DC), the payphones have a > prominent Pac*Bell logo on them. Do they really provide the service > in Dulles? ... Nope. Phone service at Dulles is provided by Continental Telephone Company of Virginia (Contel), which is not a Bell Operating Company. They now provide both local and Washington Metropolitan service on two different prefixes. Some businesses, airport authority and pay phones may still get their Metro service the old fashioned way, by running loops to a foreign-exchange central office controlled by C&P of Virginia in nearby Herndon. However, even if these were pay phones, they used Contel-provided customer premises equipment, usually GTE Automatic Electric pay station instruments. I guess these talk to the C&P CO just fine for coin handshaking, etc. Greg Monti, Arlington, Virginia; work +1 202 822 2633 ------------------------------ From: Jim Budler Subject: Re: Touchtone History Reply-To: Jim Budler Organization: Silvar-Lisco,Inc. Sunnyvale Ca. Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 18:36:43 GMT In article <9533@accuvax.nwu.edu> John Slater writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 470, Message 5 of 10 >In article <9482@accuvax.nwu.edu>, roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu (Roy >Smith) writes: >>Sitting on the table behind his chair were >>about 3 or 4 single line desk sets, one touch-tone, the rest rotary. >Er, shouldn't that be "one push-button, the rest rotary"? Unless you It was probably a Department of Defense phone. These phones looked like touch-tone, made noises *similar* to touch-tone, but were on the private DOD Autovon network. They were not pulse dialers. To my uneducated ear they were DTMF, but they were definately tone dialers. They had four extra keys for setting call priority. We had a similar setup to the one described for JFK at a radar site i.e. 'normal' phones, dial at that time, and in certain command centers, commanders offices, communications centers, etc. an additional Autovon phone, as described. Jim Budler jimb@silvlis.com +1.408.991.6061 Silvar-Lisco, Inc. 703 E. Evelyn Ave. Sunnyvale, Ca. 94086 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 06:22:44 bst From: Clive Feather Subject: Re: Touchtone History In vol 10 issue 468 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) says: > When were the first touchtone phones installed? > A touch-tone phone was clearly visible in President Kennedy's oval > office > Sitting on the table behind his chair were > about 3 or 4 single line desk sets, one touch-tone, the rest rotary. > Was touch-tone in general use in May 1963, or did the President just > have a pre-release model? I presume it had buttons. Why assume it was touch-tone ? The UK had push-button pulse dial phones for a *long* time before DTMF signalling arrived (I don't recall hearing of DTMF in the UK before 1986, while push button phones were around in the early 70's. Anyone remember the Trimphone ?). Clive D.W. Feather | IXI Limited clive@x.co.uk [x, not ixi] | 62-74 Burleigh St. ...!uunet!ixi!clive | Cambridge CB1 1OJ Phone: +44 223 462 131 | United Kingdom ------------------------------ From: Jim Olsen Subject: Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA Date: 10 Jul 90 14:36:51 GMT Organization: MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, MA >Historical questions: when was the last date that AT&T sold switching >equipment _without_ 100 percent tone dialing coverage? >This is a relevant question for those of us who live with backwater >telephone service from NYNEX, as well as arteriosclerotic regulation >by the Mass. PUC. Don't put all the blame on the Mass. PUC. A some of the blame goes to Attorney General James Shannon. Shannon 'represents the public' before the PUC, and ensures that the rate structure remains 'fair'. The Honorable Mr. Shannon's idea of 'fair' rates means keeping residental rates as low as possible, and jacking up everything else (business rates, tone dialling, CLASS, 'long' distance [what a joke!]), irrespective of the actual costs involved. New England Telephone's new rate proposal, which attempts to more accurately reflect costs, is of course blatantly 'unfair' according to Shannon, since residential rates would rise. Ain't politics wonderful? (BTW, Shannon is up for re-election this year.) ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jul 90 11:12 +0000 From: Dave_JOHNSTON%01%SRJC@odie.santarosa.edu Subject: Pac Bell to Eliminate Touch-Tone Charges A gentleman from AT&T responded to John Hammond's message about mysteriously appearing touch tone service. He made mention of NY Tel threatening to bill people who used TT without paying, but said he hadn't ever heard of it happening. I can't vouch for someone being billed, but several years ago when I lived in Ukiah, CA 707-462, they were contacting people both in writing and verbally who were using touch tone service without paying. They had just converted from a Crossbar office to 1AESS, and were apparently deluged with people who realized that TT worked for free. Shortly thereafter they must have patched it, because it stopped being free. Not that I would ever take advantage of Pac Bell. After all, look at all the wonderful things they've done for me. Dave Johnston johnston@odie.SantaRosa.EDU Santa Rosa Junior College (707) 527-4853 1501 Mendocino Ave. Santa Rosa, CA 95401 I have no opinions. ------------------------------ From: Keith Pyle Subject: Re: New Area Code in Italy, Atlanta, Omaha, Detroit & Paris Date: 9 Jul 90 00:49:32 GMT Organization: Execucom Systems Corp. In article <9250@accuvax.nwu.edu> telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes: >In addition to Atlanta, Paris, Omaha and Italy, also involved in this >area code change will be Detroit and Elkhart, among other places. >Jim Hogg will be getting a new area code, which will be shared with >Ben Franklin, Ben Wheeler and the White House residents. >Uncertain and Telephone are included in the change. >Would the Moderator try to bull-jive you? Well, since our Moderator brought this up ... when I saw his post, I knew immediately what he was talking about since Atlanta (pop. 7000) is my home town. I pass through Omaha, and have to remind myself not to blink in doing so, whenever I go back. Like many parts of the country, northeast Texas has its share of oddly named places and ones whose names relate in some way to more famous locales. Uncertain does indeed exist, and its name is said to have come about just as you would expect. They were uncertain what to name the place. One cited reason is that they weren't sure whether it was in Texas or Louisana. It is an interesting place to visit if you're ever in the area (near the Louisana border ~60 miles south of Texarkana). Uncertain is at the dead end of a state highway and sits next to Caddo Lake, which is a natural lake that the Caddo Indians claim was formed overnight. There is some evidence that an earthquake may have indeed caused it to form. Many huge cypress trees covered in Spanish moss exist throughout the lake which is criss-crossed with boat runs maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers. If you go in very far and alone the first few times, you better have a map or plan to spend a good deal of time, and maybe the night, before finding your way out again. The area has one other claim to fame: just south of Uncertain by a few miles is Karnack, site of the Army ammunition plant where Pershing missles are being destroyed under one of the disarmament treaties. Keith Pyle UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!execu!keith Execucom Systems Corp., Internet: keith@execu.com Austin, Texas execu!keith@cs.utexas.edu keith%execu.uucp@cs.utexas.edu Disclaimer: What?? You actually believed me? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 09:36 EST From: "Curtis E. Reid" Subject: Re: ATT New Reach Out Rate This is in response to John Covert's note about ATT New Reach Out America Rate. I lost the original Digest so ... here it is. I called ATT to double check on it. They said it's incorrect and wanted to know where did this information come from ... they asked me if I knew which tariff was that. I responded I don't know but all it says is what you said. So, after about 30 minutes to doublechecking and calling other divisions within ATT, they have concluded that you were correct!! Whew ... what a bureaucracy! Looks like they were a bit behind in the announcements! :) Curtis E. Reid CER2520@RITVAX.Bitnet (Bitnet) CER2520%RITVAX.Bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu (Internet) CER2520@RITVAX.isc.rit.edu (Internet) ------------------------------ From: Lars Poulsen Subject: Re: Radio Shack CT-102 Organization: Rockwell CMC Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 17:06:06 GMT In article <9543@accuvax.nwu.edu> faunt@cisco.com (Doug Faunt) writes: >The Radio Shack CT-102 is for sale for $299. What does the Telecom >collective conciousness think of the unit? Are there better deals >available in the SF Bay area? What is the lowest base cost rate >available for service in the Bay Area? Radio Shack's ads indicate that the $299 price is conditional on signing up for service "with certain minimum commitments" with the carrier indicated by the vendor, and that the price is $599 if you just want the phone. A footnote says something like "service commitment does not apply where prohibited by state law". I seem to remember that the California PUC ruled against dealer kickbacks. This raises several questions, which I am sure somebody can answer: (1) Is the CPUC ruling a "state law" ? (2) When the "service commitment does not apply", which price applies ? If I can buy the phone for $299 with no strings attached, I might spring for it, just to be able to take it with when travelling. (Would I be eligible for roamer service if I did not have a subscription active at home ? What is the cheapest base subscription anywhere in the country if I needed a "phantom home" ?) Lars Poulsen, SMTS Software Engineer CMC Rockwell lars@CMC.COM ------------------------------ From: "John V. Zambito" Subject: Re: Manhole Covers Date: 10 Jul 90 19:50:25 GMT Reply-To: jvz@ccird1.uucp Organization: Computer Consoles Inc. an STC Company, Rochester, NY >>>I think this has been discussed before. Round covers are popular >>>because it's impossible for the cover to fall into the hole. >However, round covers have the additional advantage that there is no >wrong way to put them in the hole. This discussion got way out of hand, but let me add to it. What about when a stripe from a lane marking is painted on it? The service people never put the cover back on right. [Moderator's Note: I see lots of these in Chicago. Typically, they are always turned at some strange angle to the rest of the line. PT] .. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #472 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa10159; 11 Jul 90 4:47 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa25551; 11 Jul 90 2:48 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab09827; 11 Jul 90 1:43 CDT Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 0:44:14 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #473 BCC: Message-ID: <9007110044.ab20808@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 11 Jul 90 00:43:12 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 473 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Finland Direct (Some Problems) [Lars Poulsen] Re: Telebit T1000 Modem at 9600 Baud [Peter da Silva] Re: Using the "O" Operator to Defeat 800 ANI and Caller*ID [F. Goldstein] Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles [Ken Donaldson] Re: Reference Book for Telephones [David Ptasnik] Re: Good for a Laugh: Polish Payphones [Wolf Paul] Bell Canada [Henry Troup] Modems For Interactive Use [Steve Elias] Request For Info: Audiovox BC-55 Cellular Phone [Bill Berbenich] HP4952A Protocol Analyzer [Claudio Nieder] C.O. "Secret" Numbers [Lawrence Roney] Unauthorized Disconnection [Dennis G. Rears] The New England Telephone Backwater [John R. Covert] Mitch Kapor Starts Electronic Frontier Foundation [TELECOM Moderator] Munged From: Line [Roy M. Silvernail] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lars Poulsen Subject: Re: Finland Direct (Some Problems) Organization: Rockwell CMC Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 16:54:52 GMT >> ["Finland Direct" from USA:] >>1-800-232-0358 via ATT >> >>1-800-283-4652 via MCI In article <9536@accuvax.nwu.edu> covert@covert.enet.dec. com (John R. Covert) writes: >When I call either of these numbers, I reach a tone _in_Finland_ that >I am not familiar with, but it may simply be a "please wait" tone. I >suspect the problem is with the grade of service provided by the >operators in Finland. The tone is roughly 500ms of 950 Hz, 250ms of >950 Hz, 1.5 sec of 1400 Hz. After a long time of no revenue due to no >answer, AT&T gives up and says "Your call cannot be completed at this >time in the country you are calling." On MCI it eventually times out >to a reorder (120 interruptions per minute). The description of the tone sounds suspiciously like the European reorder signal. It consists of three tones of a rising pitch, somewhat similar to the "Special Information Tones" used by ATT. I would expect the two access numbers to terminate in the same operator position in Helsinki, so this probably indicates a translation problem. Try calling ATT and/or MCI customer service to get them to check it out. They in turn will have a way to get to the Finnish telco operators. On a tangent: I always have problems distinguishing between busy and reorder. How did we end up with the "fast busy" and Europe with the tone triad ? What does CCITT recommend ? Lars Poulsen, SMTS Software Engineer CMC Rockwell lars@CMC.COM ------------------------------ From: peter da silva Subject: Re: Telebit T1000 Modem at 9600 Baud Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 12:30:37 GMT In article <9546@accuvax.nwu.edu> Phil Ngai writes: > For UUCP, Telebit is probably worth considering but for dial-in, I > didn't like it. I guess it depends on your software, but I find that even vnews takes too long to decide not to display part of a message, so the extra speed of updating is worth it. For dial-in, V.32 is better but PEP is still more fun than V.22. Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. ------------------------------ From: "Fred R. Goldstein" Subject: Re: Using the "O" Operator to Defeat 800 ANI and Caller*ID Date: 10 Jul 90 17:39:19 GMT Organization: Digital Equipment Corp., Littleton MA USA In article <9529@accuvax.nwu.edu>, dave%westmark@uunet.uu.net (Dave Levenson) writes... >>In article <9481@accuvax.nwu.edu>, riot!slr@csvax.caltech.edu writes: >> On a related question: For those of you with Caller*ID, what happens >> when you get a call routed through the "O" operator ? >Here in New Jersey, local calls placed through the operator are >displayed as "OUT OF AREA" on the Caller*ID display. The Canadian Radio-Television Commission, in approving Caller ID for Bell Canada (which serves most of Ontario and Quebec), stated that per-call blocking by dialing "0" was adequate. Bell Canada filed a tariff charging $.75/call for that service; I don't know if it was approved. This has the advantage, in the short term, of allowing call blocking on demand from ALL exchanges, including electromechanical ones that don't support feature code dialing. In the long term, this will probably be phased out in favor of a dialable prefix. Logically the price should fall too, since the 75 cents is basically a charge for the operator's time. Fred R. Goldstein goldstein@carafe.enet.dec.com or goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com voice: +1 508 486 7388 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 08:26 EST From: Ken Donaldson <0001050688@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? It has been a while since a passed through this airport but I recall that the pay phones were provided by Contel which is the LEC that serves that area. ------------------------------ From: David Ptasnik Subject: Re: Reference Book for Telephones Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 8:54:35 PDT In 9506@accuvax.nwu.edu Adnan Yaqub writes: >Could some kind body please point me to a suitable reference which >describes the signaling between the main office and my home phone. One good source of general books on the field of telecommunications is the Teleconnect Library. Teleconnect is a relatively popular magazine for people in the field. It has its share of problems, but it does make available a nice selection of books on the subject. I don't think that they acutally publish them. I get the impression that they just survey the literature, and market those that they like the most. I do not believe that they would require that you subscirbe to the magazine to get the catalog or order books. Their toll free number is 1-800-LIBRARY. davep@cac.wash.edu ------------------------------ From: wolf paul Subject: Re: Good for a Laugh: Polish Payphones Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 11:47:24 MET DST Organization: IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria In TELECOM Digest 10/469, Donald E. Kimberlin <0004133373@mcimail.com> writes: > "`Since Polish payphone mechanisms were increased to > 20 zlotys several months ago, 20-zloty coins have gone into hiding. > "`The payphone-sized 20-zlotycoins are selling on the streets > for 200 to 1,000 zlotys apiece.'" (I still say cheap at a thousand > zlotys -- about a dime U.S., isn't it?) A Polish colleague of mine informs me that payphones were recently converted to use a special phone token, which presumably is available at the official rate at various outlets. It is interesting how some coins cause such a strong public reaction: The Susan B. Anthony dollar comes to mind in the US, or the small, thick, and heavy 1-pound coin in the UK, which was very little used until 1-pound notes were withdrawn from circulation. Here in Austria, the 20-Schilling coin is hardly used by the public; in order to increase its acceptance, the state-owned Austrian Radio conducted a campaign in cooperation with the National Bank rewarding randomly picked members of the public on the street with AS 100, if they had a 20AS coin on their person. Wolf N. Paul, Int. Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) Schloss Laxenburg, Schlossplatz 1, A - 2361 Laxenburg, Austria, Europe PHONE: +43-2236-71521-465 FAX: +43-2236-71313 UUCP: uunet!iiasa.at!wnp INTERNET: wnp%iiasa.at@uunet.uu.net BITNET: tuvie!iiasa!wnp@awiuni01.BITNET ------------------------------ From: Henry Troup Subject: Bell Canada Date: 10 Jul 90 13:55:05 GMT Reply-To: Henry Troup Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ltd. In article <9541@accuvax.nwu.edu> root@joymrmn.UUCP (Marcel D. Mongeon) writes: >... you read this whole posting). The hotel is located in Ontario Canada >which means we have only one long distance supplier - Bell Canada (A >first cousin of AT&T). Not quite - Bell Canada is a 100% owned subsidiary of BCE, Inc. BCE is a public corporation, the most widely held in Canada. (Also the most profitable, and the payer of the largest corporate taxes.) AT&T divested Bell Canada in the 1960's - Northern Electric (now Northern Telecom) was then a $20M company producing Canadian-only hardware, frequently from Western Electric designs. The rest is history. Henry Troup - BNR owns but does not share my opinions ..uunet!bnrgate!hwt%bwdlh490 HWT@BNR.CA 613-765-2337 ------------------------------ Reply-To: eli@pws.bull.com Subject: Modems For Interactive Use Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 08:02:35 -0400 From: Steve Elias Lately, I've been using a US Robotics Courier HST 9600 modem for interactive dial in. It appears to be optimized for interactive use, with a 9600 baud channel in one direction, and 300 baud in the other, automatically switched, of course. This beastie was fairly expensive ($700 or so); I'm not sure if there are less expensive clones available. I believe it also supports MNP5 on low speed connections, thought I've never used this mode. Using the Courier modem for dial in is a real treat after years of being stuck with 2400 baud. eli ------------------------------ From: Bill Berbenich Subject: Request For Info: Audiovox BC-55 Cellular Phone Date: 10 Jul 90 19:04:21 GMT Reply-To: Bill Berbenich Organization: DSP Lab, School of Electrical Engineering, Ga.Tech, Atlanta, GA Any fellow c.d.t'ers own one of these? Being a fairly technically minded (and capable) person, I'd be interested in knowing the NAM and feature programming codes for the unit so that I could make full use of the unit's capabilities. After the obligatory six month sign-up period I am very interested in switching to the 'other' carrier here, having the NAM code would be of great help for that and for signing up with out-of- town providers in the areas where I frequently travel. Knowing the feature code would help oodles, too, and standard stuff like changing the lock code, horn alert, so on. Please e-mail directly to me at "bill@eedsp.gatech.edu". Thanks in advance. ------------------------------ From: Claudio Nieder Subject: HP4952A Protocol Analyzer Date: 10 Jul 90 18:55:33 GMT Reply-To: Claudio Nieder Organization: Exp. Physics University Zuerich I would like to transfer data collected with a HP4952A Protocol Analyzer to a PC. There are two possible ways: a) Try to read the Floppy Discs. b) Connect the PC to the analyzer's remote port. Has anybody out there already attempted to do either a) or b)? Can anybody provide me with the info how the data is stored on the floppy disc? Does anybody know how the communication on the remote port works? Any help appreciated. Claudio INTERNET: claudio@amsoft.imp.com BITNET: K538912@CZHRZU1A Mail: Claudio Nieder, Kanalweg 1, CH-8610 Uster, Switzerland (********** Computer: The best toy ever invented **********) ------------------------------ From: Lawrence Roney Subject: C.O. "Secret" Numbers Organization: Santa Monica College, CA 90405 Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 06:40:29 GMT Does anyone know the "secret" numbers that are buried in AT&T 5ESS and/or Northern Telecom DMS systems to get your phone to ring? I am familiar with 114 and 12233 to get your number read back to you. 119 however used to give you a reorder tone and then when you hung-up would ring your phone. 119 no longer works. Are these numbers part of the software release of the switch or does each operating company pick their own diagnostic numbers? If anyone else has any useful numbers, please post or mail. They sure are nice when sorting and troubleshooting trunks. Lawrence Roney - Santa Monica College Telecommunications Department N6YFN 1900 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405-1628 Mail UUCP: uunet!ucla-cs!smcnet!lawrence Internet: lawrence@smc.edu [Moderator's Note: This question comes up periodically, and the answer is that every CO does its own thing. Typically the codes vary from one CO to another. There is no universal standard. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 16:32:18 EDT From: "Dennis G. Rears (FSAC)" Subject: Unauthorized Disconnection I am in the processof moving from an apartment to a house. My last day in the apartment was today, Jul 10. The person who is moving to the apartment started moving in today. She had called without my knowledge and consent to have my phone service disconnected on Jul 9, and her phone service connected Jul 10. When I got home for lunch yesterday my phone was out of service. I called the local NJ Bell repair service. They told me the phone was out of service but a order had been placed to disconnect the phone. They gave me a number for the service department. I talked to a woman who said, If you want your service restored for those two days it will be an a $42.00 reconnection charge. I protested stating, I am the sole account holder, and never authorized any change. I then asked to talk to her supervisor whom after much argument agreed to turn my service back on with no charge. This conversation took place at 12:30 PM on Monday. When I left the apartment today at 0900 it still wasn't on. Three points I would like to bring up. First, the representative said that unless somebody specifically tells the phone company they want any change request for service verified it is not done. This, however convienent, can be danger. Anyone can call up and say, I am Mr. Doe, phone number is XXX-XXXX and want my phone service disconnected. No verification. The second point is that the only way to get something done is talk to a sueprvisor and be firm on what you want. The last point is do I have any course of action? I am out about $25 due to having to use pay phones and lack of a calling card. Who can I complain to? Dennis ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 05:07:55 PDT From: "John R. Covert 10-Jul-1990 0800" Subject: The New England Telephone Backwater John Higdon seems to think that No. 5 XBar is backwater, but here in New England, approximately 20% of the towns more than 20 miles from Boston are still served by Step-by-Step. Residents of these towns suffer from constant reorders and wrong numbers and lines too noisy to be used for data calls. The next town (or, often, parts of your own town) is almost always long distance. This is often true even when the two town centers are less than ten miles apart. Be glad XBar is the worst you have to suffer with. john ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 0:55:14 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Mitch Kapor Starts Electronic Frontier Foundation Mitch Kapor and others have formed a new organization called the 'Electronic Frontier Foundation' to assist in the legal defense of the persons recently arrested in the Legion of Doom/Sun Devil case. In addition, the new organization will attempt to protect the constitutional rights -- as they interpret those rights -- of all computer users. A lengthy press release was issued Monday, with statements from Kapor and other members of the organization outlining their plans. A special double issue of TELECOM Digest will be issued later this week to bring you complete details. It is in production now. Patrick Townson TELECOM Moderator ------------------------------ Subject: Munged From: line From: "Roy M. Silvernail" Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 02:32:49 CDT Organization: Villa CyberSpace, Minneapolis, MN cybrspc!roy%cs@cs.umn.edu (Roy M. Silvernail) writes: > E-mail responses would be fine, as I doubt this is of great general > import. Thanks in advance! Unfortunately, the From: line in my original posting was munged. This one should be better :-) The address in my .sig works, though... cybrspc!roy@cs.umn.edu Roy M. Silvernail | Opinions found now available at: | herein are mine, cybrspc!roy@cs.umn.edu | but you can rent (cyberspace... be here!)| | them. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #473 ******************************   Received: from [129.105.5.103] by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa29149; 11 Jul 90 21:48 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa17094; 11 Jul 90 20:02 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa07176; 11 Jul 90 18:57 CDT Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 18:45:06 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #474 BCC: Message-ID: <9007111845.ab23201@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 11 Jul 90 18:44:53 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 474 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson LOD Update: Three Men Plead Guilty [AT&T Newsbriefs via Don H. Kemp] Kapor and Woz Back "Hackers" [AT&T Newsbriefs via Don H. Kemp] Intrastate Toll Free Non-800 Numbers [Steve Elias] Are You Using Centron or a Similar Service? [Mark McWiggins] Busy and Reorder Signals (was: Finland Direct) [Erik Naggum] Annoying Intercept Behavior [Jerry Leichter] Austrian Telephone System [Wolf Paul] Cable vs. Telcos [Adam M. Gaffin] Multi-city Beepers [Nicholas J. Simicich] E911 Experience [Chris Johnson] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: LOD Update: Three Men Plead Guilty Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 14:38:09 EDT From: Don H Kemp More LOD news, thanks to AT&T's consultant liason NEWSBRIEFS AT&T NEWS BRIEFS [All items are today's date unless otherwise noted] Tuesday, July 10, 1990 LEGION OF DOOM -- Three men, part of a ... group of computer hackers [known as] the Legion of Doom, pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud BellSouth of computer information. ... [A U.S. Attorney] said the group ... monitored private telephone lines, stole proprietary information ... and disseminated information that allowed other computer hackers to enter BellSouth and other computer systems. ... Wall Street Journal, B4. ... During the past few months, the Secret Service has cleaned out one hacker conclave after another. ... Behind the raids is a 2-year- old federal, state and phone company investigation called Operation Sun Devil. ... Secret Service agents ... discovered secret bulletin boards that listed upwards of 400 long-distance access codes ... used to make about $3.5 million in illegal long- distance charges. ... Burke Stinson, an AT&T spokesman, says, "As an industry, which includes our dear friends at MCI and US Sprint and others, about $1 to $2 million is lost every day to hacking and toll fraud." ... Newsday, [Sunday magazine], p. 11, 7/8. Don H Kemp B B & K Associates, Inc. Rutland, VT uunet!uvm-gen!teletech!dhk ------------------------------ From: Don H Kemp Subject: Kapor and Woz Back "Hackers" Date: 11 Jul 90 18:34:57 GMT Forwarded from AT&T Consultant Liason's NEWSBRIEFS... HACKER BACKER -- ... Mitchell Kapor, ... founder of Lotus Development, yesterday unveiled the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is being underwritten by Mr. Kapor and Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer. The group will assist in the legal defense of [computer] hackers accused of crimes and will research legal issues involving computer communications. ... Wall Street Journal, B4. Don H Kemp B B & K Associates, Inc. Rutland, VT uunet!uvm-gen!teletech!dhk [Moderator's Note: In fact, I am working now on a special issue of the Digest to cover this in detail. The special issue will be distributed ASAP in the next day or so. PT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: eli@pws.bull.com Subject: Intrastate Toll Free Non-800 Numbers Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 11:16:55 -0400 From: Steve Elias What's the deal on these new in-state "toll free" exchanges that I see advertised occasionally? There must be a shortage of 800 numbers, eh? Do these toll free exchanges have any interesting technical kluges? Apparently, 596 is the in-state toll-free exchange in New Hampshire. I think Massachusetts has one as well, but I'm not sure what it is. Do all states have these exchanges available now? eli ------------------------------ From: Mark McWiggins Subject: Are You Using Centron or a Similar Service? Date: 11 Jul 90 16:47:34 GMT Organization: Integration Technologies Inc. (Intek), Bellevue WA Our receptionist just quit, and we're thinking of replacing our (clunky electromechanical) 4-line key system with an offering from US West called Centron. (Like Centrex but smaller, as I understand it.) They're also now offering voice mail, and we think these together would cut our phone-answering labor by 80% or more. The monthly charge for all this is no more than the rental for our current key system. Overall, it looks like a big win, if it works. Am I missing something? I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who's using a similar system. Also, we're expecting significant growth over the next couple of years. What else should I be looking out for? Thanks in advance. Mark McWiggins Integration Technologies, Inc. (Intek) +1 206 455 9935 DISCLAIMER: I could be wrong ... 1400 112th Ave SE #202 Bellevue WA 98004 uunet!intek01!mark Ask me about C++! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 1990 00:17:12 +0200 From: Erik Naggum Subject: Busy and Reorder Signals (was: Finland Direct) Lars Poulsen writes in TELECOM Digest V10 #473: > On a tangent: I always have problems distinguishing between busy and > reorder. How did we end up with the "fast busy" and Europe with the > tone triad ? What does CCITT recommend ? CCITT recommends a few signals, for which I can dig up the precise definition in terms of frequencies and the duration of tones and pauses if somebody asks nicely. There are two tones for "busy", one for subscriber busy and one for network congestion. These differ in the duration of tone and pauses, but the frequency is similar to that of the ordinary ring signal. They may or may not (subject to national variations) have the same duration for tone and pause. (The ring signal you find in parts of the United Kingdom is not representative for CCITT or Europe.) There used to be three signals only: ring, busy and congestion. (Is the last what you call "reorder"? I'm unfamiliar with the term.) With SS7, lots of voice messages were introduced, and they all have the "special information tones" (same as the AT&T ones) at the start or end of the voice message. CCITT only recommends using the special information tones when the error is considered "permanent", i.e. which requires intervention by the telco before it gets fixed, as opposed to subscribers, which are considered much more transient beings. While we're on CCITT recommendations. I recently bought the Q.700- series (Signalling System number 7) and the I-series (ISDN). I was somewhat shocked to find that SS7 needs fully 1680 pages of specs! Granted, they had included about 300 pages of tests with forms to be filled out when testing conformance of SS7 users, but it's still a lot. A friend of mine, also a reader of TELECOM Digest, has some specific opinions on the relation between the OSI layer and the quality of the CCITT recommendations applying to it. I'll let him express them himself. (That's bait for you, Morten!) For those who have become a bit wary of CCITT recommendations, I can recommend the Blue Book (at least the I, Q, V and X series). They have done a tremendous job of writing this is an actual language, as opposed to the "blot on the history of prose" that the Red Book was. [Erik] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 20:00:44 EDT From: Jerry Leichter (LEICHTER-JERRY@CS.YALE.EDU) Subject: Annoying Intercept Behavior Here in Stamford - and in my experience most of Connecticut - we have to dial 1+7 for calls outside the local calling area, omit the 1 for calls in it. Do it the wrong way and you get an intercept. The oddity is the way the intercept is implemented. It doesn't take place immediately after the last digit - not to mention after the exchange, which is possible. Instead, you get two or three normal rings and THEN a long, wordy message telling you exactly what you should have done. This is a real time-waster when you are dialing an unfamiliar number, as you sit there convinced that you've made it through. I find that a good fraction of the time, but the time I get the intercept I've closed the telephone book or put away the business card with the number on it. Then I get to start over again. Why would anyone set up intercepts this way? Is it done this way elsewhere? -- Jerry ------------------------------ From: wolf paul Subject: Austrian Telephone System Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 11:48:04 MET DST Organization: IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria I have finally managed to obtain some more information about the conversion of Austria's telephone system to modern digital technology. The currently installed electro-mechanical CO switching equipment will be replaced during the next few years by electronic switches supplied by Northern Telecom (DMS100) and Siemens (EWS-D). The Siemens equipment is being adapted and installed by Alcatel, and will be installed in the eastern half of Austria, including most of Vienna. The NT equipment is being adapted and installed by a joint venture of two Austrian telecom firms, Kapsch and Schrack, and will be installed in the western half of the country, as well as in selected Vienna COs. The Kapsch/Schrack/NT joint venture, Austrian Telecommunications, has also been awarded a contract to install their DMS100 adaptation in a number of Hungarian COs. My own CO south of Vienna is scheduled to be converted to EWS-D during the first quarter of 1991; the adjoining CO which serves my employer, IIASA, has not even been given a date for conversion. Wolf N. Paul, Int. Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) Schloss Laxenburg, Schlossplatz 1, A - 2361 Laxenburg, Austria, Europe PHONE: +43-2236-71521-465 FAX: +43-2236-71313 UUCP: uunet!iiasa.at!wnp INTERNET: wnp%iiasa.at@uunet.uu.net BITNET: tuvie!iiasa!wnp@awiuni01.BITNET ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 07:22:15 -0400 From: Adam M Gaffin Subject: Cable vs. Telcos Digital and Applitek Corp of Andover, MA, are demonstrating an interesting pilot system at the current DECWorld. Two Digital engineers have been given computers so they can work at their homes in Stow, Mass. (one got a workstation, the other a VAX). But rather than tying into Digital headquarters in Maynard (the next town over from Stow) by phone, they are using an otherwise unused channel on the Stow cable system to transfer data. Applitek modems at Digital HQ and in each of the engineers's homes, allow rapid data flow (1 or 10 megabytes/second -- I don't have my notes in front of me, sorry), far faster than even a T1 phone line. Other companies are working on similar systems, but Applitek says theirs is the only one that needs just once cable channel. Right now, there are some serious drawbacks to the system, notably cost (each modem is $10,000) and the fact that you can't use it across cable company boundaries. But Applitek says the cost will come down eventually, but that even now, it's cost effective for companies with several plants in one town, and that it has bridging devices that can link neighboring cable systems. So is this something phone companies should be worried about, even if in the long term? And does anybody know any analysts or experts or whoever who could talk about the potential for cable-telco competition for an article I'm doing on the above (any suggestions would be, of course, most appreciated). Adam Gaffin Middlesex News, Framingham, Mass. adamg@world.std.com Voice: (508) 626-3968 Fred the Middlesex News Computer: (508) 872-8461 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 10:05:44 EDT From: "Nicholas J. Simicich" Reply-To: Nick Simicich Subject: Multi-city Beepers My wife and I both travel a lot, but separately, and we frequently need to get in contact with the person who is out of town. I recall seeing advertisements for beepers which would work either everywhere in the US, in most major cities in the US, everywhere in the northeast corridor, and so forth. Ideal would be one that allowed you to leave a numeric message, like a number to call back at. Does anyone have any information on beepers of this type? (Monthly rates, difficulty of use, reliability, availability, cost-per-beep if extra, and so forth.) If you email to njs@ibm.com, I'll summarize. Nick Simicich (NJS at WATSON, njs@ibm.com) ---SSI #OWI 3958 ------------------------------ From: Chris Johnson Subject: E911 Experience Organization: Com Squared Systems, Inc. Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 18:34:27 GMT I had my first need to call 911 this weekend. I was setting up equipment for a concert in one of Minneapolis's parks on Sunday afternoon, and a couple of guys who had the appearances of street people got into a fight. Since the audience (many with small children) was disturbed by this, as was I, I started looking around for security or park police people. None were to be found. At the request of some of the parents, I headed for the pay phone to call the police. Just as I reached the phone, another man ran up and said one of the men fighting had a knife. I dialed 911 and said, "There's a knife fight going on in the Nicollet Island Park." The operator replied, "what's the address there?" This was my first clue that either the operator was daft, or she was not getting any automatic information on my location. Me: "I'm in the Nicollet Island Park shelter building, the fight is about 50 yards away in the ampitheatre." Op: "Did you say they had knives?" Me: "Yes, one of them has a knife." Op: "Did you see the knife?" Me: "No, another person here told me he saw one." [meanwhile, fighter A is cutting away pieces of fighter B, bit by bit] Op: "So you didn't see a knife..." Me: [exasperated] "No, but these guys are drunk or brain damaged. They are way out of it. They are scaring the people here..." Op: "Let me talk to the person who saw the knife." Me: "He left..." [just then, another woman runs up with her four year old daughter and says to me something about the one guy with the knife is cutting the other guy up -- get an ambulance. I say to the operator "Here's another woman who saw the knife" and hand the phone to the woman who proceeds to tell the operator in no uncertain terms that we've got near panic on our hands, and a soon to be dead man, even though the knife is small, he's cutting pieces out of the other guy over and over. The woman hangs up, and says to me that her husband has gone to call the police also at another phone, over on shore. I start to walk over the bridge (I had been on my way to shore to get a bite to eat anyway ...) and finally, I start hearing sirens. We ended up with four police squads, a rescue truck, an ambulance and two park police (where were they earlier, anyway?). A few other street people who were with the guys who were fighting immediately made tracks for the woods, but I heard later they managed to at least round up the one weirdo who was bugging me on stage, as well as the two fighters -- one of whom went to the hospital with full lights and sirens. Don't know if he made it -- heard that he had about a dozen superficial cuts when I got back talked with my friends. But then a while later, a truck and guy showed up from what I took to be the coroner's office. Still later, I found out a third person had also called 911. I guess once they got three different calls about the same problem from three different phones they managed to figure out I wasn't kidding when I first called. While I can certainly appreciate false alarms, I was rather taken aback at how much cajoling I had to do to get any response. In fact, who knows what might have happened if the other people had not called, and the woman had not taken the phone from me and described the knife to the operator. Sheeesh. Is this how E911 is supposed to work? And why didn't they know my location right away? I know that the switch is plenty new enough, and we've had E911 for at least 9 or 10 years here. ...Chris Johnson chris@c2s.mn.org ..uunet!bungia!com50!chris Com Squared Systems, Inc. St. Paul, MN USA +1 612 452 9522 [Moderator's Note: Your experience was definitly NOT how 911 is supposed to work. What sometimes happens is that although the dispatcher usually gets an actual street address, some public phones in parks, along the highway, etc. don't get very well identified as to location if there is no physical street number associated with the location. It sounds also like the dispatcher was possibly new and not very well trained. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #474 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa00257; 11 Jul 90 22:48 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab12947; 11 Jul 90 21:08 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab17094; 11 Jul 90 20:03 CDT Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 19:10:45 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #475 BCC: Message-ID: <9007111910.ab14071@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 11 Jul 90 19:10:23 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 475 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? [Lou Judice] Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? [Alan Parker] Re: Die Hard 2 Dies on Telecom [Bob Sutterfield] Re: Die Hard 2 Dies on Telecom [Robert Kinne] Re: Touchtone History [Julian Macassey] Re: Touchtone History [Martin Harriss] Re: Touchtone History [Robert Kinne] Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA [John Higdon] Re: Reference Book Wanted on Telephones [Al L. Varney] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 07:14:38 PDT From: Lou Judice Subject: Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles Don't be surprised if the promient PAC*BELL logos were part of a marketing "arrangement" with PAC*BELL. Film companies have an intricate relationship with the makers of products that characters use in a movie. Reminds me of some rather awful spy/conspiracy movie I saw once filmed in "New York City" - the bright blue and white NYC Police Cars had visible California license plates and drove through palm-tree lined streets. Sorry for extending this discussion which belongs in rec.arts.film!!! ljj ------------------------------ From: Alan Parker Subject: Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? Date: 11 Jul 90 14:18:52 GMT Reply-To: Alan Parker Organization: Entropic Processing, Inc., Washington, DC The movie wasn't filmed at Dulles. The folks there didn't like the way the script portrayed the airport and its employees. But the phone service at Dulles is quite sorry indeed. Pac*Bell might be an improvement. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 13:40:50 EDT From: bob@morningstar.com Subject: Die Hard 2 Dies on Telecom Reply-To: Bob Sutterfield In Volume 10, Issue 472, Message 1 of 12 blake@pro-party.cts.com (Blake Farenthold) writes: >When you go, leave your telecom background at home... Leave your aviation background at home too. The two technologies that were pivotal to the plot, laying the foundation for the rest of the action, both got pretty well butchered. Ah, Hollywood! I'll take the [tech continuity] job for half a mil on Die Hard 3... You do the telecom stuff, I'll do the airplane stuff. It'll be a boring, but correct, box office flop :-) ------------------------------ From: Robert Kinne Subject: Re: Die Hard 2 Dies on Telecom Date: 11 Jul 90 18:00:03 GMT Reply-To: Robert Kinne Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder In article <9565@accuvax.nwu.edu> blake@pro-party.cts.com (Blake Farenthold) writes: >1) Bruce Willis uses a PAC*BELL payphone in what is supposed >to be Dullas airport in Washington DC. Most of the airport scenes for this movie were shot at Stapleton in Denver. Two reasons; Dulles didn't want the semblance of terrorist activity, and Stapleton has one ramp that is nearly idle, and could be used for filming. Denver, of course, is in US West turf. I can only surmise that either 1) the movie had an arrangement with PacBell to show their logo, or 2) the scene in question was shot in LA, before or after the airport shots. I probably will never see this movie, for a variety of reasons, but perhaps frequent Stapleton travelers who watch it could provide more detailed info on the payphone scene. ------------------------------ From: Julian Macassey Subject: Re: Touchtone History Date: 11 Jul 90 13:06:52 GMT Organization: The Hole in the Wall Hollywood California U.S.A. In article <9533@accuvax.nwu.edu>, johns@scroff.uk.sun.com (John Slater) writes: > In article <9482@accuvax.nwu.edu>, roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu (Roy > Smith) writes: > >Sitting on the table behind his chair were > >about 3 or 4 single line desk sets, one touch-tone, the rest rotary. > Er, shouldn't that be "one push-button, the rest rotary"? Unless you > heard the tones when JFK made a call, it could just be a > pulse-dialler. In the UK, push-button pulse-dialling phones have been > around for years, long before touch-tone came along. No, it shouldn't. Because the Brit public was exposed to nasty "Push-to-Pulse" phones before touch-tone does not mean that is the history of the technology. From a UK perspective, I had a Plessey touch-tone phone in 1979-80. It now resides in the Macassey garage and junk store alongside a push-to-pulse "warble-phone". In the UK, touch-tone has been available on TXE-4, System-X and AXE-10 exchanges. On the TXE-4 exchange you have to ask them to turn it on. Yes dear U.S. readers, it's free. British Telecom has not promoted touch-tone in the U.K. Many U.K. residents seeing touch-tone phones on TV have assumed they were push-to-pulse. A couple of years ago my brother in law wandered into the Canterbury British Telecom phone store and asked to buy a touch-tone or "MF" phone. The assistant was not sure what he wanted so called a technician. He told my brother in law that touch-tone was "Not available, and doesn't work here." I send him touch-tone phones from the US that work just fine on his TXE-4 exchange. Anyhow, touch-tone in the U.S. The early push-button phones in the U.S. were all touch-tone. The early dials had only 10 buttons - no * and #. They produced tones with "plucked reeds". I have never examined one of these, just seen pictures, they must have been mechanical nightmares. Later versions used LC oscillators using a transistor and pot core coils. These dials had several contacts for muting, row and column etc. The latest dials use an IC and a color TV crystal (3.58 Mhz) as the frequency element. The IC dials have fewer switch contacts (one set per digit) than the old dials so are cheaper to manufacture. The push-to-pulse dials are also based on ICs. They usually have a strapping option for make/break ratio and most will do a "Last Number Redial". This is usually done by pushing the * key which of course represents nothing in the pulse world. The push-to-pulse dial as I recall came into use in the early eighties, twenty years after touch-tone. Push-to-pulse has caused much confusion, with people thinking it is touch tone etc. Only a cynic would say that it was intended to confuse. One of the reasons that all the junk far east phones were push-to-pulse was that is what they understood and could test on their phone lines. It is actually cheaper to make an IC touch-tone dial than a push-to-pulse jobbie. > Sun Microsystems UK, Gatwick Office ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ When I lived a few miles from here (Leigh) we had a manual exchange as did Redhill, the big town up the road. This was in the early sixties when they had touch-tone in the U.S. Julian Macassey, n6are julian@bongo.info.com ucla-an!denwa!bongo!julian N6ARE@K6IYK (Packet Radio) n6are.ampr.org [44.16.0.81] voice (213) 653-4495 ------------------------------ From: Martin Harriss Subject: Re: Touchtone History Date: 11 Jul 90 15:32:56 GMT Reply-To: Martin Harriss Organization: Bellcore In article <9570@accuvax.nwu.edu> clive@ixi-limited.co.uk (Clive Feather) writes: >The UK had push-button pulse dial phones for a *long* time before >DTMF signalling arrived. >Anyone remember the Trimphone ? Unfortunately, I do. They were horrid things. The Trimphone was the PO's attempt to give customers something other than the run of the mill 700 type telephone. Trimphones did, in fact, have rotary dials when they were first introduced, sometime in the late 60's. It was sometime later when the push button pulse dial models came out. We had a trimphone put in when we moved in '68. In those days the PO owned the phones. It had a "modern" look and the dial was luminous so you could find it in the dark. The main problem was that the mic was stuck up near the top of the handset. You spoke into the mouthpiece, and your voice travelled up the inside of the handset to the mic. Having your voice sent up a hollow tube in this fashion was probably not good, but even worse was the fact that in this particular orientation the carbon granules(!) in the mic would stick in a particular way that made it sound like you had a perpetual cold. Banging the handset periodically would help, but not for long. When we eventually figured out what was wrong, we had the unit swapped for a new one, and it was ok for a while. I found that the mic in the new unit was quite sensitive at 2280Hz. Martin Harriss martin@cellar.bae.bellcore.com ------------------------------ From: Robert Kinne Subject: Re: Touchtone History Date: 11 Jul 90 17:41:24 GMT Reply-To: Robert Kinne Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder In article <9569@accuvax.nwu.edu> Jim Budler writes: >It was probably a Department of Defense phone. These phones looked >like touch-tone, made noises *similar* to touch-tone, but were on the >private DOD Autovon network. They were not pulse dialers. To my >uneducated ear they were DTMF, but they were definately tone dialers. >They had four extra keys for setting call priority. We had a similar Autovon phones had (have still, as far as I know) a 4x4 key matrix instead of the 4x3 on conventional DTMF. Used in normal mode, Autovon phones have the same sets of frequencies that normal DTMF uses. The fourth column provides four levels of priority, and uses an additional tone making four new DTMF combinations. If memory serves, Autovon was linked to the public network, but also had dedicated private trunks to be used for priority calls. All of this may be out of date, since my information is a few years old. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: 10 Jul 90 18:37:46 PDT (Tue) From: John Higdon In article <9532@accuvax.nwu.edu> Heath Roberts writes: >line card itself: there's one per subscriber loop in the switch. So >you can't really just ask about "100% coverage". It doesn't work that >way. Trying to provide more touch-tone service without adding capacity >is like trying to push a thousand cars an hour down a two lane road: >things back up, everybody gets slowed down, etc. You have to add extra >lanes in the long run. Whenever a telco orders a switch, it has a pretty good idea what the traffic patterns will be on it. Since it was necessary to know in the old crossbar days how many "originating registers" would be required in a particular application, it is similarly necessary to know how many TT receivers will be required in a digital switch. Mr. Heath's implication is that an unlimited number rotary subscribers can be off hook dialing calls. Not true. The switch must be configured for expected traffic whether it be rotary or TT. TT receivers are cheap and a relatively few of them can serve many subscribers. >Software's also getting to be more and more complex, so >telcos are spending proportionally more on software than they used to. >These costs are the reason I think I'm justified in saying that CLASS >features, although not "advanced" in concept, and even though they're >pretty common, cost operating companies more to provide than POTS. Not to mention writing their own. Some telcos (like Pac*Bell) buy source licenses with their digital switches. This not only brings down the cost of individual features, but allows the telco to provide services that don't come with the equipment in the first place. Pac*Bell offers a number of subscriber features on the NT DMS100 that are not available from the manufacturer. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 10:54:54 CDT From: Al L Varney Subject: Re: Reference Book Wanted on Telephones Organization: AT&T Network Systems In article <9506@accuvax.nwu.edu> sgtech!adnan@ico.isc.com (Adnan Yaqub) writes: >Could some kind body please point me to a suitable reference which >describes the signaling between the main office and my home phone. I >would like to know such things as how much power is provided, what the >ring signal is like, how the click for call waiting is done, etc. There is no true reference for this, since the answer depends on where you look at the subscriber loop; central office or customer end. There are no requirements I know of that mandate requirements on central office output viewed at the subscriber end of the loop. Essentially, central offices have "requirements" (with lots of exceptions) for inputs and outputs at the central office end of the loop, designed to work with various customer equipment over various loop distances/conditions. The primary "voluntary" requirement document for the central office switch today is the Bellcore LSSGR series, particularly, TR-TSY-000506, Signaling, (this might answer your "signaling" question) TR-TSY-000510, System Interfaces (here's the power and electrical stuff) TR-TSY-000515, Electromagnetic and Electrical Environment (lightning protection, EMI, etc. on the loop) TR-TSY-000522, Features Common to Residence and Business Customers III (Call Waiting is in here, & other Custom Calling stuff) Also of interest is an older publication, PUB 61100 Analog Voiceband Interface between the Bell System Local Exchange Lines and Terminal Equipment -- I believe this replaced with TA-NPL-000912, Compatibility Information for Telephone Exchange Service (order reference RFC 89-0007) There are a series of Technical Advisories (TA) that don't cost money, but Bellcore says they are distributed to "members of the telecommunications industry." The TRs above will cost about $200; they take plastic on (201) 699-5800. Ask about TAs, usually you have to write. Note that the output of a switch is not necessarily connected to your telephone, so don't make any assumptions about your end of the loop. There are Pair-gain, analog carrier, digital carrier, loop multiplex and range extension equipment that could sit between your switch and your telephone. They each have their own set of requirements for the telephone side of the subscriber "loop". Even if you knew the information today, it could change tomorrow, and no notice would be given. So long as the "standard" telephone works, the loop can change. So, let's say you found out all this stuff for YOUR TELEPHONE line and wanted to use the information in building an interface to the telephone system. Unfortunately, many manufacturers did this in the past, and were dismayed (or their customers were) to find that telephone lines are not the same everywhere, or even the same from day to day. The requirements on YOUR end of the loop are specified in the FCC part of the published Federal Regulations (47 CFR) Section 68. Any reasonable library should have a copy. This will give you power, ringing, timing and signaling requirements your equipment must meet. There are all kinds of requirements, including such things as (para. 68.318(c)1 -- "...Automatic dialing to a particular number must cease after fifteen successive attempts." Want to guess how many modems/terminal emulators violate this? Also check out EIA Standard RS-470, Telephone Instruments with Loop Signaling for Voiceband Applications. In summary, there is no detailed single reference, any library has general references (except for the Call Waiting signal) under the Telephony heading, and Section 68 details your equipment's allowed behavior for legal access. I don't believe the FCC has requirements for the switch interface, but the LSSGR documents the interface that most switches meet, and a lot of PUC rulings and court cases over many years probably define the telephone company's real legal interface to a particular customer. The opinions above are my own, the facts speak for themselves. Al Varney, AT&T Network Systems, Lisle, IL ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #475 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa01417; 11 Jul 90 23:55 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa25519; 11 Jul 90 22:13 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa12947; 11 Jul 90 21:03 CDT Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 20:01:13 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #476 BCC: Message-ID: <9007112001.ab08389@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 11 Jul 90 20:00:35 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 476 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: My Trip to Kansas [Rob Warnock] Re: Public*Phone [John Higdon] Re: Answering Machine Security [James Zuchelli] Re: Finland Direct (Some Problems) [Kauto Huopio] Re: Manhole Covers [Tom Ohmer] Re: Good for a Laugh: Polish Payphones [Richard Budd] Polish Phones of all Types: Very Sad Situation [TELECOM Moderator] Re: Radio Shack CT-102 [Peter M. Weiss] Who Makes the Best Cellular Phone? [C.J. Pilzer] August 9 Symposium in Columbus, OH [Jane M. Fraser] Last Laugh! Iridium [John McHarry] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 08:39:32 GMT From: Rob Warnock Subject: Re: My Trip to Kansas Reply-To: Rob Warnock Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA In article <9537@accuvax.nwu.edu> doug@letni.lonestar.org (Doug Davis) writes: | >On the way back everything worked fine, except... the roaming light | >(as opposed to 'no service' light) would come on... | This is usually due to a phone being programmed to scan the b and a | carriers, sometimes they mistakenly lock on a (insert opposing carrier)'s | signal and roam to it. The solution is to program your phone... | On most phones this is a user option and can be changed "on the fly" | without going into program mode. On the CT-301 this is done with "1", then pushing "1" to rotate among: A - "A" system only B - "B" system only H - your "home" system (whichever of A or B your basic service is with) S - scan for best signal They do warn you quite explicitly in the CT-301 User's Guide that "S" may sometimes lock onto the "wrong" system. By the way, I use this all the time to temporarily slide over to the "B" system here (GTE Mobilnet) to call "*227" ("*CBS"), the "KCBS Cellular Phone Force" (traffic spotter) number. It's supposed to be a free call, and indeed I haven't been charged yet, even both the "NON-HOME" + "ROAM" indicators come on. (The "A" system, PacTel Mobile, has "*KGO81", but I listen to KCBS, not KGO.) ["Oh", not "zero". -----^ Blettch!] Does anyone have an example where calling a "free" "*xxx" number resulted in charges to a roamer? Rob Warnock, MS-9U/510 rpw3@sgi.com rpw3@pei.com Silicon Graphics, Inc. (415)335-1673 Protocol Engines, Inc. 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94039-7311 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Public*Phone Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: 10 Jul 90 18:59:41 PDT (Tue) From: John Higdon In article <9530@accuvax.nwu.edu> dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com (David Tamkin) writes: >Since there don't seem to be any COCOTs manufactured to >look like the pay phones of independent telqi, the COCOTs in Centel >territory (usually outside gasoline stations or inside restaurants, >but far sparser than in IBT country) stick out like sore thumbs. Centel's other major bastion, Las Vegas, has the same problem but more of it. When COCOTs were allowed there, they sprang up like a fungus and you are hard pressed to find even one of Centel's stupid-looking (but quite functional) NT coin phones. Also, since there was no point in trying for the "Bell" look, most of the COCOTs look like anything from stamp machines to condom dispensers. And most of them might as well be; their handling of telephone calls leave a lot to be desired. It was in Las Vegas that I was first introduced to the $7, three-minute call to San Jose. