Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa21225; 9 Feb 91 5:18 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa00442; 9 Feb 91 2:26 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa18470; 9 Feb 91 1:15 CST Date: Sat, 9 Feb 91 0:14:49 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #101 BCC: Message-ID: <9102090014.ab20731@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 9 Feb 91 00:14:31 CST Volume 11 : Issue 101 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Many Software Designers of Caller ID Also Disliked it [Dave Levenson] Re: Many Software Designers of Caller ID Also Disliked it [Malcolm Slaney] Caller*ID Availablity [Sean Williams] Re: Wanted: Recommendations For Small Key-System [Daniel A. Margolis] Re: Headset Installation Help Needed [Daniel A. Margolis] Re: AT&T Cordless Phones, Security, Flexible Antennas [Tad Cook] Re: Forts Meade and Ritchie in Maryland [John Boteler] Re: CNA Numbers Needed For 202 and 301 [Randy Borow] Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack [Peter Thurston] Re: How Do I Tell When ... [Ole J. Jacobsen] Re: How Do I Tell When ... [Antonio Desimone] Re: India on Calling Card [Amit Bhargava] Re: Answering That Pay Phone [Roy M. Silvernail] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Many Software Designers of Caller ID Also Disliked it Date: 7 Feb 91 12:38:18 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article <16723@accuvax.nwu.edu>, folta@tove.cs.umd.edu (Wayne Folta) writes: > In Maryland, you can now dial *67 before a call and the CID box shows > "Private #" on the display. As a (free) counter-feature, I would like > to be able to have the phone company block all *67'd and otherwise > private # calls from ringing my phone. If you want to call me (enter > my house as it were), I believe I have a right to know who you are > before granting you entrance. ... > [Moderator's Note: The way to refuse calls from blocked numbers is > pretty simple if you also have call screening. Please note that *67 ... Call screening (or Call*Block, as it's called in NJ) has another use, as well. You can add the last number that called you, and then have the system read that number back -- verbal Caller*ID on request, without having to subscribe to Caller*ID or buy a display device. Ideally, however, the telco should be required to provide a service where the calling party is advised that the call is being refused *because* the calling number is being blocked, and that the way to get through is to call again without invoking the anonymous-caller feature. On a related topic, why is Caller ID considered a privacy issue? Aren't people confusing privacy with anonymity? Are the states like Pennsylvania now asserting that their citizens have the right to anonymity when they disturb others by telephone? Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 [Moderator's Note: Dave raises some interesting points in his final paragraph that are probably better suited for Telecom-Priv rather than here. If anyone wants to respond to him on the last paragraph please do it in the supplementary list. Regarding the 'instant Caller*ID' obtained by blocking the last number then having the directory of screened numbers read back to you, we don't get that here. If you opt to 'screen last call' by *60 #01# rather than by the specifici] number (because you don't know it) the system confirms that you have stored what it terms a 'private entry' which is the way the directory reads it back. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Malcolm Slaney Subject: Re: Many Software Designers of Caller ID Also Disliked it Date: 7 Feb 91 17:58:57 GMT Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA >[Moderator's Note: The way to refuse calls from blocked numbers is >pretty simple if you also have call screening. Please note that *67 >does not refuse to pass the caller's number to the CO ... but merely >instructs the CO not to give it to you. So what you do is, you have to >get called once by the blocked number. Answer it or not as you >please. When that call is off the line, then do *60 #01# or whatever >you do to 'add last caller whether or not you know the number' to your >list of calls to be screened. But Pat, that's not what he was asking for ... I too would very much like to be able to tell the CO that it shouldn't even bother ringing my phone if the caller says his number is private. If it was an emergency then they could arrange to call me back and send a real number. Which brings me to a more interesting point ... has anybody made a box that translates a CID phone number into an audio message? It doesn't seem very useful to me if I have to get up out of my easy chair and go to the little box to see what's on the display ... besides I suspect I'll have more phones in my house than CID displays. Maybe this won't be a problem in the future when every phone has a little display showing the CID. Malcolm [Moderator's Note: I know what he was asking for, but it does not seem likely in the near future (that CO will block incoming calls to you merely because the other end withholds ID). So the alternative I suggested is one work-around that is less than perfect. PAT] ------------------------------ From: seanwilliams@attmail.com Date: Thu Feb 7 15:31:58 EST 1991 Subject: Caller*ID Availablity Does anyone know if Caller*ID or similar services are only being offered by the Bell companies? I live in a United Telephone area, with the nearest Bell-served area being about fifteen miles away (in Harrisburg). If Caller*ID is ever deemed by the courts to be legal in Pennsylvania, what are my chances of it ever being made available to me, anyway? Sean E. Williams | attmail.com!seanwilliams 333 Prospect Avenue / PO Box 227 | seanwilliams@attmail.com Duncannon, PA 17020-0227 USA | voicemail: (717)/957-8139 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Feb 91 17:37:37 EST From: Daniel A Margolis Subject: Re: Wanted: Recommendations For Small Key-System >What's the latest and greatest in small business telephone systems? > General requirements: 6-8 incoming lines ... 16-20 telephone lines > "Normal" features such as intercom, paging, DND, etc. Ability to > connect normal two-wire devices such as FAX, answering machine, > cordless phone, etc. Good value (ie cheap). I noticed this article asking about small phone systems and another asking the new AT&T PARTNER phone system, so I got some information from John Bell, a friend of mine and one of the Systems Engineers who worked on it. He recommends it (surprise, surprise). There was an article in {Teleconnect} about PARTNER. They liked the product, but what they really liked is that the engineer's name is Bell. (He's not related to Alexander Graham Bell.) The following is public information, so no need for a disclaimer (and I've heard that disclaimers don't provide any legal protection anyway). As you read on remember that I am somewhat biased, being an AT&T employee. Here's what John told me: 1) PARTNER is inexpensive. (Yes, this is AT&T we're talking about.) 2) Each port can handle a proprietary phone, a regular tip-ring phone, or both, without any adapters (which are often expensive). 3) PARTNER goes up to 4 CO lines and 12 extensions, while PARTNER PLUS goes up to 8 lines and 24 extensions. If you want to see it for yourself, dial 1-800-247-7000 for the number of a nearby sales office, where they will have one set up that you can look over. They may also have reprints of some of the good press this product line has received. Be warned that they may try to sell you one. You can also see it in AT&T Phone Centers, but their setup may not be fully functional. Dan Margolis [Author's Note: I fully expect a response from John Higdon on this one. Please don't beat me up too badly. I know you're a Panasonic man.] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Feb 91 17:56:02 EST From: Daniel A Margolis Subject: Re: Headset Installation Help Needed In article <16649@accuvax.nwu.edu> Heath Roberts I bought an telephone-type headset at a garage sale, and haven't been >able to get it to work. I suspect that I'm not connecting something >correctly. I have a Plantronics headset on which the battery cover is so well hidden that it's almost impossible to tell that batteries are required. Maybe your headset also has hidden batteries. Also, not all phones are compatable with all headsets. I've seen "headsets for standard phones," "headsets for electronic phones," and "headsets for multi-line phones." I don't know what the difference is. Why don't you try your headset on different types of phones. They usually are connected to the handset port. Dan Margolis ------------------------------ From: hpubvwa!ssc!Tad.Cook@cs.washington.edu Subject: Re: AT&T Cordless Phones, Security, Flexible Antennas Date: Thu, 7 Feb 91 8:40:54 PST In article <16506@accuvax.nwu.edu>, barefoot@hobbes.ncsu.edu (Heath Roberts) writes: > Cordless conversations are definitely legal to > receive (cellular too, but law enforcement can't use information from > cell telephones without a warrant). When did it become legal to monitor cellular phone calls? I know that cordless phones are legal, but I thought the Electronic Communications Privacy Act put this in the same class as wiretapping. Tad Cook Seattle, WA Packet: KT7H @ N7ENT.#WWA.WA.USA.NA Phone: 206/527-4089 MCI Mail: 3288544 Telex: 6503288544 MCI UW USENET:...uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!ssc!tad or, t ad@ssc.UUCP ------------------------------ From: John Boteler Subject: Re: Forts Meade and Ritchie in Maryland Organization: Common Sense Computing, McLean, VA. Date: Thu, 7 Feb 91 05:39:24 GMT From article <16673@accuvax.nwu.edu>, by cmoore@brl.mil (VLD/VMB): > With this year's 301/410 split coming in Maryland, I thought I'd > review two prefixes (both at military bases) which seem to have a wide > calling area. > 688 at Fort Meade -- This appears in Baltimore call guide as "Fort > Meade (Waterloo)", and in Washington-area call guides as "Fort Meade > (Berwyn)", The Greater Washington Area is especially interesting to phone phreaks because of the stunts C&P pulled to please Uncle Sam. The fact that Fort Meade and Fort Ritchie can be reached as local calls despite the fact that they lie a better distance away than VLD/VMB thinks they should is a simple matter of the rate mapping. There are lots of central office codes which are locally dialable around D.C., but which are FXed or remoted in from farther out COs. For instance, North Beach, which lies about 30 miles east/southeast of D.C. offers 855 as a Marlboro rate area (local to D.C.); 855 is listed as an FX to provide this local service. This will stay in 301 because of its calling area; it will not switch to 410 merely because it is served by a switch in 'Culvert' County. That would prove cumbersome and artificial for users. An interesting flip-flop on this is 831, providing Suburban Maryland service to Mount Airy, MD (an abbreviated Gaithersburg rate area). It is dialable only from Suburban Maryland west of and including Silver Spring. It basically gives Mt. Airy residents the ability to call into suburban MD when they would otherwise have a local cow pasture calling area. (Thanks to Judge Greene for this one.) Same difference with Fort Meade. I can receive calls from Fort Meade out of 677, but that exchange is a toll call for me. Meade's dilapidated office selects a tie line for either B-more or D.C. service depending on the destination of the call. 688 is FXed out of Laurel CG0 with a Berwyn rate area. It could just as easily be rated a toll-call by C&P if they wanted to; half the Greene-isms like Columbia and Mt. Airy could just as easily not be here. That's the difference between a technical consideration and a political one. Personally, I think Mr. Moore thinks too hard for his own sanity. It's much easier to try the Zen approach to telephony around D.C. ... you'll live longer! John Boteler bote@csense {uunet | ka3ovk}!media!csense!bote SkinnyDipper's Hotline: 703 241 BARE | VOICE only, Touch-Tone(TM) signalling ------------------------------ From: rborow@bcm1a09.attmail.com Date: Thu Feb 7 14:34:09 CST 1991 Subject: Re: CNA Numbers Needed For 202 and 301 The CNA number for both areas is: 304-343-7016. Randy Borow Rolling Meadows, IL. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Feb 91 12:32:27 GMT From: Peter Thurston Subject: Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack Radio Shack/Tandy ... Yes ... the only store where you can get free TTL with each blister pack you buy. Actually, of course, R.S. *REALLY* stands for Radio Spares. Peter Thurston ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Feb 1991 8:13:53 PST From: "Ole J. Jacobsen" Subject: Re: How Do I Tell When ... My favorite device for showing a line in use can be purchased from your local AT&T phone store. These little white boxes (powered by a 9V battery) are hideously expensive, something close to $20, but they do the job very well. According to the box the REN is "0.0A" (I'm not kidding!) Ole J Jacobsen, Editor & Publisher ConneXions--The Interoperability Report Interop, Inc., 480 San Antonio Road, Suite 100, Mountain View, CA 94040, USA Phone: (415) 941-3399 FAX: (415) 949-1779 Email: ole@csli.stanford.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Feb 91 12:54:09 EST From: Antonio Desimone Subject: Re: How Do I Tell When ... > I'm trying to find a device that lights up when a phone extension is > picked up. That way I can know if a phone line with multiple > extensions is in use without picking up the phone itself ... > [Moderator's Note: We have discussed this many times in the Digest. > Would one of you readers with a schmatic send it along to Craig, with > a parts list, etc. Thanks. PAT] Could I also get the info/schema! Resisting the urge to post a "me-to" note, I looked in the archives on lcs.mit.edu for something on this topic and didn't find anything. Maybe this would be a good candidate for the archive? Or did I just miss it? [Moderator's Note: If someone sends along a copy of the reply to this I will post it in the archives. PAT] ------------------------------ From: amit bhargava Subject: Re: India on Calling Card Date: 8 Feb 91 13:58:43 GMT Organization: Codex Corp., Canton MA SABAHE@macalstr.edu (Arun Baheti) writes: >Does anyone have any information about when/if I will ever be able to >call India on one of my calling cards at any point in the near future? >The ban on calls (due to fraud a few years back) has been one for at >least a few years (five?) and I'm curious as to whether there is still >a need or have all the LD servers simply forgotten? There is >something inherrently wrong with carrying around over $3 in quarters. A related question... Why is India excluded from plans such as AT&Ts Reach Out World plan or the Sprint World Plan ? Is India likely to be added on in the near future ? amit ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Answering That Pay Phone From: "Roy M. Silvernail" Date: Fri, 08 Feb 91 20:47:48 CST Organization: Villa CyberSpace, Minneapolis, MN peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: > Back when I was going to Berkeley someone accidentally gave out the # > of the payphone outside the door instead of their own. They got a lot > of calls, and some of the store's regulars would take to answering the > phone in "interesting" ways after "Pay Phone" and "Wrong Number" wore > off. Reminds me of when I was a kid, and the pizza joint had a pay phone for all incoming non-business calls. Customers answered when it rang, and I liked to answer with a business name ... any name at all, as long as it sounded authentic and wasn't located in Nome. "American Airlines, reservations ... may I help you?" was always a good one for stopping folks in their tracks. Roy M. Silvernail now available at: cybrspc!roy@cs.umn.edu ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #101 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa03883; 9 Feb 91 20:04 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa08971; 9 Feb 91 18:39 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa14213; 9 Feb 91 17:33 CST Date: Sat, 9 Feb 91 17:02:07 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #102 BCC: Message-ID: <9102091702.ab31283@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 9 Feb 91 17:01:45 CST Volume 11 : Issue 102 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Unbreakable Dialtones [Jim Rees] Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack [Jim Rees] Re: Texas Space-Travel Entrepreneurs Guilty [Peter da Silva] Re: Why Does Device Cause Ringing to Stop? [Jon Sreekanth] Re: Caller*ID in Georgia / Atlanta [HAAS] Re: Why Does Device Cause Ringing to Stop? [John Higdon] Re: Forts Meade and Ritchie in Maryland [Carl Wright] Re: Lafayette Radio [Ed Greenberg] 'Free' Check in the Mail (was: MCI Pays to Switch) [Phydeaux] 800 Numbers, Voice Mail, and Privacy [David Gast] 800 Scrambled ANI [Mark Steiger] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: rees@pisa.ifs.umich.edu (Jim Rees) Subject: Re: Unbreakable Dialtones Reply-To: rees@citi.umich.edu (Jim Rees) Organization: University of Michigan IFS Project Date: Thu, 7 Feb 91 20:06:38 GMT In article <16717@accuvax.nwu.edu>, ap373@cleveland.freenet.edu (Pete J. Bowden) writes: > ... I called my house once when this intermittent condition was > occurring and the best way to explain it was that the person on my > phone sounded like Mickey mouse. I'm familiar with the Donald Duck effect, which is usually caused by a carrier system (ssb) demodulator being off-frequency. But what kind of fault could cause a Mickey Mouse effect? ------------------------------ From: rees@pisa.ifs.umich.edu (Jim Rees) Subject: Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack Reply-To: rees@citi.umich.edu (Jim Rees) Organization: University of Michigan IFS Project Date: Thu, 7 Feb 91 20:24:28 GMT In article <16727@accuvax.nwu.edu>, hsilbiger@attmail.att.com (Herman R Silbiger) writes: > Lafayette was located on Lafayette Street in NYC, near Hudson and > Varick Streets. This area was known as Radio Row, and had many radio > and electronics parts and surplus strores. The area disappeared when > the World Trade Center was built. One store from that area still > exists uptown, Harvey Radio (now Harvey Electronics), and is an > upscale sound system dealer. This area seems to have moved over to Canal Street, which is also a great place to buy the latest toys from Taiwan and $25 Rolex watches. I mention it here because it's also a good place to shop for cheap surplus telecom gear. These areas also survive in various third-world cities, where time is still cheaper than parts. Manila has a big surplus telecom district, Bangkok has all kinds of electronics shops near Wat Phra Keo selling new, used and surplus equipment, and Mexico City used to have a huge electronics district (I haven't been there in years, though). Getting the stuff back into your home country may be a bit tricky. ------------------------------ From: Peter da Silva Subject: Re: Texas Space-Travel Entrepreneurs Guilty Organization: A corner of our bedroom Date: Fri, 8 Feb 1991 13:23:33 GMT I suspect other, similar, 900 services with the postcard-entry dodge have run in Texas. They shoulda picked another state, though: a lot of Texas politicos are a mite touchy about NASA. Holding a competition like this so close to Johnson Space Center was like waving a red flag in front of the bull. > [Moderator's Note: Not only is it void in NY, FL and RI, it may be > void everywhere by now if the latest news report is accurate. > Supposedly the guys running it have been found guilty. PAT] Guilty of "running an illegal lottery", according to the news reports yesterday. I don't think anyone showed they didn't have the goods to deliver. (peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com) ------------------------------ From: Jon Sreekanth Subject: Re: Why Does Device Cause Ringing to Stop? Organization: The World Date: 8 Feb 91 09:10:07 In article <16771@accuvax.nwu.edu> atn@cory.berkeley.edu (Alan Nishioka) writes: > The problem enters when I add a 200ohm resistor and a 2n2222 > transistor across the line to implement the hold button. (Common > emitter, with a 47K base resistor to a CMOS latch output) I'm not familiar with Key Switch Units, but assuming yours just simply distributes the incoming telco line, the specs on the DC battery and AC ring voltage are 56.5 V DC, 40 to 150 V RMS at 15.3 to 68 Hz (so called FCC B ring). 2N2222 has a Vceo of 40V, so it's almost certainly breaking down, and shorting ring. In a similar application, in one of my designs, I've used an MPSU10, which is a 300V rated NPN transistor. It does not have too high an hfe, so to drive it from an HC, I use an MPSA42 (also 300V) in a Darlington arrangement, so MPSU10 is guaranteed to saturate. Also, it's probably safe to preface this with a bridge rectifier (I use 1N4004's). This way, it can hold the line offhook, even if polarity is reversed. I've found several homes with tip and ring wired with incorrect polarity. Don't know about KSU's. > When I wire the base of the transistor low (off), the problem goes > away. This puzzles me, but try the high voltage transistor, anyway. Regards, Jon Sreekanth Assabet Valley Microsystems Fax and PC products 346 Lincoln St #722, Marlboro, MA 01752 508-562-0722 jon_sree@world.std.com ------------------------------ From: HAAS Subject: Re: Caller*ID in Georgia / Atlanta Date: 8 Feb 91 16:44:58 GMT Organization: Georgia Tech Research Institute Bill just gave us a fine rundown on the CallerID situation, but there are two more facts I would like to know ... 1.) How much does it cost!?! 2.) Where can I buy CallerID devices? I'm especially interested in computer interface type devices. Thanks. Harry Haas GTRI/RIDL/EB | Georgia Tech Research Institute Research Engineer II | Georgia Institute of Technology 404-528-7679 | Atlanta Georgia, 30332 hh2@prism.gatech.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Feb 91 09:53 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Why Does Device Cause Ringing to Stop? Alan Nishioka writes: > I've been trying to build a box to make key phone's lights flash and > to implement a hold button. Not to throw cold water, but I can think of two reasons for not bothering with this project. The first is that whatever you come up with SHOULD be certified to comply with the various applicable parts of FCC rules, since it will have to connect with the network directly. The other is that genuine 1A2 KSUs can be obtained for next to nothing (or nothing at all if you happen to be in the right place at the right time) and even if you save money you will be wasting your time. > The problem enters when I add a 200ohm resistor and a 2n2222 > transistor across the line to implement the hold button. (Common > emitter, with a 47K base resistor to a CMOS latch output) The transistor is conducting momentarily in the presence of the high ringing voltage. It just takes one spike to stop the ringing and then you have a "trouble" condition. If you do have a 1AESS this would be expected. This particular switch will protect itself from bogus ringing loads by killing the ring current if it exceeds a certain value. A transistor breaking down and putting a 200 ohm load across the line would create such current. Pac*Bell is running slimy ads for it $ENTREX service which shows old phone systems being thrown into this big junk pile. Just find this pile and pull out a KSU :-) Seriously, "fat wire" keys systems are so out of favor now that you should be able to obtain a KSU for nothing. Unfortunately, I have given my last one away. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Carl Wright Subject: Re: Forts Meade and Ritchie in Maryland Organization: UMCC, Ann Arbor, MI Date: Fri, 8 Feb 1991 21:31:00 GMT In article 16712 Carl Moore is quoted as saying that his zip code will be splitting along the with area code split. This must be simple coincidence. The USPS doesn't care where phones are when they define zip codes. They define the zip codes as they find convenient. Many a marketing organization would love for the phone number and zip code numbers systems to be linked. Prodigy was in the market a couple years ago trying to get a mapping between zips and npa/nxxs. We had to tell them that what they wanted couldn't be done, at least not without having the telco's customer file. The teleco directory companies have started to catch on to this interest and you will start to see your zip code appear in the phone book. This gives them copyright on the zip combined with your phone number and prepares a valuable file for sale to marketing organizations. Carl Wright | Lynn-Arthur Associates, Inc. Internet: wright@ais.org | 2350 Green Rd., #160 Voice: 1 313 995 5590 EST | Ann Arbor, MI 48105 [Moderator's Note: You quote Carl Moore in an 'article 16712' as saying his zip code will also change. I went back through the articles here ('16712' means nothing on this end) and could not find any such claim by Mr. Moore. You might want to check your source and/or original message on this. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Feb 91 09:51 PST From: Ed_Greenberg@3mail.3com.com Subject: Re: Lafayette Radio >[Moderator's Note: Ah yes, Lafayette! There was a nice Lafayette store >in Chicago on Wabash Avenue until about 1968 or so ... I bought a few >things from them, but mostly for my stereo: a pre-amp, cartridges, a >couple of speakers, a reverb unit, etc. PAT] Ah yes, Lafayette! I lived in Plainview, NY, one town over from Syosset, the home of Lafayette Radio Electronics, Inc. on Jericho Turnpike. This large warehouse building had a large store on the first floor, complete with separate car stereo room, home stereo room and ham/ cb room. It also had the mother-lode, the Lafayette Outlet Store or, as we called it, the junk-room. If you wanted something that wasn't on the floor or in stock in the small specialty rooms, you had to go through the catalog procedure. You filled out an order form and brought it to counter B, where it was checked, priced and placed in a pneumatic tube to be sent to "the back." Later, the number on your order was called on the PA, you went to the counter, picked up the paperwork for your order, went to the cashier, paid, and went to counter C where your order was delivered. Then, when you left, the guard punched a hole in your receipt. Sometimes amazing things were found in the package that came from "the back." Once an order for one CB ground plane antenna resulted in a case of six. Returning the extra five resulted in a gift certificate for $100 for the lucky recipient. Another time, an order for a bunch of small parts included, as a bonus, a Dremel Tool with accessories. Of course, lots of time, you got an "out of stock." We used to say that you could open up a Lafayette store with nothing but catalogs, order forms and an out-of-stock stamp. Lafayette declined in the seventies, and I believe it was gone by about 1980. Last year, I installed (for my father) a Lafayette HB-525-C CB Radio. It's 23 channels, but still worketh fine. [Moderator's Note: The same thing was true at Allied's store. You could sometimes wait thirty minutes for the stock room to deliver your purchase to the cashier. If you beefed to one of the supervisors, then they would call on the phone to someone in stock known as 're-check', and it was the job of 're-check' to find out where your order was in the stream. It got lost, you say? The supervisor would raise hell and fill out a priority ticket and send it up the air tube to the back. Now you might wait another five minutes but the order would show up -or - an 'out of stock' slip. If you went in that store the minute they opened the door on Sunday you could conceivably get out within thirty minutes *if* you knew exactly what you wanted and the order went up the pneumatic tube to stock (and credit approval) at the same time time. If you went in as much as an hour later the store was swarming with people; both credit approval and the stock room would be running 15-20 minutes in response time and you could expect to be in the store a couple hours provided your stuff was 'in stock'. But they had --everything-- under the sun in electronics/radio/stereo gear. If you couldn't get it there, then forget it! And God forbid the credit people send a note back through the tube saying 'send the customer to the office ...'; that meant another 10-20 minute delay while credit had you take a number and wait to be interviewed and/or fill out more paperwork for them. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Feb 91 16:07:05 PST Subject: 'Free' Check in the Mail (was: MCI Pays to Switch) Reply-To: mtxinu!Ingres.COM!reb@uunet.uu.net Organization: From the grass eaters at the Bovine Munching Works From: Phydeaux In article <16678@accuvax.nwu.edu> GUYDOSRM@splava.cc.plattsburgh.edu (Ray Guydosh) writes: > I received a mail promotion for MCI Primetime accompanied by a gift -- > a Twenty Dollar check in my name. > From the promotional literature: "Don't forget to endorse your check > before depositing or cashing it. With your signature, you authorize > MCI to notify your local telephone company to switch your primary long > distance service to MCI PrimeTime (SM)." A few months ago the Republican party sent a similar thing out - only this time they would deduct a 'contribution' of $25 per month or so - the idea was that the first month was 'free' ... it's a slimy idea no matter what. reb *-=#= Phydeaux =#=-* reb@ingres.com reb%ingres.com@lll-winken.llnl.GOV ICBM: 41.55N 87.40W h:558 W.Wellington #3R Chicago, IL 60657 312-549-8365 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Feb 91 17:32:32 -0800 From: David Gast Subject: 800 Numbers, Voice Mail, and Privacy If you call 1-800-544-7544, you can get complete information about the fund holdings in Fidelity Funds of anyone whose social security number you know. The WSJ points out that the Chairman of Fidelity has a publically available SSN (from the SEC) and that it begins with 029-24. Peter Lynch's SSN begins with 018-34 and his SSN is also part of the public record. The story did not mention the complete SSNs. Another 800 number allows one to get complete information on options and stocks held via Fidelity Brokerage. Now it seems to me that with the TELECOM Digest Moderator's expertise at gaining publically available information or the TELECOM Digest's readers amazing expertise at anything telephonic, we should be able get and publish that information immediately. I personally feel that this information should not be available in this manner, but perhaps the only way to get others to help safeguard my privacy is to show how easily their privacy can be invaded. In the case of Mr. Johnson it might be interesting to know how much he has invested at Fidelity and how much in other investments. David Gast gast@cs.ucla.edu {uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!{ucla-cs,cs.ucla.edu}!gast [Moderator's Note: Even if someone sent me his SSN I would not publish it here. This forum is not intended as a place to discuss the personal financial data of individuals. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 6 Feb 91 20:19:39 CST From: Mark Steiger Subject: 800 Scramble ANI A friend of mine said that with a touch-tone phone and his "secret code" you could eliminate any records of you calling the 800 number. He said, you dial the number, wait a second, then dial this number. Your phone number won't show up on their bill (if they have that service). Is this true or is he feeding me a line? Thanks, [ Mark Steiger, Sysop, The Igloo BBS 218-262-3142 300-19.2K Baud (HST/Dual)] Internet: Penguin@pro-igloo.cts.com MCI Mail: MSteiger UUCP: ...crash!pro-igloo!penguin ATT Mail: MSteiger ProLine: Penguin@pro-igloo America Online: Goalie5 TELEX: 51623155 MSTEIGER ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #102 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa05771; 9 Feb 91 22:12 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa21273; 9 Feb 91 20:45 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa09267; 9 Feb 91 19:40 CST Date: Sat, 9 Feb 91 18:49:49 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #103 BCC: Message-ID: <9102091849.ab16786@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 9 Feb 91 18:49:26 CST Volume 11 : Issue 103 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Mid Atlantic Telecom - How do I Reach Them? [Henry E. Schaffer] Aggregators, Heath, and Other Teletrivia [Daniel Wynalda] Wanted: US Map with LATA and NPA Boundaries [Han Q. Nguyen] 206 Gets Interchangable Office Codes [Tad Cook] Wanted: Ring Indicator (With Memory) [Roy Stehle] How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? [Tony L. Hansen] Maybe it Really is Time for Telecommunications Competition! [Dan Herrick] Telephone In Use Indicator [Charlie Lear] BITNET in Wroclaw, Poland? [Richard Budd] Re: 416 Area Code Split Announced [David Leibold] "Internal" Portable Phones [Tom Perrine] Sprint Makes Money [John Levine] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Henry E. Schaffer" Subject: Mid Atlantic Telecom - How do I Reach Them? Reply-To: "Henry E. Schaffer" Organization: NCSU Computing Center Date: Sat, 9 Feb 91 20:50:43 GMT The Subject says it all - the 800 number file in the archives says they control a prefix I'm interested in, but I don't know how to get in touch. Does anyone know? Henry Schaffer NC State Univ ------------------------------ Subject: Aggregators, Heath, and Other Teletrivia Date: Sat, 9 Feb 91 14:49:46 EST From: Daniel Wynalda Zenith/Heath still disposes of returns/defective boards in a generous manner. I personally know one company that makes BIG $ buying rejected motherboards from Zenith in bulk - along with machines/parts etc. They then swap parts that are broken out of machines with other machines that have different problem parts. This results in a perfectly working, new machine, for almost no cost. To do this however, you must be willing to buy LOTS of their stuff, not just three partial PC's that don't work. Enough of that, what does it have to do with Telecom anyway? The company which I now work for recently went online with ATS (American Telecommunication Services). This company aggregates AT&T services and offers SUBSTANTIAL discounts for minimum fees. When changing over to ATS they pick our lines for 732 rather than 288 for AT&T. 732 is the AT&T software defined network that has been much discussed on this system. Apparently something went wrong yesterday when AT&T was "reconciling their database". At about 9:30am, I began getting intercepts that stated "You have reached a private network. You must be authorized by your long distance representative for use of this network. To dial long distance, please dial 10288 +1 + area code + phone number. There was no intercept number. Apparently we got wiped from the "authorized" database. Here's my question -- about a month ago, I could dial 10732 + 1 + area code + phone number from home and the call would go through via AT&T. I also notice that using 732 now, I can't get a response back from 700-555-4141. This is the number that reads back what long distance service you are currently subscribed to -- it just says "Can't be completed as dialed." The service, other than being wiped from the database yesterday, has been the same as I had using the 288 pick code. One thing I did notice: Using 288 I couldn't get ANI back from some of the numbers mentioned previously in this group -- I would call and either get prompted for my calling number or get a default number (like 616-555-1212). When using the 732 network, ANI works beautifully. I'll let you know what the aggregators explanation is for the service outage. I'd be interested in knowing if the change that AT&T was reconciling banned all of the "Non SDN users" from using the SDN. Where did the calls get billed when placed over 732 rather than 288 last month? I don't know that I got the bill but with the volume of calls here I wouldn't notice calls anyway. Daniel Wynalda | (616) 866-1561 X22 Ham:N8KUD Net:danielw@wyn386.mi.org Wynalda Litho Inc. | 8221 Graphic Industrial Pk. | Rockford, MI 49341 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Feb 91 16:54:18 EST From: Han Q Nguyen Subject: Wanted: US Map with LATA and NPA Boundaries Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories I'm looking for a Postscript rendition of each of the following: 1. A LATA map showing all the LATA boundaries within the continental United States. 2. An area code map showing all the NPA boundaries within the continental United States. The key is that the two maps should be drawn to the same scale, so that I can overlay one on top of the other. My eventual goal is to shade some of the LATAs and show how they geographically cover certain area codes. Please reply via e-mail to wjm@arch3.att.com. Many thanks. Bill Mullen ------------------------------ From: hpubvwa!ssc!Tad.Cook@cs.washington.edu Subject: 206 Gets Interchangable Office Codes Date: 8 Feb 91 00:01:04 GMT I received a notice from Bellcore today announcing that beginning 1/12/92, dialling 1+NPA for intra-NPA toll calls in area code 206 will become mandatory. This is good news, because I was afraid that when they got around to permitting NXX format for prefixes, that they might do away with 1+ for intra-NPA toll, making it difficult to tell when one is dialling a "local" toll call. The new dialing procedure will be enabled 10/6/91. A question I have is on the average, how long after the switch from NNX to NXX prefixes do they finally announce an NPA split? Tad Cook Seattle, WA Packet: KT7H @ N7ENT.#WWA.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 ------------------------------ Subject: Wanted: Ring Indicator (With Memory) Date: Sat, 09 Feb 91 17:32:48 From: stehle@erg.sri.com I am looking for an add-on accessory that would be placed on a two-wire telephone line (with a T connection) that would indicate that the ringing voltage has appeared on the line. Ideally, an LED would be set to a flashing mode in response to the ringing voltage. It would stay flashing until the handset was taken off hook; this operation would cause the LED to be extinguished and to cease flashing. Can you direct me to vendors of such equipment? Can you direct me to a schematic to build such a circuit? I am aware of the 20 Dec 90 _EDN_ Idea for Design. Do you have any comments on the suitability of this circuit? Can private telephone systems (e.g., NT SL-1) tolerate lower on-hook DC impedances than the Part 68 specification of 5 megohms? E-mail replies gladly accepted at "stehle@erg.sri.com". Thanks, Roy Stehle SRI International ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Feb 91 22:24:50 EST From: Tony L Hansen Subject: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories A group I'm associated with is putting on a play and a phone will be used on the set. How would I hook up the phone so that I can cause it to ring on demand? Preferably, I'd like to have some sort of switch or push button which I can push and have the phone ring. (Please email the answers directly to me as this group expires too quickly on my machine and I don't always get a chance to read the group in time before things disappear.) Tony Hansen att!pegasus!hansen, attmail!tony hansen@pegasus.att.com tony@attmail.com [Moderator's Note: Unless you want to go to a lot of hassle re-wiring the phone itself, why not just get a small doorbell from a hardware store; a battery to drive it and a simple switch. Have it off-stage and activated at the proper time(s). The actors can pick up the phone on demand. The audience won't know the difference. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 8 Feb 91 12:24:00 EDT From: "CONTR HERRICK, DAN" Subject: Maybe it Really is Time for Telecommunications Competition! > [Moderator's Note: Jane Fraser, a regular correspondent to TELECOM > Digest from Ohio State has passed along this special report of a > symposium held last week. I thought you would enjoy reading it, > although it is too long for a regular issue of the Digest. PAT] Jane's 300 line report is informative and helpful. Reading it led me to an idea that should have come sooner! "Full competition in telecommunications" requires more than one Local Exchange Carrier (LEC) competing to provide me with dial tone. There are two very expensive items in the physical plant of a LEC, the switch or Central Office and all those copper wires going to everybody's phones. Every community of any size in the United States now has a second company with a switch for providing public phone service - the non-wireline cellular phone provider. His cellular system includes a network of cell transceivers connected together with copper wires and optic fibers and radio/microwave connections. (They even buy some of those connections from the wireline providers, I'm sure.) What prevents a non-wireline cellular provider from starting to offer POTS - Plain Old Telephone Service? There has to be one out there with capacity to spare owned by a curmudgeon spoiling for a good competitive fight. It is time we really tore down the telephone monopoly, not using the guns of a government regulator, but using the profit seeking ambitions of an alternative provider. Do you think local telephone service costs too much? Rent some capacity from the local cellular provider and take some business away from your monopoly LEC. dan herrick herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com ------------------------------ Subject: Telephone In Use Indicator Organization: The Cave MegaBBS, Public Access Usenet, Wellington, NZ Date: 8 Feb 91 23:26:48 NZD (Fri) From: clear@cavebbs.gen.nz Can the people who have this information at their fingertips please email me the schematics and parts for building a simple line-powered LED "in use" indicator? I know its a FAQ. Thats why I posted originally in sci.electronics, just to keep it out of here. All I got was a mailbox full of "me-too's". I've already promised to forward info to all the people who emailed me. Charlie "The Bear" Lear | clear@cavebbs.gen.nz | Kawasaki Z750GT DoD#0221 The Cave MegaBBS +64 4 643429 V32 | PO Box 2009, Wellington, New Zealand ------------------------------ Date: WED, 06 FEB 91 21.01.31 EDT From: Richard Budd Subject: BITNET in Wroclaw, Poland? A fourth year electrical engineering student at the Technical University of Wroclaw (we met in Czestochowa last September) sent me a letter just the other day. His school received through a donation IBM Personal Computers and associated software. He is looking for information about what equipment he or his school would need to connect their terminals to BITNET or any other international computer network. The TU at Wroclaw (pronounced VROA-swauv, not ro-CLAW) has a mainframe computer, also an IBM though he didn't say what Series it was. He's in his second year of learning English and it takes a little effort to understand what he's trying to say. Feel free to post responses to either my IBM or Marist accounts. BTW, more and more children are learning English in Eastern Europe. Five years ago, classes in English were scarce, primarily because the Communist governments discouraged it in the schools in favor of Russian. The former East Germany came up with the least offensive (to the Soviets that is) solution. Students are required to choose between Russian and English. Virtually all the kids opt for English! Richard Budd | E-Mail: IBMers rcbudd@rhqvm19.ibm VM Systems Programmer All Others klub@maristb.bitnet IBM - Sterling Forest, NY Phone: (914) 578-3746 IBM and Marist College don't ask me for my opinions. They just let me play with their computers. ------------------------------ From: djcl@contact.uucp (woody) Subject: Re: 416 Area Code Split Announced Reply-To: djcl@contact.UUCP (woody) Organization: Contact Public Unix BBS. Toronto, Canada. Date: Sat, 9 Feb 91 02:40:36 GMT >[Moderator's Note: Is this the first time an area code in Canada has >been split? It is pretty routine here in the States now, but I cannot >recall such an instance in Canada before. PAT] This would seem to be the first split in Canada to my knowledge, at least of the initial area code plan. However, I did recall sight of an area code map that claimed to have area code 613 cover all of Northern Ontario as well, or it could have been that Northern Ontario was not set up with 705 or 807 at the time. Bell Canada seems to be somewhat tight-lipped about what the new area code is going to be (ie. the one to be formed outside Toronto). However, unless Bellcore has announced that the July, 1995 deadline for starting up the interchangeable area codes is moved up, it would appear that 210 is a good candidate. 905 was just freed up, if the recent post about the final cutoff of 905 area code is any indication, though there might be good reason to assign this at the very last, and to a less populous or politcially significant part of North America than the Toronto area. 706 is too close to the neighbouring NPA 705 to the north. Other N10-type codes from 610-910 are possible, though there might still be some TWX activity to get rid of. Other Canadian area codes to watch for split/NXX prefix activity are 604 British Columbia and especially 403 (Alberta plus Yukon and NWT). 514 Montreal and 613 Ottawa/east Ontario seem to have plenty of room yet for expansion. ------------------------------ From: tots!tots.Logicon.COM!tep@ucsd.edu Subject: "Internal" Portable Phones Date: 8 Feb 91 17:45:17 GMT Reply-To: Tom Perrine Organization: Logicon, Inc., San Diego, California Greetings Telecom Wizards! I'm looking for a piece of equipment which probably doesn't exist, provides a service probably better provided by something else, which a senior manager wants to buy :-) We have a dozen or so technical people around the company who spend most of their time out of their official offices, working around our office complexes (computer system managers, in-house telephone people, facilities manager, etc). They would like to receive their phone calls (and make calls) wherever they are. We are looking for something between a "home" wireless telephone and a cell-phone, with voice capability (not just a pager). Someone recalls recently seeing an ad for "factory floor" wireless phones, but can't remember the magazine or issue! We would like this to tie into our PBX, so that when you dial the person's extension, you get their protable phone. (I'm not enjoying this any more than you are, believe me!) Our office "campus" covers an area about 1/2 mile square. Any recommendations? Tom Perrine (tep) Internet: tep@tots.Logicon.COM Logicon UUCP: sun!suntan!tots!tep Tactical and Training Systems Division San Diego CA "Harried: with preschoolers" GENIE: T.PERRINE +1 619 455 1330 ------------------------------ Subject: Sprint Makes Money Date: Sat, 9 Feb 91 02:03:25 EST From: "John R. Levine" An article on the business wire today reports that 4th quarter 1990 revenues for US Sprint were $1.33 billion, compared to $1.28 in the 3Q90. For the full year, revenues were $5.06 billion compared to $4.32 billion in 1989, a dollar increase of 17% and a 23% increase in minutes used. Net profit for 4Q90 was $51 million, for 3Q90 was $54 million. For the year 1990, profit was $220 million before a non-recurring charge of $72 million, compared to $220 million in 1989. They attribute the drop in profits to increased advertising, sales, and marketing. Sprint is a subsidiary of US Telecom, but they break out Sprint's numbers in their report. By revenues, Sprint is about twice as big as US Telecom's local telco business and is now somewhat more than half of their total business. While this isn't exactly printing money, considering that a few years ago Sprint was losing money so fast that there was serious talk of shutting them down, they've come a long way. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl [Moderator's Note: Yes, they certainly have come a long way since their beginning as the: outhern

acific ailroad nternal etwork elecommunications department at the railroad. When they got the idea back in the middle 1970's to sell the excess capacity on their new network I wonder if they had any idea how it would grow ... PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #103 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa06683; 9 Feb 91 23:17 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa32041; 9 Feb 91 21:51 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab21273; 9 Feb 91 20:46 CST Date: Sat, 9 Feb 91 20:21:14 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #104 BCC: Message-ID: <9102092021.ab10856@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 9 Feb 91 20:20:58 CST Volume 11 : Issue 104 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson List of BBSes/Conferences With Telecom Topics [David Leibold] Schematic For "BUSY" Phone Extension Indicator [Steven Shimatzki] Access Charges [Bryan Richardson] Calling Instructions For Area 817 [Carl Moore] SWB-Dallas Caller ID Update [Eric Dittman] Caller-ID Technical Question [Alan Larson] Caller*ID in Pennsylvania [Craig R. Watkins] Answer Supervision From Loop Start Circuits [John Boteler] How do I Connect With Other Telecom Mailing Lists? [Marc Smith] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: woody Subject: List of BBSes/Conferences With Telecom Topics Date: Fri, 8 Feb 91 22:33:58 EST (This has been quite a while in getting into the mail, but here goes...) This is a list of a few BBSes and BBS conferences available on telecom topics. Please note that many of the BBSes listed here only deal telecom subjects as part of a more wide-ranging BBS setup. Remember that information is always subject to change. The information is definitely incomplete and other conferences or BBSes may carry telecom message areas or files. Conferences: TELECOM Digest - you're reading it! MDF Conference - based on the Fidonet, MDF (for Main Distribution Frame) contains various telecom announcements and discussions. Some messages appear from Calgary AB Fidonet nodes 1:134/2.0 and 1:134/14, although there would be postings from other places as well. Contact your friendly neighbourhood Fido BBS... IMEX TELECOM echo - a small telecom conference, based in Toronto on the Fido-like IMEX network but dealing with various telecom topics. Available at The Super Continental (see BBS list below). Punternet Telephone discussion conference - Punternet is not too widely available and not extremely populous, but nodes exist in various parts of Canada and the U.S. Try KEB IV BBS (see BBSes below) or check around for a BBS using the PCPN software. TCONSULT, TELEPRO - Telecom Consultants and Telephone Professionals echo mail area. At last report, it was available from a BBS run by Jim Deputy. Check a Fido-net node list if you are familiar with the Fido setup... BBSes: Ed Hopper's BBS - Pearland (Houston), Texas - 713 997.7575 (Node #1) Ed Hopper's BBS - "" "" "" - 713 997.7576 (Node #2) - carries TELECOM Digest, Computer Underground Digest message areas KEB IV BBS - (416) 266.4444 - has a telephone message area (conference #130). Not a telecom- oriented BBS in general, though... Pro-Graphics BBS - 908/469-0049 - Usenet newsfeeds (includes comp.dcom.*, alt.cosuard), free public access The Super Continental - Toronto, ON Canada - 416 223.7156 (likely to be in area code 407 in April) - carries a telecom files section, files include archives of some TELECOM Digest issues (no direct live feed though), a few Computer Underground Digests, other telecom files - home base of the TELECOM conference on the IMEX network (see above) TAP BBS - (502) 499-8933. Face to Face - (713) 242-6853. - these BBSes lean more towards the computer underground interests and cyberpunk topics - "Also note that Face to Face is a higher media profile, in that such names as Cliff Stoll (Author of _The_Cuckoo's_Egg_) and many journalists frequent Face to Face." - bt455s01 Other: CCITT board - this was discussed some time ago in the Digest; unfortunately, the number and info on this escapes me at present, other than that the number is in Europe. thanx: ehopper@ehpcb.WLK.COM (Ed Hopper), bt455s01@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu (Manwai Yip), bobl@pro-graphics.cts.com (Bob), ndallen@contact.uucp (Nigel Allen) David Leibold until March 91: Usenet: djcl@contact.uucp after March 91: (watch this space...) ------------------------------ Organization: Penn State University Date: Saturday, 9 Feb 1991 13:36:13 EST From: SJS132@psuvm.psu.edu Subject: Schematic For "BUSY" Phone Extension Indicator Well, I saw that a few people wanted to BUY a indicator for their extentions to show when it was busy ... BUT ... for those that would rather build one, and save the dough, then here are the plans. *Note* : I'm not responsible if you hook it up wrong ... I did it, and it works fine. Also, I origanally go it out of a magazine, which I have long lost ... but it was published. I don't have an address to write to, to ask for permission to post it here. If you don't like it, buy the magazine. I at least did have the name of the author, and do give him full credit. Anything I left out??? Oh yeah, there is one place that almost looks like two lines shoud be connected ... DONT. It is actually overlapping (ie, a jumper) and could cause problems. That's why, if two lines are connected, I use 'o' indicate a connection. Well, thats it ... enjoy, and watch out when stripping those phone wires ... you can get a nasty jolt if you do it with your TEETH! (like me!) Phone Line "Busy" indicator Taken out of Modern Electronics November. 1988 Written by: Robert M. Harkey (I only wrote it up, and condensed it.) This little circuit is VERY nice to have, especially if you use a MODEM on a multi-Extention line. It is small enough to be built on a small circuit board, and then added to the phones on the extension (PUT IT INSIDE THEM! Its neater and better for the reliability of the circuit. Compared to if you had the wires hanging out where they can be ripped out of the phone by a cat or small child.) Here's the Circuit: Note: o is for where a connection |-----------+ has been made... R4 /c |R5 _____/\/\/\___|b <-Q2 /\/\/\ | \e | R1 /b | --- o-----/\/\/\/\----o-----|c <-Q1 | Led1 | \e | | to R3 | |----------------|-----------o phone /\/\/\/\ | | | | | R2 | | | o----/\/\/\/\-----o------------------------o----|:|:|--+ B1 What does all that mean? Well, here is a list of parts... R1,R2 : 2.2M ohm Resistors R3 : 330K Resistor R4 : 33K Resistor R5 : 220 ohm Resistor Q1 : NPN Transitor#> 2N3906 Q2 : NPN Transitor#> 2N3904 B1 : 3V external battery supply (2x AA batteries) Led1 : General purpose Light emitting diode All can be found at Radio Shack... For Beginners: One particular thing to note: On Q1 and Q2, When I drew them above, it was hard. So I labeled each with their corresponding E - C - B... What is ECB?? It stands For Emitter, Collector, Base. I hope I did them right, Its been a while, and I wasn't sure, but basically, if you get the right transistor number you don't have to worry, just put it in the circuit with the E being the little ARROW coming off of the picture on the back of the Transistor pack. Good Luck... Steven Shimatzki RD#1 Box 20-A Dunbar, Pa 15431 InterNet: SJS132@PSUVM.PSU.EDU BBS: (412) 277-0548 Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with the people I know, nor do I know the people I am with. I just like the money they pay me. ------------------------------ From: Bryan Richardson Subject: Access Charges Date: 7 Feb 91 18:49:12 GMT Reply-To: Bryan Richardson Organization: Purdue University Having just recently moved to Indiana from Illinois, I received my first GTE bill today and found some puzzling line items, including: Interstate Access Charge to Mar 07-91 3.50 Intrastate Access Charge to Mar 07-91 2.88 While not the definitive expert on the subject, I thought that AT&T, as my default long distance carrier, paid the access charges to GTE. I did not think that the customer was charged an access charge as well. A phone call to the GTE billing office got me nowhere: "This is because of equal access -- you pay this to get access to the long distance carrier of your choice." A phone call to the AT&T billing office left the representative and his manager as confused as I was. My question is this: Is there a case where the residential customer must also pay access charges? I never saw this charge on my Illinois Bell bill. Is this just a case of poor labeling on the bill by GTE? Bryan Richardson richarbm@mentor.cc.purdue.edu AT&T Bell Laboratories and, for 1991, Purdue University Disclaimer: Neither AT&T nor Purdue are responsible for my opinions. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Feb 91 17:51:31 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Calling Instructions For Area 817 When 214 area (now splitting to form 903) in Texas got the N0X/N1X prefixes, toll calls within 214 had to be changed from 1+7D to 1+214+7D. Was a similar change made to 817 at the time? This would be for area-wide uniformity in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I did some re-formatting of my "history" file, which notes that 201/609 and 919/704 have the same calling instructions for the sake of uniformity (although only one area code in each pair needed N0X/N1X prefixes). ------------------------------ From: Eric Dittman Subject: SWB-Dallas Caller ID Update Date: 8 Feb 91 16:14:26 CST Organization: Texas Instruments Component Test Facility I just called Southwestern Bell to get an update on their Caller ID plans. The last time I called they said they were waiting on the results of some legal challenges; today they gave me an estimate of "sometime in 1993". I asked why 1993 and the response was, "we have a lot of old equipment that needs to be updated first. Maybe work will be completed sooner, but '93 is the current estimate" (not an exact quote). I guess Caller ID for the home will be a long time in coming to Dallas. Eric Dittman Texas Instruments - Component Test Facility dittman@skitzo.csc.ti.com dittman@skbat.csc.ti.com Disclaimer: I don't speak for Texas Instruments or the Component Test Facility. I don't even speak for myself. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Feb 91 15:49:17 PST From: Alan Larson Subject: Caller-ID Technical Question As I understand it, Caller-ID works by sending the information out after the first or second ring. Why doesn't it send it out before the first ring, so the phone could know if it was to ring at all. That would leave a great market for pre-programmed boxes to modify the ring signal to indicate when selected numbers were calling, to selectively ignore numbers, or to automatically route the calls to fax or modem equipment. It seems kind of obvious, why wouldn't it be done that way? Alan [Moderator's Note: I do not think the intent of Caller*ID is to tell folks what calls NOT to accept (Call Screening is intended for that). I think its purpose is merely to *identify* the origin of the call in the event you wish to know that information. In other words, do not choose to answer or not based on what the Caller*ID box displays -- remember the many examples of someone you want to talk to calling from a different phone than usual -- but instead, answer the phone as you normally would and use the identification provided for recourse to the caller if desired. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Feb 1991 11:26 EST From: "Craig R. Watkins" Subject: Caller*ID in Pennsylvania Dave Levenson writes: >On a related topic, why is Caller ID considered a privacy issue? >Aren't people confusing privacy with anonymity? Are the states like >Pennsylvania now asserting that their citizens have the right to >anonymity when they disturb others by telephone? I rather believe that what we have here in Pennsylvania is an interpretation by the courts of laws that were written without Caller*ID being considered. I don't think that it was taken into account when the wiretap laws were written that consumers may be able to purchase their own "trap and trace" devices for their own lines. You may, however, be right when it comes to the interpretation of the state constitution. Here's the current situation in Pennsylvania: In November of 1989, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission gave approval to Bell of PA to offer Caller*ID. In May of 1990, the courts declared Caller*ID service a violation of the state wiretap act and constitutional privacy rights. Currently pending (as far as I know) is an appeal before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, filed by the PUC and Bell of PA. The flavor of Caller*ID that the PUC originally approved included provisions for certain groups (eg domestic violence intervention shelters, their employees, law enforcement, etc) to obtain blocking for free. The residential cost was to be $6.50/month. Craig R. Watkins Internet: CRW@ICF.HRB.COM HRB Systems, Inc. Bitnet: CRW%HRB@PSUECL.Bitnet +1 814 238-4311 UUCP: ...!psuvax1!hrbicf!crw ------------------------------ Subject: Answer Supervision From Loop Start Circuits Date: Sat, 9 Feb 91 12:06:20 EST From: John Boteler Tom Lowe describes a costly and painful procedure for extracting answer supervision from NJ Bell. Although my suggestion may not meet his exact requirements, it does work flawlessly for my voice response systems. Solution: order CENTREX. That's it! No special tariffs, no unnecessary pain (other than the usual CENTREX programming screw-ups), and you get features as part of the deal. The answer supervision is provided as an OSI (Open Switch Interval) at least on 3*Way calls, and possibly on single outbound calls when served by a #1ESS. #5s and their ilk are another question. This comes in handy for several applications I have running right now; after finding damn few PBX manufacturers which sell PBX providing loop interrupt to the stations, I like CENTREX better every day. [Author's Note: Would ground start circuits provide the signalling desired? Since they are engineered circuits, it would seem that such signalling could be provided without a lot of pain. I don't see DOD trunks as being special: many PBXs are configured this way.] John Boteler bote@csense {uunet | ka3ovk}!media!csense!bote SkinnyDipper's Hotline: 703 241 BARE | VOICE only, Touch-Tone(TM) signalling ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Feb 91 13:56:48 EST From: Marc Subject: How Do I Connect With Other Telecom Mailing Lists? In a recent issue of Telecom the Moderator mentioned Telecom-Priv which I assume is a related discussion list. I would be greatful for information concerning this list (subscription information in particular). Thanks for a great list! Marc A. Smith UCLA [Moderator's Note: TELECOM Digest has two supplementary mailing lists which were started as a direct result of message threads here which were becoming too long and unweildy for continued use here. They are: Computer Underground Digest: address: tk0jut1@niu.bitnet This publication deals with the social and legal issues involved with computer 'hacking' and related topics. It is moderated, and submissions are considered for publication. It is also distributed as a newsgroup within the alt distribution scheme. Telecom Privacy: Submission address: telecom-priv@pica.army.mil Moderator: telecom-priv-request@pica.army.mil This publication deals with the stated topic, and was primarily started as a place for extended discussion -- pro and con -- on Caller-ID. It also deals with many telecommunications privacy and/or perceived invasion of privacy matters. Many time, threads on Caller-ID begin in the Digest and are moved to this list. This list is also available in an alt newsgroup. TELECOM Digest / comp.dcom.telecom readers are NOT automatically enrolled on these two lists. You must write the Moderator in each instance and ask to be added. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #104 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa11349; 10 Feb 91 3:23 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa14128; 10 Feb 91 1:58 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa23804; 10 Feb 91 0:53 CST Date: Sat, 9 Feb 91 23:57:22 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #105 BCC: Message-ID: <9102092357.ab12927@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 9 Feb 91 23:57:13 CST Volume 11 : Issue 105 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Forts Meade and Ritchie in Maryland [Carl Moore] Re: Tandy/Heathkit [Gordonm Letwin] Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack [Jamie Hanrahan] Re: Headset Installation Help Needed [John Higdon] Re: Headset Installation Help Needed [Julian Macassey] Re: AT&T Cordless Phones, Security, Flexible Antennas [Michael J. Kobb] Re: AT&T Cordless Phones, Security, Flexible Antennas [Jim Redelfs] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 9 Feb 91 23:06:18 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: Forts Meade and Ritchie in Maryland Responding to Carl Wright: No, the ideas I see regarding the Baltimore-DC area aren't all that hard. I just got through checking out some zipcodes and phone prefixes near the future 301/410 border (I'll be looking for some phone numbers around a portion of the Carroll-Frederick county line), and I already figured out North Beach, Maryland 20714, which I would list as 410 in the zip-area directory when it picks up the 301/410 split. The prefixes serving the North Beach area are currently in area 301, and are: 257 -- apparently the "default" and apparently what is found on pay phones; goes into 410. 855 -- although it was/is North Beach on a phone bill, it is a DC-metro exchange and stays in 301. Similar prefixes exist around Chicago (right?) and Los Angeles. In the Los Angeles area, there are prefixes which show up on a phone bill as Los Angeles (different procedure from what I just cited for North Beach), but which serve areas beyond Los Angeles (such as Burbank and Pasadena, even though the other prefixes serving Burbank and Pasadena went into area 818. Back in Maryland: In Laurel, the "Waterloo-service" prefixes go into 410 because they are local to Baltimore, and the other Laurel prefixes (which are local to Washington) stay in 301. >...Carl Moore is quoted as saying that his zip code will >be splitting along the with area code split. The only remark by me about a split zip code might be: > As far as I know (not having been to Fort Meade), > the other phones on that post are in the Odenton exchange, which is > going into 410 (causing a problem as to how to list the area code for > zip code 20755?). I was writing about 301-688 prefix, which is to stay in 301. 20755, which is between Baltimore and Washington, is not "my" zip code, as I live in Delaware, and (w/r to Washington) have an office about 30 miles beyond Baltimore. When I write about zipcodes and phone prefixes, I might be writing about areas I don't call, write or visit! I am quite well aware that phone prefixes and zip codes do not necessarily match, and a concern I sent to the publisher of the zip-area directory is that if a zipcode falls along an area code border, I end up having to list it based on where a "majority" of that zipcode falls. I am hesitant about pointing out specific split zipcodes, because there are probably a slew of such splits which I have no way of knowing. [Moderator's Note: We've got cases here where 'Post Office Chicago', i.e. 606-anything extends into a few suburbs which are now 708. The rule you can generally follow here is that 606xx = 312 and 600xx, 601xx, 602xx, 604xx = 708 or 815; however 815 takes in several more one mprovement