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: James Zuchelli Subject: Re: Answering Machine Security Date: 10 Jul 90 05:43:20 GMT Organization: FidoNet node 1:161/555 - MacCircles, Pleasanton CA You may not want to go to the trouble, but you can ask the phone company to put a trap on your line which will record the number of all calls coming in. You may also want to look into having a house sitter sit and note the time of all calls, especially the ones which erase your messages. That way the caller can be i.d.'d, but most telcos don't seem to want to do this kind of thing unless the local PD tells them to. James Zuchelli - via FidoNet node 1:125/777 UUCP: ...!sun!hoptoad!fidogate!161!555!James.Zuchelli INTERNET: James.Zuchelli@f555.n161.z1.FIDONET.ORG ------------------------------ From: Kauto Huopio OH5LFM Subject: Re: Finland Direct (Some Problems) Date: 11 Jul 90 20:06:06 GMT Organization: Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland In article <9579@accuvax.nwu.edu> lars@spectrum.cmc.com (Lars Poulsen) writes: > >When I call either of these numbers, I reach a tone _in_Finland_ that > >I am not familiar with, but it may simply be a "please wait" tone. I > >suspect the problem is with the grade of service provided by the > >operators in Finland. The tone is roughly 500ms of 950 Hz, 250ms of > >950 Hz, 1.5 sec of 1400 Hz. After a long time of no revenue due to no > >answer, AT&T gives up and says "Your call cannot be completed at this > >time in the country you are calling." On MCI it eventually times out > >to a reorder (120 interruptions per minute). > The description of the tone sounds suspiciously like the European > reorder signal. It consists of three tones of a rising pitch, somewhat > similar to the "Special Information Tones" used by ATT. No, this is NOT a reorder signal. It is a queue tone!! If you have tried these numbers at, say 3pm in USA, it is around 9-11pm here. So at that time the number of international operators is VERY low, and even I may have to wait for operator about 1-2 minutes. Why do we have so few operators? Where we would need them? We have International Direct Dialing to every place in the world that has some kind of automated phone systems (Soviet Union goes okay!!), and we make quite a small number of collect calls. BTW: one other interesting telecom matter: Finnish PTT has plans to allow calls TO payphones! But they have planned to give 9700-numbers to them (Finnish Value Added Service-numbers.. Yes, we have 9800..) This means at least 50 cents/minute extra to the normal call. :-( ****************** Kauto Huopio (huopio@kannel.lut.fi) ********************** *US Mail: Kauto Huopio, Punkkerikatu 1 A 10, SF-53850 Lappeenranta, Finland * *WARNING! We have holiday season here, so be patient with my answers.. * ***************************************************************************** ------------------------------ From: Tom Ohmer Subject: Re: Manhole Covers Date: 11 Jul 90 17:43:41 GMT Organization: Defense Logistics Agency Systems Automation Center, Columbus From article <9578@accuvax.nwu.edu>, by jvz@cci632.uucp (John V. Zambito): < This discussion got way out of hand, but let me add to it. What about < when a stripe from a lane marking is painted on it? The service people < never put the cover back on right. < [Moderator's Note: I see lots of these in Chicago. Typically, they are < always turned at some strange angle to the rest of the line. PT] Unless they are held in place, and ones I've examined are not, being driven over would cause them to rotate, albiet slowly, no? Tom Ohmer @ Defense Logistics Agency Systems Automation Center, DSAC-AMB, Bldg. 27-6, P.O. Box 1605, Columbus, OH 43216-5002 UUCP: ...osu-cis!dsac!tohmer INTERNET: tohmer@dsac.dla.mil Phone: (614) 238-9210 AutoVoN: 850-9210 Disclaimer claimed ------------------------------ Date: WED, 11 JUL 90 19.48.08 EDT From: Richard Budd Subject: Re: Good For a Laugh: Polish Payphones In TELECOM Digest 10/469, Donald E. Kimberlin <0004133373@mcimail. com> writes: > "`Since Polish payphone mechanisms were increased to > 20 zlotys several months ago, 20-zloty coins have gone into hiding. > "`The payphone-sized 20-zlotycoins are selling on the streets > for 200 to 1,000 zlotys apiece.'" (I still say cheap at a thousand > zlotys -- about a dime U.S., isn't it?) Wolf Paul writes: > A Polish colleague of mine informs me that payphones were recently > converted to use a special phone token, which presumably is available > at the official rate at various outlets. > It is interesting how some coins cause such a strong public reaction: > The Susan B. Anthony dollar comes to mind in the US, or the small, > thick, and heavy 1-pound coin in the UK, which was very little used > until 1-pound notes were withdrawn from circulation. Two reasons the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin failed to gain acceptance in the US, even though it was a good idea in those inflationary times, were the Federal Government's unwillingness to withdraw the $1 bill from circulation and the telephone companies' (and vending machine manufacturer's) reluctance to allow pay telephones (and vending machines) to accept the SBA coin. The latter is also a reason you rarely see JFK half dollars anymore. Some people are secure in old habits, even if new adjustments make life easier and save money, because of the feeling they would create inconvenience. These same people tend to ignore the inconvenience created when the cost of a long-distance telephone call requires you to have two pounds of change (I know, that's what Calling Cards are for) or when you can't get a pop because the dollar changer is broken for the umpteenth time. Come to think about it, a dollar token for US telephones wouldn't be a bad idea. Another example: In the early '80's when the US was floundering in its attempt to convert to the metric system, I suggested that Congress pass a law saying that on August 1, 1985, the US will use the metric system for all measurements and if you don't like it, you can move to Liberia (the next largest country in population that uses the US system of measure). Richard Budd Marist College Poughkeepsie, NY KLUB@MARISTB.BITNET ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 19:45:07 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Polish Phones of all Types: Very Sad Situation According to a recent story in the [Chicago Tribune], phone service of all types in Poland is really the pits. Phone service in the eastern bloc countries has been deteriorating for many years, and apparently Poland is the epitomy of it all, with delays of several years to get service being quite common, and delays of several days to several weeks to get ordinary repairs the norm. They say it is even worse than East Germany. Many small towns in Poland have no service at all. The *newest* phone switch in the country is one in a hotel frequented by American tourists, and it is over twenty years old. No immediate changes are contemplated. Any comments? PT ------------------------------ Organization: Penn State University Date: Wednesday, 11 Jul 1990 09:00:13 EDT From: "Peter M. Weiss" Subject: Re: Radio Shack CT-102 In our little 'berg (actually State College, PA), RS requires a three month service agreement with the B-wire carrier CellularPlus. I think that they waive the one-time service initiation charge, which does _not_ include physical install nor mobile antenna. And since you will be entering into a service agreement at the $299 price, then they (Cell+) will run a credit check against you. Peter M. Weiss | pmw1@psuvm or @vm.psu.edu 31 Shields Bldg | University Park, PA USA 16802 | Disclaimer -* +* applies herein ------------------------------ From: CJ Pilzer Subject: Who Makes the Best Cellular Phone? Date: 10 Jul 90 19:30:48 GMT Organization: Bear Track Computer Co., Takoma Park, MD. I would like to put a cellular phone in my car, but am confused by all the different makes and models. Locally, Bell Atlantic sells several models of Audiovox as the high end and one model of Motorola as their low end. A lot of the independent stores sell the NEC. I think Cellular One sells the Uniden in several models. What is the best make? What is it that makes many dollars difference in the models? The salesman only seem to know about a scratch pad or signal strength indicator as the main difference between models. In fact the knowledge of most of the sales people I talked to was very limited. cj ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 13:47:14 edt From: "Jane M. Fraser" Subject: August 9 Symposium in Columbus, OH On Thursday, August 9, the Center for Advanced Study of Telecommunications will hold a one day symposium "Telecommunications for Ohio Economic Development: A Computer Network for Small Businesses?" The symposium will be at the Ramada University Hotel, 3110 Olentangy River Road, Columbus, OH. Existing computer networks do not address the business needs of small and medium sized companies. Since such companies often provide a great deal of employment and a great deal of growth in employment, but are often technologically behind large companies, there are large opportunities to enhance economic development by providing various services to such companies. Services might include electronic mail, electronic file exchange, bulletin boards, and access to large computers. Development of such a network might be a suitable use of public funds. The State of Ohio might consider encouraging such a network as a way of aiding small and medium sized companies to grow and to convert to producing products needed in a peace economy. The symposium will address issues of economic development and the needs of small businesses. Various existing computer networks will be demonstrated. The preliminary program follows: 8:30-10:00 Jane M. Fraser ``A Proposal" Alan B. Albarran ``The Nature and Needs of Small Businesses" Alex Cruz and Jane Fraser ``What Exists" 10:00-10:15 Break 10:15-noon Edwin P. Parker: ``Telecommunications and Economic Development" Noon-1 Lunch 1-2 Dave Spooner, Economic Development Officer, Manchester (England) City Council staff. As part of a large program in telematics, the City of Manchester is setting up a computer that would serve as a host for many uses by small and medium sized companies, labor unions, community groups, and so forth. 2-3:15 Panel from outside Ohio: Kay Lutz-Ritzheimer, Montana Entrepreneurship Center John Niles, Global Telematics, Washington Anthony Roso, Jr., Colorado Office of Economic Development 3:15-3:30 Break 3:30-5 Panel from inside Ohio: Richard C. Decker, Ohio Network for Information Exchange Keith Ewald, Ohio Bureau of Employment Services T.M. Grundner, Cleveland FreeNet and National public Telecomputing Network Tim Steiner, Ohio Department of Administrative Services No-host cocktail party follows in Ramada atrium. Registration, which includes lunch, is $20 (payable to CAST/OSU). As a nonprofit education center, CAST seeks to keep the cost of its symposia low to encourage attendance. Scholarships are available. For more information, contact: Jane M. Fraser Associate Director, CAST 210 Baker Systems, 1971 Neil Avenue The Ohio State University Columbus, OH 43210 614-292-4129 jane@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu fraser@ccl2.eng.ohio-state.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wednesday, 11 Jul 1990 15:42:41 EST From: John McHarry Subject: Last Laugh! Iridium #insert tongue.in.cheek The choice of name for Motorola's proposed "Iridium" satellite cellular phone system is amusing. Putatively, it comes from the number, 77, of satellites involved, and the atomic number, 77, of the element Iridium. On the other hand, isn't iridium the signatory element of the sedimentary layer marking the demise of the dinosaurs, which allegedly succumbed to the effects of the raining down of some sort of fire from the heavens? Perhaps it is hoped that this, slightly higher, Iridium layer will mark the sudden extinction of the wireline "dinosaurs" we all know and love today. Disclaimer: Not intended to be taken seriously! John McHarry (703)883-6100 McHarry@MITRE.ORG ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #476 ******************************   Received: from [129.105.5.103] by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa01639; 12 Jul 90 0:07 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab25519; 11 Jul 90 22:15 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ad12947; 11 Jul 90 21:08 CDT Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 20:55:55 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest Special: Electronic Frontier 1 of 2 BCC: Message-ID: <9007112055.ab27085@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 11 Jul 90 20:12:50 CDT Electronic Frontier 1 of 2 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson New Foundation Established To Encourage Computer Based Communications CPSR To Undertake Expanded Civil Liberties Program Electronic Frontier Foundation - Mission Statement Across the Electronic Frontier [Statement by Mssrs. Kapor and Barlow] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sub: New Foundation Established to Encourage Computer Based Communications Reply-To: eff@well.sf.ca.us Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 07:21:31 BST From: the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow Contact: Cathy Cook (415) 759-5578 Washington, D.C., July 10, 1990 -- Mitchell D. Kapor, founder of Lotus Development Corporation and ON Technology, today announced that he, along with colleague John Perry Barlow, has established a foundation to address social and legal issues arising from the impact on society of the increasingly pervasive use of computers as a means of communication and information distribution. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will support and engage in public education on current and future developments in computer-based and telecommunications media. In addition, it will support litigation in the public interest to preserve, protect and extend First Amendment rights within the realm of computing and telecommunications technology. Initial funding for the Foundation comes from private contributions by Kapor and Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, Inc. The Foundation expects to actively raise contributions from a wide constituency. As an initial step to foster public education on these issues, the Foundation today awarded a grant to the Palo Alto, California-based public advocacy group Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR). The grant will be used by CPSR to expand the scope of its on-going Computing and Civil Liberties Project (see attached). Because its mission is to not only increase public awareness about civil liberties issues arising in the area of computer-based communications, but also to support litigation in the public interest, the Foundation has recently intervened on behalf of two legal cases. The first case concerns Steve Jackson, an Austin-based game manufacturer who was the target of the Secret Service's Operation Sun Devil. The EFF has pressed for a full disclosure by the government regarding the seizure of his company's computer equipment. In the second action, the Foundation intends to seek amicus curiae (friend of the court) status in the government's case against Craig Neidorf, a 20-year-old University of Missouri student who is the editor of the electronic newsletter Phrack World News. "It is becoming increasingly obvious that the rate of technology advancement in communications is far outpacing the establishment of appropriate cultural, legal and political frameworks to handle the issues that are arising," said Kapor. "And the Steve Jackson and Neidorf cases dramatically point to the timeliness of the Foundation's mission. We intend to be instrumental in helping shape a new framework that embraces these powerful new technologies for the public good." The use of new digital media -- in the form of on-line information and interactive conferencing services, computer networks and electronic bulletin boards -- is becoming widespread in businesses and homes. However, the electronic society created by these new forms of digital communications does not fit neatly into existing, conventional legal and social structures. The question of how electronic communications should be accorded the same political freedoms as newspapers, books, journals and other modes of discourse is currently the subject of discussion among this country's lawmakers and members of the computer industry. The EFF will take an active role in these discussions through its continued funding of various educational projects and forums. An important facet of the Foundation's mission is to help both the public and policy-makers see and understand the opportunities as well as the challenges posed by developments in computing and telecommunications. Also, the EFF will encourage and support the development of new software to enable non-technical users to more easily use their computers to access the growing number of digital communications services available. The Foundation is located in Cambridge, Mass. Requests for information should be sent to Electronic Frontier Foundation, One Cambridge Center, Suite 300, Cambridge, MA 02142, 617/577-1385, fax 617/225-2347; or it can be reached at the Internet mail address eff@well.sf.ca.us. ------------------------------ Subject: CPSR to Undertake Expanded Civil Liberties Program Reply-To: eff@well.sf.ca.us Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 07:22:40 BST From: the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow Contact: Marc Rotenberg (202) 775-1588 Washington, D.C., July 10, 1990 -- Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR), a national computing organization, announced today that it would receive a two-year grant in the amount of $275,000 for its Computing and Civil Liberties Project. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF),founded by Mitchell Kapor, made the grant to expand ongoing CPSR work on civil liberties protections for computer users. At a press conference in Washington today, Mr. Kapor praised CPSR's work, "CPSR plays an important role in the computer community. For the last several years, it has sought to extend civil liberties protections to new information technologies. Now we want to help CPSR expand that work." Marc Rotenberg, director of the CPSR Washington Office said, "We are obviously very happy about the grant from the EFF. There is a lot of work that needs to be done to ensure that our civil liberties protections are not lost amidst policy confusion about the use of new computer technologies." CPSR said that it will host a series of policy round tables in Washington, DC, during the next two years with lawmakers, computer users, including (hackers), the FBI, industry representatives, and members of the computer security community. Mr. Rotenberg said that the purpose of the meetings will be to "begin a dialogue about the new uses of electronic media and the protection of the public interest." CPSR also plans to develop policy papers on computers and civil liberties, to oversee the Government's handling of computer crime investigations, and to act as an information resource for organizations and individuals interested in civil liberties issues. The CPSR Computing and Civil Liberties project began in 1985 after President Reagan attempted to restrict access to government computer systems through the creation of new classification authority. In 1988, CPSR prepared a report on the proposed expansion of the FBI's computer system, the National Crime Information Center. The report found serious threats to privacy and civil liberties. Shortly after the report was issued, the FBI announced that it would drop a proposed computer feature to track the movements of people across the country who had not been charged with any crime. "We need to build bridges between the technical community and the policy community," said Dr. Eric Roberts, CPSR president and a research scientist at Digital Equipment Corporation in Palo Alto, California. "There is simply too much misinformation about how computer networks operate. This could produce terribly misguided public policy." CPSR representatives have testified several times before Congressional committees on matters involving civil liberties and computer policy. Last year CPSR urged a House Committee to avoid poorly conceived computer activity. "In the rush to criminalize the malicious acts of the few we may discourage the beneficial acts of the many," warned CPSR. A House subcommittee recently followed CPSR's recommendations on computer crime amendments. Dr. Ronni Rosenberg, an expert on the role of computer scientists and public policy, praised the new initiative. She said, "It's clear that there is an information gap that needs to be filled. This is an important opportunity for computer scientists to help fill the gap." CPSR is a national membership organization of computer professionals, based in Palo Alto, California. CPSR has over 20,000 members and 21 chapters across the country. In addition to the civil liberties project, CPSR conducts research, advises policy makers and educates the public about computers in the workplace, computer risk and reliability, and international security. For more information contact: Marc Rotenberg Gary Chapman CPSR Washington Office CPSR National Office 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW P.O. Box 717 Suite 1015 Palo Alto, CA 94302 Washington, DC 20036 415/322-3778 202/775-1588 ------------------------------ Subject: Electronic Frontier Foundation - Mission Statement Reply-To: eff@well.sf.ca.us Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 07:23:49 BST From: the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow A new world is arising in the vast web of digital, electronic media which connect us. Computer-based communication media like electronic mail and computer conferencing are becoming the basis of new forms of community. These communities without a single, fixed geographical location comprise the first settlements on an electronic frontier. While well-established legal principles and cultural norms give structure and coherence to uses of conventional media like newspapers, books, and telephones, the new digital media do not so easily fit into existing frameworks. Conflicts come about as the law struggles to define its application in a context where fundamental notions of speech, property, and place take profoundly new forms. People sense both the promise and the threat inherent in new computer and communications technologies, even as they struggle to master or simply cope with them in the workplace and the home. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been established to help civilize the electronic frontier; to make it truly useful and beneficial not just to a technical elite, but to everyone; and to do this in a way which is in keeping with our society's highest traditions of the free and open flow of information and communication. To that end, the Electronic Frontier Foundation will: 1. Engage in and support educational activities which increase popular understanding of the opportunities and challenges posed by developments in computing and telecommunications. 2. Develop among policy-makers a better understanding of the issues underlying free and open telecommunications, and support the creation of legal and structural approaches which will ease the assimilation of these new technologies by society. 3. Raise public awareness about civil liberties issues arising from the rapid advancement in the area of new computer-based communications media. Support litigation in the public interest to preserve, protect, and extend First Amendment rights within the realm of computing and telecommunications technology. 4. Encourage and support the development of new tools which will endow non-technical users with full and easy access to computer-based telecommunications. The Electronic Frontier Foundation One Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 (617) 577-1385 eff@well.sf.ca.us ------------------------------ Subject: Across the Electronic Frontier Reply-To: eff@well.sf.ca.us Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 07:29:18 BST From: the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow by: Mitchell Kapor and John Perry Barlow Electronic Frontier Foundation Washington, D.C. July 10, 1990 Over the last 50 years, the people of the developed world have begun to cross into a landscape unlike any which humanity has experienced before. It is a region without physical shape or form. It exists, like a standing wave, in the vast web of our electronic communication systems. It consists of electron states, microwaves, magnetic fields, light pulses and thought itself. It is familiar to most people as the "place" in which a long-distance telephone conversation takes place. But it is also the repository for all digital or electronically transferred information, and, as such, it is the venue for most of what is now commerce, industry, and broad-scale human interaction. William Gibson called this Platonic realm "Cyberspace," a name which has some currency among its present inhabitants. Whatever it is eventually called, it is the homeland of the Information Age, the place where the future is destined to dwell. In its present condition, Cyberspace is a frontier region, populated by the few hardy technologists who can tolerate the austerity of its savage computer interfaces, incompatible communications protocols, proprietary barricades, cultural and legal ambiguities, and general lack of useful maps or metaphors. Certainly, the old concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context, based as they are on physical manifestation, do not apply succinctly in a world where there can be none. Sovereignty over this new world is also not well defined. Large institutions already lay claim to large fiefdoms, but most of the actual natives are solitary and independent, sometimes to the point of sociopathy. It is, therefore, a perfect breeding ground for both outlaws and vigilantes. Most of society has chosen to ignore the existence of this arising domain. Every day millions of people use ATM's and credit cards, place telephone calls, make travel reservations, and access information of limitless variety. . . all without any perception of the digital machinations behind these transactions. Our financial, legal, and even physical lives are increasingly dependent on realities of which we have only dimmest awareness. We have entrusted the basic functions of modern existence to institutions we cannot name, using tools we've never heard of and could not operate if we had. As communications and data technology continues to change and develop at a pace many times that of society, the inevitable conflicts have begun to occur on the border between Cyberspace and the physical world. These are taking a wide variety of forms, including (but hardly limited to) the following: I. Legal and Constitutional Questions What is free speech and what is merely data? What is a free press without paper and ink? What is a "place" in a world without tangible dimensions? How does one protect property which has no physical form and can be infinitely and easily reproduced? Can the history of one's personal business affairs properly belong to someone else? Can anyone morally claim to own knowledge itself? These are just a few of the questions for which neither law nor custom can provide concrete answers. In their absence, law enforcement agencies like the Secret Service and FBI, acting at the disposal of large information corporations, are seeking to create legal precedents which would radically limit Constitutional application to digital media. The excesses of Operation Sun Devil are only the beginning of what threatens to become a long, difficult, and philosophically obscure struggle between institutional control and individual liberty. II. Future Shock Information workers, forced to keep pace with rapidly changing technology, are stuck on "the learning curve of Sisyphus." Increasingly, they find their hard-acquired skills to be obsolete even before they've been fully mastered. To a lesser extent, the same applies to ordinary citizens who correctly feel a lack of control over their own lives and identities. One result of this is a neo-Luddite resentment of digital technology from which little good can come. Another is a decrease in worker productivity ironically coupled to tools designed to enhance it. Finally, there is a spreading sense of alienation, dislocation, and helplessness in the general presence of which no society can expect to remain healthy. III. The "Knows" and the "Know-Nots" Modern economies are increasingly divided between those who are comfortable and proficient with digital technology and those who neither understand nor trust it. In essence, this development disenfranchises the latter group, denying them any possibility of citizenship in Cyberspace and, thus, participation in the future. Furthermore, as policy-makers and elected officials remain relatively ignorant of computers and their uses, they unknowingly abdicate most of their authority to corporate technocrats whose jobs do not include general social responsibility. Elected government is thus replaced by institutions with little real interest beyond their own quarterly profits. We are founding the Electronic Frontier Foundation to deal with these and related challenges. While our agenda is ambitious to the point of audacity, we don't see much that these issues are being given the broad social attention they deserve. We were forced to ask, "If not us, then who?" In fact, our original objectives were more modest. When we first heard about Operation Sun Devil and other official adventures into the digital realm, we thought that remedy could be derived by simply unleashing a few highly competent Constitutional lawyers upon the Government. In essence, we were prepared to fight a few civil libertarian brush fires and go on about our private work. However, examination of the issues surrounding these government actions revealed that we were dealing with the symptoms of a much larger malady, the collision between Society and Cyberspace. We have concluded that a cure can lie only in bringing civilization to Cyberspace. Unless a successful effort is made to render that harsh and mysterious terrain suitable for ordinary inhabitants, friction between the two worlds will worsen. Constitutional protections, indeed the perceived legitimacy of representative government itself, might gradually disappear. We could not allow this to happen unchallenged, and so arises the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In addition to our legal interventions on behalf of those whose rights are threatened, we will: % Engage in and support efforts to educate both the general public and policymakers about the opportunities and challenges posed by developments in computing and telecommunications. % Encourage communication between the developers of technology, government, corporate officials, and the general public in which we might define the appropriate metaphors and legal concepts for life in Cyberspace. % And, finally, foster the development of new tools which will endow non-technical users with full and easy access to computer-based telecommunications. One of us, Mitch Kapor, had already been a vocal advocate of more accessible software design and had given considerable thought to some of the challenges we now intend to meet. The other, John Perry Barlow, is a relative newcomer to the world of computing (though not to the world of politics) and is therefore well-equipped to act as an emissary between the magicians of technology and the wary populace who must incorporate this magic into their daily lives. While we expect the Electronic Frontier Foundation to be a creation of some longevity, we hope to avoid the sclerosis which organizations usually develop in their efforts to exist over time. For this reason we will endeavor to remain light and flexible, marshalling intellectual and financial resources to meet specific purposes rather than finding purposes to match our resources. As is appropriate, we will communicate between ourselves and with our constituents largely over the electronic Net, trusting self-distribution and self-organization to a much greater extent than would be possible for a more traditional organization. We readily admit that we have our work cut out for us. However, we are greatly encouraged by the overwhelming and positive response which we have received so far. We hope the Electronic Frontier Foundation can function as a focal point for the many people of good will who wish to settle in a future as abundant and free as the present. The Electronic Frontier Foundation One Cambridge Center, Suite 300 Cambridge, MA 02142 (617) 577-1385 eff@well.sf.ca.us ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest Special: Electronic Frontier ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa02635; 12 Jul 90 1:10 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa03650; 11 Jul 90 23:19 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ac25519; 11 Jul 90 22:15 CDT Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 21:34:34 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest Special: Electronic Frontier 2 of 2 BCC: Message-ID: <9007112134.ab11550@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 11 Jul 90 21:33:00 CDT Electronic Frontier 2 of 2 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Electronic Frontier Foundation - Legal Case Summary ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: eff@well.sf.ca.us Subject: Electronic Frontier Foundation - Legal Case Summary Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 07:31:17 BST From: the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow The Electronic Frontier Foundation is currently providing litigation support in two cases in which it perceived there to be substantial civil liberties concerns which are likely to prove important in the overall legal scheme by which electronic communications will, now and in the future, be governed, regulated, encouraged, and protected. Steve Jackson Games Steve Jackson Games is a small, privately owned adventure game manufacturer located in Austin, Texas. Like most businesses today, Steve Jackson Games uses computers for word processing and bookkeeping. In addition, like many other manufacturers, the company operates an electronic bulletin board to advertise and to obtain feedback on its product ideas and lines. One of the company's most recent products is GURPS CYBERPUNK, a science fiction role-playing game set in a high-tech futuristic world. The rules of the game are set out in a game book. Playing of the game is not performed on computers and does not make use of computers in any way. This game was to be the company's most important first quarter release, the keystone of its line. On March 1, 1990, just weeks before GURPS CYBERPUNK was due to be released, agents of the United States Secret Service raided the premises of Steve Jackson Games. The Secret Service: % seized three of the company's computers which were used in the drafting and designing of GURPS CYBERPUNK, including the computer used to run the electronic bulletin board, % took all of the company software in the neighborhood of the computers taken, % took with them company business records which were located on the computers seized, and % destructively ransacked the company's warehouse, leaving many items in disarray. In addition, all working drafts of the soon-to-be-published GURPS CYBERPUNK game book -- on disk and in hard-copy manuscript form -- were confiscated by the authorities. One of the Secret Service agents told Steve Jackson that the GURPS CYBERPUNK science fiction fantasy game book was a, "handbook for computer crime." Steve Jackson Games was temporarily shut down. The company was forced to lay-off half of its employees and, ever since the raid, has operated on relatively precarious ground. Steve Jackson Games, which has not been involved in any illegal activity insofar as the Foundation's inquiries have been able to determine, tried in vain for over three months to find out why its property had been seized, why the property was being retained by the Secret Service long after it should have become apparent to the agents that GURPS CYBERPUNK and everything else in the company's repertoire were entirely lawful and innocuous, and when the company's vital materials would be returned. In late June of this year, after attorneys for the Electronic Frontier Foundation became involved in the case, the Secret Service finally returned most of the property, but retained a number of documents, including the seized drafts of GURPS CYBERPUNKS. The Foundation is presently seeking to find out the basis for the search warrant that led to the raid on Steve Jackson Games. Unfortunately, the application for that warrant remains sealed by order of the court. The Foundation is making efforts to unseal those papers in order to find out what it was that the Secret Service told a judicial officer that prompted that officer to issue the search warrant. Under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, a search warrant may be lawfully issued only if the information presented to the court by the government agents demonstrates "probable cause" to believe that evidence of criminal conduct would be found on the premises to be searched. Unsealing the search warrant application should enable the Foundation's lawyers, representing Steve Jackson Games, to determine the theory by which Secret Service Agents concluded or hypothesized that either the GURPS CYBERPUNK game or any of the company's computerized business records constituted criminal activity or contained evidence of criminal activity. Whatever the professed basis of the search, its scope clearly seems to have been unreasonably broad. The wholesale seizure of computer software, and subsequent rummaging through its contents, is precisely the sort of general search that the Fourth Amendment was designed to prohibit. If it is unlawful for government agents to indiscriminately seize all of the hard-copy filing cabinets on a business premises -- which it surely is -- that the same degree of protection should apply to businesses that store information electronically. The Steve Jackson Games situation appears to involve First Amendment violations as well. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the government from "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press". The government's apparent attempt to prevent the publication of the GURPS CYBERPUNK game book by seizing all copies of all drafts in all media prior to publication, violated the First Amendment. The particular type of First Amendment violation here is the single most serious type, since the government, by seizing the very material sought to be published, effectuated what is known in the law as a "prior restraint" on speech. This means that rather than allow the material to be published and then seek to punish it, the government sought instead to prevent publication in the first place. (This is not to say, of course, that anything published by Steve Jackson Games could successfully have been punished. Indeed, the opposite appears to be the case, since SJG's business seems to be entirely lawful.) In any effort to restrain publication, the government bears an extremely heavy burden of proof before a court is permitted to authorize a prior restraint. Indeed, in its 200-year history, the Supreme Court has never upheld a prior restraint on the publication of material protected by the First Amendment, warning that such efforts to restrain publication are presumptively unconstitutional. For example, the Department of Justice was unsuccessful in 1971 in obtaining the permission of the Supreme Court to enjoin The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe from publishing the so-called Pentagon Papers, which the government strenuously argued should be enjoined because of a perceived threat to national security. (In 1979, however, the government sought to prevent The Progressive magazine from publishing an article purporting to instruct the reader as to how to manufacture an atomic bomb. A lower federal court actually imposed an order for a temporary prior restraint that lasted six months. The Supreme Court never had an opportunity to issue a full ruling on the constitutionality of that restraint, however, because the case was mooted when another newspaper published the article.) Governmental efforts to restrain publication thus have been met by vigorous opposition in the courts. A major problem posed by the government's resort to the expedient of obtaining a search warrant, therefore, is that it allows the government to effectively prevent or delay publication without giving the citizen a ready opportunity to oppose that effort in court. The Secret Service managed to delay, and almost to prevent, the publication of an innocuous game book by a legitimate company -- not by asking a court for a prior restraint order that it surely could not have obtained, but by asking instead for a search warrant, which it obtained all too readily. The seizure of the company's computer hardware is also problematic, for it prevented the company not only from publishing GURPS CYBERPUNK, but also from operating its electronic bulletin board. The government's action in shutting down such an electronic bulletin board is the functional equivalent of shutting down printing presses of The New York Times or The Washington Post in order to prevent publication of The Pentagon Papers. Had the government sought a court order closing down the electronic bulletin board, such an order effecting a prior restraint almost certainly would have been refused. Yet by obtaining the search warrant, the government effected the same result. This is a stark example of how electronic media suffer under a less stringent standard of constitutional protection than applies to the print media -- for no apparent reason, it would appear, other than the fact that government agents and courts do not seem to readily equate computers with printing presses and typewriters. It is difficult to understand a difference between these media that should matter for constitutional protection purposes. This is one of the challenges facing the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The Electronic Frontier Foundation will continue to press for return of the remaining property of Steve Jackson Games and will take formal steps, if necessary, to determine the factual basis for the search. The purpose of these efforts is to establish law applying the First and Fourth Amendments to electronic media, so as to protect in the future Steve Jackson Games as well as other individuals and businesses from the devastating effects of unlawful and unconstitutional government intrusion upon and interference with protected property and speech rights. United States v. Craig Neidorf Craig Neidorf is a 20-year-old student at the University of Missouri who has been indicted by the United States on several counts of interstate wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property in connection with his activities as editor and publisher of the electronic magazine, Phrack. The indictment charges Neidorf with: (1) wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property for the republication in Phrack of information which was allegedly illegally obtained through the accessing of a computer system without authorization, though it was obtained not by Neidorf but by a third party; and (2) wire fraud for the publication of an announcement of a computer conference and for the publication of articles which allegedly provide some suggestions on how to bypass security in some computer systems. The information obtained without authorization is a file relating to the provision of 911 emergency telephone services that was allegedly removed from the BellSouth computer system without authorization. It is important to note that neither the indictment, nor any briefs filed in this case by the government, contain any factual allegation or contention that Neidorf was involved in or participated in the removal of the 911 file. These indictments raise substantial constitutional issues which have significant impact on the uses of new computer communications technologies. The prosecution of an editor or publisher, under generalized statutes like wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property, for the publication of information received lawfully, which later turns out to be have been "stolen," presents an unprecedented threat to the freedom of the press. The person who should be prosecuted is the thief, and not a publisher who subsequently receives and publishes information of public interest. To draw an analogy to the print media, this would be the equivalent of prosecuting The New York Times and The Washington Post for publishing the Pentagon Papers when those papers were dropped off at the doorsteps of those newspapers. Similarly, the prosecution of a publisher for wire fraud arising out of the publication of articles that allegedly suggested methods of unlawful activity is also unprecedented. Even assuming that the articles here did advocate unlawful activity, advocacy of unlawful activity cannot constitutionally be the basis for a criminal prosecution, except where such advocacy is directed at producing imminent lawless action, and is likely to incite such action. The articles here simply do not fit within this limited category. The Supreme Court has often reiterated that in order for advocacy to be criminalized, the speech must be such that the words trigger an immediate action. Criminal prosecutions such as this pose an extreme hazard for First Amendment rights in all media of communication, as it has a chilling effect on writers and publishers who wish to discuss the ramifications of illegal activity, such as information describing illegal activity or describing how a crime might be committed. In addition, since the statutes under which Neidorf is charged clearly do not envision computer communications, applying them to situations such as that found in the Neidorf case raises fundamental questions of fair notice -- that is to say, the publisher or computer user has no way of knowing that his actions may in fact be a violation of criminal law. The judge in the case has already conceded that "no court has ever held that the electronic transfer of confidential, proprietary business information from one computer to another across state lines constitutes a violation of [the wire fraud statute]." The Due Process Clause prohibits the criminal prosecution of one who has not had fair notice of the illegality of his action. Strict adherence to the requirements of the Due Process Clause also minimizes the risk of selective or arbitrary enforcement, where prosecutors decide what conduct they do not like and then seek some statute that can be stretched by some theory to cover that conduct. Government seizure and liability of bulletin board systems During the recent government crackdown on computer crime, the government has on many occasions seized the computers which operate bulletin board systems ("BBSs"), even though the operator of the bulletin board is not suspected of any complicity in any alleged criminal activity. The government seizures go far beyond a "prior restraint" on the publication of any specific article, as the seizure of the computer equipment of a BBS prevents the BBS from publishing at all on any subject. This akin to seizing the word processing and computerized typesetting equipment of The New York Times for publishing the Pentagon Papers, simply because the government contends that there may be information relating to the commission of a crime on the system. Thus, the government does not simply restrain the publication of the "offending" document, but it seizes the means of production of the First Amendment activity so that no more stories of any type can be published. The government is allowed to seize "instrumentalities of crime," and a bulletin board and its associated computer system could arguably be called an instrumentality of crime if individuals used its private e-mail system to send messages in furtherance of criminal activity. However, even if the government has a compelling interest in interfering with First Amendment protected speech, it can only do so by the least restrictive means. Clearly, the wholesale seizure and retention of a publication's means of production, i.e., its computer system, is not the least restrictive alternative. The government obviously could seize the equipment long enough to make a copy of the information stored on the hard disk and to copy any other disks and documents, and then promptly return the computer system to the operator. Another unconstitutional aspect of the government seizures of the computers of bulletin board systems is the government infringement on the privacy of the electronic mail in the systems. It appears that the government, in seeking warrants for the seizures, has not forthrightly informed the court that private mail of third parties is on the computers, and has also read some of this private mail after the systems have been seized. The Neidorf case also raises issues of great significance to bulletin board systems. As Neidorf was a publisher of information he received, BBSs could be considered publishers of information that its users post on the boards. BBS operators have a great deal of concern as to the liability they might face for the dissemination of information on their boards which may turn out to have been obtained originally without authorization, or which discuss activity which may be considered illegal. This uncertainty as to the law has already caused a decrease in the free flow of information, as some BBS operators have removed information solely because of the fear of liability. The Electronic Frontier Foundation stands firmly against the unauthorized access of computer systems, computer trespass and computer theft, and strongly supports the security and sanctity of private computer systems and networks. One of the goals of the Foundation, however, is to ensure that, as the legal framework is established to protect the security of these computer systems, the unfettered communication and exchange of ideas is not hindered. The Foundation is concerned that the Government has cast its net too broadly, ensnaring the innocent and chilling or indeed supressing the free flow of information. The Foundation fears not only that protected speech will be curtailed, but also that the citizen's reasonable expectation in the privacy and sanctity of electronic communications systems will be thwarted, and people will be hesitant to communicate via these networks. Such a lack of confidence in electronic communication modes will substantially set back the kind of experimentation by and communication among fertile minds that are essential to our nation's development. The Foundation has therefore applied for amicus curiae (friend of the court) status in the Neidorf case and has filed legal briefs in support of the First Amendment issues there, and is prepared to assist in protecting the free flow of information over bulletin board systems and other computer technologies. For further information regarding Steve Jackson Games please contact: Harvey Silverglate or Sharon Beckman Silverglate & Good 89 Broad Street, 14th Floor Boston, MA 02110 617/542-6663 For further information regarding Craig Neidorf please contact: Terry Gross or Eric Lieberman Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky and Lieberman 740 Broadway, 5th Floor New York, NY 10003 212/254-1111 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest Special: Electronic Frontier 2 of 2 ******************************   Received: from [129.105.5.103] by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa12585; 13 Jul 90 5:18 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa13483; 13 Jul 90 3:16 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa10898; 13 Jul 90 2:08 CDT Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 1:16:11 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #477 BCC: Message-ID: <9007130116.ab09006@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 13 Jul 90 01:15:33 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 477 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson GTE/Contel Merger Announcement [Jim Sinclair] GTE/Contel Merger Questions [Robert Virzi] Last USA Crank-Style Phones to be Replaced [Jeff E. Nelson] Telecom Peeves [Bill Berbenich] Info on Hotel PBXs Wanted [Ned Robie] Excelan EXOS 225 = HELP [David Cattell] NPA-N-"T" (was: Curious About Overseas Call Responses) [Carl Moore] Dulles Prefixes (was Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles?) [Carl Moore] Re: Electronic Frontier Foundation [rwp@cup.portal.com] Last Laugh! Soliloquy on Llama Dung [Donald E. Kimberlin] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jim Sinclair Subject: GTE/Contel Merger Announcement Date: 12 Jul 90 20:37:00 GMT Organization: GTEL I thought that the readers of comp.dcom.telecom might be interested in the following announcement: NEW YORK, July 12 -- GTE Corporation (NYSE - GTE) and Contel Corporation (NYSE - CTC) jointly announced today that the boards of directors of both companies have agreed in principle to merge the two telecommunications giants in a transaction valued at approximately $6.2 billion, as of yesterday's closing price. Under the proposed merger agreement, which is subject to approval by the directors and stockholders of both companies as well as various regulatory agencies, GTE will issue 1.27 shares of its common stock in a tax-free exchange for each Contel common share, or about 200 million GTE shares. James L. "Rocky" Johnson, chairman and chief executive officer of GTE, characterized the merger as "a perfect combination of two great companies. GTE's telecommunications businesses and organizational structure complement those of Contel, and this alliance will both position the company strategically and enable us to exploit more fully the many opportunities for growth that exist in the worldwide telecommunications marketplace." He noted that the merger will result in an organization that ranks as the country's largest local-exchange telephone company and the second-largest cellular-telephone operator. The combined company's local-exchange operations would have a total of 17.7 million access lines, and its cellular-telephone business would serve approximately 50 million "POPs." Charles Wohlstetter, Contel's chairman, said, "This merger will provide the critical mass and financial strength Contel has sought in order to accelerate the many initiatives we have recently taken across a wide spectrum of ventures in the field of telecommunications. These plans fit so well with those of GTE that it is hard to imagine any other two companies in such an ideal position to move forward together. All of this leads me to the firm conviction that the agreement to merge is in the best interests of Contel's shareholders and employees." Wohlstetter also noted that Contel stockholders will benefit from an increased dividend resulting from the exchange of shares. GTE currently pays a dividend of $1.46 per share, whereas Contel pays a dividend of $1.10. "Given the common stock exchange ratio, this would equate to a dividend of approximately $1.85 per Contel share," Wohlstetter said. GTE subsidiaries operate in 46 states and 41 countries, with combined revenues and sales of $17.4 billion and net income of $1.4 billion in 1989. GTE is a leader in its three core businesses -- telecommunica- tions, lighting, and precision materials -- providing products and services worldwide. It has 158,000 employees. Contel is a major local telephone and cellular service provider. Its telephone operations serve 2.6 million access lines in 30 states and it operates cellular systems through a 90%-owned subsidiary, Contel Cellular, Inc. (NASDAQ - CCXLA), in 36 metropolitan areas. Contel's 1989 revenues were $3.1 billion, with net income of $277 million. It employs 22,000. "Aside from the obvious synergy of our telephone and cellular operations," Johnson said, "both companies have other areas of interest that are remarkably parallel. We both have large and successful units that provide telecommunications service and systems to government entities. We're both in satellite communications, and we have each undertaken significant initiatives in providing a combined cable-television and telephone service to residential communities. In addition, both companies have significant research activities which will make the combined entity an industry leader in applied technology. "Both companies have recently undertaken major restructuring programs to make our businesses more competitive, and have placed the highest priority on quality and productivity programs to better serve our customers. It is clear that all of these activities are uniquely positioned to benefit from the merger not merely through economies of scale, but also through the vastly enhanced reach of our combined resources as well as the coming together of the talented people of our two organizations," Johnson said. The announcement noted the new company would operate as GTE Corporation. Johnson will remain chairman and chief executive officer, and Charles R. Lee will continue to be president and chief operating officer. Wohlstetter and John L. Segall, who is currently vice chairman of Contel, will both serve as vice chairmen of the merged companies. When a new board is constituted, five of its directors will be nominated from Contel's current board. Donald W. Weber, president and CEO of Contel and a veteran of more than 25 years in the telephone industry, will occupy a key position in the merged entity. Wohlstetter, who is slated to chair the Strategic Issues, Planning and Technology Committee of the new board, echoed Johnson's remarks on the synergistic character of the merger. "Our two companies," he said, "have a very consistent outlook on the opportunities that are at hand in the world marketplace for telecommunications, and we have a common understanding of the value of size and reach in the highly competitive environment in which these opportunities must be grasped. We share a strong conviction that the combination of our respective resources will create a market force that neither of our companies could have achieved alone. And the timing," he added, "could not be better." Jim Sinclair GTE Laboratories Waltham, MA jcs1@gte.com ------------------------------ From: Robert Virzi Subject: GTE/Contel Merger Questions Date: 12 Jul 90 18:43:49 GMT Organization: GTE Laboratories, Inc., Waltham, MA ** NEWS** GTE Corp. and Contel Corp. today jointly announced they they have agreed in principle to merge the two telecom giants. The value of the transaction is $6.2 Billion. Combined local exchange operations will serve 17.7 Million access lines, making it the countries largest LEC. Combined cellular operations will serve apprx. 50 Million POPs, making it the second largest cellular provider. Both companies seem to be strongly interested in CATV, with Contel already owning several franchises. ** QUESTIONS ** Where are Contel franchises? (Both telephone and CATV) Why did GTE stock drop (albeit a small amount) while Contel and Contel Cellular stocks went up? I suspected something was up when I noticed that GTE had been on the NYSE most active list several times in the past week. I guess someone made a killing. Anyone care to guess on future stock prices? What is Contel's reputation? I have heard that they are one of the more innovative telcos, pushing into CATV, videotex, and other interesting services at a fast pace. What sort of network does Contel have? I know they don't use the GTD-5 because (rumor has it) we (GTE) have only sold one outside the corporation to Ameritech. Are they largely digital or X-bar or worse? Finally, are there likely to be objections raised to the merger by the FCC or SEC? If so, on what grounds? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 05:52:11 PDT From: Subject: Last USA Crank-Style Phones to be Replaced As reported on this morning's news/information/entertainment program "Today," the town of North Falls, Idaho is the last remaining location in the United States that still operates hand-crank telephones. However, history will soon pass, as they are designated to be replaced by touch-tone service. No details were given as to when the cutover will occur. According to the program, there are 18 subscribers with hand-crank phones. In keeping with their tradition of providing entertainment, the "Today" show saw fit to made a joke about "no more crank calls." Jeff E. Nelson Digital Equipment Corporation Internet: jnelson@tle.enet.dec.com Affiliation given for identification purposes only ------------------------------ From: Bill Berbenich Subject: Telecom Peeves Date: 10 Jul 90 21:50:52 GMT Reply-To: Bill Berbenich Organization: DSP Lab, School of Electrical Engineering, Ga.Tech, Atlanta, GA I was just reminded of one of my pet telecom peeves. Ever get on the phone with someone and have them just barely whisper instead of speakly clearly and plainly? I said, "would you please speak up, I can just barely hear you." The person's voice would get louder - I could tell that he was speaking in a full, clear voice then and I knew that it wasn't just a bad connection. Anyway, after a few sentences, ole soft-voice would slip back into the whisper. "Please speak up?" audible, audible, whisper, "please speak up, I cannot hear you?" audible, audible, audible, whisper... and so on throughout the ten minute (five minutes in an audible voice) conversation. Aaarrrggghhhh. :-) It wasn't even a 'confidential' matter. Anyone else had this happen to them? Bill Berbenich ------------------------------ From: ned@h-three.UUCP (ned) Subject: Info on Hotel PBXs Wanted Date: 9 Jul 90 15:43:04 GMT Organization: h-three Systems, Research Triangle Park, NC I have an idea for a peripheral device for hotel telephone systems that I'd like to develop. The device would need to interface with the hotel PBX so that it could: 1. Selectively intercept calls coming in (local and non-local) based on called number. 2. Be accessible from any phone in the hotel (that's tied in to the PBX) by dialing some special number. 3. Determine the caller's number when accessed using the special number. Is there a practical way to do this on the popular hotel switches? If so, what are the popular hotel switches and generally how would the device be integrated? Thanks for the info. Ned Robie uunet!h-three!ned ------------------------------ From: David Cattell Subject: Excelan EXOS 225 = HELP Date: 11 Jul 90 17:28:16 GMT Reply-To: David Cattell Organization: Philips Research Laboratories, Redhill, UK HELP - I'm desperately looking for the Company, Excelan Inc. in the states. I thought their address was: 2180 Fortune Drive San Jose, CA 95131 But when I tried their phone no. ( 408-434-2285 ) they had been disconnected. Is this anything to do with earthquakes? So I tried international directory inquiries and they are no longer listed under San Jose! Does anyone know where they are now, and even better, their fax number? I have one of their Excelan EXOS 225 (rev D) PC cards and I'm having difficulty installing it! The hardware installation software comes up with the error: Board enable Pass 0: Window error expected 0 got ffff A225 Error is error at address 00000 Location 00000 Loop count 0 Total errors 1 I've checked and double checked the jumper settings and the installation parameters in the S/W and can't get around this. I tried installing the main S/W and on running that I get the error: Exos 225 board map registers failed self test. Anyone got any useful info? Can Excelan hear me? Dave Cattell email cattell@prl.philips.co.uk Philips Research Labs. Cross Oak Lane Redhill, Surrey England RH1 5HA Tel. (0293) 785544 Fax (0293) 776495 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 9:58:17 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: NPA-N-"T" (was: Curious About Overseas Call Responses) Re: "405-2-T" appearing at end of intercept message received in 405 area: For inter-LATA calls within U.S. and Canada which could not be completed as dialed from my residence phone in Delaware, I have gotten something like "215-1-T" at the end of the recording (I am a TRIFLE unsure about the "1" just before the "T"). Although such call originated in area 302, the call apparently gets switched via southeastern Pa., which is in 215. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 10:18:22 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Dulles Prefixes (was Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles?) Before a Dulles DC-metro exchange came on line (703-260?), C&P's 703-471 exchange appeared on some payphones in Dulles in order to provide DC-metro service. I believe the 703-661 Dulles prefix is local to DC and Va. suburbs, but not to Maryland. ------------------------------ From: rwp@cup.portal.com Subject: Re: Electronic Frontier Foundation Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 17:48:36 PDT Reply-To: sun!portal!cup.portal.com!rwp Would it be possible to release the names of the Secret Service men who were involved in the Steve Jackson affair, and that of the judge who issued the warrant? Since it is obviously legal to publish the name of private citizens who are innocent of a crime (until proven guilty), it would be nice to see the agents and judge accused of overzealousness (at least) or constitutional violations (at worst) enjoy the same level of publicity. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 23:11 EST From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Organization: Telecommunications Network Architects, Safety Harbor, FL Date: 11 Jul 90 00:00:00 CDT Subject: Soliloquy on Llama Dung Reading an article in EDN for 28 Jun 90 (p.35) today brought a thoughtful frame of mind about how we approach utilizing telecommunications today. In the article cited, Richard A. Quinnel writes: " LLAMA ALERT! " We engineers are so good at solving problems that we sometimes forget to ask if the problem has been posed correctly; we just solve it. Yet questioning the rationale behind product specifications can avoid a lot of pointless effort. " Consider the U.S. Army's llamas. In the early 1940's, so the story goes, the Army wanted a dependable supply of llama dung, as required by specifications for treating the leather used in airplane seats. Submarine attacks made shipping from South America unreliable, so the Army attempted to establish a herd of llamas in New Jersey. Only after the attempt failed did anyone question the specification. Subsequent research revealed that the U.S. Army had copied a British Army specification dating back to Great Britain's era of colonial expansion. The original specification applied to saddle leather. " Great Britain's pressing need for cavalry to patrol its many colonies meant bringing together raw recruits, untrained horses and new saddles. The leather smell made horses skittish and unmanageable. Treating the saddle leather with llama dung imparted an odor that calmed the horses. The treatment, therefore, became part of the leather's specification, which remained unchanged for a century. " So, on your next project, make sure you know the reason behind the specs. If you hear, "We've always done it that way," watch out for llama dung." Reflecting on Quinnel's story brought to mind how frequently in telecommunications we're told, "It's the way we've always done it." No wonder so many projects carry an aura of llama dung! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #477 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa12764; 13 Jul 90 5:56 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab13483; 13 Jul 90 3:19 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab10898; 13 Jul 90 2:08 CDT Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 1:50:03 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #478 BCC: Message-ID: <9007130150.ab10403@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 13 Jul 90 01:48:35 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 478 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Radio Shack CT-102 [Doug Faunt] Re: Radio Shack CT-102 [John Higdon] Re: Touchtone History [Carl Moore] Re: Touchtone History [Tom Perrine] Re: Unauthorized Disconnection [John Higdon] Re: Unauthorized Disconnection [Stephen J. Friedl] Re: Manhole Covers [Gary Segal] Re: Bell Canada [Marcel D. Mongeon] Re: Using the "0" Operator to Defeat 800 ANI and Caller*ID [M. Mongeon] Re: Using the "O" Operator to Defeat 800 ANI and Caller*ID [Dave Levenson] Re: Are You Using Centron or a Similar Service? [John Higdon] Re: Good For a Laugh: Polish Payphones [Rob Warnock] Re: Pentagon Moved to Area Code 703 [Jeffrey M. Schweiger] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 09:28:09 -0700 From: Doug Faunt N6TQS 415-688-8269 Subject: Re: Radio Shack CT-102 Lars Poulsen writes: >Radio Shack's ads indicate that the $299 price is conditional on >signing up for service "with certain minimum commitments" with the >carrier indicated by the vendor, and that the price is $599 if you >just want the phone. I checked that first. You can get the telephone for $299, no strings attached, in California, since the PUC ruling. Doug Faunt ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Radio Shack CT-102 Date: 11 Jul 90 01:47:25 PDT (Wed) From: John Higdon Lars Poulsen writes: > (1) Is the CPUC ruling a "state law" ? > (2) When the "service commitment does not apply", which price applies ? For practical purposes the CPUC ruling is law. RS cannot require you to sign up for service when you buy the unit. > If I can buy the phone for $299 with no strings attached, I might > spring for it, just to be able to take it with when travelling. (Would > I be eligible for roamer service if I did not have a subscription > active at home ? What is the cheapest base subscription anywhere in > the country if I needed a "phantom home" ?) You must have service from someone somewhere before you can roam. This is necessary for your unit to have a unique telephone number that isn't on a reject list. Besides price, be sure that your "token" home system has roaming agreements with the carriers you want in the areas you want. For instance, I have been told that LA Cellular has roaming agreements with almost no one. This can make roaming a real chore outside of the greater LA area. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 9:47:28 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: Touchtone History My parents recently got a pushbutton phone which is on a non-touch- tone line. The phone has a switch for pulse or tone, and you must call using pulse (attempting to use tone will not break the dial tone), but you can then switch to tone for subsequent touch-tone inputs (including the self service credit-card-number entry). ------------------------------ From: Tom Perrine Subject: Re: Touchtone History Date: 12 Jul 90 21:16:13 GMT Reply-To: Tom Perrine Organization: Logicon, Inc., San Diego, California AT&T's latest ad for their FAX machines shows a "family tree". The picture of the Touch Tone (tm) phone is dated 1964. Tom Perrine (tep) |Internet: tep@tots.Logicon.COM Logicon |UUCP: nosc!hamachi!tots!tep Tactical and Training Systems Division |-or- sun!suntan!tots!tep San Diego CA |GENIE: T.PERRINE |+1 619 455 1330 ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Unauthorized Disconnection Date: 11 Jul 90 03:17:38 PDT (Wed) From: John Higdon "Dennis G. Rears (FSAC)" writes: > Three points I would like to bring up. First, the representative > said that unless somebody specifically tells the phone company they > want any change request for service verified it is not done. This, > however convienent, can be danger. Anyone can call up and say, I am > Mr. Doe, phone number is XXX-XXXX and want my phone service > disconnected. No verification. This used to be the way it was, period. Several years ago, after certain parties impersonated me to the Pac*Bell business office and made some rather inconvenient changes to my service and got all the numbers to my unlisted lines, a number of us raised some hell. We discussed this issue at length on our old regional telecom news group and the topic was picked up by some in Pac*Bell where the group was distributed. Their solution was to "password" accounts at the customer's request. When a rep pulls up the account, a flag instructs the person to ask the customer for the password and will not discuss the matter further until the correct password is given. After some shakey starts, this has finally been implemented well. I have taken things one step further and have the accounts consolidated under an unlisted billing number. Without that billing number, no one can even bring the account up on a terminal. This may seem terribly troublesome, but you can have security or you can have convenience. Take your pick. > The second point is that the only way > to get something done is talk to a sueprvisor and be firm on what you > want. That is correct. > The last point is do I have any course of action? I am out > about $25 due to having to use pay phones and lack of a calling card. > Who can I complain to? Anyone you like, but you won't get anything out of the telco. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: "Stephen J. Friedl" Subject: Re: Unauthorized Disconnection Date: 12 Jul 90 13:58:17 GMT Organization: VSI*FAX Tech Center Dennis Rears tells of moving and how the new tenant got his phone disconnected early without his knowledge or approval. The phone company gave him a big hassle about this (threatened $42 reconnect charge) and it was a bummer all around. Apparently anybody can call in for service requests for anybody. > The last point is do I have any course of action? I am out > about $25 due to having to use pay phones and lack of a calling card. > Who can I complain to? Just have the new tenant's phone disconnected in about three weeks. The satisfaction should probably be worth much more than $25 :-) Stephen J. Friedl, KA8CMY / Software Consultant / Tustin, CA / 3B2-kind-of-guy +1 714 544 6561 / friedl@mtndew.Tustin.CA.US / {uunet,attmail}!mtndew!friedl ------------------------------ From: Gary Segal Subject: Re: Manhole Covers Date: 12 Jul 90 18:50:29 GMT Organization: Motorola INC., Cellular Infrastructure Division jvz@cci632.uucp (John V. Zambito) writes: >This discussion got way out of hand, but let me add to it. What about >when a stripe from a lane marking is painted on it? The service people >never put the cover back on right. >[Moderator's Note: I see lots of these in Chicago. Typically, they are >always turned at some strange angle to the rest of the line. PT] The solution is so simple, I can't imagine why the streets department hasn't figured it out yet: Paint the entire manhole cover yellow, that way no matter how the cover is rotated when it's put back, the line will always go across!!! :-) Gary Segal ...!uunet!motcid!segal +1-708-632-2354 Motorola INC., 1501 W. Shure Drive, Arlington Heights IL, 60004 The opinions expressed above are those of the author, and do not consititue the opinions of Motorola INC. ------------------------------ From: root@joymrmn.UUCP (Marcel D. Mongeon) Subject: Re: Bell Canada Date: 12 Jul 90 14:36:25 GMT Reply-To: root@joymrmn.UUCP (Marcel D. Mongeon) Organization: The Joymarmon Group Inc. In article <9585@accuvax.nwu.edu> Henry Troup writes: >In article <9541@accuvax.nwu.edu> root@joymrmn.UUCP (Marcel D. >Mongeon) writes: >>which means we have only one long distance supplier - Bell Canada (A >>first cousin of AT&T). >Not quite - Bell Canada is a 100% owned subsidiary of BCE, Inc. BCE is How about "Wicked Step Sister" ? ||| Marcel D. Mongeon ||| e-mail: ... (uunet, maccs)!joymrmn!root or ||| joymrmn!marcelm ------------------------------ From: root@joymrmn.UUCP (Marcel D. Mongeon) Subject: Re: Using the "O" Operator to Defeat 800 ANI and Caller*ID Date: 12 Jul 90 14:54:40 GMT Reply-To: root@joymrmn.UUCP (Marcel D. Mongeon) Organization: The Joymarmon Group Inc. In article <9581@accuvax.nwu.edu> goldstein@carafe.enet.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein) writes: >The Canadian Radio-Television Commission, in approving Caller ID for >Bell Canada (which serves most of Ontario and Quebec), stated that >per-call blocking by dialing "0" was adequate. Bell Canada filed a >tariff charging $.75/call for that service; I don't know if it was >approved. The tariff (Item 86 of CRTC tariff 6716) was approved. There is an additional provision to the charge that calls originating from "certified shelters for victims of domestic violence" will not be subject to the charge. When the tariff was considered, there were a number of representations made to the effect that battered wives etc. might somehow be found through the use of caller ID. ||| Marcel D. Mongeon ||| e-mail: ... (uunet, maccs)!joymrmn!root or ||| joymrmn!marcelm ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Using the "O" Operator to Defeat 800 ANI and Caller*ID Date: 12 Jul 90 16:22:05 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article <9581@accuvax.nwu.edu>, goldstein@carafe.enet.dec.com (Fred R. Goldstein) writes: > The Canadian Radio-Television Commission, in approving Caller ID for > Bell Canada (which serves most of Ontario and Quebec), stated that > per-call blocking by dialing "0" was adequate. ...... > This has the advantage, in the short term, of allowing call blocking > on demand from ALL exchanges, including electromechanical ones that > don't support feature code dialing. While this is certainly true, my experience here in NJ indicates that callers from electromechanical exchanges don't need to do anything special to block their numbers from the destination Caller*Id feature -- the crossbar switches don't seem to send any ID anyway. Calls from these CO's show up as "OUT OF AREA". Dave Levenson Voice: 201 647 0900 Fax: 201 647 6857 Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Are You Using Centron or a Similar Service? Date: 12 Jul 90 10:46:57 PDT (Thu) From: John Higdon Mark McWiggins writes: > Am I missing something? I'd be interested in hearing from anyone > who's using a similar system. Also, we're expecting significant > growth over the next couple of years. What else should I be looking > out for? Centron sounds like Pac*Bell's Commstar. These "mini" Centrex offerings offer some of the features of Centrex and have the advantage of being tariffed for residential service as well as business. The major disadvantage (if you can bear the cost) is that all features are activated by a hookswitch flash. This means that your people will have to become adept at flashing the hookswitch or pushing the "flash" button if your phones are so equipped. It has been my experience from years in the interconnect business that there are some who simply cannot deal with this form of feature activation. If they don't see a light or some other form of instant feedback, they get lost and lose calls. We sold many feature phones after the fact to customers who originally thought that they were "manly" enough to use the hookswitch. Also, price others' voice mail and the cost of a small electronic key system. Don't just flop over to the arms of the telephone company because it "won't cost any more". You may be able to satisfy your needs for less. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 05:29:39 GMT From: Rob Warnock Subject: Re: Good For a Laugh: Polish Payphones Reply-To: Rob Warnock Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA In article <9626@accuvax.nwu.edu> KLUB@maristb.bitnet (Richard Budd) writes: | Another example: In the early '80's when the US was floundering in its | attempt to convert to the metric system, I suggested that Congress | pass a law saying that on August 1, 1985, the US will use the metric | system for all measurements... Lest we forget: The metric system *is* now the official U.S. system for standards, and has been for quite some number of years. (The U.S. inch at some point in the process was re-defined to be *exactly* 2.54 cm.) It's just that we haven't yet faced up to killing off this unofficial but pervasive English system of measures... ;-} ;-} Rob Warnock, MS-9U/510 rpw3@sgi.com rpw3@pei.com Silicon Graphics, Inc. (415)335-1673 Protocol Engines, Inc. 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94039-7311 ------------------------------ From: "Jeffrey M. Schweiger" Subject: Re: Pentagon Moved to Area Code 703 Date: 12 Jul 90 22:09:04 GMT Reply-To: "Jeffrey M. Schweiger" Organization: Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey CA In article <9478@accuvax.nwu.edu> covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 07-Jul-1990 1858) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 468, Message 2 of 8 > From: Greg Monti > Date: 6 July 1990 > Pentagon Moved to Area Code 703 >Prefixes of the Pentagon-Department of Defense telephone Rate Area >have been moved from Area Code 202 to Area Code 703. [deleted] >The following 202 prefixes have been moved to 703: 545(?), 692, 693, >695, 696, 697 and 746. One old Pentagon prefix, 202-694, could not be >moved because there already is a 703-694 prefix in Stuart, Virginia. >A new Pentagon prefix, 703-602, was opened, presumably to absorb the >users booted off of 694. While I don't know the rationale for the creation of the 703-602 DOD prefix, it was not to absorb the users from 694. 703-602 seems to have been created using some of the users of 202-692, and additionally had a new Autovon prefix established (332- , where the 692 prefix was Autovon 222). Regarding what happens to the 202-694 users, I quote the following from a Navy newsletter: "Effective 1 October 1990, all (202) 694-XXXX DOD telephone numbers will be changed to (703) 614-XXXX. This is necessary because local Washington Metropolitan area telephone companies are instituting new dialing procedures to provide for future residential and business growth. AUTOVON prefixes will not be affected. You may still dial AUTOVON 224-XXXX for all new (703) 614-XXXX commercial numbers." Jeff Schweiger Standard Disclaimer CompuServe: 74236,1645 Internet (Milnet): schweige@cs.nps.navy.mil ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #478 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa09363; 14 Jul 90 3:18 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa25515; 14 Jul 90 1:33 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa17232; 14 Jul 90 0:28 CDT Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 0:10:56 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #479 BCC: Message-ID: <9007140010.ab18030@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 14 Jul 90 00:10:21 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 479 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson TouchTone(tm) in the U.K. (was Re: Touchtone History) [Nigel Roberts] White House Phone Trivia (Was: Touchtone History) [Roger Clark Swann] Questions About Local Service and Long Distance Rates [Brendan Boerner] Common Courtesy When Using Pulse/Touch-Tone Phones [Carl Moore] Cleaning Pulses [Andrew A. Houghton] Network Interface [Robert M. Hamer] CADD System for Outside Plant [Douglas R. Coffland] Help with Rotored Lines/ Rack Mounted Modems [Pushpendra Mohta] Fax Over Compressed Voice [Tom Neiss] Re: Austrian Telephone System [Henry Troup] Re: International Calls Using Credit Card and Equal Access [John Cowan] Re: I Need a Way to Verify Autodial Numbers [Tad Cook] Re: Annoying Intercept Behavior [Jerry B. Altzman] Re: Answering Machine Security [Steve Wolfson] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 02:58:47 PDT From: Nigel Roberts 0860 578600 <"iosg::robertsn"@iosg.enet.dec.com> Subject: TouchTone(tm) in the U.K. (was Re: Touchtone History) I called my local British Telecom Sales and Service Department in Colchester just now. (There's a Freefone number for that (8921), which is handy seeing I'm in Reading at the moment). TouchTone (and thus Star Services) is available only on our C.O. (Colchester 0206) if the number is in the form 5nnnnn or 7nnnnn, according to the person I spoke to there (Sarah in Customer Sales) Bearing in mind previous comments on the subject, I asked what type of exchange served my area (Colchester numbers in the form 39nnnn -- Manningtree used to be an independent exchange with area code 020639 until six or seven years ago when they replaced the Strowger exchange). She went away for four or five minutes and to my amazement came back with the answer. 'It's a TXE-2' she said. Full marks to Sarah for this. This leads me to ask a few questions of the DIGEST. What exactly is a TXE-2? (My guess is that it's a magnetic reed type exchange). Is there any way it could support TouchTone? (A BT engineer once told me that there might be some kind of black box which they can add). Are there any more features available on the TXE-2 that we are not being told about? And does anyone have a guess as to how long it will be before it is updated to something modern? (I IMAGINE we've got another 19 years of pulse dialling to put up with, but I hope I'm wrong ...) Nigel Roberts (on contract at DEC) Orichalk Ltd; P. O. Box 49; Manningtree; Essex; CO11 2HQ; England. Tel. +44 206 39 6610 or +44 860 57 860 0 (Cellnet) Fax. +44 206 39 3148 ------------------------------ From: Roger Clark Swann Subject: White House Phone Trivia (Was: Touchtone History) Date: 13 Jul 90 00:08:58 GMT Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics, Seattle WA In article <9482@accuvax.nwu.edu>, roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes: > ........................ A touch-tone phone was clearly visible in > President Kennedy's oval office in numerious bits of footage shot at > the time. The year was 1963 and the students were trying to register > for the summer session, so I would put the date at about May or June > 1963. The phone that Kennedy used most of the time was a multi-line > key set with a rotary dial (looked like about 25 lines) and a ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > speakerphone attachment. Sitting on the table behind his chair were > about 3 or 4 single line desk sets, one touch-tone, the rest rotary. > Was touch-tone in general use in May 1963, or did the President just > have a pre-release model? I think those same phones are still there :-) Well, almost... I was looking through a {Newsweek} (I think) a couple of weeks back and spotted a photo of President Bush in the Oval Office talking with someone and there on the desk in clear view was an TT version of the unit described above. One of the those big tanks that I used to think looked so neat, cool, etc. Wow! What an improvement in over 25 years! The burning question that Telecom readers want answered is: Why doesn't the President's office have a nice little Merlin (R) or neat IDSN set ??? Roger Swann | uucp: uw-beaver!ssc-vax!clark @ | The Boeing Company | ------------------------------ From: "Brendan B. Boerner" Subject: Questions About Local Service and Long Distance Rates Date: 13 Jul 90 04:50:21 GMT Organization: UT Austin Computation Center, Microcomputer Technologies I have two questions regarding local phone operation and one regarding long distances rates which I am curious about and about which I am hoping someone can enlighten me. First, does anyone have a clue why Southwestern Bell here in Austin, TX wants $60.00 to hookup a phone? I don't mean hookup as in sending someone to pull some wire (I think that's $60.00/hour), I mean, $60.00 so that I can call, request service, am told it'll be available after such-and-such hour on such-and-such day, and that's that. I asked a cust. service rep. about it once and she wasn't able to give me a very good explanation. I seem to recall that it involved a couple of data key operators and maybe one or two quality assurance folks. Also, when I moved out of a co-op two years ago, I asked if I could keep the same number which I had been using. I was told, yes, if I wanted to pay to have them pull a wire from the 478 exchange to the 458 exchange (my old number was 478-3813, my current is 458-1770) *and* I would have to pay extra monthly. What I am wondering is, how does the local service work? Is a city really broken into sections, where moving a number between them requires a hardware change? About the long distance pricing: I called MCI and inquired about their PrimeTime Texas and PrimeTime plans. These are plans where you agree to purchase a minimum of 1hr/month of intrastate and interstate long distance service respectively. Maybe someone can explain the odd rates summarized below (what is odd (to me) is that intrastate is *more* expensive than interstate). PrimeTime Texas (intrastate) PrimeTime (interstate) (rounded down to nearest cent) $0.37/minute (8am - 5pm) $0.18/minute (8am - 5pm) $0.18/minute (5pm - 8am) $0.13/minute (5pm- 11pm) $0.11/minute (11pm - 8am) I thought is kinda bizarre that I can call California during business hours for *less* than calling my brother in Dallas after 5pm. Any ideas? Many thanks, Brendan B. Boerner Phone: 512/471-3241 Microcomputer Technologies The University of Texas @ Austin Internet: boerner@emx.utexas.edu UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!boerner BITNET: CCGB001@UTXVM.BITNET AppleLink: boerner@emx.utexas.edu@DASNET# ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 11:05:10 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Common Courtesy When Using Pulse/Touch-Tone Phones I sent a very recent message about pulse/touch-tone switch. If the line is pulse (NOT touch-tone), and you then use touch-tone inputs on that phone after dialing the number you want, please put the phone back in pulse mode when you are done. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 14:46:38 -0400 (EDT) From: "Andrew A. Houghton" Subject: Cleaning Pulses In brief, I have heard that at one time AT&T sent out "cleaning pulses" in the wee hours of morning to "fuse shorts in the line." Assuming this is drivel, is there any basis for such a thing? Just wondering, Andrew Houghton (ah0i@andrew.cmu.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 16:08 EDT From: "Robert M. Hamer" Subject: Network Interface First, I need to state that I am in Richmond, VA, which is C & P - land, which is part of Bell Atlantic Land. I suspect this differs from telco to telco. I recently got a second line installed. The house is thirty years old; we moved in a year ago. When we moved in, we had one line installed. When they installed it, they also put in a Network Interfact box, as previous service had been installed in 1960 before there were NI. In my previous house, the NI had a modular socket I could plug my modular plug into, to test the circut exclusive of the inside wiring. (This was also C&P land.) This NI doesn't. Anyone have any guesses why? It would be useful to be able to test the new line before I hook it up so if I screw up the hookup, I know what I have done. I will probably have to get an old phone, strip back the modular cord, and get some alligator clips. ------------------------------ From: "Douglas R. Coffland" Subject: CADD System for Outside Plant Date: 13 Jul 90 21:29:20 GMT Organization: Lawrence Livermore Labs, LCC, Livermore Ca We, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, are looking for a relational database/CADD system to manage our Outside Plant Distribution system. We would like to document our manholes, ducts, and cabling (twisted pairs, fiber, coax, etc.) on this system. It would be nice if we could import graphic information from our other CADD system which is Computer Visison in IGIS Format. So far, we haven't found anything that is particularly well suited for our needs. If anyone has any experience in this area, we'd like to here from you. Doug Coffland coffland@lll-lcc.llnl.gov 415-423-7867 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 16:41:19 PDT From: Pushpendra Mohta Subject: Help with Rotored Lines/ Rack Mounted Modems I recently acquired a set of Telebit2500 Rack Mount Modems and found what I consider a major irritant. Unlike the stand-alones there is no switch on the control panel of the rackmounts to make a particukar modem go busy or off hook. (You can connect to the modem in AT mode and then make it go offhook but my modems will be all over California and technical help may not be available at all sites ) Ordinarily this would not be a problem, but the application I have is a dial up terminal server with the phone lines on a rotor. If the first modem is busy , the call forwards to the next one and so on. Should the modem or the terminal server port go bad and the modem does not go off-hook, all ports beyond that one will not be utilized. I wonder if there are feautures available in Pac-Bell territory on the ROTORS which in effect will allow forward on busy AND forward if a particular line does not answer in say four rings simultaneously. I tried talking to the rep here without a clear answer. Are there any other suggestions ? Thanks, pushpendra CERFNet ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 08:03:06 EST From: Tom Neiss Subject: Fax Over Compressed Voice Organization: State University of New York - Central Administration I will submit this question again, after not having any responses of actual experiences: Has anyone had problems sending facsimiles over compressed(32K) voice lines? Especially in the NYC area. Tom Neiss Manager of Telcom Planning State University of New York Central Administration Albany, New York RTRN@SNYCENVM.BITNET ------------------------------ From: Henry Troup Subject: Re: Austrian Telephone System Date: 12 Jul 90 17:08:35 GMT Reply-To: Henry Troup Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ltd. In article <9608@accuvax.nwu.edu> iiasa!cossun!wnp@relay.eu.net (wolf paul) writes: >The NT equipment is being adapted and installed by a joint venture of >two Austrian telecom firms, Kapsch and Schrack, and will be installed >in the western half of the country, as well as in selected Vienna COs. The Kapsch/Schrack/AT joint venture is over five years old, being NTs first licensee for DMS-100 technology. Other NT licensees/joint ventures include NETAS which is rebuilding the telephone system of Turkey. Over one million lines are alrady installed in Turkey. There is also a joint venture in China. Henry Troup BNR owns but does not share my opinions ..uunet!bnrgate!hwt%bwdlh490 HWT@BNR.CA 613-765-2337 ------------------------------ From: John Cowan Subject: Re: International Calls Using Credit Card and Equal Access Reply-To: John Cowan Organization: ESCC, New York City Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 17:47:58 GMT In article <9550@accuvax.nwu.edu>, covert@covert.enet.dec.com (John R. Covert 09-Jul-1990 1654) writes: >There are states that have no BOCs operating anywhere within them. >Alaska and Hawaii are two of them (the only two?). The other obvious candidate would be Connecticut. I know a tiny portion of CT (Greenwich/Byram) is served by New York Telephone (it's part of the New York Metropolitan LATA) but I believe the whole rest of the state is SNET. Any Connecticutensians have more definite information? (A quick check of the list of BOCs as of breakup time suggests that every other state contains at least one BOC-owned LEC.) cowan@marob.masa.com (aka ...!hombre!marob!cowan) ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: Re: I Need a Way to Verify Autodial Numbers Date: 12 Jul 90 01:17:36 GMT Organization: very little In article <9320@accuvax.nwu.edu>, synsys!jeffj@uunet.uu.net writes: > Now for the technological question: how can you check the programming > of an auto dialer? With CPE equipment that does this, a "digit grabber" type DTMF decoder would work. What I want is some way to verify the numbers I have programmed into the telco provided "speed-dial" service. I have a few BBS numbers that I have programmed in, and then lost the phone number. Accidentally re-programming a speed dial number can be VERY frustrating! Tad Cook Seattle, WA Packet: KT7H @ N7HFZ.WA.USA.NA Phone: 206/527-4089 MCI Mail: 3288544 Telex: 6503288544 MCI UW USENET:...uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!ssc!tad or, tad@ssc.UUCP ------------------------------ From: "Jerry B. Altzman" Subject: Re: Annoying Intercept Behavior Reply-To: "Jerry B. Altzman" Organization: mailer daemons association Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 14:39:06 GMT In article <9607@accuvax.nwu.edu> leichter@lrw.com (LEICHTER-JERRY@ CS.YALE.EDU) writes: >The oddity is the way the intercept is implemented. It doesn't take >place immediately after the last digit - not to mention after the >exchange, which is possible. Instead, you get two or three normal >rings and THEN a long, wordy message telling you exactly what you >should have done. [complaint deleted...] >Why would anyone set up intercepts this way? Is it done this way >elsewhere? I don't know if pay phones fit in this category, but in at least three other states (PA, NJ, and NY), if you dial a number without putting in the correct amount of change, you get two or three rings, and *then* a voice says "deposit xx more cents". This is both now and in the days of the AT&T/Ma Bell monopoly. I've also seen this on toll calls in all three of those states nowadays. //jbaltz (yet another jerry) jerry b. altzman 212 854 8058 jbaltz@columbia.edu jauus@cuvmb (bitnet) NEVIS::jbaltz (HEPNET) ...!rutgers!columbia!jbaltz (bang!) ------------------------------ From: Steve Wolfson Subject: Re: Answering Machine Security Date: 12 Jul 90 13:32:59 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL >You may not want to go to the trouble, but you can ask the phone >company to put a trap on your line which will record the number of all >calls coming in. You may also want to look into having a house sitter >sit and note the time of all calls, especially the ones which erase Join the 90's and replace your answering machine with Voice Mail which is password protected etc. If you don't trust a service provider you can even get one for your own PC. Perhaps some erudite TELECOM readers can enlighten us on the value of these PC gizmos. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #479 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa10358; 14 Jul 90 4:14 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa09329; 14 Jul 90 2:36 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab25515; 14 Jul 90 1:33 CDT Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 1:12:16 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #480 BCC: Message-ID: <9007140112.ab14725@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 14 Jul 90 01:12:18 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 480 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Unauthorized Disconnection [Blake Farenthold] Re: Unauthorized Disconnection [David Ritchie] Re: AT&T Calls Cheaper Using Neighbor's Phone? [Brian Charles Kohn] Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? [Alex Pournelle] Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? [Will Martin] Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? [Charles Hawkins Mingo] Re: E911 Experience [Ralph Sims] Re: E911 Experience [John Higdon] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 13:28:40 CDT From: Blake Farenthold Subject: Re: Unauthorized Disconnection In-Reply-To: message from drears@pica.army.mil [Stuff about moving out and the new resident having his phone cut off] >her supervisor whom after much argument agreed to turn my service >back on with no charge. This conversation took place at 12:30 PM >on Monday. When I left the apartment today at 0900 it still >wasn't on. They will, of course turn YOUR phone service back on AFTER you move out and the lady moving in will be running up your long distance. :-) >First, the representative said that unless somebody specifically >tells the phone company they want any change request for service >verified it is not done. Southwestern Bell does the same thing. Its really bad when you are running a BBS. I had to remove a user's account for doing something nasty (in fact, a few months later the FBI came knocking on my door asking about a guy who was arrested for defrauding a long distance company out of about $30,000 who had my BBS number on something they confiscated). Anyway this user (he may not have been the phreaker, I'm not sure) called SW Bell to have the BBS line disconnected. The SW Bell rep volunteered that I had twelve other lines (including my main non/published voice line) and would he like those disconnected as well. After a fair amount of complaining and some threats about going to the PUC about it I got the lines re-connected. Apparently they gave away one of my pairs because one line didn't come back for almost a week and there were a lot of phone trucks in the neighborhood. After this incident they said that they could put in the record to ask for either my driver's license or social security number before processing an order. This didn't strike me as that secure as my Drivers licence was on every check I wrote and my social security number was on enough paper to worry me (credit aps, student ID', and every test I took at the Univ. of Texas. I suggested a "password" but they couldn't phathom that so we finaly agreed that they'd do nothing without calling my voice line for confirmation. ALWAYS ASK THE PHONE COMPANY FOR THIS SERVICE. They may not be security concious, but YOU CAN BE. I have, however, wondered if you could get around some of these security measures by saying the subscriber is DEAD... >The last point is do I have any course of action? I am out about >$25 due to having to use pay phones and lack of a calling card. Not worth worrying about I'd suspect. I can't believe that they couldn't have got it right back on if they were using a digital swich. I was able to get a phone cut off for non-payment of a bill turned on within 20 minutes (without paying) by citing a Texas PUC regulation forbidding disconnects (for non payment or the like) on the day before the business office will be closed. You could check your states PUC regs, there MAY be somthing about speed of repairs/correcting errors but I doubt you'd be able to get consequential damages without litigation, and perhaps not even then. UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!blake Internet: blake@pro-party.cts.com Blake Farenthold | Voice: 800/880-1890 | MCI: BFARENTHOLD 1200 MBank North | Fax: 512/889-8686 | CIS: 70070,521 Corpus Christi, TX 78471 | BBS: 512/882-1899 | GEnie: BLAKE ------------------------------ From: David Ritchie Subject: Re: Unauthorized Disconnection Date: 13 Jul 90 22:22:41 GMT Organization: Hewlett Packard - Boise, ID > The last point is do I have any course of action? I am out > about $25 due to having to use pay phones and lack of a calling card. > Who can I complain to? You might try calling/writing the regulatory body for the telco in your state. Of course, you may just be wasting a stamp :^>. Another approach that I have used is to talk to a progression of persons, each of which are higher in authority than the last person I talked to. Getting names of persons I am talking to when I first start talking to them also helps in this regard. Keep notes of the conversation. Eventually, you will talk to someone with intelligence and/or who wonders why his/her subordinates could not handle this problem. I have went up as high as four levels this way, but I have never not had a problem solved to my satisfaction. Dave ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 12:26:13 EDT From: Brian Charles Kohn Subject: Re: AT&T Calls Cheaper Using Neighbor's Phone? Reply-To: "The Resource, Poet-Magician of Quality" Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Quality Technology Center Albert@endor.UUCP (David Albert) wrote on 12 Jul 90 00:21:44 GMT.: => joel@fps.com (Joel Broude) writes: => >Now that long distance calls made from a remote phone using the AT&T => >card receive a 10 percent discount, it would seem to be cheaper to make => >some calls remotely rather than from home. => You're absolutely right, except of course that you don't *have* to leave => home in order to use your AT&T Universal Card. With the fee currently => at $0.80, as long as your call would have been more that $7.20 normally, => it's worth using the Card. Neat! I was thinking about how Reach Out America would work out with all this ... but then I wondered, do Universal Card Calls apply to Reach Out America? I guess not. How does all this fit together now? Does the Calling Card option to Reach Out America just save you money on the setup charge, or on the call as well? (I think only on the setup charge.) I just called ... and I was wrong. My calling card calls ARE covered under Reach Out America (now) ... so it seems like there never any reason for me to use my Universal Card for phone calls. Of course I'm paying $10.75 per month for that service ... but since I never have any time left unused (I used seven hours last month) it's well worth it before considering calling card calls. The WORST discount I get now on calling card calls is 10%, the same as the Universal Card discount. BTW, I was right about Universal Card calls not counting towards Reach Out America. I like the no-fee-forever aspect of it though! Brian Charles Kohn AT&T Bell Laboratories Quality Technology Center Quality Management System E-MAIL: att!hoqax!bicker (bicker@hoqax.ATT.COM) Consultant PHONE: (908) 949-5850 FAX: (908) 949-7724 ------------------------------ From: Alex Pournelle Subject: Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? Organization: Workman & Associates Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 07:20:46 GMT Alan Parker writes: >The movie wasn't filmed at Dulles. The folks there didn't like the >way the script portrayed the airport and its employees. Being a resident of La-La Land (and columnist-on-hiatus of "Computing in La-La Land -- another story), I get (?) the pleasure (?) of reading the Los Angeles Chandler Shopping Network, commonly called The Times by itself and "that rag" by anyone else... The Sunday Calendar section column "Outtakes", which first broke :-) the Pac*Bellophone coin-op phone story in Die Harder 2: The Expensive Version, mentions that much of the interior was shot at the Bradley Building, the international terminal at LAX. Anyone who's been through there should recognize it, too -- look for the occasional triangle-ladder supports along the walls, and the upper concourse. As far as phones are concerned -- who makes those spacy new Pac*Bellerophon coin/credit phones? They are sure Art Direction Award Winning devices. The new baggage handling and retrieval area at Union Station has 'em, too -- though the just-as-new (both are just finishing construction) UC Irvine Student center building has the older, traditional, coin-op phones in its lobby. Wonder how P*B*J has decided who gets 'em? Oh, and only two of the Irvine Payphones I played with were misprogrammed, one had no transmit audio after connection to the operator, the other didn't accept DTMF after dailing 0+number+#. Compare this to oh-for-four on one bank of (*^&& coCOTs, and eight-for-eight on the new spacyphones at Union Station. (Yes, I reported all of them. It's bloody difficult to page somone when you can't dial DTMF after call completion!) Alex Pournelle, freelance thinker Also: Workman & Associates, Data recovery for PCs, Macs, others ...elroy!grian!alex; BIX: alex; voice: (818) 791-7979 fax: (818) 794-2297 bbs: 791-1013; 8N1 24/12/3 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 12:50:43 CDT From: Will Martin Subject: Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? Programs about the filming of this movie (such as Entertainment Tonight) mentioned that the film crew moved from airport to airport, basically following the snow for outside shots. So they probably filmed interior scenes in nearby areas (like Pac*Bell territory) and as economics dictated. Probably what you see is an amalgam of many different airports. Since most airport areas are indistinguishable (and undistinguished :-) its possible to get away with this except for details like the phone logos. One wonders how such blatant slipups get by when they spend $30 million or so to make a film these days.... Regards, Will ------------------------------ From: Charles Hawkins Mingo Subject: Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? Date: 12 Jul 90 03:56:56 GMT Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA In article <9549@accuvax.nwu.edu> Tom Neff writes: >In this summer's movie DIE HARD 2**, which supposedly takes place in >Dulles International Airport (Washington DC), the payphones have a >prominent Pac*Bell logo on them. Do they really provide the service >in Dulles? Or was this an unavoidable glitch due to shooting in LA? >Or just a plug for the highest bidder? (GTE was featured prominently >on the in-flight public phone, and hundreds of other vendors had their >little plugs too -- this has become par for the course in movies.) According to today's {Washington Post} Style section, this was a plain screw up. Apparantly, Dulles wouldn't let them film on location after the airport management figured out the plot, so they were forced to do the rest elsewhere. (Also, they had enormous difficulty in finding snow, and had to shoot the blizzard in _four_ separate locations.) The movie was edited unusually quickly to get it out for summer (was still shooting in March). Charlie Mingo Usenet: mingo@well!apple.com 2209 Washington Circle #2 CI$: 71340,2152 Washington, DC 20037 AT&T: 202/785-2089 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: E911 Experience From: Ralph Sims Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 10:22:31 PDT Organization: The 23:00 News chris@com50.c2s.mn.org (Chris Johnson) writes: [description of problem with a call to 911 deleted] > While I can certainly appreciate false alarms, I was rather taken > aback at how much cajoling I had to do to get any response. In fact, > who knows what might have happened if the other people had not called, > and the woman had not taken the phone from me and described the knife > to the operator. Sheeesh. > Is this how E911 is supposed to work? And why didn't they know my > location right away? I know that the switch is plenty new enough, and > we've had E911 for at least 9 or 10 years here. Perhaps the E911 equipment did not produce an ANI/ALI (Automatic Number/Location Identification) and the call-taker was trying to verify the location with the phone number. In some systems (including those that have been on line for a while), the geobase goes through growing pains and this info is not available. As an emergency services dispatcher, I cringe at the treatment you received. I do know, however, in many communities the emergency services are taxed in their resources, prompting the 911 call-takers to 'interview' the callers and hence prioritize the dispatch. In some cities, a 911 call reporting a burglary may only get a followup phone call from a detective or, at best, a visit a few days later (this is based on the 'fact' that very few burglars are caught as a result of crime scene investigation). There are many cities with abuse of the 911 system. This includes: 'The power company just cut off my lights. What can I do?" "Where can I get my pet his shots?" "Are there any fireworks displays on tonight?" "When will the cable tv channels be back on?" And so forth, with the attendant false alarms. This also prompts the PSAP (public service answering point) to interview the caller in an attempt to find out if the report is 'real'. I'm not saying this is the correct way (I'd have a hard time working in a center like this). > [Moderator's Note: Your experience was definitly NOT how 911 is > supposed to work. What sometimes happens is that although the > dispatcher usually gets an actual street address, some public > phones in parks, along the highway, etc. don't get very well identified > as to location if there is no physical street number associated with > the location. It sounds also like the dispatcher was possibly new and > not very well trained. PT] And possibly the pay phones were not included in the 911 geobase. We have basic 911 in our county, with E911 a couple of years away. The geobase will be compiled from physical surveys of all the roads and addresses within the county by the AGENCIES that will be using the service; US West will provide the phone number database and address references, but EACH address must be physically verified. As an aside, some dispatch protocols call for the call-taker to get the closest cross-street to the incident. In this county, those are sometimes five miles from that location. There's one dispatch center handling fire and medical emergencies that still asks the question. Some questions arise in the implementation of E911 systems regarding cellular phones (hitting a cell remote from location, sometimes in another county), and in office buildings with a main PBX; in the earlier days of E911, the address would come back to that of the building or the switchboard, and not the specific office within (in a building with a few hundred offices, this could be disasterous). ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: E911 Experience Date: 12 Jul 90 11:01:24 PDT (Thu) From: John Higdon Chris Johnson writes: > Is this how E911 is supposed to work? And why didn't they know my > location right away? I know that the switch is plenty new enough, and > we've had E911 for at least 9 or 10 years here. You are not the first person to have this experience. There was some famous case (I believe in the South) where the operator put the caller through some third degree. She wanted to talk to the person who was having the medical attack and kept insisting even when told that the person was in no way able to talk on the phone. Eventually, the victim died even while the 911 call was in progress. There was some litigation as a result. Calling 911 about once a year for assorted emergencies has resulted in prompt, efficient service. But I have a contingency plan for that day when I get the response that you have described. I will ask the operator for his/her "operator number" and inform the person that I will now hang up and call the agency direct if s/he can't help me. If, after one second, the attitude hasn't rotated 180 degrees, I will do just that. And then when the smoke clears, I will file a formal complaint. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #480 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa10938; 14 Jul 90 5:18 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa27014; 14 Jul 90 3:40 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab09329; 14 Jul 90 2:37 CDT Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 2:01:30 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #481 BCC: Message-ID: <9007140201.ab13444@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 14 Jul 90 02:00:30 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 481 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: GTE/Contel Merger Questions [John Higdon] Re: Are You Using Centron or a Similar Service [David Ptasnik] Re: The New England Telephone Backwater [Ken Rossen] Re: Excelan EXOS 225 - HELP [Manoj Goel via Lars Poulsen] Re: Mitch Kapor and "Sun Devil" [Johnny Zweig] Re: Public*Phone [Jeff Carroll] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: GTE/Contel Merger Questions Date: 13 Jul 90 16:10:12 PDT (Fri) From: John Higdon Robert Virzi writes: > ** QUESTIONS ** You bet -- questions. This is all probably the worst news for telephone users to come along since the MFJ. > Where are Contel franchises? (Both telephone and CATV) Among other places, Contel service California's high desert areas and also serves the nearby town of Gilroy here in my area. > Why did GTE stock drop (albeit a small amount) while Contel and Contel > Cellular stocks went up? Among other things, they want to make this an attractive deal to Contel share holders, so that they can get approval at that level. > What is Contel's reputation? I have heard that they are one of the > more innovative telcos, pushing into CATV, videotex, and other > interesting services at a fast pace. Unlike GTE, Contel seems to have a committment to the customer to provide solutions to requirements. Contel has done extensive upgrading of its facilities in the past few years. In the old days, they used crossbar while GTE was mired in SXS. > What sort of network does Contel have? I know they don't use the > GTD-5 because (rumor has it) we (GTE) have only sold one outside the > corporation to Ameritech. Are they largely digital or X-bar or worse? They are now largely digital, although in some of the real backwater places there is still some XY and SXS. In Gilroy, they did unfortunately install some 1EAX, but in most areas they have either 5ESS (example: Barstow) or DMS (example: Victorville). > Finally, are there likely to be objections raised to the merger by the > FCC or SEC? If so, on what grounds? I don't know what the regulatory agencies will object to, but I can give you a few of my own. First, GTE operates their utility as if it was the water or gas company. Interest in telephony takes a distant back seat to the business of business. (Those of you that work for GTE in laboratories or R&D, save your breath -- I'm speaking from a customer's point of view, which is what the regulatory bodies should be considering.) GTE loves to consolidate. When you try to call the business office at some 800 number, you get perpetual busy. When you finally break through, you are put on permanent hold. When I call the "local" GTE business office, the call goes to Thousand Jokes -- about 300 miles away. Contel, on the other hand has a business office right there in Gilroy -- serving all two of Gilroy's prefixes. When I tried to pay a Victorville Contel phone bill there, they were very nice and handled it for me, but they had to call Victorville to make the arrangements. They are not centralized and it's a plus for the customer. The same thing applies to repair service. When you dial 611 from here in Los Gatos (GTE) do you get anyone local who can help? No, indeed. What you get is some EEOC-requirment-fulfilling person (hired not because they are adept at taking trouble calls, but because they keep some other government agency at bay) who tries to take your report. Sometimes you have to spell "reorder" and "distortion". Contel routes your call to the nearest *local* center, and within short order you can deal with the very person who will repair your trouble (much like Pac*Bell). I would advise Contel customers to run, not walk, to the nearest typewriter and protest in the strongest terms to any and all requlatory agencies that must approve this merger. I have always had the highest respect for Contel and it would be the century's biggest disaster to see it merge with the sorriest excuse for a telephone company this country has ever known. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! [Moderator's Note: So John, just about the time you thought you had seen it all; about the time you thought nothing could be worse than the disaster Harold Greene has made of the public telephone network with his MF Judgment -- some folks, you know, say that 'MF' means something other than 'Modified Final' :) -- about when you had learned to live and cope with the travesty; along comes this newest affront. I quite agree with you. Wave bye-bye to Contel, everyone! PT] ------------------------------ From: David Ptasnik Subject: Re: Are You Using Centron or a Similar Service Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 16:49:10 PDT In article 7255 of comp.dcom.telecom (Mark McWiggins) writes: >>we're thinking of replacing our key system Centron. (Like Centrex >>but smaller, as I understand it.) They're also now offering voice >>mail, and we think these together would cut our phone-answering labor >>by 80% or more. The monthly charge for all this is no more than the >>rental for our current key system. Am I missing something? >>Also, we're expecting significant growth over the next couple of years. Your monthly rental of the mechanical key system should not be a consideration. These things have been rip-offs for a long time. There are VERY few real applications for them. You are much better off with a purchased electronic or digital key sytem. The lease price for these systems can be 40% less than rental of worse gear, and you own the equipment in, say, five years. Centron line charges, however, can be less than regular line charges, get the US West dudes to break those charges down for you. Your best option might be to use the Centron lines with a new key system. That's what we do, for the most part, at the University of Washington. Centron operates very differently from what you are used to. First of all, you will probably not be able to tell who is on the phone, or which lines are in use. You will (as they are probably offering it) just have a single line phone on your desk. You will not be able to put a "line 3" on hold, go to another phone, see "line 3", and pick it up there. Rather you will have to depress the hook switch (flash button on better phones) and dial codes to transfer the call, or perform a dial call pickup (huh? yeah, that's what I said) from your destination phone. If you get an attendant, that person will probably want more than one line, and the ability to see who is on their phone. Tone Commander, out of Washington, makes products that do these things. They can be as expensive as a phone system, though. There are other differences as well. Growth is one of Centron's strong suits. You can just keep adding stations, with minimal upgrade charges. Most key systems require adding and/or replacing equipment and/or telephones. That makes purchasing risky. Resale of used phone systems is very low, as well. You can get good deals on the secondary market, though. Different systems are more or less flexible in terms of their growth potential and costs. Be sure to get locked in stone costs for upgrades. DO NOT just talk to US West about this. There is a small reputable dealer in your area that used to sell both Centron and Key Systems. They are/were called Terra Communications. I think in Redmond, WA. They should be able to help you sort out the many important differences that you need consider. Contact other dealers as well. This is a very important decision. Do not trust a local utility for help with this kind of thing. davep@u.washington.edu ------------------------------ From: Ken Rossen Subject: Re: The New England Telephone Backwater Date: 12 Jul 90 17:00:22 GMT Reply-To: Ken Rossen Organization: Trollview, Hubbardston, Massachusetts Time to come out of the closet. I live in the New England Telephone Backwater, in Central Massachusetts (toward the Quabbin, where the town centers are far apart, and the towns tend to be large) with a step-by-step switch. It's not necessarily all as bad as John (Covert) puts it, but certainly #5 crossbar is like science fiction by comparison. The lines aren't too noisy to be used for data calls, at least not all the time. I think there is only one town bordering Hubbardston (Phillipston, in the Athol exchange) that isn't a local call, but since nobody lives in Hubbardston on the only road that crosses the Phillipston town line, there aren't anomalies like next-door neighbors who must pay for a toll call between their houses. Maybe we're just lucky. I know other towns are worse. And there are advantages. You can call within town with only four digits. Actually, you can call within town with five or seven digits too. Or even nine digits, or eleven, etc. (since the first two digits constitute a NOOP -- 92-92-92-92-92-928-3345). There's the advantage of dialing someone within town, and getting to talk to someone completely different than whoever you dialed. Repeatedly. At no extra charge. You get to USE the "pulse-tone" switch on your phone, instead of letting it sit there an collect dust like you poor slobs in ESS exchanges. There are different ringing patterns in town, even different ones for the lines within my house, so I can usually tell if my call has hunted up to a subsequent line because someone's on the phone (takes a good ear, though). (And yes, even step switches have hunt groups!) Disadvantages: Forget ever trying to break through a busy signal with repeated dialling -- ten to twenty seconds just to dial the call! ... and since you can get a busy or reorder almost anywhere in the call if they switch gets confused (or doesn't have enough long-distance trunks, or trunks to Westminster), your continued pulses may hang the phone up (without you knowing it) and start dialling someplace else in the middle of the sequence. If you have one of those phones which depresses the volume while the pulses go, a good ear doesn't even help in this case. Pulse dialling in general sends all kinds of odd signals to the cheap phones I buy, causing one of my two-line phones to kick in the "Conference" feature in the middle of a phone call. When my modem interrupts someone else's conversation in the house they usually don't like it. No chance of pretending to be an old-timer in town -- only certain series of 100 numbers are assigned at a time. If you don't have a 33xx, 44xx, 48xx, you're a newcomer for sure. The best you can hope to do is pretend you've been there for years and years but wouldn't get a telephone 'til 1990 out of sheer yankee cussedness until you were sure they weren't just a passing fad. Oh well -- do we REALLY still think all this will go away by '92? KENR@BBN.COM ------------------------------ From: Lars Poulsen Subject: Re: Excelan EXOS 225 - HELP Date: 13 Jul 90 01:59:44 GMT [Moderator's Note: Mr. Poulsen passed along this reply found in another newsgroup. PT] In article <1115@prlhp1.prl.philips.co.uk>, cattelld@prlhp1.prl. philips.co.uk (David Cattell) writes: >HELP - I'm desperately looking for the Company, Excelan Inc. in >the states. I thought their address was: > 2180 Fortune Drive > San Jose, CA 95131 >But when I tried their phone no. (408-434-2285) they had been >disconnected. Excelan was acquired by Novell and even though the address remains the same, the phone number has changed to accomodate the new name and growing staff: to 408 434 2300 -or- 408 473 8700. You can also check for their UK office at 44 344 860400 in Berkshire, UK. manoj goel, 0 0 Product Marketing ^ Novell/Excelan Inc., San Jose, CA \_/ (408) 473-8369 (voice) / 433-0775 (fax) Internet: manoj@novell.com ------------------------------ From: Johnny zweig Subject: Re: Mitch Kapor and "Sun Devil" Organization: IDA, Alexandria, VA Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 21:33:24 GMT My two cents: There is a difference between someone who waltzes into the unlocked front door of my house to peruse the contents of my underwear drawer(*) and someone who wanders through my garden (the gate has a latch but no lock, by the way) to look at my flowers. I do not support anybody doing something illegal, but I think the "in your house messing with your stuff" analogy for phreaking/cracking (I abhor the use of the word hacking to describe such activities; it is technically incorrect). I think the "wandering through the garden sniffing the flowers" analogy might be more appropriate. Crackers who go in to see what's there and pat themselves on the back are n a morally different category than people who break into systems to screw things up and/or to steal sensitive information. If you look at how sensitive information is protected by the DoD, you will get a perspective on why DEC saying that they were not being unspeakably negligent in letting an 11 year old break into their system and look at "sensitive" data is so ridiculous. If I were to take a classified document out of myself and leave it on the desk while I go to the bathroom, I could be prosecuted legally. If I put it into a shoebox and wrote "leave this stuff alone" on the outside, I could also. Security is as much what you do as what you outlaw. Johnny (*) Burglars tend to look in underwear drawers as the first part of the houses they break into since many people keep valuables and guns and stuff like that in there. ------------------------------ From: Jeff Carroll Subject: Re: Public*Phone Date: 13 Jul 90 16:01:48 GMT Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle In article <9622@accuvax.nwu.edu> John Higdon writes: >In article <9530@accuvax.nwu.edu> dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com (David Tamkin) >writes: >>Since there don't seem to be any COCOTs manufactured to >>look like the pay phones of independent telqi, the COCOTs in Centel >>territory (usually outside gasoline stations or inside restaurants, >>but far sparser than in IBT country) stick out like sore thumbs. >Centel's other major bastion, Las Vegas, has the same problem but more >of it. When COCOTs were allowed there, they sprang up like a fungus >and you are hard pressed to find even one of Centel's stupid-looking >(but quite functional) NT coin phones. Also, since there was no point... This thread reminds me of a remarkable phenomenon I observed on a recent trip to Chicago. At the Dunkin' Donuts in Des Plaines (on Higgins, if I recall correctly), there are four pay phones; one next to the entrance, and three on the back wall. My recollection is that the one at the entrance and one of the ones on the back wall were Centel phones, and the other two were operated by *Illinois Bell*. Question: Are the IBT phones COCOTs? Or is the Dunkin' Doe franchise located in some sort of Telephone Demilitarized Zone? >It was in Las Vegas that I was first introduced to the $7, three-minute >call to San Jose. At least you got thru to San Jose, which is more than you'd be able to say had you used one of those funny-looking telephones that has a handle instead of a receiver :^). Jeff Carroll carroll@atc.boeing.