lan codes as well. PAT] ------------------------------ From: gordonl@microsoft.UUCP (Gordon LETWIN) Subject: Re: Tandy/Heathkit Date: 9 Feb 91 21:19:01 GMT Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA In article <16709@accuvax.nwu.edu>, Ed_Greenberg@3mail.3com.com writes: > Many people recently got a Heathkit catalog. > It was pitiful. About 30% of the stuff in the catalog was buildable. > The rest was sold assembled-only ... their concept > of building a computer is to plug the boards in. Heath made plenty of mistakes, for sure, but they're not totally responsible for their downfall. Have you looked inside a state of the art computer today? I just examined the motherboard of a Compaq 386/20e with an eye towards diagnosing/repairing it. It seemed that half of the chips were ASIC, they were nearly all .05" lead spaced surface mount, with many many high pin-count (or is it leg-count?) chips. I've had years of experience hacking electronics, but I couldn't remove and replace even one of those high count SM chips without special tools and a lot of practice. Can you imagine regular folks building a board with hundreds of them on it? And then testing -- kit folks have to be able to test and diagnose what they build. You need something like signature analysis to test a board like this ... you can't do it with a voltmeter or even a scope. So Heath is pretty much forced into offering you preassembled and pretested boards, unless you want a computer made from socketed MSI which would be the size of your desk and cost much more than a prebuilt one. gordon letwin (I worked for Heath fifteen years ago, but that doesn't matter...) ------------------------------ From: Jamie Hanrahan Subject: Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack Date: 9 Feb 91 15:16:07 PST Organization: Simpact Associates, San Diego CA Yet another nit or three, and more nostalgia: The Moderator writes... > [Moderator's Note: You are wrong on the 'Allied was mail order only' > statement. See the message before this. They did have a mail order > division but their big warehouse store on the west side of Chicago was > a beehive of activity for hams, CB'ers, and lots of other early radio > freaks for thirty years or more, circa 1930 through the mid-60's. They were also a nationwide electronics distributor, with warehouse facilities in several major cities. Still are, actually. The Chicago store, though, may have been the only non-mail-order way for retail customers to reach them. > When they annouced that Tandy had bought them out [...] > Then came the Allied Radio Shacks, the final closure of the > west side warehouse store in Chicago, and the birth of the dozens > of much smaller (Tandy merchandise only!) Radio Shack stores across > Anerica. Actually there were Radio Shlock (RS merchandise only) stores across America well before both RS's acquisition by Tandy and before Tandy's acquisition of Allied. I don't remember which of those acquisitions came first (but I think it was in the aforementioned order). All of this discussion brings back fond memories of a purely local (San Diego) chain, Telrad Electronics. Now, doesn't that just sound like a name out of the fifties? Like something from a Carl and Jerry story, or from a Rick Brant book? Anyway, I think their "bread and butter" was the tv/radio repair parts business, but they also sold parts (and not just radio and tv stuff) to hobbyists, and they did repair work, AND they had both ham radio and hi-fi departments (this was in the golden age of Marantz, Fisher, et al). And, yes, the counter clerks knew enough to answer questions like what style of capacitor to use for a bypass cap, or do you think I really need to shield this tube... Most of the new parts for my early electronics projects came from Telrad. I remember buying my very first microphone there (a one-inch or so dia. ceramic -- brand named "Calrad" (no connection) -- in a clip-on lapel style, $1.99). It was a point of pride among all experimenters that Radio Schlock was NOT patronized except in dire emergency. A toggle switch from Telrad looked and felt just like one from a piece of army surplus electronics gear (only newer), while RS's seemed to be (and were) Japanese imitations. And who wanted to use Radio Schlock solder on a project, when Telrad would sell you genuine Kester??? At Telrad there was an ambiance of "real electronics is done here!" that was, and still is, completely missing from the glitzy Radio Shlock stores. RS's acquisition of Allied Radio sent a horrible shock through the ranks of experimenters everywhere. We expected the worst, and got worse than that. The 6x9xthick catalog with everybody's brand names in it (alongside, to be sure, Allied's house brands for tubes, hi-fi, and the like) became an 8-1/2x11x-very- thin thing. There was a lot of merchandise other than RS's, but listed without brand names!!! Allied's good (sometimes excellent) hi-fi, ham, and test equipment kits (Knight-Kits) were phased out in favor of RS's "Realistic", "Micronta", and similar phony-named lines. Truly the end of an era. Jamie Hanrahan, Simpact Associates, San Diego CA Internet: jeh@dcs.simpact.com, or if that fails, jeh@crash.cts.com Uucp: ...{crash,scubed,decwrl}!simpact!jeh ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Feb 91 10:43 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Headset Installation Help Needed Daniel A. Margolis writes: > Also, not all phones are compatable with all headsets. I've seen "headsets > for standard phones," "headsets for electronic phones," and "headsets for > multi-line phones." I don't know what the difference is. One of the major differences concerns how the transmitter (mouthpiece) is handled. In an ordinary telephone with a carbon transmitter, a small amount of the loop voltage is used to "polarize" the microphone button. A carbon unit is simply a voice activated variable resistor that modulates a current flow at an audio rate. The result is fed down the phone line as a representation of your speech. Some newer (electronic) phones do not use a carbon mic but employ a "dynamic" microphone (similar in construction to the earpiece) that does not require a polarizing voltage. Instead the signal is amplified using a line-powered amp in the instrument and that signal represents your speech. Obviously, the two types of transmitters are incompatible. Plantronics solves the problem by providing a special interface for use with "dynamic mic"-type phones. A cube transformer plugs into the wall and provides the polarizing voltage (which is missing in the electronic phone) for the headset. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Julian Macassey Subject: Re: Headset Installation Help Needed Date: 10 Feb 91 00:33:06 GMT Organization: The Hole in the Wall Hollywood California U.S.A. In article <16719@accuvax.nwu.edu>, optilink!elliott@uunet.uu.net (Paul Elliott) writes: > [A personal note: I regularly annoy my wife and kids by excitedly > pointing it out when I see one of "my" headsets on T.V. (Miami Vice > liked them a lot). Also got to see one in use in orbit on the Space > Shuttle; NASA was trying out a few different types of communications > headsets. Ah, but you haven't suffered the embarassment of having your friends call to let you know that the phone you designed is being used as a dildo in the centerfold of Hustler magazine. I suppose I deserved it, novelty phones may end up being used in novel ways. Julian Macassey, n6are julian@bongo.info.com ucla-an!denwa!bongo!julian N6ARE@N6YN (Packet Radio) n6are.ampr.org [44.16.0.81] voice (213) 653-4495 [Moderator's Note: I've seen reference a couple times to telephones as phallic symbols, but have yet to see an illustrated example of same. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Michael J Kobb Subject: Re: AT&T Cordless Phones, Security, Flexible Antennas Date: 9 Feb 91 20:59:46 GMT Reply-To: Michael J Kobb Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA In article <16490@accuvax.nwu.edu> nolan@helios.unl.edu writes: >ho@hoss.unl.edu (Tiny Bubbles...) writes: >>1. Are flexible antennas any good? They sell them for ten bucks or >> so at the local discount store (genuine AT&T), but they're pretty >> short compared to the "whip" that comes with it. Do they work as >> well as the whip? (Too bad they can't retract.) >I personally prefer the flexible antennas, as opposed to the three >foot extendible/breakable monsters. >BTW, I've had several cordless phones, and have had VERY good luck >with the higher priced Panasonic phones, especially the ten channel >model. (I missed the original posting, but get the impression it >slammed Panasonic.) I've not had much good luck with Sony cordless >phones, though. This is interesting, since it's 180 degrees away from my experience. I recently purchased a Sony SPP-120 cordless. Actually, I bought three cordless phones: the Sony, a Panasonic KX-T4000 (the one reminiscent of a StarTrek communicator), and a Panasonic KX-T3620. I bought these phones from a place with a thirty-day trial period, so I could pick the one I wanted to keep. All these phones have flexible antennas and ten channels. I recently moved into an apartment building, and the apartment was big enough to justify the cordless. The KX-T4000 was a catastrophe. Seven or eight times out of ten, I couldn't even get a dial tone. The phone would just beep at me in it's "I can't connect to the base unit" mode. This happened even with the phone directly next to the base. The KX-T3620 was more successful. It always linked up with the base, but I experienced pretty bad static problems with it (some of which I associate with the dinky antenna). Otherwise, I really like the phone (my standard phone is a Panasonic, and I've always liked it, too). The Sony was the clear winner. I get zero static most of the time, and its reception is good enough that I can walk down the exterior hall towards the elevator and still carry on a conversation (although there's a bit of static then). It works fine on my balcony. I attibute this success to the unit's nine-inch helical antenna, and the base unit's two foot antenna. A also like the Sony's battery systems. First, the handset has a one week standby / twelve hour talk endurance. Second, there's a second battery which is maintained charged in the base, so that the phone never need be without battery power to recharge. The base battery also acts as backup power for the base unit, in the event of an AC power failure. My only complaint is the sound quality. It has something of a "walkie-talkie" feel, like the microphone is too sensitive. Here's the question: I kept the Sony, and am quite happy with it. I do have one question, though: the display at the store claimed that it had 1,000,000 security codes, but there are no DIP switches (contrary what a previous poster claimed to have found on his SPP-120) or any mention in the manual of how to set them. Does the code come from the factory, unique to each phone? Or, does the phone pick a new one every time you hang up? (The latter seems unlikely, since the handset doesn't have a cradle, so I don't know how the phone could possibly recover if the code were somehow scrambled). Thanks, Mike ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Feb 91 09:16:11 PDT From: Jim Redelfs Subject: Re: AT&T Cordless Phones, Security, Flexible Antennas Reply-To: jim.redelfs@iugate.unomaha.edu On 30-JAN-91, Robert Savery wrote: > All the security code does is keep nefarious types from using another > handset to outdial on your line. It in no way stops someone from > listening in on your conversations. > An AT&T phone is no "safer" than one of the el-cheepos. True ... but at least you'll SOUND better to the listeners! :) JR Copernicus V1.02 Elkhorn, NE [200:5010/666.14] (200:5010/2.14) [Moderator's Note: Maybe or maybe not. There was a sort of 'Pepsi challenge'-like contest a few years ago where people recieved calls placed from various models of cordless phones including AT&T. All were placed under the same conditions; same distance from base, etc. They were to identify one model of cordless phone from another. Most of the people could not identify the specific phone being used and about half the people could perceive no difference in quality. Radios are radios are radios. There are too many variables involved to firmly place the blame or good points with any one model. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #105 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa13001; 10 Feb 91 4:31 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa20595; 10 Feb 91 3:04 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ad14128; 10 Feb 91 1:59 CST Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 1:21:55 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #106 BCC: Message-ID: <9102100121.ab02626@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 10 Feb 91 01:21:25 CST Volume 11 : Issue 106 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Looking for Info: AT&T Merlin 410 [Fred True] "Independent" Coin Phones [Jim Redelfs] C&P Area/Prefix Help Line Experiences [Carl Moore] Two Questions From a Novice [Christopher Wolf] Re: 800 Scrambled ANI [David Lemson] Re: 800 Scrambled ANI [John Higdon] Re: MCI Personal 800 Service [Frank J. Wancho] Re: Will Digital Make Analog Cellular Phones Obsolete? [Dave Levenson] Re: Wanted: Recommendations For Small Key-System [John Higdon] Re: Change in Dialing Procedures to Mexico Effective Today [Carl Wright] Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack [Cliff Stoll] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 8 Feb 91 21:01:05 -0500 From: true@euler.rutgers.edu (Fred True) Subject: Looking for Info: AT&T Merlin 410 I am looking for any documentation on the setup, configuration, or operation of an AT&T Merlin system Model 410 (yeah, the old one). I have just purchased one used, with absolutely no docs and no experience with it whatsoever. Alas, it was very cheap! Any information from people who have used, installed, or maintained such a system; or pointers to documentation sources would be absolutely wonderful. At the very least, I am interested in the hookup procedures and dialing commands. Please e-mail any information. Thanks in advance! Fred True Rutgers College of Engineering true@euler.rutgers.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 01 Feb 91 08:51:50 PDT From: Jim Redelfs Subject: "Independent" Coin Phones Reply-To: jim.redelfs@iugate.unomaha.edu On 30-JAN-1991, the Moderator wrote: > Here in the Chicago area we are seeing a shift away from those > obnoxious devices also, but not as quickly as other places. The 7-11 > stores here have the discretion to use the phone service of their > choice, but the two 7-11's I frequent both use genuine IBT phones > with LD defaulted to AT&T. > The 7-11 owner turned him down saying he had to use phones 'the > public would be happy with'. Many merchants are beginning to > discover the extra commission they receive isn't worth the hostility > they get from the public. PAT] I learned, the HARD way, that even calling LOCALLY, one must use caution "experimenting" with "Acme" Pay Phones, Inc. devices! As a TelCo employee, I receive a concession on all its services, including intra-lata toll AND local calls billed to my calling card. I didn't have my coins with me the other day and, needing to place a call home, I simply walked up to the coin phone and dialed 0+7d and entered my calling card number. My next bill made it obvious to me that my employee concession applies ONLY to such calls made from TELCO coins - NOT independent stations! Such a local, calling card-billed call, made from a U S WEST Communications set normally costs 37 cents. The call I made from the "Acme" station came to around $1.50!! Live and learn! JR Copernicus V1.02 Elkhorn, NE [200:5010/666.14] (200:5010/2.14) [Moderator's Note: It is interesting, isn't it, how the whole alternative telephone industry got started -- the non-telco, non-AT&T networks and instruments -- on the theory that AT&T / Ma Bell were such 'ripoffs' that had to be put in their place. And now the more you shop around; the more you use the competition, the better telco and 'genuine Bell' service looks. Some of us were saying 'I told you so' several years ago. I'm beginning to feel vindicated. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Feb 91 22:50:48 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: C&P Area/Prefix Help Line Experiences I have been using the C&P help line regarding prefixes near what will become the 301/410 boundary. The number, for those of you who don't know it, is 800-477-4704, and if you need to enter a prefix or get some other specific information, you will need touch-tone capability. If I just want to look up a specific prefix (such as 775 Union Bridge, which is going into 410), I hit 1 to cut the introductory message short, but then the system does not work unless I wait for end of message saying "To find what area code..." or words similar, and then I have to enter the prefix SLOWLY. Everything east of the Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay will go into 410. To the west of those, here is the split by county, with the possible exception of "noise" along some county lines: Going into 410: Harford, Baltimore, Carroll, Howard, Anne Arundel, Calvert counties, and Baltimore city. Staying in 301: Saint Marys, Charles, Prince Georges, Montgomery, Frederick, Washington, Allegany, Garrett counties. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Feb 91 12:24:01 EST From: CMWOLF@mtus5.cts.mtu.edu Subject: Two Questions From a Novice Pardon a simple question from a college student ... What are the specified voltages that occur on the phone lines during its normal operating phases? Also, how can so many people's conversations be transmitted over so few wires, such as in the city, where there are only so many wires on the poles? Christopher Wolf, Electrical Engineer MWOLF@MTUS5 Michigan Tech University ------------------------------ From: David Lemson Subject: Re: 800 Scrambled ANI Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Date: Sun, 10 Feb 1991 02:36:27 GMT penguin@pro-igloo.cts.com (Mark Steiger) writes: > A friend of mine said that with a touch-tone phone and his "secret > code" you could eliminate any records of you calling the 800 number. > He said, you dial the number, wait a second, then dial this number. > Your phone number won't show up on their bill (if they have that > service). This sounds like an "extender" in phreaker-ese. In order to mask your phone number, you dial into a "special" dial-in line of a PBX system, dial a special code (sometimes), and then get a dial tone. Now, you're on an outgoing line from the PBX as though you were physically located on the premises of the PBX. Sometimes, you can make LD calls this way and have it billed to the company owning the PBX, sometimes (often, nowadays) LD calls are blocked and the only use for this is masking your own number to SS7. The ANI at the 800 center will show a number allocated to the company's PBX instead of your own. Obviously, illegal and immoral. (Unless you happen to have the permission of the company owning the PBX, or its your own :-) I read somewhere (probably TELECOM Digest) about a 900 service where you dial the 900 then get a dial tone, dial another number, and get connected to whomever you want. The final party does not get your phone number through ANI, and the intermediate company gets some money charged to you as the 900 call. Another way to do this, without the phreaking element. David Lemson U of Illinois Computing Services Student Consultant Internet : lemson@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu University of Illinois, Urbana [Moderator's Note: Does anyone remember those two 900 numbers? I went to look for the little plastic card I recieved and I can't find it. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Feb 91 20:10 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: 800 Scrambled ANI Mark Steiger writes: > He said, you dial the number, wait a second, then dial this number. > Your phone number won't show up on their bill (if they have that > service). You are being put on, big time. When you dial any number, the switch you are dialing into is programed to "pre-translate" or expect a certain number of digits based on the first digits you dial. If you dial "1-800" the switch will expect seven more digits and then becomes deaf to any more. There are no secret back doors here. This reminds me of when I was a kid and had other kids in school claim to have "secret numbers" that would do strange and wonderful things. Now, as then, what you describe is a fantasy. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! [Moderator's Note: Do you think he might have been referring to one of those schemes where you call an 800 number; give the switch some 2600 tone -- ergo it more or less forgets about you; then you are left out there free to call where you want? I am being purposefully vague, but you know the idea. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Feb 1991 07:35 MST From: "Frank J. Wancho" Subject: Re: MCI Personal 800 Service When the announcement of the MCI Personal 800 service appeared on this forum in the beginning of December, I immediately called MCI to confirm several items and then ordered the service based on that confirmation. What I confirmed was that as an MCI customer, the monthly fee was $2, and that the rate of $6.50 per hour was in one minute increments, no minimum, and applied to in-state as well as interstate calls. It was the in-state feature that I asked to be double-checked and reconfirmed. Earlier this week I finally received the brochure and confirmation sheet, listing my assigned 800 number and PIN. I called again to confirm that the rates applied to in-state calls. I was told that I was to receive yet another brochure explaining a change in policy made on 1 Feb after the first brochure was already in the mail. The change in policy is significant: the rate to be applied to the incoming Personal 800 calls is tied to the PrimeTime service you already have. I have only PrimeTime Texas, which is $11.25 for the first hour and $10.50 for subsequent hours. Incoming Personal 800 calls originating within Texas will be billed at the PrimeTime Texas rate, not the $6.50 per hour rate. If the incoming calls originate elsewhere, they will be charged at the $15 per hour rate, not the $6.50 per hour rate, because I don't have regular PrimeTime service. Note also that the service is now called PrimeTime plus Personal 800. The rates cited above apply only during the plan hours: 5pm to 8am Monday through Thurday, 5pm Friday to 5pm Sunday, and 11pm Sunday to 8am Monday. Personal 800 calls outside those hours are billed at $13.50 per hour for regular PrimeTime users. I don't know the off-hour rates for PrimeTime Texas. Frank ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Will Digital Make Analog Cellular Phones Obsolete? Date: 9 Feb 91 14:26:36 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article <16768@accuvax.nwu.edu>, tg@chmsr.gatech.edu (T. Govindaraj) writes: > I have been thinking about getting a cellular telephone and am > wondering if current cellular phones will become obsolete and unusable > when cellular goes digital. When are we expected to go digital? What ... The next generation cellular telephones will be digital, but the service providers don't plan to pull the plug on the five million existing analog subscribers! The next generation of cell site equipment will allow digital and analog channels to co-exist, so that digital may be deployed slowly. New mobile and portable telephones will support both standards, allowing their users to roam freely between areas equipped with new and old cell site equipment. Neither the subscribers nor the service providers can be expected to swap their equipment overnight. For today, there is no digital service offered, and there are no digital mobile sets offered. An analog unit purchased now should remain useable throughout its expected product lifetime. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Feb 91 10:32 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Wanted: Recommendations For Small Key-System Daniel A Margolis writes: > [Author's Note: I fully expect a response from John Higdon on this one. > Please don't beat me up too badly. I know you're a Panasonic man.] I have not yet had the privelege of laying hands on a PARTNER, so I'll take your comments at face value for now. However, for you as an AT&T employee and others who may have short memories I have a reminder. Not long ago AT&T instigated a government action directed at Japanese manufacturers who made similar systems. AT&T claimed that it was impossible to produce these systems for sale at the prices charged and therefore insisted that dumping was taking place. (Never mind that Matsushita did not even sell an equivalent system in Japan.) The watchword was litigation rather than innovation. Apparently, AT&T has decided that it is indeed possible to produce a full featured system at reasonable prices. Of course, the Panasonic has had the ability to support anything from an ordinary single line phone to a full featured electronic display phone on the same port with no modifications for years. Perhaps AT&T was trying to buy time with its legal manuverings. Introduction of the PARTNER does create an interesting Catch-22 situation. Either the system has deficiencies that would remove it from serious consideration, or if it is as advertised, AT&T was blowing smoke with its trade litigation and claims of preditory pricing. So which is it? John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Carl Wright Subject: Re: Change in Dialing Procedures to Mexico Effective Today Organization: UMCC, Ann Arbor, MI Date: Sat, 9 Feb 1991 02:51:21 GMT In article 16697 S. Srinivasan writes in response to the news that the two area codes in Mexico disappeared: > On a related note, why didn't Mexico choose to go with the "Gringo > Peeg" Bell System, and opted instead for the European one? With the > onset of free-trade (hopefully), this might be a severe detraction. I > suspect a call to Mexico would be routed to one of the International > Switching Centers (AT&T-speak) - and where's the closest one to San > Diego - Atlanta?!!! If I understand him correctly, I think he has misunderstood several things: 1) Call routing and especially costing has not changed with the elimination of the area codes and the need to use the 52 country code. The 52 country code has worked for longer than I know and was necessary with the area codes in place to reach lesser known Mexican call destinations. 2) The issue of free-trade is especially interesting since Southwestern Bell, France Telecom, and a Mexican group have purchased TelMex for several billion dollars. The phone number issue doesn't relate at all to the present trade policies of Mexico. They are already showing a significant amount of openess to their northern neighbor. 3) Is the country code numbering plan what you mean by the European system? If it is then, you probably didn't realize that "1" is the country code for the U.S. and Canada. The USSR is the only other single digit (7) country code and that may change with the continuing political changes. I'm biased. I've been helping setup cellular billing operations in Mexico City this year and I'm impressed by the people and the task they have before them. They have all kinds of things that a gringo would think are screwy, but they are working to fix the bad ones and keep the good ones. Carl Wright | Lynn-Arthur Associates, Inc. Internet: wright@ais.org | 2350 Green Rd., #160 Voice: 1 313 995 5590 EST | Ann Arbor, MI 48105 ------------------------------ From: Cliff Stoll Subject: Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack Reply-To: Cliff Stoll Organization: Center for Astrophysics Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 06:37:54 GMT Oh! Lafayette, Allied, and Olson's! Sweet memories of pawing through inch thick catalogs of capacitors, diodes, and switches. The Sears & Roebuck catalog for technofolks. Now -- check out the Chicago surplus outfit ... uh, what's its name ... the one with the wonderful ad copy and cheap paper... Cliff Stoll [Moderator's Note: How odd ... I don't know which company you mean. Answers, anyone? PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #106 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa23467; 10 Feb 91 15:37 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa30189; 10 Feb 91 14:12 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa21440; 10 Feb 91 13:08 CST Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 12:29:22 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #107 BCC: Message-ID: <9102101229.ab04398@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 10 Feb 91 12:29:00 CST Volume 11 : Issue 107 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Administrivia: Delivery Problems With Usenet [TELECOM Moderator] Another 'Busy Line Indicator' Schematic [moocow!uucp@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu] How Will Digital Cellular Increase Capacity? [Tom Lowe] SONET Protocol Information Needed [Gary Schaps] Re: Answer Supervision Trunks [telpc!tel@cdsdb1.att.com] Re: Network Interfaces: What's the Difference? [Jim Redelfs] Re: Access Charges [John Higdon] Re: SWB-Dallas Caller ID Update [John Higdon] Re: Caller-ID Technical Question [Jeff Sicherman] Re: Caller-ID Technical Question [John McHarry] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 11:17:32 CST From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Administrivia: Delivery Problems With Usenet I'm still getting daily reports from people who say the Digest is not getting gatewayed to them in comp.dcom.telecom. Individual messages and sometimes entire issues are missing at their site. I've been replacing missing issues manually by sending them as mail to readers who let me know. I've received a couple letters asking if the Digest 'is still being published on a regular basis ... ' uh, yes it is ... and readers of comp.dcom.telecom *should be* getting twenty to thirty or more messages daily as a minimum. There should never be more than a day between batches, and in most cases just a matter of hours. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ From: moocow!uucp@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu Subject: Another 'Busy Line Indicator' Schematic Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 09:08:14 EST This off-hook indicator is LINE POWERED. I've made one of these and it works; I recommend socketing the transistors (augat pins are perfect) as I've had awful luck frying them with the soldering iron (even though it's temperature controlled @ 700F). No warranties express or implied, build at your own risk, etc. +---------------+------------+----------+----|<------o POS side of phone line | | | | | | V | D1 | \ - LED | | / R3 | | C1 .01uF 200V | \ | | D1 1N4003 or greater | / / c | LED an LED \ | |/ | Q1,Q2 PN2222A * / R1 +-----+---------| b Q3 === C1 Q3 2N5551 \ Q1 | | Q2 |\ | R1 470K / / c c \ \ e | R2 20K | |/ \| | | R3 47K - 100K +------| b b |--------+ | R4 100 ohms | |\ /| | | \ \ e e / | | * 2N3904 or 2N4124 / R2 | | \ | also suitable \ | | / R4 | / | | \ | | | | / | | | | | | +---------+-----+-----------+-----------+------------o NEG side of phone line Interesting "polite" phone modification: to line ------------------------------------------ to phone TIP relay * | <-+ | - | - - - +-CCCCCC-+ | | | | RING to line -----o o-------+---|<---+-------------- to phone | | | D1 | +v v+ | | ---- +---|(---+ 'on' button + C1 D1 is a 6.8v Zener diode. C1 is an optional 680uF or greater electrolytic capacitor used to prevent call waiting from dropping the connection. The relay should be in the neighborhood of 2.2K ohms with a 6V coil; the contacts should hold to around three volts. On button is a standard NO pushbutton. When this device is wired in-line with a phone, depressing the "on" button will cause the phone to go off-hook, where it will remain until the switchhook button is pressed. It is most effective in a trimline-type phone, especially the one in the bedroom; since the phone no longer needs to be placed into its cradle, it can just be tossed up onto the headboard (or wherever). Very convenient if you're horizontal. I haven't actually made one (lost the relay somewhere), but I've seen one in action. ------------------------------ From: telpc!tel@cdsdb1.att.com Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 09:36 EST Subject: How Will Digital Cellular Increase Capacity? Could someone please post something describing how digital cellular will increase capacity? My supervisor and others in my group were trying to figure it out. Thanks! Tom Lowe ------------------------------ From: Gary Schaps Subject: SONET Protocol Information Needed Date: 10 Feb 91 15:12:38 GMT Organization: Nova University, Fort Lauderdale, FL I am preparing to do a descriptive/programming project on SONET for a graduate course in network modeling and analysis. Would anyone like to help me locate the protocol (standard) and any other literature which might prove useful? Thank you. Gary L. Schaps gls@novavax.nova.edu ------------------------------ From: telpc!tel@cdsdb1.att.com Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 09:31 EST Subject: Re: Answer Supervision Trunks John Boteler writes: > Tom Lowe [that's me] describes a costly and painful procedure for > extracting answer supervision from NJ Bell. > Solution: order CENTREX. The answer supervision is provided > as an OSI (Open Switch Interval) at least on 3*Way calls, and > possibly on single outbound calls when served by a #1ESS. #5s and > their ilk are another question. Centrex on a 5E does not provide this OSI, unforunately. Not on three-way or single outbound. > [Author's Note: Would ground start circuits provide the signalling > desired? Since they are engineered circuits, it would seem that such > signalling could be provided without a lot of pain. I don't see DOD > trunks as being special: many PBXs are configured this way.] I was told by NJBell that the only way to get Answer Supervision was via wink start trunks. I think Delay Dial trunks can also provide Answer Supervision. That's not to say it isn't possible, though. The beauty of the wink start trunks is that they can be used with a standard telephone and with our AT&T Voice Power boards, which can detect the current reversal. Someone had written to me asking me what Voice Power Boards are. They are speech response boards, much like Dialogic, and others, that can digitize and playback speech, detect and play DTMF, watch for current reversal and current detection, etc. It's used for interactive speech response applications. Finally, thanks to those who replied to my question regarding the box that NJ Bell installs on all "Data Lines" I order. It turns out the NJ Bell Tech gave me a call a couple of days ago to ask me if I knew anything about the box. He has been trying to convince his people that the box isn't needed unless we ask for it. I told him everything you all told me and he was quite impressed. I found out NJ Bell charges thirty dollars for the box. I have taken mine out, by the way. Tom Lowe AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ tel@hound.ATT.COM 908-949-0428 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 00:03:09 PDT From: Jim Redelfs Subject: Re: Network Interfaces: What's the Difference? Reply-To: jim.redelfs@iugate.unomaha.edu On 29-JAN-91, Seth Cohn wrote: > I recently had a second phone installed for a BBS system. The operator gave > me a choice of: > 1) a testable network interface > 2) a NONtestable network interface > What's the difference? (Besides about $5 :) ) In my area (U S WEST Communications - NE), we don't offer such a choice. The SNIs (Standard Network Interface) that I install have several accomodations for adding electronic devices - presumably including remote-testing equipment. The most added stuff *I'VE* seen (beyond the protector) is a half-ringer resistor across the RJ11C inside. Without any added stuff in OUR SNIs, our remote testing works just fine. If the $5 is a ONE-time charge, I'd probably go for it, otherwise, if you have trouble INSIDE, just go outside and see if there is dialtone on the jack. Hint: A short on the loop will cause our WE 2BESS to take the line OOS and, frequently, clearing the short will NOT restore the DT for several minutes - sometimes not until an incoming call is received. Go next door and call home! JR Copernicus V1.02 Elkhorn, NE [200:5010/666.14] (200:5010/2.14) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Feb 91 22:01 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Access Charges Bryan Richardson writes: > While not the definitive expert on the subject, I thought that AT&T, > as my default long distance carrier, paid the access charges to GTE. > I did not think that the customer was charged an access charge as > well. These "access" charges have as much to do with long distance access as David Letterman has to do with trade policy. These charges were allowed in the MFJ as a means to continue (what was perceived as necessary) the subsidy of local service by long distance charges. In truth, these surcharges have nothing to do with long distance since there is no way on God's green earth that you can avoid paying them. We have had dozens of articles in this forum from people who supposed that the surcharges could be removed if no long distance calls were made or received, but such is not the case. It is free money to the telco; it is not included when rates are evaluated and in fact does not show up as part of the basic service charges. Whatever charges AT&T pays to the telco is an entirely separate matter and is included in the IEC's rates. > A phone call to the GTE billing office got me nowhere: "This is > because of equal access -- you pay this to get access to the long > distance carrier of your choice." This is totally bogus. It has nothing to do with equal access, long distance, your choice of carrier, or the phase of the moon. It is just money the telco is allowed to rip off from you. Not many reps would put it just that way, however. > My question is this: Is there a case where the residential customer > must also pay access charges? I never saw this charge on my Illinois > Bell bill. Is this just a case of poor labeling on the bill by GTE? You betcha you pay on your residential bill. You pay on your business bill. You pay on any bill that is served by the switched network. IBT is obviously more skilled at hiding it from you. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows From: John Higdon Date: Sat, 9 Feb 1991 21:46:04 PST Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: SWB-Dallas Caller ID Update Eric Dittman writes: > "sometime in 1993". I asked why 1993 and the response was, "we have a > lot of old equipment that needs to be updated first. Maybe work will > be completed sooner, but '93 is the current estimate" (not an exact > quote). I guess Caller ID for the home will be a long time in coming > to Dallas. At least you got an estimate and a "we're working on it". When I inquire of Pac*Bell, no one knows anything or even if there are any plans. And that from inside sources! I have been led to believe that my home CO will be crossbar for the forseeable future and beyond. Pac*Bell's excuse is that the PUC (which it controls) won't let it upgrade CO equipment. What a scam. By the way, inside sources in Pac*Bell admit that the generous removal of charges for touch tone and the "widening" of the local calling area resulted in a net revenue INCREASE for the company. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 00:02:05 -0800 From: Jeff Sicherman Subject: Re: Caller-ID Technical Question Organization: Cal State Long Beach In article <74363@bu.edu.bu.edu> larson@snmp.sri.com (Alan Larson) writes: > As I understand it, Caller-ID works by sending the information out >after the first or second ring. Why doesn't it send it out before the >first ring, so the phone could know if it was to ring at all. Maybe so the phone knows a call is coming in and not just noise ?? > That would leave a great market for pre-programmed boxes to modify >the ring signal to indicate when selected numbers were calling, to >selectively ignore numbers, or to automatically route the calls to fax >or modem equipment. Why not just disable the phone's ringing and have the box do the same functions you specify but generate its own ring when appropriate ? >[Moderator's Note: I do not think the intent of Caller*ID is to tell >folks what calls NOT to accept (Call Screening is intended for that). >I think its purpose is merely to *identify* the origin of the call in >the event you wish to know that information. In other words, do not >choose to answer or not based on what the Caller*ID box displays -- >remember the many examples of someone you want to talk to calling from >a different phone than usual -- but instead, answer the phone as you >normally would and use the identification provided for recourse to the >caller if desired. PAT] PAT, are you serious about this. Surely they *must* have envisioned such an application, after all they offer it, or is it offered in this way to encourage the unimaginative to rent such services from the telco instead of buying the equipment ? Jeff Sicherman [Moderator's Note: See my reply following the next message. PAT] ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Caller-ID Technical Question Organization: The MITRE Corporation Date: 10 Feb 91 16:43:27 GMT larson@snmp.sri.com (Alan Larson) writes: >after the first or second ring. Why doesn't it send it out before the >first ring, so the phone could know if it was to ring at all. >[Moderator's Note: I do not think the intent of Caller*ID is to tell >folks what calls NOT to accept (Call Screening is intended for that). Indeed! You don't expect Ma to leave any money on the table do you? I think, however, that we shall soon see caller ID boxes that swallow the first ring burst until they have the number to decide how to treat the call. I, for one, would like to send some numbers to my answering machine, but not others. My mother does NOT want to leave a message, so I could set her number to ring and never trip the machine. (BTW, if she wanted to leave a message, she could use her other phone: this stuff runs in families!) [Moderator's Note: Precisely my point! I cannot imagine telco encouraging people to NOT answer their phone. If the calling party does not connect then there is no profit for telco. Call Screening is an exception, but please note it is one of the higher priced features available now ... so telco makes money, answer or no answer, because the called party is paying telco to *not* put the call through. Then too, there are the numerous examples of 'what do you do if someone you *do* want to speak with is calling from a different phone number?'. A policy of 'do not pass ringing from a number that is not recognized' is not a good one because there will always be parties you want to hear from calling from an unrecognized number (payphone, new phone line just installed, etc). By sending a 'courtesy ring' first, you have the option of examining your readout and deciding what to do next. The problem of a box which will 'absorb the first ring and act on the data received' is how do you prevent other extensions on the same line from giving a first ring also? PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #107 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa01083; 10 Feb 91 22:51 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa11243; 10 Feb 91 21:19 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa11320; 10 Feb 91 20:13 CST Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 19:20:55 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #108 BCC: Message-ID: <9102101920.ab25531@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 10 Feb 91 19:20:13 CST Volume 11 : Issue 108 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: "Independent" Coin Phones [John Higdon] Re: Maybe it Really is Time for Telecommunications Competition [D Levenson] Re: "Internal" Portable Phones [Hector Salgado-Galicia] Re: Wanted: Recommendations For Small Key-System [Dave Levenson] Re: 800 Scrambled ANI [Steve Forrette] Re: MCI Personal 800 Service [Bill Huttig] Auto-Blocking Collect Calls (was New Phone Scam) [Ken Weaverling] Automatic Ring Timeout [Jerry Leichter] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 10:53 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: "Independent" Coin Phones On Feb 10 at 1:21, TELECOM Moderator writes: > And now the more you > shop around; the more you use the competition, the better telco and > 'genuine Bell' service looks. Some of us were saying 'I told you so' > several years ago. I'm beginning to feel vindicated. PAT] Yes, indeed, the more you shop around ... but is it not nice to be able to shop around? Do you honestly believe that 'genuine Bell' would be at the level it is today if it had no competition nipping at its heels? Do you think, for instance, that AT&T would even today be providing digital connections nationwide if it were not for Sprint and others? It is important also to remember that COCOTs are an aberation. They are a cancer on the body telecom. To say that the MFJ is solely responsible for COCOTs is akin to saying that modern medicine produced AIDS. COCOTs were created and continue to exist courtesy of the malignant neglect of our regulatory bodies various. COCOTs could be cleaned up overnight if the same enforcement enthusiasm was employed as is to ordinary street vendors. And it would happen for sure if the public would get off its complacent butt and demand through its legislature, regulatory agencies, and last but not least, its pocketbook the cleansing of this scourge. Please do not blame the marketplace and competition for something that exists with the cooperation of its victims. Did it ever occur to anyone that maybe the reason that 'Bell' phones are making a return is that market forces are coming to bear? If COCOTs become unprofitable because an informed public stops using them, or insists that all calls be carried by a legitimate IEC, owner-operators will ultimately migrate to some other business. The void created will be filled with utility phones. I still believe the benefits of the MFJ far outweigh the liabilities. Whenever you substitute 'marketplace' for 'monopoly' there will be glitches and inequities in the short term. Just look at the Soviet Union and its stuggle with 'capitalism' for now. But give the marketplace forces a chance to kick in before issuing blanket condemnations for a system. An "I told you so" at this point is premature. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Maybe it Really is Time for Telecommunications Competition Date: 10 Feb 91 21:40:32 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article <74348@bu.edu.bu.edu>, abvax!iccgcc.DNET!herrickd@ uunet.uu.net (Dan Herrick) writes: > Every community of any size in the United States now has a second > company with a switch for providing public phone service - the > non-wireline cellular phone provider. His cellular system includes a > network of cell transceivers connected together with copper wires and > optic fibers and radio/microwave connections. (They even buy some of > those connections from the wireline providers, I'm sure.) > What prevents a non-wireline cellular provider from starting to offer > POTS - Plain Old Telephone Service? There has to be one out there > with capacity to spare owned by a curmudgeon spoiling for a good > competitive fight. The wiring to the cell sites is a drop in the bucket compared to the wiring to every wired telephone in the community. For the cellular provider to wire the whole city would require a staggering investment. Most local telcos probably couldn't afford to do that if their existing cable plant were wiped out tomorrow and they had to rewire from scratch at today's prices. We can, of course, already use the local non-wireline cellular provider's switch for local calls today. Just replace your wired telephone set with a fixed-location cellular set. But the usage rate is generally not competitive with existing local telco rates. Also, the local cellular provider buys 'dial tone' in bulk from the local telco, so there is little real alternative in this approach. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 13:54:57 -0500 (EST) From: Hector Salgado-Galicia Subject: Re: "Internal" Portable Phones >We are looking for something between a "home" wireless telephone and a >cell-phone, with voice capability (not just a pager). Someone recalls >recently seeing an ad for "factory floor" wireless phones, but can't >remember the magazine or issue! We would like this to tie into our >PBX, so that when you dial the person's extension, you get their >portable phone. A wireless PBX can be the solution to your problem. Actually you would not have to buy a whole new PBX, but expand instead your actual facilities installing radio ports. Several systems based on TDMA or Spread Spectrum technologies are appearing in the market this year. For additional information, you can look at: D. Postlethwaite, "Airwaves, architecture and tomorrow's PABX", Communications International, May 1990, p. 60. C. Buckingham, "A business cordless PABX telephone system on 800 MHz based on the DECT technology", IEEE Communications Magazine, Jan. 1991, p. 105. ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Wanted: Recommendations For Small Key-System Date: 10 Feb 91 20:59:47 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article <74318@bu.edu.bu.edu>, dam@mtqua.att.com (Daniel A Margolis) writes: > I noticed this article asking about small phone systems and another > asking the new AT&T PARTNER phone system, so I got some information > from John Bell, a friend of mine and one of the Systems Engineers who > worked on it. He recommends it (surprise, surprise). There was an > article in {Teleconnect} about PARTNER. They liked the product, but > what they really liked is that the engineer's name is Bell. (He's not > related to Alexander Graham Bell.) [Dan then provides a brief description of the Partner feature set.] I had a long chat with AT&T's local GBS sales office about Partner and Partner-Plus. I wanted to replace a small business phone system. The present system is an ITT 701 with three trunks and eight stations, used only for voice. There is also a Mitel SX-5 PBX with two trunks and six stations, used only for data. (The PBX stations are one 2500 set, and five modems.) An additional trunk is connected directly to a FAX machine, bypassing the 701 and the SX-5. I would like to combine the systems, and pool all of the trunks for outgoing calls, and still direct inbound traffic to the modem pool, the fax machine, and the nine voice stations. Additionally, I'd like to replace four of the eight electronic key sets with 2500 sets. > 1) PARTNER is inexpensive. (Yes, this is AT&T we're talking about.) They quoted approximately $2,200 for six trunks, and four electronic key sets. The single-line sets and installation are extra. If the installation is not performed by AT&T, they void the warranty. They would not quote a price for installation, but told me that it was charged for by the hour. They also advised that they could not re-use the existing three-pair modular wiring that supports the ITT 701, even though they also told me that Partner key sets only require two pair, and that their single-line sets require only one. They had not inspected the existing wire when they made this determination. > 2) Each port can handle a proprietary phone, a regular tip-ring phone, > or both, without any adapters (which are often expensive). The feature set for the single-line phone is surprisingly weak. There is no way to choose which trunk the set uses when it originates a call; it is permanently associated with a specific trunk. Inbound calls on that trunk cause the station to ring. Inbound calls on other trunks may not be answered on that set, but may be transferred there after they have been answered on a key set. Intercom calls dialed to a single-line set are indistinguishable from inbound trunk calls. A call which has been placed from or answered at a single-line set may be held, but may not be transferred to another single-line or key set. If the trunk associated with a single-line set is in use, the set is unable to place any inside or ourside calls, but may bridge on to the existing trunk call if the privacy feature is administered OFF. I was also told that the display-equipped version of the key set would display calling numbers if the trunks are equipped with Caller*ID service. The other GBS rep told me that this is not true! I don't know how accurate this feature description really is. It is based upon conversations with two different GBS sales reps. When they sent me information, it contained only glossy photos of smiling people talking on telephones, but no detail on what features are available. When I asked for more detail, I was sent another copy of the same smiling faces. A third request resulted in the story that there exists no feature-description or any other information on the system. If anybody can augment, refute, or clarify any of the above, I would appreciate it! > 3) PARTNER goes up to 4 CO lines and 12 extensions, while PARTNER PLUS > goes up to 8 lines and 24 extensions. > If you want to see it for yourself, dial 1-800-247-7000 for the number > of a nearby sales office... > ... You can also see it in AT&T Phone Centers, but their setup may > not be fully functional. It is also on display at the local Sears store, but it is not powered up, and the Sears sales people can't answer any questions about functionality. They, too, however, have a full package of glossy brochures of smiling faces! > [Author's Note: I fully expect a response from John Higdon on this one. > Please don't beat me up too badly. I know you're a Panasonic man.] Could someone provide a comparative feature list for the Panasonic system? I still want to upgrade the network here at Westmark, but I don't think the Partner is the 'right choice'. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 01:00:04 -0800 From: Steve Forrette Subject: Re: 800 Scrambled ANI I believe one of the numbers was 1-900-STOPPER. [Moderator's Note: I found the little card they sent me. The above is correct. For international calls the number is 1-900 RUN WELL. The fee is $2 per minute on domestic and $5 per minute on international calls. Dial the above numbers; when you hear new dial tone dial the number you are trying to reach. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Bill Huttig Subject: Re: MCI Personal 800 Service Date: 10 Feb 91 18:55:58 GMT Organization: Florida Institute of Technology, CS Dept., Melbourne, FL In article <74382@bu.edu.bu.edu> WANCHO@wsmr-simtel20.army.mil (Frank J. Wancho) writes: >What I confirmed was that as an MCI customer, the monthly fee was $2, >and that the rate of $6.50 per hour was in one minute increments, no >minimum, and applied to in-state as well as interstate calls. It was >the in-state feature that I asked to be double-checked and reconfirmed. The rep gave you wrong info. >The change in policy is significant: the rate to be applied to the >incoming Personal 800 calls is tied to the PrimeTime service you >already have. I have only PrimeTime Texas, which is $11.25 for the >first hour and $10.50 for subsequent hours. Incoming Personal 800 >calls originating within Texas will be billed at the PrimeTime Texas >rate, not the $6.50 per hour rate. If the incoming calls originate >elsewhere, they will be charged at the $15 per hour rate, not the >$6.50 per hour rate, because I don't have regular PrimeTime service. I was under the impression there were the following packages: 1) Primetime with personal 800 - cost 6.50 1st hr, $1.00 daytime discount $2.00 for the 800 number. daytime calls discount 10% plan hours .1083/min 2) same as above with a state option around $2.00 includes intrastate calls 3) stand alone 800 - only 800 number $5/mo and .25/min 4) stand alone 800 for MCI customers - only 800 number $/2 mo primtime hours .1083/min interState and .225/min all other times and intrastate There are about ten states where number two is not available ... Texas is one of them. I guess you expect most of your calls from within Texas? You could set up another account with them as option four (saying you had the regular primetime with MCI's other division). You cant have both primtime Texas and Primtime Plus? ... Guess I am lucky to live in Florida.. Bill ------------------------------ From: Ken Weaverling Subject: Auto-Blocking Collect Calls (was New Phone Scam) Date: 10 Feb 91 16:20:30 GMT Organization: University of Delaware The Moderator writes: >The other nice thing we have here is we can have our >lines set to automatically deny collect/third number billings if >desired. The IBT/AT&T data base will tell operators everywhere that >you do not accept such calls without the operator even bothering to >call you and ask. This doesn't always work. My place of work put this block on their lines a few months ago. I screamed murder about it cause when I am on vacation, I call collect daily to check on status of our systems. I was told to use my personal calling card and to submit an expense form. My reply was that I would use every access code in the book until I found some sleazy AOS that would let the call go through. Well, as expected, AT&T, MCI, and Sprint told me no go. But I did encounter a COCOT outside of "The Steak Out" in Sonoita, Arizona that let it go through. No indication of LD company, 10xxx calls blocked, even 00 blocked. 0+ seemed to generate an automatted message from within the phone itself with options for collect, etc. I spoke my name into the phone and I then heard it pulse dial the phone number! When the other party answered, it replayed my name back and told them to press 1 to accept, or hang up to reject. It went through despite the collect blocking. >>>---> Ken Weaverling >>>----> weave@brahms.udel.edu [Moderator's Note: Any COCOT which places the call direct rather than through an operator can cause the problem you describe. But the person answering the phone can still say NO ... and refuse payment of any bill that should arrive afterward. All the auto-blocking of collect and third number billing does is catch most of the charge attempts. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 12:40:44 EDT From: Jerry Leichter Subject: Automatic Ring Timeout A friend of mine has a phone number in 914 738 (Pelham, NY). This exchange (or at least his phone!) has a property I've never run into before: If you dial it and no one answers, after about 10 rings you get a "beep", and then the line goes silent. No, he does not have an answering machine, or any other device that would attempt to answer the phone. Has anyone ever run into this kind of thing elsewhere? Jerry [Cute answering machine message of the day: "Hi. This is the microwave oven. The answering machine is on strike. Leave a message, and I'll do the best I can."] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #108 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa02802; 11 Feb 91 0:50 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa22605; 10 Feb 91 23:27 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa28443; 10 Feb 91 22:20 CST Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 21:16:49 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #109 BCC: Message-ID: <9102102116.ab07679@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 10 Feb 91 21:16:35 CST Volume 11 : Issue 109 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Marisat Phones Smuggled into Kuwait? [Donald E. Kimberlin] Re: List of BBSes/Conferences on Telecom Topics [Donald E. Kimberlin] Anyone Want an Old Dial Intercom? [Steve Gaarder] Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack [Herman R. Silbiger] Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack [Steve Gaarder] Re: Audio Caller*ID [Dave Levenson] Re: Caller-ID Technical Question [John McHarry] Re: 'Free' Check in the Mail (was: MCI Pays to Switch) [Paul Gauthier] Re: 'Free' Check in the Mail [Henry Mensch] Re: 800 Numbers, Voice Mail, and Privacy [Barton F. Bruce] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 01:33 GMT From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Subject: Marisat Phones Smuggled into Kuwait? The sheer volume of almost real-time front-line video from war in the Persian Gulf region has demonstrated to all how telecommunica- tions technology has become so lightweight and portable it can reach from any point on the globe to any other. The beginnings of electronic journalism in WW II took herculean effort by comparison. Now, there seems to be evidence that even telephone plant need no longer be heavy, cumbersome, complex and expensive, either. An AP news report datelined, Taif, Saudi Arabia appeared in Sunday papers, indicating the Kuwaitis have probably smuggled Marisat portable satel- lite telephones into Iraqi-occupied Kuwait. In a story that begins, "Iraqi troops occupying Kuwait have stepped up executions and break into house to demand food, but Kuwaitis have enough to eat and are cheered by Allied bombing, exiled officials say," a series of statements about current conditions inside occupied Kuwait follow. But the fifth paragraph says, "The government's network of satellite telephones, most smuggled in after the August 2 (Iraqi) in- vasion, is the only means of information...." ...How surreal has war become now that an occupied nation under naval attack and bombardment can simply dial a phone call out, even after the public telephone exchange has been shut down or destroyed? Most likely these are Marisat phones, and if the Kuwaitis have some, there's little doubt that Saddam Hussein has some, too. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 23:22 GMT From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: List of BBSes/Conferences With Telcom Topics In Digest V11, Iss104, David Liebold lists several sources of conferences and materials on topics of telecom. Here are a few more: Conferences: Similar to Fidonet's "MDF Conference," many other relayed hobbyist networks have similar conferences. These do, however, often have only conference numbers on their networks and are often renumbered and renamed by local sysops, so some hunting around may be needed: The RIME network (formerly called RElayNet) has one called COSUARD that is a relay of a portion of Fido's FightBell," a conference raised to bring to light the actions of Telcos around the nation abritrarily adopting business rate charging to BBses, and similar matters. The InterLink network has one called "Telecommunications," which its moderator tries to keep closely to matters of PC communications, but other topics keep cropping up in it. Both RIME and Interlink have other conferences with various titles relating to "engineering" that deal with technical matters of tele- comm on that plane. At the moment, a move is afoot to get a "telecom" conference underway on RIME. BBSes: 1.) The Well, San Francisco (415) 331-6106. Reported in recent trade press to be "open to the public," but found on dialing to be a sub- scription board with a $25 sign-up fee and monthly usage billing. The press further indicated The Well was reachable with "any combina- tion of computer, modem and communications software," but on dialing, I found it requires 7-E-1 on line, as opposed to the 8-N-1 most BBSes use. The Well is reported to have been rated "Best On-line Publica- ton" by the Computer Press Association (whoever _they_ are), but one has to pay to find out if it's that good. Press reports The Well "carries a telecommunications conference on a wide range of topics ... carries related topics on telecommunications legal issues, computer networking, infomration services and computing in general." A voice phone line is reported to be (415) 332-4335. 2.) Private Line, Austin, TX (512) 452-7399. A privte bbs operated by telecommunications consultant William Degnan. Carries a large library of telecom-related files. Also a Fidonet node, for those who can use that route. 3.) MCIOne, Washington, DC (number unlisted). A closed bbs operated by MCI Telecommunications for telecom consultants and other parties qualified by MCI as of interest to its users and MCI. Only persons first qualified by MCI staff are given the number to dial, and callers are then validated by the MCIOne sysop before being given access. Has general conferences, and libraries of MCI pricing information and gen- eral telecom-related files and programs contributed by its participants. 4.) St. Petersburg Program Exchange, St. Petersburg, FL (813) 527-5666 (9600-1200) and (813) 525-2336 (2400-1200). A rather busy general-pur- pose BBS, with a sysop interested and participative in telecomm discus- sions. Carries some 200 confereences on RIME, Interlink and MediaNet, with all the telecom-related conferences of each carried. A good place to get listings of the various relayed net conferences indicated above. I hope this list is helpful, and that others may have more to add to it. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 20:40:37 EST From: Steve Gaarder Subject: Anyone Want an Old Dial Intercom? I have an authentic piece of 1A2 key equipment - an 8-station dial intercom unit, equipped for rotary or touch-tone. I believe it was the first such unit to use tones. It's taking up space here - pay shipping and it's yours. Steve Gaarder gaarder@theory.tn.cornell.edu ...!batcomputer!gaarder ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 18:33:07 EST From: Herman R Silbiger Subject: Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories In article <74386@bu.edu.bu.edu>, stoll@ux5.lbl.gov (Cliff Stoll) writes: > Oh! Lafayette, Allied, and Olson's! > Sweet memories of pawing through inch thick catalogs of capacitors, > diodes, and switches. The Sears & Roebuck catalog for technofolks. > Now -- check out the Chicago surplus outfit ... uh, what's its name > ... the one with the wonderful ad copy and cheap paper... > [Moderator's Note: How odd ... I don't know which company you mean. > Answers, anyone? PAT] How about Olson Radio? They always seemed a lot less professional than either Allied or Lafayette. They weren't from Chicago, but some other Midwest city. Herman Silbiger [Moderator's Note: There was an Olson Radio in addition to Olson Electronics? Separate companies? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 20:45:09 EST From: Steve Gaarder Subject: Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack In article <74386@bu.edu.bu.edu> Cliff Stoll writes: >Now -- check out the Chicago surplus outfit ... uh, what's its name > ... the one with the wonderful ad copy and cheap paper... The outfit in question can only be Jerryco, 601 Linden Place, Evanston. They have stores in Chicago and Milwaukee. Not a lot of electronics in their catalog, but it's worth getting just to read the whacko copy. Steve Gaarder gaarder@theory.tn.cornell.edu ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Audio Caller*ID Date: 10 Feb 91 20:32:51 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article <74316@bu.edu.bu.edu>, malcolm@apple.com (Malcolm Slaney) writes: > Which brings me to a more interesting point ... has anybody made a box > that translates a CID phone number into an audio message? It doesn't > seem very useful to me if I have to get up out of my easy chair and go > to the little box to see what's on the display ... besides I suspect > I'll have more phones in my house than CID displays. Maybe this won't > be a problem in the future when every phone has a little display > showing the CID. I have recently connected a ClassMate (Caller*ID 'modem' discussed here recently) to a Votrax Type-N-Talk speeck synthesys device. The Type-N-Talk, for those not familiar with it, is a box that translates a stream of ASCII characters into synthetic speech. It attempts to pronounce strings of alpha characters, using 'American English' and it pronounces strings of digits as literal strings of digits. While my phone is ringing, several strategically-placed loudspeakers read out the date, time, and calling number. Unfortunately, the record layout is such that the caller's number is the last field pronounced, after the date and time (which, since it is in real time, is generally already known!). As I write this article, a call arrives. The speakers chat away, while the telephone sets ring, sort of: RING RING zero two one zero one four five seven RING RING nine zero eight six four seven three eight three nine. What it means is that we got a call today (02/10) at 2:57pm (14:57) from (908) 647 3839. The 'special characters' :, /, (, ), and - which appear in the ClassMate output are spoken as 500 msec or so of silence. Note that four rings went by while this announcement played. One more and the answering machine will answer the call! Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Caller-ID Technical Question Organization: The MITRE Corporation Date: 11 Feb 91 00:42:40 GMT >[Moderator's Note: Precisely my point! I cannot imagine telco >encouraging people to NOT answer their phone. If the calling party >does not connect then there is no profit for telco. Call Screening is >an exception, but please note it is one of the higher priced features I did not advocate not answering calls from unknown numbers. I agree that that would not be too bright. On the other hand, I do see usefulness in treating certain known numbers differently from general callers. As is, my mother calls, lets the phone ring about three times, and then calls back immediately. I think the phone company would get a better connect rate if she could let it ring, safe from my answering machine. I could also then set the machine to pick up on the first ring, improving the connect rate for all the other calls. As I mentioned in a previous submission, I could even have a machine pick up on those I don't like and play them a message at their expense, but not take a message. Known fax callers could be routed to the fax machine. Calls from my work number could go straight to telemetry on the state of the heating system, etc., etc. ------------------------------ From: Paul Gauthier Subject: Re: 'Free' Check in the Mail (was: MCI Pays to Switch) Organization: Math, Stats & CS, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada Date: Sun, 10 Feb 1991 12:08:28 -0400 In article <16678@accuvax.nwu.edu> GUYDOSRM@splava.cc.plattsburgh.edu (Ray Guydosh) writes: >> I received a mail promotion for MCI Primetime accompanied by a gift -- >> a Twenty Dollar check in my name. >> From the promotional literature: "Don't forget to endorse your check >> before depositing or cashing it. With your signature, you authorize >> MCI to notify your local telephone company to switch your primary long >> distance service to MCI PrimeTime (SM)." Wouldn't this kind of thing fall under the law regarding unsolicited gifts? If a company puts a toaster on my doorstep and then asks for some compensation, I'm allowed to keep the toaster as a gift unless I in some way solicited it. Is there a parallel here? Paul Gauthier | gauthier@ug.cs.dal.ca President, Cerebral Computer Technologies | tyrant@dalac.bitnet Phone: (902)462-8217 Fax: (send email first) | tyrant@ac.dal.ca [Moderator's Note: No, it would not be an unsolicited gift because it has no value until after you sign the contract which accompanies it. If the check had no conditions attached to its encashment and was offered to you specifically as a gift from MCI in exchange for your consideration of their offer then it would be an 'unsolicited gift'. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 17:49:43 -0500 From: Henry Mensch Subject: 'Free' Check in the Mail Reply-To: henry@garp.mit.edu Fortunately, many (most) banks will accept checks for deposit *without* endorsement ... # Henry Mensch / / E40-379 MIT, Cambridge, MA # / / # via X.400: S=mensch; OU=informatik; P=tu-muenchen; A=dbp; C=de [Moderator's Note: This is true, however the bank in that case acts as your agent; assumes to act in your best interest and endorses the check for you with one of their own. You must have seen something similar to this on the back of a check: "Pay to the order of the within named payee. Absence of endorsement guarenteed by XYZ Bank." Some smart-alecks might suggest at this point MCI has the right to convert the bank's phones to MCI one-plus. Of course what it really means is in the event the payor refuses to pay based on the lack of a 'qualified and complete endorsement' the bank will accept the check back and in turn charge it back to your account. Most parts of a check can be omitted without too much hassle. I've received checks the issuer 'forgot' to sign. Where the signature would go (but is missing) I rubber-stamp a message: "Signature guarenteed by Patrick Townson". I've never had a check marked that way be returned unpaid. If I did, then I'd be no worse off than before I put it in. PAT] ------------------------------ From: "Barton F. Bruce" Subject: Re: 800 Numbers, Voice Mail, and Privacy Date: 10 Feb 91 21:21:10 EST Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc. In article <74338@bu.edu.bu.edu>, gast@cs.ucla.edu (David Gast) writes: > If you call 1-800-544-7544, you can get complete information about the > fund holdings in Fidelity Funds of anyone whose social security number > you know. Another silly case of someone's stupidity in implementing something that gives telephone based applications a black eye. Here in Boston, the now in trouble Bank of New England has a horribly stupid scheme. Your checking and savings account funds can be remotely transfered back and forth, and the current balances read by almost anyone. 99%+ of Mass drivers have their SSN as their drivers license #, and virtually every merchant accepting a check over the counter writes your drivers license on the back. The last four digits of your SSN are your PIN, and so a typical merchant can easily dial that bank's computer, enter your account number and PIN (both on your check at this point), and, noting that you are a tad short on checking account funds, simply move some from your savings to your checking. The bank has NO way to let you specify an alternate PIN. All accounts get phone access by default. The only suggestion they had when I pointed out the stupidity of this was to suggest that they could disable the service for customers so requesting! [Moderator's Note: First National Bank of Chicao has such a 'bank by phone' system here, but you pick your own PIN and are encouraged to change it frequently. FNB / Chicago may be going down the tubes soon along with Continental Bank (for the second time!) but at least they are security concious. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #109 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa06660; 11 Feb 91 5:04 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa03088; 11 Feb 91 3:37 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa04920; 11 Feb 91 2:30 CST Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 1:38:10 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #110 BCC: Message-ID: <9102110138.ab16412@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Mon, 11 Feb 91 01:37:55 CST Volume 11 : Issue 110 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson USI Nationwide Communications [TELECOM Moderator] AT&T Answers My Complaint [Douglas Scott Reuben] An Odd Thing Happened When I Placed a Call [technews@iitmax.iit.edu] Ohio Bell and Caller ID [David R. Zinkin] Bellcore V&H Tape Needed [Steve Forrette] Information Needed About New Switches [Barton F. Bruce] Rent A 900 Number [TELECOM Moderator] Re: Caller*ID Technical Question [Dave Levenson] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 0:46:45 CST From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: USI Nationwide Communications A new aggregator (at least I've not heard of them before) is a company called USI Communications of Orlando, FL. They offer AT&T one-plus service at pretty inexpensive rates according to the literature sent to me by their representative. They bill in six-second increments, and have a $12 per month fee for their service. You get billed direct by AT&T. In addition to direct dialing, this company also offers a 'Convenience Card' with nationwide 800 access. Calls billed on the card are at a flat rate of twenty cents per minute (actually .1930 plus .0068 tax, total .1998). There is no surcharge for calls billed to the card. They do however require that you pre-pay for blocks of time in $50 increments. In other words, you pay them $50 or more, then use the money on calls. When your reserve gets low, you send more money. They also offer Voice Mail, which they call their Voice Communication System. It can be used in connection with the 800 access number for your convenience card at the same twenty cents per minute rate. This appears to be a Storre and Forward service as well. 900 service is also available from USI, via AT&T's Multiquest program. They charge $750 installation and $100 per month thereafter. They can either route you to a voice mailbox or a live telephone. If to voicemail, they charge 45 cents for the first minute and 40 cents for each additional minute. Rates to a live phone are 50 cents for the first minute and 45 cents for each additional minute. They also collect 30 percent of the amount charged to each caller. Billing and collection is done by AT&T, and AT&T must also approve the programming content on 900 numbers. USI can provide 800 numbers to you. They charge $100 installation and $25 per month per 800 number. They can route it to voice mail at 20 cents per minute or to a live telephone at 30 cents per minute. Voicemail for either 900 or 800 number terminations ranges in cost from $12 to $40 per month depending on what features are desired such as message capacity, length of outgoing message, etc. This organization is also looking for independent distributors to resell their products and services. Here, things start looking a little like a multi-level-marketing type approach: You pay $50 per year as a distributor fee, then you get 5% commission on the billings of subscribers you signed up, etc. These commissions go on forever, I guess, as long as your yearly distributor fee is paid and your customer remains on line also. USI Nationwide Communications: 201 South Orange Avenue, Suite 800 Orlando, FL 32801 Phone: 407-423-7592 But I do not think they will deal direct with you. They will tell you to go through one of the distributors, in which case I guess you could contact the fellow who sent me the literature: Roy P. Nelson Parks Marketing, Ltd. 33 Royal Street North Quincy, MA 02170 617-471-8850 You do not have to be a distributor (i.e. $50 annual fee with residuals from customers you sign up) to merely be a customer. You can sign up for any of their services as is ... but a person wanting to get into a new line of business might want to look at the distributorship deal also. I would like to add that Sprint now also offers an MLM type deal where you get 5% commissions on customers you sign up ... but I don't have the specifics on their plan yet. PAT ------------------------------ Date: 11-FEB-1991 00:40:25.37 From: Douglas Scott Reuben Subject: AT&T Answers My Complaint Hello all, In case you may not recall, a few weeks ago a friend of mine was trying to call Israel on her (and later, my) Calling Card, and was unable to because calls were blocked. I wrote one of my usual "letters to telephone companies" to AT&T to let them know my feeling about this, which was kindly reprinted here. (The letter was to Robert Allen at AT&T, with the standard "This is what happened, this is what I am upset about, I am a long-time and/or faithful customer, I don't like being treated this way, I demand you correct this, Thank you for your time and attention in thision in this matter. ", etc. letter, which I generally send out to some telco/cell-co or other on a mnthly basis..:( ) I received the following FAX in response, as per my request. It was dated Feb 10th, 1991, although I received it on Feb. 6th. Odd... ------------- Mr. Reuben, I have been asked to respond to your questions regarding the blocking of calling card calls to Israel. Let me start by apologizing for the inconvenience you have experienced. We value you as a customer, and we strive for excellence in serving you. The handling of your call was not in accordance with our standard operator procedures in these circumstances, and I have asked that all of our operators receive a refresher on handling calling card calls which have been blocked for fraud reasons. If you have the name of the operator to whom you spoke, I will personally follow up with their supervisor, to ensure that corrective action is taken. As you know, the call you attempted to Israel was temporarily blocked due to calling card fraud. This system of blocking certain phones at certain times is for the protection of the card holder. Occasionally, someone will obtain a lost or stolen calling card, and will sell calls to overseas countries using the card number for billing. Every compromised calling card number began as the card number of a good customer. The actual process of blocking certain countries is based on a computer system that screens high levels of fraud. This system is set up to shut down all calls to a particular area from the phone or phones experiencing this fraud until the data can be analized by our Corporate Security Office. Limiting fraudulent use of cards allows us to pass on the savings to our customers in lower overall long distance prices. Because of the inconvenience that this block causes our good customers, it is only used where and when card calling has become extremely unprofitable. I cannot comment on the methods of other long distance carriers, other than to state that my knowledge of their similar fraud control procedures most likely comes from the same forums through which you orignally became acquainted with this practice. I am sorry that due to the proprietary nature of our fraud controls that I am not at liberty to reveal the methods, times, or places where it may be enforced. For the present, where blocking is encountered, the alternative billing methods of charging to a third number, and collect calling are available. In conclusion, let me assure you that a more effective, less disruptive method of fraud control is under development, along with a new, more secure card product which will soon be entering the marketplace. Again, I apologize for the inconvenience that you may have been caused. If you have any other questions, or if I can be of other assistance, please call me collect on (201) 644-1951. Peter Coulter Manager - AT&T International ----------- A few thoughts: 1. Interesting and thorough letter (addressed all my points). What one would expect from AT&T. 2. What is this new "Calling Card product"? A Pac*Bell like calling card which does NOT have your name and only shows you PIN? (But has a magstripe on the back ...) (Pac*Bell used to have these ... I dunno if they changed or not. NYTel also had these holographic cards, with only your PIN. I orderd LOTS of these because my friends like the holograph!) 3. If they base "blocking" on the degree of fraud from said phone (or group of phones), how come some Pac*Bell payphones in Truckee, CA (right off of I-80, near the west-most Tahoe exit, for CA-89) block these calls? I use these phones a lot (they are at a Safeway - probably the only Safeway there, just a few hundred feet north of I-80, near the BoA), and on July 4th, I tried calling Egypt, and guess what? Calls were blocked. I got on my Cell phone, pulled in the Reno, NV system (Cell One), and dialed through there. I was reimbursed for the call, so not too important, but I can't figure how much fraud they get in Truckee! I mean, how many people stop off at Safeway's to call Egypt? The same thing happened a week later just south of Stockton, at a BP station on I-5. A lot of fraud in Stockton? A lot of *anything* in Stockton?? :) ) 4. I'm glad to see that at least they agree with me that the operators should not give pathetic answers like "NJ and the country you are calling do not have a billing agreement" ... Please ... sounds like Metro Mobile as to why my phone doesn't work in XXX city. I rarely listen to anything Metro says anymore, and I'm glad to see that AT&T takes this a bit more seriously, and does not just give out any info to appease their cusotmers. Next time, I'll try calling the International Center and ask to be put through via them. Doug dreuben@eagle.wesleyan.edu dreuben@wesleyan.bitnet [Moderator's Note: Thanks for passing this along to the Digest. In fairness to AT&T I will add they do now have a tariff in place which allows selective blocking of credit card calls when fraud has become a problem. See Tariff # 1 Section 2.9.5, as per a footnote in the International Calling Guide. PAT] ------------------------------ From: technews@iitmax.iit.edu (Tech News Account) Subject: An Odd Thing Happened When I Placed a Call Reply-To: technews@iitmax.iit.edu (Tech News Account) Organization: Illinois Institute of Technology Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 03:40:07 GMT I was calling a local BBS, and got several rings, then a click and I heard, slightly muted but sometimes understandable, several different conversations -- all at the same time! I tried speaking, but I nor they heard my own voice. While listening, I heard someone answer a phone, and say Foobar Clinic (I forgot the actual name) may I help you? I then looked up Foobar in the phone book, called on the other line, and heard BOTH sides of the (short) conversation with the receptionist on the first line. I looked up the BBS`s prefix and that of the clinic -- both are in the same switching center. Anybody have any idea what this was? How to get it more reliably? (It has happened about once every month or so, always on the old line (with call waiting)) and the voices are NOT encrypted in any way. Any ideas what is going on? Technology News- IIT`s weekly student newspaper. Subscriptions available. kadokev@iitvax.bitnet technews@iitmax.edu My employer disagrees. [Monderator's Note: Sounds to me like you have some good old crosstalk out there at 31st and Armour Avenue. Are you sure you want it 'more reliably' or LESS of it? Any technical advice from anyone? PAT] ------------------------------ From: "David R. Zinkin" Subject: Ohio Bell and Caller ID Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, (USA) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 06:26:32 GMT I just called Ohio Bell and asked when we in the Cleveland, Ohio area would be offered Caller-ID service. The service representative told me that first, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio has to approve it, but as soon as they do, we would get it. I was also told that the approval process would be faster if more people call in to say they want the service. For now, though, does anyone know if Ohio Bell is actually offering Caller-ID in any of its service areas on an experimental basis? When I asked the service rep, I was told that such information was "privileged". So -- as always -- I'll use this forum to find out. (Hopefully, anyway.) Thanks, David Zinkin (drz@po.cwru.edu) -- Rochester General Hospital Radiology (Consultant) and Case Western Reserve Univ. (Psychology/Chemistry) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Feb 91 18:06:19 -0800 From: Steve Forrette Subject: Bellcore V&H Tape Needed Is there an FTPable copy of the Bellcore V&H tape laying around somewhere? I know it's a lot of information, but maybe somebody has more disc space than they need (yea, right!). If not, would someone be willing to "loan" me their copy? I assume that it comes on 1600 bpi 9-track, which I can deal with. I'd be willing to pay freight, etc. Thanks in advance, Steve Forrette, forrette@cory.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ From: "Barton F. Bruce" Subject: Information Needed About New Switches Date: 10 Feb 91 22:52:05 EST Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc. Does anyone know about a new AT&T switch called the Merlin Legend? 80 tks, 224 sta, 108 simultaneous conversations. Targets replacing the 25, and the Merlin II, and uses some Merlin II cards. Price? Features? Does anyone know about Generic 1004 for Mitel SD-200Ds? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 0:56:44 CST From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Rent A 900 Number An easy and financially painless way to test your 900 marketing skills is available now from a fellow here in the Chicago area who rents ready to use 900 numbers. His deal is you sign a one page contract identifying the nature of the line. Your contract is month-to-month, thirty days termination notice required. First month's rent is $300; subsequent months are $200 each. All his lines are passive, or one-way outbound announcements only. All are fed from his voicemail system. Each number can handle up to 1000 calls at a time. The rates are set at $2 per minute for a maximum call of five minutes. You get $1.25, the service bureau gets 75 cents, which they split with Sprint, the supplier of the numbers. You see the man one day, sign the contract and pay the rent. The line is turned on within a few minutes. A separate number is used to call into the machine to record your message, count your calls, etc. As I said, it is not really a bad deal for someone who has considered starting a 900 number for whatever reason but is afraid of losing their shirt financially in the process of getting started. Most 900 suppliers want a grand or more up front and a commitment. This guy says as long as you want to rent his for $200 per month you can. $2 per minute means 100 call minutes per month to pay him off ... if your outbound message is five minutes long that is 20 calls per month to break even ... if you can't do that much in a month you have no business talking about a 900 number. Contact Wayne Barnett, 708-953-6299 for more specifics or to rent your own 900 number for a month or two and see if you can do something with it. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Caller-ID Technical Question Date: 11 Feb 91 03:22:00 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article <74363@bu.edu.bu.edu>, larson@snmp.sri.com (Alan Larson) writes: > As I understand it, Caller-ID works by sending the information out > after the first or second ring. Why doesn't it send it out before the > first ring, so the phone could know if it was to ring at all. The Caller*ID display devices I have seen use the first ring to turn on the detector, and then sense the data carrier. Data preceding the first ring would not be noticed by these devices. One could certainly build a device that intercepts the first ring, and doesn't pass it through to the telephone instrument until it has received and processed the Caller*ID transmission. I have not seen such a device on the market yet, however. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #110 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa13905; 12 Feb 91 6:46 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa09541; 12 Feb 91 4:58 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa12941; 12 Feb 91 3:48 CST Date: Tue, 12 Feb 91 3:09:11 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #111 BCC: Message-ID: <9102120309.ab06734@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 12 Feb 91 03:08:55 CST Volume 11 : Issue 111 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson I Got Swamped Today! Please Help!!! [TELECOM Moderator] Re: Answer Supervision From Loop Start Circuits [Dave Levenson] Re: Wanted: Ring Indicator (With Memory) [Julian Macassey] Re: 800 Scrambled ANI [Dave Levenson] Re: AT&T Cordless Phones, Security, Flexible Antennas [David Lemson] What is CNA and What Does it do? [David R. Zinkin] Re: AT&T Answers My Complaint [Ravinder Bhumbla] Re: How Will Digital Cellular Increase Capacity? [Dave Levenson] Re: How Will Digital Cellular Increase Capacity? [John T. Ellis] Re: How Will Digital Cellular Increase Capacity? [David Svoboda] Re: When I Found Out, I Was Shocked! [Brandon S. Allbery] Telecom SIG on Compuserve Now Open (GO TELECOM) [Bob Izenberg] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 12 Feb 91 2:17:57 CST From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: I Got Swamped Today! Please Help!!! I don't know if it is my good looks and charm, my wit, your prolific nature or what .... telecom got hit today with over 200 new messages! Even after extensive screening and elimination of duplicates I've got enough here to publish Digests for the rest of this week without running out ... Can we please at this time close the existing threads on Radio Shack, Allied, and a few others that have been open a couple weeks. Also may I respectfully request ** no more messages ** except news and urgent items at least until about Wednesday night? Naturally I will push news and dated stuff of importance to the head of the queue, so send it in ... but if someone else is Re'ing on a topic, hold yours unless it *really* says something new and different. Thanks, and happy reading! PAT ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: Answer Supervision From Loop Start Circuits Date: 11 Feb 91 03:29:16 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article <74365@bu.edu.bu.edu>, csense!bote@uunet.uu.net (John Boteler) writes: > Tom Lowe describes a costly and painful procedure for extracting > answer supervision from NJ Bell. ... > Solution: order CENTREX. That's it! No special tariffs, no unnecessary > pain (other than the usual CENTREX programming screw-ups), and you get > features as part of the deal. The answer supervision is provided as an > OSI (Open Switch Interval) at least on 3*Way calls, and possibly on > single outbound calls when served by a #1ESS. #5s and their ilk are > another question. I would like to know what sort of central office John is talking about. Here in NJ, I have seen Centrex provided by 5 crossbar, 1ESS, 1AESS, and 5ESS. None of those switches routinely provide answer supervision to centrex subscriber lines. What all of these switches do provide is an open circuit interval (500 msec for ESS, ~100 msec for 5 crossbar) when the far end party disconnects. This is not supervision. This indicates an abandoned call, and is provided to the remaining party after the other party has disconnected, on both originating and terminating calls. Answer supervision, which indicates when the called party has answered, is provided under tarriff, and usually consists of a battery reversal toward the calling party when the called party answers. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ From: Julian Macassey Subject: Re: Wanted: Ring Indicator (With Memory) Date: 11 Feb 91 04:30:32 GMT Reply-To: Julian Macassey Organization: The Hole in the Wall Hollywood California U.S.A. In article <74346@bu.edu.bu.edu> stehle@erg.sri.com writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 103, Message 5 of 12 >I am looking for an add-on accessory that would be placed on a >two-wire telephone line (with a T connection) that would indicate that >the ringing voltage has appeared on the line. Ok, this is simple. You need a gong ringer and a dime. Wire up the gong ringer, but the gong must be open and accessable. Place a dime on the gong. If you find the dime on the floor, the phone has rung. This system was used in Copenhagen Denmark where the phones on Semi Automatic COs had a gong ringer top. Subscribers would place a 5 Oere (Ears) coin on the gong before going out. This was a poor substitute for a Phone Answering machine. But hey, it was cheap if you kept using the same coin. Julian Macassey, n6are julian@bongo.info.com ucla-an!denwa!bongo!julian N6ARE@N6YN (Packet Radio) n6are.ampr.org [44.16.0.81] voice (213) 653-4495 ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: 800 Scrambled ANI Date: 11 Feb 91 03:43:32 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article <74381@bu.edu.bu.edu>, john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: In reply to what > Mark Steiger writes: > You are being put on, big time. When you dial any number, the switch > you are dialing into is programed to "pre-translate" or expect a > certain number of digits based on the first digits you dial. If you > dial "1-800" the switch will expect seven more digits and then becomes > deaf to any more. There are no secret back doors here. Some of MCS's 800 service subscribers receive ANI from MCI in the form of a string of DTMF immediately after they answer, and before the voice channel is cut through. If the called party's CPE is stupid enough, it may be possible to send _it_ some extra DTMF digits after the voice channel is cust through, and fool it. At best, however, this would only work with those MCI customers who use brain-damaged ANI receiving systems. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ From: David Lemson Subject: Re: AT&T Cordless Phones, Security, Flexible Antennas Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Date: Mon, 11 Feb 1991 04:29:26 GMT Jim.Redelfs@iugate.unomaha.edu (Jim Redelfs) writes: >On 30-JAN-91, Robert Savery wrote: >> An AT&T phone is no "safer" than one of the el-cheepos. >True ... but at least you'll SOUND better to the listeners! :) >[Moderator's Note: Maybe or maybe not. There was a sort of >'Pepsi challenge'-like contest a few years ago where people recieved >calls placed from various models of cordless phones including AT&T. >All were placed under the same conditions; same distance from base, >etc. They were to identify one model of cordless phone from another. >Most of the people could not identify the specific phone being used >and about half the people could perceive no difference in quality. >Radios are radios are radios. There are too many variables involved to >firmly place the blame or good points with any one model. PAT] Another problem with a challenge like this is that it tests the transmission from the handset to the base only. If I'm not mistaken (and I'm sure people will be quite rapid to tell me if I'm not), the base unit does a much better job receiving the handset than vice versa due to its much better antenna. Also, I believe that some models (or was this just the earlier ones?) use the ground wire of the AC as an antenna to pick up the handheld unit. Whether or not this is technically true, I know from personal experience with about five different types of cordless phones that there is always much less static on the way from handset to base than base to handset. This once allowed me to receive a call next door, pick it up, hear nothing by static on my end, and tell the caller to hold on while I crossed over to my own house. He reported no static the whole time. David Lemson U of Illinois Computing Services Student Consultant Internet : lemson@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu University of Illinois, Urbana ------------------------------ From: "David R. Zinkin" Subject: What is CNA and What Does it do? Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, (USA) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 06:28:26 GMT I frequently see requests in the TELECOM Digest for "CNA" numbers for specific areas. What does "CNA" mean, and what are these numbers for? For that matter, if they serve a useful purpose, does anyone know the CNA numbers for Rochester, NY (area code 716 -- my home) and Cleveland, OH (area code 216 -- my school)? Thanks (again!), David Zinkin (drz@po.cwru.edu) -- Rochester General Hospital Radiology (Consultant) and Case Western Reserve Univ. (Psychology/Chemistry) [Moderator's Note: CNA = 'Customer Name and Address' Bureau. It is the departmetn or division within each telco which keeps track of what name and address go with what phone number. It should not be confused with the 'Non-Pub' bureau, which may or may not be part of the CNA but is in charge of keeping non-published numbers under lock and key and available on a 'need to know' basis to authorized telco employees. CNA is not usually a publicly available service. It is usually intended only for use internally by telco employees, but there are exceptions such as Chicago (Bell of Illinois and Centel) where 312-796-9600 is a public facility with a 50 cent (I think) charge for the use of the cross-reference directory. Some other telcos offer this as well. Our correspondent Randy Borow from here in the Chicago area has passed along a couple of CNA phone numbers for public use -- maybe he can provide the ones for your area also -- provided they are intended for the public! No confidential internal numbers please. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Ravinder Bhumbla Subject: Re: AT&T Answers My Complaint Date: 11 Feb 91 08:20:32 GMT Reply-To: Ravinder Bhumbla Organization: University of California, San Diego In article <74445@bu.edu.bu.edu> DREUBEN@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Douglas Scott Reuben) writes: [about the letter from Mr. Peter Coulter, Manager - AT&T International about international call blocking from payphones] I went through the letter twice and (correct me if I'm wrong), all he is saying is that if you want to make international calls from a payphone, they have to be: (a) collect calls, or (b) third-party billed calls, or, of course (something he didn't mention) (c) coin calls. When I had written a similar letter to Mr. Robert Allen last year, the local AT&T representative who had called in response had suggested another option: (d) mention her name and ask the operator (or the supervisor on duty) to lift the blocking for that particular call. As I had mentioned in an earlier message, that did work for me when I encountered call blocking on a *residential* phone. So, that might be another thing to try if you need to make an international call from a pay phone. Ravinder Bhumbla rbhumbla@ucsd.edu U. of California, San Diego ------------------------------ From: Dave Levenson Subject: Re: How Will Digital Cellular Increase Capacity? Date: 12 Feb 91 00:58:33 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA In article <74390@bu.edu.bu.edu>, telpc!tel@cdsdb1.att.com writes: > Could someone please post something describing how digital cellular will > increase capacity? My supervisor and others in my group were trying to > figure it out. The proposed digital standards would multiplex three voice channels on each radio channel, thus trippling the traffic capacity of each existing cell site with no increase in spectrum space. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ From: John T Ellis Subject: Re: How Will Digital Cellular Increase Capacity? Date: 11 Feb 91 14:37:15 GMT Reply-To: John T Ellis Organization: Motorola Inc. - Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hghs, IL Digital cellular will increase capacity in the following manner. The first method under development (and actually being tested) is TDM - Time Division Multiplexing. The capacity increase on paper is 3:1 (3 times more than current analog). The other method being looked at is CDM - Code Division Multiplexing. On paper it is said to provide an increase of 20:1. The biggest problem with these new technologies is the size of the phone needed to implement them. Currently the phone designs call for some huge ie. garbage can, phone with an unbelievable power source. So ... digital cellular is a ways off. Motorola is currently working on a new technology called NAMPS - Narrow band Advanced Mobile Phone Service. This is an analog technology that will increase capacity of current analog systems 3:1. Hope this helps. John T. Ellis 708-632-7857 Motorola Cellular motcid!ellis@chg.mcd.mot.com ------------------------------ From: David Svoboda Subject: Re: How Will Digital Cellular Increase Capacity? Date: 11 Feb 91 16:37:31 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL One capacity limitation of current cellular is available bandwidth. By lowering the bandwidth required by each speech channel, the total capacity may be increased while maintaining the current total bandwidth allotment of cellular. Assuming that a digital transmission of raw PCM data would require roughly the same bandwidth as the corresponding analog signal, the PCM speech data can be compressed by DSP techniques to require less bandwidth. In fact, as the US standard now stands, a souped-up LPC technique is used to achieve a robust three to one capacity increase per RF channel over analog. Dave Svoboda, Motorola CID, RTSG, Arlington Heights, IL uucp => {uunet|mcdchg|att}!motcid!svoboda internet => svoboda@void.rtsg.mot.com ------------------------------ From: "Brandon S. Allbery KB8JRR" Subject: Re: When I Found Out, I Was Shocked! Reply-To: "Brandon S. Allbery KB8JRR" Organization: North Coast Public Access Un*x (ncoast) Date: Sat, 9 Feb 1991 17:57:03 GMT As quoted from <16667@accuvax.nwu.edu> by prg@mgweed.uucp (Gunsul): | (CB) with no hassle. For that matter, I think the FCC has banned the | use of linear amps in ten meters also; they're not fooled! About 25 It's illegal to *sell* ten meter linear amplifiers commercially, but legal for hams to alter linear amps for ten meters for their own use. You can also sell them non-commercially (e.g. at hamfest flea markets or the local swap-and-shop net). Me: Brandon S. Allbery VHF/UHF: KB8JRR on 220, 2m, 440 Internet: allbery@NCoast.ORG Packet: KB8JRR @ WA8BXN America OnLine: KB8JRR AMPR: KB8JRR.AmPR.ORG [44.70.4.88] uunet!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!ncoast!allbery Delphi: ALLBERY ------------------------------ From: Bob Izenberg Subject: Telecom SIG on CompuServe Now Open (GO TELECOM) Date: 11 Feb 91 08:53:19 GMT I just chanced across the Telecommunications Issues SIG on CompuServe. They were in the process of reorganizing it even while I was reading, as topics came and went in the menus while I was hopping between subject areas. The first message that I saw was one by Our Moderator, naturally. ;-) It's no TELECOM Digest (not yet, anyway) but it's there. Bob [Moderator's Note: Well hey! They offered to throw my flag when I come to visit that group provided I post a few biased and bigoted messages each time I call on them ... something to stir up the hate and discontent and keep the meter running on others :) Such a deal! How could I refuse their generosity, especially since I am charged with the solemn duty of providing fuel for the flames in comp.org.eff.talk from time to time. Yes, the Compuserve SIG is now open for business. You can reach it by GO TELECOM from any CIS prompt. On my first couple visits there I was impressed by the work the sysops have done to get it set up. If you have a CIS account at least give it a look. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #111 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa14935; 12 Feb 91 7:49 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa11028; 12 Feb 91 6:14 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab09541; 12 Feb 91 5:00 CST Date: Tue, 12 Feb 91 3:58:44 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #112 BCC: Message-ID: <9102120358.ab17508@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 12 Feb 91 03:58:20 CST Volume 11 : Issue 112 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Maybe it Really is Time for Telecommunications Competition [P da Silva] Re: Maybe it Really is Time for Telecommunications Competition [D. Herrick] Re: Maybe it Really is Time for Telecommunications Competition [A. Walker] Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack [Dale Neiburg, NPR via John R. Covert] Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack [John Luce] Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack [jlangri@relay.nswc.navy.mil] Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack [Owen M. Hartnett] A Nostalgic Look at Olson [Macy Hallock] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter da Silva Subject: Re: Maybe it Really is Time for Telecommunications Competition Organization: A corner of our bedroom Date: Tue, 12 Feb 1991 01:31:17 GMT In article <74411@bu.edu.bu.edu>, dave@westmark.westmark.com (Dave Levenson) writes: > In article <74348@bu.edu.bu.edu>, abvax!iccgcc.DNET!herrickd@ > uunet.uu.net (Dan Herrick) writes: > > Every community of any size in the United States now has a second > > company with a switch for providing public phone service - the > > non-wireline cellular phone provider.... > The wiring to the cell sites is a drop in the bucket compared to the > wiring to every wired telephone in the community. But the local cable company has wires going into a large proportion of the homes. Why not run broadband to the local cable box and then have something like the "transceiver" box I suggested for rural areas carrying dial-tone from there to the house? What's the capacity of broadband over coax for that sort of distance? There's no reason to wire pairs from every house to the CO... (peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com) ------------------------------ Date: 11 Feb 91 21:43:00 EDT From: Dan Herrick Subject: Re: Maybe it Really is Time for Telecommunications Competition In article <74411@bu.edu.bu.edu>, dave@westmark.westmark.com (Dave Levenson) writes: > In article <74348@bu.edu.bu.edu>, abvax!iccgcc.DNET!herrickd@ > uunet.uu.net (Dan Herrick) writes: >> Every community of any size in the United States now has a second >> company with a switch for providing public phone service - the >> non-wireline cellular phone provider. His cellular system includes a >> network of cell transceivers connected together with copper wires and >> optic fibers and radio/microwave connections. (They even buy some of >> those connections from the wireline providers, I'm sure.) >> What prevents a non-wireline cellular provider from starting to offer >> POTS - Plain Old Telephone Service? There has to be one out there >> with capacity to spare owned by a curmudgeon spoiling for a good >> competitive fight. > The wiring to the cell sites is a drop in the bucket compared to the > wiring to every wired telephone in the community. For the cellular > provider to wire the whole city would require a staggering investment. A new provider does not need wiring to every wired telephone in the community. He needs wiring from his existing network to the phones of anyone who is willing to pay his hookup fee and continuing charges. Start the way MCI did: Choose one place where there are enough phones to justify the cost of the physical plant and sell the connection. The PBX in this building has between 500 and 1000 phones on it. It would be a good candidate if it were within a mile of a node on the cellular provider's network. The phone customer in the building might like redundancy enough to move half his phone service to an alternate carrier. Such a contract would justify free installation of a couple miles of optical fiber and related electronics. > Most local telcos probably couldn't afford to do that if their > existing cable plant were wiped out tomorrow and they had to rewire > from scratch at today's prices. They wouldn't do it with copper pairs, as they did the first time. They would use some combination of optical fiber and the same coax the tv cable companies use. The tv cable companies found the wherewithall to wire from scratch quite recently. > We can, of course, already use the local non-wireline cellular > provider's switch for local calls today. Just replace your wired > telephone set with a fixed-location cellular set. What I was suggesting is that the service provider would find it profitable to make people want to do something equivalent to this. > But the usage rate is generally not competitive with existing > local telco rates. That's because there is enough value added and novelty in cellular (mobile) technology that hundreds of thousands of people gladly pay through the nose to use it. The proposal is to offer another service using the same physical plant and less value added for less money. > Also, the local cellular provider buys 'dial tone' in bulk from the > local telco, Is this always true? I believe there are other ways to get dial tone. In fact, doesn't he get dial tone from his own switch and route the call a) Directly to another cellular phone on his system b) Over a T1 to the LEC if it is a local call c) Over a T1 to some LD supplier if it is not local (or he can get the local connection more cheaply by connecting to the telco network on the other side of some imaginary line > so there is little real alternative in this approach. Fallacies in this assertion: 1) The cellular provider is much more important to the LEC than I am and can command more attention from their technical people. 2) The cellular provider buys enough dial tone that it is realistic for him to explore other suppliers than the LEC. 3) This "little real alternative" argument applies in exactly the same way to the A and B cellular channels - however some prefer to buy from the wireline carrier and some prefer to buy from the lottery winner, and postings here display fierce loyalties in both directions. The customers seem to perceive a very real alternative. The original telephone wiring started in disconnected islands that slowly grew and interconnected. The electric power utility started in areas where there were lots of potential customers and grew from there. The existing cellular phone system started where the population is most congested and spread from there. Do you remember when UPS had a small but growing list of cities they served? Competitive phone service will begin where there are lots of potential customers and the LEC is abusing his monopoly status. John Higdon has been scathing in his descriptions of the service provided by Pac*Bell (why does he put the * in there?). If their service is only half as bad as he says it is, they are creating a business opportunity for someone else to come in and provide good service for a reasonable price. And current technology removes any credibility that the "natural monopoly" arguments ever had. dan herrick herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com ------------------------------ From: Amanda Walker Subject: Re: Maybe it Really is Time for Telecommunications Competition! Organization: Visix Software Inc., Reston, VA Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 17:50:47 GMT Dan Herrick writes: > Do you think local telephone service costs too much? Rent some capacity > from the local cellular provider and take some business away from your > monopoly LEC. Actually, I have been debating doing just that. If you factor in value-added services, Cell One is almost cheaper than C&P, even with airtime charges. Since there's a cell site a block away from my apartment, it's even practical for non-mobile use, and I get: - free voice mail - a local calling area that includes all of the DC and Baltimore metropolitan areas (this can be *very* handy) - prompt, helpful customer service - often, faster call completion - fewer service interruptions And, best of all, my cellular phone number wasn't previously owned by a tortilla manufacturer :). The next time C&P screws up, I'll probably try it, at least for a while... Amanda Walker amanda@visix.com Visix Software Inc. ...!uunet!visix!amanda ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 08:21:58 PST From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack From: Dale Neiburg Subject: Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack Organization: National Public Radio Date: 11 Feb 91 10:03 EST In TELECOM Digest, vol. 11, issue 106, the following exchange occurs between Cliff Stoll and the Moderator: >Now -- check out the Chicago surplus outfit ... uh, what's its name > ... the one with the wonderful ad copy and cheap paper... >[Moderator's Note: How odd ... I don't know which company you mean. >Answers, anyone? PAT] I think Cliff is probably talking about the Jerryco catlogue. It's full of all sorts of *STRANGE* stuff, electronic, optical, arts & crafts, unclassifiable -- you name it. The copy is often delightful: one example that comes to mind is, "The purchasing department thought this was a teriffic idea. The editorial department doesn't." Unfortunately, I don't have their address and only remember that they're located in Evanston: I'll try to find it. ------------------------------ From: "J. Luce" Subject: Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack Date: 9 Feb 91 18:30:47 GMT Reply-To: "J. Luce" Organization: Alcatel Network Systems, Raleigh NC TELECOM Moderator Noted: >[Moderator's Note: Those 'trips back in time' are fun, and really I >think they are essential to a complete understanding of modern day >technology and telephony. There are a lot of politics and history >involved in why things are as they are today. Things don't just >happen. We cannot dwell in the past but we must learn from it. PAT] To stay off course for one more message ... this brings up a pet 'concern' of mine. We used to hack at all these electronic things. We then probably (I know I did) hacked at our VERY OWN CP/M computers (of course meaning figuring out ports, barnacling semi-misdesigned S-100 boards, and rewriting BIOSs every time we added a device like a parallel port) and we took that with us and aided our way into this brave new world of technology. The kids today just don't have the same environment to hack in. I think we are leaving a LOT of creativity in the lurch due to this. The 'finished product' approach of all we buy now may come back and nip us in our rears later on after us old hackers retire. I know as a S/W Engineer, my intro to electronics made my life as a device driver person a help and helped h/w people in making life easier for s/w people. ::sigh:: off soapbox. John Luce Alcatel Network Systems Raleigh, NC Standard Disclaimer Applies 919-850-6787 Mail? Here? Try aurs01!aurw46!luce@mcnc.org or ...!mcnc!aurgate!luce or John.Luce@f130.n151.z1.fidonet.org ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 13:24:04 est From: jlangri@relay.nswc.navy.mil Subject: Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack? I knew sooner or later I'd have to respond to all the Allied and Radio Shack stuff being posted ... it brings back a lot of memories here too. I had the pleasure of working several years for a R/S franchise store (not "dealer" nor "company" store). Talk about A Dream come true! I still miss it. Anyway, I haven't heard mention of the Adult Toy Mail order company that still makes us all wish we had more mad money stashed, Edmund Scientific! On a more down to earth subject, Can anyone suggest a cheap easy method of buffing out old phone housings? [Moderator's Note: Now don't get me started on Edmund Scientific! Gosh, all those old companies with their wonderful catalogs and great 'rainy Saturday afternoon' projects for kids and grown-ups alike! Years ago I supervised a Saturday afternoon 'science workshop' for little kids sponsored by the Chicago Public Library for one winter. Edmund gave us a couple thousand dollars in freebies for the kids, and I had fun too! Do I wish it was 1960 again, or what? :) PAT] ------------------------------ From: "Owen M. Hartnett" Subject: Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack Date: 12 Feb 91 02:32:36 GMT Reply-To: "Owen M. Hartnett" Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science Looking for more modern day electronic catalog stimulation? Here's a couple I've run into: (all the catalogs are free, most have 800 numbers, just call and ask for a catalog) Digi-Key - heavy metal, caps, resistors, diodes, transistors 701 Brooks Avenue South P O Box 677 Thief River Falls, MN 56701-0677 (800) 344-4539 MCM Electronics - flybacks, tools, test equipment 650 East Congress Park Drive Centerville, OH 45459-4072 (800) 543-4330 JDR Microdevices - misc test equipment & parts 2233 Branham Lane San Jose, CA 95124 (408) 559-1200 I've ordered from Digi-key and MCM, very professional, good for the hard to find parts that the local electronic hardware shop hasn't got. Owen Hartnett omh@cs.brown.edu.CSNET Brown University Computer Science omh@cs.brown.edu uunet!brunix!omh ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Feb 91 03:48 EST From: Macy Hallock Subject: A Nostalgic Look at Olson Organization: Hallock Engineering and Sales Medina, Ohio USA In article <16708@accuvax.nwu.edu> our esteemed Moderator writes: [Discussion about the older type of electronics and surplus stores, a fast vanishing breed....] >Olson was the same way. How they made a profit I'll never know. I >guess in fact they did not make a profit since they, like Allied, are >out of business. Yes, Olson Electronics was one of the best distributors of surplus parts for quite a while. They were based in Akron, Ohio and had several stores in the Northern Ohio area. Lots of surplus stuff, some in boxes and barrels, some packed in plastic bags. They also carried some new stuff, some with their own name, some with brand names, all at discounted prices. As a teenager, I would get a ride into Akron with my parents when they went to the O'neils department store one block away from one of the larger stores. My father, an engineer himself, would always be amused by my purchases of equipment to experiment with. I blew a lot of my spare cash at Olson's as a teenager. The equipment I bought there led to my continuing fascination with electronics, communications equipment in particular. I probably have a few parts from Olson's still floating around in my workshop, 20+ years later. I also bought quite a few broken/damaged electronic items from Olson's. Learning to fix and modify them, often without schematics, was great for learning troubleshooting. My stereo system was a sight to behold ... it looked something like a laboratory from a bad science fiction movie. Another story about Olson's comes to mind ... In 1971 I left the phone company and went to work for Electronic Engineering Co. of Ohio. I was their first telephone employee in their entry in to interconnect telephone systems. EECo had been primarily an installer of sound and intercom systems up to then. The orginal founder of EECo, Sol Leibowitz, then a bit on in years and semi-retired while his son ran EECo, had been a partner with Sid Olson when he founded Olson Electronics. Sol had some interesting stories about the old days of surplus electronics at Olson's. Seems as though much of the surplus stuff they sold was obtained just by hauling it away from manufacturers and warehouses. Some of the stories he told of finding this stuff and striking deals to get it were fascinating. Seems as though the cost of goods had a lot to do with the profitability and expansion of Olson up to the end of the sixties. The business changed in the early seventies, and that was the beginning of the end for Olson's. The last of the Olson stores were low end audio/CB vendors and were finally sold to NWS for use as retail liquidation outlets around 1985. All are closed now. About the closest thing left to this older type of surplus store are the electronics surplus liquidators like Medelson's of Dayton Ohio and A.R.E. of Findlay. I know there are several such stores in the high tech areas of the country (Weird Stuff Warehouse in Silicon Valley comes to mind), but its not quite the same. My kids will not have as much of a chance to tinker with the equipment as I did. Pity. Like the ham's say: we are all becoming appliance operators thanks to the consumer electronics industry of today... I very much enjoy these occasional forays into the history and heritage of the electronics and communications industries that appear in Telecom Digest from time to time. I've learned a lot from them. One more reason why I read the Digest before I read my newspaper... Macy M. Hallock, Jr. macy@fmsystm.UUCP macy@NCoast.ORG uunet!aablue!fmsystm!macy [Moderator's Note: I am humbled, and thank you ... but enuff already! Starting tomorrow, let's talk telecom again. The message backlog right now is verocious, so the Allied/Tandy/Olson thread MUST close! And please, do hold off on REplies to other threads at least for a few days until the queue thins out a little. Thanks! PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #112 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa27248; 13 Feb 91 10:54 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa17810; 13 Feb 91 9:16 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa24269; 13 Feb 91 8:09 CST Date: Wed, 13 Feb 91 7:49:36 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs Subject: Use of T3 for Packed Switched Networks on the Increase BCC: Message-ID: <9102130749.ab15464@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> [Moderator's Note: The attached was sent along by Jody Kravitz and is being sent out as a special mailing because of its size. Regarding the flow of stuff into telecom, readers should be advised I still have over 100 messages backlogged in the queue of things to print. Most of it will get out in the next two or three days .... all will be redated as needed to keep it from expiring in comp.dcom.telecom. Again please: DO NOT send further messages to the group until toward the weekend. Thanks. PAT From: foxtail!kravitz@ucsd.edu Subject: Use of T3 for Packet Switched Networks on the Increase Date: 13 Feb 91 7:18:12 GMT Organization: The Foxtail Group, San Diego, CA This month's California Education and Research Federation Network (CERFnet) newsletter talks about the installation of T3 circuits in NSFNET. NSFNET and CERFnet are part of the packet-switched "Internet". The growth in use of T3, which operates at 45Mbps, may be of interest to some of the readers of the TELECOM Digest. I've excerpted the relevant articles from the newsletter and included them below: CERFnet News February 1991 Volume 3, Number 1 INSIDE THIS ISSUE: * The new faster NSFNET reaches CERFnet SDSC installs new 45 Mbps connection to the NSFNET. This is part of the NSFNET migration to 45 Mbps. This article also discusses the benefits to CERFnet users. .... articles deleted .... * Initial T3 deployment in place on NSFNET This article discusses NSFNET's new 45 Mbps (T3) backbone and future improvements of the T3 architecture. .... articles deleted .... Staff for this issue of CERFnet News includes: Editor Advisors Karen McKelvey Susan Estrada Robert Morgan Writers Contributors ESnet staff Mike Beach Ken Horning Rachel Chrisman Paul Love Carlos Robles Cathy Wittbrodt CERFnet News is published monthly by the California Education and Research Federation Network (CERFnet). CERFnet is a mid-level network linking academic, government, and industrial research facilities throughout California. CERFnet receives partial funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), operating under grant number NCR8819851. Any opinions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of NSF, other funders, General Atomics, SDSC, or CERFnet. If you would like to receive CERFnet News or would like further information about CERFnet, please send your request to help@cerf.net, or telephone 800-876-CERF, or contact the CERFnet office at the following address: CERFnet c/o San Diego Supercomputer Center P. O. Box 85608 San Diego, CA 92186-9784 A NEW FASTER NSFNET REACHES CERFNET SDSC installs new 45 Mbps connection to the NSFNET. by Paul Love During the year-end holidays, the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) installed its new 45 Mbps (T3) connection to NSFNET. This was accomplished during a visit to SDSC by Hans-Werner Braun, then the Merit Principle Investigator on the NSFNET project. (Braun has since become one of SDSC's networking specialists.) CERFnet users can now enjoy faster service and gain access to even greater computational capabilities. The NSFNET T3 circuit at SDSC uses a fiber that was recently installed from UC San Diego and SDSC to the local MCI office. This fiber connection bypasses the local telephone office which reduces rates for connections to MCI. The fiber installation was possible because most of it runs through land owned by UC San Diego, Chevron, and General Atomics, who cooperated in its installation. The fiber also means new technologies can be added quickly. For example, the CASA testbed network (see article in CERFnet News, Aug-Sept 1990) of the National Research and Education Network (NREN) will use connections running at 1 Gigabit. This is only available over fiber. SDSC is a node on the CASA network. As of January 25, traffic on the T3 from SDSC was limited to Merit (in Ann Arbor, MI) and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (in Urbana-Champaign, IL). Today, connections include Stanford University (Palo Alto, CA) and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. Initially, six of the thirteen NSFNET sites were scheduled to receive T3 service in addition to their T1 service. Also, two new sites (Cambridge, MA and Argonne, IL) were scheduled to receive only T3 service. At the FARNET meeting in January, Steve Wolff of NSF reported that the agreement with Merit/MCI/IBM has been modified. All sixteen sites on the NSFNET backbone will receive T3 service. These installations are expected to be completed by the end of the year. The T1 network will be dismantled when all of the sites are operating T3 service. Benefits for CERFnet users The T3 midgration means that CERFnet users will not experience any degradation of service during 1991. It was projected that some of the links on the T1 network would become congested this year if additional bandwidth was not provided. Also the new T3 network will make new services available. Remotely mounted file systems will seem much more like those mounted just across your local Ethernet. Distributed computing across the country will now be practical. The new network will make document and data retrieval a faster, simpler, and common operation -- a necessary service for users as more full -- text libraries and databases become available via the Internet. Effect on mid-level/local networks The growth of most mid-level and local networks is another important facet of the NSFNET migration to T3. Most mid-level networks have a high percentage of T1 links. The new T3 connections will keep a mid-level's connection to the NSFNET backbone from becoming a bottleneck. Also, the T3 connections will provide better service to local network resources, especially where the supporting LANs use FDDI. Summary Merit has been tracking the growth in network usage for the last several years and offers these eye-opening statistics. In November 1988, the network carried less than 400 million packets. In November 1989, the rate was 2.1 billion. And, by November 1990, the rate was over 3.8 billion. While the percentage increase is falling, the absolute number of packets carried has grown each year by the same amount: 1.7 billion. If this growth continues, we can expect NSFNET to carry over 6.5 billion packets by November 1991. The NSFNET migration to T3 will keep the backbone ahead of network usage patterns. It will allow users to use new network-intensive services as they become available resulting in a positive impact on scientific inquiry and industrial R&D. * INITIAL T3 DEPLOYMENT IN PLACE ON THE NSFNET by Ken Horning [Editor's Note: This article is reprinted from LINK LETTER, V3 N 5, December 1990. Ken Horning works for Merit/NSFNET.] Operational deployment of NSFNET's new T3 backbone was started in the final months of 1990. T3 installations are now complete and ready for operational traffic at the backbone end nodes in Ann Arbor, MI, Urbana-Champaign, IL, San Diego, CA, and Palo Alto, CA. "This upgrade again respects the National Science Foundation's (NSF) commitment to keep NSFNET the world's leading computer network for the support of research and education," said Dr. Stephen S. Wolff, Division Director, Division of Networking and Communications Research and Infrastructure, at the NSF. "New applications that were not feasible on slower networks will be possible with the availability of T3 bandwidth." Production ready Prior to their installation, the T3 connections at the four installed nodes were thoroughly tested. Testing procedures included continued verification of hardware, software, and circuits to evaluate reliability. A suite of testing tools and procedures has also been created which will facilitate the installation of the T3 connections at the remaining nodes. The model developed for high-speed backbone transmission involves a new generation of Nodal Switching Subsystem technology developed by IBM. Advanced circuit technology for the T3 upgrade is being provided by MCI. Future improvements The architecture for the T3 network is utilizing a collection of IBM Core Nodal Switching Subsystems (C-NSS) within the MCI infrastructure, forming a cloud of co-located packet switching capability. Exterior Nodal Switching Subsystems (E-NSS) are located at client sites and connect into the C-NSS cloud. With the deployment of the new T3 architecture, the node packet switching performance will improve significantly. The initial T3 deployment employs an Ethernet interface to the local area network, providing material performance improvement compared to T1 NSS performance. As the NSFNET partnership completes the FDDI interoperability testing and deploys FDDI with the new technology, even more signi^cant performance improvement will be realized. Additional new technology due in '91 Later in 1991, the partnership plans to deploy new technology which will use intelligent subsystems for the extended interfaces. These subsystems or powerful RISC-based adapters utilize bus master and slave capabilities on high bandwidth implementations of the microchannel to achieve very high-speed card-to-card forwarding with no system intervention. Coupled with optimized distributed protocol code, these systems can achieve very high throughput rates. IBM's RISC on RISC architecture utilizes RS/6000 RISC chipsets for the control processor and a 25 MHz superscalar, RISC embedded controller with on-chip cache and data RAM for the adapter engines. The new technology with on card packet forwarding will dramatically improve the performance on the T3 network. * CERFNET NEWS AVAILABLE VIA ANONYMOUS FTP Issues are available via anonymous ftp to NIC.CERF.NET in the subdirectory cerfnet/cerfnet_news. *   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa18321; 14 Feb 91 5:17 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa08408; 14 Feb 91 3:38 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa14753; 14 Feb 91 2:34 CST Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 1:57:29 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #113 BCC: Message-ID: <9102140157.ab30542@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 12 Feb 91 08:00:20 CST Volume 11 : Issue 113 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: USI Nationwide Communications [Bill Huttig] Re: Automatic Ring Timeout [Bill Huttig] Re: AT&T Toolchest Number Wanted [Bob Falcon] Re: 800 Numbers, Voicemail, and Privacy [Robert Virzi] 900 Numbers and a Question [Brian S. Oplinger] Best Cordless Phone Buy: AT&T 5000 Series [Randy Borow] Re: 800 Numbers, Voicemail, and Privacy [John Higdon] Re: Wanted: Recommendations for Small Key-System [John Higdon] Virtual Private Network [Arnold Scheuing] "Wrong Numnber" Book: Is it Accurate? [Thomas Farmer] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: wah@zach.fit.edu (Bill Huttig) Subject: Re: USI Nationwide Communications Date: 13 Feb 91 12:13:17 GMT Reply-To: Bill Huttig Organization: Florida Institute of Technology, ACS, Melbourne, FL In article <74444@bu.edu.bu.edu> telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 110, Message 1 of 8 >A new aggregator (at least I've not heard of them before) is a >company called USI Communications of Orlando, FL. They offer AT&T They are not new I had their info a long time ago.. The rates are not very cheap ... SouthTel bills in six second increments and is cheaper. As far as the other services goes it seems that other companies are cheaper. >I would like to add that Sprint now also offers an MLM type deal where >you get 5% commissions on customers you sign up ... but I don't have >the specifics on their plan yet. If you are refering to the info in the last issue of TELECONNECT, I called Amy Stublefield and she said that the article was in error and that Sprint did not have the 'sales agent program'. They do have several large marketing companies selling Sprint. If there is another Spint MLM deal I would be suprised. [Moderator's Note: I was referencing the item in *Teleconnect*. PAT] ------------------------------ From: wah@zach.fit.edu (Bill Huttig) Subject: Re: Automatic Ring Timeout Date: 13 Feb 91 12:17:20 GMT Reply-To: Bill Huttig Organization: Florida Institute of Technology, ACS, Melbourne, FL In article <74417@bu.edu.bu.edu> leichter@lrw.com (Jerry Leichter) writes: >Has anyone ever run into this kind of thing elsewhere? Yes, It happens after about 20 rings to 919 595 Walkertown NC. The local Phone company there is Centel. What is the local company where your call gets timed out? ------------------------------ From: bfalcon@rescon.uucp (Bob Falcon) Subject: Re: AT&T Toolchest Number Wanted Date: 13 Feb 91 09:01:48 GMT In article <16567@accuvax.nwu.edu>, motcid!benyukhi@uunet.uu.net (Ed Benyukhis) writes: > Does anyone know the AT&T Toolchest modem line number? Please post or > e-mail. Hi Edward, I haven't called it in a while ... but I have the number here, so here goes: 201.522.6900 201-522-6900 whichever way you write phone #'s :-) BTW anyone notice the frequency of magazines {elec/comp} Ads using the FIRST form [ABOVE] of printing phone #'s? This has been catching my eye more and more often. Is this some new 'standard' in the making for phone #'s ? I was just getting used to the 'original' form :-) Anyhoo, I just had to ask , as this is the Telecom group ! Have a good one. Catchya later, Bob Falcon [ Co-Sysop : Turbo 386 Remote Access ] [ 1:273/906 @Fidonet ][ (215) 745-9774 HST/DS ] internet: bfalcon@rescon.uucp uucp: { cdin-1 || dsinc.dsi.com }!alba2l!rescon!bfalcon ------------------------------ From: rv01%harvey@gte.com (Robert Virzi) Subject: Re: 800 Numbers, Voice Mail, and Privacy Date: 13 Feb 91 14:51:21 GMT Organization: GTE Laboratories, Waltham David Gast writes: > If you call 1-800-544-7544, you can get complete information about the > fund holdings in Fidelity Funds of anyone whose social security number > you know. The WSJ points out that the Chairman of Fidelity has a > publically available SSN (from the SEC) and that it begins with > 029-24. Peter Lynch's SSN begins with 018-34 and his SSN is also part > of the public record. The story did not mention the complete SSNs. I tried this and it is not exactly true. In addition to someone's social security number, you also need to know their account number. I don't know how Fidelity assigns account numbers, but I would imagine that this scheme offers significantly more protection than the four-digit PINs used by banks. Is this a change in the security of the system, or just poor reporting on the part of the WSJ? Bob Virzi rv01@gte.com ...!harvard!bunny!rv01 ------------------------------ From: oplinger@thor.crd.ge.com (B. S. Oplinger) Subject: 900 Numbers and a Question Date: 13 Feb 91 05:56:07 GMT Organization: General Electric Corporate R&D Center A previous posting says (in reference to the lottery/giveaway but the specific case doesn't matter): > It's void in NY,FL, & RI Also, how to enter for free (OK -- 29 > cents!) (address follows) ... Or call 1-900-258-2647 for $2.99 When I saw the void in NY and the 900 number it raised a question for me? Now, I live here in NY, state that is. What would happen if I called the 900 number, assuming that I only had been told about the contest and was given the 900 number (in other words I did not know it was void in NY)? Would they not charge me? Is is possible for a 900 company to tell whatever company is providing the 900 service to not bill a particular company? Since it's void in NY, a call would not result in me receiving anything of value so under what grounds could they collect? brian oplinger@crd.ge.com <#include standard.disclaimer> ------------------------------ From: rborow@bcm1a09.attmail.com Subject: Best Cordless Phone Buy: AT&T 5000 Series Date: 13 Feb 91 15:58:06 GMT Pat, That Pepsi-like contest regarding cordless phones (AT&T, et. al.) didn't -- from what I've been told -- have some of AT&T's better models participating. While it's true there are many similarities among cordless phones, some too small to matter anyway, I spent months literally shopping around for a cordless phone that had decent features, but most importantly, superb reception. My first purchase in the mid-80's was an AT&T 4410. What a piece of junk, as were (are???) all the AT&T 4000 series phones. Needless to say, I had to shop around as mentioned above. I tried them all: Panasonic, Sony, Uniden, Cobra, GE, etc. I finally settled on the AT&T 5300 (now replaced by an even better model). The reception is terrific: I can even get into my car, in a closed garage a few hundred feet (at least) away from the house, and hear absolutely no static or interference! Now, the 5000 series have an updated feature called Clarity Plus, and from the reaction of many of my friends (for whom I purchased many such phones), I'd say it's a hit. Obviously, this is only my personal opinion. However, I highly doubt a better cordless phone than an AT&T 5000 series can be found. Randy Borow Rolling Meadows, IL. ------------------------------ From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Subject: Re: 800 Numbers, Voice Mail, and Privacy Date: 13 Feb 91 08:09:00 GMT Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows "Barton F. Bruce" writes: > The bank has NO way to let you specify an alternate PIN. All accounts > get phone access by default. The only suggestion they had when I > pointed out the stupidity of this was to suggest that they could > disable the service for customers so requesting! Bank of America has a wonderful system that is similar but more blatant. When you call the machine to deal with your account you are asked to give "the last four digits of your Social Security Number". If you happen to be a business, the last four digits of your "SSN" (your Federal employer number) appears on all of your employees' check stubs and W2 forms. Your account number appears at the bottom of the check. How many people do you suppose check out of idle curiosity, if nothing else, the balance in their employer's account? Oh, yes, this is how it is set up; there is no special arrangement for business. It works like a charm. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Subject: Re: Wanted: Recommendations For Small Key-System Date: 14 Feb 91 07:57:00 GMT Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Dave Levenson writes: > I had a long chat with AT&T's local GBS sales office about Partner and > Partner-Plus. I wanted to replace a small business phone system. The > present system is an ITT 701 with three trunks and eight stations, > used only for voice. There is also a Mitel SX-5 PBX with two trunks > and six stations, used only for data. (The PBX stations are one 2500 > set, and five modems.) An additional trunk is connected directly to a > FAX machine, bypassing the 701 and the SX-5. I am currently using a KX-T123210 for voice lines and data lines. There are ten trunks on the system: five for voice and data and five dedicated to incoming data. Four modems each answer a particular line each and there is a FAX machine. If a particular modem has not reset and does not answer, there is a delayed ringing sequence programed into the switch to try another after one ring and so on down the line. This is set up in a circular arrangement, which the Panasonic is easily capable of doing. This arrangement also allows a modem to use other lines, such as WATS, for outgoing calls by simply putting a different trunk group access code in the dial script. > I would like to combine the systems, and pool all of the trunks for > outgoing calls, and still direct inbound traffic to the modem pool, > the fax machine, and the nine voice stations. Additionally, I'd > like to replace four of the eight electronic key sets with 2500 sets. Absolutely no problem with the Panasonic. The KX-T1232 comes equipped to handle 8 trunks and 16 stations (electronic or single line). Stations are added in groups of eight and trunks are added in groups of four (or I should say the last four are added at one time). The single line phone has 99% of the flexibility of the electronic phone, which is extremely powerful. The SLP can call out on any line or group, can answer any line or group, can transfer, can conference, can split a conference, has call waiting, can have data line security, and has different ring cadences for different incoming call and call return sources. An associate has even worked out a way to provide CPC to stations! > They quoted approximately $2,200 for six trunks, and four electronic > key sets. That buys you the 8X16 Panasonic KSU and about four electronic (display) phones. > The single-line sets and installation are extra. If the > installation is not performed by AT&T, they void the warranty. You can get anyone you like to put the Panasonic in with full warranty. > The feature set for the single-line phone is surprisingly weak. As mentioned above, Panasonic support for the SLP is PBX-like. It is also highly configurable in system programming. As mentioned, ALL traffic (computers, voice, FAX) is handled by my Panasonic in my home. > There is no way to choose which trunk the set uses when it originates a > call; it is permanently associated with a specific trunk. Panasonic: dial '9' for auto trunk selection; dial '8X' for a specific group. > calls on that trunk cause the station to ring. Inbound calls on other > trunks may not be answered on that set, but may be transferred there > after they have been answered on a key set. Fully programmable on the Panasonic. You can have a specific trunk ring a SLP, any of a number of trunks ring it, any of a number of trunks on a progammable delayed basis ring it, or you can have no trunks ring it but enable answering via pick up (by groups if desired) code. > Intercom calls dialed to > a single-line set are indistinguishable from inbound trunk calls. Panasonic: double ring for internal, single ring for outside calls. Transfered call changes from double to single ring if the transfering party hangs up (blind transfer). > call which has been placed from or answered at a single-line set may > be held, but may not be transferred to another single-line or key set. Panasonic: you may transfer it freely within the system or trunk to trunk to an outside number. Call forwarding on extensions can be to other extensions or to numbers outside of the system. > If the trunk associated with a single-line set is in use, the set is > unable to place any inside or ourside calls, but may bridge on to the > existing trunk call if the privacy feature is administered OFF. Panasonic: Not applicable. A single line set can do what it likes. A SLP can be programmed to select a particular outgoing trunk group if nothing is dialed within a programmable amount of time if desired. I have a security system dialer that can't deal with anything but a preprogrammed number. No problem. It comes off hook and one second later is presented with outside dial tone (of my choosing). > I was also told that the display-equipped version of the key set would > display calling numbers if the trunks are equipped with Caller*ID > service. The other GBS rep told me that this is not true! Panasonic doesn't do this yet. Not a problem in California. > > 3) PARTNER goes up to 4 CO lines and 12 extensions, while PARTNER PLUS > > goes up to 8 lines and 24 extensions. KX-T1232: 12 lines and 32 extensions. > Could someone provide a comparative feature list for the Panasonic > system? I still want to upgrade the network here at Westmark, but I > don't think the Partner is the 'right choice'. It doesn't sound as though the two systems are even in the same class. I don't have the time to type in the entire feature list of the Panasonic. Its feature offerings are robust, to say the least. Great care has been given to the handling of single line phones, and it is this capability that has made the system so useful my application. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: scheuing@iam.unibe.ch (Arnold Scheuing) Subject: Virtual Private Network Date: 13 Feb 91 11:00:00 GMT We are working on a project in virtual private networks. We plan to write an expert system-based tool to support the decisionmaking in VPN. We are interested in having contacts with other groups working in the same area. Arnold Scheuing = Institut fuer Informatik = IAM = University Bern = CH e-mail (Internet): scheuing@iam.unibe.ch Tel. 031/658 669 ------------------------------ From: sbeagle@kennels.actrix.gen.nz (Sleeping Beagle) Subject: "Wrong Number" Book: Is it Accurate? Date: 13 Feb 91 12:10:03 GMT Organization: Orb Systems Unlimited, NZ I'm thinking about doing a project about New Zealand Telecom deregulation for my post-graduate degree. To help me make up my mind about whether to do it or not, I'm reading a book called "Wrong Number : The Breakup of AT&T" by Alan Stone. He obviously thinks that the breakup was a bad thing, but I'm starting to wonder about the level of bias - it appears extreme! Does anyone know anything about this book? Even if biased, is it reasonably accurate? Thanks for any advice/help. Official Signature for Sleeping Beagle (aka Thomas Farmer)! sbeagle@kennels.actrix.gen.nz Thomas.Farmer@bbs.actrix.gen.nz [Moderator's Note: 'Bias' is a funny thing. If you believe something to be the truth, then it is not bias. If your leaning is in another direction, then a strongly worded statement opposing your point of view becomes bias. I've thought the book was reasonably accurate, although perhaps a bit more strongly worded than necessary. I would recommend it to the group however for a good study on what has gone wrong since divestiture. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #113 ******************************  ISSUES 114 AND 115 REVERSED IN TRANSMISSION. ISSUE 115 IS NEXT AND THEN 114 FOLLOWS.  Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa20017; 14 Feb 91 6:48 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa12501; 14 Feb 91 4:47 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ac08408; 14 Feb 91 3:41 CST Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 3:19:07 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #115 BCC: Message-ID: <9102140319.ab27008@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 14 Feb 91 03:18:46 CST Volume 11 : Issue 115 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Administrivia: Usenet, Gateway Changes and Backlog Here [TELECOM Moderator] Re: Calling Instructions For Area 817 [Gordon Burditt] Re: Caller-ID Technical Question [Gordon Burditt] Re: Caller-ID Technical Question [Michael Dorl] Re: Many Software Designers of Caller ID Also Disliked it [Carl M. Kadie] Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack [Jeff Jonas] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 2:48:17 CST From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Administrivia: Usenet, Gateway Changes and Backlog Here On Wednesday evening a message went out to Usenet saying that the gateway between TELECOM Digest and comp.dcom.telcom was being closed due to various problems with the administration of same. Immediatly thereafter I began getting deluged messages asking to add people to the mailing list who had been reading via comp.dcom.telecom. FOR THE TIME BEING, THE GATEWAY AND COMP.DCOM.TELECOM WILL REMAIN OPERATIONAL, STATUS QUO AS IT HAS BEEN. If you have been reading the Digest via comp.dcom.telecom you may continue to do so ... requests for additions to the mailing list received on Wednesday night/Thursday morning are being ignored. Although the problems which made me believe that the gateway should be closed are still unresolved, the huge number of people asking to join the mailing list as a result made me change my mind. We'll see how events progress over the next week or two and adequate notice will be given if the gateway is to cease operation or if comp.dcom.telecom is to be split away with a moderator from Usenet appointed to maintain it. In any event, TELECOM Digest is not affected in any way. To repeat: THE DIGEST WILL CONTINUE TO BE RECEIVED ON USENET IN COMP.DCOM.TELECOM. Next topic: There were numerous problems on Wednesday, including a change in the gateway location from here. Instead of going through accuvax.nwu.edu, (which was out of order for a few days anyway, forcing rerouting through bu.edu, we are now using casbah.acns.nwu.edu. Hopefully the change will be apparent with a better connected machine and faster delivery of the Digest. However -- two recent issues of the Digest, #113 and #114 were somehow lost in transit in the process and did not get mailed from here until early Thursday morning. You should have also received a special report on the Internet, meaning three mailings since Tuesday night. The backlog here is even worse as a result, with about 110 messages waiting in the queue. Estimated time to publication: four days from when I receive your mail. Please do NOT send any further mail here until next week. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ From: Gordon Burditt Subject: Re: Calling Instructions For Area 817 Date: 12 Feb 91 00:15:22 GMT Organization: Gordon Burditt >When 214 area (now splitting to form 903) in Texas got the N0X/N1X >prefixes, toll calls within 214 had to be changed from 1+7D to >1+214+7D. Was a similar change made to 817 at the time? This would >be for area-wide uniformity in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. 817 "local" calls 7D 817 toll calls 1+817+7D 817->214 "local"* calls 10D (1+10D does NOT work) 817->214 toll calls 1+10D (10D does NOT work) "local" == free call; there are no "message units". * An 817->214 call may be "local" if either origin or destination phone has "Metro" service, or the origin is close to the 817/214 boundary and the destination is within its local calling zone. As far as I know, if an 817->214 call is "local", the same call in the reverse direction is also "local". Note that whether you dial "1" or not when dialing 817->214 depends on both the origin and destination lines, not the location of those lines within their area code, and 2 residences, one in 817 and one in 214, each with a Metro and a non-Metro line can generate 4 combinations, one of which requires the "1" and is not toll-free. I usually end up trying any 214 number without "1" first, and if it doesn't work, either give up or try it with "1", depending on how important the call was and who owns the line I'm dialing from. Gordon L. Burditt sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon ------------------------------ From: Gordon Burditt Subject: Re: Caller-ID Technical Question Date: 12 Feb 91 00:43:58 GMT Organization: Gordon Burditt >I think its purpose is merely to *identify* the origin of the call in >the event you wish to know that information. In other words, do not >choose to answer or not based on what the Caller*ID box displays -- >remember the many examples of someone you want to talk to calling from >a different phone than usual -- but instead, answer the phone as you >normally would and use the identification provided for recourse to the >caller if desired. PAT] Regardless of the intent, people are allowed to use it that way. I suspect a number of people would like to use it to route calls: known fax machines get the fax machine, known computers get the computer, known teenagers get the phone in the teenager's room, known adults get the parent's phone, known nuisances that won't fit into Call Screening get a recorded insult, and unknown callers get the answering machine (which someone might pick up). Granted, there are some ambiguities possible (the guy with the computer might want to make a voice call to the operator of the machine). The people who invented RingMaster (distinctive ringing based on CALLED number: user gets two or three numbers) probably intended it to identify a class of callers, not route calls, but based on the ring-identifying switch boxes available, a lot of people want to use it that way. It only gives a 3-way choice, though. Gordon L. Burditt sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon ------------------------------ From: "Michael (NMI" Subject: Re: Caller-ID Technical Question Organization: University of Wisconsin Academic Computing Center Date: 12 FEB 91 20:28:47 If you'll tolerate another addition to this thread... In article <74397@bu.edu.bu.edu>, m21198@mwunix.mitre.org (John McHarry) writes... >larson@snmp.sri.com (Alan Larson) writes: >>after the first or second ring. Why doesn't it send it out before the >>first ring, so the phone could know if it was to ring at all. >>[Moderator's Note: I do not think the intent of Caller*ID is to tell >>folks what calls NOT to accept (Call Screening is intended for that). >Indeed! You don't expect Ma to leave any money on the table do you? >I think, however, that we shall soon see caller ID boxes that swallow >the first ring burst until they have the number to decide how to treat >the call. I, for one, would like to send some numbers to my answering >machine, but not others. >[Moderator's Note: Precisely my point! I cannot imagine telco >encouraging people to NOT answer their phone. If the calling party >does not connect then there is no profit for telco. Call Screening is >an exception, but please note it is one of the higher priced features >available now ... so telco makes money, answer or no answer, because >the called party is paying telco to *not* put the call through. Then >too, there are the numerous examples of 'what do you do if someone you >*do* want to speak with is calling from a different phone number?'. >A policy of 'do not pass ringing from a number that is not recognized' >is not a good one because there will always be parties you want to >hear from calling from an unrecognized number (payphone, new phone >line just installed, etc). By sending a 'courtesy ring' first, you >have the option of examining your readout and deciding what to do >next. The problem of a box which will 'absorb the first ring and act >on the data received' is how do you prevent other extensions on the >same line from giving a first ring also? PAT] My first reaction to Caller ID was to oppose its deployment without blocking. Articles in this forum have shown me that caller id may benefit me in avoiding unwanted calls. I disagree with our moderator's comments above. I think there's no right or wrong here and I really care little what the phone company wants; if the caller id information is available, I'll use for whatever purpose I want. The consumer electronics industry is going to make products that folks want and I for one want products that will shield me from unwanted calls. It's going to be cheaper for me to buy a box to do call screening than to rent that same service from the phone company. In my opinion, the one thing the industry could do to make Caller ID appealing to the general public would be to provide even more information. For example if the Caller ID information included a call type (direct marketing, residential, commercial, etc.) the market would provide products to screen out calls I don't want. The direct phone marketing business is driving public opinion on this topic. Surveys I've seen show the majority of folks are against Caller IDd because they are afraid of the resulting follow on marketing. I've taken to asking all direct market calls to please wait and then abandoning the phone until they hang up. Michael Dorl (608) 262-0466 fax (608) 262-4679 dorl@vms.macc.wisc.edu MACC / University of Wisconsin - Madison dorl@wiscmacc.bitnet 1210 W. Dayton St. / Madison, WI 53706 ------------------------------ From: "Carl M. Kadie" Subject: Re: Many Software Designers of Caller ID Also Disliked it Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL Date: Tue, 12 Feb 91 07:29:34 GMT dave@westmark.westmark.com (Dave Levenson) writes: >Ideally, however, the telco should be required to provide a service >where the calling party is advised that the call is being refused >*because* the calling number is being blocked, and that the way to get >through is to call again without invoking the anonymous-caller >feature. The {Chicago Tribune} had a article about this about a month ago. They called the feature "block-blocking". They said it had the support of almost everyone involved in the issue. As you point out, it allows you to screen calls. A phone system with Caller-ID and block-blocking will be just as effective in eliminating unwanted calls as one with caller-id and no blocking. At the same time, you will be able to block your number when you call a business, and so you will be able to avoid being automatically placed on their mailing list. [Except Radio Shack, which will probably not accept blocked calls :-)] It seems like a perfect solution; it provides people with the most service; and yet, the phone companies are against it. Why? >On a related topic, why is Caller ID considered a privacy issue? >Aren't people confusing privacy with anonymity? Privacy and anonymity are intertwined: [From the ACLU handbook "Your Right To Privacy", Evan Hendricks, et al, 1990] 'Privacy' can be many things to many people. Some associate the term with right to abortion. Others think of the right to choose a sexual preference. Many simply consider it 'the right to be left alone' in any number of contexts. This book does not cover those notions of privacy. Instead, it focuses on information privacy, which involves the legal rights of individuals in relation to information about them that is circulating throughout society. [...] Many of the data[base] networks are seen as a benign response to societal demands for faster service and greater efficiency -- at least in terms of the way in which they've been operated to present. Nevertheless, information is power. The advent of the computer age -- control of personal data by large institutions and the leverage this provides over individuals -- clashes with the American tradition of privacy and often with desirable limits on institutional intrusion into private lives." >Are the states like >Pennsylvania now asserting that their citizens have the right to >anonymity when they disturb others by telephone? The principle in states like Pennsylvania is that phone calls cannot be recorded and phone numbers cannot released without the consent of both parties. Block-blocking provides a mechanism for providing this consent. Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ------------------------------ From: Jeff Jonas Subject: Re: Allied Radio / Radio Shack Date: 12 Feb 91 12:10:09 GMT Reply-To: Jeff Jonas Organization: Jeff's House of Electronic Parts In article <74329@bu.edu.bu.edu> rees@citi.umich.edu (Jim Rees) writes: >> Lafayette was located on Lafayette Street in NYC, near Hudson and >> Varick Streets. This area was known as Radio Row, and had many radio >> and electronics parts and surplus strores. The area disappeared when >This area seems to have moved over to Canal Street, which is also a >great place to buy the latest toys from Taiwan and $25 Rolex watches. >I mention it here because it's also a good place to shop for cheap >surplus telecom gear. I've been a long time surplus electronics buyer (mostly switches, LED/neon displays, indicators, and digital electronics parts, even a few Z80, 68000 computer systems). Since I'm moving soon, I will have to thin out my inventory. If you need an unusual part (like an indicator bulb), please check with me. I recently lost a basement full of old equipment due to a misunderstanding, but I still have a tremendous inventory. Back to the topic at hand ... Have you been to Canal street recently? I was an EE student at The Cooper Union from 1978-82, so I spent a lot of time on Canal Street. The electronics surplus area was on Canal Street between Broadway and West Broadway. [Go too far West and you'll find the Hudson River. Go East of Broadway and you're in Chinatown] Until recently there were a few good stores, but I can recall only one remaining. Ramco is still there with the mess of parts all over the back. They organized the wire spool so they could help you with that, but their bread and butter nowadays is PCs. They always had walls of speakers and speaker parts. I mostly loved their selection of illuminated switches. Trans Am electronics on Canal St and West Broadway (formerly Omnibus) seems to have changed ownership. They have virtually NO surplus stuff anymore and sell mostly chips and stuff that I can buy much cheaper by mail order. All my classmates went there since it was still better than Radio-Sh***. "American Excess" was a fun place, but the owner moved to Florida. I think the real name for the place was "American Relay". They had a catalogue of really expensive servo motors. I recall buying many "bargains" there such as army surplus switches, many new surplus switches and rechargeable batteries. The fellow changed stores every few years, so but some stuff never really moved. There was a wall full of obsolete overpriced oscilloscopes and test equipment that never sold. The store was usually clean, bright and full of useful parts. I miss that store most of all. Traveling further downtown was Courtlandt Electronics on West Broadway. I think it's now a repair shop only (no more surplus). I went there once for a friend to get wire wrap IC sockets and I was overcharged .30, so that prompted me to buy a $30 credit card sized calculator so I could check all further purchases. (I usually used the calculator in restaurants to figure tips). I'm disappointed at the collapse of the surplus market. I used to get many surplus electronics catalogues, and now there are too few. I typed in my list of catalogues a few years ago, but the list is out of date before I can ever post it. Marlin P Jones (Florida) seems to still exist, and I've gotten useful items from them. I found that John Meshna (Mass) has been extremely unsatisfactory due to low quality merchandise and inconderate customer relations. I have experiences problems with all my recent orders with them, so I no longer deal with them. Please E-MAIL any replies of your experiences. Jeffrey Jonas jeffj@synsys.uucp synsys!jeffj@uunet.uu.net ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #115 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa10688; 14 Feb 91 21:07 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab08408; 14 Feb 91 3:41 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab14753; 14 Feb 91 2:34 CST Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 2:32:47 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #114 BCC: Message-ID: <9102140232.ab27180@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 13 Feb 91 09:45:20 CST Volume 11 : Issue 114 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Nynex Gateway Bites the Dust [Adam M. Gaffin] Texas Official Offers to Help Long-Distance Callers [Bill Berbenich] Slammed by AT&T [Dave Johnston] Should Projects Be Connected to the Phone Line? [Alan Nishioka] ANSI X3.64 Document Needed [John Cristy] Re: How Do You Hook up a Phone for a Play? [Gabe Wiener] Re: Marisat Phones Smuggled Into Kuwait [David Newman] Re: Apple Wants Radio Waves For Data Transmission [Ken Thompson] Re: 800 Numbers, Voicemail, and Privacy [Ed Greenburg] ANI Demo Resurfaces [Andy Jacobson] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: adamg@world.std.com (Adam M Gaffin) Subject: Nynex Gateway Bites the Dust Date: 13 Feb 91 03:25:50 GMT Organization: The World {Middlesex News}, Framingham, Mass., 2/12/91 By Adam Gaffin NEWS STAFF WRITER Nynex Corp. said yesterday (Monday) it will pull the plug on a computer information service that has lost several million dollars. The company says judicial restrictions on its ability to provide information, coupled with the Northeast's declining economy, made it impossible for its Info-Look gateway service to succeed. It will seek regulatory approval to end the service by May 10, spokeswoman Janine Mudge said yesterday. Ratepayers will ultimately pay for the losses, but Nynex spokeswoman Janine Mudge said the impact on Massachusetts residents will be relatively small, because Info-Look was launched here only last year, a year after it began in New York, and two years after its debut in Vermont. Karen Nelson, who follows the online industry for Link Resources Inc. in New York, estimated total losses of $5 million to $10 million. Info-Look offered computer users access to dozens of information and entertainment services, everything from airline reservations to an electronic version of {USA Today}. Mudge said that although more than 12,000 people called into Info-Look, only 3,000 used it on a regular basis. She said the system was extremely confusing for users, because each information provider had its own set of keyboard commands. She blamed this on on a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Harold Green that bars regional phone companies from directly providing online information to consumers - even something as simple as this. Greene is currently re-evaluating his ban. Richard Koch, who had to fold his own Citinet online service last summer because of losses incurred through the Nynex gateway, said he agreed the constraints imposed by the court made success difficult, but added it was interesting that Nynex decided to cancel the service at this point. Mudge, however, said the issue was finances, not Greene. At least two other regional phone companies have abandoned similar services after heavy losses over the past 18 months. Nelson said Greene's original intent was to keep phone companies from establishing information monopolies while letting them establish information ``gateways.'' He based his model on the French Minitel system, in which the government phone company provides access to hundreds of information and entertainment services. But the French phone system was able to impose standards on providers so that users could navigate the service easily, she said. It also gave away or sold at low cost millions of simple terminals. Nelson said she felt Nynex could have done more to convince information providers to agree on a common interface and promote the service. Koch said the online industry is still far from a viable mass medium. ``It's easier to look in a newspaper right now for information,'' he said. ``It's much easier right now to just watch CNN.'' He said providers are still simply throwing services at users, rather than trying to figure out what they really want. Similar phone audiotex systems have fared much better, in part because they are far easier to use, Nelson said, adding that while virtually every home has a telephone, only about one in four have a computer. ------------------------------ From: bill%gauss@gatech.edu (bill) Subject: Texas Official Offers Help to Long-Distance Callers Date: 13 Feb 91 05:21:58 GMT Reply-To: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu The following article appeared on the United Press International wire. UPf 02/08 1814 State official offers help to long-distance callers... State official offers help to long-distance callers to Persian Gulf. AUSTIN, Texas (UPI) -- Concerned that Saudi Arabia is apparently making a profit on long-distance calls from the Persian Gulf war zone, a state official Friday unveiled a plan to lower costs and help families who have run up large telephone bills. "We're at war, and no entity in this country or in Saudi Arabia should be making a profit off our troops calling home," said Marta Greytok, a member of the Texas Public Utility Commission. American families calling front-line soldiers in Saudi Arabia are being billed $1.46 per minute, with 73 cents going to U.S. telephone and communications companies and 73 cents to the Saudi postal and telephone system. Greytok said while the amount collected by American companies barely covers costs, the Saudi government apparently is making a profit on its share. "It appears that the Saudi's portion goes not only to help defray telephone service but also to subsidize the cost of postal service in Saudi Arabia," she said. Greytok said she had heard "horror stories" of U.S. families running up telephone bills of $800 for calls to loved ones in the gulf region. "We do not need our courageous military men and women in the Persian Gulf, or their families, to be burdened with what appears to be above-cost charges for telephone calls, she said. Greytok said she discussed the problem with officials at AT&T, which has established a temporary toll-free number to help families who are having trouble paying their long-distance charges. AT&T has furnished one thousand telephone lines for use in the Persian Gulf. Individuals also can call the number -- 1-800-323-HELP -- to contribute money to help pay existing telephone bills. A permanent line will be in place soon. In addition, Chairman Andrew Barrett and Commissioner Al Sikes of the Federal Communications Commission said they were willing to consider a tariff filing from AT&T that would lower rates for Persian Gulf calls to a level that would only recover actual costs, Greytok said. Rates charged for international telephone traffic are negotiated between the telephone systems in each country, and Greytok said rate negotiations between American companies and Saudi Arabia have been undertaken. "But they need to be accelerated with an eye toward providing our troops the ability to call home at rates no higher than the actual cost of providing the service," she said. "We owe it to our troops." Bill Berbenich Georgia Tech, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{backbones}!gatech!eedsp!bill Internet: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu ------------------------------ From: Dave_JOHNSTON%01%SRJC@odie.santarosa.edu Subject: Slammed by AT&T Date: 13 Feb 91 05:31:00 GMT I hate to bring up slamming again. I think Pat squelched the topic some time ago after it started getting crazy, but I have a story that some of you might be interested in. I came to this job almost a year ago and found our telecom in great need of help. We were using MCI and Pac Bell/ATT WATS and not very efficiently either. A Utility Rate Consortium of which we are a member reached an agreement with Metromedia/ITT for 8.75 cents per minute anywhere within the US. While we don't have huge amounts of LD, it did save us several hundred dollars a month. So we signed up and Pac Bell switched our service in August. We had some initial problems with their billing because they claimed their software couldn't handle our special rate. The Metromedia/ITT employee who made the deal lost their job, BTW. They finally determined they could apply manual credits to resolve their software deficiencies. Well, all went well until January 20th or so when I received a marketing call from AT&T. The salesperson told me we had over $600 on our last AT&T bill and weren't on any of the calling plans. I questioned her about the numbers in question, thinking it was one of our off-site locations who aren't on the Metromedia/ITT contract. However, she informed me that the number in question was our MAIN outgoing group. I called Pac Bell and spoke with our rep. She told me that for some reason AT&T had requested our PIC be changed on 12/31/90. She also told me the record showed the request came from CESAR (the automated system used by LD companies to place LEC orders) but that it didn't show a AT&T contact person's name. I called the rep at AT&T back, explaining the situation. She researched it further. I went through two more people at AT&T and one more at Pac Bell and they all agreed that they couldn't imagine how this could have happened. Their only thoughts were that is must have come from an outside marketing organization. I called AT&T again and very slowly and carefully explained to the original AT&T rep that I expected full credit for the difference between their MTS rate and my normal 8.75 cent rate. She said that they couldn't do it. I pushed to speak with a supervisor and reached an agreement with her that AT&T will credit us the difference from the date of change until the date Pac Bell changed us back, plus pay the $5 per line for both changes. I have yet to actually see the credit, but apparently AT&T is sensitive to slamming, particularly after their legal hassles with MCI. I hope this gives others the courage to stand up for your rights and make LD companies who slam pay for it. Dave Johnston Santa Rosa Junior College johnston@odie.SantaRosa.edu Santa Rosa, CA. Supervisor, Campus Data/Telecom +1 707 527 4853 ------------------------------ From: atn@cory.berkeley.edu (Alan Nishioka) Subject: Should Projects be Connected to the Phone Line? Date: 13 Feb 91 05:33:15 GMT Thank you to all who answered my previous message about my project causing the phone to stop ringing. I responded via EMAIL. However, in response to my article, John Higdon brought up a problem that had been bothering me. He said that my project SHOULD comply with the various parts of the FCC rules since it needed to connect directly to the phone network. Now, many books and magazines regularly publish projects that connect to the phone line. Even the usually respectable TELECOM Digest recently published several such projects. I don't think any of them have been certified anything by anyone. I see two issues involved: One of safety (to craftspersons, etc. ) and the other of just following the rules. I can see if I were going to sell these devices that I would be interested in both, but as a hobbyist I am mostly interested in the first. I understand there are network interface devices that one can buy and thus have any device automatically safe and certified to connect to a line, but these are out of my budget. I also don't see how they make that much of a difference. I plan to power my project using a 12VDC transformer unit since the lights take more current than the line can provide. I have a 1MEG/5MEG voltage divider across the line to read voltages and plan to drop a 255ohm resistor across the line with a transistor for a hold function. All of this is prefaced by a bridge rectifier. Is this safe? Are there other concerns here that I am missing? Should *anyone* build *anything* that connects to the phone line? Can it be reasonably priced? Does the phone company really care? Should I do it anyway and just kinda feel guilty? :-) Alan Nishioka KC6KHV atn@cory.berkeley.edu ...!ucbvax!cory!atn 974 Tulare Avenue, Albany CA 94707-2540 37'52N/122'15W +1 415 526 1818 ------------------------------ From: eplrx7!cristy@uunet.uu.net (John Cristy) Subject: ANSI X3.64 Document Needed Date: 13 Feb 91 00:25:15 GMT Reply-To: eplrx7!dupont.com!cristy@uunet.uu.net Organization: DuPont Engineering Physics Lab I need a copy of the ANSI X3.64 document. Apparently that is the specification for ANSI terminal emulation. Please Email your answer. And thanks in advance. cristy@dupont.com ------------------------------ From: gabe@sirius.ctr.columbia.edu (Gabe Wiener) Subject: Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? Date: 13 Feb 91 03:42:29 GMT Organization: Columbia University Center for Telecommunications Research In article <74347@bu.edu.bu.edu> hansen@pegasus.att.com (Tony L Hansen) writes: >A group I'm associated with is putting on a play and a phone will be >used on the set. How would I hook up the phone so that I can cause it >to ring on demand? Preferably, I'd like to have some sort of switch or >push button which I can push and have the phone ring. (Please email >[Moderator's Note: Unless you want to go to a lot of hassle re-wiring >the phone itself, why not just get a small doorbell from a hardware >store; a battery to drive it and a simple switch. Have it off-stage Maybe he doesn't do that because a doorbell sounds NOTHING LIKE A PHONE. There are little boxes you can get from those telecom catalogs that put out ringing current. I see 'em all the time in phone stores when they just HAVE to show off how the duck phone really quacks when it rings. It should be a simple matter to find a dealer who uses one of these gadgets and ask him where he got it. Gabe Wiener - Columbia Univ. gabe@ctr.columbia.edu gmw1@cunixd.cc.columbia.edu 72355.1226@compuserve.com ------------------------------ From: dnewman@mcc.com (David Newman) Subject: Re: Marisat Phones Smuggled into Kuwait? Date: 13 Feb 91 06:14:50 GMT Reply-To: PUT YOUR NAME HERE Organization: MCC Austin, Texas Today's paper reported that CNN's phone in Baghdad (Marisat, I think) was being used by the Iraqi government to approve journalist visas. Apparently the Iraqi government asked to use the phone for other putposes as well, but CNN said no. (That was somewhere in today's {Austin American Statesman}; I imagine they got the news from UPI or AP, or perhaps from watching CNN.) Dave ------------------------------ From: kthompso@entec.wichita.ncr.com (Ken Thompson) Subject: Re: Apple Wants Radio Waves For Data Transmission Date: 13 Feb 91 06:01:24 GMT Reply-To: Ken Thompson Organization: NCR Corporation, Wichita, KS You are late to the party, Apple. NCR has had its WaveLan out since last year. It operates spread spectrum in the 908-928 MHz band at a 2M data rate with DES encoding for security. Rf power is two watts and with small gain antenna distances of five miles between nodes is easily attained. I think it lists for $1390 a node, installs in any IBM compatable, and is Netware compatable. Ken Thompson N0ITL NCR Corp. 3718 N. Rock Road Wichita,Ks. 67226 (316)636-8783 Ken.Thompson@wichita.ncr.com ------------------------------ From: Ed_Greenberg@3mail.3com.com Subject: Re: 800 Numbers, Voice Mail, and Privacy Date: 13 Feb 91 08:55:00 GMT A similar story ... if you know the checking account number and last four digits of the social security number, you can access checking account balances for any personal Bank of America account. One calls the local number for customers service. I checked with the bank, and they have no method for substituting a random or chosen pin for the SS#, nor for blocking the use of the service. ------------------------------ From: IZZYAS1@mvs.oac.ucla.edu (Andy Jacobson) Subject: ANI Demo Resurfaces Date: 12 Feb 91 05:01:00 GMT Access Logic Technology's (?) ANI demonstration (via MCI) is once again available from an 800 number. It is 800-933-3258. Hitting the # sign will cut to the chase. I, of course, have no affiliation with this company. Andy Jacobson or ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #114 ******************************  ISSUES 114 AND 115 REVERSED IN TRANSMISSION. ISSUE 115 APPEARED BEFORE 114. ISSUE 116 COMES NEXT IN THIS ARCHIVE.  Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa20227; 15 Feb 91 5:39 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa00887; 15 Feb 91 4:03 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa19331; 15 Feb 91 2:57 CST Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 2:12:10 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #116 BCC: Message-ID: <9102150212.ab07996@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 15 Feb 91 02:11:47 CST Volume 11 : Issue 116 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Caller*ID [Peter da Silva] Re: GTE Changes and Cost of Local Service [Robert Jacobson] Re: Forts Meade and Ritchie in Maryland [Carl Wright] Unwanted Three-Way Calling Symptom [Steve Kass] Telecom Legal Questions [Steve Forrette] Re: How Will Digital Cellular Increase Capacity? [Alain Fontaine] Prodigy: What Does Sears Do? What About IBM? [David Michels] Telephone Pioneers Clean Up [Michael Graff] Home Phone Recommendations [Mike Riddle] Re: How Will Digital Cellular Increase Capacity [Hector Salgado-Galicia] Re: Mid Atlantic Telecom - How do I Reach Them? [Michael Dorrian] Re: 800 Numbers, Voice Mail, and Privacy [Carol Springs] Telephone Company Remittance Envelopes [Nigel Allen] 1A2 Intercom [jlangri@relay.nswc.navy.mil] Re: Bell of PA Calling Card Calls [Robert E. Zabloudil] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Peter da Silva Subject: Re: Caller*ID Organization: A corner of our bedroom Date: Fri, 15 Feb 1991 00:44:49 GMT For true answering machine freaks... Caller-ID hooked to something like Watson! A call from your boss: "Hi there, I'm not feeling too well, but if you leave a message I'll get back to you when I wake up." A call from your relatives: "Hi there, I'm at xxx-xxxx." A call from your buddy down the street: "Hi, if you're still on for cards I'll be ready around noon..." A call from your clients: "Frobozz consulting. If you know the extension please dial it now, or leave a message at the sound of the tone..." A call from any telemarketer number you've managed to snag: "I'm sorry, we don't accept unsolicited advertising at this line." The possibilities are endless... peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com ------------------------------ From: Robert Jacobson Subject: Re: GTE Changes and Cost of Local Service Date: 15 Feb 91 02:51:36 GMT Organization: Human Interface Technology Lab, Univ. of Wash., Seattle No legislators put pressure on the PUC to approve GTE's rate increases. If anything, the Legislature collectively tried to modify the PUC's regulatory intentions, but was rebuffed by Governor Deukmejian who vetoed one bill after another in order to give the PUC smooth sailing. The PUC acted on its own, with the Governor's blessing, and what you see is what you get. Bob Jacobson ------------------------------ From: Carl Wright Subject: Re: Forts Meade and Ritchie in Maryland Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 0:26:41 EST This is in reference to the article from which I incorrectly quoted. ^^^^^^^^^^^ Please accept my sincere apology. I also learned that article numbers are local and arbitrary and no guide to anyone except me. I stand by my comments about zip-to-area code mappings, but I was all wrong to say that Carl Moore said it. Carl Wright | Lynn-Arthur Associates, Inc. Internet: wright@ais.org | 2350 Green Rd., #160 Voice: 1 313 995 5590 EST | Ann Arbor, MI 48105 [Moderator's Note: That's okay. You are of course correct that zip codes have no connection with telephone area codes. One new thing you will see in the Digest (comp.dcom.telecom version) as of today is a new set of reference numbers. We are now generating our own reference numbers for each message rather than leaving it up to the gateway machine (which had been accuvax and is now casbah.acns.nwu.edu). The message reference numbers you see from now on will include the volume, issue and Digest message number with the word 'telecom' in front. By including this reference number in REplies (as most of you do anyway) it will tell people which issue to look in for the original. The old system of saying 'in 123456@accuvax' was not very descriptive. The new system should make it much easier to cross reference old items. And to repeat, in case you missed it yesterday: TELECOM Digest will be continued in comp.dcom.telecom as before. No changes being made. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 00:56 EDT From: SKASS@drew.bitnet Subject: Unwanted Three-Way Calling Symptom Until recently, I have been able to disconnect a call I initiate by tapping the switchhook briefly, since I don't subscribe to three-way calling. But for the last few days, the quick tap may produce a boop-boop-booooooooooooooo leading to a new dial tone. A second tap returns me to the call in progress. If I try to dial out through the new dial tone, I get a reorder, so despite appearances, I don't have three-way calling. I can still return to the original call by tapping the switchhook while listening to the reorder. I seem to have "Call Hold." This strangeness only happens about 50% of the time. Half the time the first tap simply fails to disconnect, even if it is about a second long. Any ideas what's going on? The phone in question is 201-514-XXXX. Steve Kass/Math & CS/Drew U/Madison NJ 07940/2014083614/skass@drew.edu [Moderator's Note: Some people have said here in the past that the dial tone is being provided so you can do *70 (cancel call waiting) if you have that service. That may be the reason you are now getting the flash dial tone. Try *70 and see if it immediatly cuts back to the call in progress while busying out your line if you have call waiting service. It may be the reason you only get it 'fifty percent of the time' is because your flash is not quite long enough. Maybe you are now supposed to get it one hundred percent of the time. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 12 Feb 91 00:10:36 -0800 From: Steve Forrette Subject: Telecom Legal Questions I've got a couple of questions that some of you may know the answer to: 1. If one resells tariffed services purchased from an LEC or IXC, is oneself subject to filing tariffs themselves or otherwise under regulation? For example, if one were to offer a discount "calling card" service by purchasing long distance service in bulk, and having callers dial in and enter an id code and phone number, could they do this freely and in any manner they liked? 2. Are private voice mail companies protected against the content of messages left on their systems in the same way a common carrier would be? If a drug dealer were to use a voicemail system, is the operator of the system an accomplice? Thanks, Steve Forrette, forrette@cory.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 00:00:45 +0100 From: "Alain FONTAINE (Postmaster - NAD)" Subject: Re: How Will Digital Cellular Increase Capacity? On 11 Feb 91 14:37:15 GMT John T. Ellis said: >The biggest problem with these new technologies is the size of the >phone needed to implement them. Currently the phone designs call for >some huge ie. garbage can, phone with an unbelievable power source. >So ... digital cellular is a ways off. Really? Did you see the size of a CD player two years before they were on sale? I mean, not only the player on top of the big table, but also the stuff hidden under the table... AF ------------------------------ From: michels@tramp.colorado.edu (MICHELS DAVID) Subject: Prodigy: What Does Sears Do? What About IBM? Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder Date: Fri, 15 Feb 1991 00:09:09 GMT Can anyone tell me the story of Prodigy? I know it is an IBM/Sears joint project. What I would like to know is what was contributed by who. I would imagine, IBM provided the computers, the know how, the telecom infrastructure, and all other technical aspects, is this true? What did Sears provide, just cash? Someone told me all the telecom goes thru Tymenet, is this true? I would have expected IBM to piggy back prodigy data on its National Physical Network (NPN). Why would they treat Prodigy so independently? I would appreciate any insights, Dave ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 00:00:00 PST From: Michael Graff Subject: Telephone Pioneers Clean Up Reply-To: graff@mlpvm2.iinus1.ibm.com A new sign appeared a few days ago on Highway 101 southbound in San Jose, CA at the Bernal exit: Litter Removal Next 2 Miles Almaden Council of the Telephone Pioneers Adopt a Highway Michael [Moderator's Note: The various chapters of Telephone Pioneers have always been excellent role models and citizens in their communities. This is just another example of same. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 00:00:00 PDT From: Mike Riddle Subject: Home Phone Recommendations I've been looking for something resembling a key system for home use. "The successful candidate will" support two lines and up to six phones, contain a dial-intercom, support speaker-phone paging or operation, and ideally not require me to pull new cable. This means it should work on three pair (six wires) or less. DAK had a closeout on GTE "Wolfpack", but if it's closing out, and I could just see Higdon commenting about GTE.... AT&T (another Higdon favorite) has something called System 2000. The sets are called 2052 and 2022. They require 110VAC, and from what I can tell need only the two pair for the trunks. This means that they must do some fancy phantom circuits or multiplexing, right? The cost per unit seems high (219 - master, 179-slaves), but then again, it's not 2000 for a key system. Except: there must be small key systems out there, and if the price is right I'll break down and pull wire. Does anyone have specific recommendations? Email is fine: mike.riddle%inns@iugate.unomaha.edu, riddle@hoss.unl.edu, or sysop @ 1:285/27@fidonet. Thanks. ------------------------------ From: telpc!tel@cdsdb1.att.com Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 00:00 EST Subject: Re: How Will Digital Cellular Increase Capacity >Could someone please post something describing how digital cellular will >increase capacity? My supervisor and others in my group were trying to >figure it out. Digital signals have a greater tolerance to interference than their analog counterpart. So, the required carrier to interference ratio (C/I) can be lower than the 18 dB required for analog cellular. This allows closer spacing between co-channel cell sites, and then increased user density and frequency reuse. More details are given in: W. C. Lee, "Why Digital Cellular?", Communications, March, 1988, p. 51. H. Salgado-Galicia@andrew.cmu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 02:46 GMT From: Michael Dorrian <0003493915@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: Mid Atlantic Telecom - How do I Reach Them? Business office # is 202-659-2530 Michael Dorrian The RTP Group - Mid Atlantic 703-243-6000 MCI Mail: 349-3915 ------------------------------ From: Carol Springs Subject: Re: 800 Numbers, Voice Mail, and Privacy Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 00:38:21 EDT In Volume 11, Issue 102, David Gast writes: >If you call 1-800-544-7544, you can get complete information about the >fund holdings in Fidelity Funds of anyone whose social security number >you know. As of February 5, this was not true. According to newspaper reports, people who called the number on that date got a human person who asked for their Fidelity account number in addition to their SSN. What's going on? Well, in response to reports such as the one in the {Wall Street Journal} (and subsequent irate calls from customers), Fidelity is in the process of changing its system. First it blocked access to Fidelity executives' accounts. Soon after, it disabled the touchtone system and put a human in the loop, as described above. Tracey Gordon at Fidelity says that a new automated system is being implemented wherein both Fidelity account number and SSN have to be entered. And within a few weeks, a PIN access system is supposed to be in place. Before the initial reports appeared, Fidelity was claiming that the SSN system was introduced because its market research showed that customers overwhelmingly preferred this method to entering their Fidelity account numbers. Complete account info blocking was available to individual customers, but was not the default. Carol Springs carols@drilex.dri.mgh.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 00:16 EST From: Nigel Allen Subject: Telephone Company Remittance Envelopes Organization: Contact Public Unix BBS. Toronto, Canada. Reply-To: ndallen@contact.uucp In article <1991Feb8.084148.1957@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> farkas@ eecg.toronto.edu (Keith I. Farkas) writes: >Finally, another example of waste: how many of us use the envelope provided >by VISA, MASTERCARD, or BELL when paying our bills? -- most people I know pay >their bills through a banking machine. The telephone company in Nova Scotia, Maritime Tel & Tel, stops enclosing remittance envelopes with your bill if you haven't used them for the past six months. (That is, its systems can distinguish between a payment received by mail and one made by other means, and if all your payments have been through a bank or over the counter, the company stops sending you remittance envelopes.) Bell Canada used to have people in its Phonecentres and Teleboutiques who would accept your phone bill payment and give you a receipt, but those people are gone now, replaced by payment drop boxes. Nigel Allen ndallen@contact.uucp 52 Manchester Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M6G 1V3 voice (416) 535-8916 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 00:21:28 est From: jlangri@relay.nswc.navy.mil Subject: 1A2 Intercom Steve Gaarder recently offered an old 1A2 dial intercom to anyone who would pay the shipping. I too had one of those monsters up until two weeks ago. I couldn't bring myself to let the whole thing be thrown away, so I stripped it (I hate throwing away good junk). Anyway, I have a couple of interrupters and several boards free to anyone who can use them and is willing to pay the shipping. Who knows ... maybe 1A2 dial intercoms will make a comeback! Ford Mustangs Did! ------------------------------ From: "Robert E. Zabloudil" Subject: Re: Bell of PA Calling Card Calls Date: 15 Feb 91 00:52:58 GMT Organization: Defense Logistics Agency Systems Automation Center, Columbus In article <16677@accuvax.nwu.edu> DREUBEN@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Douglas Scott Reuben) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 92, Message 6 of 12 > -A 1 minute call (11:30PM) from Reading, PA (215-373-9??? -payphone) > to New Castle, DE (302-740-7626), with my calling card, was $1.18, via > "Bell Atlantic" (or really Bell Of PA). This was the "default" which > the payphone used, naturally. > -The same call the next day, from the same payphone, to the same DE > number, at 12AM, was only $.12 cents on my Reach Out America Plan. If > I did not have the plan, it would have been $.92. (Note that this is > between two states, 1so ROA's Calling Card discount is applicable.) > Why would Bell of PA charge MORE for a call than AT&T, in between TWO > states? (and not IN-State). Was this call by chance totally within your BoPA LATA? They can cross state lines occasionally (NW Bell has one in four states). I can make a one-minute call from Columbus to Johnstown, OH, as a 1+ call for 19 cents, evening rate; the same call costs 14 cents if I dial it 10288-1+. Not exactly analagous, to be sure. Bob Zabloudil rzabloudil@dsac.dla.mil std.disclaimer disclaimed [Moderator's Note: Where I've seen some bizarre ways of dialing is by using Telecom*USA's 'local calling via 700' option. That carrier allows purely local, intra-lata calls by using 1-700-desired number in place of your local area code. In other words, as a Telecom*USA customer I can dial locally 368-8000 or I can route through Telecom dialing 10835-1-700-368-8000, where 700 is presumed to mean 'the area code you are calling from now'. How they get away with it I don't know; but they have offered it for several years. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #116 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa21662; 15 Feb 91 6:50 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa09025; 15 Feb 91 5:09 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab00887; 15 Feb 91 4:03 CST Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 3:30:06 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #117 BCC: Message-ID: <9102150330.ac26782@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 15 Feb 91 03:30:00 CST Volume 11 : Issue 117 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Are You Behind on Your Sprint Bill? [David Ptasnik] Top 20 Payphone Operators [Martin B. Weiss] "Most Accurate Clock" [Steve Shankman] Caller ID Investigation in Oregon [Ken Jongsma] Useful Offer From AT&T (`Free' LD Gift Certificates) [R.Bhumbla] Panasonic Cordless Evaluation [Ben Singer] CNA List to be Prepared for Digest [Randy Borow] Important Correction -- Re: List of BBSes/Conferences [Alex D. Griffiths] Re: Answer Supervision From Loop Start Circuits [John Higdon] Good News Tonight: Allied Lives! [William Bulley] Accessing NUAs in the United States From Germany [Sebastian Winckler] Re: "Independent" Coin Phones [Kevin P. Kleinfelter] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Ptasnik Subject: Are You Behind on Your Sprint Bill? Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 00:59:03 PDT It would appear that anyone who knows your telephone number can get information about your Sprint account. Just call 1-800-877-4646, pick menu choices 1, 1, put in an area code and phone number, and up pops current account info. Despite Sprint's ability to integrate ANI from their 800 numbers with their customer data base, they have apparently chosen not to do so. I was able to access my current home balance from my work phone number. They do not have the number that I used associated with my account. Just for fun, I started dialing in the numbers of people I knew did NOT have Sprint accounts. To my surprise, they appear to only be looking at your seven digit number, perhaps using the area code to differentiate between different local numbers. When I put in one friend's number, the automated system asked if my Zip Code was nnnnn, giving an out of state Zip Code. On would think that they would at least have checked Zip Code vs. Area Code before giving me some stranger's account balance. I quickly called to complain. The service rep was very friendly, and was not happy that the service worked as I described. She promised a response in writing. I will keep you informed. What a tool for AT&T long distance sales reps. To find heavy Sprint users with current bills, just dial in the lead phone number, and check it out. Really saves time on the customer qualification process. :) davep@u.washington.edu [Moderator's Note: It appears there have already been some changes made. Choice '1' is no longer available from within the top level choice '1'. You press '1' to get automated information, but when you do the menu therein now starts with choice '2'. Apparently they are not giving account balances (was choice '1') automatically any longer. I tried 800-877-4646 both from a line which does not default to Sprint and from one that does. It worked the same way both times. No more choice '1' as an option. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Martin B Weiss Subject: Top 20 Payphone Operators Date: 15 Feb 91 00:23:30 GMT Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh, Computing & Information Services {Public Communications Magazine} lists the top twenty pay phone operators, ranked by the number of phones they report owning, managing, or operating. Each of these companies must operate at least 1300 phones to qualify for the list. The top twenty are (it makes me feel a little like David Letterman): 1. Navy Resale and Support Office (Staten Island, NY) 2. People's Telephone Co. (Miami FL) 3. Tele-America Communications Corp. (Atlanta GA) 4. TNC (McLean VA) 5. Cal Tel Inc. (Beverly Hills CA) 6. Telaleasing Enterprises (Tampa FL) 7. US Tele-Comm Inc. (Great Neck NY) 8. Atlantic Telco (Beltsville MD) 9. Viking Manufacturing Co. (Alsip IL) 10. Pay-Tel Phone Systems (San Leandro CA) 11. FaxMail by Hotelcopy (Miami FL) 12. Telco Service America (Elk Grove Village IL) 13. Intellicall Inc. (Carrolton TX) 14. Eastern Pay Phones (Richmond VA) 15. Teleprofits of Texas (Houston TX) 16. Payphone Service Co. Inc. (Ft. Lauderdale FL) 17. Phone Tel Technologies, Inc. (Cleveland OH) 18. Multiplex Services Inc. (Woodside NY) 19. Pacific Pay Telephones (Van Nuys CA) 20. PayCom Systems Corp. (Cedar Rapids IA) Note the conspicuous absence of AT&T, the RBOCs, and independent telcos! Martin Weiss Telecommunications Program, University of Pittsburgh Internet: mbw@lis.pitt.edu OR mbw@unix.cis.pitt.edu BITNET: mbw@pittvms ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Feb 1991 16:22:13 MST From: Steve Shankman Subject: "Most Accurate Clock" A while ago I was at the planetarium at our university, and I saw an interesting clock made by Heathkit. The clock was called "Most Accurate Clock" and had a shortwave receiver built in which monitored 5, 10, and 15 MHz (WWV?). The unit was smaller than a normal clock-radio, and a bit bigger than those small "red-led-beeping-alarm" alarm clocks. It had a led display with tenths of a second, and little leds that indicated which frequency it was monitoring, and a fourth led to show when it was actually getting a signal. Does anyone know where I could get a clock like this, or better yet the kit? I have seen lots of messages here about Heathkit, but I don't know how to reach them for a catalog. Thanks, Steve Shankman sshankman@mis.arizona.edu shankmas@arizvm1.ccit.arizona.edu [Moderator's Note: Recent messages say that Heath is alive, if not necessarily very well and still in their corporate headquarters in Benton Harbor, MI. I guess you could get a number for them from directory assistance at 616-555-1212. They probably have an 800 number also. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Caller ID Investigation in OR Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 00:15:32 EST From: Ken Jongsma According to {Communications Week}, the Oregon PUC is looking for people and companies to assist with a Caller ID investigation. Apparently, the PUC discovered that US West has been offering Caller ID to certain business customers on an individual case basis. CW reports the the PUC has asked that US West stipulate that customers use Caller ID for internal calls only, until the investigation is complete. (Stipulate? C'mon now. What is US West going to do? Tell companies to close their eyes for external calls?) Ken Jongsma ken@wybbs.mi.org Smiths Industries ken%wybbs@sharkey.umich.edu Grand Rapids, Michigan ..sharkey.cc.umich.edu!wybbs!ken ------------------------------ From: Ravinder Bhumbla Subject: Useful Offer From AT&T (`Free' LD Gift Certificates) Date: 15 Feb 91 06:36:02 GMT Reply-To: Ravinder Bhumbla Organization: University of California, San Diego Here is a useful offer from AT&T. I saw it in the March, 1990 issue of {Graduating Engineer}. It seems to be directed towards graduating college students, but the ad does not put any restriction on who can benefit. It is useful if you like AT&T and intend to have it as your long-distance carrier in the foreseeable future. They have a program called `Moving Ahead'. They send you an AT&T long distance gift certificate for $5 when you enroll in the program. After that, every time you move in the next two years and retain AT&T as your primary long-distance carrier, they give you a $10 gift certificate. There is no commitment required for registering. Call 1-800-662-2610 (Extension 108) for information. Ravinder Bhumbla rbhumbla@ucsd.edu U. of California, San Diego ------------------------------ From: Ben Singer Subject: Panasonic Cordless Evaluation Date: 15 Feb 91 00:40:48 EST Thus far, after about a month of use, the Panasonic 3910R has done very well. The reception is the clearest of any cordless phone I have used. There is little noise when tilting the phone (antenna) and everything else works as it should. I have tried the old Bell phones (not the 5500) and the sound quality of the 3910R is much better. Note the 'R' stands for "Sound Charger" which I take to be the equivalent of "Clarity Plus" and "Crystal Clear". Ben Singer Department of Sociology University of Western Ontario Singer@uwo.ca London, Ontario N6A 5C2 Singer@uwovax.bitnet (519) 660-0671 (home) (519) 679-2111 Ext 5137 ------------------------------ From: rborow@bcm1a09.attmail.com Date: Fri Feb 15 00:08:30 CST 1991 Subject: CNA List Being Prepared For Digest David Zinkin had inquired about CNA numbers, including the ones for 216 and 716 area codes. Our Moderator correctly explained just what a CNA Bureau is and basically how it works. I will reiterate what Pat said, however, regarding some of the numbers being confidential. Almost all the CNA Bureaus' phone numbers are, in fact, restricted, including the ones for 716 and 216. These numbers require the use of an authorization code -- codes which have increasingly been changed more frequently due to fraud. I regret, therefore, that I cannot furnish such information. Replying to me directly will not help, either. What I will do, though, if Pat likes the idea, is publish a list in a few days of the area codes which have such publicly accessible CNA numbers, obtainable by asking directory assistance. That is about as much as I am allowed to do. Randy Borow Rolling Meadows, IL. [Moderator's Note: Yes please. Why don't you prepare something listing ALL area codes (so there is no question it was overlooked) and list what numbers you can for each. List both the Bells and the Independents when possible in each area. (Where Bell does not handle CNA for them.) Show 'not available' where appropriate. I'll put it in a file in the archives and run it as a special reference article here. I know this will be a bit of a project for you, so thanks in advance from all of us! PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 00:02:59 PST From: Alex Darren Griffiths Subject: Important Correction -- Re: List of BBSes/Conferences In article <74420@bu.edu.bu.edu> (Donald E. Kimberlin) writes: >1.) The Well, San Francisco (415) 331-6106. Reported in recent trade I'm sure that the very nice, but not easily amused, gentleman at the above number would appreciate the world knowing that the number for the well is (415) 332-6106. Please be careful entering phone numbers folks, I noticed the number was wrong and took it upon myself to call the bad number to see if it was in use. The fella that answered has had about thirty calls in the past day, wh{en he normally gets one or two. He's said he unplugged his answering machine and I got the feeling that what few good thoughts he used to have about computers have long since evaporated. Cheers, darren alex griffiths dag%speedo%pge@uunet.uu.net Pacific Gas & Electric (415) 972-7106 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 00:00 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Answer Supervision From Loop Start Circuits Dave Levenson writes: > What all of these switches do provide is an open circuit interval (500 > msec for ESS, ~100 msec for 5 crossbar) when the far end party > disconnects. This is not supervision. While very much a hack, it works like this: On a 1(A)ESS, if a line is furnished from a Centrex port, the three-way has a peculiar property. With the first call in progress, the Centrex party flashes the hook for a second dial tone. The call progresses and when it supervises there is an open loop signal AT THE MOMENT OF SUPERVISION. Actually, I find this most annoying. I add the second call to the connection and when it comes off hook, about 500 milliseconds later there is a big KA-PLUNK (the "supervision indication"). The problem with this hack is that you need a first call up before the trick works. In scummy Pac*Bell Land, that call must be supervised (or incoming) before you can even get three-way dial tone. So somebody somewhere has to be paying for that other call. It's a neat hack and it really does provide reliable supervision indication, but it is also a bit cumbersome. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: web@applga.aa.cad.slb.com (William Bulley) Subject: Good News Tonight: Allied Lives! Organization: Schlumberger CAD/CAM ; Ann Arbor, MI Date: Tue, 12 Feb 91 19:41:34 GMT I, too, could no longer resist the Allied/Heathkit/Radio Shack thread, even though Pat has asked for an _end_ to this nonsense, but please bear with me: Allied Lives! Tandy has sold Allied to Hall-Mark (a large OEM electronics parts distributor). Allied has a catalog (!) of about 800 pages and even a phone number: (800) 433-5700 People who remember the "old" days (in Chicago) still work there! If you want to relive the "old" feelings, call and ask for their catalog. I have absolutely no connection with any of these companies (other than as a new/old customer!). William Bulley DOMAIN: web@aa.cad.slb.com Schlumberger CAD/CAM UUCP: {sharkey,hela,lokkur}!applga!web 4251 Plymouth Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 MaBell: (313) 995-6211 [Moderator's Note: That is Good News! Let's all get our new catalogs, folks! PAT] ------------------------------ From: Sebastian Winckler Subject: Accessing NUA's in United States From Germany Date: Mon, 11 Feb 91 20:03:37 PST Hi, Some time ago there had been discussed the way to access Tymnet via our German "Datex-P". In the following articles there was mentioned a service called PC-Pursuit. I am very interested in this service since as far as I understood someone can access dialout-modems in USA via NUA`s from Germany. Could anybody send me a brief description how to use this service and perhaps some NUA`s (Network User Adress) that enables me to try things out. Sebastian Winckler sibi@haggis.stgt.sub.org Jaegerstr.29 7014 Kornwestheim (FRG) [Moderator's Note: PC Pursuit is a *domestic* service in the USA offered by Sprint / Telenet. It costs $30 per month. You can get information on it from their corporate sales office: 1-703-689-6000. You would need to get from FRG to USA by whatever carrier you normally use for data; then from the Telenet gateway *once you get a PCP account* you would connect with the outdials all over the USA. Hello Reston! Dave Purkes, are you reading this? PAT] ------------------------------ From: "Kevin P. Kleinfelter" Subject: Re: "Independent" Coin Phones Date: 15 Feb 91 02:04:12 GMT Organization: Dun and Bradstreet Software, Inc., Atlanta, GA john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: >On Feb 10 at 1:21, TELECOM Moderator writes: >> And now the more you >> shop around; the more you use the competition, the better telco and >> 'genuine Bell' service looks. Some of us were saying 'I told you so' >> several years ago. I'm beginning to feel vindicated. PAT] >Yes, indeed, the more you shop around ... but is it not nice to be >able to shop around? Do you honestly believe that 'genuine Bell' would >be at the level it is today if it had no competition nipping at its >heels? Do you think, for instance, that AT&T would even today be >providing digital connections nationwide if it were not for Sprint and >others? Indeed it IS important to be able to shop around. I find it fascinating that people will argue in favor of a return to a single, monolithic phone industry, yet noone seems to want to return to a single U.S. automobile manufacturer. Why is it that people want AT&T to be the only game in town for telecom, but no one wants Ford to be the only game in town for transportation? In the early days of the auto, you could buy a cheap car, with few features, and a choice of colors, as long as your color was black. If you didn't like it, you had to have a car custom-built. In the early days of telecom, you could get any service you wanted, as long as you wanted a service provided by Ma Bell. If you didn't like it, you could do without. Kevin Kleinfelter @ Dun and Bradstreet Software, Inc (404) 239-2347 {emory,gatech}!nanovx!msa3b!kevin Look closely at the return address. It is nanovx and NOT nanovAx. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #117 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa17373; 16 Feb 91 3:22 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa16657; 16 Feb 91 1:30 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa01546; 16 Feb 91 0:25 CST Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 23:42:56 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #118 BCC: Message-ID: <9102152342.ab25968@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 15 Feb 91 23:42:51 CST Volume 11 : Issue 118 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Residential 800 Service From Pac Bell [Ken Jongsma] Personal 1-800 and AT&T's "CALL ME" Card: What Difference? [Glenn Leavell] MCI "Personal 800" Service [Jack Powers] Re: 800 Scrambled ANI [Jeff Jonas] Re: Telecom SIG on CompuServe Now Open (GO TELECOM) [Bruce Klopfenstein] Re: Why Does Device Cause Ringing to Stop? [Jeff Jonas] Re: Should Projects be Connected to the Phone Line? [Jon Sreekanth] Re: Wanted: Recommendations For Small Key-System [Steve Pozgaj] Re: Answer Supervision From Loop Start Circuits [John Higdon] Re: Network Interfaces: What's the Difference? [Laird P. Broadfield] First to Acknowledge the 1+? [Carl Moore] Re: "Most Accurate Clock" [Paul H. Flaherty] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Residential 800 Service From Pac Bell Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 00:17:45 EST From: Ken Jongsma According to {Communications Week}, Pac Bell has introduced a residential 800 service plan. Why they call it a residential plan is unclear, because Pac Bell is saying that rates will vary depending on whether the line is being used for business purposes. The business rates are $50 for install, $15 a month, plus $6-$11 hour of use. Presumably this is for in-state calls, though I'm not sure any of the LECs block instate calls on their residential 800 numbers. Ken Jongsma ken@wybbs.mi.org Smiths Industries ken%wybbs@sharkey.umich.edu Grand Rapids, Michigan ..sharkey.cc.umich.edu!wybbs!ken ------------------------------ From: "Glenn F. Leavell" Subject: Personal 1-800 and AT&T's "CALL ME" Card: What Difference? Organization: University of Georgia Economics Department Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 17:22:10 GMT An acquaintance of mine gave me an AT&T "CALL ME" Card. The card seems to be a standard calling card with the exception that it can only be used to call one particular number. The calling card number consists of the number to be called plus four extra digits. To call my acquaintance, all I have to do is dial (after connecting to AT&T): 0-222-333-4444 and then xxxx after the tone [bong]. My question: Is there any effective difference between this and personal 1-800 service? If I have the 800 service, I can tell someone my 800 number, and if I have a "CALL ME" card, I can just give them the four digit code. I suppose the billing is different for each service. Glenn F. Leavell Systems Administrator glenn@rigel.econ.uga.edu 404-542-3488 University of Georgia Economics Department 147 Brooks Hall. Athens, GA 30602 [Moderator's Note: They are a lot the same. With an 800 number you can get more wrong numbers than with a Call Me card since it is harder to add the additional four digits on the end, get the whole thing right and still wind up getting the wrong number. If you have Reach Out America then there is a 'calling card option' which lets you associate your calling card (or Call Me card) with your Reach Out account for the purpose of getting calls via the card during plan hours at plan rates. An 800 number is more 'professional-looking' for some people. With a Call Me card although it is restricted by AT&T / local Bell telco to where it can call, sleaze AOS and COCOTs have been known to accept it for billing *anywhere*. Really it is an applications problem. Think over your usage and the pros and cons of going each way. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jack Powers Subject: Re: MCI "Personal 800" Service Date: 15 Feb 91 07:31:19 GMT Well, after ordering it twice, I finally got my MCI Personal 800 number. With this service you call the regular 800 number (in my case, 800/484-xxxx) and wait for two short tones... then enter four more digits. Needless to say, if you are at a rotary dial phone, you may be out of luck, but I didn't wait on the line to see if an operator responded in the absence of tones. I DID use it to call myself from my second line, and it worked faster than I expected ... about as fast as any MCI call. The rate is $0.25/minute, which is $15/hour ... not bad (plus $5/month), It may be higher than regular DDD rates ... so calling back might be a good idea if the conversation might get long and it happens at night or on a weekend. MCI could probably change your four-digit "private security code" quickly, but it's probably smart to be careful to whom you give the numbers. Jack Powers jackp@well.sf.ca.us ------------------------------ From: Jeff Jonas Subject: Re: 800 Scrambled ANI Date: 15 Feb 91 07:31:15 GMT Reply-To: Jeff Jonas Organization: Jeff's House of Electronic Parts >I read somewhere (probably TELECOM Digest) about a 900 service where >you dial the 900 then get a dial tone, dial another number, and get >connected to whomever you want. The final party does not get your >phone number through ANI, and the intermediate company gets some money >charged to you as the 900 call. My phone list shows +1 900 STOPPER as the number. I do not recall the fees, but it was charged per minute as well as an initial charge. Jeffrey Jonas jeffj@synsys.uucp synsys!jeffj@uunet.uu.net [Moderator's Note: $2 per minute on domestic calls; $5 per minute on international calls. Of course the catch they are not telling you is that there is no such thing as caller ID on international calls *yet* nor across LATAs, etc. They'd like you to think their service is really valuable, when in fact for the indefinite future there is very little to be blocked. Try them in a couple years when it will be worth perhaps a little more. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Bruce Klopfenstein Subject: Re: Telecom SIG on CompuServe Now Open (GO TELECOM) Date: 15 Feb 91 13:01:50 GMT Organization: Bowling Green State University B.G., Oh. From article <16807@accuvax.nwu.edu>, by dogface!bei@cs.utexas.edu (Bob Izenberg): > I just chanced across the Telecommunications Issues SIG on CompuServe. I have two requests: 1) Can someone please use this SIG to slam CompuServe for not providing local access numbers in high modem college towns like Bowling Green, Ohio (over 17,000 students). The last I checked it was up to ME to get BG folks to literally sign a petition. 2) If it's legal to swipe interesting postings from CompuServe Telecom SIG and redistribute to those of us who are not Compu$erve fans, please do so. (And you thought only Prodigy had its detractors.) Bruce C. Klopfenstein | klopfens@barney.bgsu.edu Radio-TV-Film Department | klopfenstein@bgsuopie.bitnet 318 West Hall | klopfens@bgsuvax.UUCP Bowling Green State University | (419) 372-2138; 372-8690 Bowling Green, OH 43403 | fax (419) 372-2300 [Moderator's Note: Compuserve claims a copyright on everything originating on their system, meaning the use of articles here from over there is very 'iffy' at best. It is that same copyright problem, along with the fees charged on Compuserve which prohibit the use of TELECOM Digest in a public display there, although the Digest is sent via email to the mailboxes of some people at CIS. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jeff Jonas Subject: Re: Why Does Device Cause Ringing to Stop? Date: 15 Feb 91 07:10:42 GMT Reply-To: Jeff Jonas Organization: Jeff's House of Electronic Parts From TELECOM Digest: Volume 11, Issue 100, Message 6 of 8 >I've been trying to build a box to make key phone's lights flash and >to implement a hold button. The July, 1990 edition of {Modern Electronics} magazine features the schematic of a microprocessor based "phone mate" that provides hold, recall, timer and catched digits as they're dialed. The schematics should be helpful if you don't build the entire thing. Jeffrey Jonas jeffj@synsys.uucp synsys!jeffj@uunet.uu.net ------------------------------ From: Jon Sreekanth Subject: Re: Should Projects be Connected to the Phone Line? Organization: The World Date: 15 Feb 91 11:37:55 In article <74667@bu.edu.bu.edu> atn@cory.berkeley.edu (Alan Nishioka) writes: > Is this safe? Are there other concerns here that I am missing? The thrust of FCC 68 is that you don't damage or overload the telephone network. Hence the load limitations : maximum of 1.6K AC to ring current, max of 5 Meg DC on-hook. Another concern is signal power injected back to tip and ring. If your device does not intend to send back audio signals, then there are (generous) limits on out of band signal power, such as leakage from high frequency clocks in your digital section. The isolation requirements call for up to 1500V of insulation between tip/ring and any user accessible, outside parts of your box. FCC 68 also specifies that after a simulated lightning strike, 800V spike, 10uS rise, 560uS fall, 25 amp max surge, your equipment should still meet the impedance and signal power limitations. If you use an MOV on tip and ring, that should cover it. A relatively new requirement, UL 1459, is required from July, 1991 onwards (for phones, I'm told). The big deal about this test is your circuit must not burst into flames upon application of 600V RMS across tip and ring for 30 minutes or more. (The test is sneaky: if you use a series fuse, they're allowed to current limit just below the fuse limit, and see if the rest of your circuit burns) All this sounds a little overwhelming, I know, but the reason it's so fresh in my memory is because we're going through the process ourselves. I covered the main points above, but there might be some more that I missed. > Should *anyone* build *anything* that connects to the phone line? Can > it be reasonably priced? Does the phone company really care? Should > I do it anyway and just kinda feel guilty? :-) From personal experience, if an experimental circuit is briefly connected across a line, the telephone company does not notice it. But I'd not leave such a circuit connected while I'm not around to observe it. My judgement is : the few dollars saved by leaving a hacked up circuit connected to the line are not worth the potential risk of the insurance company refusing to pay for a fire or personal injury that the device caused (to take an extreme example). Regards, Jon Sreekanth Assabet Valley Microsystems Fax and PC products 346 Lincoln St #722, Marlboro, MA 01752 508-562-0722 jon_sree@world.std.com ------------------------------ From: Steve Pozgaj Subject: Re: Wanted: Recommendations For Small Key-System Reply-To: Steve Pozgaj Organization: Digital Media Networks, Toronto, Canada Date: Fri, 15 Feb 1991 10:20:14 -0500 In article <74318@bu.edu.bu.edu> dam@mtqua.att.com (Daniel A Margolis) writes: >>What's the latest and greatest in small business telephone systems? >> General requirements: 6-8 incoming lines ... 16-20 telephone lines >> "Normal" features such as intercom, paging, DND, etc. Ability to >> connect normal two-wire devices such as FAX, answering machine, >> cordless phone, etc. Good value (ie cheap). I did an extensive search of these myself three years ago, and after having evaluated 15 candidates, ended up selecting the CTG 1648/3264. It is, in a word, FANTASTIC! It does exactly what we need for our business. (We're a small 30-person office with lots of incoming lines (13) and simple paging, intercom, and other "normal" features.) I would recommend it VERY HIGHLY. Cost for us three years ago was CDN$15,000 for the whole works, with battery backed up operation, all handsets, and system console (i.e. receptionist's set). Check it out. Steve Pozgaj @ Digital Media. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 11:09 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Answer Supervision From Loop Start Circuits John Boteler writes: > [Author's Note: Would ground start circuits provide the signalling > desired? Since they are engineered circuits, it would seem that such > signalling could be provided without a lot of pain. I don't see DOD > trunks as being special: many PBXs are configured this way.] This prompts a question: Do other telcos (than Pac*Bell) always consider ground start lines to be design circuits? A number of posts over the years have seemed to carry that assumption. As far as Pac*Bell is concerned, ground start or loop start are simply alternative ways of supplying dial tone. They do not define PBX trunks, business service, or line conditioning. Any line of any COS can be either ground start or loop start, including residence. There is no extra charge for loop start, either for installation or monthly. However, converting a line from one to the other carries a charge roughly equivalent to the installation fee. Does "ground start" imply certain classes of service in other parts of the country? John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: lairdb@crash.cts.com (Laird P. Broadfield) Subject: Re: Network Interfaces: What's the Difference? Date: 15 Feb 91 21:00:05 GMT >On 29-JAN-91, Seth Cohn wrote: >> I recently had a second phone installed for a BBS system. The operator gave >> me a choice of: >> 1) a testable network interface >> 2) a NONtestable network interface >> What's the difference? (Besides about $5 :) ) This is probably an SNI with a built in MTU. (Do you feel informed now?) SNI: Standard Network Intervace (residential semi-equivalent of a 'demarc') MTU: Maintenance Test Unit The MTU is a gadget that has several capabilities depending on what model is installed. The minimum (that I've seen) is that when presented with a specific tone from the CO side, it will disconnect the premises side, allowing the guy on the test desk to quickly determine if the problem is in your equip. or theirs. Many also will send back a test tone, or a series of test tones and quiet time, allowing the test-dude to measure line quality, etc. Some also include the ability to disconnect your equipment automatically in the event of a short on your side (these can be set for "latching" or "non-latching", meaning does the telco have to visit in order to reset it (and charge you $$)). No idea why they would offer you an option; the devices certainly should be cost-effective for them to install everywhere, especially since they could just have charged you for it and not offered the option. Laird P. Broadfield UUCP: {akgua, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!lairdb INET: lairdb@crash.cts.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 17:49:06 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: First to Acknowledge the 1+? I read in the Phoenix, Arizona call guide of Feb. 1990 that the 1+602+7D for toll calls within Arizona was to go into effect July 1, 1990. It goes on to say "It will also allow customers to continue to know on which calls a charge applies." (To summarize, for those areas needing N0X/N1X prefixes: Toll calls within area must be 7D or 1+NPA+7D; can no longer use 1+7D. Toll calls to other areas must be 1+NPA+7D; can no longer use NPA+7D.) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 10:27:41 -0800 From: "Paul A. Flaherty" Subject: Re: "Most Accurate Clock" The GC-1000 appears in the most recent Griefkit catalog. It's basically a WWV(H) receiver, slaving a crystal oscillator to that signal. An EIA-232 output is optional, and allows you to set machine clocks. Claimed accuracy is about +-1.0ms; they tend to drift in a sawtooth pattern. We use one at Stanford to provide backup NTP service (our primary source is a more stable reference we receive via BARRNET). -=Paul Flaherty, N9FZX -> paulf@shasta.Stanford.EDU ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #118 ******************************   Received: from [129.105.5.103] by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa03330; 16 Feb 91 15:10 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa09382; 16 Feb 91 13:39 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa27121; 16 Feb 91 12:33 CST Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 11:39:01 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #119 BCC: Message-ID: <9102161139.ab23146@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 16 Feb 91 11:38:45 CST Volume 11 : Issue 119 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Nynex Gateway Bites the Dust [John R. Levine] Re: Nynex Gateway Bites the Dust [Andy Behrens] Re: Nynex Gateway Bites the Dust [John Higdon] Re: 800 Numbers, Voice Mail, and Privacy [Jeff Carroll] Re: 800 Numbers, Voice Mail, and Privacy [David Gast] Re: Wanted: Recommendations For Small Key-System [Carl Wright] Re: Maybe it Really is Time for Telecommunications Competition [C. Wright] Re: Apple Wants Radio Waves For Data Transmission [Alan Ruffer] Re: Wanted: Recommendations For Small Key-System [Daniel M. Rosenberg] Re: ANSI X3.64 Document Needed [Toby Nixon] Re: Should Projects be Connected to the Phone Line [Mike Berger] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Nynex Gateway Bites the Dust Organization: I.E.C.C. Date: 16 Feb 91 00:24:12 EST (Sat) From: "John R. Levine" Although NYNEX would no doubt like us all to believe that their Infolook gateway failed because of excess regulation, the fact that in most cases it was more expensive than calling the providers directly had a lot to do with it. Citinet, for example, was a free BBS available for the price of the call. Delphi/BOSTON, which provided many of the other services, has a flat rate of $10/month. Infolook's lowest price, for the initial directory, was $3/hr and the rates went up from there with typical rates being 25 cents/min, or $15/hr. Would you pay those rates? I certainly didn't. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl ------------------------------ From: Andy Behrens Subject: Re: Nynex Gateway Bites the Dust Reply-To: Andy Behrens Organization: Burlington Coat Factory Date: Sat, 16 Feb 1991 03:47:35 GMT > Nynex Corp. said yesterday (Monday) it will pull the plug on a computer > information service [Info-Look] that has lost several million dollars. I doubt it'll be missed. Here's one of the services offered, as described in a flyer that Nynex sent me last year: --------------------------------------------------------------- G O T A R O T Type GO TAROT to see your future with Sphinx Tarot Card Reader on the NYNEX INFO-LOOK Gateway! * General Tarot gives an overview of the next 8 weeks of your life (6 themes). * Astrological Tarot describes the next 12 weeks of your life in detail (12 themes). * Focused Tarot offers insight to a specific current issue of your choosing (6 themes). Our unconscious is a natural psychic, somehow capable of choosing a card which addresses our questions, even if the "card" is electronic, so to speak. The TAROT cards in this service match those used by professional psychics! [You will need Minitel emulation software to access this service] --------------------------------------------------------------- Maybe they should have done a reading to find out if the stars and planets were favorably aligned for starting up a bulletin-board system. Andy ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 00:31 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Nynex Gateway Bites the Dust adamg@world.std.com (Adam M Gaffin) writes: > Greene is currently re-evaluating his ban. > [...] > At least two other regional phone companies have abandoned > similar services after heavy losses over the past 18 months. I hope Judge Greene thinks long and hard about lifting his proscription on information providing. Why did these regionals have heavy losses when offering information services? I suspect it is because they used the time-honored monopoly tradition of doing THEIR way with no regard to that nasty gremlin -- competition. It does not take a crystal ball to predict what would happen if telcos were allowed to freely participate in on-line information providing. The first order of business would be to get rid of all those interlopers who have the gall to provide FREE on-line services: the BBS operators. We have already seen some of the tactics such as regrading service to "business" on the one hand to trumping up charges and having operators arrested Craig Neidorf-style on the other. Then to kill off the succesful commercial services, such as Compuserve, the various PUCs would be pressured into allowing surcharges and other bogosity to price them out of the market place. Hell, a telco could get the PUC to authorize escalating local charges for all subscribers, but make calls to the telco info line "free" using a special prefix. What I am trying to say here is that telcos should never, but NEVER, be allowed to compete in an industry that depends on telephone service. To do so would put all of the competing players on the endangered species list. I am rooting for the Judge to hold his original ground on this one. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Jeff Carroll Subject: Re: 800 Numbers, Voice Mail, and Privacy Date: 16 Feb 91 09:10:19 GMT Reply-To: Jeff Carroll Organization: Boeing Co. In article <74661@bu.edu.bu.edu> rv01%harvey@gte.com (Robert Virzi) writes: >David Gast writes: >> If you call 1-800-544-7544, you can get complete information about the >> fund holdings in Fidelity Funds of anyone whose social security number ... > I tried this and it is not exactly true. In addition to someone's > social security number, you also need to know their account number. I > don't know how Fidelity assigns account numbers, but I would imagine > that this scheme offers significantly more protection than the > four-digit PINs used by banks. I doubt it. In order to get a person's four digit PIN, one must do one of three things: a) crack the bank's computer, b) steal the person's bank card, read the strip, and crack whatever (if any) encryption is used, or c) steal the piece of mail which notifies the subscriber of his PIN, which is only possible in systems which preassign PINs. Otherwise the cracker is facing the expectation of making 5000 inquiries to the bank with the wrong PIN (assuming an unenlightened search strategy). There are many more possible ways to get the whole nine-digit SSN of any person one is likely to be interested in; though in principle the SSN is supposed to be confidential, most people succumb at one time or another to pressure to disclose it, to their employers (who can be pretty free with tossing it around, within their rights) if to no one else. > Is this a change in the security of the system, or just poor reporting > on the part of the WSJ? Might just be an operator who only knows how to search the database by the account number key. Jeff Carroll carroll@ssc-vax.boeing.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 00:00:00 From: David Gast Subject: Re: 800 Numbers, Voice Mail, and Privacy > A similar story ... if you know the checking account number and last > four digits of the social security number, you can access checking > account balances for any personal Bank of America account. One calls > the local number for customers service. I checked with the bank, and > they have no method for substituting a random or chosen pin for the > SS#, nor for blocking the use of the service. Actually, you do not need the SSN. All you need is the account number. With only the account number, it will not tell you the balance, but it will tell you if a there is at least $N in the account (that is, will this check bounce?). A simple application of binary search will yield the account balance although you might stop after being within plus or minus some epsilon. I presume that you don't really care if the person has $503.12 or $508.31. Further, the telephone number is the main customer service number and the VM prompts lead to the correct choices. If you are in a branch, you can pick up the phone and go from there. I think the first VM choice is #2. David ------------------------------ From: Carl Wright Subject: Re: Wanted: Recommendations For Small Key-System Organization: UMCC, Ann Arbor, MI Date: Sat, 16 Feb 1991 02:31:25 GMT I urge you to consider buying used switch gear. The MTBF on telecom equipment is so long that after the first user tires of it or grows out of it, there is plenty of time for a new user to get tired out it. Either use a local teleconnect company to find a switch or call 1-800-322-5156 to get a free subscription to {Telecom Gear} to find equipment or a used equipment supplier. There is also an annual article in {Teleconnect} that covers used equipment and their suppliers. We bought a Mitel Super10 years ago from a local teleconnect company and couldn't be happier. It is an 8 by 16 PBX. Carl Wright | Lynn-Arthur Associates, Inc. Internet: wright@ais.org | 2350 Green Rd., #160 Voice: 1 313 995 5590 EST | Ann Arbor, MI 48105 ------------------------------ From: Carl Wright Subject: Re: Maybe it Really is Time for Telecommunications Competition Organization: UMCC, Ann Arbor, MI Date: Sat, 16 Feb 1991 03:42:17 GMT Re: alternatives to the local telco for dial tone, the cable TV companies are an alternative technically. The technical problems have been solved by First Pacific Networks, Sunnyvale, CA which sells equipment to run LANs, voice, and video all over normal cable TV style coax. You plug your phone, your TV, and your PC into the same box which plugs into the coax. I think I read where they are considering it for telephone services in Singapore where the regulatory problems are different than here in the U.S. I meet some of the their developers once when they were trying to decide if they needed real-time telco call service selection. I pointed out that for business users the tariffs are slanted so that you consolidate your use with one service to maximize your discounts and you don't switch services or carriers on a call-by-call basis. You lessen your overall discount switching on a call-by-call basis. Carl Wright | Lynn-Arthur Associates, Inc. Internet: wright@ais.org | 2350 Green Rd., #160 Voice: 1 313 995 5590 EST | Ann Arbor, MI 48105 ------------------------------ From: Alan Ruffer Subject: Re: Apple Wants Radio Waves For Data Transmission Date: 16 Feb 91 01:50:32 GMT Reply-To: Alan Ruffer Organization: Perfect Partners Inc., Sulphur, LA In article <74672@bu.edu.bu.edu> Ken Thompson writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 114, Message 8 of 10 > You are late to the party, Apple. > NCR has had > its WaveLan out since last year. It operates spread spectrum in the > 908-928 MHz band at a 2M data rate with DES encoding for security. > RF power is two watts and with small gain antenna distances of five > miles between nodes is easily attained. I think it lists for $1390 a > node, installs in any IBM compatable, and is Netware compatable. The REALLY sad part about all this is that 902.0 - 928.0 Mhz is the amateur radio 33 centimeter band. Devices that operate in this band are NOT guaranteed freedom from interference! There are other wireless gadgets that operate in this frequency range too. Buyers of these devices should be aware of this. While it is illegal for an amateur to intentionally interfere, these devices are subject to unintentional interference, and amateurs may ALSO be subject to interference from these transmiters. This is a bad situation that will get much worse before it gets better. Alan R. Ruffer UUCP: {csccat,chinacat!holston}!adept!alan Route 1, Box 1745 Amateur Radio Station WB5FKH Sulphur, LA 70663 BBS: (318) 527-6667, 19200(PEP)/9600(V.32)/2400/1200 ------------------------------ From: "Daniel M. Rosenberg" Subject: Re: Wanted: Recommendations For Small Key-System Date: 16 Feb 91 00:07:47 GMT Organization: World Otherness Ministries In <74655@bu.edu.bu.edu> john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > Four modems each answer a particular line > each and there is a FAX machine. If a particular modem has not reset > and does not answer, there is a delayed ringing sequence programed > into the switch to try another after one ring and so on down the line. > This is set up in a circular arrangement, which the Panasonic is > easily capable of doing. This arrangement also allows a modem to use > other lines, such as WATS, for outgoing calls by simply putting a > different trunk group access code in the dial script. We have a 1232 as well, but I don't see how it's physically possible for you to call-forward-no answer CO calls. Perhaps your modems get called from the DISA card? But I thought the call-forward-no answer/busy works only on extension-to-extension calls. If that's not true, I'd be psyched to figure out what you did to make yours work otherwise. We're paying a $40/month premium to the University phone department for the privilidge of CO-hunting. # Daniel M. Rosenberg Stanford Univ CSLI Opinions here are my own # dmr@csli.stanford.edu {apple,ucbvax}!labrea!csli!dmr BIT:dmr%csli@stanford ------------------------------ From: Toby Nixon Subject: Re: ANSI X3.64 Document Needed Date: 16 Feb 91 01:20:33 GMT Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA In article <74668@bu.edu.bu.edu>, eplrx7!cristy@uunet.uu.net (John Cristy) writes: > I need a copy of the ANSI X3.64 document. Apparently that is the > specification for ANSI terminal emulation. Please Email your answer. > And thanks in advance. ANSI standards can be ordered from: Sales Department American National Standards Institute 1430 Broadway New York NY 10018 Voice: 212-642-4900 Fax: 212-302-1286 According to the most recent catalog I have, X3.64 costs $19. Toby Nixon, Principal Engineer | Voice +1-404-449-8791 Telex 151243420 Hayes Microcomputer Products Inc. | Fax +1-404-447-0178 CIS 70271,404 P.O. Box 105203 | UUCP uunet!hayes!tnixon AT&T !tnixon Atlanta, Georgia 30348 USA | Internet hayes!tnixon@uunet.uu.net ------------------------------ From: Mike Berger Subject: Re: Should Projects be Connected to the Phone Line? Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Date: Sat, 16 Feb 1991 03:19:10 GMT atn@cory.berkeley.edu (Alan Nishioka) writes: > Now, many books and magazines regularly publish projects that connect > to the phone line. Even the usually respectable TELECOM Digest > recently published several such projects. I don't think any of them > have been certified anything by anyone. The books that I've seen generally include a caveat that the projects don't necessarily meet legal interface or registration requirements. > I see two issues involved: One of safety (to craftspersons, etc. ) and > the other of just following the rules. I can see if I were going to > sell these devices that I would be interested in both, but as a > hobbyist I am mostly interested in the first. > Is this safe? Are there other concerns here that I am missing? > Should *anyone* build *anything* that connects to the phone line? Can > it be reasonably priced? Does the phone company really care? Should > I do it anyway and just kinda feel guilty? :-) The phone company is interested in protecting their employees and equipment. Unregistered devices can potentially disrupt somebody elses' service or put dangerous voltages on the phone line. If you DO coincidentally cause problems, it's a good bet that the phone company will disconnect your service without notification and you may have a very hard time getting it restored. I suspect that the authors of the articles you mentioned would point out that you could connect the devices to your OWN local telephone switch without worrying about tariffs or registration. Mike Berger Department of Statistics, University of Illinois AT&TNET: 217-244-6067 Internet: berger@atropa.stat.uiuc.edu ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #119 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa09776; 16 Feb 91 21:20 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa00991; 16 Feb 91 19:49 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa20915; 16 Feb 91 18:41 CST Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 18:29:38 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #120 BCC: Message-ID: <9102161829.ab10716@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 16 Feb 91 18:29:20 CST Volume 11 : Issue 120 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson US West Fined - Specifics? [Jamie Saker] US West Pays $10 Million Fine [Eduardo Krell] US West Fined for MFJ Violations [Peter Marshall] Pacific Telesis PR Video Sought [Bruce Klopfenstein] PacBell Personal 800 vs LD Carriers [Brian Gordon] US Sprint Signs Deal With Democratic National Committee [Kevin Collins] Requesting Advice on Cross-Country Digital Links [John L. Shelton] Airphones and Receiving Calls [John Harrison] Ordering Real Cheap Private Lines [Eric Weaver] AT&T SelectSaver Plan [Allyn Lai] Cheap Cellulars - Where's the Rub? [Steve Pershing] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jamie Saker Subject: US West Fined - Specifics? Date: 16 Feb 91 16:56:34 CST Yesterday afternoon's {Omaha World Herald} (the only daily paper in the Omaha, Nebraska area) had a very short, cryptic and poorly written article on U S West being fined some $10 million or so for violating some of the rules set down after the break-up of AT&T. Although there were hints that they were fined for conducting business outside the areas permitted, no specifics were mentioned. I'm curious if anyone has information about what specific charges were involved and what enterprises US West engaged in that got them into hot water. Could it have been their CommunityLink project, perhaps, that got them into trouble? Jamie Saker jsaker@zeus.unomaha.edu C&DC Consultant jsaker@orion.unomaha.edu JSAKER@UNOMA1 (bitnet) [Moderator's Note: I received two good summaries of the situation in the mail yesterday and have included them in this issue. See the messages which follow. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ekrell@ulysses.att.com Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 20:34:15 EST Subject: US West Pays $10 Million Fine The U.S. Justice Department's anti-trust division collected its largest ever fine from a single defendant when US West agreed to pay a $10 million civil fine for violating the 1982 consent decree that broke up AT&T. US West admitted it violated the decree by offering a reverse directory service and by providing computer hardware, personnel and other support to run a debit card system for Atlantic Richfield Co. through its Applied Communications Inc. subsidiary. It also admitted to price discrimination by offering the GSA a lower price on local exchange access if it purchased switching equipment from US West instead of AT&T and it admitted to violating the MFJ's ban on manufacturing telecomm equipment by designing and selling operator workstations for DA and call assistance operators through another subsidiary, Knowledge Engineering Inc. Eduardo Krell AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ UUCP: {att,decvax,ucbvax}!ulysses!ekrell Internet: ekrell@ulysses.att.com ------------------------------ From: Peter Marshall Subject: US West Fined for MFJ Violations Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 14:18:35 PST Organization: The 23:00 News An AP story, "US West to Pay $10 Million Fine," was buried in the Business Section of today's {Seattle Times}. According to AP, "US West Inc. agreed yesterday to pay a $10 million civil fine for violating the 1982 consent decree that broke up AT&T, the Justice Department said. US West admitted to four violations of the consent decree that restricts the types of businesses and services the spun-off companies may provide. The fine is the largest ever collected from a single defendant by the Justice Department's antitrust division, the department said. It was also was the largest fine for an antitrust contempt case. US West admitted that it violated the consent decree by offering a reverse directory service. The company also admitted its Applied Communications Inc. subsidiary violated the consent decree by providing support to run a debit card system for Atlantic Richfield Co. It also admitted to price discrimination by offering the General Services Administration a lower price on local exchange access if it purchased switching equipment from US West, the Justice Department said. US West also admitted to violating the ban on manufacturing telecommunications equipment by designing and selling operator workstations through its Knowledge Engineering Inc. subsidiary...." ------------------------------ From: Bruce Klopfenstein Subject: Pacific Telesis PR Video Sought Date: 16 Feb 91 22:28:04 GMT Organization: Bowling Green State University B.G., Oh. At a recent conference sponsored by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, a videotape provided by Pacific Telesis was shown. It was a very slick presentation of life in about ten years if the telcos are allowed to play in the information delivery arenas of the future. It featured the day-in-the-life of an Hispanic family in which a distant daughter is about to give birth to her premature baby. The father and mother talk to her via videophone, give voice commands to their terminal to make airline reservations and order a gift, etc. A worried doctor contacts a specialist and transmits sonograms (sp?) and other medical data for help in diagnosis. No matter the politics of the situation, it's a very realistic portrayal of future services that we are all now reading about. As such, I'd like to get a copy for educational purposes. Can anyone help me reach the right people at Pacific Telesis (or vice versa)? This is not an endorsement of telco entry into information delivery nor an acceptance of the portrayal of future services. Just recognition of a very slick video presentation. Thanks. Bruce C. Klopfenstein | klopfens@barney.bgsu.edu Radio-TV-Film Department | klopfenstein@bgsuopie.bitnet 318 West Hall | klopfens@bgsuvax.UUCP Bowling Green State University | (419) 372-2138; 372-8690 Bowling Green, OH 43403 | fax (419) 372-2300 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 06:49:32 PST From: Brian Gordon Subject: PacBell Personal 800 vs LD Carriers An interesting revelation today. I looked into a PacBell personal 800 number, since my wife and I do quite a bit of calling-card calling home from around the region. The base cost is $5/mo (no set-up fee for orders during the first few months). For the local service area, you are billed at rates like $0.183 per minute day, $0.125 evening, $0.10 night and weekends. If you call enough, the rates go down. So far, so good. You must also select a long distance carrier. My first choice was AT&T, hoping that these calls would combine with other lines for the Reach Out America discounts. First bad news -- no -- that bill is completely separate and they claim it can't be combined with anything else. The disaster, though, is that they want $15 a month for the service, used or not!! For the calls that go through them, it is $0.22 per minute, in one minute increments, around the clock. Sufficient useage lowers the rate. No setup fee. In contrast, US Sprint also has no setup fee, but has no monthly charge, and charges $0.2006 (day), $0.1873 (evening) and $0.1443 (night and weekend) per minute with a six second increment. That is, their highest rate is lower than AT&T's lowest (OK, constant) rate. Again, over four hours in a month lowers the rate. It does seem that AT&T doesn't want the business ... ------------------------------ From: Kevin Collins Subject: US Sprint Signs Deal With Democratic National Committee Date: 16 Feb 91 00:56:48 GMT Organization: Aspect Telecommunications, San Jose, Ca The following is quoted from an article in {Communications Week}, February 4, 1991: "Under an agreement announced last week, US Sprint Communications Co. will give the Democratic National Committee five percent of the rate charged for every call that is made by a customer who has switched to US Sprint at the prompting of the committee. And the same amount will be donated from calls made by current US Sprint customers who have - at the behest of the Democrats - signed up for a special US Sprint calling card." The article goes on to say that a spokesman for US Sprint viewed the arrangement as a "paid commission for bringing us new customers". When a DNC spokesman was asked if such a program would promote favoritism of US Sprint by the Demos, he replied "I don't think it will be that lucrative to affect us." Can we take this to mean that something a little more lucrative *would* affect them :-)? But seriously, why is the DNC in this agreement if not to make money? How ethical is it for a long distance carrier - a member of a *regulated* industry - to be paying a national political party to influence potential customers? Furthermore, US Sprint reportedly plans to offer a similar deal to the Republican National Committee. So, now we may have both major parties in this country holding a vested interest in a company (US Sprint) whose chief competitor (AT&T) Congress regulates - sounds interesting, no? Kevin Collins | Aspect Telecommunications USENET: ...uunet!aspect!kevinc | San Jose, CA Voice: +1 408 441 2489 | My opinions are mine alone. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 00:55:58 From: "John L. Shelton" Subject: Requesting Advice on Cross-Country Digital Links I am interested in operating a 56kbit link between California and Virginia locations. I want no restriction on the traffic, want to operate multiple protocols, and would rather not have many people snooping on this link. Other than directly renting from AT&T, USSprint, MCI, etc, what options do I have? (In a recent request, only two of the big three even took time to respond, and AT&T said they couldn't provide hardware, only the data circuits. Interesting ...) =John L. Shelton= Advanced Decision Systems Mountain View, California ------------------------------ From: John Harrison Subject: Airphones and Receiving Calls Date: 16 Feb 91 18:11:16 GMT Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA I know this was probably discussed when Die Hard 2 first came out, but I missed that. So the question I have is: Why can't you really receive calls on a GTE Airphone? Is this something that GTE has chose not to implement or are there other technical reasons. Note: The reference to Die Hard 2 is that Bruce Willis calls his wife after being paged from an Airphone. ------------------------------ From: Eric Weaver Subject: Ordering Real Cheap Private Lines Organization: Sony Advanced Video Technology Center Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 11:30:19 GMT I wish to set up a line from a radio studio to a cable TV head end building. I want to order the cheapest simplest pair-of-wires imaginable. Could anybody inform me of the precise name of such a service, and maybe even the order code for it? I've heard that I want to ask for a "telegraph circuit." The Pac Bell reps in that department act more like city clerks than sales folk; very uncooperative. Alternately, does anybody know about doing upstream links on cable? Thanks, Eric Weaver Perpetrator Peninsula Radio Foundation Eric Weaver Sony Advanced Video Technology Center 677 River Oaks Pkwy, MS 32 ------------------------------ From: portal!cup.portal.com!Allyn@uunet.uu.net Subject: AT&T SelectSaver Plan Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 12:23:48 PST I just got a letter from AT&T about their SelectSaver Plan. Basically the letter states that according to their records we have been making enough calls to area code 305 that it may be worthwhile to sign up for SelectSaver. I've got a sister in Seattle (area code 206) and a sister in Ft. Lauderdale (area code 305). It's kind of odd that they mentioned 305 and not 206 since I think we make more calls to Seattle ... maybe the "data" they have is bogus. I'm wondering if it's worth signing up for. It says that it's a $1.90 per month and they'll even waive the sign up fee (which is funny because I didn't there was one in the first place!) of $5.00 if I sign up before April 1. Here are the specifics, if I sign up I get to call area code 305 at the following rates: 12 cents/minute M-F 5pm - 8am All Sat & Sun. 20 cents/minute M-F 8am - 5pm You also get a 5% discount on all other out-of-state, direct-dialed AT&T long distance calls made to other area codes. Frankly, I'm inclined not to sign up. Our family rarely makes long distance calls so I don't think this plan would really payoff. What do other people think? Allyn Lai allyn@cup.portal.com [Moderator's Note: You would do just as well signing up for the Reach Out America 24 hour plan. This gives fairly generous discounts during off hours, a five percent discount on daytime calls, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Cheap Cellulars - Where's the Rub? From: system administrator Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 12:21:54 PST Organization: Questor*Free Internet/Usenet*Vancouver*BC => +1 604 681.0670 I remember reading some time ago that cellular telephones were sold as low as $100 in Michigan. I recently received a mail-order catalog from Minnesota offering two "transportable" cellular phones, one at $88 (+$20 s&h) and the other at $199 (+$25 s&h). Both phone ads have the following disclaimer: "These transportable celluar phones require a one year service and new activation commitment. Your phone will come pre-programmed with a local cellular number. Phones are not available in North Carolina, California and Hawaii Please have your Social Security number and driver's license number ready when you call to order. This phone comes fully activated and preprogrammed with your local cellular number." (I presume that the sellers make their money from the one year service agreement, which may cost $40/mo or more.) If any cellular gurus can offer any advice as to which might be the "better" unit, in terms of technical advantages, battery life, serviceability, etc, I would appreciate advice, and might be moved to purchase one. The cheapest unit is touted to have a "suggested retail" price of $599, has no model number, and is described as follows: CM Telecom Transportable Cellular Phone (no model nbr quoted, just a photo of a cellular handset coming out of a leather "shaving-kit" type bag with an antenna on it. Handset has the words "freecomm" on it, standard 12-button tt pad, + 6 buttons in two rows below it. - ESN callup; three call timers - 99 full alphanumeric memory locations - silent incoming call alert - battery overdrain protection - four level lock with 911 override - one-touch auto-send dialling - auto-retry; scrolling - ten-digit lcd display - last number redial, silent scratchpad - fully modular removable handset - programmable lock mode - cigarette lighter adapter - leather case with antenna (has a zipper (down the middle, antenna on the side.) They ask $58. for an optional rechargeable battery pack and $38 for the hands free speakerphone accessory. The other unit: Nokia-Mobira Transportable Cellular, model LX-11 - thirty number memory with thirty-two digit capacity - speed dialling, last nbr redial - three watt power output They ask $99 for an "optional" nicad battery with charger, plus $19. for an "optional" handsfree speakerphone. Sorry for my ignorance, but I still have an old Motorola TLD1200 IMTS unit in my storage locker which I used happily for many years. (Maybe I should get the parts I need (cable assembly to control head and battery, and the locking base plate for the trunk transceiver unit) and use it instead? Steve Pershing, System Administrator The QUESTOR PROJECT - Free Usenet News/Internet Mail; Sci, Med, AIDS, more Usenet: 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 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #120 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa10835; 16 Feb 91 22:30 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa14120; 16 Feb 91 20:58 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab00991; 16 Feb 91 19:49 CST Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 19:28:34 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #121 BCC: Message-ID: <9102161928.ab23010@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 16 Feb 91 19:28:20 CST Volume 11 : Issue 121 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson NXX Count (1-15-91) [Dave Esan] Digital Cellular Correction and Apology [John T. Ellis] Party Line Ringer [Mike DeMetz] Your Evolving Phone Number [Richard Brodsky via Asif Taiyabi] UK Operator/Special Services Codes [Andrew Yeomans] Can Email be Sent to Troops? [Volkhart Baumgaertner] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dave Esan Subject: NXX Count (1-15-91) Date: 16 Feb 91 16:09:00 GMT Organization: Moscom Corp., E. Rochester, NY Once a quarter I receive the BellCore V&H tape. Using this information I can total the number of exchanges in each area code. The twenty most populous area codes are listed below. After the written text of this article I have included the count for each of the area codes. I have not included the 52? series of area codes that are in use for Mexico, since they are not yet dialable from the US. (Note: Don't ask me when they will be dialable, I don't know although I will guess sometime after 1995.) I have not included the 82? series of area codes which include many more Mexico exchanges, as well as the non-diable locations in the NANP. 213: 729 212: 663 919: 620 714: 573 214: 718 415: 642 205: 615 206: 570 201: 694 512: 634 215: 597 501: 564 301: 690 416: 628 403: 591 604: 553 404: 667 313: 626 602: 589 703: 546 Of the top 20 NPA's we can note: (I have no details on calling patterns in those NPA's not noted, and have no information of impending splits in those NPA's). #1 213 - due to split to 310 beginning February 1, 1992. #2 214 - has split to 903. Permissive dialling will end 11/91, and number will be reduced. #3 201 - has split to 908. Permissive dialling will end this year, and number will be reduced. #4 301 - due to split to 410 beginning November, 1991. #5 404 - no plans to split at this point. I have no data on ten digit dialling for non-local calls. #6 212 - due to split to 917 sometime in 1992. #7 415 - due to split to 510 beginning October 7, 1991. #8 512 - no plans to split at this point. I have no data on ten digit dialling for non-local calls. #9 416 - no plans to split at this point. Ten digit dialling in affect for non-local calls. #10 313 - no plans to split at this point. Ten digit dialling in affect for non-local calls. #16 714 - will split to 909 beginning November 1992. Has anyone in Atlanta heard about an impending split? I thought Atlanta was a major growth area, and as #5 on the NPA chart (and rising rapidly as 201 and 214 get reduced with the end of permissive dialling) some thought must have been given. The other area codes are given below. 