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #481 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa18035; 14 Jul 90 14:31 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa20242; 14 Jul 90 12:46 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa16627; 14 Jul 90 11:42 CDT Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 10:45:24 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #482 BCC: Message-ID: <9007141045.ab14144@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 14 Jul 90 10:45:03 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 482 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson State Rejects US West Bid for Caller ID [Jon Jacky via Randal Schwartz] Re: Can One Disable Call-Waiting If *70 Doesn't Work? [Ellen K. Seebacher] Re: C.O. "Secret" Numbers [M.Marking] Re: Touchtone History [M.Marking] Re: Info on Hotel PBX's Wanted [David Ptasnik] Re: PacBell to Eliminate Touch-Tone Charges [John Cowan] Re: GTE/Contel Merger [John Higdon] Re: GTE/Contel Merger Questions [Jon Baker] Re: Answering Machine Security [John Higdon] Re: Telecom Peeves [Roy Smith] Cellular Phones [Monty Solomon] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Randal Schwartz Subject: State Rejects US West Bid for Caller ID Reply-To: Randal Schwartz Organization: Stonehenge; netaccess via Intel, Beaverton, Oregon, USA Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 06:21:04 GMT Here's an article seen in pnw.general recently. I [merlyn] am merely forwarding it uncommented. Refer to the original author for comments. In article <12552@june.cs.washington.edu>, jon@cs.washington.edu (Jon Jacky) writes: Here are excerpts from a story in THE SEATTLE TIMES, Wed. July 11, 1990 p. F1 "State Rejects US West Bid for Caller ID for a Business" by Mark Matassa OLYMPIA - State regulators (the Utilities and Transportation Commission) today rejected a US West Communications request to install Caller ID telephone service for an unidentified Seattle business. Caller ID allows a customer to see, displayed on his or her telephone, the phone number of the person making a call. Commission Chairwoman Sharon Nelson said the panel is in the midst of conducting hearings around the state on privacy issues and caller ID service. She said she had no intention of approving the service ... before completing the policy discussions. The request came as a surprise to the commission, members said, because US West said just two weeks ago it wouldn't pursue the controversial technology in the forseeable future ... A spokeswoman for US West acknowledged the contract rejection by the commission includes the capability to view and store incoming phone numbers. But she said the feature is incidental to the contract's larger business package, known as Integrated Serviced Digital Network (ISDN), which includes in-house network for computer, facsimile and voice-phone transmissions. As a minor feature of a larger system, the identification technology does not represent a breach of the company's recent position on Caller ID, said the spokeswoman, Lisa Bowersock ... Mike Moran, US West executive director for regulatory affairs, argued that the ISDN service should be considered separate from Caller ID. The key difference, he said, is that ISDN would automatically screen and not display unlisted telephone numbers. "Any number transmitted by ISDN could be found in the white pages," Bowerstock said ... Bowerstock said two other Washington customers, both unidentified, already have the integrated service network technology that includes Caller ID technology. But in those cases, she said, the identification service applies only to in-house calls. (Washington State) Assistant Attorney General Charles Adams said it appeared US West was trying to sneak the issue past the public. - Jon Jacky, University of Washington, Seattle jon@gaffer.rad.washingtonl.edu | Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ==========| | on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III | | merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn | ------------------------------ From: Ellen Keyne Seebacher Subject: Re: Can One Disable Call-Waiting If *70 Doesn't Work? Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 18:04:33 GMT >I have also seen recommendations to try '70*' > '#70' > '70#' and > '1170'. I was told by someone in the Illinois Bell service area who disables Call Waiting regularly that the command is '#73'. Seven-*three*? I need to confirm this before I make a recommendation to campus users (in our _Academic & Public Computing Resource Guide_), and whoever I asked at Bell was pretty clueless. Help? Ellen Keyne Seebacher Univ. of Chicago Computing elle@midway.uchicago.edu [Moderator's Note: You were given a bum steer. *73 turns off call forwarding; it has nothing to do with cancelling call-waiting. And I do believe *70 works as it should in the Hyde Park/Kenwood area of Chicago, although I would not absolutely swear upon it. Of course, it may not work on UC phone equipment. PT] ------------------------------ From: "M.Marking" Subject: Re: C.O. "Secret" Numbers Date: 13 Jul 90 03:57:45 GMT Reply-To: drivax!marking@uunet.uu.net Organization: Digital Research (Japan) Inc. ucla-cs!smcnet.smc.edu!lawrence@cs.ucla.edu (Lawrence Roney) writes: ) Does anyone know the "secret" numbers that are buried in AT&T 5ESS ) and/or Northern Telecom DMS systems to get your phone to ring? ) [Moderator's Note: This question comes up periodically, and the answer ) is that every CO does its own thing. Typically the codes vary from one ) CO to another. There is no universal standard. PT] One repairperson gave me the number, with the caveat that they change regularly so they won't become widely known. A friend from Florida once had a phone installed and they neglected to tell him the number. *Of course* they couldn't look up a new service without the number, and Southern Bell told him he'd have to wait until the first bill came. He was saved by a wrong number - the caller was kind enough to tell him what number he was trying to reach. ------------------------------ From: "M.Marking" Subject: Re: Touchtone History Date: 13 Jul 90 03:41:03 GMT Reply-To: drivax!marking@uunet.uu.net Organization: Digital Research (Japan) Inc. jimb@silvlis.com (Jim Budler) writes: ) In article <9533@accuvax.nwu.edu> John Slater writes: ) >In article <9482@accuvax.nwu.edu>, roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu (Roy ) >Smith) writes: (don't you love this...?) ) >>Sitting on the table behind his chair were ) >>about 3 or 4 single line desk sets, one touch-tone, the rest rotary. ) It was probably a Department of Defense phone. These phones looked ) like touch-tone, made noises *similar* to touch-tone, but were on the ) private DOD Autovon network. They were not pulse dialers. To my ) uneducated ear they were DTMF, but they were definately tone dialers. ) They had four extra keys for setting call priority.... Each of the buttons makes two tones, one based on row and one based on column, selected so as not to be harmonics of each other. (Hence *Dual* Tone Multi Frequency.) The frequencies are: 1209 1336 1477 1653 Hz 697 Hz 1 2 3 A 770 Hz 4 5 6 B 852 Hz 7 8 9 C 941 Hz * 0 # D Most phones don't use the last column, but CCITT defines it. ------------------------------ From: David Ptasnik Subject: Re: Info on Hotel PBX's Wanted Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 16:07:34 PDT In article 9651@accuvax.nwu.edu appears: >I have an idea for a peripheral device for hotel telephone systems >The device would need to interface with the hotel PBX so that it >1. Selectively intercept calls coming in (local and non-local) based >2. Be accessible from any phone in the hotel by dialing some special number. >3. Determine the caller's number when accessed using the special >Ned Robie uunet!h-three!ned I'm not sure what you want this device to do, but it sounds like an automated attendant. There are a variety of them already in existence, and they interface with the PBX through single line station ports on the PBX. I am not aware of hotels using the service, they tend to be a very parsinmonious as a group (or at least they never bought anything from me, might be a personal problem - hmmmm). This device would allow incoming callers to dial a special number. The auto attendant. would answer the phone and ask the caller to dial the guests room number. If the system was sophisticated, had voice mail, and was integrated with the hotel's registration list, it could even let you spell a guest's name. The system would then ring the room. If there was no answer, it could take a voice mail message, X-fer the call to the front desk, or do other things. If a voice mail message were left, the system could activate the guest's message light, and allow the guest to retrieve the message, as though the guest had a personal answering machine. Is this the sort of thing you had in mind? If not, perhaps telling us the application, rather than the functions, woudl make it easier to respond. davep@u.washington.edu ------------------------------ From: John Cowan Subject: Re: PacBell to Eliminate Touch-Tone Charges Reply-To: John Cowan Organization: ESCC, New York City Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 17:24:41 GMT In article <9534@accuvax.nwu.edu> smb@ulysses.att.com writes: >A year or two ago, NY Telephone announced that they were going to >start looking for people who used Touch-Tone without paying for it, >and send them a bill. I haven't heard of this actually happening yet. It happened to me considerably more than a year ago. cowan@marob.masa.com (aka ...!hombre!marob!cowan) ------------------------------ Subject: Re: GTE/Contel Merger Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: 13 Jul 90 23:22:59 PDT (Fri) From: John Higdon I have communicated with a friend who lives near Victorville and has a number of phone lines from Contel. He has repeatedly said that he would never live in an area served by GTE, so I was most interested in his reaction to the merger. Half jokingly, he said that his house might just go up for sale. Seriously, he is going to carefully document the detioration of service should the merger go through. As well as technical considerations, he will be watching for the change in attitude among the personel from the business office to the plant and repair people. This will be a rare opportunity to catalog the progression of events as a "lean and mean" progressive company is swallowed up by a bloated, lethargic, non-innovative corporate behemoth. Public relations statements notwithstanding, Contel and GTE couldn't be more different. In every single area, they are complete opposites. For GTE to flatter itself in making a comparison between the two companies should be highly amusing to those who really know. This is going to be good. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Jon Baker Subject: Re: GTE/Contel Merger Questions Date: 13 Jul 90 21:06:36 GMT Organization: gte In article <9646@accuvax.nwu.edu>, rv01@gte.com (Robert Virzi) writes: > What sort of network does Contel have? I know they don't use the > GTD-5 because (rumor has it) we (GTE) have only sold one outside the > corporation to Ameritech. Are they largely digital or X-bar or worse? Numerous GTD-5's have been sold to independents across the country. I can't find the exact numbers right now, but it's probably on the order of several hundred thousand lines. Don't know if Contel was one of them. ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Answering Machine Security Date: 14 Jul 90 01:44:59 PDT (Sat) From: John Higdon Steve Wolfson writes: > Join the 90's and replace your answering machine with Voice Mail which > is password protected etc. If you don't trust a service provider you > can even get one for your own PC. Perhaps some erudite TELECOM > readers can enlighten us on the value of these PC gizmos. Once again, at the risk of sounding like a shill for Natural Microsystems, Inc., I would like to re-state that my three year old Watson has been great. You can program the security with as many or as few digits as you like. You can set different levels of security. You can have it deliver messages to others, either when they call in or have it call them! The audio quality is superior to the finest mechanical answering machine. The Watson (with VIS) costs less than $400 and will run in any junk PC/XT. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) Subject: Re: Telecom Peeves Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 18:34:25 GMT In <9649@accuvax.nwu.edu> Bill Berbenich writes: > I was just reminded of one of my pet telecom peeves. Ever get on the > phone with someone and have them just barely whisper instead of > speakly clearly and plainly? Yeah, drives me nuts. Speakerphone freaks do the same thing. I once had dealings with a lawyer who loved his speaker phone. Only problem, it sounded at this end like he was sitting in the bottom of a well with a sack on his head. At the rates he was charging, I damn well didn't want to waste his time asking him to repeat himself. I eventually got into the habit of automatically saying "Hi Bob, turn off the speaker phone", when he called. Related question: anybody know how to deal with phones in a noisy environment like a machine room. Apparantly people can hear me speaking just fine when I'm in there, but I have a hell of a time hearing them over the roar of the fans. Repeated requests to "please talk louder, I can't hear you over the fans" get the same results as Bill reports. The problem is room noise picked up in the mouthpiece and heard through my earpiece (is sidetone the right term for that?) If I cup my hand over the mouthpiece, I can hear fine, but that's a real drag. I think what I want is a push-to-talk handset, but havn't been able to fine any. Any suggestions? Also, I'm deaf in one ear. It always seemed to me that in situations like talking on the phone in a noisy place, that was actually an advantage instead of a handicap since I don't have to filter out ambient noise from the other ear. Do double-hearing people find that noise in the non-phone ear is a real problem, or does the brain automatically just filter it out? I watch people at phone booths in the subway. Sometimes I see them covering the other ear with one hand, but sometimes they don't seem to bother. Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Jul 1990 0:09:30 MDT From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cellular Phones Inquiry Some friends and I are looking to buy several cellular phones. Which are the best portables? Best transportables? What is the best way to evaluate the quality of cellular phones? Many of the stores here have tie-in deals where you must use a particular cellular phone company for at least three (3) months. Aren't these tie-in deals illegal? The phones are much cheaper when bought this way due to the subsidies from the phone companies. Thanks for any and all advice and comments. [Moderator's Note: The tie-in deals are only illegal in California, although some such deals, like one Ameritech had (still has?) with Fretters is pretty obnoxious and should be illegal in my opinion. Obviously if you expect to get the cellular company to subsidize your purchase, you should expect they will want a commitment to their service. But there are so many cellular phone agents around, surely you can find one selling phones you like requiring commitments to the carrier you prefer to use. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #482 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa24558; 14 Jul 90 21:27 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa02681; 14 Jul 90 19:52 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab21344; 14 Jul 90 18:47 CDT Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 18:43:41 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #483 BCC: Message-ID: <9007141843.ab22549@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 14 Jul 90 18:42:38 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 483 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Are You Using Centron or a Similar Service? [Julian Macassey] Re: NPA-N-"T" (was: Curious About Overseas Call Responses) [Tom Gray] Re: Telecom Peeves [John Higdon] Re: GTE/Contel Merger Announcement [Mathew Zank] Re: Last USA Crank-Style Phones to be Replaced [David Ritchie] Cordboard Retired Several Years Ago [Carl Moore] "Last" Magneto Phones??? [Donald E. Kimberlin] E911 Stories Wanted [Barton A. Fisk] NY Tel and Greenwich, CT [David Dodell] Re: Annoying Intercept Behavior [Jordan Kossack] Want to Install 2nd Phone [Dennis G. Rears] Telemail/Internet Now Have Easy Connection [TELECOM Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Julian Macassey Subject: Re: Are You Using Centron or a Similar Service? Date: 14 Jul 90 16:07:58 GMT Organization: The Hole in the Wall Hollywood California U.S.A. In article <9605@accuvax.nwu.edu>, intek01!mark@uunet.uu.net (Mark McWiggins) writes: > Our receptionist just quit, and we're thinking of replacing our > (clunky electromechanical) 4-line key system with an offering from US > West called Centron. (Like Centrex but smaller, as I understand it.) > They're also now offering voice mail, and we think these together > would cut our phone-answering labor by 80% or more. The monthly > charge for all this is no more than the rental for our current key > system. Overall, it looks like a big win, if it works. > Am I missing something? I'd be interested in hearing from anyone > who's using a similar system. Also, we're expecting significant > growth over the next couple of years. What else should I be looking > out for? First of all, yes if you get Centrex then every employee will be able to have his/her phone number. But to call from station to station you have to call a three or four digit number. If you are all techie types you may have no trouble with all the flash, tone, dial, hang-up sequence to transfering a call, bringing another station in on a call etc. There are phones that will automate these features to a one button process. But using these features is slow. If you are the sort of person who does not have the patience to wait for a prompt on a terminal, Centrex will drive you nuts. You will be nickled and dimed to death with Centrex, every silly little feature costs more. It also takes time for the telco bureaucrats to get the order to the grunt at the CO who will sit at a terminal and turn your feature off or on. If you are currently leasing am ancient 1A2 from AT&T or the Telco, you may be surprised to find that you can upgrade to a modern Electronic KSU with features up the kazoo (all programmable) for about the same money per month. So you could upgrade to a six line by eighteen station piece of gear for the same monthly cash. But you can get the new KSU on a closed lease, so after two years or so, you own the damn thing and you owe no more. Then again, if you are reasonably competent, you could put it in yourself for even greater savings. I suggest you ask around, talk to other small businessmen in your area. Call a few interconnects listed in the Yellow Pages under "Telephone Systems". Don't misunderstand me, I am not pro or con any system, you need to get the system that suits your corporate culture. Many KSUs now include paging, if you get Centrex, that would be outboard. Some companies love to page, some abhor it. Some love to "screen" calls, some want to get the call to the recipient and let him decide if he wants to talk. So you need to decide how you want to use your phones and then get the gear that lets you do what you want to do. If you get the best system in the world and it does not work the way you do it will always be known as "That piece of crap." Julian Macassey, n6are julian@bongo.info.com ucla-an!denwa!bongo!julian N6ARE@K6IYK (Packet Radio) n6are.ampr.org [44.16.0.81] voice (213) 653-4495 ------------------------------ From: Tom Gray Subject: Re: NPA-N-"T" (was: Curious About Overseas Call Responses) Date: 14 Jul 90 14:55:27 GMT Reply-To: Tom Gray Organization: Mitel. Kanata (Ontario). Canada. In article <9653@accuvax.nwu.edu> cmoore@brl.mil (VLD/VMB) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 477, Message 7 of 10 >Re: "405-2-T" appearing at end of intercept message received in 405 >area: >For inter-LATA calls within U.S. and Canada which could not be >completed as dialed from my residence phone in Delaware, I have gotten >something like "215-1-T" at the end of the recording (I am a TRIFLE >unsure about the "1" just before the "T"). Although such call >originated in area 302, the call apparently gets switched via >southeastern Pa., which is in 215. The digits are identifying the office which has intercepted the call by the area code and the succeding digit. The letter indicates the type of recorded announcement reached, 405- 2 is (or at least was) a 4A in Oaklahoma City 215- 1 is an office in Wayne (PA?) I don't know what announcement T is but Announcement N is all circuits busy O is overload conditions P is failed call try again L is call cannot be completed as dialled please try again (is this T?) X flexible message for situations of emergency flood fire earth quake affecting routing etc. Tom Gray - Mitel has no responsibility for this message ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Telecom Peeves Date: 14 Jul 90 12:47:25 PDT (Sat) From: John Higdon roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes: > The problem is room noise picked up in the mouthpiece > and heard through my earpiece (is sidetone the right term for that?) > If I cup my hand over the mouthpiece, I can hear fine, but that's a > real drag. I think what I want is a push-to-talk handset, but havn't > been able to fine any. Any suggestions? Push-to-talk is a common way of dealing with this, but there is another known as the "confidencer". It is a special network that eliminates sidetone so that noise entering through the mouthpiece won't be heard in the earpiece. Yet another method is to obtain a "noise cancelling" mouthpiece. These are relatively easy to find to fit the standard (pre "K" style) handsets. > Do double-hearing people > find that noise in the non-phone ear is a real problem, or does the > brain automatically just filter it out? The brain filters it out. It is very amusing to watch people in a noisy location jamming a finger in the opposite ear. That technique does little good when the real problem is noise entering through the mouthpiece. At one of my transmitter sites, there is a standard phone that I have been too lazy to modify. When making calls in the noisy room, covering my other ear has virtually no effect on intelligibility, but cupping my hand over the mouthpiece makes all the difference in the world. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Mathew Zank Subject: Re: GTE/Contel Merger Announcement Date: 14 Jul 90 20:41:56 GMT Organization: NetCom- The Bay Area's Public Access Unix System {408 241-9760} Standard & Poors have said that they may downgrade GTE's bonds and and other debt (this is bad news for GTE bond holders because the bonds will drop in price) S&P says it will do this because the merger will make GTE the 2nd largest cellular company, but GTE will take on a lot of debt from Contel Cellular because the acquisition of McCaw Cellular by Contel. Contel has not earn a dime on this yet in 1989 Contel lost 12.5 million dollars on the Cellular operations. ------------------------------ From: David Ritchie Subject: Re: Last USA Crank-Style Phones to be Replaced Date: 13 Jul 90 22:29:43 GMT Organization: Hewlett Packard - Boise, ID >As reported on this morning's news/information/entertainment program >"Today," the town of North Falls, Idaho is the last remaining location >in the United States that still operates hand-crank telephones. >However, history will soon pass, as they are designated to be replaced >by touch-tone service. No details were given as to when the cutover >will occur. According to the program, there are 18 subscribers with >hand-crank phones. In keeping with their tradition of providing >entertainment, the "Today" show saw fit to made a joke about "no more >crank calls." The {Idaho Statesman} had a story about this today. The cutover happened today. The magneto system was falling into disrepair and you could not hear calls completed over it (I suspect this was caused in part by eavesdroppers placing excessive loading on the common circuit). Is this truely the last magneto system? I thought that about a posting awhile back about magneto systems in Nevada. Dave Ritchie ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 10:07:17 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Cordboard Retired Several Years Ago Within the last ten years, I went to an open house at the Havre de Grace, Maryland telephone exchange. The occasion was the retirement of an operator cordboard there. (I was reminded of this by the item about crank-style phones being retired in North Falls, Idaho.) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 12:57 EST From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Subject: "Last" magneto phones ??? Organization: Telecommunications Network Architects, Safety Harbor, FL In article (Digest v10, iss477), Jeff wrote: Organization: Barton A. Fisk & Co., Inc., Lake Charles, LA +1 (318) 439-5984 From: "Barton A. Fisk" Hello, I am interested in E911 stories both good and bad. I am primarily interested in the Southwest area. Please email all stories to me at barton@holston.UUCP or the uucp below. Your story may save a life. Thanks. Barton Fisk uucp: holston!barton ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 09:57:16 mst From: David Dodell Subject: NY Tel and Greenwich, CT >From: John Cowan >The other obvious candidate would be Connecticut. I know a tiny >portion of CT (Greenwich/Byram) is served by New York Telephone (it's >part of the New York Metropolitan LATA) but I believe the whole rest >of the state is SNET. Any Connecticutensians have more definite >information? The rumor I heard years back from friends that lived in Greenwich, was that the president and a few vice-presidents of NYTel lived in Greenwich, and they wanted to be insured that they had NYTel service vs. Southern New England Telephone that starts at the border. David St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, Phoenix, Arizona uucp: {gatech, ames, rutgers}!ncar!asuvax!stjhmc!ddodell Bitnet: ATW1H @ ASUACAD FidoNet=> 1:114/15 Internet: ddodell@stjhmc.fidonet.org FAX: +1 (602) 451-1165 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 15:59:39 CDT From: Jordan Kossack Subject: Re: Annoying Intercept Behavior On 12 Jul 90, jbaltz@cunixe.cc.columbia.edu (Jerry B. Altzman) says: - I don't know if pay phones fit in this category, but in at least three - other states (PA, NJ, and NY), if you dial a number without putting in - the correct amount of change, you get two or three rings, and *then* a - voice says "deposit xx more cents". - This is both now and in the days of the AT&T/Ma Bell monopoly. This is not entirely true. I was in Rockland County, NY last month [ 914 / NYNEX ] and I was trying to make a call from one town to another, both in Rockland. Anyway, I dropped a quarter in a pay-phone and dialed the number. After two or three rings, my quarter is returned and I get a message to the effect of "please deposit forty-five cents." OK, so I drop the two bits back in, add two dimes and redial the number. After the obligatory two or three rings, my $0.45 is returned and I get the same "please deposit ..." message. I grab the change from the return slot and pump it back into the fone ... lo and behold, I am finally connected to the other party. I agree with leichter@lrw.com (JERRY LEICHTER): >Why would anyone set up intercepts this way? Jordan Kossack | N5QVI | Student Staff ----------------+----------+ Office of Networking and Computing Systems KOSSACKB@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU | Rice University Houston Texas ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 15:48:52 EDT From: "Dennis G. Rears (FSAC)" Subject: Want to Install 2nd Phone I just moved into a very old house and would like to install a second telephone line. I spoke with NJ Bell and they it would be a $42 charge to hook up the line my point of demarcation. If I want NJB to wire the house it would be much more. The only problem is I can't find where the demarcation point is. I traced the wires down to the basement but found no box. I found wires that were exposed and somehow connected but it looked like it was a mess. I think I have only one set of wires going into the house but I am not sure. NJB also said for the $42 charge they will put additional wires up until the point of demarcation. They mentioned about the Network interface and a "Entrance Bridge". Several Questions: 1) What is a Entrance Bridge? 2) Would I be better off paying an additional $100-$150 to have NJB do all the wiring? It would save me the hassle but I think it would be a good learning experience for myself. 3) What would happened If I told NJB I only had enough wiring for my one line but when they cam to install the other wiring it turned out I had wiring for more than one? Another charge? 4) Where is the best place for me to buy the wiring I need? AT&T? I would appreciate any and all answers especially if they are long winded and easy to understand. Dennis ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 18:29:27 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Telemail/Internet Now Have Easy Connection A note from someone today pointed out that Sprint's email service, nee the old Telemail, is now easily addressable from the Internet. This now makes it possible for the TELECOM Digest to be delivered to mailboxes on that network for anyone interested in receiving it there. A person on Telemail would be addressed like this: /pn=first.lastname/o=us.sprint/admd=telemail/c=us/@sprint.com You need all four attributes shown above, and of course the contents of each would depend on where you were sending your mail, if not to Telemail but instead to some other network it connects with. You do need the dashes and equal signs as I have them shown above. I thought you might be interested. PT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #483 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa09372; 15 Jul 90 14:32 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa11012; 15 Jul 90 12:59 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa01267; 15 Jul 90 11:54 CDT Date: Sun, 15 Jul 90 10:58:29 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #484 BCC: Message-ID: <9007151058.ab18921@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 15 Jul 90 10:58:03 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 484 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Telecom Peeves [Isaac Rabinovitch] Re: Telecom Peeves [Syd Weinstein] Re: Questions About Local Service and Long Distance Rates [Robert Kelley] Re: Intrastate Toll Free Non-800 Numbers [Nigel Allen] Re: Are You Using Centron or a Similar Service? [Nigel Allen] Re: Unauthorized Disconnection [Nigel Allen] Re: Touch-Tone History [Larry Lippman] Die Hard ... Laughing, That Is [David Leibold] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Isaac Rabinovitch Subject: Re: Telecom Peeves Date: 14 Jul 90 21:22:30 GMT Organization: UESPA In <9712@accuvax.nwu.edu> roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes: >In <9649@accuvax.nwu.edu> Bill Berbenich >writes: >The problem is room noise picked up in the mouthpiece >and heard through my earpiece (is sidetone the right term for that?) >If I cup my hand over the mouthpiece, I can hear fine, but that's a >real drag. I think what I want is a push-to-talk handset, but havn't >been able to fine any. Any suggestions? About a year ago, one of those yuppie electrotoy catalogs featured a phone with *no* mouthpiece; it gets your voice from jawbone vibrations! DAK sells walkie-talkies built on the same principle. I dimly recall seeing a TV article on the invention of such technology -- this was long ago, and it's original use was for helicopter intercoms during the Vietnam War. Never seen it in stores, though, and I've no idea whether it actually works. > Also, I'm deaf in one ear. It always seemed to me that in >situations like talking on the phone in a noisy place, that was >actually an advantage instead of a handicap since I don't have to >filter out ambient noise from the other ear. Do double-hearing people >find that noise in the non-phone ear is a real problem, or does the >brain automatically just filter it out? I watch people at phone >booths in the subway. Sometimes I see them covering the other ear >with one hand, but sometimes they don't seem to bother. Most people are good at filtering out sounds they don't want to hear; a minority (including me) is bad at it. For obvious reasons, there is much conflict between these two groups of people. ergo@netcom.uucp Isaac Rabinovitch atina!pyramid!apple!netcom!ergo Silicon Valley, CA uunet!mimsy!ames!claris!netcom!ergo ------------------------------ From: Syd Weinstein Subject: Re: Telecom Peeves Reply-To: syd@dsi.com Organization: Datacomp Systems, Inc. Huntingdon Valley, PA Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 23:56:55 GMT roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes: > Related question: anybody know how to deal with phones in a >noisy environment like a machine room. ... >The problem is room noise picked up in the mouthpiece >and heard through my earpiece (is sidetone the right term for that?) This is a simple one, there is a product called the confidencer, available from lots of places including hello-direct. On the handsets in our machine room, I have placed the handsets with the amplifier (turn up the knob if its too noisy) and the confidencer (it replaces the mic) so that the noise doesn't feed back in. You have to hold your mouth real close for it to be heard (over two inches is like you're across the room, over six and forget it. Works great, they make models for carbon and electronic mics. The confidencer is about $35. I got my amplified handsets from a catalog distributor for about $10-20 each, but they are readly available anywhere for about $50-60 :-). Sydney S. Weinstein, CDP, CCP Elm Coordinator Datacomp Systems, Inc. Voice: (215) 947-9900 syd@DSI.COM or dsinc!syd FAX: (215) 938-0235 ------------------------------ From: PCI@cup.portal.com Subject: Re: Questions About Local Service and Long Distance Rates Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 12:53:39 PDT Brendan B. Boerner (boerner@emx.utexas.edu) asks the following often asked questions: >First, does anyone have a clue why Southwestern Bell here in Austin, >TX wants $60.00 to hookup a phone? I don't mean hookup as in sending >someone to pull some wire (I think that's $60.00/hour), I mean, >$60.00 so that I can call, request service, am told it'll be available >after such-and-such hour on such-and-such day, and that's that. I >asked a cust. service rep. about it once and she wasn't able to give >me a very good explanation. I seem to recall that it involved a >couple of data key operators and maybe one or two quality assurance >folks. The cost of a phone installation is based on the AVERAGE cost to install a phone in your rate region. This is approved by your state PUC. Sometimes state PUC's allow a discount if a line is already in. Sometimes if you accept a working line of a previous resident it is much lower then a new connection. Some PUC's allow extra charges for remote installs. There are great inconsistencies in rates between different service areas ... even more variance between states. It depends on what each company can get approved by the respective PUC. Some state PUC's are VERY consumer sensitive ... some PUC's act like a department of the telephone companies they are supposed to regulate! Back to the $60 installation. IF they would charge the same $60 for an all day install to another resident in your service area (as I believe they would) it is not really out of line. >Also, when I moved out of a co-op two years ago, I asked if I could >keep the same number which I had been using. I was told, yes, if I >wanted to pay to have them pull a wire from the 478 exchange to the >458 exchange (my old number was 478-3813, my current is 458-1770) >*and* I would have to pay extra monthly. What I am wondering is, how >does the local service work? Is a city really broken into sections, >where moving a number between them requires a hardware change? You are asking for a Foreign Exchange (FX) service. Each CO has it's assigned prefixes. Your new phone will really be, for rate purposes and calling purposes, in you old calling area. A new wire will not be installed but you will utilize a trunk on a full period basis. This trunk will go between the CO's in your city (yes, cities are broken into sections or areas based upon servicing CO.) In Hawaii, the cost for an Inter Office Trunk is over $8/mile within the same island and slightly over $2/mile if between CO's on separate islands (don't try to see a consistency, remember I said it is what the phone company can get approved). In addition you must pay for the phone service at the originating CO and a charge for FX service. All of these charges are monthly. If having your old telephone number is important (businesses may find it very important), I usually recommend that FX service be compared to Remote Call Forwarding (RCF). This would mean your old telephone number would be set to forward calls to your new telephone number. It is a switch function without a local line or instrument (obviously an inbound calling only service). This service costs about 1/2 of the cost of a business line. You would have to pay toll charges if applicable between the old number and new number. Your callers will be charged for only cost to the old number. >About the long distance pricing: I called MCI and inquired about their >PrimeTime Texas and PrimeTime plans. These are plans where you agree >to purchase a minimum of 1hr/month of intrastate and interstate long >distance service respectively. Maybe someone can explain the odd >rates summarized below (what is odd (to me) is that intrastate is >*more* expensive than interstate). Back to the regulatory bodies! PUC's regulate Intrastate service and FCC regulates Interstate service. The regulations may not always apply to the Inter Exchange Carrier. Sometimes IEC's are unregulated because they are nondominant carriers. The Local Exchange Carrier is almost (if not) always regulated on rates in can charge IEC's by the FCC and PUC (depending whether it is Intrastate or Interstate service). In my work (as a carrier) I have seen as much as a 200% to 300% difference in switch access charges for Feature Group D access between Interstate and Intrastate service on the same switch! Then to make it more interesting, some states are blessed with a monopoly of the LEC for Intralata service (to all those who complain about GTE as an LEC, how would you like to deal with them on ANY service within a state!) I hope this has helped answer your questions. I am at home and do not have my Tariffs with me. Just for Hawaii, between PUC tariffs, GTE FCC tariffs, FCC Regulations, etc I use up 2 bookshelves. I might add that it is NOT uncommon for customer service representatives not to understand the tariffs applicable to the services they support. I often get an off-the-wall answer that is defended by "that is our tariff". I then get great joy in asking "I must have missed that rule, could you please FAX me the page it is on". The silence on the other end followed by the stammering shows the great discomfort of being caught. I have yet to get the 1st FAX, I have 100% success in eventually getting what I asked for and I have never had the same line pulled twice by the same representative. (I accept the reasonable answer of "I am not sure how to do this" or "price this" ... "let me check it out and get in touch with you". But they had better get back to me or I will call them and the supervisor. Robert Kelley Internet: PCI@CUP.PORTAL.COM PCI Communications Inc. EasyLink: 62958477 (808) 599-4724 OnTyme: INTL.PCI/KELLEY FAX (808) 733-2011 SprintMail: RFKELLEY SnailMail: 1103 9th Ave, Suite 245, Honolulu HI, 96816 ------------------------------ From: Nigel Allen Subject: Re: Intrastate Toll Free Non-800 Numbers Reply-To: ndallen@contact.UUCP (Nigel Allen) Organization: Contact Public Unix BBS. Toronto, Canada. Date: Sun, 15 Jul 90 12:52:34 GMT eli@pws.bull.com (Steve Elias) asks about toll-free non-800 exchanges. Maritime Tel & Tel, the only telephone company in Nova Scotia, provides an awkward toll-free service without the 800 prefix. (800 numbers are available, but they cost more, I suspect.) A subscriber to the non-800 service can arrange for a regular seven-digit number (429-7111, which is or was the Air Canada reservations number in Halifax, for example) to be toll-free for anybody who calls from specified exchanges, or from anywhere in the province. I assume the charging for the calls is in blocks or time, much as it is with 800 service. However, the toll-free bit only works if you're calling from a residence or business phone. It you're calling from a pay phone, operators used to be able to check a list of valid toll-free numbers, but as of the last time I was in Nova Scotia a few years ago, would only place the call collect. This service grew out of making telephone company business numbers toll-free, I think. (Maritime Tel & Tel still uses seven-digit numbers for repair service, rather than 611, and rural customers would incur a long-distance charge to reach repair unless certain seven-digit numbers could be flagged as free.) ------------------------------ From: Nigel Allen Subject: Re: Are You Using Centron or a Similar Service? Reply-To: ndallen@contact.UUCP (Nigel Allen) Organization: Contact Public Unix BBS. Toronto, Canada. Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 13:42:56 GMT John Higdon explains that some users have problems with a hookswitch flash. Northern Telecom's Unity II telephone sets are quite basic, except that in addition to the usual twelve touch-tone keys, they also have an R and an L key. R hangs you up, by disconnecting for five seconds or so; L stands for Link, and flashes the line. Some years ago, Northern Telecom was marketing the Link phone, which appeared to be a standard 2500 set with an additional L button. I don't like the Unity II sets a lot, because the number buttons are too close together, and they aren't concave. ------------------------------ From: Nigel Allen Subject: Re: Unauthorized Disconnection Date: Wed, 11 Jul 90 20:08:40 EDT drears@pica.army.mil (Dennis G. Rears) had his telephone disconnected prematurely, and wishes to complain. I don't have my list of state public utility commission addresses handy, but anyone can get the address of their commission from the state government switchboard. Some telephone directories have a section in the introductory pages dealing specifically with complaints, which may give both the address of a senior manager of the telephone company who handles complaints, and the state regulatory agency as well. There are two ways to approach a regulatory complaint: you can argue that the telephone company didn't follow established policy, in which case the complaint can be resolved at a relatively low level, or you can argue that the telephone company's policies are incorrect and should be changed. If you choose to file a heavy policy-change complaint with the public utilities commission, you may want to obtain a copy of the commission's rules of procedure, which may set out different rules for handling informal complaints and formal applications, and file it as a formal application. Telephone companies are often wholly or partially exempt from liability for their errors by state law or by regulatory enactments. Nonetheless, the telephone company may be willing to compensate you for your out-of-pocket expenses, even though it may not be legally required. If your work requires you to be on call to receive phone calls, or if you had a sick child at home, or if you had some other reason why the unauthorized disconnection was particularly inconvenient or dangerous, you should mention this as well. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Touch-Tone History Date: 15 Jul 90 00:21:14 EDT (Sun) From: Larry Lippman In article <9482@accuvax.nwu.edu> roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes: > When were the first touchtone phones installed? I always > thought the answer was that were introduced at the 1964/65 New York > World's Fair. The fair opened in the summer of 64, so those were > probably installed in late 63 or early 64. Touch-Tone dialing was officially introduced by the Bell System in 1963. The first paper on it appeared in the Bell System Technical Journal in 1960, followed by a few years of little comment, followed by a number of papers in 1963 including a series in IEEE Transactions. > A touch-tone phone was clearly visible in > President Kennedy's oval office in numerous bits of footage shot at > the time. ... > Was touch-tone in general use in May 1963, or did the President just > have a pre-release model? I suspect that the Touch-Tone telephone you saw in Kennedy's office was for an AUTOVON circuit, which was already being installed at that time. The use of Touch-Tone to provide the 4 special function keys needed for call precedence control was essential to the operation of AUTOVON. Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. "Have you hugged your cat today?" {boulder||decvax||rutgers||watmath}!acsu.buffalo.edu!kitty!larry VOICE: 716/688-1231 || FAX: 716/741-9635 {utzoo||uunet}!/ \aerion!larry ------------------------------ From: woody Subject: Die Hard ... Laughing, That Is Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 22:55:48 EDT With the recent talk of telecom boo-boos in _Die_Hard_2_, there was a discussion in the rec.ham.radio net some time ago about the original _Die_Hard_ movie and how they had such things as full-duplex walkie-talkies and other pieces of science fiction. Meanwhile, there are the rather glaring gaffes in the movie _War_Games_. The lack call completion delay in that war-dialing sequence was an obvious imagination expander. [Moderator's Note: I'd like to point out that Woody has a complete set of area code and associated prefix tables for the entire United States which he has offered in the past to share with telecom readers. Write him at the above address for more specifics. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #484 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa09433; 15 Jul 90 14:37 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab11012; 15 Jul 90 13:02 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab01267; 15 Jul 90 11:54 CDT Date: Sun, 15 Jul 90 11:50:40 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #485 BCC: Message-ID: <9007151150.ab06116@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 15 Jul 90 11:50:21 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 485 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Rate Request - No Joy For New York Telephone [Jerry Leichter] AT&T Calling Card Discrimination [TELECOM Moderator] Interchangeable Codes in Non-Interchangeable Territory [David Leibold] Telco Can't Help With Harassing Calls [Jeff Bilger] Re: Questions About Local Rates and Long Distance Service [D. Kimberlin] The Truth About "Cleaning Pulses" [Donald E. Kimberlin] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 15 Jul 90 07:48:21 EDT From: Jerry Leichter (LEICHTER-JERRY@CS.YALE.EDU) Subject: Rate Request - No Joy For New York Telephone [Based on a report in the {New York Times}, Saturday, 14 Jul 1990 - Page 24] The saga of New York Telephone's request for a rate increase continues, with no joy in sight for them. Rates were frozen for three years back in 1987. With the freeze set to expire at the end of this year, NY Tel requested a $445 million rate increase. That was rejected back in March. NY Tel promptly turned around and requested a $919 million rate increase. Now the Public Service Commission's staff has recommended not just rejecting that request - it has instead recommended that rates be CUT by $81 million. The final decision is up to the PSC, which often uses its staff's reports as the basis for its decisions. The PSC staff reported that as part of its investigations it uncovered evidence that NY Tel had "failed to properly account for the costs of certain of its deregulated operations." It further found that some of its cable equipment had been neglected "to the detriment of those customers relying on more traditional telephone services." There have been a lot of allegations of such problems swirling around NY Tel and its parent, Nynex. In fact, NY Tel proposed its earlier increase of $445 million as part of a package deal to settle claims of various fraudulent practices. The deal was rejected, and NY Tel turned around and said "OK, no deal, here's what we REALLY think we are entitled to." The 1987 rate freeze itself was the result of a settlement of this general sort, the details of which I don't recall. Nynex was fined $1.4 million by the FCC in February after an audit found $118.5 million in reported overcharges to its subsidiaries. Last week, {The Wall Street Journal} reported that Nynex purchasing managers, as the Times put it, "cavorted at Florida conventions with suppliers and may have then increased company purchases from those suppliers. The Journal also reported, and [sources at] the [PSC] confirmed, that women were hired to entertain the guests at those conventions." Nynex has reported taking "corrective action" since the incident, including firing two employees. Jerry ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 18:02:53 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: AT&T Calling Card Discrimination Before leaving on my trip, I mentioned that I spoke with the Public Relations Department at AT&T to obtain a reponse from them regarding their practice of illegally red-lining, or discriminating in the use of their calling card. As noted in messages here in TELECOM Digest, AT&T states in their advertising and in their tariffs that the calling card is universal and can be used to call anyone, anywhere, using the AT&T network. Anyone, that is, unless you are a Mexican living in southern California wanting to call home from a payphone at the place where you live ... or if you are an Israeli or Iranian citizen at JFK trying to call home before you board your flight. Then, the presumption by AT&T is you are likely to be committing fraud, so your call will not be processed. Is this type of discrimination by AT&T illegal? The last I heard, credit could not be denied on the basis of national origin; nor could neighborhoods be specifically red-lined and credit transactions refused in those areas. And anyway, even if entire geographic areas can be legally red-lined, i.e. the entire airport made off limits to credit card calls, how does that explain the fact that from the very same phones, calls to the UK and Sweden, to name but two examples, go through with no delay? Likewise in southern California, if you want to call Australia, that's just dandy with Mother ... but if Mexico or Korea is where your family lives or your business is to be conducted, you are out of luck. At AT&T Corporate HQ, I spoke with Dave Bickley, 201-953-7614, who promised me he would get back to me shortly with an answer. I left my voicemail number, so he would always get an answer ... but that was over two weeks ago, and he hasn't called back, despite my followup phone call a few days ago. I've a feeling this is going to eventually work into a class action suit against all long distance carriers. If they want to offer a calling card they have to be willing to honor it for all calls on their network -- not just the calls they prefer to deal with. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ From: woody Subject: Interchangeable Codes in Non-Interchangeable Territory Date: Thu, 12 Jul 90 22:52:06 EDT Oddly enough, BC (area code/NPA 604) seems to have prefixes 200 and 201 active, even though BC Tel doesn't seem to be using interchangeable (that is, area code styled) prefixes in its general service, nor has their dialing been configured to accomodate for this (anyone out in BC is welcome to correct me if this has changed in very recent times). It seems that charges can be assigned if dialing 1 604 200 xxxx (or 201 xxxx) from Toronto. However, the BC Tel directory assistance denies any existence of the 200/201 prefixes. Any clues as to what the 200/201 exchanges could be here? (In the meantime, a new 604 prefix listing to replace the existing archives version should soon be underway, and perhaps ready within the next week or so, subject to available time and the Moderator's blessings...). [Moderator's Note: The Canadian tables are in the Telecom Archives. Woody has all the USA tables also, but due to space limitations and time required for updating, etc, these are sent by Woody on request from his site for individual area codes. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 18:53 CDT From: IE09@vaxb.acs.unt.edu Subject: Telco Can't Help With Harassing Calls I quote from a letter from Southwestern Bell: " Dear Mr. Bilger, We are sorry we have been unable to identify the source of your annoying calls. We have removed the line identification equipment from your line. If you continue to receive these calls and wish to change your telephone number, please call our business office. We regret we have been unable to resolve this problem for you." Ms. Rubell Annoying Call Specialist Southwestern Bell Now, if I am not mistaken, with Caller ID in effect, The phone company records every phone number that calls MY number. So they should be able to look in their records of who called me and at what times. Also, what else could the phone company use to trace these annoying calls? And what can I do to argue about their incompetence in this matter? Thank you, Jeff Bilger ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 20:42 EST From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Organization: Telecommunications Network Architects, Safety Harbor, FL Subject: Re: Questions About Local Service and Long Distance Rates ..In article (Digest v10,iss479) Brendan writes: >I have two questions regarding local phone operation and one regarding >long distances rates which I am curious... >First, does anyone have a clue why Southwestern Bell here in Austin, TX wants $60.00 to hookup a phone? Yep, it's a charge on the higher fringe of what Telcos nationwide tend to get for a once-manual, now-automated operation. It even has components, like (let's say) $25 for "writing the service order," and $15 for "wiring on the distributing frame," and $5 for "updating the directory entry," and so on. These prices, once established as a means to hold off rate increases by creating the Telco equivalent of government "user fees" and "impact fees," have never been reviewed by PUCs to see if they are still valid. And we all know who is _not_ about to ask for a review, don't we? >Also... was told ... if I wanted to pay to have them pull a wire from >the 478 exchange to the 458 exchange ... *and* I would have to pay >extra monthly. ... how does the local service work? Is a city really >broken into sections, where moving a number between them requires a >hardware change? Well, I sure hope the lady didn't say "pull a wire" across the city. That would constitute naievete in extremis! What she described was a "foreign central office" (within a city; "foreign exchange" between two cities) line. The transmission channels already exist; Telcos will, if you wish, rent you a channel to that other exchange to get your dial tone from there. You pay the "service order charges" (usually higher for a "special service" and a monthly rental for the extension transmission channel ... and there's usually cute components in the monthly charge for the "special equipment" they "need" to make a longer-than-normal loop operate. Now, here's the dirty truth: The sort of "special equipment" that's used is the same as is used for many other classes of "phone lines," further, it often is not needed. The most extreme case I know of is the boundary between Boca Raton, FL and Deerfield Beach, FL. There, the two "exchanges" are in the SAME Southern Bell building, and an "FX line" consists of ONE jumper wire on the distributing frame. BUT, the two "exchanges" are several miles apart on the long-standing "official description" of thw two areas. No matter, an FX there costs (I recall) about $65 a month ... for 100 feet of wire! What you pay for a phone line has at best a VERY small resemblance to what it costs to put any given line in. The Telco mushes all the costs together into a heap called the "rate base" and then apportions out what it thinks you should pay for each thing. It's a principle proudly euphemized in Telco-Speak as "Value of Service Pricing," spoken of in reverent tones, because Telcos are sure God gave them that right. And, they'll fight you into the ground to preserve it. One study a decade ago found that press, hospitals, police, broadcasters, residences and business all paid difference prices for identical wires in the SAME cable! The real kicker: press paid the lowest price. The politics behind it are obvious. Don't let anyone ever tell you the "phone company" isn't one of the most political animals in town. >About the long distance pricing ... (describes MCI rate structure) > ... I thought is kinda bizarre that I can call California during >business hours for *less* than calling my brother in Dallas after >5pm. Any ideas? No "ideas" needed. It's another of the nationwide unrealities of telephone company rate-making. State by state, the regulators long ago found they could look good and keep the Telco's much-watched price for a local line down by letting INTRAstate short-haul LD charges rise. It goes back to a point in time when none of us as individuals hauled off and dialed the phone for just any old thing. Since we all became "telephone junkies," the usage has soared, but the protected rate for the local telco do haul LD in-state remains. Others, like MCI, are _required_ to not undercut the "local" Telco on in-state rates. Yet, you see what the true costs must be like in the FCC-mandated (almost) free market of INTERstate rates. That's the answer, pure and simple: Another very visible proof that the price you pay for regulated phone services has little connection to the cost of the product. The sooner America wakes up and starts to let it be known it understands the regulatory "shell game" and ends the silly form of "regulation" that exists today, the sooner prices will begin to truly reflect costs. The Federal government would like to permit local "dial tone" competition immediately (and several technologies exist to do so ... right now), but the local Telco lobby is still shouting that one down. Oh, you have an example right in Texas: ARCO Oil moved its offices to Richardson, on the fringe of Dallas 6-8 years ago. Fed up with GTE "dial tone," ARCO put in a private microwave and imported SW Bell dial tone to their building in Richardson. WOW! Did the Telco feathers ruffle! GTE got their "brothers in the cloth," SWBT to shut off the dial tone. Both got the Texas PUC to say on paper they had done the right thing. ARCO dragged the FCC in, saying the dial tone was only _part_ of INTERstate business, and got an FCC order to turn it back on. SWBT went to the Federal courts, and only about four months ago lost on the final level of appeal short of the Supreme Court. Doubtful you'll ever get this news in your SWBT bill insert, but you _can_ put in your _own_ FX if you want ..and for larger businesses, the technology is not that expensive these days. If you want to do it at UT, I know a guy in Austin who can guide you!) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 20:42 EST From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Organization: Telecommunications Network Architects, Safety Harbor, FL Subject: The Truth About "Cleaning Pulses" In article , Andrew writes: >In brief, I have heard that at one time AT&T sent out "cleaning >pulses" in the wee hours of morning to "fuse shorts in the line." >Assuming this is drivel, is there any basis for such a thing? Yep, Andrew, it's more of the drivel that gets made out of stories told and retold by telecommunications incompetents. Like all, it has a shred of truth ... but only way down and way back. Hear this: For starters, AT&T _never_ sent out "pulses" down your local line. Your local exchange telephone company does that. AT&T did, of course, own the twenty-plus local "Bell Operating Companies." These were, in no uncertain terms, captive customers of Western Electric, AT&T's manufacturing company, which in turn had only technology of Bell Labs to sell. So, if Bell Labs dreamed up an improvement to running local phone lines, the Bell companies bought it. A well-recognized problem in running local phone lines is: How does one indeed know when a phone line is bad? Wait for the customer to get to another phone and call? With all good intent, AT&T HQ put this on Bell Labs' plate. Bell Labs came up with an adjunct to its Crossbar-era exchanges (we're talking 1950's technology here) called Automatic Line Insulation Test ... ALIT in the trade. The earliest ALITs were totally mechanical, and scanned the office during wee hours, putting a fairly high-voltage (limited current) pulse on the line to measure the leakage resistance of the wire pair, flagging those in which the leakage was lower than the acceptable level; printing a report, in fact, for the local people to "fix your line before you knew about it." Those are the "pulses," but they don't "fuse the shorts in the line." Somewhere down the story trail to you, the incompetents have mushed ALIT together with the old testboardman's trick of "burning" a noisy pair's loose splices or tree branches of long-gone open wire with about 600 Volts for a moment. ALIT doesn't do that. It just measures. ALIT lives today and is now an electronic "test adjunct" to most every telephone exchange switch. It is even a popular manual test method, called up by remote control to get an evaluation of the condition of your wire pair when you do say the line is "noisy" or "weak." There are test criteria and a large backgound of use of the techniques of ALIT, used by every telco. BUT, honest, dirty truth be known, very few ALITs are running all night to check out your line for you. The local plant people dropped the administrative task of keeping ALIT in automatic operation years ago. If you live in GTE areas, you'll find they now run TX spots showing people snoozing away in bed, happily confident that GTE is "testing their lines silently all night." All that happened was GTE started its ALITs back in automatic mode again! So much for "AT&T pulses that clean your line!" ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #485 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa14854; 15 Jul 90 20:36 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa13124; 15 Jul 90 19:07 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa02713; 15 Jul 90 18:03 CDT Date: Sun, 15 Jul 90 17:40:43 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #486 BCC: Message-ID: <9007151740.ab12205@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 15 Jul 90 17:40:41 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 486 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Telco Can't Help With Harassing Calls [TELECOM Moderator] Re: Can One Disable Call-Waiting If *70 Doesn't Work? [Macy Hallock] Re: Fax Over Compressed Voice [Macy Hallock] Re: Annoying Intercept Behavior [John Higdon] Re: E911 Experience [Lawrence Kestenbaum] Re: E911 Experience [Marc T. Kaufman] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 15 Jul 90 12:39:19 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Re: Telco Can't Help With Harassing Calls Jeff Bilger wrote to say the Annoyance Call Bureau of his local telco was unable to help him resolve the source of unwanted calls. They suggested he change his phone number instead. This sounds remarkably like a case I've just gone through here, although Illinois Bell was able to capture the calling number on four occassions, after some effort and aggressive efforts by myself to force the issue. In Mr. Bilger's case, I suspect the calls are from outside the local telco area, and the originating telco has not or will not supply the information to his telco. The best your local telco can do many times is locate the origin as being a circuit from elsewhere -- and unless the other telco cooperates (they may not have the technical capability to identify the caller), then resolving the problem is impossible at worst and difficult at best. What telco CAN do -- after you press the issue long enough -- is arrange to trace the call while you are on line with the caller, if the caller stays connected long enough. If it is a case where the caller rings, then disconnects immediatly when you answer, this is probably impossible. If you can argue with the caller, or otherwise get them to stay on the line for a few minutes, then your telco in cooperation with the other telco can frequently find the low-life slime making the call. Of course this requires some coordination, and extra expense for the telco. They'd rather just change your number, and will often times tell you there is nothing further they can do. You do not have to accept this for an answer, and can contact your local regulatory body for further assistance if necessary. Our situation here was that my brother innocently gave our non-pub number to our downstairs neighbor ... as it turned out, an NWW (not a well woman!) who began calling at all hours of the day and night and hanging up as soon as we answered. IBT's first suggestion was let's change the number. Why the hell should I have to change my number? My telephone number has been in use here for years. Why should *I* be inconvenienced? They finally agreed to have the Annoyance Call Bureau look into the matter. We got the police involved, and filed formal charges. The telco supplied the information on the four successful traps to the detective handling our case. The matter came to court last week, and the woman was found guilty and given six month's probation. But I have a further surprise for her: Now that the *criminal* side of the matter has been handled, I spoke with my attorney Friday and we will now file *civil* charges against her. We are asking for $1000 in damages. In addition, I filed a complaint with the Illinois Commerce Commission (which regulates telcos here) and asked the ICC to order Illinois Bell to disconnect the offender's service. This petition may or may not be successful, but in any event, the woman will need to hire an attorney to appear before the Commission to defend her and argue against the disconnection of her phone service. That should cost her a grand or so for an attorney licensed to practice before the Commission. I don't just get mad ... I get even. My advice to Mr. Bilger would be to begin with an informal complaint to the regulators, asking if telco could be instructed to make a better effort to resolve the problem. He might find telco very eager to cooperate when a 'commission complaint' came over the telex to the Business Office in his community. Please understand the pecking order at most telcos: When there are various things to be done (or not done) the general rule of thumb is that resolutions are sought out according to their importance. First, 'commission complaints' are attended to. Second, 'management complaints' are dealt with. These are typically subscribers who have appealed to the Chairman's Office. Third and last come the subscribers who wait meekly in line at the Business Office or who have called on the phone. In large cities such as Chicago, a telco representative actually is on the premises of the Commission at all times to talk to subscribers who choose to file complaints in that way. A telex message making an inquiry goes to the manager of the Business Office ... and they *do* respond to those in a timely fashion ... like twenty minutes to an hour later! Illinois Bell is required, in their telephone directories, to give the address and telephone number of the proper contact at the Commission for the purpose of making complaints the Business Office has been unable or unwilling to resolve. And frequently, it does work! Patrick Townson ------------------------------ From: ncoast!fmsystm!macy@usenet.ins.cwru.edu Date: Sun Jul 15 10:40:52 1990 Subject: Re: Can One Disable Call-Waiting If *70 Doesn't Work? Organization: F M Systems, Inc. Medina, Ohio USA +1 216 723-3000 [Writer was trying to find call waiting disable code that my not be the "standard" *70 in that CO....] >>I have also seen recommendations to try '70*' >> '#70' >> '70#' and >> '1170'. While I have no personal knowledge of the writer's phone system, I offer the following comments: If you are in a PBX (or some Centrex configurations) you may not have the call waiting disable feature available as a dial-up code. Many PBX's have the ability to remove the call wait (or camp-on) tone entirely on a line, but not on a per call basis. I do not know who your telephone system vendor is, but a written request stating specifically your need may be best. Be sure to involve your telecom dept., as the follow-up may go through them. (The old name for this feature was "data line security" on many systems.) I have also found some CO's that require the per-call call waiting feature to be specifically enabled by the CO people. Generally, unless the feature is tarriffed, the telco business office people do not know about this functionality (and often don't much care). Perhaps you could try talking politely to a business office supervisor, explaining your problem, and ask if a conference call with a CO supervisor for your office might be possible. This sometimes works. The old adage about honey attracting more flies than vinegar applies when dealing with first and second level telco employees. When a telco supervisor understands you need and sympathizes with you, you are much more likely to get something done. (These are the people who hold the power over the little day to day things that can be so important....) In the GTE North (was GTE Ohio) CO that serves me, several changes to the special services numbering plan occurred when a software upgrade to add Centrex services was installed. Since our local CO serves the 722, 723, 725 office codes (which directly conflict with "standard" service numbering i.e. 72# for call forwarding, etc.) the software type at GTE (in their infinite wisdom ;-) changed the codes that normally start with a seven to start with an eight. (Ugly, IMHO) So there are situations where the numbering plan can be skewed from the "standard". A personal note: GTD-5's ... they had a lot of potential, but GTE never really got around to making them 100% right. Now they seem to be fast becoming the Edsel of CO's ... there is no one ... I repeat no one in this division of GTE who knows how to program one of these right. All the programming types are now in Ft Wayne or elsewhere and heaven forbid any of those people should talk to a lowly member of the public about GTE's all to frequent programming problems. As a contrast, I regularly talk to software types at Ohio Bell, Alltel and United ... they make mistakes, but I can usually get to someone and get them corrected. With GTE it takes threats of PUCO complaints (which I am prepared to do ... I keep logs of all this crap). Macy M. Hallock, Jr. macy@NCoast.ORG uunet!aablue!fmsystm!macy F M Systems, Inc. {uunet|backbone|usenet.ins.cwru.edu}ncoast!fmsystm!macy 150 Highland Drive Voice: +1 216 723-3000 Ext 251 Fax: +1 216 723-3223 Medina, Ohio 44256 USA Cleveland:273-3000 Akron:239-4994 (Dial 251 @ tone) ------------------------------ From: ncoast!fmsystm!macy@usenet.ins.cwru.edu Date: Sun Jul 15 13:48:59 1990 Subject: Re: Fax Over Compressed Voice Organization: F M Systems, Inc. Medina, Ohio USA +1 216 723-3000 In article <9681@accuvax.nwu.edu> Tom Neiss writes: >Has anyone had problems sending facsimiles over compressed(32K) voice >lines? Especially in the NYC area. I have used Group 3 Fax on M44 type T1 service. It works, but the fax usually drops to a lower speed. Not recommended for lines with a lot of fax traffic, especially fine or long faxes. If your savings on the voice services are great enough, consider putting your fax machines on direct outside lines serviced by the regular 10XXX carriers. In summary: M44 is fine for voice, but poor for data/fax. Timeplex has done considerable research on this (so has Newbridge) and can give you more info. Macy M. Hallock, Jr. macy@NCoast.ORG uunet!aablue!fmsystm!macy F M Systems, Inc. {uunet|backbone|usenet.ins.cwru.edu}ncoast!fmsystm!macy 150 Highland Drive Voice: +1 216 723-3000 Ext 251 Fax: +1 216 723-3223 Medina, Ohio 44256 USA Cleveland:273-3000 Akron:239-4994 (Dial 251 @ tone) ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Annoying Intercept Behavior Date: 15 Jul 90 12:12:03 PDT (Sun) From: John Higdon Jordan Kossack writes: > After two or three rings, my quarter is > returned and I get a message to the effect of "please deposit > forty-five cents." OK, so I drop the two bits back in, add two dimes > and redial the number. After the obligatory two or three rings, my > $0.45 is returned and I get the same "please deposit ..." message. A utility pay phone has no way of knowing how much money you initially deposit. All it knows is if you put in at least the "initial rate" for a local call, which is a "go -- no go" situation. If the initial rate is $0.20 and you dump a dollar in for a local call, if the call is completed, the phone will blithely collect your buck, period. The same goes for a "non-local" call where more than the initial rate is required. If you have deposited the initial rate, the phone must return it so that the automatic coin system (not the phone) can count your deposit from $0. What I don't understand is this "two or three" rings before your initial deposit is returned. Around here, if I dropped $0.20 into a phone, then dialed something outside of my local area, the dimes would be in the coin-return slot before my finger was off the last button. It's almost startling. Then immediately the voice would say [for example], "Forty-five cents please. [pause] Please deposit forty-five cents for the first three minutes. [longer pause] Forty-five cents please." Dropping a coin during this sequence would shut the recording up. If you wait long enough between coins you get, "Please deposit ten cents" (or whatever is required to complete the total requested). When you have complied, you get "thank you" and your call goes through. If you put in too much from not having the correct change, you would get "Thank you. You have ten cents credit for overtime." Due to the CCS7, this last message is usually spoken over the first ring. The whole procedure has always seemed most unambiguous. The only ringback tone you ever hear is that of the called number. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: wclx@vax5.cit.cornell.edu Subject: Re: E911 Experience Date: 15 Jul 90 16:39:09 EDT In article <9611@accuvax.nwu.edu>, chris@com50.c2s.mn.org (Chris Johnson) writes: > Op: "So you didn't see a knife..." > Me: [exasperated] "No, but these guys are drunk or brain damaged. They are > way out of it. They are scaring the people here..." > Op: "Let me talk to the person who saw the knife." In Detroit, callers who report hearing shots from the house next door (or wherever) are asked HOW MANY shots. If they don't report a large enough number, the report is ignored (ref. Detroit Free Press circa 1980). I guess that reflects local conditions. One afternoon when I was walking along Warren Avenue in Detroit (a major street with fast, heavy traffic), I noticed some confusion at an intersection with Third Avenue (aka Anthony Wayne Drive). The traffic lights were malfunctioning such that for part of the cycle, the lights were green in both directions! There were no police or city workers present. After seeing several very near misses, I phoned 911 and reported what was happening. The operator was unbelievably thick and didn't seem to understand what I meant by "traffic light." After a few go-rounds, I found the trick which woke her up and got her attention: I threatened to give up. This had an almost miraculous effect. Suddenly, all her languor was gone; she begged me to repeat the location, and finally seemed to understand what I was talking about. I didn't have time to hang around to see what happened. The light was fixed by the next day, however. As to stories about 911 screwups that led to fatalities, there was one such in my hometown of East Lansing, Michigan. A student at Michigan State University was hit on the chest with a baseball and eventually died. The emergency response was greatly delayed because the dispatcher had zero familiarity with the MSU campus (which has about 24,000 residents, almost 10% of the county's population) and sent paramedics to Holmes Street in Lansing rather than Holmes Hall at MSU. This happened about ten years ago, long before E911 or automatic address identification in that area. Actually, I'm not absolutely certain whether the student's death could have been prevented if paramedics had arrived more promptly. Lawrence Kestenbaum, wclx@vax5.cit.cornell.edu -OR- wclx@cornella.bitnet 506 S. Albany St., Ithaca NY 14850-5514 ------------------------------ From: "Marc T. Kaufman" Subject: Re: E911 Experience Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University Date: Sun, 15 Jul 90 16:50:50 GMT In article <9694@accuvax.nwu.edu> John Higdon writes: -I will ask the -operator for his/her "operator number" and inform the person that I -will now hang up and call the agency direct if s/he can't help me. If, -after one second, the attitude hasn't rotated 180 degrees, I will do -just that. And then when the smoke clears, I will file a formal -complaint. Better make sure you have two lines. You can't hang up on a 911 call unless the operator lets you. Marc Kaufman (kaufman@Neon.stanford.edu) [Moderator's Note: If one of them tried that -- deliberatly holding up the line to prevent me from calling the police administration line -- I would make note of that also in a formal complaint. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #486 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa19813; 16 Jul 90 2:43 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa16819; 16 Jul 90 1:13 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa19911; 16 Jul 90 0:08 CDT Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 0:04:31 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #487 BCC: Message-ID: <9007160004.ab27537@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Mon, 16 Jul 90 00:04:02 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 487 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Annoying Intercept Behavior [Ken Abrams] Re: Rate Request - No Joy For New York Telephone [John Higdon] Re: The Truth About "Cleaning Pulses" [John Higdon] Re: Last USA Crank-Style Phones to be Replaced [Bob Niland] Re: Answering Machine Security [Steven King] Re: Unauthorized Disconnection [David Ritchie] Re: White House Phone Trivia [Donald E. Kimberlin] Cellular Intercept Quiz [Peter M. Weiss] Wanted: Good DTMF Decoder Schematic With Display [W.L. Ware] Metric Madness (Was: Re: Polish Payphones) [David Tamkin] Telephone Humor & Insulation Testing [Larry Lippman] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ken Abrams Subject: Re: Annoying Intercept Behavior Date: 15 Jul 90 21:17:33 GMT Reply-To: Ken Abrams Organization: Athenanet, Inc., Springfield, Illinois In article <9685@accuvax.nwu.edu> "Jerry B. Altzman" writes: >>The oddity is the way the intercept is implemented. It doesn't take >>place immediately after the last digit - not to mention after the >>exchange, which is possible. Instead, you get two or three normal >>rings and THEN a long, wordy message telling you exactly what you >>should have done. >[complaint deleted...] >>Why would anyone set up intercepts this way? Is it done this way >>elsewhere? "You can please some of the people all the time and all of the people some of the time" ... but when you are the Phone Company, somebody will ALWAYS find something to complain about. I'm not sure exactly what the complaint was since I didn't see it. The whole seven digit number must be dialed because a LOT of people get VERY confused when you interrupt them in the middle of dialing. This varies some depending on the place you are calling from and exactly what kind of invalid number you dialed. Most announcements ring a few times to allow the message to play starting at the beginning instead of "barging in" in the middle. Even digitally recorded messages are usually presented to the network in cycles and wait for the start of the cycle just like mechanical drums. Ken Abrams uunet!pallas!kabra437 Illinois Bell kabra437@athenanet.com Springfield (voice) 217-753-7965 ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Rate Request - No Joy For New York Telephone Date: 15 Jul 90 13:06:16 PDT (Sun) From: John Higdon Jerry Leichter (LEICHTER-JERRY@CS.YALE.EDU) writes: > The saga of New York Telephone's request for a rate increase > continues, with no joy in sight for them. Rates were frozen for three > years back in 1987. With the freeze set to expire at the end of this > year, NY Tel requested a $445 million rate increase. That was > rejected back in March. NY Tel promptly turned around and requested a > $919 million rate increase. Even though we west coast cretins are forced to watch "Primetime Live", "Saturday Night Live", and "Nightline" via tape delay from New York (they even tape "live" events here and show them to us three hours later!), we have an advantage of being able to see a window on our own future. Whatever happens to Nynex starts rumbling across the US on a four to seven year timetable. Last year, you'll recall, Pac*Bell was given the keys to the kingdom by the CPUC. In exchange (no pun intended), Pac*Bell would hold off residential rate increases, remove charges for touch tone, and widen the Zone 1 (local) calling area. The latter two have yet to come to pass. Now we see that the "stabilization" of rates will be a cruel joke. In 1992 or whenever, Pac*Bell will probably stomp into the CPUC with a demand for a 100% increase in residential rates, proposals to drop the last of unlimited local calling, and other pocket-fattening proposals as they deem appropriate at the time. If ever there was a utility that has run amok over deregulation, Pac*Bell it it. In a way, GTE's lack of innovation is a plus. Pac*Bell has shown no end of inventiveness in its ability to extract large amounts of money from its customers, particularly in the areas of 976/900, small business, Centrex, and short-haul toll calls. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: The Truth About "Cleaning Pulses" Date: 15 Jul 90 13:25:50 PDT (Sun) From: John Higdon "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> writes: > If you live in GTE areas, you'll find they now run TX spots > showing people snoozing away in bed, happily confident that GTE is > "testing their lines silently all night." All that happened was GTE > started its ALITs back in automatic mode again! One other aspect of living in a GTE area (other than having my most sincere condolences) is that you will probably get your ear blown off eventually if you talk on the phone late at night. While real telcos will skip busy lines during an ALIT cycle, GTE doesn't seem to deem that necessary. While you are on the phone, suddenly you will hear, "CLICK/CLUNK -- BZZZZT/BLAAAAT". Sometimes you remain connected to your party after all that, sometimes you don't. You sort of ride it out -- like an earthquake. I have a tacit agreement with my friends who call me from GTE areas: since it was their brain-dead company that caused the disconnection, they call me back on their nickel. Preventative Maintenance: Work done by GTE to _prevent_ normal use of equipment. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Bob Niland Subject: Re: Last USA Crank-Style Phones to be Replaced Date: 15 Jul 90 00:08:16 GMT Organization: Hewlett-Packard/FSY Ft.Collins,CO,USA >>"Today," the town of North Falls, Idaho is the last remaining location >>in the United States that still operates hand-crank telephones. > Is this truely the last magneto system? I thought that about a posting > awhile back about magneto systems in Nevada. When I was living in Maine (over a decade ago), the town of Bryant Pond still had crank, and was fighting to keep it. Regards, Hewlett-Packard Bob Niland Internet: rjn@hpfcrjn.FC.HP.COM 3404 East Harmony Road UUCP: [hplabs|hpfcse]!hpfcrjn!rjn Ft Collins CO 80525-9599 ------------------------------ From: Steven King Subject: Re: Answering Machine Security Date: 16 Jul 90 02:14:14 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc. - Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL In article <9686@accuvax.nwu.edu> motcid!wolfson@uunet.uu.net (Steve Wolfson) writes: >Join the 90's and replace your answering machine with Voice Mail which >is password protected etc. If you don't trust a service provider you >can even get one for your own PC. Perhaps some erudite TELECOM >readers can enlighten us on the value of these PC gizmos. Not feasible for everyone. I myself would *LOVE* to have voice-mail. I'm on the modem a lot and miss more calls due to the line being busy than to me not being around. Unfortunately, the switch that serves Palatine (a town on the northwest edge of the continuous suburb surrounding Chicago, for those of you not around here) doesn't have busy-transfer capability. Therefore I can't get it from an outside vendor and the telco isn't offering it themselves. Naturally, a private PC-based system would be worthless in this situation. Not to mention that I've got better things to do with my computer! Yes, a second line would solve my problems, but due to circumstances that aren't really important here I can't get one. Oh well. I'm moving in a month or so, and rest assured the new place will have at least three phone lines for myself and my one housemate. Steve King, Motorola Cellular (...uunet!motcid!king) ------------------------------ From: David Ritchie Subject: Re: Unauthorized Disconnection Date: 13 Jul 90 22:22:41 GMT Organization: Hewlett Packard - Boise, ID > The last point is do I have any course of action? I am out > about $25 due to having to use pay phones and lack of a calling card. > Who can I complain to? You might try calling/writing the regulatory body for the telco in your state. Of course, you may just be wasting a stamp :^>. Another approach that I have used is to talk to a progression of persons, each of which are higher in authority than the last person I talked to. Getting names of persons I am talking to when I first start talking to them also helps in this regard. Keep notes of the conversation. Eventually, you will talk to someone with intelligence and/or who wonders why his/her subordinates could not handle this problem. I have went up as high as four levels this way, but I have never not had a problem solved to my satisfaction. Dave ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 20:42 EST From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Organization: Telecommunications Network Architects, Safety Harbor, FL Subject: Re: White House Phone Trivia (Was: Touchtone History) In article , Roger writes: >I think those same phones are still there ... spotted a photo of >President Bush in the Oval Office ... and there on the desk in clear >view was an TT version of the unit described above. One of the those >big tanks... >The burning question that Telecom readers want answered is: Why >doesn't the President's office have a nice little Merlin (R) or neat >IDSN set ??? The answer may range from the sublime to the ridiculous, Roger. It might be: 1.) The White House Communications Agency still insists the President have something that WORKS -- without fear of silent, unannounced failure or software screw-ups; 2.) The WHCA itself still doesn't know how to maintain anything but good old 1A Key Telephone equipment; 3.) The White House PBX may still be one that requires line interfaces of the type 1A Key provides for multi-line telephones (you'd be surprised how much OLD stuff our Federal offices have ... the age of IBM mainframe computers in government is a well-publicized case in point. 4.) Perhaps President Bush has trouble learning the ropes of software-trickery phones ... maybe even Danny Quayle gets in there once in a while! As to those latter points, I refer you to Gary Trudeau. He'll probably respond in an upcoming "Doonesbury." ------------------------------ Organization: Penn State University Date: Sunday, 15 Jul 1990 16:35:23 EDT From: "Peter M. Weiss" Subject: Cellular Intercept Quiz Well, I just got my first cellular phone and service, and of course have been trying it out. I have come across a couple of anomalies that are driving me batty: (1) When I call from a Bell of PA COT, as soon as I finished DTMFing the local exchange number of the cell phone, it immediately spits back my quarter (this does not happen from a COCOT (more on this later)) without even ringing or any other hint that the call was processed. This occurs regardless of the power on state of the cell phone. The call goes through correctly when calling from Bell of PA single line home/business phones. (2) I placed a call from within my home system to a local number: it rang once, and then seemed to hangup. This occured twice in succession. I verified this later when I actually got through to the called party. (3) When I call from a COCOT to the cell phone, and it is powered off, I get an intercept message from the cell service provider and then the COCOT _eats_ my quarter. It's the latter which concerns me. BTW, this is all local exchange / home system on wireline B. Hints and tips gratefully appreciated. Pete Penn State U, Management Services PMW1@psuvm.bitnet or psu.vm.edu ------------------------------ From: "W.L. Ware" Subject: Wanted: Good DTMF Decoder Schematic With Display Date: 15 Jul 90 16:06:23 GMT Organization: Information Systems and Computing @ RIT, Rochester, New York I am looking for a schematic for a good DTMF decoder with either an LCD or LED display, preferably the later. It needs to be capable of holding at least eleven digits on the screen, and for at around ten seconds, preferably until the next stream of tones come in. Does anyone know of such a beast? Any help/info appreciated. *W.L.Ware LANCEWARE SYSTEMS* *WLW2286%ritvax.cunyvm.cuny.edu Value Added reseller* *WLW2286%ultb.isc.rit.edu Mac and IBM Access. * ------------------------------ From: David Tamkin Subject: Metric Madness (Was re: Polish Payphones) Date: Sat, 14 Jul 90 16:43:00 CDT You wrote in TELECOM Digest, volume 10, issue 478: | Lest we forget: The metric system *is* now the official U.S. system | for standards, and has been for quite some number of years. (The U.S. | inch at some point in the process was re-defined to be *exactly* 2.54 | cm.) It's just that we haven't yet faced up to killing off this | unofficial but pervasive English system of measures... ;-} ;-} One summer during college an acquaintance of mine worked for the Bureau of Standards. She returned in September, saying she had loved her job there. I asked her, "What did you do for them?" She replied, "I sneaked into schools, removed the yardsticks, and left meter sticks in their place." "Susan, how tall are you?" "Five foot four." David Tamkin Box 7002 Des Plaines IL 60018-7002 708 518 6769 312 693 0591 MCI Mail: 426-1818 GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN CIS: 73720,1570 dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com ------------------------------ Subject: Telephone Humor & Insulation Testing Date: 15 Jul 90 00:33:23 EDT (Sun) From: Larry Lippman In article <9677@accuvax.nwu.edu> ah0i+@andrew.cmu.edu (Andrew A. Houghton) writes: > In brief, I have heard that at one time AT&T sent out "cleaning > pulses" in the wee hours of morning to "fuse shorts in the line." Reminds me of the "telephone pranks" friends and I used to pull while in college - like calling people at random, pretending to be from the telephone company, and asking them to place their telephone handset in a bucket because the telephone company was going to "purge moisture from the telephone cables." A surprising number of people actually fell for this. I digress, but the best one was pretending to be from the city sewer department, claiming that there was a sewer collapse, and asking people not to flush their toilet for 24 hours. The clincher on this one was eliciting cooperation by stating: "Now we can't stop you from flushing your toilet, but think about us sewer workers below trying to fix the problem..." :-) > Assuming this is drivel, is there any basis for such a thing? The statement you quoted is nonsense, but there are two factual elements which could contribute to its basis. The first is that ALIT (Automatic Line Insulation Testing) is performed during early morning hours when telephone traffic is at a minimum. In both this forum and sci.electronics, ALIT has been previously discussed because it sometimes causes a "chirp" on cheap electronic telephones. ALIT is strictly a passive measurement procedure. The second is that there is a troubleshooting procedure used to localize high-resistance cable faults on pulp cable using a "breakdown test set". A pair with a high resistance fault is isolated from the CO apparatus and a current-limited voltage of approximately 600 volts DC is placed on the pair. This voltage is usually enough to cause an arc and turn a high resistance fault into a dead short - making it easier to localize. With improved test apparatus such as TDR's, breakdown test procedures are no longer used as frequently as in past years. Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. "Have you hugged your cat today?" {boulder||decvax||rutgers||watmath}!acsu.buffalo.edu!kitty!larry VOICE: 716/688-1231 || FAX: 716/741-9635 {utzoo||uunet}!/ \aerion!larry ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #487 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa13778; 17 Jul 90 3:48 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa08230; 17 Jul 90 1:27 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa02456; 17 Jul 90 0:21 CDT Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 23:50:01 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #488 BCC: Message-ID: <9007162350.ab10077@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Mon, 16 Jul 90 23:49:27 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 488 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Loop-Around Test Lines [Larry Lippman] Equal Access? [Peter Capek] Connections Between Carriers Within a LATA [Peter Capek] Answer Supervision on a POTS Line (Sort of) [Steve Forrette] Re: Electronic Frontier Foundation [TELECOM Moderator] Re: TouchTone(tm) in the U.K. (was Re: Touchtone History) [John Slater] Re: Good For a Laugh: Polish Payphones [John Slater] Re: White House Phone Trivia (Was: Touchtone History) [Henry Troup] Re: AT&T Calling Card Discrimination [Gregg Siegfried] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Loop-Around Test Lines Date: 15 Jul 90 23:23:41 EDT (Sun) From: Larry Lippman In article <9156@accuvax.nwu.edu> the Telecom Moderator writes: > [Moderator's Note: Loops are used to test circuits from a remote > location. As an example, a tester in Kansas City wants to check a > circuit coming from Chicago. He calls the incoming side of a loop in > Chicago and 'loops-around' to make an outgoing call back to Kansas > City. I've never encountered any loop-around circuits which placed *outgoing* calls on the second termination port of the circuit. All loop-around circuits that I am familiar with serve to connect two incoming calls, whether the loop around is terminated as directory numbers in a end office CO, or as a trunk termination code in a tandem office (common codes were 663 for first port, and 667 for second). The use of loop-around circuits in tandem offices has generally been replaced by 104-type (also the dial code) test lines. Loop-around circuits are intended for one craftsperson to make two-way transmission loss measurements on four-wire interoffice trunks or two-wire interoffice trunks with hybrid repeaters. The transmission frequency used is almost always 1,000 or 1,004 Hz. Note that I said two-way transmission measurements because the direction of transmission is changed during the test to obtain two sets of measurements. Two-way measurements obviously cannot be made using a milliwatt test circuit. Two-way measurements are important to assure that far-to-near and near-to-far losses are the same. There are three common variations in loop-around test lines: (1) The two terminations are simply connected together, one after the other. (2) The first termination provides a milliwatt test line, which is disabled when the second number is called, thereby connecting the two terminations together. (3) The first termination provides a milliwatt test line, if it is called by itself, and the second termination provides a balanced termination for noise measurements if called by itself. When both terminations are called at the same time, they are connected together. This is often called a CLA line (Combined Loop-Around). To discourage unauthorized persons from using loop-around lines for "talking purposes", some loop-around circuits are provided with guard circuits which detect speech energy (as opposed to a single tone used in transmission measurement), and force a disconnect. > Other loops may allow a telco employee working outside his/her > regular district to access special codes which only work from one > central office rather than everywhere. As an example, certain loops in > Chicago receive calls on one line, and immediatly grab the outgoing > side and place a call to '611' (repair service). The 611 you get is > obviously not the 611 I get, so if I want to get yours (as a telco > employee authorized to do so), I have to get a line from your central > office. The loop provides this access to dial tone in another office > when it is needed. PT] I've not encountered any of the loop-around variations that are described above. Quite frankly, I am at a loss [>pun alert<] as to why such circuits would be implemented. Transmission measurements using loop-around circuits are *invariably* made from the CO. There are innumerable ways in which a craftsperson in a CO can reach other CO's or test facilities through direct access to an outgoing tandem trunk or other test trunk circuit. Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. "Have you hugged your cat today?" {boulder||decvax||rutgers||watmath}!acsu.buffalo.edu!kitty!larry VOICE: 716/688-1231 || FAX: 716/741-9635 {utzoo||uunet}!/ \aerion!larry [Moderator's Note: For many years, we had loop arounds here in Chicago numbered XXX-9954 and XXX-9955. Call in on 54, it answered and extended dial tone from 55. An auto-dialer would grab the line and dial out '611', and 9955 would place the call for them. Then one day a couple of phreaks ruined it by learning that if they dialed out *before* the auto dialer got started, they could call wherever they pleased, and having satisfied the equipment accepting the outcall from 9955, it would ignore the 611 request by the autodialer. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 01:09:47 EDT From: CAPEK%YKTVMX.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu Subject: Equal Access? I was visiting friends in Queens, New York recently who have elected RCI (Rochester Communications, I think) as their default long distance carrier. I tried to make an AT&T credit card call from their phone (718-544) and repeatedly got the NY Tel operator, who was always happy to connect me with AT&T, but never able to explain why, as soon as I dialed 10 (on the way to 10288), I was diverted. Supervisors were no better; in fact, they argued harder that what I wanted made no sense. I gave up and reported the line to repair as being broken. Was it, or is there a legitimate state of "partial equal access", where RCI could be the default carrier (I confirmed this via 700-555-4141), and AT&T would not be easily available? Peter Capek ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 01:13:48 EDT From: CAPEK%YKTVMX.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu Subject: Connections Between Carriers Within a LATA When there's more than one local exchange carrier operating within a LATA, is service between them provided by a long distance carrier, or by the carriers interconnecting directly, or both? Who drew up the LATA boundaries, and based on what criteria? Peter Capek [Moderator's Note: I do not know how the LATA boundaries were drawn up, but here in Chicago, Illinois Bell simply connects with Centel direct, and vice-versa. IBT's Chicago-Newcastle CO has both 312 and 708 prefixes assigned to it, and calls from IBT's Newcastle office to Centel's Chicago-Newcastle office are local, untimed calls. Centel also has both 312 and 708 prefixes in the same office. David Tamkin is the expert on Centel/IBT <===> 312/708 boundary lines, etc. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Jul 90 22:09:19 PDT From: Steve Forrette Subject: Answer Supervision on a POTS Line (Kind of) Occasionally someone mentions in the Digest about how the telcos refuse to return answer supervision to the originating party. I've discovered something that some of you no doubt are already aware of, but many of you may not know: If you have three-way calling, you can determine when the call supervises. This is a result of a flash not breaking to a second dial tone until the call supervises. For example, let's say I call a certain number. At any time before the person answers, if I flash the line, nothing happens. As soon as the person answers, a flash will obtain the secondary dialtone. At least this is what happens on the 1AESS I'm on. If the call never supervises (no answer, "out of service" recording, etc.), a flash will never obtain secondary dialtone. This seems to work whether the call is local or long distance, although the propagation delay of the supervision back to my originating office is of course longer when calling inter-state. A couple of notes: If you flash after the last digit is dialed, but before the 1st audible "click", the call terminates, and you get a "fresh" dialtone. And, if you call a number on the same switch, there is no period where a flash will be ignored. The call in progress will be terminated if you flash before supervision, or you will get secondary dialtone if you flash after supervision. A couple of questions for you experts: Does this only happen on a 1AESS? Which other switches? Also, what are the "official" minimum and maximum on-hook durations for a flash? Of course, everyone I've tried to ask at Pacific Bell doesn't even understand the question. It's the typical routine - "Sir, I don't understand what you're asking me, and I won't connect you with someone that does. Now how can I help you?" ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 1:07:56 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Re: Electronic Frontier Foundation Two observations -- The first, from a recent Usenet posting by Richard Stallman: Subject: Lotus Wins Copyright Infringement Suit Newsgroups: news.announce.important >In June 1990, Lotus won a suit against Paperback Software, a small >company that implemented a spreadsheet that talks to the user in the >same terms used by 1-2-3; they immediately went on to sue Borland about >Quattro, a spreadsheet whose usual interface has only a few similarities >to 1-2-3, claiming that these similarities in keystroke sequences are >enough to infringe. They have also sued SCO. (quoted only in part) It seems Mr. Kapor can be very aggressive when it comes to protecting what he believes is his property. Lotus sues quite frequently when they are offended, and they seem to be easily offended. I wonder why Mr. Kapor does not feel the same way about software which belongs to telcos? If the documentation for 1-2-3 was distributed far and wide you know Lotus would be all over your case in a minute ... why should the distribution of 911 documentation be different? Why are the people alleged to have ripped off 1-2-3 concepts to be held in contempt and sued, while those alleged to have distributed 911 stuff are treated as folk-heros? Maybe it has to do with whose money is involved, eh? For next: In the flood of press releases received here last week announcing the establishment of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and their plans to defend the civil liberties of computerists -- as EFF and Kapor define those things -- not a word was said about a legal defense for Len Rose. You'd think he would be a prime candidate for their services. And while we are on the subject, Robert Morris could probably use a good appellate-level attorney about now. I guess as usual I don't know what I am talking about. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ From: John Slater Subject: Re: TouchTone(tm) in the U.K. (was Re: Touchtone History) Date: 16 Jul 90 14:09:39 GMT Reply-To: John Slater In article <9673@accuvax.nwu.edu>, iosg::robertsn@iosg.enet.dec.com (Nigel Roberts 0860 578600) writes (with regard to TXE-2 exchanges): >Is there any way it could support TouchTone? (A BT engineer once told >me that there might be some kind of black box which they can add). I believe the TXE-3 was the first BT-installed switch that supported touch-tone (but you had to ask them to switch it on). In theory they can bolt a black box on to anything to give it TouchTone capability, including Strowgers. I don't know whether this is common practice. >And does anyone have a guess as to how long it will be before it is >updated to something modern? (I IMAGINE we've got another 19 years of >pulse dialling to put up with, but I hope I'm wrong ...) I hope so too. My understanding is that if it doesn't do TouchTone, it ain't going to be around much longer (two or three years, max). Then again they might decide to bolt on lots of black boxes instead of replacing the switches. :-( We might be way behind the Americans in offering state-of-the-art services, but at least the UK network is pretty much the same across the country (no hand-cranked phones(!), no non-automatic exchanges, international dialling from _anywhere_, easy and cheap LD access to the entire country). I appreciate that these things are rare in the States, but they are non-existent here. Now if only they'd offer me itemised billing ... >Nigel Roberts (on contract at DEC) That's too bad. We've all got to earn a crust somehow, I suppose. ;-) ;-) John Slater Sun Microsystems UK, Gatwick Office ------------------------------ From: John Slater Subject: Re: Good For a Laugh: Polish Payphones Date: 16 Jul 90 14:50:26 GMT Reply-To: John Slater In article <9668@accuvax.nwu.edu>, rpw3%rigden.wpd@sgi.com (Rob Warnock) writes: >It's just that we haven't yet faced up to killing off this >unofficial but pervasive English system of measures... ;-} ;-} Good luck. We gave up years ago. (Walk into a pub and ask for half a litre of beer, and see how long it takes the rest of the pub to stop laughing). John Slater Sun Microsystems UK, Gatwick Office ------------------------------ From: Henry Troup Subject: Re: White House Phone Trivia (Was: Touchtone History) Date: 16 Jul 90 20:41:09 GMT Reply-To: Henry Troup Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ltd. In article <9761@accuvax.nwu.edu> 0004133373@mcimail.com (Donald E. Kimberlin) writes: >2.) The WHCA itself still doesn't know how to maintain anything but >good old 1A Key Telephone equipment; Nope, a few years ago (3-4?) I saw a newspaper story - maybe trade press - about the installation of a DMS-100/SL-100 on Pennsylvania Avenue to service the White House. Don't recall if it was a PBX or telco, but I remember that special security - at the locked steel door level - was involved. Henry Troup - BNR owns but does not share my opinions ..uunet!bnrgate!hwt%bwdlh490 HWT@BNR.CA 613-765-2337 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 07:05 PDT From: Gregg Siegfried Subject: Re: AT&T Calling Card Discrimination Organization: Siegfried and Associates Consulting Services In article <9738@accuvax.nwu.edu> our Moderator writes: $Before leaving on my trip, I mentioned that I spoke with the Public $Relations Department at AT&T to obtain a reponse from them regarding $their practice of illegally red-lining, or discriminating in the use $of their calling card. $[...] $Anyone, that is, unless you are a Mexican living in southern $California wanting to call home from a payphone at the place where you $live ... or if you are an Israeli or Iranian citizen at JFK trying to $call home before you board your flight. Then, the presumption by AT&T $is you are likely to be committing fraud, so your call will not be $processed. It is my impression that the "redlining" of various high-fraud areas by AT&T is more for their customers' protection than their own. The concern is that there are many people hanging around these areas trying to 'spot' credit card numbers as they're used to make calls. Disallowing the use of credit cards in these areas has a twofold effect ... First, since you cannot use your credit card, an insidious individual cannot spot it as you make a call, and second, the thief with a stolen credit card number cannot use it in that particular area as a "long distance reseller" as is the practice. As such, I believe a class-action suit would be overkill. You may argue that it is your right to give your credit card number away to an onlooker if you feel like it, and to a certain extent I agree. On the other hand, since the telephone company usually ends up footing the bill for fraud ("Hey! I didn't make these calls! Take them off my bill."), you can hardly blame them for taking such minimal measures to cover their backs. Gregg Siegfried Siegfried and Associates Consulting Services grs@sacs.wa.com -------------------------------------------- {att,nwnexus}!sacs!grs +1 206 882 0879 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #488 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa14125; 17 Jul 90 4:12 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab06684; 17 Jul 90 2:34 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab08230; 17 Jul 90 1:27 CDT Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 0:53:34 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #489 BCC: Message-ID: <9007170053.ab17757@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 17 Jul 90 00:52:19 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 489 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Telecom Peeves [Glenn R. Stone] Re: Telecom Peeves [Steven King] Re: Touchtone History [Jay Maynard] Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA [David E. A. Wilson] Re: TouchTone(tm) in the U.K. (was Touchtone History) [Fred R. Goldstein] Re: Cleaning Pulses [Nickolas Landsberg] Re: Cleaning Pulses [Charles Hawkins Mingo] Re: Cleaning Pulses [P. Knoppers] Re: Help with Rotored Lines / Rack Mounted Modems [Doug Faunt] Re: Info on Hotel PBX's Wanted [Blake Farenthold] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Glenn R. Stone" Subject: Re: Telecom Peeves Date: 16 Jul 90 17:02:39 GMT Organization: Dead Poets Society In <9729@accuvax.nwu.edu> claris!netcom!ergo@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Isaac Rabinovitch) writes: >About a year ago, one of those yuppie electrotoy catalogs featured a >phone with *no* mouthpiece; it gets your voice from jawbone >vibrations! DAK sells walkie-talkies built on the same principle. I >dimly recall seeing a TV article on the invention of such technology > -- this was long ago, and it's original use was for helicopter >intercoms during the Vietnam War. Never seen it in stores, though, >and I've no idea whether it actually works. Heh. This idea goes back to WWII, when standard Navy issue was a throat mike... you can see 'em if your local TV station syndicates "Black Sheep Squadron" (usually late nite). They hadn't come up with the idea of a noise-cancelling mike yet, and it was/is pretty hard to soundproof against 2000+hp and a thirteen-foot prop going near-transonic an armspan or two from your nose (in the case of the Corsair). I've never heard one in action, so I don't know how well it worked, but it seems to have got us thru the war, so there must be something there. Glenn R. Stone gs26@prism.gatech.edu ------------------------------ From: Steven King Subject: Re: Telecom Peeves Date: 16 Jul 90 16:53:23 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc. - Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL In article <9718@accuvax.nwu.edu> John Higdon writes: >roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes: >> Do double-hearing people >> find that noise in the non-phone ear is a real problem, or does the >> brain automatically just filter it out? >The brain filters it out. It is very amusing to watch people in a >noisy location jamming a finger in the opposite ear. That technique >does little good when the real problem is noise entering through the >mouthpiece. At one of my transmitter sites, there is a standard phone >that I have been too lazy to modify. When making calls in the noisy >room, covering my other ear has virtually no effect on >intelligibility, but cupping my hand over the mouthpiece makes all the >difference in the world. Speak for yourself. The mouthpiece on the phone at home picks up much less ambient noise than my other ear does. I can't vouch for machinery noise (droning fans and whatnot) but jamming a finger in my ear helps considerably in blocking background conversation. Actually, those of us with stereoscopic hearing (holy mixed metaphors, Batman!) can filter out a great deal of noise coming in the other ear, just like you sucessfully filter out the image of your nose that one eye sees when looking to the extreme right or left. It's only in extreme circumstances (like a raucous gaming run going on in the background) that I have to block the other ear. Steve King, Motorola Cellular (...uunet!motcid!king) ------------------------------ From: Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard Subject: Re: Touchtone History Reply-To: Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard Organization: Confederate Microsystems, League City, TX Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 11:44:02 GMT In article <9706@accuvax.nwu.edu> drivax!marking@uunet.uu.net writes: >) It was probably a Department of Defense phone. These phones looked >) like touch-tone, made noises *similar* to touch-tone, but were on the >) private DOD Autovon network. >Each of the buttons makes two tones, one based on row and one based on >column, selected so as not to be harmonics of each other. (Hence >*Dual* Tone Multi Frequency.) The frequencies are: > 1209 1336 1477 1653 Hz > 697 Hz 1 2 3 A > 770 Hz 4 5 6 B > 852 Hz 7 8 9 C > 941 Hz * 0 # D >Most phones don't use the last column, but CCITT defines it. You'll find that almost all amateur radio DTMF keypads have the fourth column in place; those tones are extensively used for remote control purposes on amateur VHF/UHF-FM. The DOD keypads did use the standard CCITT DTMF tones. I know of several hams who have surplus four-column DOD keypads, and use them interchangeably with the regular kind. They're nice, too, being backlit and easy to see in the dark. The fourth column is labeled Fo/F/I/P instead of A/B/C/D, for Flash Override, Flash, Immediate, and Priority. Instead of * and #, it has a five-pointed star (general priority? :-) and A (no idea what this one's for). Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL jay@splut.conmicro.com ------------------------------ From: David E A Wilson Subject: Re: Touchtone Fee Abolished in CA Date: 16 Jul 90 01:07:15 GMT Organization: Dept of Computer Science, University of Wollongong, Australia Touchtone may be cheaper than pulse dialing in terms of the equipment required to process it and the time it takes to process the dialing but the exchange must still support pulse dialing. Is this true? If so, it may be the only justification for charging more for tone dialing. Have any exchanges been built/modified so that ONLY tone dialing works? David Wilson ------------------------------ From: "Fred R. Goldstein" Subject: Re: TouchTone(tm) in the U.K. (was Re: Touchtone History) Date: 16 Jul 90 16:21:31 GMT Organization: Digital Equipment Corp., Littleton MA USA In article <9673@accuvax.nwu.edu>, iosg::robertsn@iosg.enet.dec.com (Nigel Roberts 0860 578600) writes... >She went away for four or five minutes and to my amazement came back >with the answer. 'It's a TXE-2' she said. Full marks to Sarah for >this. >What exactly is a TXE-2? (My guess is that it's a magnetic reed type >exchange). According to a person here who used to be involved with a large European switch maker, the TXE-2 is indeed an early electronic-control exchange using electromechanical matrices. It's not as "smart" as a 1ESS; the control is more on the order of wired logic than a CPU. >Is there any way it could support TouchTone? (A BT engineer once told >me that there might be some kind of black box which they can add). Probably, if they bothered to insert the registers, but that doesn't mean they usually do. I don't know too much more about the beast; the TXE series was an improvement over Strowger but is certainly not up to today's standards. The electronic control probably makes it a lot more reliable than a traditional WECo crossbar! Fred R. Goldstein goldstein@carafe.enet.dec.com or goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com voice: +1 508 486 7388 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 12:18:39 EDT From: Nickolas Landsberg Subject: Re: Cleaning Pulses Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories In article <9677@accuvax.nwu.edu> Andrew Houghton writes: >In brief, I have heard that at one time AT&T sent out "cleaning >pulses" in the wee hours of morning to "fuse shorts in the line." >Assuming this is drivel, is there any basis for such a thing? >Just wondering, This comes up periodically, so let me dust off the old brain cells and try to come up with a semblance of the truth - All(?) Electronic switches and most electro-mechnical switches can be programmed to run a test or series of tests on the subscriber loop. Generically, these are called Automatic Line Insulation Tests (ALIT). There are three types of tests which may be performed: FEMF (Foreign EMF, a.k.a. Cross Battery), SRG (Short and Ring Ground), and TRG (Tip and Ring Ground). The one which I am most familiar with (being an old Outside Plant type) is the FEMF. In theory, especially if paper insulated cable is still in use, any moisture in the cable will condense at night and reduce the insulation resistance. Moisture will tend to congregate at a low spot in the cable, thus reducing the resistance of a number of subscriber pairs at once. This argument is probably specious in PIC (Plastic/polyethelene ? Insulated Cable. Running the tests also competes with providing dial-tone, thus, the switches are programmed to run the test at night. The telephone number of lines which failed the test are printed out on the maintenance channel of the switch. In some companies, this channel is also monitored by yet another computer system which translates the telephone number to cable & pair, and, in some cases performs yet another test to verify that the condition is still there. The voltage applied during testing has nothing to do with "cleaning pulses" or to "fuse shorts on the line." About the only thing I saw which would "fuse shorts" is a "630" set. (630 Volts DC applied to the line.) P.S. Does anyone know if these are still in use? It's been years since I left the Outside Plant Dept. Nick Landsberg ------------------------------ From: Charles Hawkins Mingo Subject: Re: Cleaning Pulses Date: 16 Jul 90 01:51:10 GMT Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA In article <9677@accuvax.nwu.edu> ah0i+@andrew.cmu.edu (Andrew A. Houghton) writes: >In brief, I have heard that at one time AT&T sent out "cleaning >pulses" in the wee hours of morning to "fuse shorts in the line." "At one time?" I get half second chirps on my AT&T phone around 1 AM, usually once or twice a week. I had assumed it was the local phone compant (C&P) since they had warned me of middle of the night interruptions in service last March, when they apparantly replaced the local switch. It sounds like someone is phoning you, and changing their mind real quick (fraction of a ring). Charlie Mingo Internet: mingo@well.sf.ca.us 2209 Washington Circle #2 CI$: 71340,2152 Washington, DC 20037 AT&T: 202/785-2089 ------------------------------ From: "P. Knoppers" Subject: Re: Cleaning Pulses Date: 16 Jul 90 14:02:51 GMT Reply-To: Peter Knoppers Organization: Delft University of Tech, Dep. of Electrotechnical Engineering In article <9677@accuvax.nwu.edu> ah0i+@andrew.cmu.edu (Andrew A. Houghton) writes: >X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 479, Message 5 of 14 >In brief, I have heard that at one time AT&T sent out "cleaning >pulses" in the wee hours of morning to "fuse shorts in the line." >Assuming this is drivel, is there any basis for such a thing? Yes and no... The yes part: Phone companies (at least in The Netherlands) regularly test subscriber lines using voltages up to several hundreds of Volts. Subscriber equipment is designed to survive such tests. The tests are carried out with no (or almost no) human supervision. Lines that happen to be in use during the test are skipped. The no part: I don't think that the phone company expects to cure faults in the isolation of the subscriber loops. It might work for a while if you are lucky, but the line will never become reliable again. The aim of these test is to detect problems before regular service is hampered. P. Knoppers, Delft Univ. of Technology, The Netherlands, knop@duteca.tudelft.nl ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Jul 90 20:51:39 -0700 From: Doug Faunt N6TQS 415-688-8269 Subject: Re: Help with Rotored Lines/ Rack Mounted Modems It turns out, that the way to busy-out a bad modem in a T2500 rack-mount system is to pull the modem out of the rack, and send it in to get it fixed, presumably. This can be done on a running card cage with no problems. If you could get someone to flip a switch, you could get them to pull a card. Another solution is to check out various styles of "call distribution". We have a ATT Systme 75 here at cisco, and one of the styles of call distribution is called "uniform call distribution". It tries to route the next call to a group to the least-used line available, but never the same line as the last call, so if there's a bad modem, the user just hangs up and redials, and gets a different line. Bad modems are indicated pretty reliably by various statistics that our, cisco, terminal servers keep. I don't know if "UCD" is available from central offices, however. good luck, faunt@cisco.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 15:27:16 CDT From: Blake Farenthold Subject: Re: Info on Hotel PBX's Wanted In-Reply-To: message from davep@u.washington.edu >The system would then ring the room. If there was no answer, it could take a >voice mail message,...activate the guest's message light, and allow the guest >to retrieve the message, as though the guest had a personal answering >machine [now for today's Farenthold telecomm horror story] A service similar to what you described is/was in place at the Westin Gallaria in Houston. If there was no answer in your room you'd go back to the operator who'd ask if you wanted to leave a message. If so, she'd then transfer you to a voice mail box which recorded your message and was SUPPOSED to light up your message light. There were several problems with this arrangement, however. The most annoying was it didn't always light your message light. I was in the hotel three nights. The first day the system seemed to work fine. I didn't get any messages the second day. The third day my message came on and I had three messages, two of which were datestamped with the previous day. I was HOT. Fortunantly the calls were friends wanting to buy me dinner, not clients ... but it was still a bad showing for the hotel. I felt bad complaining pecause I like to see new technologies expanding new places but it really hacked me off that I missed the message. I think the problem was HUMAN ERROR. There was FAR too much human intervention in the process. When there was no answer instead of going AUTOMATICALLY to the Voice Mail box you went to an operator first. I suspect it was the operator who forgot tt turn on the message waiting light. You also had to go through an operator to retreive my messages ('could you connect me to my voice mailbox please' always got a strange reaction ... not sure if she didn't know the voice mailboxes were their messaging system or if she was surprised I knew their messaging system was a voice mail box. The boxes lacked good prompts so I never figured out how to retrieve saved messages (I wonder what the person who got the message I accidently forwarded thought?) I wonder if my old messages are still there, months later, taking up disk space. On a side note: Our Office phone system is an old ITT 2100. Is there an auto attendant that will work with it that has the 'type in the user's name using the letters on the phone' option? Seems like a great idea for after hours calls. UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!blake Internet: blake@pro-party.cts.com Blake Farenthold | Voice: 800/880-1890 | MCI: BFARENTHOLD 1200 MBank North | Fax: 512/889-8686 | CIS: 70070,521 Corpus Christi, TX 78471 | BBS: 512/882-1899 | GEnie: BLAKE ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #489 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa14841; 17 Jul 90 5:17 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa01802; 17 Jul 90 3:39 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa06684; 17 Jul 90 2:28 CDT Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 1:27:55 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #490 BCC: Message-ID: <9007170127.ab12859@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 17 Jul 90 01:27:38 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 490 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Cellular Intercept Quiz [John Higdon] Re: Cellular Phones Inquiry [Dan Flak] Re: Can One Disable Call-Waiting If *70 Doesn't Work? [John Higdon] Re: Answering Machine Security [Thomas Farmer] Re: C.O. "Secret" Numbers [Charles Hawkins Mingo] Re: Touchtone History [Randy Gregor] Re: E911 Experience [Roy Smith] Re: E911 Experience [Tom Perrine] "911 is a Joke" [Steve Elias] Nicad "Memory" [Steve Forrette] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Cellular Intercept Quiz Date: 16 Jul 90 00:44:56 PDT (Mon) From: John Higdon "Peter M. Weiss" writes: > (3) When I call from a COCOT to the cell phone, and it is powered off, > I get an intercept message from the cell service provider and then the > COCOT _eats_ my quarter. It's the latter which concerns me. Simple, and the subject of a personal campaign. The COCOT has no way of detecting answer supervision, so the internal microprocessor "listens" for voice from the other end. They are pretty good at this, but they can't tell the difference between a "hello" and an "I'm sorry...". There are two ways around it. Give COCOTs answer supervision indication or coin COS lines is one. Not bloody likely to happen soon. The other would be for the cellular provider to preface the recording (indicating that the cell phone is unavailable) with SIT. Most COCOTs are smart enough to know that anything following SIT is advisory and not supervised. And they won't collect the money. I have been trying to get the cellular providers in this area to do that for some time, but I have yet to find anyone who knows what I am talking about. Does this give anyone any ideas about saving money when checking your messages on your machine or voice mail? Oops, did I say that? John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Dan Flak Subject: Re: Cellular Phones Inquiry Date: 16 Jul 90 23:53:26 GMT Reply-To: flak@mcgp1.uucp Organization: McCaw Cellular Communications, Inc, Seattle, Wa There have been several enquiries in this newsgroup on "what is the best cellular telephone to buy"? You do not buy just a cellular telephone. You buy a cellular telephone company. Each area is serviced by two cellular companies. Check out which one suits you best. Ask to see their coverage area. After they show you a map covering the entire state, then ask them to show you a map of where their cell sites are located. Generally speaking, the fewer cell sites they have, the more holes they will have in their coverage, the less reliable their system will be (blocked and dropped calls) and the worse voice quality will be. Pay particular attention to those geographic areas you use most. Take a look at their features. Do they have 24 hour per day customer care? What are their "peak hour" windows? Ask them to explain their "roaming" agreements. (If you plan to stay local, roaming won't be as important to you as to someone who travels out of the area a lot). If at all possible, ask people what they think about their service (take this with a grain of salt, people are 16 times more apt to gripe than to praise). As for the hardware, you are open to a lot of choices. Almost any reputable company will make good hardware. There are some brand names you should avoid. Ask whichever company you decide to go with (call them direct, don't rely on a resaler's word) what they think of brand so-and-so. It's amazing how the same few brands always wind up on the bottom of everybody's list. Have your mobile unit installed professionally. If you are serious about having the best service possible, get a roof mounted antenna. You may get away with a glass mounted antenna if you stay within well covered areas at all times. What is best for you depends very much on what your needs are. One company may have great coverage everywhere except where you need it. The other company may have spotty coverage, but cover the areas that are important to you well. You may need a 3/4 wavelength antenna on the roof of your car, or you may remain so well within the coverage areas that a portable, laying horizontal six inches above the pavement in the map case of a metal door on your car will work. (Mine does! As an engineer, I am stumped as to why I receive a signal at all under those conditions). The choice of the cellular carrier, and the quality of the installation are far more important than what type of terminal equipment you buy. Dan Flak - McCaw Cellular Communications Inc., 201 Elliot Ave W., Suite 105, Seattle, Wa 98119, 206-286-4355, (usenet: thebes!mcgp1!flak) ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Can One Disable Call-Waiting If *70 Doesn't Work? Date: 15 Jul 90 23:37:06 PDT (Sun) From: John Higdon ncoast!fmsystm!macy@usenet.ins.cwru.edu writes: > A personal note: GTD-5's ... they had a lot of potential, but GTE > never really got around to making them 100% right. It's just the NeverEndingStory of GTE. What DO they make 100% right? 80%? 40%? How about 10%? > All the programming types are now in Ft Wayne or elsewhere and > heaven forbid any of those people should talk to a lowly member of the > public about GTE's all to frequent programming problems. As a > contrast, I regularly talk to software types at Ohio Bell, Alltel and > United ... they make mistakes, but I can usually get to someone and get > them corrected. With GTE it takes threats of PUCO complaints (which I > am prepared to do ... I keep logs of all this crap). This is significantly at the heart of why GTE is the way it is. (Gee, I had to struggle with that last sentence. This IS after all a family forum.) In my 30 or so years dealing with GTE, I have yet to talk to a single person who knows anything about -- well, er, anything. Front line people will "get back to you" at some time in the future. You can spend a great amount of time explaining the difficulty and then days later discover that the person you talked to had no concept of what you were saying and as a result your trouble was dismissed by the interior people. They NEVER let you talk to a real person. My own personal belief is that they don't exist. In contrast, there are many people at Pac*Bell who have, over the course of the years, given me their internal phone numbers. These are real people: programmers, CO maintenance people, upper level administrators. Some of them even communicate via e-mail. It is very interesting to actually speak to the person who will be making the decision concerning a cutover in my CO. As Macy points out, these people can make mistakes, but when there is communication the problems can ultimately be solved. Let's face it: an LEC is in the communications business. But when you deal with GTE, that fact is obscured. I have a data circuit -- one end terminates in Campbell (Pac*Bell) and the other end terminates in Los Gatos (Gee Hee Hee). I'll skip the fact that every single failure has been involved with the Los Gatos end. I have trouble numbers for both companies. Guess who I call and why. Even though the trouble is always in Los Gatos, I find that the Pac*Bell people can actually get GTE out of bed (something I can't do if I call the GTE repair number), off their butts, and on the problem. Pac*Bell people keep me advised of progress, make sure everything is OK, and give me internal callback numbers in case I have any unscheduled questions. GTE, on the other hand, asks if someone will be there during business hours (a godforsaken unattended mountaintop site) and then not another word is heard. Callback number? 611. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Thomas Farmer Subject: Re: Answering Machine Security Organization: Actrix Public Access UNIX, Wellington, New Zealand Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 09:14:21 GMT I know of some people who have extensively hacked into at least one voice mail system. It wasn't hard ... all new accounts default to a password of 0000. Most people don't bother changing them. Password length is limited to four digits unlike some other systems. Irony: One of the hacked voice mail boxes (with a password of 0000) belonged to a computer security consulting company!!!! :-) mail: tfarmer@actrix.co.nz (I think) ------------------------------ From: Charles Hawkins Mingo Subject: Re: C.O. "Secret" Numbers Date: 16 Jul 90 02:11:43 GMT Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA In article <9705@accuvax.nwu.edu> drivax!marking@uunet.uu.net writes: >A friend from Florida once had a phone installed and they neglected to >tell him the number. *Of course* they couldn't look up a new service >without the number, and Southern Bell told him he'd have to wait until >the first bill came. He was saved by a wrong number - the caller was >kind enough to tell him what number he was trying to reach. Of course you could just call directory assistance, and ask for your own number. When I moved to Washington two years ago, C&P told me my number when they installed the service. After a few days of not getting any calls, I dialed my number, and found it was out of service. I called directory assistance, and found out that C&P actually gave me a different number. Just another C&P horror story. Charlie Mingo Internet: mingo@well.sf.ca.us 2209 Washington Circle #2 CI$: 71340,2152 Washington, DC 20037 AT&T: 202/785-2089 ------------------------------ From: paralogics!compsm!rlg@uunet.uu.net (Randy Gregor) Subject: Re: Touchtone History Date: 16 Jul 90 08:01:21 GMT Organization: Computersmith, Los Angeles In article <9618@accuvax.nwu.edu>, boulder!boulder!bobk@ncar.ucar.edu (Robert Kinne) writes: > Autovon phones had (have still, as far as I know) a 4x4 key matrix > instead of the 4x3 on conventional DTMF. And in article <9706@accuvax.nwu.edu>, drivax!marking@uunet.uu.net (M.Marking) writes: > Each of the buttons makes two tones, one based on row and one based on > column, selected so as not to be harmonics of each other. (Hence > *Dual* Tone Multi Frequency.) The frequencies are: > 1209 1336 1477 1653 Hz > 697 Hz 1 2 3 A > 770 Hz 4 5 6 B > 852 Hz 7 8 9 C > 941 Hz * 0 # D > > Most phones don't use the last column, but CCITT defines it. Many of the commercial DTMF generator chips have (or at least did have) the extended fourth column capability - it's just not used much (if at all) in consumer applications. I have a phone manufactured in 1979 with a Mostek MK5092N tone generator (same as National Semiconductor TP5092). To get the column four tones, I added a SPDT switch to select between pins 5 and 9, thus toggling the third physical keypad column between "normal" column 3 tones (1477 Hz) and extended column 4 tones (1633 Hz, according to National's Linear Data Book). Randy Gregor uunet!paralogics!compsm!rlg +1 213 477 4338 Computersmith Box 25d Los Angeles, CA 90025 ------------------------------ From: roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) Subject: Re: E911 Experience Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 17:46:04 GMT This is getting a bit off the telecom track, but I once had an odd experience with non-believing emergency folks. About seven or so years ago, I was walking on 42nd St and 9th Ave in New York. The Transit Authority had recently started buying buses with dot-matrix destination signs, and the one I saw was flashing "Emergency", "Call Police", "Get Help" or something like that. Clever, I thought, and ran across the street to grab two cops standing around. "Hey, the sign on the bus says to call the police!" I said. "Huh? What sign on the bus? What are you talking about?" You can guess the rest; I had to practically push the cops in front of the bus before the believed me or had any idea what the hell I was talking about. The TA had a good idea putting emergency buttons where the driver could hit it discretely (and this driver had done so by accident in this case) but apparantly never got around to telling the Police Department about it (or, I would guess, the 911 folks). Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy ------------------------------ From: Tom Perrine Subject: Re: E911 Experience Date: 16 Jul 90 18:29:40 GMT Reply-To: Tom Perrine Organization: Logicon, Inc., San Diego, California With all of the negative 911 experiences being described, I thought I would mention that, at least here in a backwater :-) of Pac Bell land (Poway, near San Diego), 911 works! The across-the-street neighbor's kids were visiting from college. They parked their 60's vintage VW bus in front of our house. A passer-by knocked on our door, "your van is on fire". My wife called 9-1-1, I grabbed the kitchen extinguisher and headed out the door. I could hear the fire sirens before I got to the curb. (The fire station is eight blocks away.) Apparently the 9-1-1 conversation went like this: 9-1-1 OP: "What kind of emergency?" SO: "Fire" (1-ring) Fire? OP: "Are you calling from ?" SO: "Yes, its a car fire in front of our house" (Five to ten second pause, then sound of sirens in the background) Fire OP: "They are on the way", followed by questions about the fire, is everyone out, was anyone hurt, etc. Shazamm! I guess this is exactly the way its supposed to work. Side Note: Even though the fire fighters were on the scene within three minutes of the call, the van was a total loss. The kids had replaced the fuel line with aquarium tubing "because it was cheaper". According to the fire fighters, this accounts for more VW bug and van fires than any other cause. Tom Perrine (tep) |Internet: tep@tots.Logicon.COM Logicon |UUCP: nosc!hamachi!tots!tep Tactical and Training Systems Division |-or- sun!suntan!tots!tep San Diego CA |GENIE: T.PERRINE |+1 619 455 1330 ------------------------------ Reply-To: eli@pws.bull.com Subject: "911 is a Joke" Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 07:58:35 -0400 From: Steve Elias John Higdon wrote: > Calling 911 about once a year for assorted emergencies has resulted in > prompt, efficient service. But I have a contingency plan for that day > when I get the response that you have described. I will ask the > operator for his/her "operator number" and inform the person that I > will now hang up and call the agency direct if s/he can't help me. If, > after one second, the attitude hasn't rotated 180 degrees, I will do > just that. And then when the smoke clears, I will file a formal > complaint. Depending on where you live, John, you might find that when the smoke clears, you have no desk, no paper, and no house from which to file a complaint. Or perhaps no health to file a complaint. I imagine that San Jose has reasonable 911 services, but in many cities, it's true that "911 is a joke." Why should they hurry when it's "just another gang murder"? eli ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 15:58:32 PDT From: Steve Forrette Subject: Nicad "Memory" Can someone recap the discussion of "memory" in nicad batteries? I'm having a problem with my HT5300 AT&T cordless phone. I had it unplugged for about two months, and like a dummy didn't disconnect the battery in the handset. So, I assume that it was on standby (since it was off the base for awhile), and totally discharged the battery. This is bad news, right? It's been charging for over two days, and reads only 2.65 volts. The battery is rated at 3.6V, 720mAh. When I take the handset off the base, the LO BATTERY light comes on, and none of the keys do anything. Any thoughts? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #490 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa14977; 17 Jul 90 5:28 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab01802; 17 Jul 90 3:43 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ac06684; 17 Jul 90 2:34 CDT Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 2:12:53 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #491 BCC: Message-ID: <9007170212.ab14285@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 17 Jul 90 02:12:32 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 491 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson CMU Story and Warning [James Price Salsman] Telephone Hints from Magneto Days [Larry Lippman] Magneto Telephones [David Barts] Fun With ANI [John Higdon] College Pranks [Bill Parrish] Re: Telephone Humor & Insulation Testing [Paul J. Zawada] Telephone "Plant Management Systems" Query [Velu Sinha] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 10:17:22 -0400 (EDT) From: James Price Salsman Subject: CMU Story and Warning Organization: Carnegie Mellon Since many people in educational establishments read this sort of thing, I thought I'd relate a story from my freshman year here at Carnegie Tech, along with a warning that might help others prevent what happened to me. I enrolled late, and after freshman camp, my first exposure to dormitory life came as temporary housing in the lounge of Scobell Hall, a dorm dating back to the early 30's or so with plenty of interesting wiring history. I was not a typical freshman hacker type; even for Carnegie Tech, I had been a bit more acquainted with the telephone system than most of my peers ... OKAY, I admit it, I used to blue-box off a CAMA trunk in the 303 NPA and had been known to dial into the occasional Plovernet or similar "phracker" BBS, including a particularly interesting one known as "Farmers of Doom." F.O.D. was operated by someone by the name of Mark Tabas who said that he had re-wired a payphone into a defunct extension in his home, and conned the CO into adding another line to the pay phone. While I'm not sure if this was true, the F.O.D. extension number *was* similar to that of all the local payphones (NNX-99XX). Later, after F.O.D. had some sort of legal difficulties, -99XX was changed to -2600. Anyway, I had put all the hacking nonsense behind me when I enrolled in Carnegie Mellon: I was there to learn. But to my dismay I discovered that the "temporary" room in which I had been placed and which the housing service indicated would probably be my abode for the next four to eight weeks was missing a proper telephone connection. This was quite distressing, so I decided to investigate to see if anything could be done. It turned out that the temporary room had a wall socket, and an extension had been assigned to the room in the R.A.'s phone plan, so it seemed to just be a case of a wiring connection that needed help to be completed. I explained all this in extreme detail to the Dean of Housing, who seemed more impressed with my technical prowess than willing to act on the problem: he explained that many of the people in temporary rooms lacked telephone service, and the fact that my name was on the end of the list for permanent housing was simply an unfortunate feature of my college experience that I would benefit from having to live with. I didn't agree, and neither did my Resident Assistant. After securing his permission, and the permission of my neighbors so that I could bridge our lines if there was no active line ready to be connected to my room, I bid myK*$a"*E"[) Chem-E roommate goodbye and set off to correct the oversight of the workers who last hacked on Scobell Hall. The low-voltage wiring boxes were unlocked and clearly marked: I had no trouble locating my room's extension. I did have trouble, however, trying to understand the purpose of the adjacent wiring. After determining that the rooms assigned centrex extension was probably never turned on, I started to bridge by line into my neighbors. As soon as I had finished the nearly imperceptible job, a horde of fire engines pulled in to Margaret Morrison Street with sirens blaring and lights flashing. I was stunned. I knew where the fire circuits were, and had carefully avoided them except for a single high-resistance voltage meter check with. Certainly no audible alarms had gone off in the building, and the signal was such that even the firemen seemed clueless as to their precise destination. How I avoided panic, I don't know. I removed my encriminating bridge and returned to my room, relating to my R.A. that I, as the obvious culprit, would simply have to turn myself in. That opportunity presented its self shortly when the everhelpful CMU Campus Police arrived to investigate. Names were taken, stories were told and re-told. The next day I was placed on housing probation for a full semester: another infraction and I would have been evicted! The alarm had been declared an error in the City equipment by the Fire Department; if it hadn't I would have learned about the pleasures, nay, the relative paradise of off-campus housing much sooner. The day after that, my roommate and I were moved to a permanent dorm room. The next semester, I was arrested by the Secret Service, but that's another story for another time. MORAL: Campus Telecom Administrators Everywhere, I urge you: please make sure that all emergency wiring is clearly labeled as such, and that terminal boxes are padlocked ... hackers will be hackers, and it doesn't take a phone phreak from Carnegie Tech to cause far more problems than you would ever want, and remember: An Ounce of Prevention is worth a Gallon of Cure. :James Salsman ::Carnegie Mellon [Moderator's Note: I'll try to remember tomorrow to relate the story of how I spilled a soft drink on the switchboard at UC. I was very mortified by the experience, but the repairman who came out (it was a Sunday afternoon) didn't snitch on me to the phone room supervisor, so it went mostly undiscovered, although the regular operator who sat at that position complained the next day that something seemed wrong. PT] ------------------------------ Subject: Telephone Hints from Magneto Days Date: 16 Jul 90 20:27:10 EDT (Mon) From: Larry Lippman In keeping with some of the recent discussion about "the last" magneto telephone exchange, I thought Telecom readers might enjoy a few quotations from a volume in my collection of old books on telephony. The book I have chosen is "A B C of the Telephone" by James E. Homans, copyright 1901, published by Theo. Audel & Co. of New York. At the end of this book is a section on "Telephone Don'ts", quoted as follows: 1. DON'T tap on the diaphragm of the transmitter or receiver with a pencil or other article. 2. DON'T drop the receiver or throw it down; you are apt to break it if you do. The shell is made of hard rubber and is brittle. 3. DON'T experiment with the interior mechanism if you are not posted on telephony. 4. DON'T talk in a loud voice because you do not hear the speaker at the other end of the line very well. 5. DON'T expect satisfactory results when your receiver cord is broken, binding post screws loose, or where the interior contacts have grown poor from want of attention. 6. DON'T expect your telephone to give satisfaction if the batteries are exhausted or connections at binding posts corroded. 7. DON'T expect your telephone to operate if you have forgotten to hangup up the receiver and left the battery on a short circuit for several hours. 8. DON'T place on top of the machine articles of metal. If you do, your telephone may short circuit and you cannot call out to line. 9. DON'T oil the hinges of the bell box. [note: used as contacts] 10. DON'T open the door out of curiosity and then forget to lock it again. 11. DON'T short-circuit the instrument by jamming a lead pencil between the lightning arrester points. 12. DON'T stand too far from the transmitter while talking. 13. DON'T talk loud - it is unnecessary - but talk clearly and not too fast. 14. DON'T blame the telephone if you do not perfectly understand at all times the party on the other end of the line. Remember, that all voices are not alike; some are particularly well adapted to telephone conversation, while others are very unsatisfactory. 15. DON'T complain to the office that your telephone is out of order until you are sure of it. 16. DON'T forget to ring off when through talking. 17. DON'T expect to obtain good results unless you do your share in keeping up the apparatus and the line. 18. DON'T expect the best treatment in the world at the hands of exchange operators if you have given them occasion to put your telephone on the list of "chronic kickers". 19. DON'T waste the operator's time in useless talk. Remember, there are other subscribers to the exchange who also expect her prompt response to their calls. 20. DON'T lose your patience; you are simply powerless, and loss of temper only makes a bad matter worse. If the exchange is not treating you properly, report it, and if no relief is afforded, provided you are in the right, order your telephone taken out. It's hard to believe that there were once simpler times when the ultimate solution to poor service as suggested in #20 could actually be carried out! :-) Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. "Have you hugged your cat today?" {boulder||decvax||rutgers||watmath}!acsu.buffalo.edu!kitty!larry VOICE: 716/688-1231 || FAX: 716/741-9635 {utzoo||uunet}!/ \aerion!larry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 09:05:32 pdt From: David Barts Subject: Magneto Telephones In the late 70's or early 80's, I was on a family trip to Santa Barbara, and we stopped at a rest area along Interstate 40 in the Mojave Desert. The telephone at the rest area looked like a normal Western Electric pay phone, except that it had no dial mechanism and there was a wooden box with a hand-crank magneto mounted beneath the phone. The instruction sheet for the phone was either typed or handwritten and said to announce that you were calling from "Fenner Roadside Box Number 4", after successfully ringing up the operator. (It has been about ten years, so I may not have remembered the name 100% correctly.) It was a cool December afternoon, and the wind was howling across the desert. This must have induced considerable static charges in the phone line, because the phone was ringing almost constantly. Picking up the receiver did not stop the ringing, and the only thing I could hear on the line was a very LOUD, harsh static. I was unable to raise the operator by cranking the magneto, presumably because the static was also causing false ringing on her end and she was deliberately ignoring rings on that line until the wind died down and the static went away. It has been over five years since I have been on that stretch of I-40, and I have never been to the Fenner rest area other than that one time. It would be interesting to hear what has happened to the public phone service there. Perhaps John Higdon has a story or two to tell about the phone service in this area. David Barts Pacer Corporation, Bothell, WA davidb@pacer.uucp ...!uunet!pilchuck!pacer!davidb ------------------------------ Subject: Fun With ANI Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: 16 Jul 90 19:48:11 PDT (Mon) From: John Higdon An OTC pharmacutical company is sponsoring something called "Pollen Trak" (with the same announcer on the machine that did "Weather Trak"). You call the number and you get a pollen report for your area. Based on the ANI data obtained in real time you are given, supposedly, the correct report. It gives me a Sacramento area report; that's hardly useful since San Jose is somewhat outside Sacramento's geographic sphere of influence. If you wish to play, the number is 800 325-5374. Be warned, however, that the way I found out about this was from a news story that talked about people complaining against the junk calls and mail generated by the scooped up ANI. I used one of my Telebit lines to make the call. If they call back they will have to log in! John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Bill Parrish Subject: College Pranks Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 10:31:27 PDT I remember a prank (along the lines of asking folks to put the handset in a bucket) that we used to do in college (this was UCSB around 1970). The dorms were set up so that adjacent rooms shared a junction box for telephone connection. It was fun to call up the folks in the next room, identify yourself as "the phone company", and tell them that their bill was overdue, and that their service was being removed. Next thing to do was to pull on the wire as though the phone company was "pulling back" their instrument into the wall. I had this "pulled" on me once, and had fun doing it a few times myself ... by the way, I don't recommend doing this ... we once damaged some property by having the phone instrument knock something off while skittering towards the junction box! (yup ... we fixed it). It was also fun to call up the phone at the dorm desk (which had no ringer, and was only good for local calls), wait for someone to pick up the phone to make a call, and then say something like "FBI, Surveillance Division, Rutherford speaking", and then act kind of embarassed ... and say something about crossed lines. You could get some interesting reactions. Oh, those college days! And then, there was the Goleta Valley Telephone Cooperative, but that's another story. Bill Parrish / HP Roseville CA [Moderator's Note: Do tell us about the Goleta Valley Telephone Cooperative. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 08:55:21 -0500 From: Paul J Zawada Subject: Re: Telephone Humor & Insulation Testing kitty!larry@uunet.uu.net (Larry Lippman): > Reminds me of the "telephone pranks" friends and I used to > pull while in college - like calling people at random, pretending to > be from the telephone company, and asking them to place their > telephone handset in a bucket because the telephone company was going > to "purge moisture from the telephone cables." A surprising number of > people actually fell for this. I digress, but the best one was > pretending to be from the city sewer department, claiming that there > was a sewer collapse, and asking people not to flush their toilet for > 24 hours. The clincher on this one was eliciting cooperation by > stating: "Now we can't stop you from flushing your toilet, but think > about us sewer workers below trying to fix the problem..." :-) Reminds me of a story I heard about a radio station on the East Cost ... A disk jockey told his listeners that they should put plastic bags over the ear piece on their handset. This was because the phone company was going to "blow the dirt out" of the phone lines with a huge blast of air. People actually started to do this until the phone company protested to the station and demanded a retraction. The next day the disk jockey retracted the statement, saying that he was just kidding. He went on to say that anybody who knew anything about telephones knew they used a high vacuum to suck the dirt out ... Sigh. (This is all from memory, so if anybody remembers this, please correct any errors...) Paul J Zawada | zawada@ei.ecn.purdue.edu Titan P3 Workstation Support | ...!pur-ee!zawada Purdue University Engineering Computer Network ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 12:21:28 -0400 From: Velu Sinha Subject: Telephone "Plant Management Systems" Query A friend is looking for references to (sw) systems which ... . maintain a database of existing phone lines, distribution points, types of cables, what sort of cables connect what points etc . let you view info on phones by clicking on geographic areas/ points, let you update data graphically and get related text data changed, and vice versa . maintain a database of rules telecom engineers use to plan phone networks. . help maintain records, help in preparing estimates for new cabling etc etc This would require significant underlying Geographical Info Systems and DBMS. Are such systems used by Ma Bell or her 'babies'? Any information/references/leads would be appreciated. Thanks for your help. velu@ra.src.umd.edu ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #491 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa08647; 18 Jul 90 3:33 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa19420; 18 Jul 90 1:55 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa11607; 18 Jul 90 0:51 CDT Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 0:44:23 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #492 BCC: Message-ID: <9007180044.ab31321@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 18 Jul 90 00:44:17 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 492 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson AT&T Buys Out WU Telex and Easylink [John R. Levine] NY Telephone Wants Ratepayers to Pay for Charity [Curtis E. Reid] Telephone Apparatus in Hungary [Larry Lippman] Pepsi-Cola Hits The Spot: Switchboard Shuts Down [TELECOM Moderator] Busy-Transfer or Call Forwarding for Modem Line? [Steve Elias] Talking on Phones in Computer Rooms [Steve Elias] Wayne, Pa. is a Routing Center [Carl Moore] Trouble Getting Telephone Service [Volkhart Baumgaertner] Re: Soliloquy on Llama Dung [Jeremy Grodberg] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: AT&T Buys Out WU Telex and Easylink Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 11:33:16 EDT From: "John R. Levine" Since I haven't seen any other references to this here: About a week ago, AT&T agreed to buy Western Union's Telex and Easylink services. AT&T plans to merge Easylink and AT&T Mail, although the details are vague. (Easylink has more subscribers, but it has an incredibly antique user interface and is reputed to run on aging Sperry mainframes.) It's not clear whether AT&T plans to fix up WU's decrepit Telex service or kill it off in favor of e-mail gateways. It also wasn't clear what happens to WU's Telegram and Mailgram services. Most Telecom readers will note the irony here, since the feds forced AT&T to sell WU their TWX service about twenty years ago. Regards, John Levine, johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|lotus}!esegue!johnl ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 09:19 EST From: "Curtis E. Reid" Subject: NY Telephone Wants Ratepayers to Pay for Charity Excerpt from Rochester, New York Democrat & Chronicle, Monday, July 16, 1990: PHONE FIRM WANTS RATEPAYERS TO PAY ITS CHARITY DONATIONS ALBANY - New York Telephone wants its ratepayers to pay for $10 million in contributions to charities, despite a court decision declaring that practice unconstitutional, Attorney General Robert Abrams said yesterday. Abrams said the charity request is part of the record $919 million rate hike request New York Telephone has made to the state Public Service Commission. In May, the state's highest court ruled unanimously that it is unconsitutional for utilities to count chartiable contributions as operating exepenses that can be passed along to consumers. New York Telephone spokesman Peter Muller said the rate request was made while the phone company decides whether to appeal the court decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. If the company does not appeal or the court decides against the company, the money will be refunded, he said. "If (the company) wants to give money to charities and other private organizations, it should come out of company profits and not out of the hides of consumers," Abrams said. Consumers have the right to choose which charities they want to support and not be unwittingly forced to contribute to causes with which they may not agree, Abrams said. He called on the PSC to reject the phone company's request. ------------------------------ Subject: Telephone Apparatus in Hungary Date: 16 Jul 90 18:30:15 EDT (Mon) From: Larry Lippman In article <9042@accuvax.nwu.edu> HANK@barilvm.bitnet (Hank Nussbacher) writes: > Hungary: At the beginning of 1990, the Hungarian Ministry of > Communications split into 3 organizations: telecommunications, postal > and customer services. The telecommunications company is now called > B.H.G. and has signed joined agreements with Northern Telecom. > The current waiting time in Budapest for a phone is thirteen years and > the national average is twelve phone lines per 100 people. It is not surprising to me that the telephone system in Hungary is in rather archaic condition. I have seen some of their telephone apparatus. My involvement in the telecommunications industry probably reached its zenith around 1977 when I was engaged in various international consulting activities, one of which was a project for the government of Egypt (a story for another time). My name as a consulting engineer was bantered about in various circles, and it somehow reached a company in Budapest, Hungary called Budavox. Budavox was a manufacturer of telephone apparatus which served the needs of Hungary and other [at the time] Communist-bloc countries. Budavox manufactured telephone sets, PABX's and CO apparatus. The "director" of Budavox sent me a package of information on their products that they had just printed in English (not too great an English, I might add). It seems that Budavox had learned of the growing interconnect industry in the U.S., and had decided that they wanted to export their goods and enter this lucrative marketplace. What Budavox failed to realize, however, was that in 1977 their products were already archaic and obsolete, and stood zero chance of gaining acceptance in the U.S. interconnect market. Their PABX products ranged from an all-relay wall-mounted unit with two trunks and six extensions (huge, huh? :-) ), to larger all-relay systems to relay-crossbar technology. Their products were reminiscent of Ericcson-Centrum and North Electric, using all "long-frame" style flat-spring relays. Their "crowning glory" was an electronic PABX of which they were just completing development. Unfortunately, this, too, was already obsolete because it used electronic common control circuitry with crossbar switching (shades of the WECO 800-series PABX). Digital PCM PABX's were already on the market by 1977, and here Budavox thought they could penetrate the U.S. market with a PABX that still used crossbar technology! Budavox was trying to proposition me into becoming their exclusive U.S. representative with the intention of finding distributors for their products. If they had a product that was the least bit decent, I might have taken them up on their offer since they were offering all sorts of financial incentives. However, the simple truth of the matter is that I would have been ashamed to promote any of their products in the U.S. marketplace, and I turned them down - *several* times because they kept writing and sending telexes for the better part of a year. While I have no current knowledge of the telephone situation in Hungary, I suspect that Budavox is still the principal supplier of what may still be obsolete telecommunication technology. I would be interested in hearing from any TELECOM Digest readers who have ever heard of or encountered any Budavox products. Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. "Have you hugged your cat today?" {boulder||decvax||rutgers||watmath}!acsu.buffalo.edu!kitty!larry VOICE: 716/688-1231 || FAX: 716/741-9635 {utzoo||uunet}!/ \aerion!larry ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 2:44:14 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Pepsi-Cola Hits The Spot: Switchboard Shuts Down A hot Sunday afternoon in August, 1959. Resentful, I go to work that day from 3:30 <==> 11:30 PM in the UC phone room. Brash sixteen year old that I was, I came traipzing in to work and bid adieu to the two ladies who were grateful to see me five minutes early so they could leave. I worked alone Sunday evenings during the summer, when school was out and phone traffic was minimal. I brought a large paper cup of Pepsi-Cola with me, and had it sitting right next to me -- I knew better -- but was just careless. I'd been there all of five minutes, I guess, when the board got real busy for a couple minutes, and sure enough, my arm accidently knocked over that Pepsi and sent it dribbling down inside the ringing keys on the front panel. The board started buzzing, and lit up like a Christmas tree, various lights blinking off and on, etc. After overcoming the initial shock of what I had done, I moved to a different position to set up shop and immediatly called 611. I talked to a guy who said he would be over in about ten minutes, but in the meantime, 'take that electric heater they keep in the closet and set it up to blow hot air on the underside of the front cabinet on the board, so it will start to dry out ... ' Well, he got there ten or fifteen minutes later, and of course I had gotten rid of all the evidence at that point. This fellow sat there for over two hours -- until sometime around 6 PM that Sunday night as I recall. He never said a word to me; just sat there and picking around at the wires and the contacts. Brash and snotty as I could be, I knew well when it was time to shut up and keep my distance, so I sat on the other side of the room and kept taking calls and running the board, looking over my shoulder every minute or two to see what he was doing. This fellow was about sixty years old at the time; he just sat there silently, stripping wires and occasionally muttering to himself. Finally he packs up all his stuff and said to me, 'You know, if I were to tell Mrs. Henderson about this tomorrow, you'd be in deep trouble.' Mrs. Henderson was the phone room supervisor, and a battle-axe in her spare time. But he never said a word. About six months later I saw him working on the switchboard at the Windermere Hotel (around midnight as I recall; this guy worked strictly what was called 'night plant', taking care of the UC switchboards and the other boards in the area on an emergency basis), and I thanked him for not snitching on me. He said he had done the same thing (spilled a beverage) 'when I worked the switchboard at the Century of Progress Fair back in 1933 ... I was the only one in our family to have a full time regular job during the depression, and if I had lost that job, my family would have gone on welfare ... the guy who came out to fix the board at the fair gave me a pass and didn't say anything about it, so I figured I owed someone else the same favor.' I have never kept anything liquid near phone equipment since. Monday at our office, the kid who functions as file clerk and Fax machine operator spilled his coffee all over the Fax keypad. The serviceman charged a couple hundred dollars to fix it. Junior was appropriatly mortified and spent most of the afternoon hiding in the closed files stacks downstairs. The Chairman walked past while the serviceman was doing his thing: 'what happened?' ... 'I dunno ... I guess these things wear out sometimes' I told him. Everyone has to learn this lesson the hard way it seems: *No beverages around telecom and computer equipment*. Ever. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Reply-To: eli@pws.bull.com Subject: Busy-Transfer or Call Forwarding for Modem Line? Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 07:20:23 -0400 From: Steve Elias Steve King writes that busy-transfer capability is not available in his area. He wants to use it to forward his calls to voice mail when his modem is active. Instead, Steve, if you are originating the modem calls, why not use call-forwarding to forward your calls to voice mail manually, before you dial the modem call? Perhaps your CO doesn't offer call-forwarding, either? ; Steve Elias, eli@pws.bull.com; 617 932 5598 (voicemail) ; 508 294 0101 (SCO Unix fax) ; 508 294 7556 (work phone) ------------------------------ Reply-To: eli@pws.bull.com Subject: Talking on Phones in Computer Rooms Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 08:10:51 -0400 From: Steve Elias Roy Smith mentioned the difficulty encountered while talking on the phone in a computer room; fan noise is picked up an amplified by the handset microphone. One solution might be to try one of those "special" handset microphone adapters which limit the noise that the mike picks up. Hello Direct probably sells these beasties. /eli [Moderator's Note: Hello Direct is a catalog/mail order company specializing in telephone equipment. To get on their mailing list, dial 1-800-HI-HELLO from within the USA. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 0:03:06 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Wayne, PA. is a Routing Center I guess the routing I got via area 215 in my phone calls from Delaware is via Wayne, Pa. (which, by the way, is in area code 215). That is where calls for President Carter's 1977 phone-in were routed if originating in the Washington, DC area (presumably the local area where Carter received the incoming calls). ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 14:30:13 EDT From: Volkhart Baumgaertner Subject: Trouble Getting Telephone Service I have been in the States since August (I am from Germany) and am just trying to get a phone installed (the first in my own name over here). However, there seem to be some problems. I am just about to move, and my new roommate (who is also my landlord) had another roommate some time ago who had a phone in his own name and apparently still owes the phone company about 140 Dollars. When I called Southern Bells customer service here in Columbia (SC) to order my line, my order was taken, but I was told that I could only get my installation if my roommate's former roommate paid his debts. My question is: Does it conform to common practice if the phone company makes my installation dependent on whether a person whom I don't even know pays his bill? Also, I was asked how much I estimated my mothly long distance calls would be. I said that at my old address, where I shared my old roommate's phone, it was usually between 50 and 100 Dollars. After being put on hold for a while, I was told that according to the information I provided the deposit would be 240 Dollars. This seems a bit high to me, for I know that my old roommate, who initially did not have to pay a deposit at all, even after repeatedly not paying his bill in time, had to deposit only 135 Dollars, the amount of the monthly long distance calls being about the same or even a bit higher. I would appreciate any comments on this. Volkhart Baumgaertner BITNET: T720019@univscvm INTERNET: T720019@univscvm.csd.scarolina.edu ------------------------------ From: Jeremy Grodberg Subject: Re: Soliloquy on Llama Dung Reply-To: jgro@apldbio.com (Jeremy Grodberg) In article <9656@accuvax.nwu.edu> 0004133373@mcimail.com (Donald E. Kimberlin) writes: >X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 477, Message 10 of 10 > " LLAMA ALERT! > " We engineers are so good at solving problems that we >sometimes forget to ask if the problem has been posed correctly; we >just solve it. Yet questioning the rationale behind product >specifications can avoid a lot of pointless effort. >[ Story pointing out the specification of treating leather with llama dung > was intended to solve a problem which was no longer relevant ] > " So, on your next project, make sure you know the reason >behind the specs. If you hear, "We've always done it that way," watch >out for llama dung." Unfotunately, I have seen the reverse problem more often: specs which cannot be justified are discarded, and later the reason for the specs is discovered. A great example is when the Bell breakup allowed anyone to make phones. Companies said "What do phones have to look like this?" and created dozens of phone designs that would hang-up when you cradled them on your shoulder, or go off hook when the cat kicked them off the table. The little features of Bell telephones that were added to keep the phone from hanging up when it fell off the table (and was in use) were subtle, and no one thought they were of any importance, so the were canned. Only after several years did the new companies re-learn the lessons. I'm sure there are hundreds of other stories where people couldn't think of why a feature was needed until after it was left out of the finished product. One needs to be equally cautious of this situation. Jeremy Grodberg jgro@apldbio.com "Beware: free advice is often overpriced!" ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #492 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa09921; 18 Jul 90 4:44 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa03435; 18 Jul 90 3:01 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab19420; 18 Jul 90 1:55 CDT Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 1:23:32 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #493 BCC: Message-ID: <9007180123.ab01508@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 18 Jul 90 01:22:48 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 493 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Fun With ANI [Randal Schwartz] Re: Fun With ANI [Dave Levenson] Re: Fun With ANI [Syd Weinstein] Re: Fun With ANI [John R. Levine] Re: Fun With ANI [David Tamkin] Re: TouchTone(tm) in the U.K. (was Re: Touchtone History) [Martin Harriss] Re: The Truth About "Cleaning Pulses" [David Ritchie] Re: Connections Between Carriers Within a LATA [John R. Levin] How Does a Telephone Receiver Work? [Dave Michaels] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Randal Schwartz Subject: Re: Fun With ANI Reply-To: Randal Schwartz Organization: Stonehenge; netaccess via Intel, Beaverton, Oregon, USA Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 17:48:52 GMT In article <9811@accuvax.nwu.edu>, john@zygot (John Higdon) writes: | An OTC pharmacutical company is sponsoring something called "Pollen | Trak" (with the same announcer on the machine that did "Weather | Trak"). You call the number and you get a pollen report for your | area. Based on the ANI data obtained in real time you are given, | supposedly, the correct report. It gives me a Sacramento area report; | that's hardly useful since San Jose is somewhat outside Sacramento's | geographic sphere of influence. | If you wish to play, the number is 800 325-5374. Be warned, however, | that the way I found out about this was from a news story that talked | about people complaining against the junk calls and mail generated by | the scooped up ANI. I used one of my Telebit lines to make the call. | If they call back they will have to log in! Interesting. I called this from a PBX, and it asked me to enter my area code and phone number. I gave it 503 555 1212. It gave me the report for the Portland area. Boy, are they gonna have a fun time calling that number back. :-) Now, telecom experts, why didn't they get the correct number? Is that because I'm in the backwaters of GTE-land, or because I called from behind a PBX? I should try this from home, but I don't want my number to be junk-listed. Just another phoney user, :-) | Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ==========| | on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III | | merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn | ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Fun With ANI Date: 17 Jul 90 11:45:56 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article <9811@accuvax.nwu.edu>, john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > An OTC pharmacutical company is sponsoring something called "Pollen > Trak" (with the same announcer on the machine that did "Weather > Trak"). You call the number and you get a pollen report for your > area. Based on the ANI data obtained in real time you are given, > supposedly, the correct report. It gives me a Sacramento area report; > that's hardly useful since San Jose is somewhat outside Sacramento's > geographic sphere of influence. Just tried it from NJ. It apparently didn't get the ANI, as it prompted me for my phone number. I entered it (908-647-xxxx) and was then given the message for Buffalo (about 500 miles from here!). I know that area code 908 is a recent addition to the geography, but I expected something more helpful than Buffalo! Dave Levenson Voice: 201 647 0900 Fax: 201 647 6857 Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] ------------------------------ From: Syd Weinstein Subject: Re: Fun With ANI Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 11:02:42 EDT Reply-To: syd@dsi.com Quoting John Higdon > An OTC pharmacutical company is sponsoring something called "Pollen > Trak" You call the number and you get a pollen report for your > area. Based on the ANI data obtained in real time you are given, > supposedly, the correct report. I guess the PA ANI ruling is effecting the 800 immediate ANI. I called it and it asked me to key in my area code and phone number. I, of course was on the TB+, so I didn't comply. It gave me three tries and then told me since it didn't receive the tones, it could answer for me and hung up. Therefore, it didn't get ANI from me, so I guess the PA PUC's ruling on wiretapping vs Caller-ID/ANI is now effecting 800 numbers. Sydney S. Weinstein, CDP, CCP Elm Coordinator Datacomp Systems, Inc. Voice: (215) 947-9900 syd@DSI.COM or dsinc!syd FAX: (215) 938-0235 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Fun With ANI Organization: Segue Software, Cambridge MA Date: 17 Jul 90 10:24:31 EDT (Tue) From: "John R. Levine" In article <9811@accuvax.nwu.edu> John writes: >You call the number and you get a pollen report for your area. Based on the >ANI data obtained in real time you are given, supposedly, the correct report. When I called, it asked me to dial my number, so I gave them the number of the time-of-day lady in Boston (which happens to be a normal phone number, not a 976) and they give me the pollen count for New York. Oh, well. I thought that 800 ANI delivery was only implemented for extremely high volume Megacom applications, which this is probably not. Regards, John Levine, johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|lotus}!esegue!johnl ------------------------------ From: David Tamkin Subject: Re: Fun With ANI Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 10:19:00 CDT John Higdon wrote in volume 10, issue 491: | An OTC pharmacutical company is sponsoring something called "Pollen | Trak". Based on the ANI data obtained in real time you are given, | supposedly, the correct report. It gives me a Sacramento area report; | that's hardly useful since San Jose is somewhat outside Sacramento's | geographic sphere of influence. | If you wish to play, the number is 800 325-5374. Be warned, however, | that the way I found out about this was from a news story that talked | about people complaining against the junk calls and mail generated by | the scooped up ANI. Culy trurious. I've heard Benadryl's commercials for the Pollen Trak line but never called until after reading Mr. Igdonhay's submission. Surely ANI is delivered to all 800 numbers, yet it asked me to key in my own area code and telephone number. That's preferable to ANI, for one might call from one place but seek an allergen report for another (say, where a relative lives, or somewhere one plans to travel). I dialed twice to try my Chicago and Park Ridge numbers; for both a report came from meters at Grant Hospital in Chicago (no data from Lutheran General in Park Ridge?) ... for YESTERDAY. Useful, huh? | I used one of my Telebit lines to make the call. If they call back | they will have to log in! If they call me they'll get an impassive voice mail service and their message will be interrupted with the delete key within seconds. David Tamkin Box 7002 Des Plaines IL 60018-7002 708 518 6769 312 693 0591 MCI Mail: 426-1818 GEnie: D.W.TAMKIN CIS: 73720,1570 dattier@ddsw1.mcs.com ------------------------------ From: "Martin Harriss (ACP" Subject: Re: TouchTone(tm) in the U.K. (was Re: Touchtone History) Date: 17 Jul 90 20:57:42 GMT Reply-To: "Martin Harriss (ACP" Organization: Bellcore In article <9673@accuvax.nwu.edu> iosg::robertsn@iosg.enet.dec.com (Nigel Roberts 0860 578600) writes: >This leads me to ask a few questions of the DIGEST. >What exactly is a TXE-2? (My guess is that it's a magnetic reed type >exchange). You are correct. The TXE2 is a crosspoint type switch using reed relay technology. I believe that the TXE2 design is too old to use integrated circuits; it uses discrete transistors. In particular, the control circuits are all hard wired logic (i.e. not program controlled.) >Is there any way it could support TouchTone? (A BT engineer once told >me that there might be some kind of black box which they can add). It could be done, but it would be a real hack. There are two problems with doing it the "right" way (the right way being to add TT receivers to the registers.) Firstly, (see above) the registers are hard-wired. It would be a real pain to modify them. Secondly, the fact that architechturally, the TXE2 is just an electronic step by step system. This is how a TXE2 works: When you pick up a phone you are connected through a series of reed relay crosspoint switches to a relay set. This relay set connects you to two things: the local register, and an outgoing junction to the group switching centre (GSC) - in your case Colchester. Dial tone is now returned to the caller from the local register. When you dial, your dial pulses go to two places. Firstly, they are counted by the TXE2 register. Secondly, they are passed along the junction to the GSC, where they step switches, get put into a register, or whatever, depending on what kind of equipment is at the GSC. In TXE2 parlance, this junction is known as the 'primary route'. After you have dialled the first two digits, the TXE2 register will decide one of three things: 1. The call is going to, or will be routed through, the GSC. In this case, the register releases itself from the circuit and the call proceeds by way of the already connected junction to Colchester. Any further digits that you dial are sent to Colchester without further ado. The register is, of course, now available for other calls. This means that a TXE2 need not store the dialled digits, nor does it have to translate them or pulse them out to another exchange. 2. The call is to your own exchange. In this case, the first two digits you dialled will have been 39. In this case, the register will signal the relay set to release the primary route and proceed to suck in the remaining four digits. After the last digit has been received, a completely new path is set up from your calling line circuit, through the crosspoint switches, through an "own exchange relay set", and back through the crosspoint switches to the called line circuit. The own exchange relay set is then responsible for ring current/tone or busy, as appropriate. 3. The call is to some other exchange to which the TXE2 has a direct route. In this case, after the initial digits are dialled, the route to the GSC will be cleared and a now route set up to the target exchange. Subsequent digits dialled will be sent directly to the target exchange. The 'dual destination' of your dial pulses is what makes it really difficult to add touch tone to TXE2's (Finally getting to the point, here.) Remember, the TXE2 does not suck in numbers and pulse them out again later. Adding TT receivers to the registers is conceptually simple, even if it is a nightmare from an engineering standpoint. The problem is that you have to have some way to convert the touchtones to dial pulses on the outgoing junctions - remember that TXE2's may be connected to GSC's that are still strowger, and cannot directly receive TT. About the best you could hope for would be to connect some kind of black box TT-to-pulse converter at some point along the switching train. But this does not help much, because it takes about as long for said black box to pulse out a number as it does for you to dial it. You might as well have a push button pulse phone. (N.B. The above description is for TXE2's which have linked numbering with their GSC. There are other situations; your milage may vary.) >Are there any more features available on the TXE-2 that we are not >being told about? As you might realise from the foregoing description, the TXE2 is quite a dumb beast, and adding nifty features does not really come within its scope. TXE2 ringback used to be 1267, sometimes 1267105. >And does anyone have a guess as to how long it will be before it is >updated to something modern? (I IMAGINE we've got another 19 years of >pulse dialling to put up with, but I hope I'm wrong ...) TXE2's are pretty reliable, I think. Seeing as how yours is only six or seven years old, it might be around for some time, unless either the requirement for lines goes up dramatically (TXE2's only handle about 3-4000 lines) or if it was second hand when it was put it - maybe as a stop gap measure. You never know with BT. Why not call your friend Sarah? Martin Harriss martin@cellar.bae.bellcore.com ------------------------------ From: David Ritchie Subject: Re: The Truth About "Cleaning Pulses" Date: 17 Jul 90 03:39:38 GMT Organization: Hewlett Packard - Boise, ID >In brief, I have heard that at one time AT&T sent out "cleaning >pulses" in the wee hours of morning to "fuse shorts in the line." >Assuming this is drivel, is there any basis for such a thing? >Andrew Houghton >(ah0i@andrew.cmu.edu) Actually, many switches have an automatic loop quality test that is done on lines in the early morning hours. I had a friend with a cheap phone who complained about this causing his phones to click at 2 A.M. Dave Ritchie [Moderator's Note: *Something* happens here every morning at 1:37 AM. If I am online to Northwestern at that moment, the modem connection is dropped and I have to dial back in. Every day, no exceptions. I do not know if it is Illinois Bell or something at Northwestern. PT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Connections Between Carriers Within a LATA Organization: Segue Software, Cambridge MA Date: 17 Jul 90 09:23:36 EDT (Tue) From: "John R. Levine" In article <9781@accuvax.nwu.edu> is written: >When there's more than one local exchange carrier operating within a >LATA, is service between them provided by a long distance carrier, or >by the carriers interconnecting directly, or both? Within a LATA, the carriers hook up any old way they want. In fact, one LEC may use a second to get to inter-lata long distance carriers. For example, my uncle's phone company in northwestern Vermont has always connected only to New England Tel, with NET forwarding inter-lata calls to AT&T. AT&T recently ran a line directly to his telco bypassing NET -- even though his call volume is pretty small, NET was charging enough that it was worth their while to run a line all the way from Manchester NH. No other LD carrier has asked to be connected to his company, and he doesn't even have billing arrangements with any of them. I keep meaning to call him collect via Sprint so we can see what, if anything happens to the bill. He's not looking forward to equal access, it will be a lot of work and expense, and he expects nearly all of his customers would stick with AT&T anyway, most of them being Vermont farmers. I have heard that in Indiana, all of the independent telcos have banded together to form a peculiar long distance company called Indiana Switch, which is the exclusive LD carrier for all of them. Indiana Switch has a central POP to which all of the other LD carriers can connect. I assume that the telcos pass regular ANI info to Indiana Switch, which looks up the numbers in one central database and routes each call to the subscriber's preferred carrier. In this way, the telcos avoid having to implement equal access locally, except perhaps to reprogram some more modern exchanges to pass 10XXX. Regards, John Levine, johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|lotus}!esegue!johnl ------------------------------ From: Dave Michaels cccc Subject: How Does a Telephone Receiver Work? Date: 17 Jul 90 17:04:14 GMT Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology A telephone handset has four wires going to it, two for mike, and two for speaker. How does the phone merge these two into a full duplex pair of wires? Also, I disconnected the transmitter disc trying to make a 'mute' feature on a phone without one, and discovered my friend can still hear me (at a reduced volume) from the earpiece ... hmm, why? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #493 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa02101; 19 Jul 90 0:56 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa23039; 18 Jul 90 23:12 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa21231; 18 Jul 90 22:06 CDT Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 21:32:29 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #494 BCC: Message-ID: <9007182132.ab07969@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 18 Jul 90 21:32:36 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 494 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Connections Between Carriers Within a LATA [Fred R. Goldstein] Re: TouchTone(tm) in the U.K. (was Re: Touchtone History) [Julian Macassey] Re: How Does a Telephone Receiver Work? [Dave Levenson] Re: Talking on Phones in Computer Rooms [Lou Judice] Re: Die Hard 2 Dies on Telecom [Tad Cook] Re: Cellular Intercept Quiz [Kenny Crudup] Re: E911 Experience [Marc O'Krent] Re: E911 Experience [Clayton E. Cramer] Re: AT&T Calling Card Discrimination [Carl Moore] Re: Help with Rotored Lines/ Rack Mounted Modems [Julian Macassey] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Fred R. Goldstein" Subject: Re: Connections Between Carriers Within a LATA Date: 17 Jul 90 13:51:11 GMT Organization: Digital Equipment Corp., Littleton MA USA In article <9781@accuvax.nwu.edu>, CAPEK%YKTVMX.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu writes... >Who drew up the LATA boundaries, and based on what criteria? The whole Divestiture Thing (as ynk might say it) stems from an ancient lawsuit against AT&T/Western Electric, where the Dept. of Justice, as plaintiff, wanted AT&T to divest WECo. AT&T had other ideas and wanted to get into the computer business. (They were using 3Bs internally and thought many people wanted to pay for them.) So they offered the Reagan Justice Dept. (some new guys there did NOT believe much in anti-trust law, monopolies being the natural order of laissez-faire) a deal: They'd spin off the local telcos in exchange for keeping WECo. and being allowed to enter the computer biz. (They were kept out of it by the 1956 consent decree in essentially the same case.) The original deal gave AT&T _all_ existing "interexchange" calls, leaving only local exchange calls to the divested telcos (who eventually won use of the trademark "Bell"). Jurisdiction in the case then shifted to Judge Greene (it had previously been with the court in Newark), and the "Baby Bells" fought for more. They won back Yellow Pages, and the term "interexchange" was re-interpreted more loosely. The result was the LATA, representing a compromise between AT&T and the Bells. The LATA boundaries were negotiated by the Bells, AT&T, the DOJ and the court. They were intended to allow metropolitan areas to remain intact, and follow natural community of interest lines. A lot of dickering took place; for example, Massachusetts ended up with only two LATAs, but there had been talk of splitting it in three, with Worcester separate from Boston. New York City got a big LATA plus a corridor exception into NJ. While it was pretty much assumed that inter-LATA calls would be competitive, states retain the right to limit the franchise for intrastate traffic. Intra-LATA may be competitive or monopoly, at state option. Interstate is competitive, LATA or not. But default carrier selection was created for inter-LATA calls; intra-LATA calls not via the local carrier may require dialing 10xxx first. Fred R. Goldstein goldstein@carafe.enet.dec.com or goldstein@delni.enet.dec.com voice: +1 508 486 7388 opinions are mine alone; sharing requires permission ------------------------------ From: Julian Macassey Subject: Re: TouchTone(tm) in the U.K. (was Re: Touchtone History) Date: 18 Jul 90 13:53:46 GMT Organization: The Hole in the Wall Hollywood California U.S.A. In article <9784@accuvax.nwu.edu>, johns@scroff.uk.sun.com (John Slater) writes: > We might be way behind the Americans in offering state-of-the-art > services, but at least the UK network is pretty much the same across > the country (no hand-cranked phones(!), no non-automatic exchanges, > international dialling from _anywhere_, easy and cheap LD access to > the entire country). I appreciate that these things are rare in the > States, but they are non-existent here. But in the UK you have two telephone companies (BT and Hull) and you have two Long Distance Carriers (BT and Mercury). Here is the U.S. we have over 1,000 telephone companies - some with about 300 subscribers. Also we have a ton of Long Distance companies - I would guess over 100. There are three major Players, AT&T, MCI and Sprint and tons of others including Cable and Wireless. BT also runs a packet switching company here (BT Tymenet). There a few packet switchers which are seperate from LD carriers even if they are owned by them. So the ancient stuff still around tends to be owned by the "mom and pop" operations. Some of these "companies" have mom as the operator and business office and pop as the CO tech and outside plant lineman. The "CO" is often in the back of the house. > Now if only they'd offer me itemised billing ... Hull Telephone has offered it for a few years. Julian Macassey, n6are julian@bongo.info.com ucla-an!denwa!bongo!julian N6ARE@K6IYK (Packet Radio) n6are.ampr.org [44.16.0.81] voice (213) 653-4495 ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: How Does a Telephone Receiver Work? Date: 18 Jul 90 18:08:39 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article <9841@accuvax.nwu.edu>, dave@mars.njit.edu (Dave Michaels cccc) writes: > A telephone handset has four wires going to it, two for mike, and two > for speaker. How does the phone merge these two into a full duplex > pair of wires? The telephone contains a hybrid (located in a little box often called a network) which is supposed to direct the audio energy from the transmitter toward the line, and energy from the line toward the receiver. A little bit of audio from the transmitter is deliberately 'leaked' to the receiver, so that you can hear yourself (which is often called side-tone). This leakage path is attenuated so that most of your speech-energy is directed to the far end. This attenuation is called trans-hybrid loss. > Also, I disconnected the transmitter disc trying to > make a 'mute' feature on a phone without one, and discovered my friend > can still hear me (at a reduced volume) from the earpiece ... hmm, > why? Your telephone receiver may act in reverse, as a low-level microphone. Your friend can year the signal it generates due to the above- mentioned leakage-path working in reverse. The volume is reduced partially because the receiver is not very efficient as a microphone, and partially because of the deliberate trans-hybrid loss. Dave Levenson Voice: 201 647 0900 Fax: 201 647 6857 Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave [The Man in the Mooney] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 13:52:29 PDT From: "Lou Judice, 908-562-4103 18-Jul-1990 1026" Subject: Re: Talking on Phones in Computer Rooms We've encountered this problem in the past. AT&T sells special handsets for high ambient noise level areas. They also have PTT (Push-To-Talk) handsets. These worked well with our AT&T phone system. They also provide super-loud ringers and strobe-light ringer attachements. All of this is a bit pricey, but in a commercial computer center, you don't need the headache of bad communications or missed phone calls. Lou Judice judice@oakisl.enet.dec.com ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: Re: Die Hard 2 Dies on Telecom Date: 17 Jul 90 16:27:33 GMT Organization: very little In article <9565@accuvax.nwu.edu>, blake@pro-party.cts.com (Blake Farenthold) writes: > Over the holiday I saw Die Harder: Die Hard 2. When you go, leave > your telecom background at home. You know you are in for it when you > see 2 telecom 'continuity' errors within the first five minutes... I haven't seen the second movie, but in the first Bruce was using Kenwood 440 MHz handie talkies that allowed him to 1) talk to the terrorists 2) talk to the police 3) talk on CB channel 9 (!) 4) operate full duplex, hands free when he was digging glass out` of his feet! Hams got a real kick out of this, and there was quite a discussion on rec.ham-radio about this. {Cinefex Magazine} had a great article last year about the making of Die Hard, in which they showed how they used radio controlled helicopters and models for the effects. Neat! Tad Cook Seattle, WA Packet: KT7H @ N7HFZ.WA.USA.NA Phone: 206/527-4089 MCI Mail: 3288544 Telex: 6503288544 MCI UW USENET:...uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!ssc!tad or, tad@ssc.UUCP ------------------------------ From: Kenny Crudup LID-A0794 Subject: Re: Cellular Intercept Quiz Reply-To: Kenny Crudup LID-A0794 Organization: Lotus Development Corp. Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 22:16:50 GMT In article <9798@accuvax.nwu.edu> John Higdon writes: >Does this give anyone any ideas about saving money when checking your >messages on your machine or voice mail? Oops, did I say that? Don't worry. Beat you to it. What *I* need are frequencies.... ($10 bucks says the mod ices this note....) Kenneth R. Crudup, Lotus Development Corp. Contractor, NASD/QA system V 1 Rogers Street 6381D, Cambridge, MA 02142. (617) 693 4111. Work: kcrudup@roxbury.lotus.com, Home: nubian!kenny@ima.ima.isc.com [Moderator's Note: You lose. I don't know what kind of 'frequencies' you are seeking, but they all are of public record at the FCC. Could you be more specific in your request, please? PT] ------------------------------ From: Marc O'Krent Subject: Re: E911 Experience Date: 18 Jul 90 19:52:53 GMT Reply-To: Marc O'Krent Organization: Cochran&Associates, Menlo Park, CA In article <9805@accuvax.nwu.edu> Tom Perrine writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 490, Message 8 of 10 >With all of the negative 911 experiences being described, I thought I >would mention that, at least here in a backwater :-) of Pac Bell land >(Poway, near San Diego), 911 works! Well, I can add my two cents also with a 911 experience which demonstrates that the system works, but not when the police force is over-taxed. You may have heard that we don't have enough police in LA what with being the new gang and drug center of the U.S. Several years ago I was home for lunch when I heard some arguing going on next door. I looked at the window to find a man standing on the walkway of the house next door with a long-nose revolver pointed at some workmen. Upon calling 911 I was told that officers would be "right over." Unfortunately, this is LA and the time was about 12-1pm which means that we were reaching the time when the LAPA has about five calls for every two officers. Twenty minutes later the 911 operator called me back and said "Is the man still there?". And I said, "I'm not sticking my head out the window again to find out, why don't you *send* someone over here and see for youself before someone gets shot!" Shortly thereafter officers did arrive and arrested the man. Upon searching his apartment they found a cache of weapons and ammo. The story was that the owner of the building had sent exterminators over to tent it, and this irate tenant was not too interested in leaving. On balance, the LAPD does a good job, but is simply too spread out which makes even 911 a risky bet a peak times. If you saw the PBS special on the trauma system, you would see that unfortunately the 911 system for medical emergencies is in even worse shape at times. Marc O'Krent The Telephone Connection Internet: marc@ttc.info.com MCIMail: mokrent Voice Mail: +1 213 551 9620 ------------------------------ From: Clayton Cramer Subject: Re: E911 Experience Date: 19 Jul 90 00:31:06 GMT Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA In article <9805@accuvax.nwu.edu>, tep@tots.logicon.com (Tom Perrine) writes: > With all of the negative 911 experiences being described, I thought I > would mention that, at least here in a backwater :-) of Pac Bell land > (Poway, near San Diego), 911 works! Well, I have two experiences with 911 service from Pac Bell. In both cases, 911 did their job, but the results varied greatly. In the first case, a man with a bat was threatening a kid in front on my apartment building in Santa Monica, CA. (The guy with the bat turned out to be the good guy). From the time I dialed 911 to the time three police cars showed up was three minutes, fifteen seconds. I didn't have to provide any address or name information -- I just reported it, and went back outside to be a witness or to intervene if necessary. The other case involved a drunk dragging a woman, kicking and screaming out of her apartment, down the stairs in Costa Mesa, CA. I called, described the incident, but for reasons that remain unclear to me, they spent quite a bit of time asking for a detailed description of the EXACT location where this was happening (perhaps to distinguish it from any similar events in that block :-)). In this case, 911 did their job, but this being a Saturday night in Costa Mesa, it took Costa Mesa PD 45 minutes to show up, during which time I found myself holding a gun, trying to decide at what point to intervene in the situation. (This was a considerably less pleasant experience than it sounds -- and it sounds pretty unpleasant). By the time the police arrived, this guy was long gone. I don't know about the rest of you, but 911 works just fine -- now if they could just improve response time of the PDs to the point where they can do something besides draw chalk marks around the bodies... Clayton E. Cramer {pyramid,pixar,tekbspa}!optilink!cramer Disclaimer? You must be kidding! No company would hold opinions like mine! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 10:11:20 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: AT&T Calling Card Discrimination W/R to people hanging around trying to spot credit card numbers: There are probably loitering laws on the books (don't know the juris- dictions involved), but further discussion of this is beyond the scope of telecom. As a reminder: If the phone is rotary (or pushbutton pulse), a credit- card call requires you to read the card number to the operator, and a common source of fraud was/is the overhearing of such card numbers. If the phone is touchtone, you usually have the self-service credit card number entry available, and the problem then becomes that of someone watching over your shoulder(?). Corrections or more details, anyone? ------------------------------ From: Julian Macassey Subject: Re: Help with Rotored Lines/ Rack Mounted Modems Date: 18 Jul 90 22:48:18 GMT Organization: The Hole in the Wall Hollywood California U.S.A. In article <9796@accuvax.nwu.edu>, faunt@cisco.com (Doug Faunt N6TQS 415-688-8269) writes: > It turns out, that the way to busy-out a bad modem in a T2500 The simple way is short the damn phone line. This can be done with high tech paper clips or fancy plugs across the 66 block. This is a no-fail guaranteed way to do it. Funny I had to explain this to "Sprint PC-Pursuit" last week. But they are a telephone company, so how are they to know how to busy out a modem (-: I am always amazed how ignorant and incompetant some employees are. Anyhow a good administarator of telco gear should check all trunks and associated equipment on a regular basis. This is a task an operator can do first thing in the morning. It is also handy to check 800 numbers on thge local loops as well, they do die sometimes. > Another solution is to check out various styles of "call > distribution". We have a ATT Systme 75 here at cisco, and one of the > styles of call distribution is called "uniform call distribution". It > tries to route the next call to a group to the least-used line > available, but never the same line as the last call, so if there's a > bad modem, the user just hangs up and redials, and gets a different > line. Bad modems are indicated pretty reliably by various statistics > that our, cisco, terminal servers keep. I don't know if "UCD" is > available from central offices, however. good luck, faunt@cisco.com Yes, UCD is certainly available on the 5ESS switch. See Part 2 of "5 ESS Switch The Premier Solution - Feature Handbook" Number 235-390-500. But you may not want to pay for it. It should be cheaper to check the trunks and busy out the bad ones until the modem or loop is fixed. When in doubt - check it out. Julian Macassey, n6are julian@bongo.info.com ucla-an!denwa!bongo!julian N6ARE@K6IYK (Packet Radio) n6are.ampr.org [44.16.0.81] voice (213) 653-4495 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #494 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa03294; 19 Jul 90 2:08 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa09887; 19 Jul 90 0:17 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab23039; 18 Jul 90 23:12 CDT Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 22:24:14 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #495 BCC: Message-ID: <9007182224.ab22791@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 18 Jul 90 22:22:46 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 495 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Equal Access? [Randal Schwartz] Re: GTE/Contel Merger Questions [Marc O'Krent] Re: Intrastate Toll Free Non-800 Numbers [Marc O'Krent] Re: AT&T Calling Card Discrimination [Evelyn C. Leeper] Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? [Alex L. Bangs] Re: Fun With ANI [John Higdon] Re: Fun With ANI [Mark Saum] Re: Pepsi-Cola Hits The Spot: Switchboard Shuts Down [Warren Tucker] Re: Radio Shack CT-102 [Brian Litzinger] Info Needed on UUCP Gateways [Joel Disini] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Randal Schwartz Subject: Re: Equal Access? Reply-To: Randal Schwartz Organization: Stonehenge; netaccess via Intel, Beaverton, Oregon, USA Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 06:55:29 GMT In article <9780@accuvax.nwu.edu>, CAPEK%YKTVMX writes: | I was visiting friends in Queens, New York recently who have elected | RCI (Rochester Communications, I think) as their default long distance | carrier. I tried to make an AT&T credit card call from their phone | (718-544) and repeatedly got the NY Tel operator, who was always happy | to connect me with AT&T, but never able to explain why, as soon as I | dialed 10 (on the way to 10288), I was diverted. Supervisors were no | better; in fact, they argued harder that what I wanted made no sense. | I gave up and reported the line to repair as being broken. Was it, or | is there a legitimate state of "partial equal access", where RCI could | be the default carrier (I confirmed this via 700-555-4141), and AT&T | would not be easily available? Hey, we've had it that way for quite a while. Out here in the backwaters of GTE land, I can select among 4 (count'em! :-) LD carriers. But once I've locked in the choice, no variant of 10nnn will get me out of it. Yeah, I can go 1-800-877-8000 or 950-1022 to get to use me FON-card, but there's no alternative for AT&T. As an aside, does AT&T realize how much revenue they lose by not having a dialable number? Sheesh. The only reason I *have* a FON-card is to get at *some* LD company inside a hotel or behind the company's PBX. So, for my home phone, I pick AT&T, because I'm afraid of that one day when Sprint wouldn't have been able to handle the call (capacity, some international restriction, or whatever), and I'd be stuck without an alternate. (Somehow, I always see AT&T as having excess capacity... maybe I'm wrong.) Just another AT&T chooser, | Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095===========| | on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III | | merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn | ------------------------------ From: Marc O'Krent Subject: Re: GTE/Contel Merger Questions Date: 18 Jul 90 05:01:29 GMT Reply-To: Marc O'Krent Organization: Cochran&Associates, Menlo Park, CA In article <9695@accuvax.nwu.edu> John Higdon writes: >GTE loves to consolidate. When you try to call the business office at >some 800 number, you get perpetual busy. When you finally break >through, you are put on permanent hold. When I call the "local" GTE >business office, the call goes to Thousand Jokes -- about 300 miles >away. Contel, on the other hand has a business office right there in >Gilroy -- serving all two of Gilroy's prefixes. When I tried to pay a >Victorville Contel phone bill there, they were very nice and handled >it for me, but they had to call Victorville to make the arrangements. >They are not centralized and it's a plus for the customer. As another example of the "intelligence" behind GTE, the business office here in LA had an 800 number that ended on 7713. When you dial that number, you now get a referral recording to the same NPA with the last four = 7712!! I suppose a bigger customer came alone and just had to have 7713. Marc O'Krent The Telephone Connection Internet: marc@ttc.info.com MCIMail: mokrent Voice Mail: +1 213 551 9620 ------------------------------ From: Marc O'Krent Subject: Re: Intrastate Toll Free Non-800 Numbers Date: 18 Jul 90 05:25:12 GMT Reply-To: Marc O'Krent Organization: Cochran&Associates, Menlo Park, CA In article <9732@accuvax.nwu.edu> ndallen@contact.UUCP (Nigel Allen) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 484, Message 4 of 8 >eli@pws.bull.com (Steve Elias) asks about toll-free non-800 exchanges. >Maritime Tel & Tel, the only telephone company in Nova Scotia, >provides an awkward toll-free service without the 800 prefix. (800 >numbers are available, but they cost more, I suspect.) A subscriber >to the non-800 service can arrange for a regular seven-digit number >(429-7111, which is or was the Air Canada reservations number in >Halifax, for example) to be toll-free for anybody who calls from >specified exchanges, or from anywhere in the province. I assume the An interesting side note realted to this is an obscure Pac*Bell tariff which provides simmilar service. I stumbled onto it a few years ago when I was doing some research. Formally known as CAL PUC No A6.2.5.A.2.d or "Dial interexchange receiving service" first filed on 3/4/85 and effective 4/18/85 via advice letter #14889, this service provides: "A listing of the telephone number of the service on which calls will be received may be furnished, at the customer's option, in the directory serving each *exchange* in which the service is subscribed for. The listing will indicate that calls dialed ... to the listed number will not be billed to the caller... ...Only those calls to this number which originate at stations served from the exchange in which the service is subscribed for ... and then only when the customer's telephone service where calls are received is not included in the the local service area of the calling station... ...All customer notifications about the service must state clearly all exchanges from which the advertised number may be called toll free, and the fact that only direct dialed calls, and only calls from these exchanges are toll free to the caller..." The charge for this is $5.00 per exchange that you want to be toll free to your number with USOC of EDZ. This seems like some kind of bazzar Zenith service without the "Zenith." I can't imaginge that $5.00 per exchange covers the programming expense of setting up special tables to make certain exchanges (which are already non-local by tariff definition) toll free to you number. I doubt anyone ever used this service, but if you are out there, I'd be curious to hear from you. Marc O'Krent The Telephone Connection Internet: marc@ttc.info.com MCIMail: mokrent Voice Mail: +1 213 551 9620 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 10:17:07 EDT From: Evelyn C Leeper Subject: Re: AT&T Calling Card Discrimination Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories In article <9738@accuvax.nwu.edu> telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes: > As noted in messages here in TELECOM Digest, AT&T states in their > advertising and in their tariffs that the calling card is universal > and can be used to call anyone, anywhere, using the AT&T network. > Anyone, that is, unless you are a Mexican living in southern > California wanting to call home from a payphone at the place where you > live ... or if you are an Israeli or Iranian citizen at JFK trying to > call home before you board your flight. Then, the presumption by AT&T > is you are likely to be committing fraud, so your call will not be > processed. Since I work for AT&T I may be considered a non-disinterested party, but how does AT&T determine that you are an Israeli citizen or a Mexican when you punch your number into the phone? (Or when you apply for the card, for that matter.) Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908-957-2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com [Moderator's Note: They can't tell 'what you are' when you apply for the Calling Card or new credit card, other than perhaps making certain observations about your name and address. But if credit card calls from a certain ethnic neighborhood to a foreign country which is home to the residents of that neighborhood are redlined, then it might be safe to make some assumptions about AT&T's attitude in the matter, particularly if calls to the UK and Sweden are permitted from the very same coin phones, while calls to Iran, Mexico or Korea are refused. Their argument 'we are doing it to protect YOU' doesn't hold water, since calls to Israel cost the same, on the average as calls to Norway, yet airport payphones block calls to Israel using a Calling Card. If they were protecting me against fraud (instead of themselves, in what I believe is an illegal manner), they would disallow *all* credit card calls from phones in the areas in particular. Not just the calls to places whose citizens they suspect are likely to make fraud phone calls. PT] ------------------------------ From: BANGS A L Subject: Re: Pac*Bell Phones at Dulles? Reply-To: BANGS A L Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 17:32:47 GMT See last week's {Newsweek} for a miniarticle about the screwup. It said that neither the director nor producer would comment on the error. Alex L. Bangs ---> bangsal@ornl.gov Of course, my opinions are Oak Ridge National Laboratory/CESAR my own darned business... [Moderator's Note: I don't read News Weak very often, but I did check out the article in particular. However, to deprive Kay Graham of the profit from a sale, I read it at the 7/11 magazine rack while I was having my luncheon sandwich a few days ago. PT] ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Fun With ANI Date: 18 Jul 90 11:23:36 PDT (Wed) From: John Higdon Randal Schwartz writes: > Now, telecom experts, why didn't they get the correct number? Is that > because I'm in the backwaters of GTE-land, or because I called from > behind a PBX? I should try this from home, but I don't want my number > to be junk-listed. The day after I posted the original article, PollenTrak started asking for the caller's phone number. I have no idea why this happened unless the complaints that were being lodged somehow forced them to stop using the ANI, or caused AT&T to stop sending it. I have no InsideTrak on this; it's just a theory. There is, however, no assurance that they have stopped recording the caller's number. Remember, the whole "service" is there to generate a contact list. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Mark Saum Subject: Re: Fun With ANI Date: 18 Jul 90 17:15:16 GMT Organization: Texas A&M University >> An OTC pharmacutical company is sponsoring something called "Pollen >> Trak" (with the same announcer on the machine that did "Weather >> Trak"). You call the number and you get a pollen report for your >> area. Based on the ANI data obtained in real time you are given, >> supposedly, the correct report. It gives me a Sacramento area report; >> that's hardly useful since San Jose is somewhat outside Sacramento's >> geographic sphere of influence. > Just tried it from NJ. It apparently didn't get the ANI, as it > prompted me for my phone number. I entered it (908-647-xxxx) and was > then given the message for Buffalo (about 500 miles from here!). I > know that area code 908 is a recent addition to the geography, but I > expected something more helpful than Buffalo! When I called this number from our phone here at the lab. We are on some sort of private exchange in which we control two exchanges 409-845-xxxx & 409-847-xxxx. I'm still very fuzzy on the details. Anyway, it also prompted me to enter my phone number. I put in 409-555-1212, and it gave me the Dallas pollen count. Mark Saum Remote Sensing/GIS Lab Programmer/Student Technition Dept. of Forest Science n313ap@tamuts.tamu.edu <---O.K. Texas A&M University ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 13:06:52 EDT From: Warren Tucker Subject: Re: Pepsi-Cola Hits The Spot: Switchboard Shuts Down Organization: Amateur Radio Station N4HGF In article <9826@accuvax.nwu.edu> telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes: >Everyone has to learn this lesson the hard way it seems: *No beverages >around telecom and computer equipment*. Ever. Or (re: _Fat Mand and Little Boy_) around two hemispheres of exposed plutonium :-). Great posting: passing the tradition of letting some receive the `benefit' of a hard lesson without losing the right to put it into practice. ------------------------------ From: Brian Litzinger Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 13:05:21 PDT Subject: Re: Radio Shack CT-102 Organization: APT Technology, Inc. From article <9577@accuvax.nwu.edu>, by lars@spectrum.cmc.com (Lars Poulsen): > In article <9543@accuvax.nwu.edu> faunt@cisco.com (Doug Faunt) writes: >>The Radio Shack CT-102 is for sale for $299. What does the Telecom >>collective conciousness think of the unit? I can't speak for the 'Telecom collective conciousness', however, I like the phone. > Radio Shack's ads indicate that the $299 price is conditional on > signing up for service "with certain minimum commitments" In California you are not required to sign up with their carrier and you still get the $299 price. You simply pay the $299 plus state and local sales tax and carry the phone out of the store. You can then have the service activated by anyone you wish. Also the units are field programmable so getting them activated is pretty easy. I and several of my friends have done so. Most of use have added a battery and some small circuitry and made transportables out of the units. The unit is actually a Nokia-Moriba (sp?), which is sold by Nokia ... (sp?) as a car-portable, i.e. easily transported from car to car because the base unit is so small. But just add a battery and you've got a transportable. And for your information: Standby Current: 0.25 Amps @ 12 Volts Active Current: 1.50 Amps @ 12 Volts (at least in my unit as tested with a bench power supply) (and HP current meter) By the way, I've was able to avoid the $25 activation fee. I'd been looking for a cellular phone for awhile and several of the companies I'd left cards at had called me to see if I had bought a phone or needed cellular service. Just about all of them were willing to waive the $25 connect fee. Also, just about all the custom calling features are free. The company I liked the best is called 'Communication Specialists' and they are located in the Jet Center at the San Jose Airport. You can reach them at 408 294 8656. (Please try to be discreet about the $25 being waived). I'm not affiliated when 'Communication Specialists' except that I am a customer. <> Brian Litzinger @ APT Technology Inc., San Jose, CA <> brian@apt.bungi.com {apple,sun,pyramid}!daver!apt!brian <> Disclaimer: Above are my opinions and probably wrong. ------------------------------ Subject: Info Needed on UUCP Gateways From: "Disini SW, Emmanuel Disini,PRT" Date: 17 Jul 90 07:18 GMT Patrick, I guess it's just not possible to get USENET news from Applelink. Bummer. Do you know if there's a list somewhere of BBS/UUCP gateway manufacturers/dealers & their E-Mail addresses available for downloading somewhere? Or could you just post this request at alt.BBS? Thanks, Joel Disini Disini Software Inc. [Moderator's Note: Anyone with information, write him direct. Thanks. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #495 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa04584; 19 Jul 90 3:15 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa08336; 19 Jul 90 1:22 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab09887; 19 Jul 90 0:17 CDT Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 23:25:35 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #496 BCC: Message-ID: <9007182325.ab17045@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 18 Jul 90 23:25:27 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 496 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Cellular Intercept Quiz [R. Kevin Oberman] Re: E911 Experience [Ralph Sims] Re: State Rejects US West Bid for Caller ID [Peter da Silva] Re: White House Phone Trivia (Was: Touchtone History) [Peter da Silva] Re: Fun With ANI [Blake Farenthold] Re: Trouble Getting Telephone Service [Blake Farenthold] Re: Trouble Getting Telephone Service [Doug Faunt] Momentary Cutoffs (Was: The Truth About "Cleaning Pulses") [Jerry Altzman] Those Annoying Intercepts - Explanation Doesn't Fit [Jerry Leichter] Insulation Breakdown Test Sets [Larry Lippman] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: oberman@rogue.llnl.gov Subject: Re: Cellular Intercept Quiz Date: 17 Jul 90 18:26:13 GMT Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory In article <9798@accuvax.nwu.edu>, john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > There are two ways around it. Give COCOTs answer supervision > indication or coin COS lines is one. Not bloody likely to happen soon. I understand thet the CPUC has ordered all phone companies in CA to provide COCOTs with "identical service" to that provided to their own COTs. I assume this would mean coin COS lines are now available to COCOTs. R. Kevin Oberman Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Internet: oberman@icdc.llnl.gov (415) 422-6955 Disclaimer: Don't take this too seriously. I just like to improve my typing and probably don't really know anything useful about anything. ------------------------------ From: Ralph Sims Subject: Re: E911 Experience Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 08:24:52 PDT Organization: The 23:00 News eli@pws.bull.com (Steve Elias) writes: >> Calling 911 about once a year for assorted emergencies has resulted in >> prompt, efficient service. But I have a contingency plan for that day > I imagine that San Jose has reasonable 911 services, but in many > cities, it's true that "911 is a joke." Why should they hurry when > it's "just another gang murder"? I would like to believe that the law enforcement services are a little more concerned than _that_. Interviews with big-city mayors produce the feeling that there _is_ concern and they really _want_ to do something about their city's problems. My feeling is that 911 centers dispatch the calls as they should; the problem seems to be with the {law enforecement, fire department's} response to those calls. 911 (especially E911) works! The system is in place in virtually all of the continental U.S. and is accessed by millions of people a year. I'm going to try to get some stats on 911 useage, etc., and will place them here for perusal. ------------------------------ From: peter da silva Subject: Re: State Rejects US West Bid for Caller ID Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 13:36:21 GMT In article <9703@accuvax.nwu.edu> Randal Schwartz writes: > A spokeswoman for US West acknowledged the contract rejection by the > commission includes the capability to view and store incoming phone > numbers. But she said the feature is incidental to the [ISDN package]. > (Washington State) Assistant Attorney General Charles Adams said it > appeared US West was trying to sneak the issue past the public. I doubt it ... they probably didn't even consider that ISDN included the equivalent of Caller-ID. The contract rejection was probably as big a shock to them as to the PUC. Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. ------------------------------ From: peter da silva Subject: Re: White House Phone Trivia (Was: Touchtone History) Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 20:40:17 GMT In article <9761@accuvax.nwu.edu> 0004133373@mcimail.com (Donald E. Kimberlin) writes: > >The burning question that Telecom readers want answered is: Why > >doesn't the President's office have a nice little Merlin (R) or neat > >IDSN set ??? > The answer may range from the sublime to the ridiculous, Roger. It > might be: (1-4 omitted) 5) Each department and agency that has a reason to have a line into the President's office insists on having it's own phone. This is somewhat reasonable for the DoD with their own network. I suspect that some countries might have their own access to the President for political reasons. Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 16:07:11 CDT From: Blake Farenthold Subject: Re: Fun With ANI In-Reply-To: message from merlyn@iwarp.intel.com Called the Benadryl Pollen Count number myself, from the PBX at work and from a POTS line at home. Both times I was prompted for a phone number so its not just Randal in backwater GTE Land whose ANI isn't passes. (I'm in Southwestern Bell land.) Entering my modem numbers from home and work (512-889 & 512-882) got me the HOUSTON pollen Count. Houston (713-Almost Anything) is 5 hours by car and 46 minutes by 737 away. Guess its the closest place they have a count from. UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!blake Internet: blake@pro-party.cts.com Blake Farenthold | Voice: 800/880-1890 | MCI: BFARENTHOLD 1200 MBank North | Fax: 512/889-8686 | CIS: 70070,521 Corpus Christi, TX 78471 | BBS: 512/882-1899 | GEnie: BLAKE ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 16:03:09 CDT From: Blake Farenthold Subject: Re: Trouble Getting Telephone Service In-Reply-To: message from T720019@univscvm.csd.scarolina.edu You can probably get off without your roomate having to pay his old roomates bill if you get the phone in your name alone (not yours and the roomates) 'course you are on the hook for all the calls by yourself that way. I HATE Deposits with utilities. In Texas the Public Utilities Commission regulates the power company. I've had a Southwestern Bell phone so long I can't even remember having to use the section with them (when I call they call up my record and say ... 'gosh Mr. Farenthold you are a good customer can we sell you five more lines?) I love section (3) (c) that purportedly requires them to give you service if you have a good record with any utility. If the law firm I was going to work for didn't represent CP&L I would have loved to make an issue out of it ... but instead I just got a letter from my last electric company saying I paid my bills on time. 16 TAC 23.43 (Title 16, Texas Administrative Code, Section 23.43) (3) Subject to these rules, a residential applicant shall not be required to pay a deposit : (A) if the residential applicant has been a customer of any utility for the same kind of service within the last two years and is not delinquent in payment of any such utility service account, and during the last 12 consecutive months of service did not have more than one occasion in which a bill for such utility service was paid after becoming delinquent and never had service disconnected for nonpayment; applicants are encouraged to obtain a letter of credit history from their previous utility, and utilities are encouraged to provide such information with final bills; (B) if the residential applicant demonstrates a satisfactory credit rating by appropriate means, including, but not limited to, the production of generally acceptable credit cards, letters of credit reference, the names of credit references which may quickly and inexpensively contacted by the utility, or ownership of substantial equity; or (C) if the residential applicant furnishes in writing a satisfactory guarantee to secure payment of bills for the service required; (i) unless otherwise agreed to by the guarantor, the guarantee shall be for the amount of deposit the utility would normally seek on the applicant's account. The amount of guarantee shall be clearly indicated on any documents or letters of guarantee signed by the guarantor; (ii) when the customer has paid bills for service for 12 consecutive residential billings without having service disconnected for nonpayment of bills and without having more than two occasions in which a bill was delinquent, and when the customer is not delinquent in the payment of current bills, the utility shall void and return any documents or letters of guarantee placed with the utility to the guarantor. Of course this is the (old?) law in TEXAS, and your state may have different regs. It is worth investigating. UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!blake Internet: blake@pro-party.cts.com Blake Farenthold | Voice: 800/880-1890 | MCI: BFARENTHOLD 1200 MBank North | Fax: 512/889-8686 | CIS: 70070,521 Corpus Christi, TX 78471 | BBS: 512/882-1899 | GEnie: BLAKE [Moderator's Note: Like yourself, I've had service in my name with Illinois Bell for almost thirty years. When my first phone was installed, they were not even requiring deposits in those days. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 11:11:24 -0700 From: Doug Faunt N6TQS 415-688-8269 Subject: Re: Trouble Getting Telephone Service I had a problem like that with GTE in South Carolina, also. I had service installed at my fathers house, so I could get in touch with him. They wouldn't install it there until I or someone paid his long overdue large past bill at that same address. After that was done, they installed the service, but several months later they transfered his (also) long overdue large bill from his former business location to my bill, and said that I owed that, also. A letter to the PUC got a response of "we're sorry, but that's the way it is". In South Carolina, I guess that's the way it is. Good luck. ------------------------------ From: "Jerry B. Altzman" Subject: Momentary Cutoffs (Was: The Truth About "Cleaning Pulses") Reply-To: "Jerry B. Altzman" Organization: mailer daemons association Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 14:56:00 GMT In article <9839@accuvax.nwu.edu> Patrick Townsend writes: >[Moderator's Note: *Something* happens here every morning at 1:37 AM. >If I am online to Northwestern at that moment, the modem connection is >dropped and I have to dial back in. Every day, no exceptions. I do not >know if it is Illinois Bell or something at Northwestern. PT] And if you think *that*'s bad, our multimillion dollar ROLM switch has to switch over from one set of nodes to the alternate set every morning at 0400, dropping outside modem connections (and for a while, also cutting off voice communications and internal datacomm) I'm not sure if they still do this, but for the first 6 months or so, every morning at 0400, >click< DISCLAIMER: This isn't Columbia. This is me. Columbia is them. jerry b. altzman 212 854 8058 jbaltz@columbia.edu jauus@cuvmb (bitnet) NEVIS::jbaltz (HEPNET) ...!rutgers!columbia!jbaltz (bang!) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 09:37:10 EDT From: Jerry Leichter (LEICHTER-JERRY@CS.YALE.EDU) Subject: Those Annoying Intercepts - Explanation Doesn't Fit Ken Abrams, in response to my complaint about intercepts for things like a missing leading "1" which right for a while, then answer, writes: >"You can please some of the people all the time and all of the people >some of the time" ... >I'm not sure exactly what the complaint was since I didn't see it. >The whole seven digit number must be dialed because a LOT of people >get VERY confused when you interrupt them in the middle of dialing. So much I can accept. >This varies some depending on the place you are calling from and >exactly what kind of invalid number you dialed. Most announcements >ring a few times to allow the message to play starting at the >beginning instead of "barging in" in the middle. Even digitally >recorded messages are usually presented to the network in cycles and >wait for the start of the cycle just like mechanical drums. This doesn't match observation "on the ground". If the announcement had to make it back to the beginning, and were cycling continuously, the number of rings before the intercept would vary from call to call. In fact, it varies by at most about half a ring - pickup is ALWAYS during the third ring, as far as I can determine. BTW, I recently discovered exactly the same annoying behavior at some phones set up at DECWORLD, currently going on in Boston. They have some phones with a very interesting configuration: There are some non-dial phones available to the public. The phones are labeled with phone numbers, but are also claimed not to accept incoming calls. (I haven't tested this.) Calls FROM those phones can only be made in 0+ form. Generally, people are using them for credit card calls. You have to use 0+ and a credit card even for local calls! You CANNOT reach directory assistance in any way I've been able to find, short of dialing 0, waiting for the operator timeout, then asking the operator to make the connection. (I wasted a lot of time on this one, and I've seen other people also wasting their time. 555-1212? 1-555-1212? 0-555-1212? With a couple of rings before intercept, plus time to get dial tone back, you've already wasted a minute or so - and not yet gotten anywhere.) Some of the intercept messages you get can be very bizarre - e.g., you can be told that you must not dial 1 before some number when in fact you DIDN'T dial 1. Jerry ------------------------------ Subject: Insulation Breakdown Test Sets Date: 17 Jul 90 23:00:14 EDT (Tue) From: Larry Lippman In article <9793@accuvax.nwu.edu> npl@mozart.att.com (Nickolas Landsberg) writes: > The voltage applied during testing has nothing to do with "cleaning > pulses" or to "fuse shorts on the line." About the only thing I saw > which would "fuse shorts" is a "630" set. (630 Volts DC applied to the > line.) P.S. Does anyone know if these are still in use? It's been > years since I left the Outside Plant Dept. Ah, yes the KS-14103 Breakdown Test Set. These beasts are still around, but are rarely used today. Such breakdown procedures only worked with paper and pulp insulated cable. While quite a bit of pulp cable still exists today, other test procedures employing electronic capacitance measurement or a TDR seem to have largely replaced this rather extreme measure for localizing high-resistance faults. Another disadvantage was that operation of this breakdown test set on a working cable would introduce a tremendous amount of noise on working pairs, despite the later addition of a large filter inductor. Definitely not great for any data being transmitted on working pairs. The KS-14103 was nothing to trifle with since a fresh set of batteries (it used something like 14 45-volt batteries) would put out 630 volts at almost three amperes. That is a serious amount of energy which can really knock someone on their ass (or worse). Some, er, idle plant personnel in years past have been known to, ah, investigate the effects of the breakdown test set on various telephone components. Most interesting was its effect on the neon glow lamps used in ANI-C, which could be overdriven to the point of explosive decomposition, replete with flying shards of glass. :-) Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. "Have you hugged your cat today?" {boulder||decvax||rutgers||watmath}!acsu.buffalo.edu!kitty!larry VOICE: 716/688-1231 || FAX: 716/741-9635 {utzoo||uunet}!/ \aerion!larry ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #496 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa05691; 19 Jul 90 4:08 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa05508; 19 Jul 90 2:28 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab08336; 19 Jul 90 1:22 CDT Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 0:22:21 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #497 BCC: Message-ID: <9007190022.ab14406@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 19 Jul 90 00:22:07 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 497 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson This "Last Crank" or That "Last Crank" [John R. Covert] Cellular Phone Mail Order Houses [Jeff E. Nelson] Answer Supervision on International Calls [David E.A. Wilson] Disabling Panasonic Answering Machine Remote [Jon Sreekanth] Article on Florida Caller ID Delay [Donald E. Kimberlin] Caller-ID Update (Pennsylvania) [Dwight Lee] Radio Interference on Line [R. Steve Walker] German Telecom [Mohsen Gamshad] Prefix Lists (NXX) for USA [David Leibold] Liquids and Telephone Apparatus [Larry Lippman] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 11:28:24 PDT From: "John R. Covert 17-Jul-1990 1414" Subject: This "Last Crank" or That "Last Crank" The early news articles on the Shoup, Idaho, phone system correctly described the system as "the last magneto party-line phone system in the U.S.". The key words are "party-line phone system." Magneto toll-stations still abound, but they are not the same thing. Toll stations are not subscriber telephones; they are phones placed by a long-distance telephone company for the purpose of making exclusively long-distance calls. In Shoup, there were some thirty subscribers on the single line. And it was really a single line: one wire, ground return. To ring someone else in the system, you cranked their ringing combination (some number of long and/or short rings). Local calls were free. To reach the AT&T operator, you crank one VERY long ring. The AT&T operator would answer on a normal, non-magneto, cord board and handle the call. Incoming LD calls were handled through the same operator, who would ring the station with its ringing code from the toll board. There was a magneto-to-carrier interface somewhere at the end of the line. Bryant Pond was different. Bryant Pond was the last magneto switchboard in the country. Although many of the customers were on party lines, Bryant Pond had some two hundred drops on the switchboard, which required two operators working very hard to handle the call load. Seeing the board (I have some nice pictures of it) explains the origin of the term "drop." On a magneto switchboard, when the customer turns the crank, a small hinged metal plate actually drops to provide the visual indication that there is a call on the line (or drop). A magneto switchboard also explains the origin of the British term "ring off" which means the same as "hang up". On a magneto board, when done with a call, the parties must turn the crank, or "ring off" in order to cause the drop associated with the cord pair to fall, indicating that the call is over. john ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 05:59:35 PDT From: jnelson@tle.enet.dec.com Subject: Cellular Phone Mail Order Houses I'm in the market for a cellular phone (a transportable) and am interested in purchasing one via mail order. I am hoping that this will reduce my costs and allow me to choose my own carrier. However, local electronics stores are offering "fantastic" prices (the catch being that you are required to sign up for a given length of time with a cellular phone company), so I'm not sure that going mail order will be any cheaper. Please send recommendations for mail order companies to me and I will summarize to the Digest. Thanks. Jeff E. Nelson | Digital Equipment Corporation jnelson@tle.enet.dec.com | Affiliation given for identification purposes only ------------------------------ From: David E A Wilson Subject: Answer Supervision on International Calls Date: 18 Jul 90 04:13:59 GMT Organization: Dept of Computer Science, University of Wollongong, Australia Here in Wollongong, Australia we have just got fully itemised international phone bills. A collegue of mine on the same exchange as me makes numerous calls to the USA. His bill lists a number of four second calls. We think these are calls that were never answered at the US end. Do international calls have answer supervision? Does it depend on which telco is responsible for the subscriber in the USA? David Wilson david@wraith.cs.uow.edu.au ------------------------------ From: Jon Sreekanth Subject: Disabling Panasonic Answering Machine Remote Date: 18 Jul 90 16:16:33 GMT Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation I have a Panasonic Answering Machine, KX-T1460, with the feature that you can call from a touch tone phone, and after punching a two digit code, read your messages, erase, re-record, etc. My problem is that a two digit code does not really feel secure, and it's no protection against even a casual snooper. I don't think the machine even hangs up after an unsuccessful code, so how long does it take to break in ... I called Panasonic, and after some minutes of being put on hold, and being passed from hand to hand, I was told that all current Panasonic machines have the remote access feature, none of them can be disabled, and all except one (a few ?) use two digit passwords. (They have some units with three digit passwords). The only way to disable the feature is to pay $40 to an authorized service center to open the machine and rip it out. So ... does anyone know a simple way to hack up a Panasonic 1460 to kill the remote access feature ? A photocopy of a schematic or pcb layout with a "cut this wire" would be most appreciated. A cleaner solution is to have some way of conditionally disabling the feature, or having a longer password, but that's probably asking too much ... Thanks, Jon Sreekanth US Mail : J Sreekanth, 79 Apsley Street, Apt #7, Hudson, MA 01749 Digital Equipment Corp., 77 Reed Road, HLO2-1/J12, Hudson, MA 01749 email : sreekanth@rgb.dec.com Voice : 508-562-3358 eves, 508-568-7195 work ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 13:45 EST From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Subject: Police Raise New Objection to Caller ID Organization: Telecommunications Network Architects, Safety Harbor, FL Sub-title: Barbarians of the Phone Multiply in Florida While it's never as glamorous as "Miami Vice," there's no doubt that chasing drug dealers involves a lot fo telephone use for law enforcement in Florida. The following AP story, as printed in the {Tampa (FL) TRIBUNE} for 7/15/90, reveals its impact on Florida's Caller ID acceptance: STATE PLANS HEARINGS ON 'CALLER ID' LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS SAY THE SERVICE COULD ENDANGER UNDERCOVER WORK AND THREATEN THE LIVES OF AGENTS, PARTICULARLY IN DRUG TRAFFICKING By Curt Anderson, Associated Press TALLAHASSEE -- State utility regulators Tuesday (7/17) ordered formal hearings into telephone 'caller ID' services after law enforcement officials said easy access tothe number of those calling will jeoparadize undercover operations. The decision by the Public Service Commission means yet another delay in the 8-month-old proposal by Florida's largest utility, Southern Bell, to offer a service oroginally intended to deter crank and obscene callers. Other companies are awaiting the outcome of the Southern Bell case. PSC Chairman Michael Wilson daid the panel needs a chance to take sworn testimony and separate fiction from fact. A hearing will be held in the next several weeks in Tallahassee, to be followed by other hearings around the state. "We need to take a look at how this is going to be structured," he said. "We're going to try to get the emotion out of this and get to the facts." Southern Bell wants to offer Caller ID to its 4.5-million customers in Florida at a cost of $80 for the unit to display incoming numbers and $7.50 amonth after that. At present, caller ID is available in severn other states. The company contends that Caller ID cuts obscene and fraudulent telephone calls and that most customers believe they have a right to know who is on the other end of the line, said (Southern Bell) spokesman Spero Canton. But Tuesday, representatives of the FBI, the federal Drug Enforcement Adminstration,federal and state prosecutors, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and others insisted that caller ID would endanger undercover work and threaten the lives of agents, particularly in high-stakes drug trafficking. Southern Bell and a task force of law enforcement agencies met several times over the past months but were unable to resolve an impasse over how to protect the undercover work. According to a PSC staff analysis of the case, Southern Bell offered to allow police to mask the source of calls by using false numbers, by making single phone lines appear to come from various parts of town and by blocking a number from coming up on a suspect's caller ID machine. Those offers were rejected. Law enforcement officials are holding out for unlimited ability of all Southern Bell customers to block out numbers, which company officials contend would render the service meaningless. Another issue is how Florida's strict privacy amendment would apply to Caller ID, particularly in light of a recent state Supreme Court ruling that people have a right to know who is getting information about them over the telephone. .-*.-*.-*.-*.-* So there we have the Florida twist. Surprising that despite California's drug enforcement burden, the police (and not even the Feds there) didn't raise their issue. Also, PacBell didn't seem to object to general blockability, as does Southern Bell. Then, there's Florida's own unique privacy law mentioned at the end of the piece. A lot of that seems to stem from what is becoming multiple daily occurrences of unidentified, coarse people who start off a phone conversation with a series of demanding questions. It is becoming impossible to be a courteous person when you answer the phone here in the "Sunshine State." Barbarians of the Phone won't let you be that way! ------------------------------ From: dwight lee Subject: Caller-ID Update (Pennsylvania) Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations Date: 17 Jul 90 07:26:09 GMT In a 17 July 1990 edition of Neil Chayet's "Looking at the Law" radio feature which I heard on WBBM-AM (780) Chicago IL, Caller-ID in Pennsylvania was discussed. Apparently Caller-ID has been deemed illegal in PA since it violates a state law against wiretap devices (unless court-ordered). It was also deemed an invasion of privacy. The telco argued that Caller-ID lets the called party protect privacy, but the court (state supreme, if I recall correctly) rules that the caller's right to privacy (ie, unlisted telephone numbers, etc) must be taken into consideration as well. I wonder if this will set a precedent for other states. Unfortunately my net access has been rather sporadic so I've not been able to keep track of this area. Dwight A Lee / 416 Annie Glidden Rd #B6 / DeKalb IL 60115 / 815-758-1389 lee@chsun.uchicago.edu / I speak only for myself. ------------------------------ From: "R. Steve Walker" Subject: Radio Interference on Line Date: 17 Jul 90 11:38:36 GMT Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology What is the best method of eliminating radio interference on a telephone line? The cord from the phone to the wall jack is 25 feet long. Thanks! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 09:49:05 EDT From: Mohsen Gamshad Subject: German Telecom Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Anyone, Can some one give some information on the West German telecom network. Specifically, information on customer loop specs, etc; e.g. can I take a phone set made for the U.S. market and use it in West Germany. Thanks, Mohsen ------------------------------ From: woody Subject: Prefix Lists (NXX) for USA Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 23:01:10 EDT Thanx for all the requests for lists so far ... it will take a bit of time to respond to some of the requests, but hopefully people should start to receive their lists in a few days ... that is, for those who ordered only a few. At this point, it will be unwieldy to send along the entire set at once. Meanwhile, this site (contact.uucp) doesn't have the space at present to hold the entire list until they can get a larger hard drive on line. That could take some time. Those in the Toronto area with modem equipment could get in touch with me (djcl@contact.uucp) for BBS systems that carry the lists (CRS, Room 222, etc). Is there a site that could come forward with an offer to house the entire list for ftp/internet/mail access? If so, perhaps requests for entire sets could be handled there. A note about the lists ... they contain just the NXX code and a place name abbreviated to ten characters. Some places may require a good guess as to what they could be. Meanwhile, for those wanting Canadian or Caribbean prefix/nxx codes, they should already be available in the Telecom Digest Archives in a better form than the lists I have for USA points (ie. more detail, list of complete names). ------------------------------ Subject: Liquids and Telephone Apparatus Date: 18 Jul 90 23:49:07 EDT (Wed) From: Larry Lippman In article <9826@accuvax.nwu.edu> the TELECOM Moderator writes: > I'd been there all of five minutes, I guess, when the board got real > busy for a couple minutes, and sure enough, my arm accidently knocked > over that Pepsi and sent it dribbling down inside the ringing keys on > the front panel. The board started buzzing, and lit up like a > Christmas tree, various lights blinking off and on, etc. This is a fairly common problem, and many a PBX position has suffered this affliction. A particularly serious case which comes to mind occurred in the late 1970's, and was related to me by a friend who worked as an PBX installer-repairman for N.Y. Telephone. To meet the pressures of interconnect competition, New York Telephone offered some NEC wire-spring relay/crossbar PABX's during the mid-1970's. In particular, a NEC NA4-09 was installed at a medium-sized local hospital. There was only one console position. One evening on a weekend, no less, the operator spilled a chocolate milkshake all over the console. Needless to say, it ceased to function properly. Both New York Telephone and the hospital were in a panic because the telephone company had no spare NA4-09 consoles *anywhere* in the state. The installer-repairman spent several hours laboriously cleaning switch contacts until some semblance of operation was attained. The console was then replaced a few days later. What made the situation even worse, was that the UNA (Universal Night Answer) function was inoperative (after all, they never used it and never knew that the pair to the night bell was broken), and that had to be repaired first in order that *any* call could be answered while the position was down. Not a great situation for a hospital! I think a few people learned some hard lessons after that one. Having examined telephone equipment that has suffered water damage, the worst problem I have seen is electrolytic corrosion which *immediately* starts once a conductive path is created across a contact switching 48 volts DC. Merely removing the water using, say, a hair dryer is not enough. The contacts then have to be cleaned of corrosion using a burnishing tool - IF the corrosion has not progressed too far. Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp. "Have you hugged your cat today?" {boulder||decvax||rutgers||watmath}!acsu.buffalo.edu!kitty!larry VOICE: 716/688-1231 || FAX: 716/741-9635 {utzoo||uunet}!/ \aerion!larry [Moderator's Note: And I'd venture to say the guys who did the repairs were very dedicated and talented. The whole job was probably the top priority for them for several days. An aquaintence of mine, long since retired from Illinois Bell, did emergency switchboard repairs for hospitals, police/fire units, etc. In April, 1968, during the riots here which followed the assasination of Martin King, he was right in the middle of the riot zone one night drying out/replacing cables damaged from a broken water pipe at Bethany Brethren Hospital. Those old timers at Bell in the '60s and '70s were very good. PT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #497 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa06431; 19 Jul 90 5:04 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa17380; 19 Jul 90 3:34 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab05508; 19 Jul 90 2:28 CDT Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 1:35:58 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #498 BCC: Message-ID: <9007190135.ab12814@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 19 Jul 90 01:35:17 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 498 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Nicad "Memory" [Rob Warnock] Re: Questions About Local Service and Long Distance Rates [Jon Baker] Email VoiceMail Phone [Steve Blair via Peter M. Weiss] PollenTrak [Roy M. Silvernail] Tracing Calls Back to College Dorm Phones [ie09@vaxb.acs.unt.edu] ANI From a Cellular Phone [Steve Forrette] Calling Cellular Prefix from GTE Coin Phone [Edward Greenberg] Re: Pepsi-Cola Hits The Spot: Switchboard Shuts Down [Christine Paustis] Re: The Truth About "Cleaning Pulses" [Kevin Mitchell] Re: Electronic Frontier Foundation [TELECOM Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 06:19:24 GMT From: Rob Warnock Subject: Re: Nicad "Memory" Reply-To: Rob Warnock Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Mountain View, CA In article <9807@accuvax.nwu.edu> forrette@sim.berkeley.edu (Steve Forrette) writes: | Can someone recap the discussion of "memory" in nicad batteries? I'm | having a problem with my HT5300 AT&T cordless phone. I had it | unplugged for about two months, and like a dummy didn't disconnect the | battery in the handset. So, I assume that it was on standby (since it | was off the base for awhile), and totally discharged the battery. This is not the "memory effect" (which is something completely different), but a case of your causing a "cell reversal". When you completely discharge a multi-cell NiCd battery, *some* cell is going to go all the way to zero volts first, and then as the other cells continue discharging they're going to back-bias the one that zeroed first, and start charging it "the wrong way". | This is bad news, right? Yup! The reverse current causes chemical changes in the cell which can permanently damage it. Among other things, rumor has it that conductive "whiskers" grow across the cell. There is urban legend to the effect that you can cure a back-biased NiCd cell by zapping it with a very strong (but brief!) forward charging current (as from a large capacitor), supposedly to "blow the whiskers", but as I said, I consider this in the urban legend category. | It's been charging for over two days, and | reads only 2.65 volts. The battery is rated at 3.6V, 720mAh. When I | take the handset off the base, the LO BATTERY light comes on, and none | of the keys do anything. Any thoughts? I think you need a new battery. Sorry. Rob Warnock, MS-9U/510 rpw3@sgi.com rpw3@pei.com Silicon Graphics, Inc. (415)335-1673 Protocol Engines, Inc. 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94039-7311 ------------------------------ From: Jon Baker Subject: Re: Questions About Local Service and Long Distance Rates Date: 17 Jul 90 04:48:59 GMT Organization: Crossroads, Phoenix, Az Brendan, The first question regards the exhorbitant 'hook-up' fee. Although establishing service may involve only a few data-entry operators, the cost to lay wire to your residence is factored in there also. Even if it's an existing residence, they need to average the cost out over all new customers to avoid socking new home owners with a multi-hundred $ bill. Of course, there's an easier explanation - you WILL pay it, won't you? The second question is about maintaining the same phone #. I'm surprised they even offered the service. In the past, US West has not offered this luxury. To answer the question, you are most likely moving from one CO to another CO. To maintain the same prefix, they have to lay copper from the old CO to your new residence, or set up an FX line to the old CO. Both will cost you $$$ for set-up, and higher monthly charges (for the extra maintenance). Lastly, why can you call CA for less than your brudder across the street... ? Undoubtedly, the vagaries of supply and demand. \ / C r o s s r o a d s C o m m u n i c a t i o n s /\ (602) 941-2005 300-2400,9600 PEP Baud 24 hrs/day / \ hplabs!hp-sdd!crash!xroads!bakerj ------------------------------ Organization: Penn State University Date: Tuesday, 17 Jul 1990 08:20:16 EDT From: "Peter M. Weiss" Subject: Email VoiceMail Phone I am cross-posting this from Usenet Comp.Society as it may interest C.D.T'ers Pete In article <997@limbo.Intuitive.Com>, sblair@synoptics.COM (Steven C. Blair) says: There are currently 2 systems that I know of that can crossover voicemail and email on the market. They are not sold as one, but work together. 1) All-In-One with a ROLM phone system: The voicemail sends a short mail message to the user . Rudimentary, but functional. 2) CE Software's Quickmail, and Farralon Voice Terminal: work together as one. You can voicemail someone, or have a copy of a voicemail appended to an email message. The time is certainly ripe for some company to come up with something and get the sucker shipping *now*. But having worked in the areas of voice synthesis, and computer email strategies, the two are not as simple as apple pie and ice cream to co-exist in a single system. Steven C. Blair ------------------------------ Subject: PollenTrak From: "Roy M. Silvernail" Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 07:23:52 CDT Organization: Villa CyberSpace, Minneapolis, MN john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > An OTC pharmacutical company is sponsoring something called "Pollen > Trak" (with the same announcer on the machine that did "Weather > Trak"). You call the number and you get a pollen report for your > area. Based on the ANI data obtained in real time you are given, > supposedly, the correct report. It gives me a Sacramento area report; > that's hardly useful since San Jose is somewhat outside Sacramento's > geographic sphere of influence. I just had to try it. The recorded voice asked me to punch in my area code and phone number. (So much for ANI!) Then, it was kind enough to give _me_ the Sacramento pollen report, too! It strikes me that Minneapolis is perhaps a bit farther afield than San Jose, eh, John? I wonder who's programming this beastie? Roy M. Silvernail now available at: cybrspc!roy@cs.umn.edu ------------------------------ From: ie09@vaxb.acs.unt.edu Subject: Tracing Calls Back to College Dorm Phones Date: 17 Jul 90 13:16:59 GMT So if the phone company tries to trace a call that originated from, say a college dorm, all they would get if the number to that dorms switchboard? I think I have found the source of my annoying calls. [Moderator's Note: But something you should remember is the trace need not stop at that point. Either a manual or automatic switchboard at the dorm can still be traced as well. Once at UC, a telco guy came in and put a tap on an extension on the campus. Calls in or out through the main switchboard would trigger the little device on the line, and tape-record the call. And when the guy put the tap on the line, Mrs. Henderson saw me watching him and told me to keep my mouth shut and say nothing about it to the owner of that extension, 'or you will get in trouble too...'. I said nothing, and a week or so later the tap was removed. PT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 23:15:58 PDT From: Steve Forrette Subject: ANI From a Cellular Phone If you call an 800 number that delivers the ANI to the customer, what shows up if you are calling from a cellular phone? I know it's not the actual mobile number, but is it at least some (seemingly) random number on one of the prefixes that your cellular carrier has dedicated for their use? [Moderator's Note: I tried it a couple months ago from my cell phone to my 800 number (on which I get ANI). It reported back some wierd number, and when I called the Name and Address Service, it came back listed to 'IBT Company', at an address on the southwest side of town which also happens to be a central office building with a cellular antenna on the roof. Dialing the number produced an intercept: "The number your have dialed, xyz-abcd is not in service for incoming calls." PT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Jul 90 10:15 PDT From: Edward_Greenberg@claris.uucp Subject: Calling Cellular Prefix from GTE Coin Phone Well, the story is actually about AT&T. I was in GTE country in Novato, CA, (415-897) and was trying to call a Cellular One prefix (415-309). The AT&T operator, who handles GTE operator service, couldn't (a) get a cost on the call and (b) put the call through. Calling from the restaurant phone, also GTE, but not coin service, the call went through just fine. -edg ------------------------------ From: ckp@cup.portal.com Subject: Re: Pepsi-Cola Hits The Spot: Switchboard Shuts Down Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 17:13:30 PDT I very much enjoyed your story. Thanks for sharing it! % Christine K. Paustian % ckp@cup.portal.com % % Los Numeros On-Line %%% sun!portal!cup.portal.com!ckp % % PO Box 149 %%% 1:272/39 FidoNet % % Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510 % Where Radio Is Fun Again % ------------------------------ From: kam@dlogics.COM (Kevin Mitchell) Subject: Re: The Truth About "Cleaning Pulses" Date: 19 Jul 90 05:09:00 GMT Organization: Datalogics Inc., Chicago Hi, Pat. You may not remember me, but I used to frequent one of your BBSes. I got interested in this telecom stuff mostly due to an insatiable curiosity. My Uncle works for IBT, and my new boss at work used to run the phone systems at NU (do you know Phil Atwood?). Anyway, I think they do automatic line testing but he said it's only done on unused lines. At least I'm pretty sure; it was a while back. Kevin A. Mitchell (312) 266-4485 Datalogics, Inc Internet: kam@dlogics.UUCP 441 W. Huron UUCP: ..!uunet!dlogics!kam Chicago, IL 60610 FAX: (312) 266-4473 [Moderator's Note: You were a regular on {Lakeshore Modem Magazine} when I was operating it back in 1984-85. Sorry, I don't know Mr. Atwood. All I know is what happens every morning at 1:37 AM. :) PT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 0:44:17 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Re: Electronic Frontier Foundation Several of you wrote to correct one important flaw in my op-ed the other day about Kapor, Lotus, lawsuits et al. Your response was that Kapor has not been affiliated with Lotus for a period of time, except as a stockholder, and that he has stated in the recent past that he did not agree with the legal actions Lotus was taking against people alleged to have ripped off 1-2-3. Apparently Kapor has no authority over anything they do there. Therefore my complaint of his hypocrisy was in error. At least a couple dozen messages pointed this out, and said nothing further, so I won't print them, since they all say virtually what I stated above, and it would be unfair to arbitrarily pick some and skip others. There were however a few messages with additional commentary on the work of the EFF and these will be excerpted and printed in an issue of the Digest on Thursday evening. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #498 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa25973; 19 Jul 90 23:38 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa27015; 19 Jul 90 21:41 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa11400; 19 Jul 90 20:37 CDT Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 20:26:08 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #499 BCC: Message-ID: <9007192026.ab22749@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 19 Jul 90 20:25:35 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 499 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Directory Assistance Outage in Philadelphia [Carl Moore] Re: E911 Experience [Tad Cook] Re: E911 Experience [Ihor J. Kinal] Re: Fun With ANI [Paul Wilczynski] Re: Fun With ANI [Kenny Crudup] Re: Fun With ANI [Chris Johnson] Re: Answer Supervision on International Calls [John Higdon] Re: Pepsi-Cola Hits The Spot: Switchboard Shuts Down [Keith Henson] Re: Caller-ID Update (Pennsylvania) [David J. Birnbaum] Re: Help with Rotored Lines/ Rack Mounted Modems [John Higdon] Re: Cellular Intercept Quiz [John Higdon] Re: Radio Shack CT-102 [Doug Faunt] Re: Nicad "Memory" [Marc T. Kaufman] Special Issue: Electronic Frontier Foundation [TELECOM Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 19:05:29 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Directory Assistance Outage in Philadelphia On KYW news-radio this morning (1060 AM, in Philadelphia, Pa.) came word that due to a power outage around 4:30 this morning (Eastern time), directory assistance for Phila., other parts of (southeastern?) Pa., and Delaware (how much?) was out except for emergency requests which were done manually. The reason: the computer which provides the data was down. ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: Re: E911 Experience Date: 19 Jul 90 17:32:36 GMT Organization: very little In article <9611@accuvax.nwu.edu>, chris@com50.c2s.mn.org (Chris Johnson) writes: > I dialed 911 and said, "There's a knife fight going on in the Nicollet > Island Park." > The operator replied, "what's the address there?" This was my first > clue that either the operator was daft, or she was not getting any > automatic information on my location. This is standard. They always try to verify what they see on their ALI display. > Me: "I'm in the Nicollet Island Park shelter building, the fight is > about 50 yards away in the ampitheatre." > Op: "Did you say they had knives?" > Me: "Yes, one of them has a knife." At this point you are getting panicky, and they are probably already rolling a squad car ... at the same time they need more info to determine if an aid car is needed and how much response to give. > Op: "Did you see the knife?" > Me: "No, another person here told me he saw one." [meanwhile, fighter > A is cutting away pieces of fighter B, bit by bit] > Op: "So you didn't see a knife..." > Me: [exasperated] "No, but these guys are drunk or brain damaged. They are > way out of it. They are scaring the people here..." > Op: "Let me talk to the person who saw the knife." At this point you are going crazy, thinking that these jerks are putting you through the 3rd degree before they will do ANYTHING, but the fact is that they are probably already responding. Also, what seems like a LONG TIME when you are panicked is actually a few seconds. > We ended up with four police squads, a rescue truck, an ambulance and > two park police (where were they earlier, anyway?). Sounds like an appropriate response. > Still later, I found out a third person had also called 911. I guess > once they got three different calls about the same problem from three > different phones they managed to figure out I wasn't kidding when I > first called. They probably responded to the first call. The trick is to get the caller to calm down and give good information while sending a response, and do it in such a way as to not piss off or panic the caller. Without the info, they don't know whether to send two officers, ten officers, an aid car, fire engine, bomb sqaud, etc. 911 in a metro area can be a real juggling act, figuring out quickly how to allocate limited resources. > Is this how E911 is supposed to work? Yes! > And why didn't they know my location right away? They probably did, but procedure told them to verify it. Tad Cook Seattle, WA Packet: KT7H @ N7HFZ.WA.USA.NA Phone: 206/527-4089 MCI Mail: 3288544 Telex: 6503288544 MCI UW USENET:...uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!ssc!tad or, tad@ssc.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 10:47:19 EDT From: Ihor J Kinal Subject: Re: E911 Experience Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories In article <9869@accuvax.nwu.edu>, ralphs@halcyon.wa.com (Ralph Sims) writes: > 911 (especially E911) works! The system is in place in virtually all > of the continental U.S. and is accessed by millions of people a year. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem available in New Jersey, which otherwise is fairly well served in the telecom area. Although I've heard rumors of it going in, and don't know of any hard dates. # include Ihor Kinal att!cbnewsh!ijk ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 04:20 EST From: Paul Wilczynski <0002003441@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: Fun With ANI John R. Levine writes ... > Oh, well. I thought that 800 ANI delivery was only implemented > for extremely high volume Megacom applications, which this is probably > not. I have an AT&T ReadyLine 800 number ($20/month plus cost of the calls) and I get the phone numbers of most of the people who call my 800 number. Paul Wilczynski ------------------------------ From: Kenny Crudup LID-A0794 Subject: Re: Fun With ANI Reply-To: Kenny Crudup LID-A0794 Organization: Lotus Development Corp. Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 15:33:12 GMT In article <9835@accuvax.nwu.edu> johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine) writes: >When I called, it asked me to dial my number, so I gave them the >number of the time-of-day lady in Boston (which happens to be a normal >phone number, not a 976) and they give me the pollen count for New >York. Oh, well. I tried it from my phone at work (behind a ROLM digital PBX) and it too asked me for my number. Now the reason I'm putting in my two cents is 'cause I got the report for Boston OK, but Lotus has just switched to the old 693- exchange, which used to be Martha's Vineyard before the 617/508 area code division (It's aggrivating, as my extension, 617-693-4111, used to be MV information, and anyone with an outdated book will call this number (I should know, I keep a tally sheet and have 41 calls since 6/25)). I am surprised that John Levine should have gotten NYC info, as the 637-xxxx time number has been around for a while, but Lotus has just started using (617)-693 in the last 6 weeks. Kenneth R. Crudup, Lotus Development Corp. Contractor, NASD/QA system V 1 Rogers Street 6381D, Cambridge, MA 02142. (617) 693 4111. Work: kcrudup@roxbury.lotus.com, Home: nubian!kenny@ima.ima.isc.com ------------------------------ From: Chris Johnson Subject: Re: Fun With ANI Organization: Com Squared Systems, Inc. Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 17:19:42 GMT I tried the PollenTrak number too, hoping to be amazed by their ANI knowing where I was, but of course, was requested to enter my number. I did so, and it gave me the pollen count for St. Paul, which is logically the closest large city (about 2-3 miles away). I guess it all depends on where you are geographically with respect to a news or weather agency that reports pollen counts. ...Chris Johnson chris@c2s.mn.org ..uunet!bungia!com50!chris Com Squared Systems, Inc. St. Paul, MN USA +1 612 452 9522 ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Answer Supervision on International Calls Date: 19 Jul 90 02:18:24 PDT (Thu) From: John Higdon David E. A. Wilson writes: > Do international calls have answer supervision? Does it depend on > which telco is responsible for the subscriber in the USA? Yes, of course international calls have supervision. With money like that at stake, do you think they would "guess" whether to charge or not?:-) Seriously, however, I can tell you for an absolute fact that international calls (including those to Australia) supervise quite reliably. It may be that your local situation is not handling the supervision properly for billing purposes. The local telco is getting the answer indication back from the US; you should ask them why the problem with your bills. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: hkhenson@cup.portal.com Subject: Re: Pepsi-Cola Hits The Spot: Switchboard Shuts Down Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 20:35:53 PDT Re the stories of beverages in the switchboard, I am reminded of a time '79-'84 when I tried to run a walkin, rent 'em by the hour microcomputer storefront. Since most of the use was recreational, it was hard to ban beverages -- not to mention the money we took in from the coke machine! Our response was to keep a gallon of distilled water on hand, and on the infrequent times someone spilled a drink into a keyboard, we rinsed them off. Never lost a keyboard, those old Apple IIs were tough! Keith Henson ------------------------------ From: "David J. Birnbaum" Subject: Re: Caller-ID Update (Pennsylvania) Date: 19 Jul 90 12:39:08 GMT Reply-To: "David J. Birnbaum" Organization: Harvard University, Cambridge MA In article <9883@accuvax.nwu.edu> lee@chsun1.uchicago.edu (dwight lee) writes: >Apparently Caller-ID has been deemed illegal in PA since it violates a >state law against wiretap devices (unless court-ordered). It was also >deemed an invasion of privacy. The telco argued that Caller-ID lets >the called party protect privacy, but the court (state supreme, if I >recall correctly) rules that the caller's right to privacy (ie, >unlisted telephone numbers, etc) must be taken into consideration as >well. >I wonder if this will set a precedent for other states. According to an article in Pittsburgh Magazine last year (about sales of "spy" equipment for home use), Pennsylvania is unusual in its laws about recording telephone conversations. Apparently many states allow you to record telephone conversations with the consent of one of the parties, but Pennsylvania requires the consent of both. Thus, it is illegal to tap your own phone to record your own conversations. FWIW, is there really any technical problem with protecting unlisted numbers from caller ID? David J. Birnbaum djb@wjh12.harvard.edu [Internet] djb@harvunxw.bitnet [Bitnet] ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Help with Rotored Lines/ Rack Mounted Modems Date: 19 Jul 90 01:41:22 PDT (Thu) From: John Higdon Julian Macassey writes: > Anyhow a good administarator of telco gear should check all trunks and > associated equipment on a regular basis. This is a task an operator > can do first thing in the morning. It is also handy to check 800 > numbers on thge local loops as well, they do die sometimes. I'll second that. Even here at home, where I have five modems working various trunks, in and out through the PBX, a weekly check is performed. From a phone, I dial the extension number of each modem and check for answer, and then using one of the electronic phones, punch up each CO line that is involved with modem use and check for dial tone. This may seem silly, but this routine check solved a problem that had gone unnoticed. One of my uucp neighbors calls on my 1200 bps modem at night because they run out of Telebits due to heavy traffic. As a courtesy, they don't tie up Telebits with a "slow" call. Somehow, I had kicked the modular cord out of the modem, and it went out of service. All week, I noticed that my mailing list subscriptions were coming in late but passed it off as just "net aberations". When I did my weekly check, the 1200 bps modem failed to respond and the problem was readily corrected. Suddenly, my Telecom Digests started arriving on time once again. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Cellular Intercept Quiz Date: 19 Jul 90 02:01:13 PDT (Thu) From: John Higdon Kenny Crudup LID-A0794 writes: > Don't worry. Beat you to it. What *I* need are frequencies.... The complete description of SIT (Special Information Tones) including frequencies, cadence, and tone duration, with listings concerning the different "call failure" categories, is available from: * Bellcore * The Public Library * Your local LEC (DID customers are required to have them for vacant lines) * Your state PUC * Half the readers of the Digest In short, possession of this information is not a Federal crime. I'd post is all here, but someone borrowed my big yellow Bellcore book and didn't return it. (Or did the person I was borrowing it from take it back? I can't remember.) Call Pac*Bell and ask for their IXC information package. I did. It is highly informative. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! [Moderator's Note: But one thing puzzles me: What's to prevent anyone or everyone from answering *all* their phone calls that way? In other words, when you go off hook to answer a call, 'da da dee', then begin your conversation. What prevents anyone from playing games like this to provide the essence of a 'toll-free' number to callers? PT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 10:27:23 -0700 From: Doug Faunt N6TQS 415-688-8269 Subject: Re: Radio Shack CT-102 Thanks for the information. I went into a Radio Shack last night to buy one, but they didn't have one, so they cheerfully gave me a "rain check" that gives me the right to buy one for the $299. through the middle of September. Also, one of the salespeople said that $299. for that one, and $499. for the hand-held were going to be the new regular price "soon". ------------------------------ From: "Marc T. Kaufman" Subject: Re: Nicad "Memory" Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 16:38:59 GMT In article <9888@accuvax.nwu.edu> Rob Warnock writes: >...There is urban legend to >the effect that you can cure a back-biased NiCd cell by zapping it >with a very strong (but brief!) forward charging current (as from a >large capacitor), supposedly to "blow the whiskers", but as I said, I >consider this in the urban legend category. Not an urban legend. *I* have done it several times. Just use either the charge from a large capacitor, or (better) a current limited power supply. I have a supply I can limit to 3 amps with an 18 volt maximum. Attach it to the battery in charging configuration and slowly turn up the juice. The current will go up rapidly (into the shorting whisker) until it fries, then drop back to a more reasonable value (100 ma or so). At that point I revert to standard charging techniques. I can't tell you about the _ultimate_ service life of a recovered battery, but it is certainly longer than the remaining life of an unrecovered cell. Marc Kaufman (kaufman@Neon.stanford.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 20:18:06 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Special Issue: Electronic Frontier Foundation A follow-up special issue of TELECOM Digest will be distributed late Thursday evening with a selection of the *many* replies to my comments the other day. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #499 ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa28034; 20 Jul 90 1:43 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa04661; 19 Jul 90 23:46 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa02726; 19 Jul 90 22:42 CDT Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 21:56:13 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest: Rebuttals to EFF Commentary BCC: Message-ID: <9007192156.ab12960@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 19 Jul 90 21:53:00 CDT Rebuttals: EFF Comments Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson The Roar of the Crowd: Rebuttals to EFF Commentary [Many of You] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 20:28:32 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: The Roar of the Crowd: Rebuttals to EFF Commentary Numerous replies were received to my message the other day asking if it seemed strange that Lotus was suing the pants off of everyone and anyone who had a product remotely similar to 1-2-3, while at the same time Mitch Kapor's new organization was defending someone accused of theft of the documentation connected with 911 software. The responses pointed out that Kapor was no longer involved in any management capacity with Lotus, and that he had in fact expressed his disapproval of Lotus' actions. Most responses stopped at that point, but some went further, and added additional commentary. Here are a few: From: jt Subject: Response to Pat Townson's Swipe at the EFF Pat Townson says: >I guess as usual I don't know what I'm talking about." Pat, on this one I agree with you. You don't seem to know what you're talking about, have read the stuff you print, or keep up on the issues. Consider: 1. There is *NO* evidence that I know of to be introduced in the Neidorf trial that claims he distributed software, and as you should know, the contents of the documents in question can be found in a library (see CuD 1.19, 1.20). If you read Neidorf's indictment, you will see that he is not charged with stealing software or with using it in anyway that would subvert its value. 2. Law can abuse as well as protect. Mitch Kapor has been quite explicit in distancing himself, and the EFF, from predatory behavior. The EFF, as the founders have publicly repeated, as their documents indicate, and as their behavior confirms, is focusing on *CIVIL LIBERTIES* issues that affect us all, even you. At stake is simply the legal status of electronic communications and the protections it will or will not have in the coming decades. Why do you insist, despite all evidence to the contrary, to reduce this to a "defending hackers" issue, and then take cheap shots when he doesn't seem to be defending people you have criticized in the past? 3. The EFF is *NOT* contributing to Craig Neidorf's defense. It is funding to an amicus brief filed by New York lawyers on Constitutional issues. 4. Why is it a contradiction to want to see a mugger who mugs you prosecuted while simultaneously believing that even muggers have rights, especially if the means of catching or punishing the mugger threaten law-abiding citizens as well? 5. The Morris case hardly raises any Constitutional issues. But, the fate of Neidorf also may have consequences for the legal fate of Len Rose, so what's the problem with putting resources where they're most useful? 6. Neither the EFF, CuD, 2600, or any other group, to my knowledge, has made folk heros out of any of the current defendants. If you have evidence to the contrary, produce it. All that I've read quite specifically focuses in the *ISSUES*! But, even if they did, so what? Would this change the principles involved? Why do you find it so necessary to focus on irelevant, inaccurate, and non-germane points? There are documents, interviews, facts, and other stuff from which one can obtain information. One would hope that a moderator would use his/her position to at least inform an opinion with these rather than take cheap shots from afar and distort reality for the sake of blind-siding. The EFF, CuD, and other groups are trying to bridge the gap and reduce polarization. You, by contrast, seem intent on doing the opposite. Jim Thomas Subject: Re: Electronic Frontier Foundation Organization: Segue Software, Cambridge MA From: "John R. Levine" Hey, Pat, chill out a little. My reading of the EFF announcement says that the two cases that they are working on have little to do with theft of anything. In the Steve Jackson Games case, nobody has been charged with any crime and as far as I can tell, nobody is likely to be, but they have had most of their business assets confiscated without a trial. In the Craig Neidorf case, there is considerable evidence that the worst thing he is guilty of is not knowing the right way to deal with unsolicited stolen property, sort of like somebody running past you and throwing you a bag of money, with the cops showing up shortly thereafter. Also, keep in mind that Mitch Kapor left Lotus and apparently sold most or all of his stock several years ago, and there is no reason to think that he has any influence on what Lotus does, nor that he benefits from any of their actions. Regards, John Levine, johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|lotus}!esegue!johnl Subject: Re: Electronic Frontier Foundation From: John Higdon TELECOM Moderator writes: > It seems Mr. Kapor can be very aggressive when it comes to protecting > what he believes is his property. Lotus sues quite frequently when they > are offended, and they seem to be easily offended. I wonder why Mr. > Kapor does not feel the same way about software which belongs to > telcos? I'm not so sure that Mr. Kapor single-handedly made the policy decisions to litigate against the look-and-feel offenders--in fact all that I have been able to uncover indicated that he, personally, was against that course of action. But the major thrust of the EFF is not to defend the 911 document-lifters, but rather to inform the public and our government agencies concerning matters technical and to effect policies that intelligently deal with them. > If the documentation for 1-2-3 was distributed far and wide > you know Lotus would be all over your case in a minute ... why should > the distribution of 911 documentation be different? Why are the people > alleged to have ripped off 1-2-3 concepts to be held in contempt and > sued, while those alleged to have distributed 911 stuff are treated as > folk-heros? Maybe it has to do with whose money is involved, eh? To my knowledge, no one was ever threatened with criminal charges, heavy fines, or jail time for distributing Lotus documentation. On the other hand, the 911 documentation (which is readily available from many sources) is threatening to ruin the lives of a number of people. Those involved with 1-2-3 matters are well acquainted with the issues involved while those prosecuting the 911 defendants are completely ignorant. It is time that the police, judges, and especially our lawmakers learn what is and what is not important when it comes to technology. > For next: In the flood of press releases received here last week > announcing the establishment of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, > and their plans to defend the civil liberties of computerists -- as > EFF and Kapor define those things -- not a word was said about a legal > defense for Len Rose. As I said, the EFF is not a computer ACLU. Defending people against no-nothing prosecutions may be incidental to what they are trying to accomplish, but that isn't their prime purpose. Their stated purpose is public education and the support of litigation *in the public interest*. > And while we are on the subject, Robert Morris could > probably use a good appellate-level attorney about now. Mr. Morris intended to create a worm. He worked hard on it. It performed beyond his wildest expectations. IMHO, he got what he deserved. > I guess as usual I don't know what I am talking about. That's a matter of opinion. But my feathers get a little ruffled when people are attacked for trying to do something that is sorely needed in this world: educate the public regarding technology. Whatever his history or motives, I hardly think it is appropriate to kick Mr. Kapor in the teeth when he works in partnership with Steve Wozniak in pursuit of a worthy cause. Do you hold the same reservations about Woz? John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! From: kdb@macaw.intercon.com (Kurt Baumann) Subject: Re: Electronic Frontier Foundation Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation, Herndon, VA Well I can tell that you read what was said. First at the press conference several times Mr. Kapor was questioned about the Lotus suit, and everytime he said that he did not believe that what Lotus was doing is correct. It is also a fact that Mr. Kapor is now involved with a new startup company and not involved in Lotus. That happened several years ago. About the distribution of the 911 docuementation (if that is really what it is, do you have a copy of it?), this is very similar to the printing of the Pentagon papers back in the early 70's. If the government had come down on the {New York Times} like it did on the poor person whose BBS contained the 911 document in question (and in fact this person is the person who blew the whistle on the 911 document and cooperated with the Feds...), what do you think the response of the public would be? Consider that confiscating the computer that contained the document is akin to confiscating the printing presses of the {New York Times}. The publisher is not at fault, but perhaps the original article author is, if he broke laws in obtaining the documents. Go read the Pentagon Papers case for further enlightenment. Also, no one at the press conference thought that they were "folk-heros". The whole reason for the foundation is to protect those basic rights that we all have, and make sure that those rights extend to cover computers as well. These rights are what give you the ability to say what you feel in forums like this. The way things are headed in the future you may not have the right to say on a network what you just said, after all it might contain something that would "harm" the government or some large corporation. The idea is to educate those who make the laws so that they understand what the technology can and cannot do. > For next: In the flood of press releases received here last week > announcing the establishment of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, > and their plans to defend the civil liberties of computerists -- as > EFF and Kapor define those things -- not a word was said about a legal > defense for Len Rose. You'd think he would be a prime candidate for > their services. And while we are on the subject, Robert Morris could > probably use a good appellate-level attorney about now. First, just a question for all of you out there. Why do people feel that it is ok to take away the rights on someone who we/public feels is wrong? When those same rights are taken away from someone who we/public feels is right it is not ok? If we are to have rights they need to be applied to EVERYONE, don't they? Len Rose admitted to breaking the law (read the Unix Today article in which he was interviewed), and is in a different catagory. The intent of the EFF is to protect those who did not break laws, but whose basic rights have been infringed. Take for example Steve Jackson of Steve Jackson Games, whose computers were taken from him because it was thought that a game he was working on was actually a hacker training manual. Of course we all know that we can all hook into our computers by just plugging them into our brain. Here again his First Amendment right of free speach was infringed upon, as well as several other rights that were broken in the SS's zeal to get their guy. Robert Morris did not have any of his basic rights taken away, so this case is not of concern to the EFF. The search done on this company basically let them take whatever they felt like taking. If you tried to get a search warrent that said "I want to take all of the paperwork in this office" the judge wouldn't allow it, but they said "I want to take all of the electronic data in this office" the judge allowed that. What is different between hard copy and electronic copy? Nothing in my mind, you probably feel the same way, but to someone who doesn't know anything about computers, how are they to decide? This is where groups like the EFF come to bear. If you educate these people that electronic data is no different than paper data, then they have a handle on how to react to the above request. I would be willing to bet that if the judge had thought of it as paperwork he would not have allowed such a broad warrent. In fact no one knows exactly what was said on the warrant, all they have said so far is that they were looking for computer/ electronic data. Also, no arrests or charges have been made in this case to date. > I guess as usual I don't know what I am talking about. You know what you feel, but you haven't really taken a close look at what is being said. A closed mind never learns anything new. InterCon Systems Corporation 703.709.9890 703.709.9896 FAX ----------------------------- My thanks to all who wrote, including these folks, who simply noted that Kapor was no longer with Lotus: Alan Knight Paul Pomes Dave Platt David Canzi Lang Zerner Walter Smith James Jones Fred R. Goldstein Anthony Garcia Peter da Silva Tom Betz Others I may have missed! :( I'm sure this conversation will continue in CuD, and if you are not already subscribing, this is a good time to introduce you to the list. The Computer Underground Digest was started partly because of the overflow of messages here in telecom relating to the methods employed in the federal crackdown on computer crime, particularly the 'Sun Devil' case. To have each issue delivered to your email box, write the moderators: TK0JUT2.NIU.BITNET. A final word from Bob Dobbs, founder of the Church of the Sub-Genius: "I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person that I'm preaching to" -- J. R. "Bob" Dobbs Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest: Rebuttals: EFF Commentary ******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa08418; 20 Jul 90 12:13 EDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa07375; 20 Jul 90 9:52 CDT Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa30152; 20 Jul 90 8:47 CDT Date: Fri, 20 Jul 90 8:16:34 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V10 #500 BCC: Message-ID: <9007200816.ab26194@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 20 Jul 90 08:15:35 CDT Volume 10 : Issue 500 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Sprint in Trouble: 1000 Employees to be Dismissed [TELECOM Moderator] Sam Elkas, Quebec's Public Safety Minister [Nigel Allen] 144 Access Barred on Mercury Phones [Nigel Roberts] Two Parents, Ten Kids and Call Waiting [Nigel Allen] Cellular/Cordless Phones in Computer Room [Peter M. Weiss] Cellular Telephone as Emergency Service? [Doug Faunt] A Couple Tech Questions About Cellular Phones [Cliff Yamamoto] Re: Answer Supervision on a POTS Line (Kind of) [John Boteler] Re: PollenTrak [Carl Moore] Re: Cellular Intercept Quiz [John Hidgon] Re: Fun With ANI [Jim Budler] Re: PollenTrak [Daniel M. Rosenberg] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 23:59:40 CDT From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Sprint in Trouble: 1000 Employees to be Dismissed US Sprint announced Tuesday it plans to cut 1000 workers, or about five percent of its work force, after its parent company reported sharp losses at the number three long distance company in the United States. United Telecommunications, which owns 80.1 percent of Sprint, reported a 55 percent drop in second quarter earnings because of continued, difficult to control losses at the company. Sprint said the job cuts would begin soon, and continue through the end of the year, as part of an overall restructuring of the long distance carrier. Most locations of the company will be involved in the cutbacks, with the possible exception of the sales and marketing staff, which might be slightly increased in size. United Telecommunications had been planning to buy the 19.9 percent of Sprint it does not already own ... but a corporate spokesperson said Tuesday this was being put on hold indefinitly, due to Sprint's $42 million loss during the period April 1 through June 30, 1990. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ From: Nigel Allen Subject: Sam Elkas, Quebec's public safety minister Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 17:54:02 EDT If you have been following the dispute between Mohawks and the Quebec provincial police, you may be interested to know that Sam Elkas, Quebec's Minister of Public Security (i.e. police and prisons) and transport, was director of Bell Canada's coin phone operation before he became a full-time politician. He also used to be mayor of a suburb of Montreal. As public security minister, he is politically responsible for the Surete du Quebec (to give the provincial police force its correct name), but the police raid on the Mohawk reservation was apparently initiated without consultation with Elkas. In any event, can anyone come up with any other telephone company management personnel who became politicians? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 17:59:40 PDT From: Nigel Roberts 0860 578600 Subject: 144 Access Barred on Mercury Phones I had my first chance to play with a Mercury payphone recently, as there are a couple installed in the Travelodge in Basingstoke where I'm staying at the moment. Couple of observations -- the phones themselves only accept Mercurycards (pre-payment cards), or major credit cards (all MC/VISA/AMEX/DC). They do not take cash at all. Credit card calls cost a minimum of 50p. One gotcha is that the follow-on call button has no effect save that of eliminating the need to swipe the card again -- you will still be charged a (second) 50p minimum fee. 100 (operator), 192 (directory) etc. etc. all work quite happily. (You get Mercury operators, of course, not BT ones). But if you dial 144 (the access code for non-operator calls using Chargecard) you get "BARRED CALL" on the phone's display. Equal access? Forget it. Nigel Roberts ------------------------------ From: Nigel Allen Subject: Two Parents, Ten Kids and Call Waiting Reply-To: ndallen@contact.uucp (Nigel Allen) Organization: Contact Public Unix BBS. Toronto, Canada. Date: Wed, 18 Jul 90 09:30:56 GMT (from Playback Strategy, July 16, 1990) Alberta Government Telephones is using a family of twelve to promote call waiting - one of the special features in its custom services package. Dennis and Charleen Oberg with their ten children - age two through seventeen - appear in double-page magazine ads under the headline "Two Parents, Ten Kids and Call Waiting". Nick Drinkwater, account manager at Baker Lovick Advertising in Calgary, the agency responsible for the ad, says the concept of using a large family to promote the benefits of call waiting was ideal. However, taking the ad from initial inspiration to final form was no easy task. In fact, a province-wide search was needed to turn up a family that fulfilled the concept's two main conditions: there had to be eight or more children in the family and the household had to have call waiting. The ad, which will run until October in a variety of Alberta magazines, is part of AGT's 1990 integrated advertising campaign, themed "AGT - We bring the world to you." The Baker Lovick campaign also includes various other print ads and radio and TV spots. [Note from NDA: It's interesting that AGT and its ad agency were sufficiently honest to find a family that already had call waiting, rather than hiring a bunch of models for the ad. Regular readers of comp.dcom.telecom will know that AGT is the main telephone company in the province of Alberta, Canada. It is owned by the Alberta government, which would like to sell the company.] ------------------------------ Organization: Penn State University Date: Thursday, 19 Jul 1990 07:48:13 EDT From: "Peter M. Weiss" Subject: Cellular/Cordless Phones in Computer Room Please relate your experiences in using either cellular or cordless phones in a computer room, especially as it relates to any EMI that affected the operation of a computing or electronic media device. Pete Weiss, pmw1@psuvm or @vm.psu.edu Penn State U ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 14:27:23 -0700 From: Doug Faunt N6TQS 415-688-8269 Subject: Cellular Telephone as Emergency Service? Do cellular nodes have emergency power? If so, for how long? Obviously some are at CO's and will be up for a long time, but what about my neighborhood site? Any "standard" answers? ------------------------------ From: Cliff Yamamoto Subject: A Couple Tech Questions About Cellular Phones Date: 19 Jul 90 20:54:43 GMT Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Greetings! I've been reading this group lately and though I may be out of my league with many of those who read here, I hope this is not a silly question. I recently got a cellular phone and have some questions. This may be a rumor, but I've heard that *all* cellular phones have the capability to have their microphones/xmitters activated by the switching office? Is this true? Does that mean if I leave the power on, they can actually "bug" the area my phone is left in? Are there any other "unusual" functions that can be performed on my phone w/o me knowing? Secondly, I haven't had any dropped calls yet, but can anyone explain the heuristic used for the following: say you are leaving a cell and the cell you are approaching is completely tied up. Will the cell you are leaving boost your xmitter power and keep you on as long as possible, or will it drop you? I would hope it would keep you going on a marginal transmission until you can gracefully kill your call or until the tied up cell becomes freed. I hope someone out there can enlighten me on these questions. If there is *A* reference book out there (like some sort of IEEE or ANSI publication) about cellular phone, please let me know. Thanks, Cliff Yamamoto ------------------------------ From: John Boteler Subject: Re: Answer Supervision on a POTS Line (Kind of) Organization: Common Sense Computing, McLean, VA. Date: Fri, 20 Jul 90 03:18:44 GMT From article <9782@accuvax.nwu.edu>, by forrette@sim.berkeley.edu (Steve Forrette): > If you have three-way calling, you can determine when the call > supervises. This is a result of a flash not breaking to a second dial > tone until the call supervises...At least this is what happens on the > 1AESS I'm on. > A couple of questions for you experts: Does this only happen on a 1AESS? > Which other switches? As you succinctly pointed out, this is what happens on your 1A, but not on mine. Don't ask about #5s around here. I rather fancy this, as a matter of fact; each switch has its own personality :) Too bad for us when we build circuits and install equipment depending on predictable behavior. Postscript: On 1A Centrex around here (D.C.), answer supervision was provided in the form of loop-interrupt. If you really, really needed to have this information provided you, just order Centrex (and hope they get the features right!) John Boteler {uunet | ka3ovk}!media!csense!bote NCN NudesLine: 703-241-BARE -- VOICE only, Touch-Tone (TM) accessible ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Jul 90 9:49:55 EDT From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: PollenTrak I called the PollenTrak number myself, and when I made a wrong entry of the phone number, it said it didn't have information available about the ZIPCODE area I selected? ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Reply-To: John Higdon Subject: Re: Cellular Intercept Quiz Date: 19 Jul 90 22:54:37 PDT (Thu) From: John Higdon On Jul 19 at 20:26, TELECOM Moderator writes: > [Moderator's Note: But one thing puzzles me: What's to prevent anyone > or everyone from answering *all* their phone calls that way? In other > words, when you go off hook to answer a call, 'da da dee', then begin > your conversation. What prevents anyone from playing games like this > to provide the essence of a 'toll-free' number to callers? PT] There is nothing to prevent you from doing this, but why bother? Except for COCOTs, I'm unaware of any equipment or carriers that use the SIT for billing determination. Remember, SIT is for telco and carrier trouble auditing purposes. COCOTs use of it for detection of "non-answer supervision" is a hack. If you want to put SIT on your answering machine (as a friend of mine has), the only people who might save money would be COCOT users. Real answer supervision is either DC reversal or out-of-band signaling. You can't mess with that. Also, all this talk about frequencies, etc., is so unnecessary. If you want to generate SIT, just record some off the phone. The frequencies aren't critical and it doesn't even matter if there is a little flutter thrown in for good measure. Enjoy! John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Jim Budler Subject: Re: Fun With ANI Reply-To: Jim Budler Organization: Silvar-Lisco,Inc. Sunnyvale Ca. Date: Fri, 20 Jul 90 05:59:03 GMT In article <9872@accuvax.nwu.edu> blake@pro-party.cts.com (Blake Farenthold) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 496, Message 5 of 10 >In-Reply-To: message from merlyn@iwarp.intel.com >Called the Benadryl Pollen Count number myself, from the PBX at work Me, too. Aren't we curious people 8^). >me the HOUSTON pollen Count. Houston (713-Almost Anything) is 5 hours >by car and 46 minutes by 737 away. Guess its the closest place they >have a count from. Earlier in this thread someone entered from 408 called and got a report from Sacramento, 100 miles away. When I called I got a report from Berkeley for "The Bay Area". Maybe they don't have their network fully functional yet? Why don't we try this all again in a week? Jim Budler jimb@silvlis.com +1.408.991.6061 Silvar-Lisco, Inc. 703 E. Evelyn Ave. Sunnyvale, Ca. 94086 ------------------------------ From: "Daniel M. Rosenberg" Subject: Re: PollenTrak Date: 19 Jul 90 17:34:39 GMT Organization: World Otherness Ministries In <9891@accuvax.nwu.edu> cybrspc!roy@cs.umn.edu (Roy M. Silvernail) writes: >john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: >> An OTC pharmacutical company is sponsoring something called "Pollen >> Trak" [ uses ANI, etc. ] ... It gives me a Sacramento area report; >> that's hardly useful since San Jose is somewhat outside Sacramento's >> geographic sphere of influence. >I just had to try it. The recorded voice asked me to punch in my area >code and phone number. (So much for ANI!) Then, it was kind enough to >give _me_ the Sacramento pollen report, too! And so I did the same thing, and gave it my "phone number" at work -- really the number to an auto attendant. And the Pollen Trak thing balked and said "Not available." So, I called back and gave it the number of the {San Francisco Chronicle's} Classified Ads department (same area code, different exchange). And got the SF Bay Pollen Report fine. And then I gave it the number of the inbound modem pool at AT&T Bell Labs in Murray Hill, NJ,(with the old 201 area code) and correctly got the pollen report for the Newark area of New Jersey, same woman's voice. Strangely enough, the pollen report seemed (except for place name) identical in San Francisco and Newark ("bad but not so bad -- buy some Benadryl"). # Daniel M. Rosenberg // Stanford CSLI // Chew my opinions, not Stanford's. # dmr@csli.stanford.edu // decwrl!csli!dmr // dmr%csli@stanford.bitnet ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V10 #500 ******************************