201: 694 304: 323 406: 338 508: 366 612: 513 714: 573 816: 444 202: 251 305: 456 407: 379 509: 234 613: 280 715: 309 817: 477 203: 477 306: 444 408: 295 512: 634 614: 398 716: 371 818: 353 204: 344 307: 149 409: 281 513: 446 615: 524 717: 466 819: 306 205: 615 308: 192 412: 414 514: 476 616: 369 718: 396 901: 219 206: 570 309: 257 413: 130 515: 403 617: 369 719: 155 902: 261 207: 332 312: 415 414: 458 516: 361 618: 324 801: 322 903: 263 208: 276 313: 626 415: 642 517: 312 619: 487 802: 175 904: 487 209: 330 314: 520 416: 628 518: 249 701: 350 803: 496 905: 306 212: 663 315: 254 417: 195 519: 342 702: 288 804: 459 906: 109 213: 729 316: 353 418: 358 601: 390 703: 546 805: 274 907: 405 214: 718 317: 413 419: 329 602: 589 704: 332 806: 255 908: 307 215: 597 318: 329 501: 564 603: 229 705: 265 807: 105 912: 318 216: 540 319: 323 502: 335 604: 553 706: 176 808: 250 913: 433 217: 354 401: 131 503: 518 605: 341 707: 176 809: 490 914: 328 218: 285 402: 403 504: 322 606: 263 708: 518 812: 273 915: 293 219: 343 403: 591 505: 307 607: 163 709: 256 813: 484 916: 405 301: 690 404: 667 506: 174 608: 242 712: 270 814: 256 918: 305 302: 108 405: 536 507: 258 609: 263 713: 536 815: 287 919: 620 303: 505 -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- David Esan de@moscom.com ------------------------------ From: John T Ellis Subject: Digital Cellular Correction and Apology Date: 16 Feb 91 16:42:56 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc. - Cellular Infrastructure Grp., Arlington Hgts, IL A few days ago, I posted the following article to this list: > Digital cellular will increase capacity in the following manner. The > first method under development (and actually being tested) is TDM - > Time Division Multiplexing. The capacity increase on paper is 3:1 (3 > times more than current analog). The other method being looked at is > CDM - Code Division Multiplexing. On paper it is said to provide an > increase of 20:1. > The biggest problem with these new technologies is the size of the > phone needed to implement them. Currently the phone designs call for > some huge ie. garbage can, phone with an unbelievable power source. > So ... digital cellular is a ways off. [text deleted] In my haste to appear knowledgable and make a contribution to this list, I gave you information that was not based on research. Rather, it was based on rumors and distorted facts. I would like to apologize to the list for my unprofessionalism. I am not in any way affiliated with Motorola's work on digitial cellular since I am an analog switch engineer. However, I wanted to share with you what little I knew and in my haste, failed to verify my information. Again, I would like to apologize and assure you that it will not happen again. Following is information I obtained from an engineer who, for a period of time, worked on the Motorola USDC project. 1. I can assure you that the digital mobile is NOT the size of a garbage can. In fact, the full-function mobile is enclosed in a Motorola FM Transciever case, about two feet by one foot by four inches. And that is only the first cut at it. I guarantee they will get smaller. The aim is a digital luggable or largish handheld. 2. TDMA = Time Division Multiple Access CDMA = Code Division Multiple Access (not multiplexing as I originally wrote) 3. The capacity increase of 3:1 is not on paper; we have shown the TDMA capability to Pactel with a working demo system. The 20:1 increase that is proposed for CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access, a form of spread sprectrum transmission) is only on paper; nobody has built a working example. 4. The biggest problems with TDMA technology is the degradation of speech quality with channel errors, and the fact that a POCKET-SIZED digital mobile is several years away. Also the great difficulty in expanding the speech compression to the final 6:1; that is the theoretical limit for this application. It was brought to my attention that my original posting gave some bad impressions of Motorola's committment to digital cellular. I would like to iterate that Motorola DOES officially support US Digitial Cellular. Finally, the information and views expressed above, in my original posting and in all future postings are my own and are not necessarily those of Motorola's. Thanks. John T. Ellis 708-632-7857 Motorola Cellular motcid!ellis@chg.mcd.mot.com ------------------------------ From: Mike DeMetz Subject: Party Line Ringer Organization: Syscon International Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 00:43:12 GMT My sister's house is on a party line system that uses some kind of frequency selector to select which house is rung on the main phone. When she tried to put in an answering machine it answered for everyone on her line. In the letter the phone company sent her telling her to disconnect they said she could by extra frequency selectors for $50. Is there any other sources for these? Can one be built easily? Is there an ID on hers that tells what frequency it is? ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 1991 13:51 EST From: Asif Taiyabi Subject: Your Evolving Phone Number Organization: Management Systems Laboratory The following article appeared in the American Heritage of Invention and Technology. ************** Your Evolving Phone Number BY RICHARD BRODSKY More and more commercial phone numbers are being advertised with a name or word as part of the number. We are urged to dial 335-DIET or 970-LOAN. This is a small historical regression, requiring the use of letters that the phone company made obsolete decades ago. Where did the old alphanumeric dial plate come from? Most of the world never used letters. And where did it go? The story begins in the telephone's infancy. At first, central-office operators sat at switchboards, completing connections in response to spoken requests like "Ring Dr. Smith, please." There were few enough phone lines so the operator simply knew where to plug in for the call. That began to change during an outbreak of the measles in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1879. The town doctor, Moses Parker, feared that if all four Lowell operators fell ill, their substitutes would have trouble connecting people unless every line got a number. The idea caught on. In the 1880s telephone service quadrupled in the nation's settled areas. Cities soon had not only a central office and phone numbers but exchanges in other parts of town, so callers now asked for Main or Central plus the subscriber's several-digit number. Branch exchanges usually took their names from their relative geography. St. Louis had Main and Central; Baltimore, Eastern; and San Francisco, West. As new exchanges proliferated, they usually took their names from streets or neighborhoods: thus Brooklyn's Bensonhurst, Los Angeles's Hollywood, and Boston's Commonwealth. Bell devised phonetic tests to help make sure only easily understood names were chosen. By the time dialed calling was introduced in the Bell System, in 1921, the exchange names were so ingrained that Bell Telephone kept them on. William G. Blauvelt of AT&T had divided the alphabet into groups of three letters for each of the dial's openings in 1917. He omitted Q because of its infrequency, and the rarely used Z was relegated to the zero (operator) slot and eventually dropped as well. Because c single phone-number pulse could be transmitted when the receiver lifted or the finger wheel was jarred, no calls would be initiated until a pulse signal of at least 2 was received. Thus the number 1 got no letters attached to it. Dialing swept the nation, but only large cities used exchange name dialing; in small towns one still had only to dial a three- or four-digit number. For instance, in Walnut Creek, California, if your number was 1407, locally you dialed 1407. From out of town you asked for Walnut Creek 1407. Across the bay in San Francisco, if you wanted Sutter 1407, you would dial SU-1407; from afar you'd dial 211 for the longlines operator and say, "I'd like San Francisco, please: Sutter 1407." When neighborhood and street names started to run out, the Bell System recommended new names. Bell of Pennsylvania looked to trees, so Pittsburgh and Philadelphia wound up in the 1930s with shared names like Locust, Poplar, and Walnut. Seven-digit numbers became standard only after World War II. New York City had pioneered them in the early 1930s when it began inserting an "exchange-designation number" after the two- letter exchange prefix. Thus were born numbers like CAnal 6-5108. By the mid-1950s all other major cities were converted to this system, retiring such diverse combinations as Chicago's three letters and four digits, Cleveland's two letters and four digits, and Dallas's one letter and four digits. In 1961, Bell Telephone announced that it would phase out exchange name dialing city by city. Pittsburgh and Cincinnati began conversion in, 1962; Philadelphia and Seattle were the last to change, in 1978. The now classic combination of two letters and five numbers had been a fully national standard for less than a decade. All-number calling was introduced for several reasons. Mainly, there weren't enough workable letter combinations. Exchanges like 571 had stayed unavailable because letters like JKL (5) and PRS(7) wouldn't combine. All-number calling also eliminated confusingly spelled exchanges like New York's RHinelander, prevented mix ups between similar letters and numbers like O and 0, and made possible direct dialing from Europe and other parts of the world. Most countries had never had letters on their dials. The old central-office names are gone from the phone book, but they resonate in memory. They seem to stand for an era - the era of Glenn Miller's "Pennsylvania 6-5000," of John O'Hara's Butterfield 8, and of Barbara Stanwyck's closely clutched list of phone numbers in the chilling 1948 film Sorry, Wrong Number. 335-DIET just isn't the same. ******************* Richard Brodsky is a medical librarian and collector of telephone memorabilia in Pittsburgh. ******************* Asif Taiyabi Management Systems Lab. (703) 231-3501 1900 Kraft Drive aat@vtmsl.bitnet Blacksburg, VA 24060 aat%vtmsl@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu [Moderator's Note: Thanks for sending this along. The oldest exchange in Chicago (312-236) comes from 1879 when there was but one exchange and it was known as the 'central'. When a second office opened, it was across the downtown area on Franklin Street (312-372), so it became known as Franklin and the original retained the name Central. These evolved into FRAnklin and CENtral when manual service was phased out and dialing started (1939). When 3-L / 5-D changed to 2-L / 6-D these became CEntral-6 and FRanklin-2, then a quarter century ago the final (or most recent) change took place. The opening of the phone office at Wabash Avenue and Congress Parkway downtown about 1890 brought us WABash which is now 312-922. Many people *were* conrfused by the names; they often dialed HP for Hyde Park instead of HY, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: andrew yeomans Subject: UK Operator/Special Services Codes Date: 14 Feb 91 16:13:46 GMT Reply-To: andrew yeomans Organization: Crosfield Ltd., Hemel Hempstead, United Kingdom Does anyone have a list of the operator services, special access codes, etc for the UK? I've listed the ones I know about below: 100 Operator services 131 Mercury access (+ 10-digit PIN + number) 142 London area directory enquiries (from London area only) 144 Chargecard (+ 8-digit PIN + number) 150 Customer service 151 Fault repair service 153 International + fax directory enquiries 155 International operator 158 International conference calls 16 Cricketline / Discline 174 Ringback number 175 Subscribers Automatic Line Test (SALT) (+ number + 1305) 190 TeleMessage (London, Birmingham, Glasgow) 191 General call enquiries (eg tones + announcements) 192 Directory enquiries 999 Emergency Andrew Yeomans | UUCP: ajy@cel.uucp or ..!{ukc,mcsun,uunet}!cel!ajy Crosfield Electronics Ltd | PSTN: +44 442 230000 X 3371 Fax: +44 442 232301 Three Cherry Trees Lane | These opinions are MINE, all MINE! Hemel Hempstead | Ps 66: "Thou broughtest us into the net; Herts, HP2 7RH, England | thou laidst affliction upon our loins." ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 21:24:32 EST From: Volkhart Baumgaertner Subject: Can Email be Sent to Troops? I'm sorry if I am asking something that may have been answered in the Digest before, but I was abroad for a while and unable to read it. I have heard that there is an Internet or Bitnet address that allows one to send e-mail to soldiers in Saudi-Arabia. Friends of mine would like to send mail to their relatives in units down there. So if anybody has information on the address and procedure I'd be most grateful if he'd share it with me. Volkhart Baumgaertner Internet:T720019@univscvm.csd.scarolina.edu Bitnet :T720019@univscvm ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #121 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa13006; 17 Feb 91 0:48 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa05123; 16 Feb 91 23:07 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa27835; 16 Feb 91 22:00 CST Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 21:14:40 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #122 BCC: Message-ID: <9102162114.ab29146@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 16 Feb 91 21:14:25 CST Volume 11 : Issue 122 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson FCC Proposed Rule Changes; Equal Access [Bill Bernbenich; Tom Coradeschi] Cordless Phones: Are Any 'Secure' From Handset to Base? [Callaghan] ISDN Frame Relay Tariff [Johnny Zweig] Cellular Phone Problems [Kerry Neef] One-Number Card Warning [Steve Forrette] A Good Source for Low Cost 48V Power Supplies [Kendall Miller] Salute to a Very Helpful Service Rep [Bob Hofkin] Is 1 + 703 Gone After This Year? [Bob Hofkin] Data Call / Fax Call Test in Canada [Rick Mills] Request for Modem Software [David Moscovitz] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bill Subject: FCC Proposed Rule Changes; Equal Access Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 14:01:38 EST Reply-To: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu [Moderator's Note: Bill Berbenich sent this from the AP wire; Tom Coradeschi sent the same story from the {Star Ledger} on Thursday. My thanks to both of you. PAT] WASHINGTON (AP) -- Travelers fed up with high long-distance phone charges at airports, hotels and other public places would get a break under new rules proposed by the Federal Communications Commission. The prospective rules, unveiled at a commission meeting Wednesday, would guarantee travelers easier access to the long-distance company they use at home. That means anyone making "dial 0" calls could avoid using so-called operator services companies that have rates that may be two or three times what major long-distance carriers such as American Telephone & Telegraph Co., MCI and US Sprint charge. The agency also invited public comment on a plan to compensate owners of pay phones from which some long-distance calls are made. The commission also: -- Proposed either changing or eliminating rules that prohibit companies offering cellular telephone service from also selling equipment. The companies could not require customers to purchase equipment to receive service. -- Decided to consider whether it will preempt some local statutes that outlaw mobile scanners. Some cities and states forbid mobile scanners because they can pick up police, fire and ambulance channels. But some FCC-licensed ham radio operators have been fined and their equipment confiscated for violations. Congress, in last year's Telephone Operator Consumer Services Improvement Act, required the FCC to design a plan to ensure that people using hotel and public telephones have access to the long-distance carriers they choose. In many cases, coin and hotel phones owners, called aggregators, route all calls to a single operator services company, which has a contract with long-distance carriers that actually carry the calls. The phone owners usually receive a commission, which can be as high as twenty percent, from the operator company for each call made. But customers have complained about the high cost of some of the calls and about not being able to use their presubscribed long distance companies. "Even as we speak, there are people in the Atlanta airport beating on the walls and banging on telephones trying to figure out how to get access to their long-distance companies," Commissioner Ervin Duggin said. The commission could force all long distance carriers to set up either 800- or 950-prefix telephone numbers for a customer to use in gaining access to their systems. Or it could require that public phones allow a customer to dial the "10XXX" access code assigned to his company. US Sprint's access code, for instance, is 10333. The proposed rules would give aggregators a year to unblock access to 10XXX numbers at pay phones. Hotel and other internal phone systems would be given three years to allow access to 10XXX numbers. If they replaced their equipment before then, they would have to make the change at that time. MCI and US Sprint customers already can use either 800 or 950 numbers or dial a 10XXX access code. But AT&T depends solely on the access code. That company has lobbied the FCC to require 10XXX access, saying it would cost as much as $50 million to develop and $250 million a year to operate an 800 access number. "It would be costly for us to set up an 800 network," AT&T spokesman Jim McGann said. Aggregators have worried that unblocking access to 10XXX numbers could lead to fraud. Some local phone systems can't distinguish between charge or collect calls and direct-dialed calls. The owner of the phone could be stuck with the charges from a direct-dialed call. The FCC also must decide whether pay phone owners should be compensated for the access calls. Currently, anyone using an access number pays only the long-distance company. The North American Telecommunications Association has asked that the owners be allowed to charge 25 cents for each call. Bill Berbenich bill@eedsp.gatech.edu Georgia Tech, School of Electrical Engineering -- and -- Tom Coradeschi ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 07:50:27 PST From: callaghan@bss.enet.dec.com Subject: Cordless Phones: Are any 'Secure' From Handset to Base Question: Are there any 'secure' cordless phones?? After reading the recent comparisons/comments/conversations around cordless phones I've not seen much on any models (nor have I found any* vendors) who offer some sort of secure link between handset and base (I.E. scramble, digitized, etc..) Since cordless phones are SO open, and you can bet that someone may be listening, I would consider this a BIG plus that could help a vendor succeed over competitors in the marketspace. Last summer's court case ( {Wall Street Journal} Aug ??) where an individual (while eavesdropping via scanner on a cordless) gained enough info to help get his neighbor arrested/tried for conspiracy (of all things) is definitely enough for me to want to search out at least a cheap sideband addon, or go back to the 500 foot extension cord. Any product suggestions, comments, insights are eagerly requested. [Moderator's Note: Back in my CB radio days many years ago, I used to frustrate the neighbors by talking on sideband rather than AM. They could still hear sounds coming from their television on channel 2 (and indeed, they would say 'it must be Pat on the radio again', but at least they couldn't understand what I was talking about! :) All they got were 'Donald Duck sounds', as any of you radio guys will attest who've heard a sideband transmission while tuned to AM. Too bad the cordless phone manufacturers can't scramble their signal or at least use lower / upper sideband, etc ... that would fix the majority of the snoops, although a dedicated person would tune up the ham rig and listen anyway. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Johnny Zweig Subject: ISDN Frame Relay Tariff Reply-To: zweig@cs.uiuc.edu Organization: U of Ill., Dept. of Computer Science, Systems Research Group Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 01:50:02 GMT I heard awhile back (and posted a question or two) about ISDN Frame Relay service in which I treat my local central office as a packet-switch and dump HDLC frames (recall they have eught-bit addresses in them) onto the B-channel of my ISDN BRI and let the switch figure out how to get them where they need to go. I assume there must be some kind of virtual-circuit negotiation on the D-channel to set up the mapping from 8-bit HDCL frame identifiers to ISDN phone numbers (according to Hardwick's book there are both an 8-bit Terminal Endpoint Identifier (address) and an eight-bit Service Access Point Identifier (kind of like a port/protocol-ID) in each HDLC frame). Anyway, rumor has it (actually it was Van Jacobson who said it so it is something more than a mere rumor) that the tariff for this service in the Bay Area will be a flat monthly rate. I would imagine this is more that they haven't actually passed tariffs for it yet than that they think this is a sensible way to bill for a service likely to get used for things like NFS which would send loads-o-frames. Anyway, I could imagine a charge-structure based on a monthly rate, a per-connection charge, a call-duration charge, a per-frame charge, a per-kilobyte charge, or any combination thereof. I don't know how long HDLC frames can be in any actual systems (there is usually a limit, but Hardwick implies it caries from system to system), but I would assume that there is a big difference in per-packet vs. per-kilobyte charging. I am still a little hazy on which kind of stuff (HDLC frames, circuit switched data, etc.) is travelling on which channels at which times (I imagine that 64-kbps circuit switched vs. frame relay is a call setup option...) but if anyone knows of any proposed or actual schemes for charging ISDN users -- especially for frame-relay, since I imagine that will be a big thing for those of us who envision using ISDN to run workstations at home over -- I would love to hear about them. Johnny ISDN ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 07:40:31 EST From: Kerry Neef Subject: Cellular Phone Problems Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories This is an appeal to the collective net wisdom to see if anyone can shed some light on what is causing my wife's car phone to break up. Very frequently, when I talk to her on the phone, the call is very garbled. She has been told by a number of people that she consistently has the worst connection they have heard. The phone is an Audiovox. Fairly expensive - $800 to $900 approximately two and a half years ago. She has had it in three times and the service people say they can't find anything wrong with it. I don't know whether they are giving her the run around, is there something I need to make them check or does this phone or model have some inherent problem. I would appreciate any help. Kerry J. Neef neef@iwtdv.att.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 00:46:18 -0800 From: Steve Forrette Subject: One-Number Card Warning As our Moderator indicated in a previous message, there is a big danger in giving out your AT&T and/or BOC "one number" calling card number - some carriers will allow it to be used to complete a call to *any* destination. The charges will appear on your local phone bill. And if you have an unrestricted calling card on the same account, it will be difficult for you to dispute the calls. One carrier that is notorious for this is ComSystems. I have been quite involved in trying to get them to enforce the "one number" card restrictions, but haven't gotten anywhere. What makes it worse is that they have a 10XXX access code, so someone can use a one number card to call to anywhere from *any* phone they might be using. Note that it isn't that they just aren't verifying the PIN, as a PIN that's neither the normal nor the "one number" one will be denied. As a side note, the first test call I made to confirm the above was to an out-of-service number. Despite the lack of supervision, the call was billed for three minutes, at a rate of $3.50 or so. What a bargain! I stumbled upon a packet that ComSystems had sent my living group regarding our payphone - they wanted us to switch it to their service. The packet is two years old now, but probably not much has changed. Our comission for the first three months was a full 50% of all 0+ calls, and 20% thereafter. They sure must be marking up the cost of the calls in order to provide such a handsome commission! Steve Forrette, forrette@cory.berkeley.edu [Moderator's Note: I of course would not tolerate that sort of thing on my bill for a minute. *Any* 'part three' on my IBT billing which comes from some AOS *always* gets denied immediatly with a warning not to pull that stunt again on me if they know what is good for them. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kendall miller Subject: A Good Source For Low Cost 48V Power Supplies Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 07:30:18 MST Organization: Datalog Consulting, Tucson, AZ If you are looking for a low cost 48V power supply for telecom work, MCM Electronics has some on sale. Here are the specs: Output voltage: 48 Volts DC Output current: 3 Amps Input voltage: 120 Volts AC Input current: 3 Amps (needs external fuse for protection) Manufacturer: Power-One Model: CP585 Type: Linear - Open frame Size (approximate): 9" x 5" x 3.5" Weight: 7 lbs. 13 ozs. MCM part no: 58-135 Price: $12.75 I purchased two of the units. Both appeared to be unused and in their original boxes. Oct 22 1987 is stamped on the inside of the units. I tested both of them and they seemed to work fine. MCM has a minimum order of $25.00 for credit cards and $20.00 for checks in advance or COD orders. My order for two came out to a total of $35.00 with shipping charges. MCM Electronics 800-543-4330 513-434-0031 Disclaimer: I have no connection with MCM Electronics except as a recent customer. Kendall Miller kendall@datalog.com 602-797-8660 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 11:02 EST From: Bob Hofkin Subject: Saluting a Very Helpful Service Rep Two years ago, C&P set up an "extended calling plan" that charges message units rather than tolls for some nearby calls. Shortly thereafter, I noticed that many of my calls were being rated in the wrong zone (in fact some of the charges were inpossible -- there were no exchanges that I could call in that zone). When I complained, a very nice lady at the business office added my bill to a list she checks and corrects by hand every month. She is STILL doing this! Bob Hofkin ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 11:02 EST From: Bob Hofkin Subject: Is 1 + 703 Gone After This Year? According to the new (January 1991) Northern Virginia white pages, the 1 + 703 dialing for calls outside of the metro area will go away on March 1, 1991. I thought this wasn't supposed to happen until 1992. Haven't had time to check it out yet. Bob Hofkin ------------------------------ From: rick mills Subject: DataCall / FaxCall Test in Canada Organization: Contact Public Unix BBS. Toronto, Canada. Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 15:36:29 GMT Up here in Canada, Bell Cellular is testing a new system called FaxCall and DataCall. It allows you to receive/send data from your Portable PC or facsimile machine for much less that a normal voice call. Right now however, they are testing it until April 15th and up until then you can use the service free of charge, no sign-up fee, etc. The only thing is I don't know how I can hook up my portable to my Motorola car-phone! Is there some special device I must use, as I would be interested in trying this out. rmills@contact.uucp ------------------------------ From: Dave Moskovitz Subject: Request for TTY Modem Software Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 09:29 I recently purchased a TTY modem (45.5 / 50 baud) for use with TDDs (Telecommunication Devices for the Deaf). The software that came with it (PC-TDDA) is written by Phone-TTY, Inc. of Hackensack NJ, written in BASIC, and rather light on function. They don't distribute source code. It is not Hayes-compatible. Does anyone out there have any software to drive one of these goodies? Ultimately, I'd like to be in a position to set up a BBS for use by TDDs. Can anyone help? Dave Moskovitz Victoria University of Wellington mosko@matai.vuw.ac.nz ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #122 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa15723; 17 Feb 91 2:43 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa06756; 17 Feb 91 1:13 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa22255; 17 Feb 91 0:07 CST Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 23:49:19 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #123 BCC: Message-ID: <9102162349.ab27466@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sat, 16 Feb 91 23:49:08 CST Volume 11 : Issue 123 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Are You Behind on Your Sprint Bill? [TELECOM Moderator, many others] Why I Chose Sprint for my 800 Carrier [Nicholas J. Simicich] Sprint Compensation Ruling is Overturned [News-Sentinal via R. Shuford] Re: "Wrong Number" Book: Is it Accurate? [David Michels] Re: Mid Atlantic Telecom - How do I Reach Them? [Mark Oberg] Re: "Most Accurate Clock" [Brian Crawford] Re: SONET Protocol Information Needed [Vance Shipley] Re: Two Questions From a Novice [Jim Redelf] Re: How Will Digital Cellular Increase Capacity? [Rolf Meier] The Year Was 1960 (was Allied / Radio Shack) [cowan%snark@uunet.uu.net] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Re: Are You Behind on Your Sprint Bill? Date: Sat, 16 Feb 1991 04:47:39 GMT David Ptasnik writes: > It would appear that anyone who knows your telephone number can get > information about your Sprint account. Just call 1-800-877-4646, pick > menu choices 1, 1, put in an area code and phone number, and up pops > current account info. And I Noted: > [Moderator's Note: It appears there have already been some changes > made. Choice '1' is no longer available from within the top level > choice '1'. You press '1' to get automated information, but when you > do the menu therein now starts with choice '2'. Several of you replied, including Syd Weinstein ; David Ptasnik ; Nicholas J. Simicich ; and David E. Sheafer . The response below from Syd Weinstein was typical: > Must have been a glitch, Pat, It works as David said from here, I > just tried it and called up several people's accounts. I tried it today and also got the (now infamous) 'choice one'. I assume what may happen is if the billing computer is down for updates, etc, then choice one is temporarily not offered. Thanks to all who pointed this out and confirmed Sprint is still giving everyone's account information to anyone who calls, whether they are entitled to the information or not. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 14:36:47 EST From: "Nicholas J. Simicich" Subject: Why I Chose Sprint for my 800 Carrier There was recently a set of articles on personal 800 service, comparing Cable and Wireless's 800 service with MCI. I called C&W, and then decided to shop around. Sprint's 800 service also had the installation fee waived, had just about the same per minute rates as C&W (funny how that works) but didn't allow you to get 800 calls from Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands. Sprint did, however, allow you to get 800 calls from Canada (an option that you select) and also included a listing in 800 Directory assistance for the base fee of ten dollars. Thus, I decided that for my purposes, Sprint was a better deal, as I could get a listing for my base ten dollars per month, whereas with C&W, a number and a listing would have cost me twenty dollars per month. And since Sprint will reprogram your 800 number to a different line without fee if your phone number changes or because you want to add an additional line for the 800 number to ring on, it wasn't worth it to me to have reprogram on demand. I guess it depends on what is more important to you? If being able to remotely reprogram your 800 number target is more important than being able to get calls from Canada, C&W might be better. If having an inexpensive listing is more important, go with Sprint. Compared to my past experiences in dealing with Sprint, I found that this was right pleasant. All except for the people who were going to tell me my 800 number after it was turned up. They left me a number to call, so I called it. It was evening, and I got a recording telling me the correct hours, and asking me to leave a message. I called again the next day, during the indicated hours, and got a "all available customer service representatives are busy, please hold" and then music on hold. Then, after holding for a couple of minutes, the m-o-h changed to a ring, and it picked up, and lo! it was the same answering machine that I had gotten the previous night, letting me know that their hours were (while I was calling). I tried this a couple of times and finally got a person. I suspect that the answering machine was just getting one of their trunks. I never got calls back from the two or three messages I left. Nick Simicich (NJS at WATSON, njs@ibm.com) -- SSI AOWI #3958, HSA #318 ------------------------------ From: Richard Shuford Subject: Sprint Compensation Ruling is Overturned Organization: University of Tennessee, Knoxville -- Dept. of Computer Science Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 17:04:32 GMT [From _The_Knoxville_News-Sentinel_, Thursday, 14 February A.D. 1991, p. A3.] [reproduced under copyright doctrine of "fair use"] Sprint Compensation Ruling Is Overturned by Skip Lackey The [Tennessee] Court of Appeals has overturned an Anderson County Chancery Court ruling that would have let U.S. Sprint Communications install a fiber-optic network on private property without compensating landowners. John B. Rayson, attorney for U.S. Sprint in Knoxville, said Wednesday he will likely appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court. Donald K. Vowell, Knoxville attorney for the plaintiffs, said a statewide class- action lawsuit could give thousands of Tennessee landowners millions of dollars in damages. Court documents state that in 1988 U.S. Sprint constructed an under- ground fiber-optic cable network across the Southeast, burying it about 42 inches underground within a railway company's right of way. Court documents state that, in Tennessee, the network runs along 230 miles of railway easements from Crossville to the eastern border of Tennessee. Documents also state that U.S. Sprint agreed to pay Norfolk Southern Railway Company and Southern Railway Company for use of the easements at a cost of $1200 per mile per year for 25 years. The agreement left some Anderson County landowners without compensation. They filed a class-action lawsuit against U.S. Sprint. Appeals Judges William H. Inman, Clifford E. Sanders, and Don T. McMurray agreed that the railway companies had the right to grant U.S. Sprint a license to use the easements that run along private property. The judges said that the railway companies own the easements, but they do not own the underlying property, the documents state. Therefore, the railway companies did not have the right to grant the use of the underlying property that belongs to the landowners, the judges said. Furthermore, the installation of an underground telecommunications network was an additional burden on the plaintiffs' property to the detriment of the landowners, court documents state. The Appeals Court ruling sends the lawsuit back to Anderson County where a chancellor must determine if the matter can be certified as a class-action lawsuit. The chancellor must also decide damages. [Although its county seat is Clinton, Anderson County's best known municipality is Oak Ridge.] Richard S. Shuford shuford@cs.utk.edu BIX: richard ------------------------------ From: michels@tramp.Colorado.EDU (MICHELS DAVID) Subject: Re: "Wrong Number" Book: Is it Accurate? Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder Date: Sat, 16 Feb 1991 07:09:43 GMT The best book I have read on the subject is: "The Deal of the Century" by Steven Coll. I think Coll did a great job of presenting the story without a bias. The book was very interesting/entertaining to read. Also, "Telecommunications in Turmoil" by Gerald Faulhaber is pretty good at presenting the facts of the break-up. It is not as complete as Deal, but gets thru the whole thing much quicker and presents good arguments for both sides on all of the major issues. Dave ------------------------------ From: Mark Oberg Subject: Re: Mid Atlantic Telecom - How do I Reach Them? Date: 16 Feb 91 04:33:37 GMT Organization: Eric's PC Beltsville, MD In article <74342@bu.edu.bu.edu> "Henry E. Schaffer" writes: > The Subject says it all - the 800 number file in the archives says > they control a prefix I'm interested in, but I don't know how to get > in touch. Does anyone know? Mid Atlantic Telecom is located in the Washington DC area. I don't have the phone number handy but can look it up if you'll call me at my office [301-381-8588]. BTW, I'm not sure that Mid-Atlantic covers the Carolinas; they are a regional carrier. Pat and Telecom readers: I'd be interested in hearing any tales of other regional carriers or "carrier's carriers" you've run across. I was very surprised to find a lot of activity in that end of the business. Mark Oberg - Voice: NATel, Inc. (301)381-8588 UUCP: uunet!grout!mark Fidonet: 1:109/506 & 1:261/1067 BBS: No Place Like Home - (301) 596-6450 & (301) 730-9072 ------------------------------ From: Brian Crawford Subject: Re: "Most Accurate Clock" Date: 16 Feb 91 17:25:21 GMT Organization: Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ In article , paulf@shasta.stanford.edu (Paul A. Flaherty) writes: > We use one at Stanford to provide backup NTP service (our primary > source is a more stable reference we receive via BARRNET). I would be interested to know more about this BARRNET service. Could you offer details? Why it's more accurate than the clock? Brian Crawford INTERNET (current): crawford@enuxha.eas.asu.edu PO Box 804 (permanent): crawford@stjhmc.fidonet.org Tempe, Arizona 85280 FidoNet: 1:114/15.12 USA Amateur: KL7JDQ ------------------------------ From: Vance Shipley Subject: Re: SONET Protocol Information Needed Organization: SwitchView Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 01:28:30 GMT In article <74391@bu.edu.bu.edu> uflorida!novavax!gls@gatech.edu (Gary Schaps) writes: > I am preparing to do a descriptive/programming project on SONET for a > graduate course in network modeling and analysis. Would anyone like to > help me locate the protocol (standard) and any other literature which > might prove useful? Thank you. For a very descriptive article on SONET and the new S/DMS Central Office equipment (Northern Telecom's SONET DMS) get a copy of the last (i believe) edition of {Telesis}. {Telesis} is a publication by BNR (Bell Northern Research) available to people working in telecom free of charge! I have a subscription at work so if you need help finding it mail me there. Vance Shipley SwitchView vances@ltg.on.ca.UUCP !uunet!watmath!xenitec!ltg!vances ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 03:27:52 PDT From: Jim Redelfs Subject: Re: Two Questions From a Novice Reply-To: jim.redelfs@iugate.unomaha.edu Christopher Wolf wrote: > What are the specified voltages that occur on the phone lines during > its normal operating phases? Speaking only of POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) - my only area of "expertise", normal dialtone current varies between 48-52 VDC. Ringing current is around 100 VAC. > Also, how can so many people's conversations be transmitted over so > few wires, such as in the city, where there are only so many wires on > the poles? Cable, my friend ... cable. I suspect that the "wires" you see are either electrical (not telephone) or telephone cables. Most MAJOR cities have the bulk of their LARGE cables buried or in conduit underground. 900-pair cables (900 individual "lines") are common in my area (Omaha), but the lesser, "distribution" cables, usually 100-pairs or less, are commonly found hanging between rows of houses or along alleys. Multiplexing, or carrying multiple conversations on a single pair, is an aging, but widely used, technology - especially between Central Office switches. Telephone voice frequencys are very narrow (low fidelity) and, therefore, several can be allocated to the various frequencies available on a single, copper pair. As existing, copper-pair cable facilities reach their capacity, the solution is to either place more cable, or install "Pair Gain" systems. One used in my specific service area is called SLC96 (Slick-96) where, through the use of special equipment on BOTH ends of the cable, 96 "pairs" are achieved on the end by using FOUR, physical pairs of wire. Optical fiber cable is fast replacing large, copper-wire cable. This is a whole different ballgame -- transmitting thousands of conversations, digitally, on a beam of light! JR Copernicus V1.02 Elkhorn, NE [200:5010/666.14] (200:5010/2.14) ------------------------------ From: Rolf Meier Subject: Re: How Will Digital Cellular Increase Capacity? Date: 16 Feb 91 14:18:55 GMT Organization: Mitel. Kanata (Ontario). Canada. In article <16804@accuvax.nwu.edu> John T Ellis writes: > Digital cellular will increase capacity in the following manner. The > first method under development (and actually being tested) is TDM - > Time Division Multiplexing. The capacity increase on paper is 3:1 (3 > times more than current analog). The other method being looked at is > CDM - Code Division Multiplexing. On paper it is said to provide an > increase of 20:1. Neither of these methods increases the capacity of digital modulation compared to analog modulation. The REAL reason for capacity increase for digital modulation is that low bit-rate encoding (8 kb) has been proposed for digital cellular. In addition, digital modulation allows for better-defined cell boundaries, due to the increased "capture" quality of digital modulation. All the CDM proposals employ low-bit rate encoding. This confuses the issue when trying to compare it to other methods of modulation which may use 32 kb encoding. Rolf Meier Mitel Corporation ------------------------------ From: cowan%snark@uunet.uu.net Subject: The Year Was 1960 (was Allied Radio / Radio Shack) Date: 16 Feb 91 20:25:30 GMT In <16813@accuvax.nwu.edu> Our Esteemed Moderator writes: > I had fun too! Do I wish it was 1960 again, or what? :) PAT] What, 1960? No cellular phones? No cordless phones? No VCRs? No PCs? No ATMs? Arrgh. :-) [Moderator's Note: Not only no PC's, but relatively few computers. No handheld calculators. No international direct dialed calls. We were just starting to have direct dialed domestic long distance calls. Lots and lots of communities in the USA still had manual telephone systems. (The last COs in Chicago to go dial were cut in 1951.) No modems, no color television. Very few answering machines. No digital clocks, but lots of Western Union clocks in every office, school and other public building. I graduated from high school in 1960. My final year in high school and for awhile afterward I worked for the University of Chicago ion the old phone room, operating the telex machine and the switchboard, which was a 19-position ringdown style cord board. All that summer I worked the overnight shift by myself. Typewriters were mechanical and operated by the force of your fingers on the keys. Chicago was a very lovely city, as was New York when I flew there for shows and shopping a couple times each year. Yes, I'd go back to 1960 anytime, provided I could take my 1990's knowledge with me! :) PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #123 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa17736; 17 Feb 91 3:51 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa31094; 17 Feb 91 2:19 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab06756; 17 Feb 91 1:13 CST Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 0:35:38 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #124 BCC: Message-ID: <9102170035.ab25916@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 17 Feb 91 00:35:24 CST Volume 11 : Issue 124 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Should Projects be Connected to the Phone Line? [Jeff Carroll] Re: Should Projects be Connected to the Phone Line? [Julian Macassey] Re: Should Projects be Connected to the Phone Line? [Jeff Sicherman] Re: "Independent" Coin Phones [Jeff Sicherman] Re: "Independent" Coin Phones [John Higdon] Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? [Mark Brader] Re: Unwanted Three-Way Calling Symptom [Steve Kass] Re: Wanted: Recommendations For Small Key-System [John Higdon] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jeff Carroll Subject: Re: Should Projects be Connected to the Phone Line? Date: 17 Feb 91 00:43:18 GMT Reply-To: Jeff Carroll Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics In article <74667@bu.edu.bu.edu> atn@cory.berkeley.edu (Alan Nishioka) writes: > However, in response to my article, John Higdon brought up a problem > that had been bothering me. He said that my project SHOULD comply > with the various parts of the FCC rules since it needed to connect > directly to the phone network. He's right, legally speaking. The FCC is pretty specific about what you can connect to the PSTN, for a good reason - because in our deregulated telecom environment, they're the only ones who can be. > Now, many books and magazines regularly publish projects that connect > to the phone line. Even the usually respectable TELECOM Digest > recently published several such projects. I don't think any of them > have been certified anything by anyone. Most if not all of them are illegal. The more savvy publishers and kit-sellers (e.g., Radio Shack) will *tell* you not to connect these things to the PSTN - that they are just fine to connect to your in-house intercom, but shouldn't be connected to your phone wires. > I see two issues involved: One of safety (to craftspersons, etc. ) and > the other of just following the rules. I can see if I were going to > sell these devices that I would be interested in both, but as a > hobbyist I am mostly interested in the first. There's a third issue - protecting the integrity of the network. As a telephone subscriber, you consume an amount of network resources. In order to keep the cost of billing within the troposphere, telco doesn't go to the trouble of measuring many of the resources you use such as seconds of dial tone, number of unsuccessful calls, local office battery power consumed, etc. This does not mean that you are granted a license to use these resources wantonly, carelessly, or in such a way as to impair the quality of service delivered to other subscribers, or to make it unreasonably costly for telco to provide you service. In a circuit-switched network, it is pretty hard for one subscriber to impair another's service, unless it's by calling that subscriber repeatedly and continuously. (Assuming that everyone has private lines.) In other kinds of network, it's a lot easier; witness what broadcast storms or sendmail worms can do to a LAN or an Internet. In Europe (particularly in the Netherlands), the PTT has serious problems with pirate broadcasters setting up shop on the cable TV network. Now, I'm not trying to tell you that you can't attach your well-designed, well-built project to the PSTN; I'm just trying to explain to you why telco is justified in cutting you off or seeking legal remedies when your non-certified device causes chaos in the central office. > I understand there are network interface devices that one can buy and > thus have any device automatically safe and certified to connect to a > line, but these are out of my budget. I also don't see how they make > that much of a difference. They make a difference because they (at least to the engineers at the FCC) prevent you from degrading the network. Note to flamers: I'm not suggesting that telco has the Public Interest primarily or even significantly at heart. Nor am I suggesting that Judge Greene knows anything about technology. Nor am I suggesting that just because the FCC says something makes it so. I'm just pointing out that system engineering is what it is, and in order for a system to work, one needs to respect the designers' intentions. Jeff Carroll carroll@ssc-vax.boeing.com ------------------------------ From: Julian Macassey Subject: Re: Should Projects be Connected to the Phone Line? Date: 16 Feb 91 15:43:33 GMT Reply-To: Julian Macassey Organization: The Hole in the Wall Hollywood California U.S.A. In article <74667@bu.edu.bu.edu> atn@cory.berkeley.edu (Alan Nishioka) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 114, Message 4 of 10 > However, in response to my article, John Higdon brought up a problem > that had been bothering me. He said that my project SHOULD comply > with the various parts of the FCC rules since it needed to connect > directly to the phone network. Stuff deleted > I see two issues involved: One of safety (to craftspersons, etc. ) and > the other of just following the rules. I can see if I were going to > sell these devices that I would be interested in both, but as a > hobbyist I am mostly interested in the first. This comes up every now and again. Yes, if you interpret the rules as a paper pusher, you can't attach anything to the line that isn't certified as meeting FCC Part 68. But then how would you design and test a device in order to take a "production model" of it to take to an FCC lab for testing? This is obviously silly and not the intent of the regs. So yes, although it is by the book illegal, you can make one of devices for your own use. The telephone police are unlikely to call. If you want to make it availble to the public as a product, get it FCC certified or the telephone police will pay a visit. Of course if a device violates some of the FCC rules, it may not work very well. The rules are there partly as a quality check. But you don't have to be worried about stuff like REN measuremnt if you have nothing attached when the phone is on hook etc. Now the "damage to the network" myth. If you attach anything strange to your phone line, the only part of the network liable to be put out of commission is your phone line. If you short the line you will busy it out. If you open the line, it will look like there is no phone attached. It is much, much more dangerous to mess with mains electricity, yet people do that all the time. Yes, if you really mess with electricity, the whole street can go dark. Yes, you can build your own electrical devices and connect them. Funny world isn't it? Please tinker with your phones and equipment. It is the best way to learn. It is hard to kill yourself playing with phones. It is hard to cause fires playing with phones. I wish I could say the same about mains electricity. Julian Macassey, n6are julian@bongo.info.com ucla-an!denwa!bongo!julian N6ARE@N6YN (Packet Radio) n6are.ampr.org [44.16.0.81] voice (213) 653-4495 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 14:15:10 -0800 From: Jeff Sicherman Subject: Re: Should Projects be Connected to the Phone Line? Organization: Cal State Long Beach This may be a dumb question but ... Is there any device that one could insert in place of or on the customer side of the Network Interface that would serve the functions for protecting the phone company equipment and employees from any real or imagined damage from faulty project design or construction ? Would such device prevent the CO from detecting the attached equip- ment and would it meet the FCC regulatory requirements ? Jeff Sicherman ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 00:00:00 From: Jeff Sicherman Subject: Re: "Independent" Coin Phones Organization: Cal State Long Beach In article msa3b!kevin@gatech.edu (Kevin P. Kleinfelter) writes: >john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: >> On Feb 10 at 1:21, TELECOM Moderator writes: >>> And now the more you shop around; the more you use the >>> competition, the better telco and 'genuine Bell' service looks. >>> Some of us were saying 'I told you so' several years ago. I'm >>> beginning to feel vindicated. PAT] >> Yes, indeed, the more you shop around ... but is >> it not nice to be able to shop around? Do you honestly believe >> that 'genuine Bell' would be at the level it is today if it had no >> competition nipping at its heels? Do you think, for instance, that >> AT&T would even today be providing digital connections nationwide if >> it were not for Sprint and >>others? > [automobile analogy deleted] > In the early days of telecom, you could get any service you wanted, as > long as you wanted a service provided by Ma Bell. If you didn't like > it, you could do without. I have been reading the stream of complaints for quite a while. Personally, my or my clients' phone needs are not sophisticated enough to have encountered most of the difficulties or problems. (Shockingly, I have also never been slammed - did you guys get on a secret 'slam me' list ?) However, to be fair and consistent, if you are going to curse de'judge and bitch about the MFJ shouldn't you also enumerate everything that was wrong or defficient about the phone network *before* the world changed ? As far as I can see, the main 'cost' has been aggressive and sometimes borderline marketing tactics. Well, sorry, but that seems to be a side effect of competition in an open market. There are good guys and bad guys and you have to learn to tell the difference. Perhaps we should have a single breakfast cereal manufacturer and another FCC (Federal Cereal Commission), if you want to regulate and restrict every industry with questionable marketing approaches. Jeff Sicherman ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 00:00 GMT From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: "Independent" Coin Phones "Kevin P. Kleinfelter" writes: > In the early days of telecom, you could get any service you wanted, as > long as you wanted a service provided by Ma Bell. If you didn't like > it, you could do without. The moment you introduce choices and competition, actually creating a marketplace, there is necessity for all (especially customers) to become informed and active in the commerce. While it is regrettable that the Aunt Millies of the world are forced to participate in a game not of their choosing, restricting the rest of us to Hobsen's choices is hardly fair either. Before divestiture, the regulators (the gummit) took care of us. There was no problem selecting carriers, services, or equipment. If we did not like what was offered, if it cost too much, or the service was not what was expected, it was very simple: we did without. Now we can select anything we want from whatever is available, from excellent to very poor. Granted, what we used to have was frequently better than the worst of what is available today, but today's best is better than ever. But we are, as a result, all thrust into the game of choices. We cannot just sit back and let "the telephone company" do it to us any longer. As Mr. Kleinfelter points out, no one seems to advocate the abolition of a free marketplace because he made a mistake purchasing a car or TV set. But listen to the cries of doom when a COCOT rips off someone for a few extra bucks on a long distance call. "It is all Judge Greene's fault." Baloney! If the public does not like COCOTs, it will not use them and they will go away. If the public is too stupid to know the difference, then it gets what it deserves. I refuse the have Big Brother take care of me because there are some among us who are too lazy to take care of themselves. I am a fan of divestiture. My only complaint is that the Judge stopped short of the ideal: competition in the LEC marketplace. Believe me, if such a thing existed now, my home phone would not be served by a 1948 crossbar switch. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 1991 16:23:00 From: Mark Brader Subject: Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada >> A group I'm associated with is putting on a play and a phone will be >> used on the set. How would I hook up the phone so that I can cause >> it to ring on demand? ... >> [Moderator's Note: ... why not just get a small doorbell from a hardware >> store; a battery to drive it and a simple switch. Have it off-stage...] > Maybe he doesn't do that because a doorbell sounds NOTHING LIKE A PHONE. This is not necessarily an obstacle. Seems to me that most PHONES I encounter today, other than the 2500 set I have at home, sound "NOTHING LIKE A PHONE"! Seriously, though, if it's okay for the sound not to come from the phone itself, the easiest thing would probably be a tape recording of a phone. But I suspect that this is NOT okay, unless the phone is at one side of the set. People in the front rows can tell if the sound is coming from the wrong place. Hmm. You could always put an actual, connected phone onstage. To keep wrong numbers from ringing it at the wrong time, unplug the extension cord at the other end except at the critical moment. Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Feb 91 18:01 EDT From: SKASS@drew.bitnet Subject: Re: Unwanted Three-Way Calling Symptom In Volume 11, issue 116, I wrote: > Subject: Unwanted Three-Way Calling Symptom [Description of strange phone behavior.] The Moderator added: > [Moderator's Note: Some people have said here in the past that the > dial tone is being provided so you can do *70 (cancel call waiting) if > you have that service. That may be the reason you are now getting the > flash dial tone. Try *70 and see if it immediatly cuts back to the > call in progress while busying out your line if you have call waiting > service. ... ] Well, this seems to be it. *70 is the only thing I can seem to dial through the new dial tone that doesn't reorder. Funny thing is, though, that I don't have call waiting (I tested it), and, according to a friend at Bellcore, cancel call waiting is not available in my area. Strange. I'll see what NJ Bell has to say about my symptoms. Steve Kass/Math & CS/Drew U/Madison NJ 07940/2014083614/skass@drew.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 21:23 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Wanted: Recommendations For Small Key-System "Daniel M. Rosenberg" writes: > We have a 1232 as well, but I don't see how it's physically possible > for you to call-forward-no answer CO calls. I don't. The phone company provides the BY forwarding. But rather than have each modem a slave to a particular line, it is capable of answering another modem's line if that the second unit is not ready. For instance, call comes in on line one. Modem one answers. Call comes in on line two (courtesy Pac*Bell's busy forwarding). Modem two answers. Meanwhile line one has hung up, but the modem is not ready for another call. But a call comes in on line one again. After a delay, the Panasonic routes the call to modem three and the call is answered. No, I'm not doing any magic at the CO level, but the Panasonic prevents lines going unanswered because particular modems are not ready by sending the call to an available modem. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #124 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa19178; 17 Feb 91 4:51 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa01290; 17 Feb 91 3:26 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab31094; 17 Feb 91 2:20 CST Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 1:30:45 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #125 BCC: Message-ID: <9102170130.ab08114@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 17 Feb 91 01:30:29 CST Volume 11 : Issue 125 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Many Software Designers of Caller ID Also Disliked it [Davidson Corry] Re: Many Software Designers of Caller ID Also Disliked it [Technews] Re: CallerID Investigation in Oregon [Peter Marshall] Re: Caller*ID [B. J. Herbison] Why 900-STOPPER [Jerry Leichter] They Want Caller-ID in UNIX [Daniel Jacobson] "Internal" Portable Phones [Steve Pershing] Re: Airphones and Receiving Calls [David Lemson] Re: Slammed by AT&T [Jim Redelfs] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Davidson Corry Subject: Re: Many Software Designers of Caller ID Also Disliked it Date: 17 Feb 91 01:42:36 GMT Organization: InterConnections, Bellevue, WA >dave@westmark.westmark.com (Dave Levenson) writes: >> Ideally, however, the telco should be required to provide a service >> where the calling party is advised that the call is being refused >> *because* the calling number is being blocked, and that the way to get >> through is to call again without invoking the anonymous-caller >> feature. In article kadie@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) writes: > It seems like a perfect solution; it provides people with the most > service; and yet, the phone companies are against it. Why? You answer your own question: > Privacy and anonymity are intertwined: > The principle in states like Pennsylvania is that phone calls cannot > be recorded and phone numbers cannot released without the consent of > both parties. Block-blocking provides a mechanism for providing this > consent. The phone companies make a profit by providing a service. Caller ID is a service which provides the datum "This is X calling" -- in a convenient, machine-readable form requiring no explicit action taken by the caller. The value of this service to the phone companies' subscribers, and thus the potential for profit, is clearly enhanced by increasing the size of this data pool, and threatened by anything which diminishes it. Thus it's in their interest to make ID-blocking as inconvenient as possible; likewise, block-blocking has a "chilling" effect on telephone (and Caller-ID) usage. The implication is that the telco "owns" -- has the right to control -- the datum "This is X calling". This requires no breach of ethics or intellectual dishonesty: the people at TPC may sincerely believe it. I simply disagree: I believe that the datum belongs TO THE CALLER, for whatever reason appeals to him: a desire for privacy, a desire to stay out of some telemarketer's database, or just plain cussedness ... and the fact that some heavy-breather might block ID for reprehensible intent does NOT justify denying ME that right to privacy and anonymity. Clearly the ACLU, the Pennsylvania courts and others agree. The necessary concomitant of ID-blocking is that the callee has a right to decline to accept communications with someone who declines to identify himself: block-blocking. Without convenient ID-blocking AND block-blocking, Caller ID is NOT a service, as far as I'm concerned, it's an invasion. Davidson Corry (dai@icxn.com) ------------------------------ From: technews@iitmax.iit.edu (Tech News Account) Subject: Re: Many Software Designers of Caller ID Also Disliked it Reply-To: technews@iitmax.iit.edu (Tech News Account) Organization: Illinois Institute of Technology Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 01:52:47 GMT I still like my (and several other people`s) old idea: There are MANY services which are only available to BUSINESS customers ... why not make CALLER*ID available only to RESIDENTIAL customers? That would eliminate the direct marketing and call back fears, and still leave it avail. for personal use... so what if it doesn`t help the pizza parlors cull fake orders. kadokev@iitvax.bitnet technews@iitmax.edu My employer disagrees. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: CallerID Investigation in Oregon From: Peter Marshall Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 00:05:50 GMT Organization: The 23:00 News There may be two somewhat distinct items here: a beginning PUC investigation into CallerID, etc., and the staff's discovery that US Bancorp, a US West ISDN special contract customer, would have the capacity to i.d. off-net numbers via this contract. Re: the latter, the OPUC indicates staff has asked for an amendment to this special contract by March. The incident is also reminiscent of an earlier one in Washington State, where PUC staff had learned their numbers were being ID'd when they called ISDN-capable US West offices. US West responded to effect -- so sorry, software glitch; won't happen anymore, [Moderator's Note: I'd not be surprised to find out that Illinois Bell was already providing Caller-ID to preferred customers on the sly. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 00:55:14 GMT From: "B.J. 15-Feb-1991 1359" Subject: Re: Caller*ID In Telecom Volume 11 : Issue 116, Peter da Silva writes: > For true answering machine freaks... Caller-ID hooked to something like > Watson! > A call from your clients: "Frobozz consulting. If you know the extension > please dial it now, or leave a message at the sound of the tone..." > A call from any telemarketer number you've managed to snag: "I'm > sorry, we don't accept unsolicited advertising at this line." My first thought was large numbers of people exchanging lists of telemarketer numbers. My second thought was the problems caused when a telemarketer changes numbers and someone else gets the number -- someone who is a friend or a potential client. Or what if a residential number gets placed on the list as a joke or out of malice. The chance of a problem is slight, unless large numbers of people start exchanging telemarketer numbers. `Telemarketer' is a dirty word, be careful when you use it. B. J. [not a telemarketer] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 17:06:05 EDT From: Jerry Leichter Subject: Why 900-STOPPER In a recent TELECOM Digest the Moderator noted that the providers of this service (which allows you to make un-Caller-Id'able calls) fail to point out that Caller-ID isn't available on international calls, and isn't likely to be anytime soon. The implication is that the service is in some way fradulent. In fact, the service was NOT introduced, at least for the most part, as a response to Caller-ID. A newspaper article describing it was published in TELECOM Digest a while back - in fact, I think I may have been the one who typed it in. The purpose of the STOPPER service is to provide truely untraceable calls. It was started by a lawyer, who cited a number of circumstances in which you might want to ensure that the numbers you dial cannot be found, EVEN BY SOMEONE WHO CAN SUBPEANA YOUR PHONE RECORDS. Mainly, these have to do with things like lawyers who must keep their clients secret, or companies that wish to make sure that who they are talking to remains secret even if someone who is suing them goes after their phone records. Yes, it sounds funny, but there are a variety of legitimate uses for this kind of service - the founder got the idea after he ran into one. Yes, there is also room for a lot of abuse. Considering what they charge, this is hardly a consumer service - or even something a large company would want to use for anything but "special" calls. Jerry [Moderator's Note: The thing is, anyone who could subpoena your records looking for certain connections would surely see the calls to the 900 service, then supoena those records as well. All it would seem to do (in the case of a professional investigator) is add an extra step in the process. For the average John Doe whose only immediate way of call tracing is via Caller*ID then the 900 service is virtually useless at this time. Or is the 900 guy saying he would not respond to a subpoena either? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 00:39:30 CST From: Daniel Jacobson Subject: They Want Caller-ID in UNIX [from newsgroups: comp.unix.questions] Geez. Caller ID wanted/found in UNIX (well, somewhat): > On 15 Feb 91 17:30:17 GMT, kadst6@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Kim A Dellera) said: Kim> My goal is to be able to tell which users are accessing a Kim> particular file. Seems like it should be straightforward enough, Kim> but I can't put my finger > On 16 Feb 91 05:15 GMT, minzhi@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Min-Zhi Shao) said: Min-Zhi> When I fingered our system administrator, I got the Min-Zhi> following result: Min-Zhi> Office: 154 Moore Building Min-Zhi> I have been fingered 3 times today Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM Naperville IL USA +1 708-979-6364 [Moderator's Note: This is all very interesting, but I've fallen into one of my bad habits again: putting lots of Caller*ID messages in the main Digest ... so may I ask that further followup on the Caller*ID messages posted in this issue be made through Telecom Privacy, a supplementary list designated for this purpose. You can reach that list at telecom-priv@pica.army.mil. Thanks! PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: "Internal" Portable Phones From: system administrator Date: Sat, 16 Feb 91 03:01:36 PST Organization: Questor*Free Internet/Usenet*Vancouver*BC => +1 604 681.0670 tots!tots.Logicon.COM!tep@ucsd.edu writes: > We have a dozen or so technical people around the company who spend > most of their time out of their official offices, working around our > office complexes (computer system managers, in-house telephone people, > facilities manager, etc). > They would like to receive their phone calls (and make calls) wherever > they are. > We are looking for something between a "home" wireless telephone and a > cell-phone, with voice capability (not just a pager)... > Our office "campus" covers an area about 1/2 mile square. At the recent Pacific Rim Computer and Communication show held here in Vancouver, BC, the local GTE-owned telco (BCTel) had what you might be looking for, althought the range appears to fall a bit short. It is advertised as the "Digital Cordless Telephone System", and is described in a spec sheet, part of which is quoted below. As far as I know, the system comes from England. The flyer shows a flip-open hand-held unit (similar to Motorola's small cellular, but with no visible antenna). It has on its face fifteen buttons, twelve for the TT pad, and three for various functions, including a bunch of "secondary" feature commands assigned to the TT pad. "For business; At home; In Public Locations. Public/Private networks". HOW DOES IT WORK? Digital cordless technology has been designed to accomodate pedestrian mobility. This means that as you walk around throughout your day, the digital cordless phone is a perfect solution. Digital cordless service will operate use a network of private and public "base stations" -- and your own digital cordless phone handset -- to link you to the entire traditional "wired" telephone network. PRIVATE NETWORK Digital cordless phones and base stations will be purchased by companies and by individuals creating the private cordless network. In businesses and in homes, your phone will work off a compact central base station which has a range of about 100 metres. A number of digital cordless phones can be registered to a single base station... PUBLIC NETWORK The public network will take up where the private network leaves off -- to create a complete communications system for people on the go. With the public network, you will use your own digital cordless phone handset within 100 metres of public base stations supplied by a public cordless network provider. These base stations will be available in a wide variety of public locations so you can make a call from wherever you are. -------------------- They give a contact telephone number of 604-293-6810 (This is for a BCTel subsidiary operation called "BC Mobile". Call them collect! Steve Pershing, System Administrator The QUESTOR PROJECT - Free Usenet News/Internet Mail; Sci, Med, AIDS, more | Usenet: 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 ------------------------------ From: David Lemson Subject: Re: Airphones and Receiving Calls Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Date: Sun, 17 Feb 1991 05:06:44 GMT harrison@apple.com (John Harrison) writes: >Why can't you really receive calls on a GTE Airphone? Is this >something that GTE has chose not to implement or are there other >technical reasons. Because there might be 10-50 airphone handsets on a plane, and many of these are mobile, how would you know which handset a certain person might be near? And, would *you* answer one, knowing that you might be paying exorbitant AirFone airtime prices for a possible wrong number? It's simply much easier to have only dial-out. If you need the opposite direction, that's why they make SkyPager: an alphanumeric pager that works all over the country, including in planes. David Lemson U of Illinois Computing Services Student Consultant Internet : lemson@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu UUCP :...!uiucuxc!uiucux1!lemson ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 00:51:32 GMT From: Jim Redelfs Subject: Re: Slammed by AT&T Reply-To: jim.redelfs@iugate.unomaha.edu Dave_johnston%01%srjc@od wrote: > I hate to bring up slamming again. I think Pat squelched the topic > some time ago after it started getting crazy... I don't remember that, sooooooooo... (is that a good enough excuse for another such story?) I am the "friendly, neighborhood phoneman" in Elkhorn, NE - an Omaha CDO. In my immediate area is a service station the does all the service on my company van, as well as sell me the bulk of the gas it uses. Although we've "gone cellular", the performace of my particular setup is such that I occasionally use their drive-up coin station. This particular phone is like a breath of fresh air: It is U S WEST Communications owned (and locally served) and has AT&T for its PIC. Some months ago, I used the station to place a toll call and was "thanked" for using "Acme Long Distance A-Go-Go" (or something)! The information plate on the set still indicated "AT&T" and, knowing that the station owner's wife WORKED FOR AT&T, I was very concerned - as was Howard, the owner! I made a BUNCH of calls (all in the name of good P.R., right?) and the bottom line was that "someone" had placed the order, but that it would be cancelled. The rep at "Acme" couldn't tell me WHO placed the order, nor could U S WEST Communications (my employer). I believe that long distance useage is the most costly consumer service (right up there with credit cards, etc) that can be manipulated with a mere telephone call - frequently (apparently) by most ANYONE! Can you imagine CitiBank slamming VISA accounts from other banks? Although I rarely am in favor of additional, PUC-induced requirements on the industry, I think it is about time the local companies be required voice-verify all PIC changes before implementing them. The cost of this requirement could be recoverd by appropriately raising the Service Order Charge - which is frequently "covered" by the enticing toll company. Failing this, I think the net cost increase would be very minimal, once the slamming stops. Billing Error repairs probably cost the system as much (or more) than half the physical plant repairs that *I* make. Jim Redelfs Copernicus V1.02 Elkhorn, NE [200:5010/666.14] (200:5010/2.14) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #125 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa12364; 18 Feb 91 0:21 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa18524; 17 Feb 91 22:37 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa11920; 17 Feb 91 21:31 CST Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 21:25:48 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #126 BCC: Message-ID: <9102172125.ab21996@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 17 Feb 91 21:25:16 CST Volume 11 : Issue 126 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson A History of the USA to Cuba Phone Links [Donald E. Kimberlin] A Couple Strange Questions [Kim Fosbe] Market Place Product [Leroy Donnelly] MCI and March 18 [Mark Steiger] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 17:40 GMT From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Subject: A History of the USA to Cuba Phone Links Several postings in the Digest of recent times relate to making telephone calls to Cuba from the US. A number speculated on the age of U.S. connections to Cuba. From anecdotal history, here are some of the details I learned while working for AT&T Long Lines in Florida: 1.) Dating back into the 1940's, a period when AT&T and ITT jointly owned (50% each) the Cuban-American Telephone & Telegraph Company of the Batista era, AT&T first provided telephone calls to Cuba via High Frequency (shortwave) radio from its Fort Lauderdale/ Ojus (FL) HF plant. To the public, this was, "Moment, please, I will connect you to the Miami Overseas Operator." The channels provided by shortwave fixed plant over such a short distance north-south path are so simple that most people would never hear a sign of fading or any static crashes ... and think they were talking on a land line. 2.) The first submarine cable to Havana from Key West was in operation in 1950, providing 12 telephone channels. Its nomenclature was the "type SA Submarine Carrier System," for those who may have noted that the first transatlantic telephone cable was the Type SB System, and been curious about where the SA ever went. I worked on occasion in the Key West Long Lines testroom (located on the second floor of the Southern Bell building in Key West for those who have seen Key West and wondered where there was space for anything on that tiny island). Its final amplifier stage was an Eimac 300 or 400 TL- type high-frequency triode replete with dic-type neutralizing capaci- tors that no "telephone man" ever wanted to mess with. One might won- der at such technology in a telephone cable carrier sysems, but first one must realize it was first-generation custom-made coaxial cable, and it was (as I recall) 78 miles long, having a rather high capaci- tance and no submerged repeaters. Thus, a fair amount of power was needed to push even 48 Khz of bandwidth that far. Having no repeaters of course also eliminated any need to send power down the cable; thus the terminal was rather simple in comparison to what was needed for the SB system that went across the Atlantic. After Castro took over, there were no direct relations for maintenance or operations between the US and Cuba, so if it worked, it worked. If it died, months could transpire until it got put back into service, particularly if whatever the failure was occurred in the Havana terminal (we presumed they had no spare parts). More common were failures that lasted a year or more if the cable itself was physically damaged, which happend several times when ships dropped anchor on the cable in Havana harbor. The system would just sit there inoperative until Castro got a cableship (usually British) to come to Havana and patch it ... then the Key West terminal would suddenly show it was receiving pilot tones again, and the twelve circuits would again be put to traffic with a shrug of the Plant Department shoulders, no info available about wheo, when, how or why about the fix. This cable, by virtue of being the _only_ one, has to be the topic of recent stories about "replacing the cable." (There were also telegraph cables laid by Western Union that were beyond AT&T's purview, of course. One that terminated in the WUTCo office in Key West operated with a mechanical TDM (just like the book stories one reads about Time Division Multiplexing) until well into the 1960's. When its TDM finally died one day in the late 1960's, one of the telephone channels from Havana suddenly appeared with FDM carrier telegraph tones on it in the ear of Miami telephone operators. In a day fraught with non-communicative confusion at the Miami Long Lines office, we found the Cubans had stuck an obsolete WECo Type 40 carrier telegraph on it, and expected AT&T to interconnect that over to the Miami "telegraph office." They of course had no idea that AT&T and Western Union (by now WUI for overseas telegraphy in the US) hd, at best an arms-length relation and AT&T provided _no_ signal processing of any form for anybody else ... only transmission channels. In an amazing feat of AT&T monopoly-era cooperation, we found one old man who recalled we had one old 40C Carrier Telegraph terminal back in the dusty equipment bays where the original 1930's AT&T "toll test- board" had been. It had been "retired in place," never serviced for a decade or more, but still had power on it, and its ancient tubes still all worked. Harry got it going, and we connected DC telegraph loops over to WUI. Geting Southern Bell to cooperate and connect loops across town was a commentary on the monopoly-era wieght that AT&T could throw around, much unlike today. WUI later replaced that lash-up with an FDM of their own, and later, I was told, actually got a few FDM telegraph channels working with the Cubans over their old telegraph cable, by getting Coherent Communications up on Long Island to make a custom-built audio-frequency FDM terminal that needed 100 Watt amplifiers to push the tones 75 miles or so. WUI, unlike AT&T, could ship the terminal for Havana around through England to get it delivered to the Cubans.) 3.) Just prior to Castro taking over, AT&T and Cuban-American had set up a tropospheric scatter radio system between Florida City (just south of Miami) and Guanabo (just outside Havana), one of the two (to my knowlege) only troposcatter sysems AT&T ever used. (The other also terminated at Florida City and ran to Nassau in the Bahama Islands.) THe Havana troposcatter was actually pure Federal Radio tropo just like the military used all over the world, having WECo carrier telephone equipment on it, of course. However, it operated the same way as the Key West cable ... after Castro took over, no coordination, no news, no nothing. It had frequency and space diver- sity, so the Cubans might turn a receiver or transmitter off at any time, and they did. Thus, AT&T at Florida City had to keep both receivers and transmitters functional at all times, for they never knew when the Cubans might turn either transmitter off, or have either receiver inoperative. The bandwidth of the tropo gear, of course, was wide enough to transmit video, which was intended at the building of the system. This could be done by either temporarily operating one diversity link for video and the other for telephony, or by shutting down telephone operations during video transmission (an operating mode I observed once in Kenya when they needed their earth station to get a World Championship boxing match off Intelsat ... apparently a `common-enough happening that the Nairobi papers carried a news article announcing that international telephone service would be limited while the match was being broadcast!) But, there being no official relations between the U.S. and Cuba, I do not know that any video was ever carried. Rather, the voice channels from Havana were all connected to the 4A toll switching machine at Miami, and Havana operators were able to happily dial whereever they wanted, and anyone in the world who dialed the appropriate digits went right through and rang the Havana operator who completed the connection manually. Politics or not, AT&T was not about to be the source of a Castro tirade against the American Imperialists, so AT&T just let the traffic flow, for several years, until Castro's unpaid, unsetteld bills reached untold millions. Cuba had enjoyed chatting with the world via the U.S. for almost a decade without paying for it. ( I can hear it now: "Just dial me in Havana, Comrade. The stupid capitalists are paying for it.") When AT&T and the State Department finally waltzed around it enough, there was agreement to cut the circuits off one day. Cutting off another nation is _serious_ business inside AT&T; in fact, it had never really been done by that time. Remember that AT&T had to always tell the Feds that the President and State Department can ring up any Ambassador or dictator any time they want. In any event, it was only hours before the Cubans communicated with AT&T and agreed to AT&T's terms that all future calls sould be paid for on the U.S. end, at least until the Cubans' share offset the unpaid balance. Thus began an era of "collect only" on outbound calls from Cuba and "no collect" on inbound calls to Cuba. 4.) Meantime, the Cubans had some few other links via HF radio to places like Spain and Mexico, limited in quantity, and from my own observations of their endless days of test transmissions on HF, not very successful. So long as the Yanquis were providing the tropo, who cared much? Did the CIA listen in to Castro? Probably, but not in any way that was visible to me. This whole operation is the "93 circuits" referred to in recent press, and it likely is still the only present link to the U.S. 5.) The satellite era offered change for all this, of course, and the Russians provided Cuba with capability to operate to the Molnya system of satellites, so there likely was ease on Castro's chats with the Chairman in Moscow. But, the AT&T link remained, and remains what AT&T's myopic view publishes as the only link Cuba has to the outside world. It's certainly likely the AT&T link is of secondary importance to Cuba by now. With the flying of Mexico's Morelos satellite, it's most likely the Cubans have plenty of capacity via Mexico and likely other Latin nations to the outside world. Forget notions of Fidel with microphone and earphones talking to Noreiga or the Sandanistas. Finally, this leads to recent news about AT&T prosecuting some people in Florida who were offering telephone service to Cuba by un- known means. The following bit from "AT&T Newsbriefs" tells a bit about it: AT&T NEWS BRIEFS Thursday, February 14, 1991 CUBAN CONNECTION -- The FCC has opened an investigation into a new [Fla.] business that has made calling Cuba less time-consuming - but more expensive. The owners of Tele Caribe ... won't divulge the secret of connecting calls to Cuba within minutes rather than the hours it usually takes through AT&T operators. Telecommun- ications experts speculate the company could be re-routing calls through another country that has direct-dial access to Cuba. Another possibility is transmitting calls through a satellite signal. ... Miami Herald, 2B, 2/13. Also El Neuvo Herald, [Florida], 1B, 2/13. # # # Now that you know the whole story, you can see how easily they could now be selling calls via Mexico or another Latin nation, and cheating AT&T out of business ... a matter deeply frowned upon by both AT&T, its friends in the government, and its step brothers of the telephone cloth! (Readers on here who have access to the current CCITT Plan Documents for the Caribbean can certainly tell us all the places Cuba now has circuits to.) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 03:27:24 PDT From: Kim Fosbe Subject: A Couple Strange Questions Reply-To: kim.fosbe%drbbs@iugate.unomaha.edu Organization: DRBBS Technical BBS, Omaha Ok, maybe you guys can answer me a couple of questions that I've wondered about for a couple years. First there was this time a couple years ago when I was out of work and all depressed and I was just lying around the apartment this one afternoon killing time and just kind of lying on the bed playing with the phone buttons. I know this is stupid but I was kind of pushing buttons seeing what would happen. I made sure not to push the "1" or "0" first so not to call long distance. Ok, so I call this one number and there were all kinds of clicks and stuff and when I hung up I couldn't get dial tone back until I held it down 30 sec. or so. So here's what's wierd. About that time my roommate comes in and the phone rings. She gets it and some guy asked "did you just call a 294 number?" so she yells in and asks me if I did and I said "no" not even thinking. Then I realized that I didn't know what the hell I was calling and I very well could have called a 294 number or any other number. Ok, I asked around and found that 294 is the prefix for a local Air-Force base. That really freaked me out, cause from that time I wonder if I accidentally called some high-security number that they were able to trace and they were checking me out or something. Now this next one was not really freaky but I wonder about it. When I took a trip to New York City a few years ago, one of my girlfriends was meeting me at the airport but my flight was delayed in Chicago and I had to call her, but I didn't have enough change so I called collect from the pay phone at O'Hare. Now I've called collect from pay phones and maybe the operator stays on for a second or two just to ask if they will take the charge. But this time the operator dialed the number I was calling PLUS some other numbers. I heard the beeps as she dialed them, and this recording then played back the number I was calling to and the word "solid", and then the call went through. I know she was testing to see if the number was ok to charge to but I never had this happen again. Maybe is there a telecom wonder-wizard out there who knows what was happening. It's not really that important but I wondered about this stuff ever since they happened. Ybbat (DRBBS) 8.9 v. 3.13 r.5 [200:5010/666@metronet] (200:5010/666.0) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 03:26:59 PDT From: Leroy Donnelly Subject: Market Place Product Reply-To: leroy.donnelly%drbbs@iugate.unomaha.edu Organization: DRBBS Technical BBS, Omaha You remember Lotus Market place product. 120 Million U.S. consumers on CD-ROM disk. Well it's not over with. Even though Lotus has agreed to drop the use of the disks, there is still a beta copy that will not be returned. In a article dated January 28th 1991 (Computer Reseller News) I quote. "It's very unfortunate," said Carlton Collins, president of Collins & Collins CPAs, an Atlanta accounting firm that beta tested both products. "We were using Marketplace extensively and developed applications for some of our clients as well." Collins said he hoped Marketplace would reappear in some other format, adding he will keep his copy rather than return it for a refund. Is there anyone in Atlanta that could post the address to Collins & Collins CPAs. Ybbat (DRBBS) 8.9 v. 3.13 r.5 [200:5010/666@metronet] (200:5010/666.0) ------------------------------ From: penguin@pro-igloo.cts.com (Mark Steiger) Subject: MCI and March 18 Date: 17 Feb 91 05:36:05 GMT I've seen acouple of ads for a new service being offered on March 18. They have people making lists of friends and family members. Is this their big launch date for personal 800 numbers? Any ideas or comments?? [ Mark Steiger, Sysop, The Igloo BBS 218-262-3142 300-19.2K Baud (HST/Dual)] Internet: Penguin@pro-igloo.cts.com MCI Mail: MSteiger UUCP: ...crash!pro-igloo!penguin ATT Mail: MSteiger ProLine: Penguin@pro-igloo America Online: Goalie5 TELEX: 51623155 MSTEIGER ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #126 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa13395; 18 Feb 91 1:24 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa13506; 17 Feb 91 23:43 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab18524; 17 Feb 91 22:38 CST Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 22:15:29 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #127 BCC: Message-ID: <9102172215.ab14567@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Sun, 17 Feb 91 22:15:13 CST Volume 11 : Issue 127 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Satellite Porn Draws Criminal Prosecution, Fine [Donald E. Kimberlin] AT&T's (appropriate) New Market [John Higdon] Environmentally Responsible Telco [Donald E. Kimberlin] Alternate Cellular System [Jeff Sicherman] Telephone Privatization/Deregulation in Canada [Robert Jacobson] Call Forwarding Question [Elise Mahaffey] Is There a History of Direct Distance Dialing? [Gabe Wiener] Help Needed With AES/EBU Formatting [Scott Clancy] Caller*ID in Atlanta ... at Last? [Bill Berbenich] How Times Change [John Higdon] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Subject: Satellite Porn Draws Criminal Prosecution, Fine Date: Sun 17 Feb 1991 The following AP story appeared in Saturday morning papers around the country: SATELLITE TRANSMISSION OF PORN BRINGS FINE By Peg McEntee, Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY - A Federal jusge on Friday fined a New York City satellite company $150,000 for broadcasting pornographic movies by satellite to some 30,000 subscribers throughout the continental United States. U.S. District Judge accepted a plea-bargain agreement between Home Dish Only Satellite Networks Inc. and prosecutors in which the firm pleaded guilty to a single count of broadcasting an obscene film via satellite. HDO is the first and so far only company prosecuted under a 1988 federal law prohibiting satellite a cable broadcasting if mater- ial deemed pornographic. Part of a proposed consent decree calls for HDO to erase its taped movies. And the principals of the now-defunct company, Paul L. Klein and Jeffrey Younger, also agreed not to promote or distribute sexually explicit films. In exchange, Federal attorneys agreed not to prosecute Klein and Younger personally, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Lambert. HDO also has pleaded guilty to a Federal charge filed in Buffalo. Sentencing for that charge is scheduled March 18. The consent decree would be essentially the same for the Utah and New York cases, attorneys said. HDO began operating the American Exxxtasy Channel in 1986. It shipped movies to U.S. Satellite, Inc. at Murray, Utah, which beamed them to a GTE Spacenet Corp. satellite for relay to subscribers. Defense attorney Rodney Snow said HDO abandoned the channel after the indictment was filed a year ago rather than endure a lengthy court fight. The company's films and short movies were scrambled so they could be received only by subscribers who paid $260 a year for the Exxxtasy channel. But the company advertised each night in unscrambled commercials. * * * * * * (Hmmmm ... seems I recall it was GTE Spacenet who cut off Exxxtasy the day they heard a Federal indictment connected them with the case; not that Exxxtasy voluntarily shut down. Also, I never noted that GTE proudly announced or published to the public or its shareholders about having such a client!) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 13:36 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: AT&T's (appropriate) New Market AT&T NEWS BRIEFS SOVIET SPIRIT -- AT&T said it signed its first telephone-equipment distribution contract for the Soviet Union ... AT&T said it agreed to allow the Moscow Local Telephone Network, a government agency known as MGTS, to sell AT&T's Spirit Communications System product to business customers and AT&T-approved equipment dealers - likely other Soviet government organizations. Well, isn't that special? At last AT&T has found a promising market for its virtually featureless small telephone systems. What better place to sell them than somewhere that the competition is either non-existent or dreadful? Someday AT&T may wake up and come to the party, but for now its equipment offerings leave a lot to be desired. Even the mighty Systems 25, 75, and 85 have major inflexibilities that render them useless for many potential applications. (No station CPC, inflexible station numbering, inflexible hardware configurations, to name a few.) The highly touted 5000 series cordless phones have those damned little short DTMF bursts that make voice mail retrival next to impossible. The Spirit is too weenie to even use in my residence, while the Merlin is way too expensive (and still does not have some of the capabilities that I require). The PARTNER is unknown, but given the information posted so far and AT&T's past performance in this arena, initial indications are that it is similarly lacking in features that people really need and use. Someone suggested to me recently that AT&T would do well to BUY a Panasonic KX-T123212, set it up, see how it works, and then correct its deficiencies and enhance its features. What a killer system that would be! But as it is, I get e-mail from AT&T employees singing the praises of the company's brain-dead offerings from a position of obviously never even seeing the competitions' wares. I have said this before and will say it again, when AT&T finally gets its head out of the sand in the equipment market, it wiil become a force to be reckoned with. The competition had better watch out; someday it may happen. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Subject: Environmentally Responsible Telco Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 While there are frequent matters Telcos take criticism for in this and other forums, there is at least one bright spot. It concerns a recent post in the Digest about wasted billing return mail envelopes. The Concord Telephone Company of North Carolina, one of the few remaining truly independent companies (owned now by the third generation of the family since inception in 1897), mails its bills in a reusable envelope; one in which a gummed flap for resealing the same envelope is provided. The product Concord uses seems to be no secret. It bears the trademark of Tension Envelope Company, an old name in the envelope business, with Tension's patent number. Thus, the system should be available to any telco that would see the light to copy what Concord has been doing for some time now. The envelope is marked with the recyclable paper mark, thus it seems Concord even recovers the returned envelopes for further use. As to the enclosures, Concord's bill is a series of sheets, like most Telco bills ... and for a new client of any size, it's quite likely Tension Envelope would design the window layout to suit any Telco. Now, the challenge is open to America's 1,400 or so other Telcos to see which, if any, would adopt such a sensible (and obviously economical) method. It might even show they can be as sensibly innovative as the history they once had in business sysems invention, instead of focusing on technological hype. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 01:56:18 -0800 From: Jeff Sicherman Subject: Alternate Cellular System Organization: Cal State Long Beach I was waiting for someone else to report this, so I didn't submit it when I saw it, but nobody has and now I don't have the details in front of me but ... There was an article in the paper here (LA) the other day that said there was a petition (due?) before the FCC to allocate a portion of the spectrum currently used for commercial mobile phone systems (taxi, delivery dispatching) to be divided up for an alternate cellular-type phone usage. Sorry, I don't remember any of the technical details but maybe someone else can follow-up. Jeff Sicherman ------------------------------ From: Robert Jacobson Subject: Telephone Privatization/Deregulation in Canada. Date: 18 Feb 91 03:23:18 GMT Organization: Human Interface Technology Lab, Univ. of Wash., Seattle Unitel, a firm composed of companies led by Canadian cable-TV mogul Ted Rogers and Canadian Pacific Corporation, is making a bid to provide alternative long-distance telephone service in Canada. The issue is highly controversial; this bid is only the last of several that have been turned aside by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) at the behest of populist political movements in Canada. In the wake of the economic disaster precipitated by the Free Trade Act (many Canadian firms busted and tens of thousands of jobs lost), this move, sanctioned by the extremely unpopular federal government, is seen as yet another test of Canadian collectivity. Unlike the U.S., where telephone companies and regulators conspired to hide the costs of deregulation - particularly higher local telephone costs - in devices like access charges, in Canada the proponents of deregulation and privatization have been very forward in predicting a "rebalancing" of rates that will favor long-distance and especially international - hence border-crossing - phone calls over local calls. Rebalancing, in many Canadians' eyes, is the imposition of a rate structure that further enhances cross-border integration of the Canadian economy with that of the U.S., to the detriment of the local economy. The Telecommunications Workers Union in British Columbia has put together a well-done packet of materials on this topic. The TWU opposes Unitel's petition. For more information from the TWU, contact: Mr. Sid Shniad Staff Economist, Telecommunications Workers Union 5261 Lane Street, Burnaby, B.C. V5H 4A6 CANADA (604) 437-4822 I believe that Sid can also be reached at Sid_Shniad@cs.sfu.ca Bob Jacobson ------------------------------ From: elise mahaffey Subject: Call Forwarding Question Organization: NIA - Network Information Access Magazine Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 18:43:47 GMT If you were to have a phone set up with call forwarding to forward to another area code (LD somewhere) and you dialed with a phone to the one set up to forward, on which phone line would it get billed? [Moderator's Note: Each phone gets billed for its part of the link. The phone placing the call pays for a call to the phone where forwarding takes place and that phone in turn pays for a call to the end destination. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Gabe Wiener Subject: Is There a History of Direct Distance Dialing? Organization: Columbia University Center for Telecommunications Research Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 20:35:23 GMT Recently, the Digest carried a wonderfully informative article on the history of the two-letter exchange names. Has anything of that sort ever appeared regarding the history of DDD? If not, could someone in the know post a brief synopsis of its history? Thanks, Gabe Wiener - Columbia Univ. gabe@ctr.columbia.edu gmw1@cunixd.cc.columbia.edu 72355.1226@compuserve.com ------------------------------ From: P7NQYF9Z@umiami.ir.miami.edu Subject: Help Needed With AES/EBU Formatting Date: 17 Feb 91 21:30:10 EST Organization: Univ of Miami IR I would like to know if there is anyone who can help me out. I'm doing my electrical engineering senior project and I need a bit of information. I am building a device where I have 16-bit digital audio words outputted serially from a Motorola Sigma-Delta A/D chip and I want to format it into AES/EBU format. Some of the people I've spoken with say it would be best to accomplish this thru firmware, and other say it might be accomplished thru a special purpose chip. In all cases, nobody I've spoken with knows any specific chip info, i.e. Manufacturers, chip numbers, etc. If anyone can send more specific info on available chips or any related info on how to accomplish the formating I will be most eternally greatful and you'll have the knowledge that you assisted in the continuing education of a green engineer. 8-) *** PLEASE send any mail directly to me. Scott Clancy U of Miami p7nqyf9z ------------------------------ From: bill Subject: Caller ID in Atlanta ... at Last? Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 20:52:37 EST Reply-To: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu As the self-appointed chronicler of the implementation of Caller*ID in the metropolitan Atlanta area, I have the following information to pass along. :-) Many of you may recall that according to my previous postings here Caller*ID was set to come on-line in the Atlanta area on February 14. This date has come to pass and rest assured I had my order in promptly to Southern Bell. I had "pre-ordered" the service a few weeks ago, but felt that I should call on the 14th just to sure. Well, as it turns out, the service will not be active on my line until Tuesday, February 19. That is the earliest date at which anyone will have it, supposedly. Call me a sucker for many things telephonic, but I was even willing to pay the $12 order fee just to get the service at its first chance. Southern Bell will be waiving the $12 fee beginning on March 6 (for about a month). Outlying areas will also have the order fee waived for about a month after they are cut in according to the Southern Bell Direct Marketing folks at 404-493-5555. I was able to find very little mention of the impending Caller*ID cut-in from any of the Atlanta news media. As a matter of course, the Atlanta Journal/Constitution made briefest mention of the service in their Feb. 14 Business pages. Macy's, however, had a half-page ad on page A2 touting the CIDCO Slimlite 64 and Slimline 10 boxes at a "special" price of $99.99 and $59.99, respectively. More info as I become aware of it. Naturally, I'll keep the list informed of my findings as I play with my new toy from cellular, PBX, calling card, etc. Bill Berbenich Georgia Tech, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{backbones}!gatech!eedsp!bill Internet: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 13:48 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: How Times Change AT&T NEWS BRIEFS GULF BILLS -- Texas families who have amassed large phone bills talking to troops in Saudi Arabia got help Wednesday from the state Public Utility Commission, which gave emergency approval for aid. [Texas PUC commissioner Marta Greytok] has asked the federal government to decrease rates for troops in Saudi Arabia. Dallas Morning News, 19A. Also AP, Los Angeles Times, A9. Also WINS/AM, New York, 2/12, CNN Headline News, 2/13. ------------- Isn't that amazing? There were stories in the {San Jose Mercury} about families being faced with $1500 phone bills resulting from a son or daughter or loved one in Saudi Arabia making daily calls home. It shows what a telephonic society we have become. Can you imagine this in previous wars, even the Vietnam war? Few in those days would have even considered making one single phone call from overseas. Now, it is somehow expected that the means should be made available for FREQUENT calls from those overseas. Families that I knew during the Vietnam era considered themselves fortunate to receive an infrequent letter from a relative stationed in the war zone. Times certainly have changed. On a related note, now that the cost of sending a transcontinental FAX is less than postage, do you suppose we may see a drop in USPS mail volume anytime soon? John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #127 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa15829; 18 Feb 91 3:18 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa21484; 18 Feb 91 1:49 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa07081; 18 Feb 91 0:43 CST Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 0:02:23 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #128 BCC: Message-ID: <9102180002.ab16908@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Mon, 18 Feb 91 00:02:05 CST Volume 11 : Issue 128 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Prodigy: What Does Sears Do? What About IBM? [Toby Nixon] Re: "Independent" Coin Phones [Andy Jacobson] Re: Many Software Designers of Caller ID Also Disliked it [John McHarry] Re: Caller*ID [Peter da Silva] Re: Nynex Gateway Bites the Dust [Michael P. Deignan] Re: One-Number Card Warning [John Higdon] Re: Why 900-STOPPER [Robert Jacobson] Re: The Year Was 1960 (was Allied Radio / Radio Shack) [John Higdon] Re: Environmentally Responsible Telco [Daniel Jacobson] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Toby Nixon Subject: Re: Prodigy: What Does Sears Do? What About IBM? Date: 17 Feb 91 11:06:52 GMT Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA In article , michels@tramp.colorado. edu (MICHELS DAVID) writes: > Can anyone tell me the story of Prodigy? I don't know everything, but I do know a bit more than you it seems, so I'll try to answer your questions. > I know it is an IBM/Sears joint project. It initially included CBS as well. CBS later wanted out and their share was bought out by IBM and Sears. > What I would like to know is what was contributed by who. > I would imagine, IBM provided the computers, the know how, the telecom > infrastructure, and all other technical aspects, is this true? > What did Sears provide, just cash? Sears provided their vast mass-marketing expertise. Prodigy is almost totally advertiser-funded; you see a little ad displayed on the bottom of every screen, unless the full screen you're looking at happens to have been provided by an advertiser! Sears did the basic market research, focus groups, etc., that resulted in the design of the service, recruited many of the advertisers, etc. -- i.e., handled the commercial, as opposed to technical, aspects of the service. Sears was also the first commercial outlet for the Prodigy Startup Kits (which included a Hayes Personal Modem 1200, later 2400, by the way); you can now get them just about anywhere, of course. IBM, of course, saw Prodigy as a great way to get more PCs into more homes. > Someone told me all the telecom goes thru Tymenet, is this true? I > would have expected IBM to piggy back prodigy data on its National > Physical Network (NPN). Why would they treat Prodigy so independently? Prodigy over Tymnet is a very recent innovation. Prodigy started out with just a couple of cities, and has been spreading slowly as they installed their own nodes. Traffic was indeed carried on IBM's network. But the hardware on which Prodigy runs is much different from a typical packet network, where the network is just a pipeline and all of the data is in the hosts. Prodigy network nodes are very intelligent (IBM Series/1 computers) that have very large databases of screen images. The software you run on your PC does the same thing! Whenever you take an action that would cause a different screen to be displayed, it first looks at your local disk (screen cache), and gets the image from there if possible. If it's not there, it checks the disk at the node. If it's not there, only then does it go all the way across the network to fetch the image from the host computers in White Plains. This staging of images improves the performance considerably, especially on images that don't change very often (menus, etc.) and that are used by others as well. By the way, I might comment on why it is that Prodigy was so concerned about high levels of email traffic. Email on Prodigy CANNOT be staged on the nodes -- it HAS to go all the way to White Plains for every screen. Heavy email traffic saturates the network, which can bring it to its knees very quickly. Email was intended to be an occassional convenience feature, not a primary use of the service. I don't know how Tymnet fits into this. Certainly Tymnet's node processors don't have the ability to cache screens, but maybe still rather than going all the way to White Plains there are distributed caches around the country. I just don't know. But Tymnet access was added by Prodigy in order to expand the user base (probably at the demand of advertisers) much faster than could have been done by the gradual installation of more S/1 Prodigy computers in new cities. Toby Nixon, Principal Engineer | Voice +1-404-449-8791 Telex 151243420 Hayes Microcomputer Products Inc. | Fax +1-404-447-0178 CIS 70271,404 P.O. Box 105203 | UUCP uunet!hayes!tnixon AT&T !tnixon Atlanta, Georgia 30348 USA | Internet hayes!tnixon@uunet.uu.net ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 08:40 PST From: Andy Jacobson Subject: Re: "Independent" Coin Phones John Higdon writes: > But listen to the cries of doom when a COCOT rips off > someone for a few extra bucks on a long distance call. "It is all > Judge Greene's fault." Baloney! If the public does not like COCOTs, it > will not use them and they will go away. If the public is too stupid > to know the difference, then it gets what it deserves. Agreed, but John, we often aren't given much of a choice. For example when I needed to call someone from a shopping center in Vista, and found the whole place wired with Ultra-Rip-Off (TM) phones, that wanted $1.75 for a call. I had to go miles, like three, to find a real Pac*Bell phone that would charge me only $0.40 for the same call (I was going away from where I was calling). I bet that if you had a COCOT and an LEC pay phone right next to each other, 99% of passers by would choose the LEC phone. Most people have the savvy to avoid COCOTS if given a choice. The point is that we are rarely presented with that choice. The same applies to 10XXX blocking. AOS only exist because we can't (or are deceived into believing we can't) reach our prefered carrier. Andy Jacobson or ------------------------------ From: John McHarry Subject: Re: Many Software Designers of Caller ID Also Disliked it Organization: The MITRE Corporation Date: 17 Feb 91 19:15:44 GMT technews@iitmax.iit.edu (Tech News Account) writes: > ... why not make CALLER*ID available only to RESIDENTIAL customers? > still leave it avail. for personal use... so what if it doesn`t help > the pizza parlors cull fake orders. O heaven forfend! The pizza parlor's putting my standard order in a data base and getting it right (and to the right address) for a change is one of the best uses I can see for the thing. ------------------------------ From: Peter da Silva Subject: Re: Caller*ID Organization: A corner of our bedroom Date: Mon, 18 Feb 1991 00:13:09 GMT In article , herbison@ultra.enet.dec.com (B.J. 15-Feb-1991 1359) writes: > My first thought was large numbers of people exchanging lists of > telemarketer numbers. My second thought was the problems caused > when a telemarketer changes numbers and someone else gets the number > -- someone who is a friend or a potential client. That's the user's problem. The simplest solution would be to expire numbers after a time period. That way you may eventually get called by that telemarketer again, but then you add it to the list and you're safe from bothersome calls for another six months. (peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com) ------------------------------ From: mpd@anomaly.SBS.COM (Michael P. Deignan) Subject: Re: Nynex Gateway Bites the Dust Organization: Small Business Systems, Inc., Esmond, RI 02917 Date: Sun, 17 Feb 1991 22:42:15 GMT adamg@world.std.com (Adam M. Gaffin) writes: > Nynex Corp. said yesterday (Monday) it will pull the plug on a > computer information service that has lost several million dollars. [much more deleted...] Perhaps now the Baby Bells will start to get the idea that running a BBS generally isn't a business, it is usually a hobby ... Michael P. Deignan Domain: mpd@anomaly.sbs.com UUCP: ...!uunet!rayssd!anomaly!mpd Telebit: +1 401 455 0347 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 03:47 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: One-Number Card Warning Steve Forrette writes: > What makes it worse is that they have a > 10XXX access code, so someone can use a one number card to call to > anywhere from *any* phone they might be using. Note that it isn't > that they just aren't verifying the PIN, as a PIN that's neither the > normal nor the "one number" one will be denied. Not that I would advocate anything improper, but (in the style of Jack Lord's Hawaii Five-O character) suppose, just suppose... You happened to dial a call to a supervising busy test or the Bell Canada newsline and used as a calling card the phone number of the corporate headquarters of ComSystems followed by XXXX (your choice). Do you suppose that the company might be encouraged to close that hole if enough people caused bogus charges to appear the firm's own phone bill? Just wondering. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Robert Jacobson Subject: Re: Why 900-STOPPER Date: 18 Feb 91 03:11:37 GMT Organization: Human Interface Technology Lab, Univ. of Wash., Seattle In his note to Jerry Leichter's posting on 900-STOPPER, the Moderator makes the comment, "For the average John Doe whose only immediate way of call tracing is via Caller*ID then the 900 service is virtually useless at this time." I thought that Call Trace was the service that would permit a customer to have a call traced, by the telephone company or law enforcement, if a call was made inappropriately. Please correct me if I am wrong, but this confusion of services is not helping the overall discussion. Bob Jacobson [Moderator's Note: Let me try to explain again. What are the two reasons one would place a call through STOPPER? (1) To prevent one's own telephone billing records from showing a call to the end destination in the event the billing records were examined, for example by law enforcement people. So instead of seeing a call to the place where they know good and well you called, they see instead a call to STOPPER at that time. Don't you suppose they will then subpoena the STOPPER records to demonstrate what happened next? I doubt the proprietors of STOPPER will/would fight any subpoena of their records. After all, your $2 phone call is hardly worth it. So in this instance (1), all you do is add an extra step in the tracing process; you do not make anything 'untraceable'. In another application for the service (2), it is not the government trying to demonstrate that a call was made, but the recipient of the call who wants to find out who you are / where you are calling from. There are two ways to go about it: (a) a manual trace initiated by telco people on the receiving end of the call, or (b) an automatic trace using Caller*ID or *57. In the case of (a), the trace would lead back to the outdials at STOPPER; again I ask if you think the proprietor there is going to cover for the perpetrator of the call at the risk of going to jail himself ... I doubt it. So with (a), the caller would be putting an extra step in the tracing process, nothing more or less. The call would not be 'untraceable'. Many's the time calls have been traced halfway around the world in a few minutes when the need was there. I'm reminded of the mentally ill person in Chicago who used to frequently call Buckingham Palace to threaten the Queen. After everyone got tired of the joke and decided to do something about it, British Telecom was waiting for the chap and signalled their colleagues at AT&T on this side to pick up the pair he was on. AT&T traced him back to the switcher on Canal Street in Chicago; they got the call from IBT's Chicago-Superior office; and the Chicago-Superior CO got it from ... hmmmm ... WHitehall 4-6211, the Lawson YMCA. A quick call to the security office at Lawson sent someone up to the phone room on the fifth floor where a look at the old cord board showed the trunk in particular up to the guy's room phone. Total time from start to finish, about ten minutes. Admittedly there was some advance coordination. So a call via STOPPER would do what? Add another link to be checked? And in the case of (b), for the time being forget it unless the call is intra-lata. A call that cannot be identified with Caller*ID can't be handled via *57 or *60 either. So if Caller*ID, *57 and *60 are largely ineffectual on an inter-lata basis anyway, and the proprietor of the STOPPER service is unlikely to cover for you in the event of a manual trace and/or audit of billing records, then what remains to make STOPPER such a valuable service? Is there something else it can do to hide a phone call that isn't already happening by virtue of the way the phone network operates in most places at the present time? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 00:52 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: The Year Was 1960 (was Allied Radio / Radio Shack) On Feb 16 at 23:49, TELECOM Moderator writes: > (The last COs in Chicago to go dial were cut in 1951.) No modems, no > color television. No color television? Speak for yourself, Pat. I was a high school sophomore and augmented my income by baby sitting for neighbors. I distinctly remember watching (of all things) the Perry Como show on NBC on Saturday nights because it was very much in color on the neighbor's RCA color TV. (The first color TV I ever saw was in 1956.) John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! [Moderator's Note: Maybe there was color television by then; I forget. I am sure it was not all that common in households until the early sixties sometime. Obviously there was no cable television, and FM radio was in its infancy, virtually dwarfed by AM stations, which were still doing the 'radio version' of the old shows (comedy, variety, etc) which had begun migrating to television several years before. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 22:57:16 CST From: Daniel Jacobson Subject: Re: Environmentally Responsible Telco Reply-To: Dan_Jacobson@att.com Organization: AT&T-BL, Naperville IL, USA Donald E. Kimberlin writes about exciting new developments on the reusable telephone company billing envelopes front. Here in Illinois Bell territory I can charge it with my major credit card. On my monthly call I pester my Ill Bell representative about somehow making this automatic. However, I have it rigged up with Northern Ilinois Gas to "front" them $40 each month out of my bank account -- definitely the least maintenance style of billing I've come across ... they even pay 5% interest on the surplus $$. Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM Naperville IL USA +1 708-979-6364 [Moderator's Note: You should familiarize yourself with 'BILL'. This is an automatic pay-by-phone service all the utilities in northern Illinois use as well as many merchants and credit card services. You can pay many of your bills by phone each month with a single phone call to 'BILL' as I do. They are in Arlington Heights, IL, and tied in with all the banks to do automatic debits, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #128 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa13012; 19 Feb 91 2:34 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa28579; 19 Feb 91 1:01 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa05751; 18 Feb 91 23:55 CST Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 23:43:38 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #129 BCC: Message-ID: <9102182343.ab28339@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Mon, 18 Feb 91 23:43:26 CST Volume 11 : Issue 129 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: A History of the USA to Cuba Phone Links [David Lesher] Re: A History of the USA to Cuba Phone Links [Roy Smith] Re: "Independent" Coin Phones [Peter da Silva] Re: "Independent" Coin Phones [John Higdon] Re: Answer Supervision From Loop Start Circuits [Ken Abrams] Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? [John Richard Bruni] Re: FCC Proposed Rule Changes; Equal Access [Jim Gottlieb] Re: Two Questions From a Novice [Juliet Sutherland] Re: How Times Change [Peter da Silva] Re: Market Place Product [Toby Nixon] Re: Cordless Phones: Are any 'Secure' From Handset to Base [Ed Greenberg] Re: Cordless Phones: Are any 'Secure' From Handset to Base [Dell Ellison] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Lesher Subject: Re: A History of the USA to Cuba Phone Links Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 11:15:29 EST Reply-To: David Lesher Organization: NRK Clinic for habitual NetNews abusers Donald Kimberlin posted a great tome about USA -- Cuba telco connection history. I can add a few things. 1) There IS something called "Western Union Havana" that runs circuits to Key West, I believe. I'm aware of one four-wire 75 baud [WOW ;-] teletype link, and several Telex machines. 2) The voice quality of the existing system is likely to be the worst you have ever experienced. The crosstalk is equal to your desired source -- on a good day. 3) The Soviot Chancery has several four-metre {+/-3db ;-} dishes that I assume talk to one of their birds. 4) According to newspaper accounts, there is now fiber-optic cable in place with boocoo capacity. {Who installed it?} The hangup in using it involves transferring money to Cuba to maintain their end of the link. Treasury does not want to break the boycott to that extent. But, Bell South was rumored to be putting the screws on to get it running. Why? Apparently, the existing link [I assume this refers to the Florida City tropo setup] uses spectrum space Bell South wants for cellular service in an area they see as a real gold mine - the Keys. Confusing that is the fact I think I just saw a recent Bell South ad for new Keys cellular service. Have they gone ahead without the needed spectrum space? 5) Once you get to Havana, you still need working local plant to reach your destination. Let me put this in c.d.t. terms: John Higdon, I've got just the place for all that Pac*Bell stuff -- it would be several orders of magnitude better. Ironically, however, the three "international" hotels in town all have new Mitel systems, an off shoot of all the business the Canadians do with Cuba. Just don't count on anything happening when you dial "9." Maybe when everyone is done fixing up the GDR's system, they should stop by Cuba. wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (305) 255-RTFM ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 11:39:47 EST From: Roy Smith Subject: Re: A History of the USA to Cuba Phone Links Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City Donald E. Kimberlin writes (in a very interesting essay): > More common were failures that lasted a year or more if the cable itself > was physically damaged, which happend several times when ships dropped > anchor on the cable in Havana harbor. Telecom readers might be interested to know that the US Coast Pilot (sort of the offical government AAA guide for mariners) has a note in it for New York Harbor that underwater cables abound, and that AT&T will gladly compensate the owner of any ship who's captain cuts away his anchor rather than trying to pull it up if he suspects he has snagged a cable. 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: Peter da Silva Subject: Re: "Independent" Coin Phones Organization: A corner of our bedroom Date: Tue, 19 Feb 1991 03:37:32 GMT In article , IZZYAS1@mvs.oac.ucla.edu (Andy Jacobson) writes: > found the whole place wired with Ultra-Rip-Off (TM) phones, that > wanted $1.75 for a call. I had to go miles, like three, to find a real > Pac*Bell phone that would charge me only $0.40 for the same call And how much did that three mile drive cost you, in time and inconvenience? Sometimes I feel like John Higdon, amazed at the trouble people will put them to to save a nickle or make a point. But then I dutifully clip coupons and comparison shop and go out of my way to find a free automatic teller. I'll make a special trip at lunch to get diskettes for $7.00 instead of $10.00 a box. Anyway (dragging my train of thought bodily back on the tracks and, to mix a metaphor, pinning it to the mat) just how much is that honest Bell coin phone worth to you? peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 01:31 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: "Independent" Coin Phones Andy Jacobson writes: > Agreed, but John, we often aren't given much of a choice. For example > when I needed to call someone from a shopping center in Vista, and > found the whole place wired with Ultra-Rip-Off (TM) phones, that > wanted $1.75 for a call. I had to go miles, like three, to find a real > Pac*Bell phone that would charge me only $0.40 for the same call (I > was going away from where I was calling). And so, you confirm my statements about the marketplace. The fact is, you went three miles out of your way to avoid dropping any money into a device that you deemed unworthy of your business. Granted, in the short term, many will be inconvenienced, overcharged, and otherwise put upon. We Americans are always looking for the instant, quick fix. If we can keep our shirt on long enough and let the marketplace do its inevitable work, COCOTs will go away by themselves without gummit meddling or interference. And the force that causes their demise will be the most powerful in the world: economics. This is far superior to piling on layers of unenforcable regulations or some sort of "quick fix" legislation. When people go miles out of their way to find utility phones, buy and use cellular phones, or just avoid using the phones altogether, COCOTs will eventually experience the death they so well deserve. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Ken Abrams Subject: Re: Answer Supervision From Loop Start Circuits Date: 17 Feb 91 18:41:54 GMT Organization: Athenanet, Inc., Springfield, Illinois In article <74365@bu.edu.bu.edu> csense!bote@uunet.uu.net (John Boteler) writes: >Although my suggestion may not meet his exact requirements, it does >work flawlessly for my voice response systems. >Solution: order CENTREX. That's it! No special tariffs, no unnecessary >pain (other than the usual CENTREX programming screw-ups), and you get >features as part of the deal. The answer supervision is provided as an >OSI (Open Switch Interval) at least on 3*Way calls, and possibly on >single outbound calls when served by a #1ESS. #5s and their ilk are >another question. I hope John doesn't build his business around this "hidden feature" that he thinks he has found because sometime in the near future it is likely to disappear. None of the modern digital switches produce an open-interval at the point that he is looking for it (can be arranged for open circuit at disconnect only). When John's LEC cuts him over to a digital switch, he will probably complain long and loud because some of his equipment doesn't work anymore. If you really need answer supervision, it is available with ground-start PBX lines in the form of a line reversal. There may be other solutions too but trying to interpret an open switching interval as answer supervision is a big mistake (IMHO); it will likely bite you in the backside later. Ken Abrams uunet!pallas!kabra437 Illinois Bell kabra437@athenanet.com Springfield (voice) 217-753-7965 ------------------------------ From: John_Richard_Bruni@cup.portal.com Subject: Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? Date: Sun, 17 Feb 91 21:28:16 PST Pat, This may be hazardous to one`s health, but I have on several occassions seen phones hooked up to AC to ring the bell for plays ... you get a momentary-on switch and someone in the stage crew pushes the button to simulate the ring. One stage manager told me the extra voltage and frequency was handy because the phone rang *MUCH* louder than normal, which was ideal for theater use. I am sure that the phones in question were 1970`s vintage or earlier. This is all I know about the subject. I`ll leave the technical discussion of the pros and cons to those more in the know. Regards, Rocky [Moderator's Note: What you are suggesting is a *highly dangerous* practice which could -- would !!! -- damage the phone beyond future use to say nothing of hurting the hapless person who picked it up at the wrong time. Don't do it! PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jim Gottlieb Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Rule Changes; Equal Access Date: 18 Feb 91 10:15:30 GMT Reply-To: Jim Gottlieb Organization: Info Connections, Tokyo, Japan In article the AP Wire Service writes: > MCI and US Sprint customers already can use either 800 or 950 >numbers or dial a 10XXX access code. > But AT&T depends solely on the access code. That company has >lobbied the FCC to require 10XXX access, saying it would cost as much >as $50 million to develop and $250 million a year to operate an 800 >access number. I can partially understand AT&T's reluctance to set up an 800 number, given the marketing costs involved and the fact that 10XXX exists. But I think they should bite the bullet. 10XXX will never provide the access that an 800 number does. The problem is that 10XXX+0+ must, by necessity, be blocked quite often. Go into most large comapnies and ask to use the phone. You will usually be offered a telephone that is restricted to local calls and 800 numbers. The business can not allow any type of 0+ calling because they can not risk that you may dial 0+ and make the call person-to-person or do some other billing that will come back to them. Hotels usually have toll terminal trunks to get around this problem, but ordinary businesses do not have such lines, and must therefore block 0+. AT&T must get a nationwide 950 or 800 number if it wishes that its customers be able to use AT&T long distance from any telephone. Jim Gottlieb Info Connections, Tokyo, Japan E-Mail: or Fax: +81 3 3237 5867 Voice Mail: +81 3 3222 8429 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 15:49:08 EST From: Juliet Sutherland Subject: Re: Two Questions From a Novice Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories In article , Jim.Redelfs@iugate. unomaha.edu (Jim Redelfs) writes: > As existing, copper-pair cable facilities reach their capacity, the > solution is to either place more cable, or install "Pair Gain" > systems. One used in my specific service area is called SLC96 > (Slick-96) where, through the use of special equipment on BOTH ends of > the cable, 96 "pairs" are achieved on the end by using FOUR, physical > pairs of wire. One minor quibble with the above. The SLC(R)-96 and SLC Series 5 carrier systems actually use 10 physical pairs. Each 96 line system uses four primary T1 lines and one protection T1 line (assuming it is supported by copper feeder rather than a co-located fiber mux). Each T1 line uses two pairs (one each for transmit and receive) for a total of 10 physical pairs. There may also be additional pairs associated with multiple systems for such things as test access, order wire, etc. The pair gain is still substantial, however. SLC is a registered trademark of AT&T Network Systems. Juliet Sutherland Digital Loop Carrier Systems AT&T Bell Laboratories juliet@mhuxo.att.com ------------------------------ From: Peter da Silva Subject: Re: How Times Change Organization: A corner of our bedroom Date: Mon, 18 Feb 1991 14:01:32 GMT In article , john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > On a related note, now that the cost of sending a transcontinental FAX > is less than postage, do you suppose we may see a drop in USPS mail > volume anytime soon? I doubt it. The up-front capital costs of a FAX machine, plus a second line at the recipient end, don't help the economics much. Remember, not that many people have these new toys, and the majority of the USPS mail volume already gets a more favorable rate. peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com ------------------------------ From: Toby Nixon Subject: Re: Market Place Product Date: 18 Feb 91 10:05:23 GMT Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA In article , Leroy.Donnelly@iugate. unomaha.edu (Leroy Donnelly) writes: > Is there anyone in Atlanta that could post the address to Collins & > Collins CPAs. Neither the Atlanta White Pages nor Yellow Pages list a "Collins & Collins" CPA firm. The only likely alternative is "Collins, John P CPA" at 2625 Cumberland Pkwy NW, Atlanta; 404-433-1711. There is no listing in either place for a CPA named "Carlton Collins", who was quoted in the article, although there is one "Collins, Carlton" in the residential White Pages who lives in a neighborhood likely to be populated by CPAs and such. Toby Nixon, Principal Engineer | Voice +1-404-449-8791 Telex 151243420 Hayes Microcomputer Products Inc. | Fax +1-404-447-0178 CIS 70271,404 P.O. Box 105203 | UUCP uunet!hayes!tnixon AT&T !tnixon Atlanta, Georgia 30348 USA | Internet hayes!tnixon@uunet.uu.net ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 09:12 PST From: Ed_Greenberg@3mail.3com.com Subject: Re: Cordless Phones: Are Any 'Secure' From Handset to Base? Patrick, Is it really necessary to insinuate that ham radio operators are actively involved in snooping on their neighbors? Ham radio operators have the whole world with which to communicate. There are lots more interesting things to do then listen to the drivel that most people put over their phone lines. Besides, portable phones don't operate in the ham band. Sorry to get testy, but it's a common and distasteful response. Whenever anything improper takes place that is related to the "wireless" somebody always brings up radio amateurs. Yet these detractors pay no attention to the experimentation and public service that takes place on our bands. I know you know better, Pat. edg [Moderator's Note: I think what I said -- at least what I meant -- was that someone other than a relatively experienced radio operator (i.e. a ham) would be unlikely to understand the concept of sideband transmissions and in any event would find them difficult to tune in clearly. I did not mean hams would be *likely* to do so. Sorry for the confusion. PAT] ------------------------------ From: "Dell H. Ellison" Subject: Re: Cordless Phones: Are any 'Secure' From Handset to Base Date: 18 Feb 91 21:26:20 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL In article , callaghan@bss.enet.dec.com writes: > Question: Are there any 'secure' cordless phones?? I thought that there were several cordless phones out there that automatically changed the frequency every fraction of a second so as to keep the conversation somewhat secure. [Moderator's Note: These are available. I don't know about 'several' different models however. I think their cost would be / is prohibitive from a consumer's point of view. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #129 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa16046; 19 Feb 91 4:42 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa17553; 19 Feb 91 3:08 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ad14582; 19 Feb 91 2:02 CST Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 1:14:03 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #130 BCC: Message-ID: <9102190114.ab12897@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 19 Feb 91 01:13:29 CST Volume 11 : Issue 130 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Why 900-STOPPER [Robert Trebor Woodhead] Re: Why 900-STOPPER [John G Dobnick] Re: Why 900-STOPPER [Ralph W. Hyre] Re: Why 900-STOPPER [Laird P. Broadfield] Re: Why 900-STOPPER [Lang Zerner] Re: Why 900-STOPPER [Colin Plumb] God Save the Poor Hapless Queen [Randy Borow and TELECOM Moderator] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert Trebor Woodhead Subject: Re: Why 900-STOPPER Date: 18 Feb 91 07:11:29 GMT Organization: Foretune Co., Ltd. Tokyo Japan leichter@lrw.com (Jerry Leichter) writes: >The purpose of the STOPPER service is to provide truely untraceable >calls. >[Moderator's Note: ...Or is the 900 guy saying he would not respond to >a subpoena either? PAT] PAT, If I were running 1-900-STOPPER, I would simply not make any record of the outgoing calls placed by my users. Since the cost of the service is a flat rate per minute, there is no need for me to know what number a user calls, and, given the nature of the service, every reason why I should guarantee to my users that this information is not recorded. If this was the case, then the only way to determine the number a user called would be to 1) get his phone records to determine when he called the 900 number, and 2) get the records of the 900 service from the phone company [since the STOPPER owner would demand that he NOT get itemized bills with ANI, or would destroy that information upon receipt.] To make it tougher, the owner of the STOPPER service could buy long distance service from a different source for each of his outgoing lines, and assign each call to an outgoing line at random. Now the nosy parker trying to get the information is going to have to go after 30 or 40 different long distance providers to get the information. An additional security feature would be for the STOPPER number to allow a caller to "hang around" (at the normal charge) before and after his real call, thus reducing the association (timewise) between the calls on his bills and the call on the STOPPER company's bills. Robert J. Woodhead, Biar Games / AnimEigo, Incs. trebor@foretune.co.jp [Moderator's Note: If you want the protection of common carrier status -- that is, that you are not responsible for the contents of the traffic you carry, etc, then you *will* keep adequate records of your traffic for the period of time required by your regulating agency. If you do not wish that protection, then don't bother keeping records. I hope that everyone who traces a call back to your outdials then proceeds to sue you, accusing *you* of making the calls, letting you figure out what to do next. If you are not a common carrier then you are are an end user, and every telco has this common provision in their tariffs: the user/subscriber is responsible for the use of his instruments. Are you *sure* you don't want to be a common carrier? A lot of BBS operators who have gotten stung in the past sure wish they had had that protection for their email! Did you ever wonder why if you get harassed by someone on the phone you can't just go sue Sprint for putting the call through? Same difference. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 18:21:04 -0600 From: John G Dobnick Subject: Re: Why 900-STOPPER Our Moderator says there are two reasons for using STOPPER: (1) To prevent one's own telephone billing records from showing a call to the end destination... (2) ... [stymie] the recipient of the call who wants to find out who you are / where you are calling from. He then states that agencies searching phone records (presumably by subpoena) who encounter a STOPPER service need merely subpoena the STOPPER's phone records, thus allowing Call*Matching [_not_ a trademark, as far as I know] to proceed. He also states that manual trace procedures will render STOPPER ineffective. At the risk of displaying my immense ignorance of things telephonic, which is considerable, I don't see how this follows at all. As I recall the original description of STOPPER, it was a "call forwarding" operation that accepted incoming calls and allowed the caller to then dial out on one of STOPPER's lines. Now, this setup seems to me to involve customer premises equipment that is _not_ under the control of, or directly accessible by, any phone company, or any other agency. It was also my impression that this service, assuming it is popular, will have some volume. I thus fail to see how one can disambiguate without reasonable doubt the multiple incoming and outgoing calls of the STOPPER service. (It seems that for trial purposes "reasonable doubt" would itself be a case "stopper".) Another aspect of STOPPER, as I recall it being presented, is that the company keeps NO records of connections! If there are no records, there is nothing to subpoena, is there? Or is there some (perhaps obscure) regulation that says a company is *required* to keep phone logs? Our Moderator then says: > [a manual] trace would lead back to the outdials at STOPPER; ... [this > is merely] putting an extra step in the tracing process, nothing > more or less. The call would not be 'untraceable'. But, if this is _private_ CPE installed in a _private_ location, how _can_ it be traced through? If I "lash up" my own x-bar to cross-connect my own phone lines, are you telling me the phone company can trace through this? How? This sure sounds like a Trace*Stopper [another non-trademark] to me. > [...] and the proprietor of the STOPPER service is unlikely to > cover for you in the event of a manual trace and/or audit of billing > records, then what remains to make STOPPER such a valuable service? _Whose_ audit records? STOPPER isn't keeping any, so what have they to "cover for"? > Is there something else it can do to hide a phone call that isn't > already happening by virtue of the way the phone network operates > in most places at the present time? I think our Moderator may have answered his own question here. He is apparently assuming that STOPPER is "part of the network", and under the "watchful care" (or "prying access") of the Phone Companies. My understanding of the service is that it is instead a (to use a computer term) "user exit" from the network, in much the same manner a PBX is -- not under control of, or accessible to, the phone companies. Thus, it seems to me that STOPPER does provide a useful "untraceability" service, _as advertised_. If it doesn't, what is the obvious aspect of this that I am overlooking? [Sorry about the Cute*Names -- I've been reading this digest too long. :-)] John G Dobnick (JGD2) Computing Services Division @ University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee INTERNET: jgd@csd4.csd.uwm.edu ATTnet: (414) 229-5727 UUCP: uunet!uwm!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!jgd [Moderator's Note: Please see my response in the first message of this issue. Either the equipment is part of the 'network' or it is not. If it is part of the network then network record keeping procedures and common carrier status will be present. If it is not part of the network then it belongs to a private user who, under the tariffs of the telco serving him is responsible for the use of his 'instruments'. Which way does he want to have it? It can't be both ways! Would he prefer to keep records and produce them on subpoena or is it his preference to get sued by call recipients from time to time? PAT] ------------------------------ From: "Ralph W. Hyre" Subject: Re: Why 900-STOPPER Date: 19 Feb 91 00:35:10 GMT Reply-To: "Ralph W. Hyre" Organization: AT&T OSS Development, Cincinnati In article cyberoid@milton.u. washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 128, Message 7 of 9 >... [call tracing through STOPPER.]. Don't you suppose they will then >subpoena the STOPPER records to demonstrate what happened next? This implies that records are kept linking the incoming subscriber with the outgoing call. If I were providing the 900-STOPPER service, I would be aware of this and only record the time and length of the call for billing purposes. Presumably the protection of not having the number itemized on your bill would be worth the inconvenience of not being able to challenge the call. I could also set up a call-back mechanism to dial out both numbers (caller and victim.. er, callee) and connect the calls, making it somewhat harder to trace (assuming I had several users 'on-line' at a time). As a responsible provider, I could also shut-off access to certain outgoing numbers that complained (via call-screening or other feedback) about abusive calls. I would also tend cooperate with law enforcment if they offer evidence that a crime is being committed using my facilities. Ralph W. Hyre, Jr. Internet: rhyre@attmail.com UUCP: attmail!cinpmx!rhyre Snail Mail: 45150-0085 [ZIP code] or: att!cinoss1!rhyre Phone: +1 513 629 7288 ------------------------------ From: "Laird P. Broadfield" Subject: Re: Why 900-STOPPER Date: 19 Feb 91 03:01:14 GMT In cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) writes: [some stuff, after which the Moderator said:] >[Moderator's Note: Let me try to explain again. What are the two >reasons one would place a call through STOPPER? (1) To prevent one's >own telephone billing records from showing a call to the end >destination in the event the billing records were examined, for >example by law enforcement people. So instead of seeing a call to the >place where they know good and well you called, they see instead a >call to STOPPER at that time. Don't you suppose they will then >subpoena the STOPPER records to demonstrate what happened next? Correct me if I'm wrong here, but wouldn't the STOPPER link be sufficient pseudo-confusion to make it impossible to *prove* (rules of evidence) that J. PSTNUser made that particular call? "Well, gee, sure you can have my records. You'll note that 57 incoming calls occured during that minute, to these 57 destination numbers. How else may I help you?" I think we all realize that the Dr. Johnny's Phone Cops "have the technology" (to mangle two shows together) but I would think the service is targeted at people interested in what can be proven, not what can be stated. Laird P. Broadfield UUCP: {akgua, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!lairdb INET: lairdb@crash.cts.com [Moderator's Note: Again we are dealing with record keeping and the lack or sufficiency thereof. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Why 900-STOPPER From: lang@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com Reply-To: lang@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com (Lang Zerner) Organization: IBM AWD Palo Alto Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 19:58:06 GMT In article leichter@lrw.com (Jerry Leichter) writes: >The purpose of the STOPPER service is to provide truely untraceable >calls. It was started by a lawyer, who cited a number of circumstances >in which you might want to ensure that the numbers you dial cannot be >found, EVEN BY SOMEONE WHO CAN SUBPEANA YOUR PHONE RECORDS. ... Yes, >it sounds funny, but there are a variety of legitimate uses for this >kind of service - the founder got the idea after he ran into one. >[Moderator's Note: The thing is, anyone who could subpoena your >records looking for certain connections would surely see the calls to >the 900 service, then supoena those records as well. ...] It seems to me it wouldn't be all that easy to subpoena the records of the STOPPER service. I'm sure it could be done, but is it that striaghtforward to issue a subpoena against the records of a business that was not complicit in an abuse of its services? Why would that be any more straightforward than issuing a subpeona against the records of any other entity whose phone number appears on the defendants calling record (legally, I mean; I can see the intuitively obvious differences, but they don't help in court)? Be seeing you... Lang Zerner [Moderator's Note: The complicity of the business in the abuse of its services could be easily demonstrated by its lack of record keeping to control such situations if in fact it did not keep records, as has been suggested by some here. And if records *were* kept but a subpoena failed to issue after application for same then the next step would be a backdoor approach of filing suit against the proprietor, accusing him of having no records to produce by reason of having committed the abuse himself. To demonstrate otherwise, he would then produce the records in his own defense if he could not be induced to produce them otherwise. In other words, name your customer or I sue you making the claim you yourself caused the mischief. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ccplumb@rose.uwaterloo.ca (Colin Plumb) Subject: Re: Why 900-STOPPER Organization: University of Waterloo Date: Tue, 19 Feb 1991 03:57:18 GMT TELECOM Moderator Noted: > [Moderator's Note: The thing is, anyone who could subpoena your > records looking for certain connections would surely see the calls to > the 900 service, then supoena those records as well. All it would seem > to do (in the case of a professional investigator) is add an extra > step in the process. For the average John Doe whose only immediate way > of call tracing is via Caller*ID then the 900 service is virtually > useless at this time. Or is the 900 guy saying he would not respond to > a subpoena either? PAT] No, I suspect the security is provided by the 900 guy not keeping records. He has an incoming bank, and an outgoing bank, and the House Committee on Un-American Activities (for example) can find out that at 5:32, the following twenty people called in and the following twenty numbers were called out to. Allowing some variation in dialing time makes it noisier, although I think the disconnect time (likely synchronised quite exactly) would provide enough information to follow the link. The idea is to add another link in the chain and make it harder to trace. The idea has been used by phreaks for years. It's also not foolproof. But some variants are moderately secure: I once got a call from an old acquaintance in the U.S. via Australia. Why Australia? Well, it was somewhat exotic, but more importantly all the techs were alseep at the time, making a speedy trace less likely. Colin [Moderator's Note: As you point out, not all of the twenty calls terminated at the same time; nor were all successfully connected. But all that has to happen with this chap is for a few truly obnoxious and/or threatening calls to go to, for example, President Bush ... or lots of fraud credit card orders placed where the ANI supplied on the merchant's 800 order line traces back to his service. The feds will come down on him hard and he will produce records if he has them, and sweat a lot if he can't ... or maybe even if he can! :) PAT] ------------------------------ From: rborow@bcm1a09.attmail.com Date: Mon Feb 18 14:17:54 CST 1991 Subject: God Save the Poor Hapless Queen Pat, In TELECOM V11, #128, you gave us the account of the YMCA resident pestering the Queen. For us not versed in the technical aspects of telecommunications jargon, exactly how could such a call be traced -- especially taking into account that there are numerous calls going into England, out of Chicago, etc. For us layman out here, is it possible to explain this? (I can grasp intra-lata or even inter-lata tracing, but international?) Randy Borow Rolling Meadows, IL. [Moderator's Note: This is a little oversimplified, but tracing a call involves only following the wires from one end to the other. Obviously an intra-CO trace is the easiest, but a trace between offices merely involves someone at one office calling his colleague at the other office and telling him which interoffice trunk the incoming call to his CO is arriving on. Then the distant CO picks it up and keeps following the wire. The Queen's telephone has a pair of wires coming to it from a BT central office. In that CO they see the connection is to an overseas circuit identified by a number. A call to AT&T in White Plains, NY will get someone there to find that overseas circuit and see that it is linked elsewhere. Yes, telcos cooperate with each other on traces when required, when the call being audited or traced goes from one telco to another enroute to its final destination. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #130 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa07525; 19 Feb 91 20:05 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa25452; 19 Feb 91 18:25 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa15994; 19 Feb 91 17:19 CST Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 16:37:26 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #131 BCC: Message-ID: <9102191637.ab12484@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 19 Feb 91 16:36:46 CST Volume 11 : Issue 131 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Saudi-Connection: Email to the Troops [Glenn F. Leavell & Tom Coradeschi] A History of DDD [Donald E. Kimberlin] {Journal-Constitution} Editorial on Prodigy [Peter Marshall] Re: Prodigy: What Does Sears Do? What About IBM? [Robert Trebor Woodhead] PRESTEL/Videotex Protocol Inquiry [Ed Krol] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Glenn F. Leavell" Subject: Saudi-Connection: Email to the Troops Organization: University of Georgia Economics Department Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 17:24:41 GMT [Moderator's Note: In article T720019@univscvm.csd.scarolina.edu, (Volkhart Baumgaertner) asks if there is a way to send email to the troops in Saudi Arabia. Two responses came in at almost the same time, both referencing an article which appeared in another forum. In addition to the response from Glenn Leavell, I got a reply from Tom Coradeschi . Both fellows got a message (from various directions) which had been originally written by . Here is the message from Mr. Bennet sent by both readers. > Date: 13 Dec 90 13:15:43 U > From: George Bennet > Subject: Desert Shield mail A drop-box address has been established at saudi-connection@Ra.MsState.Edu to route personal messages to U.S. military personnel involved in Operation Desert Shield. Since there is presently no known direct internet route to Saudi Arabia, these messages will be uploaded to the Saudi Connection, a BBS network. Traffic on the Saudi Connection ends up with a sysop in Saudi Arabia who prints the messages on a laser printer and delivers them to the U.S. military postal system there. Although the routing is very complex, these messages are now being delivered to the addressee in Saudi Arabia in less than a week. In comparison, there have been reports that snail-mail is taking six to ten weeks. While the contents of these messages are not available for public viewing, they are also not private. One or more sysops in the system will censor the messages for racial slurs, profanity and obvious things of that nature. The Saudi Connection is a private endeavor and those involved in it feel strongly that it should only be used to send "positive" messages. No message will be passed which might adversely affect the morale of the recipient. This is presently a one-way deal. No system has been established for return mail, so be sure to include your snail-mail address, especially if you are writing to ANY SERVICEPERSON. Include the serviceperson's name and address in the body of your message as shown below: Specific Individuals: Name, Rank, Social Security Number Operation Desert Shield Organization/Unit (Deployed) APO NY ZIPCode Local Forces <----THIS MUST BE INCLUDED OR IT WILL GET SENT TO NEW YORK AND THEN BACK TO SAUDI!!!!! Any Serviceperson: Any Servicemember Operation Desert Shield APO New York 09848-0006 Local Forces <----THIS MUST BE INCLUDED OR IT WILL GET SENT TO NEW YORK AND THEN BACK TO SAUDI!!!!! It is important that you put "Local Forces" as the last line of the address. If you don't, it will take a very long time, indeed, to reach the addressee. Please try to limit messages to 20 lines. Once again, the drop-box address is: saudi-connection@Ra.MsState.Edu ---- end of forwarded message ---- Glenn F. Leavell Systems Administrator glenn@rigel.econ.uga.edu 404-542-3488 University of Georgia Economics Department. 147 Brooks Hall. Athens, GA 30602 -- and -- Tom Coradeschi [Moderator's Note: And to both of you, my thanks! PAT] ------------------------------ From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Subject: A History of Direct Distance Dialing Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 In article (Digest v11,iss127), Gabe Wiener asks: > Has anything ... ever appeared regarding the history of DDD? If not, > could someone in the know post a brief synopsis of its history? Certainly, there are myopic, self-satisfying "histories" published by the various parties involved, giving readers the biased view that one and only one corporation accomplished the job. And, there are the endless references in the technical journals of the participants that have no connected thread. The one world book published by the CCITT, "From Semaphore to Satellite," has to avoid references to commercial firms due to the CCITT's international political nature, so I'm prone to respond that there really isn't any. Topics of how the telecommunications powers of the world interface hasn't yet appealed to students of business or their writers. That groundwork laid, the originator of subscriber-dialed intercity telephone calling was LM Ericsson's manufacturing company in Sweden. By the late 1940's, LME had provided a national network of Subscriber Trunk Dialing (as it is called in British parlance) throughout the network of the Swedish PTT. In keeping with the knowledge Europeans have always had about building export markets, the Swedish PTT (with Ericsson people as their "technical experts") made a "contribution" to the CCITT describing the Ericsson way to further its adoption as a "world standard." This would effectively make it necessary for others to either buy or emulate the Ericsson technology to have compatible interfaces to other nations. In that era, America and its monopoly Bell System were so insular that there was no notion of any need to be compatible with the rest of the world. Trunks between the US and other nations were minimal, operating as manual ringdown circuits on HF (shortwave) radio, and the world of business communicated by mail and Telex, anyway ... so why have much concern for the reports from some "international standards body" that the U.S. didn't need to worry about? However, the U.S. had a growing domestic market for intercity telephone calling, as "the phone" became truly ubiquitous. Completing the volume of calls between cities and across the nation appeared to loom as large a problem as the bankers faced clearing checks manually. If something wasn't done, it would soon require every worker in the nation to merely connect the intercity telephone calls, and the bankers foresaw the entire population would soon have to become bank clerks. Clearly, both could not employ the entire population. AT&T had been studying this problem, and knew that subscribers would soon have to dial their own calls across the country. The proposed project forecasts of how soon were not pleasing to Fred Kappel, then Chairman of AT&T. In a move previously unheard in American business and the Bell System, Kappel went to Sweden to see for himself that Ericsson had indeed completed a network. On his return home, he unstuck the problem by decree that AT&T would, indeed, accomplish the same. Solving the technical problems was, of course, up to Bell Labs. They had a choice to make or buy. Give an engineer a choice of this sort, and the answer is obvious. Bell Labs argued it should be permitted to design a network to suit the "unique' needs of the American telephone network; that it could do so by Kappel's deadline. And, like any non-technologist boss, Kappel let them do it. The Bell Labs rationale was that the Ericsson method contained many costs and functions that Bell Labs could avoid. For example, the Ericsson method used transmitted no tones on an idle trunk to avoid overloading multichannel carrier systems, requiring a complex relay logic method to initiate a call request; it used two tones through filters for a disconnect, to avoid problems with speech making a trunk "talk off" into a disconnect, and it used compelled digit signalling, in which the reciever confirmed each digit back to the sender, to avoid errors in number transmission during call set-up. Since Bell had monopoly control of its domestic network (the only one important to it in that era), it could get away with a single tone transmitted at a low level on an idle trunk, and control the digit transmission in ways that would minimize errors. There was no consideration for interfacing with other nations' networks. So, the Bell way became the "standard" for the US, Canada and portions of Mexico ... the region of Bell hegemony of the time. The Bell term became "Direct Distance Dialing," or DDD. Meantime, the rest of the world agreed on and standardized the Ericsson method, effectively making North American "standard" products pariahs in world trade. Among the "features" of the Bell method at the time were a numbering plan that had a finite number of digits, so relay logic could determine the end of dialing by counting digits, and the use of 0 or 1 in the leading "area code," to identify it as such. Thus, the Bell Labs "home grown" way, replete with a decade or so of problems and modifications to minimize "talk off" and crosstalk on multichannel carrier systems caused by maladustment of levels, became the North American norm. Meantime, the Ericsson way, with an open-ended numbering plan that could fit any nation and less reason to cause crosstalk became the "world standard." America's technological insularity showed through the entire era. Perhaps the most visible incident was the opening of the first automatic transatlantic trunks to Belgium. On the appointed day, trunks terminating at White Plains, NY were connected over to automatic switching ports. They didn't work, because the White Plains end had Bell-type signaling, while the Belgian end had "world-standard" Ericsson-type signalling. No amount of arguing from the Americans could get the Belgians to agree to using the non-standard American stuff. There was a rush in which Bell Labs devised some "applique units" (Bell jargon for an adapter/converter more complex than a simple relay) that converted between the two and installed them in White Plains. To this day, we still use the "Bell way' domestically, which requires a Bell-style switching machine to have "special" functions for international operations. The CCITT has recognized the "Bell way" for world regional use where PTT's of a region agree among themselves to use it, calling it CCITT Signalling System R-2. About the only place R-2 found any acceptance has been in the Pan-African plan, and that choice seems largely to have been one selected for political reasons in which the Africans showed their former colonial masters they had some choice. It didn't result in any market for Bell. They at the time weren't interested in selling export markets, so the Africans went to others who simply adapted and negotiated the matter to a sale, once again swiping market that had been made for the Americans. If this overview seems acerbic, it is intended that way, for I was there, watching America inflate its domestic ego while letting its huge economic dog gather yet another case of fleas. DDD is but one of the many ways we have let short-sighted accountants set us up for the problems we have today. ------------------------------ Subject: {Journal-Constitution} Editorial on Prodigy From: Peter Marshall Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 08:46:00 PST Organization: The 23:00 News In an unusual move, the daily ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION used its lead editorial Dec. 31 to attack the policies of Prodigy ... the editorial addressed the issue of what rules, if any, should govern electronic service providers. Prodigy argues it's an electronic newspaper, and like the J-C itself can set its own rules. But the newspaper said Prodigy e-mail "closely resembles a common-carrier communication medium like the mails or the phone systems ..." While Prodigy is ooposed to regulation by states or the FCC, the editorial continued, it is "subject to such regulation...." The editorial is important, not only for its publication in a daily paper, but for its appearance in a daily which itself has entered Prodigy's marketplace ... The ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION has begun offering a service called Access Atlanta, which offers electronic mail along with database access. Peter Marshall [Moderator's Note: You know what will be interesting to see -- the degree to which the J-C practices what it preaches as it were -- is when Access Atlanta has been running for awhile and they begin having run-ins with their own subscribers. Maybe they'll show the rest of us how these situations should be handled. I'm not terribly fond of Prodigy, but it is a privatly owned service to be run as its proprietors think best, IMHO, as is the J-C. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Robert Trebor Woodhead Subject: Re: Prodigy: What Does Sears Do? What About IBM? Date: 18 Feb 91 11:03:01 GMT Organization: Foretune Co., Ltd. Tokyo Japan hayes!tnixon@uunet.uu.net (Toby Nixon) writes: >By the way, I might comment on why it is that Prodigy was so concerned >about high levels of email traffic. Email on Prodigy CANNOT be staged >on the nodes -- it HAS to go all the way to White Plains for every >screen. Heavy email traffic saturates the network, which can bring it >to its knees very quickly. Email was intended to be an occassional >convenience feature, not a primary use of the service. Well, I won't bother to comment on the utter stupidity of the conclusion that email was going to be a minor feature of a nationwide consumer computer network, even absent of the fact that email was encouraged as a way to deal with the "editing" of messages posted to the Prodigy Forums. Obviously, Sear's massive market research didn't include logging on to any of the other online services ... ;) However, I do take issue with the statement that "Email on Prodigy CANNOT be staged on the nodes." Thats simply not true. It could very easily be staged. Since Prodigy knows which local host a user last logged into, and since it is probably a 95% probability (or more) that he will log into this same host on his next session, that host can be declared to contain his "mailbox", and mail can be catched there in anticipation of his next access. Insofar as "instant" delivery of mail is concerned, the only time Prodigy has to be concerned with priority delivery of mail from the central host to the local cache is when the user is actually on the system and in the email application; otherwise, mail that is sent to the user can be sent to the cache during times of low system utilization. Of course, the five percent of the time when the user changes local nodes doubles the overhead for pending mail, as it has to be sent from the old local node through the host to the new one (I assume that Prodigy, being cheap, doesn't want to spring for the extra disk space to duplicate email on the host and the local nodes). However, since this only happens one time out of twenty, and the other nineteen times the cost at the time of reading is near zero, you are looking at about a 80% decrease in the "cost" of sending email, at least. Finally, PRODIGY can easily deal with the huge mailing lists by not transmitting an identical copy to each recipient, but rather just one copy to each node that has recipients for it. Why they did it the way they did is a story I for one would like to hear. Robert J. Woodhead, Biar Games / AnimEigo, Incs. trebor@foretune.co.jp ------------------------------ From: Ed Krol Subject: PRESTEL/Videotex Protocol Inquiry Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Date: Tue, 19 Feb 1991 20:01:42 GMT Does anyone out there know what the PRESTEL videotex protocol looks like internally? Is it documented? In fact what I really need to know is if a server presents all textual data in this format how hard would it be to convert it back to ascii? I don't know why the service is provided in this protocol to begin with put there certainly aren't any graphics in what I would be dealing with. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #131 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa10247; 19 Feb 91 22:09 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa02241; 19 Feb 91 20:33 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab07306; 19 Feb 91 19:27 CST Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 19:11:35 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #132 BCC: Message-ID: <9102191911.ab07955@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 19 Feb 91 19:11:13 CST Volume 11 : Issue 132 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson HELP Needed in Poland From IBM and Telecom Gurus [Jan P. Radomski] Remote Recharger Needed For Cordless Phone [Bridger Mitchell] Ireland Plans Time-Related Local Calls [Deryck Fay] 1+206 Dialling Coming to Washington [David Barts] Any Async Muxes Out There? [Pete Jolly] All Monthly Bills --> One Bill [Daniel Jacobson] Do Network Interface Devices Make Fraud Easy? [Randy Borow] Modem on NCR Digital PBX? [ray@ziggy.quantum.leap.com] Intra-LATA Private Lines [Rick Jaffe] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 20:29 CDT From: "Jan P. Radomski" Subject: HELP Needed in Poland From IBM and Telecom Gurus [Moderator's Note: Richard Budd passed this along to the Digest, and adds this introductory paragraph prior to the letter from Poland. PAT] First, let me thank the TELECOM Digest readers for their answers to my question on BITNET in Poland. I am waiting for a reply from Wroclaw before sending PAT a summary of my findings. Meanwhile,this request was passed to me on PLEARN from Jan Radomski at the University of Warsaw. Though many of his questions deal with IBM mainframes, there are some telecom issues here as well. My apologies for the grammar. --------------- CKJ25@PLEARN.BITNET (Jan Radomski) writes in PLEARN-L 2/18/91: This time I have a very specific plea to our IBM gurus. After rather long and tiresome struggle the Chemistry Department has obtained much awaited cluster of some IBM 3274 terminals, the remote controller unit for them and a diskette with the bootstrap code. All of above were purchased second hand from some Scandinavian company, which is the main reason of part of our troubles with them. All terminals have their keyboard layout and appropriate screen characters generator customized meet the needs of some Scandinavian, rather than English (not to say Polish) language. Any hints how to start their recustomization will be welcome. The second thing is more urgent. As I said before, hardware is accompanied by the diskette. In the controller unit there are two disk drives. Before logging in one is expected to feed the diskette in one of those drives; otherwise nothing works. The diskette format is proprietary, and the usual pain in the neck. But, since this diskette is ABSOLUTELY VITAL we would like to duplicate it. And, as we've got only one such per cluster, I don't think that such a feat would constitute an act of software piracy. The problem, however, is that nobody here knows how to do it. Our (temporary we do hope, but these temporary things have an astonishing tendency to stay permanent) solution to the EARN connection, has one, but rather big blemish. The lack of any way to carry on FILE transfers. Or so it seems to us, but maybe these disk drives in the controller unit could be used for that? We were told about some gizzmo cards which one could put into the PC and, after connecting it with the coaxial cable to the mentioned controller, get 3270 emulation. But that was only as reliable as hearsay info. If this was true, than how do we get such a card? And what about software needed? The next matter concerns the use of dot matrix printers which accompanied our cluster. For that we simply lack customization software necessary. Is there any public domain or shareware code available? The last problem deals with our telephone. Our cluster is linked to the Plearn node BASF computer by the direct telephone line, which (as the one of the remainders of the past regime) connects the Rector's and Dean's offices between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. After that there is COMPUTER TIME -:). We would like very much to chenge this to the round the clock mode of operation, but .. -:(. So, it seems that the only solution is to put Data Over Voice modems on that line. So far however, we do know only about rather expensive DOV modems. On the other hand, if we are forced to find a permanent solution on such a line we would like to to get multiplexing capabilities as well. As for now we lack any machine to play a role of end-node server, but we expect and hope for this situation to end in a SUNny future (sooner, the better). Then, our link needs to be prepared to carry on it three-services burden. I only now have realized that this note is getting out of hand by being much too long. Sorry for that. The technical problems of certain nature (maybe a small fry for you) tends to overwhelm my chemistry. -:) Best regards, Jas. ------------- Richard Budd | E-Mail: IBMers - rcbudd@rhqvm19.ibm VM Systems Programmer | All Others- klub@maristb.bitnet IBM - Sterling Forest, NY | Phone: (914) 578-3746 ------------------------------ Subject: Remote Recharger Needed for Cordless Phone Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 18:03:02 PST From: Bridger Mitchell A bedridden parent needs wireless intercom capability to 150 feet to a secondary residence for a live-in aide. Her first preference would be to place the portable element of a cordless phone there on a permanent basis, and the base unit at the bedside. In this way the CT could then be used as both an intercom and to act as an extension telephone. Are there CTs that have a second recharging unit, without the base unit electronics? Otherwise, can someone recommend a good speech quality wireless intercom that also has minimal ambient hum when in standby mode? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 13:07 GMT From: DPFAY@vax1.tcd.ie Subject: Ireland Plans Time-Related Local Calls Telecom Eireann, the state-owned Irish telecom monopoly plans to introduce time-related charges for local calls, replacing the current system of one charge unit of 11.17 p (about US$0.19) per call irrespective of duration. The company says that this will bring Ireland into line with the rest of Europe and that the extra revenue will be used to reduce trunk (LD) call charges. The move has provoked hostile reaction in the media, particularly in Dublin, where the local call area covers 1.2 million people. Many users have complained that TE is abusing its monopoly and claim that in the U.S., competition between telcos has led to local calls being free. What is the general situation in the U.S. re local call charges? From reading comp.dcom.telecom, I know that it varies from place to place. However, there isn't actually competition for local service, is there? By European standards, Irish local calls work out cheap and LD calls expensive. How do they compare with typical charges elewhere? cost per minute Local (up to c.25 miles) 19c (irrespective of duration) LD up to 30 miles 11-19c 30 to 50 miles 23-38c over 50 miles 38-57c All calls charged in units of 11.17p. Prices converted to U.S. cents at a rate of 11.17p = 19c. Business/ residential rental is 10 pounds (c. $18) per month. Replies to DPFAY@VAX1.TCD.IE Deryck Fay ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 09:11:07 pst From: David Barts Subject: 1+206 Dialling Coming to Washington Several months ago (or was it that long) there was a discussion in this Digest about NPA 206 (western Washington state) running out of NXX exchange codes, and the fact that we will soon be seeing N0X/N1X exchange codes. Well, on the news this morning it was reported that beginning this November, a permissive period will begin when intra-NPA LD calls can be dialed as 1+206+7D or the existing 1+7D. Sometime later, 1+206+7D dialling will become mandatory (they didn't say when). So common sense has prevailed (this time), and there is no longer any need for us in NPA 206 to have to worry about accidentally dialling a seven-digit long distance call. Our Usenet feed has been very unreliable recently, and I have missed the past few days' worth of comp.dcom.telecom. My apologies if this item has been posted already. Also, there has been a flurry of recent activity in the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission and the State Legislature about US West's Caller*ID proposals for our state. If nobody else has posted anything, I'll post a short summary of the situatiuon so far. David Barts Pacer Corporation, Bothell, WA davidb@pacer.uucp ...!uunet!pilchuck!pacer!davidb ------------------------------ From: Pete Jolly Subject: Any Async Muxes Out There? Date: 19 Feb 91 19:52:15 GMT I am working on determining the feasability of setting up a time share system and and I have been trying to price asynchronous multiplexors. The prices have been fairly high (almost to the point of recommending that I drop the whole idea!). The following diagram illustrates what I am trying to accomplish: __________ ______ _____ |Computer|----| M | | M |-----TERMINAL | |----| U |---MODEM-----MODEM---| U |-----TERMINAL | |----| X | | X |-----TERMINAL |________|----|____| |___|-----PRINTER The MODEM <---> MODEM connection is kind of an unknown to me. Since this will be within the local dialing area, I would presume a leased line using high speed modems would be sufficient. Does anyone out there have any ideas about how such a network could be built at reasonable cost? From what I have seen so far, the MUX boxes (eight ports) are running $1,000+ each and I would imagine to get reasonable throughput something comparable to a Telebit Trailblazer would be needed ($1,000 X 2?) on the modem end. This brings the hookup price to about 4K excluding terminals and printers. The modem connections are going to be local dial ups so I am not necessarily interested in X.25 or any other WAN high throughput solutions (only because they can end up adding to the price of the hookup). This kind of solution would be something used within a five or ten mile radius of the host computer. I am very interested in distributors of multiplexors. I have already looked over Glasgal Communications literature but there may be other, better priced, products. I am not sure if I could save installation cost by using some other form of physical link. Asynch dial up seems like the cheapest and most prevalent. Thanks in advance. Pete Jolly Mountain View, California. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 01:15:28 CST From: Daniel Jacobson Subject: All Monthly Bills --> One Bill Reply-To: Dan_Jacobson@att.com Organization: AT&T-BL, Naperville IL, USA On 18 Feb 91 04:57:16 GMT, danj1@ihlpz.att.com (Daniel Jacobson) said: Dan> Here in Illinois Bell territory I can charge it with my major credit Dan> card. On my monthly call I pester my Illinois Bell representative Dan> about somehow making this automatic. PAT> can pay many of your bills by phone each month with a single phone PAT> call to 'BILL' as I do. They are in Arlington Heights, IL, and tied in PAT> with all the banks to do automatic debits, etc. PAT] Yeah but, being a person so stingy as to not order touch tone, I am bracing myself for the shock when you will hopefully reveal the costs of this service below. Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM Naperville IL USA +1 708-979-6364 [Moderator's Note: I think they charge $10 per merchant/year. There is no transaction fee, or if there is, the merchants pay it. You can set up automatic payments each month if you want, but I just call once a month and pay several merchants. The transfer is done the same day. I've found I can wait until a day past the cutoff date for IBT and still get the payment in on time via BILL. In addition to telco, I pay Edison (electric), People's Gas, the Chicago Water Works, Ameritech Mobile and Cellular One, Centel Voicemail and others. It takes me five minutes to flip through my bills and punch the buttons on the phone. They all have the payment credited on my account the next business day provided I input the transaction by 2:00 AM. The payments go direct to the merchant's computer with a corresponding debit to my bank account. You select and change your own password at will. Other features include a way to review past payments, review the directory of merchants and add/delete automatic payments, etc. I've used BILL for about three years now, and there has never been an error. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rborow@bcm1a09.attmail.com Date: Mon Feb 18 11:18:23 CST 1991 Subject: Do Network Interface Devices Make Fraud Easy? With everyone writing about projects on your telephone line, I had a related question. It concerns the Network Interface Devices installed by Illinois Bell. In my last phone bill, IBT explained how you can now test your own phone lines to see if a problem you were experiencing is in the phone itself or in the line. Apparently, according to the geniuses at IBT, all you need to do is pop open the NID box -- located on the back of your house about five feet off the ground -- with a screwdriver or something, pull out a wire, and insert your phone's modular plug. If you can make or receive a call through this point, then the problem lies with your nonworking phone. If you cannot make or receive a call, then the problem probably lies with Bell's network. My worry is simple: with these NID's located so conveniently for anyone to use, shouldn't I (or anyone else with these NID's) be concerned with the probability of fraud? Obviously, it would take a bit of knowledge to do it, but consider this: Illinois Bell explained just this to all their customers in the January issue of {Telebriefs}, IBT's monthly "newsletter". Randy Borow Rolling Meadows, IL. [Moderator's Note: Woulddn't you find it a bit suspicious to see some stranger in your back yard fooling around with the phone wires? There was an assumption made in the {Telebriefs} item that people would not in all likelyhood be trespassing on the property of others, and that they would be treated like the burglars they are if they got caught. You can also keep the NID locked or otherwise difficult to get into if you want. A far more likely scenario in an older urban area like Chicago is that when telco's own employee is on the pole trying to find one good, working idle pair, yours gets grabbed in error. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Subject: Modem on NCR Digital PBX? Date: 19 Feb 91 04:57:50 GMT My friend works in an office that has one of those NCR-made digital PBXes as a phone system. He would like to hook up a modem without trying to wire an analog line into the PBX. Are there interface boxes that let you plug "standard" phone equipment into a digital PBX? All I could get out of NCR was "modem? what's that?" ray@ziggy.ucsc.edu - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 12:22 EST From: Rick Jaffe Subject: Intra-LATA Private Lines From our office in Purchase, New York (near White Plains) we run fourteen ARD's and a 56Kb data line into various locations in the Wall Street and Midtown areas. Attempting to save money, we priced a "CO mux" from NYTel. This is a T1 line coupled with a rented multiplexer in a NYC CO. We would provide the T1 multiplexer in our Purchase office. Three problems: . We prefer to rent both multiplexers from our telecommunications line vendor, so that only one telephone call need be made in the event of a problem. . NYTel refuses to allow digital traffic over their "CO mux", so our 56Kb line can't be routed this way. . Price: NYTel charges so much for the multiplexer that the T1 line doesn't come close to breaking even at our current usage level of 15 DS0's. These fifteen circuits are "intra-LATA". Do we have any alternatives? USMail: OTA Limited Partnership, 101 N. Main, Suite 410, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 Phone: +1 313 930-1888 FAX: +1 313 930-6636 UUCP: !umich!leebai!rsj Internet: rsj@ox.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #132 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa12821; 20 Feb 91 0:20 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa10941; 19 Feb 91 22:40 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab05609; 19 Feb 91 21:34 CST Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 21:19:20 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #133 BCC: Message-ID: <9102192119.ab10864@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 19 Feb 91 21:18:58 CST Volume 11 : Issue 133 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: "Independent" Coin Phones [Andy Jacobson] Re: "Independent" Coin Phones [Brian Gordon] Re: Your Evolving Phone Number [Martin Harriss] Re: MCI's Personal 800 [Bill Huttig] Re: 800 Numbers, Voice Mail, and Privacy [Linc Madison] Re: How Times Change [John Higdon] Re: How Times Change [Colin Plumb] Re: NXX Count (1-15-91) [Carl Moore] Re: NXX Count (1-15-91) [Bob Goudreau] Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? [Jim Rees] Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? [Roy Smith] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 11:29 PST From: Andy Jacobson Subject: Re: "Independent" Coin Phones In TELECOM Digest V11 #129, peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com said: >And how much did that three mile drive cost you, in time and >inconvenience? And john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) said: >And so, you confirm my statements about the marketplace. The fact is, >you went three miles out of your way to avoid dropping any money into >a device that you deemed unworthy of your business. Granted, in the Now wait just a minute. First, never in my post did I say I went out of the way to use a real phone. (I call COCOTs "decoy phones" to my friends with less telephonic inclinations). Although I stopped at that shopping center only to use a phone and it was absolutely on my way to go down the road a piece, anyone who was there shopping probably would have been inconvenienced to do so. (Especially as one person using the decoy phone appeared to be waiting for a ride.) I doubt anyone would chose to avoid a shopping center because of the stripe of pay phone. This is not necessarily because people are too stupid, don't care, or are happy with it, it is because it is not a deciding factor in their need to shop there in the first place. Once there though, it is quite impractical to stage a protest, or to forego an important call. Very few businesses are likely to suffer a loss of patronage due to their choice of a decoy pay phone, and in my example, the phones are not directly tied to the stores, but the mall management, which has no presence at all. Maybe COCOTs are too much a trifle to be effectively boycotted. Maybe though, use does not connote approval, but instead an effective extortion campaign. I was lucky, I, in that circumstance, could opt out. Often, I have no choice. I could give a dozen examples where I capitulated and paid not a pittance to talk to someone. I did (and do) not do so _willingly_. Andy Jacobson or ------------------------------ From: Brian Gordon Subject: Re: "Independent" Coin Phones Date: 19 Feb 91 23:04:37 GMT Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca. In article peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: , IZZYAS1@mvs.oac.ucla.edu <(Andy Jacobson) writes: <> found the whole place wired with Ultra-Rip-Off (TM) phones, that <> wanted $1.75 for a call. I had to go miles, like three, to find a real <> Pac*Bell phone that would charge me only $0.40 for the same call Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 20:06:13 GMT Subject: Re: Your Evolving Phone Number Reply-To: "Martin Harriss (ACP" Organization: Bellcore In article AAT@vtmsl.bitnet (Asif Taiyabi) writes: >When neighborhood and street names started to run out, the Bell System >recommended new names. Bell of Pennsylvania looked to trees, so >Pittsburgh and Philadelphia wound up in the 1930s with shared names >like Locust, Poplar, and Walnut. Interesting. Central Philadelphia has a Walnut Street, a Locust Street and a Poplar Street. These are important thorofares, I'm sure they existed in the 1930's. So which came first? the street or the telephone exchange? Martin Harriss martin@cellar.bae.bellcore.com [Moderator's Note: The locations came first, obviously, and the exchange names later. The exchanges tended to be named after the geographic area, the street they were on or a prominent nearby spot, such as our GRAceland, located in the proximity of the cemetery by the same name. Sometimes current events / politics was a factor: 312-842 (VICtory) was the first new dial exchange created in 1946 when manual ==> dial conversion was resumed following a four year hiatus during World War II due to Western Electric's manufacturing facilities being used full time by the government during the war. The CO had not existed at all before the war: Overcrowded conditions in the CALumet (312-225) CO which had to be tolerated during the war were alleviated by breaking off a couple thousand subscribers and placing them on the new CO when it opened ... just like an area code split today! :) PAT] ------------------------------ From: Bill Huttig Subject: Re: MCI's Personal 800 Date: 19 Feb 91 06:06:02 GMT Reply-To: Bill Huttig Organization: Florida Institute of Technology, ACS, Melbourne, FL It seems as though MCI is starting to offer the 800 service to the old customers in the Mid-Atlantic Region. I wonder how they plan to pass the 800 information to the old MCI computer? By setting up fake accounts at Telecom*USA as the billing account number? (Telecom*USA account numbers (the new MCI ones) are nine digits long). This should be interesting. Hopefully it will work ... unlike the US Telecom - GTE SPrint merger. I had calling cards in both systems and was billed on the US Telecom computer. I still have that account. The only difference between the 800 from the old MCI and the Telecom*USA side is that the Telecom*USA side will give you multi 800 numbers for the $2 while the old MCI will only allow one 800 number per account. Also, I talked to them about the March 18 advertisement. One person said it was a exciting new product ... what could they offer? They have voice messaging and 800 service ... and the Primetime/Supersaver stuff. The only thing I could think of was a big rate reduction. I hope they add a calling card option to the Primetime packages. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 00:52:06 PST From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: 800 Numbers, Voice Mail, and Privacy Organization: University of California, Berkeley [Several people have written about having access to financial information with only an account number and a part of a Social Security Number, or other similarly flimsy identity-checking.] My bank requires only the account number and part of the SSN. My brokerage account (not at Fidelity) requires only the account number. No PIN whatsoever. The only consolation in these two cases is that I can only retrieve information, not make any transactions. Linc Madison = linc@tongue1.berkeley.edu [Moderator's Note: One of the factors people should review when selecting a financial insititution is how well does the bank keep private information secure from prying eyes/ears. That should be as important a part of the final decision as the amount of interest paid, the fees charged, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 01:26 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: How Times Change Peter da Silva writes: > The up-front capital costs of a FAX machine, plus a second > line at the recipient end, don't help the economics much. Remember, > not that many people have these new toys, and the majority of the USPS > mail volume already gets a more favorable rate. On the face of it, this would appear to be true. But for various reasons, the FAX machine has become ubiquitous in businesses large and small. I for one refused to get sucked into such toys myself for years. But there came a point when enough people said, "I'll send this right to you. Do you have a FAX?", that I broke down and joined the crowd. Now, virtually all correspondence other than telephone and e-mail is delivered via FAX. The USPS is anachronistic, unreliable, slow, and now, expensive. Yes, FAX machines require a capital outlay. But if one already has the equipment for whatever reason, does it not make more sense to send a business letter by wire? FAX is (much) faster, more reliable, requires less handling by office personnel, and is now cheaper per unit. The post office has screwed me over just once too often. If I really expect the distant party to receive my document, I will use any method other than the US mail. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: ccplumb@rose.uwaterloo.ca (Colin Plumb) Subject: Re: How Times Change Organization: University of Waterloo Date: Tue, 19 Feb 1991 09:49:38 GMT There are more amazing telecommunication stories with the gulf. Here's one from RISKS (v11i10) that's of enough interest to re-post: Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 11:47:35 PST From: Martin Minow Subject: On-line in Saudi Arabia Date: Fri, 08 Feb 91 16:06:19 -0500 From: Steve Elias Subject: funny sco unix story [...] at sco last week, they told me that their customer service line had received a call from a US Army dude who was calling from inside his M1 tank in the Saudi desert. Apparently, SCO Unix runs on one of the computers in the tank. The customer service person pointed him to the SCO BBS system and he dialed it and downloaded the bug fix. Steve Elias, eli@spdcc.com; 617 932 5598 (voicemail), 508 294 7556 (work phone) [Hmm. I wonder if someone could dial up the tank's Unix? PGN] ------------ *I* wonder if he came in over the 800 number, and if so, what the billing looks like! That, and whether one could rig a news/mail feed. This actually sparks an enormous number of questions regarding military use of telecommunications technology. I'm sure they have more jam-resistant systems than Motorola's Iridium, but more bandwidth? Colin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 9:29:38 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: NXX Count (1-15-91) What is this 82x series of "area codes"? I already knew about 52x. You have some cases where you say "ten digit dialing"; this should be eleven digits (1 + area code + number), as there are some places where ten digit dialing (leading 1 NOT required) is in effect for local calls crossing an area code border. For example, in the Washington DC area, you dial 7D for local calls within your NPA, NPA+7D for local calls to another NPA, and 1+NPA+7D elsewhere (even to distant parts of 301 and 703). 404 and 512 have 1+NPA+7D for toll calls, including intra-NPA. A split has been announced for 416, but the new area code has not been announced. 919, 205, 602, 206, 703 have 1+NPA+7D, announced if not yet in effect, for all non-local calls. In the case of 703, which wasn't PARTICULARLY crowded, this was because of the N0X/N1X prefixes in the DC area. 215 is in the process of dropping the 1+ for long distance within it. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 11:58:33 est From: Bob Goudreau Subject: Re: NXX Count (1-15-91) In article , tropix!moscom!de@uu.psi.com (Dave Esan) writes: > I have not included the 52? series of area codes that are in use for > Mexico, since they are not yet dialable from the US. ... > I have not included the 82? series of area codes which include many > more Mexico exchanges, as well as the non-diable locations in the > NANP. Could you please elaborate on the 82X series of area codes? I had thought that the 52X codes were going to be offered as a short-cut way to dial Mexico; every Mexican number could be dialed as either 011-52-XXXXXXXX, or as 1-52X-XXX-XXXX. (Though I'm not sure why they're even bothering to provide a short-cut that saves us a mere two digits.) Why then is there a need for 82X area codes? Also, what do you mean by "non-dialable locations in the NANP"? Bob Goudreau +1 919 248 6231 Data General Corporation goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive ...!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!goudreau Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ From: rees@pisa.ifs.umich.edu (Jim Rees) Subject: Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? Reply-To: rees@citi.umich.edu (Jim Rees) Organization: University of Michigan IFS Project Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 23:26:22 GMT In article , John_Richard_Bruni@ cup.portal.com writes: > This may be hazardous to one`s health, but I have on several > occassions seen phones hooked up to AC to ring the bell for plays ... My recommendations are: 1. Don't do it. 2. If you must, at least put it in series with a 1/4 amp fuse and a 5K resistor. The resistor will limit the loop current so as to lessen, but not eliminate, the chance of killing yourself or the phone. You should also use an isolation transformer. 3. Better yet, don't even think about doing it. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 10:46:44 EST From: Roy Smith Subject: Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City John_Richard_Bruni@cup.portal.com writes: > I have on several occassions seen phones hooked up to AC to ring the > bell for plays Our Moderator replies: > What you are suggesting is a *highly dangerous* practice ... OK, I'll agree that it's a Bad Idea, and I'm not advocating that you do it, but let's think about this for a minute. Just how dangerous could it be? Typical ringing voltage is 90-100 volts (the guy who runs our shop takes advantage of this by putting a regular incandescant light bulb across his phone line so he can see the phone ring when his noisy machines are running). The AC mains is about 120, so we're only talking about a 25% or so overvoltage condition. Surely that won't damage the phone. 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 [Moderator's Note: An actual phone line not being used has closer to forty volts DC on the line doesn't it? It goes up to ninety volts only when ringing ... and only around ten volts DC when off hook ... I think my figures are correct. But a straight 110-120 volts AC coming into it even for a few seconds? Never! Speaking of which, do any of the older readers remember the stories of the infamous 'Tucker Telephone' ... the torture device the Warden at Tucker Prison Farm in Arkansas used on recalcitrant and defiant prisoners for many years until the Supreme Court made him stop? An old, rural-style phone with a crank, and two wires coming out of it ... as the Warden cranked the phone, one wire would be clamped to the prisoner's ear lobe, and the other attached to his ... oops, we're out of space for this issue. Sorry I couldn't finish the story. :) PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #133 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa15107; 20 Feb 91 2:27 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa24949; 20 Feb 91 0:46 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa09886; 19 Feb 91 23:40 CST Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 23:16:45 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #134 BCC: Message-ID: <9102192316.ab19019@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Tue, 19 Feb 91 23:16:32 CST Volume 11 : Issue 134 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Alternate Cellular System [Matt Funkchick] Re: Is 1 + 703 Gone After This Year? [Carl Moore] Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? [John Foos] Re: "Internal" Cordless Phones [Jack Dominey] Re: ANI Demo Resurfaces [Tim Irvin] Re: The Year Was 1960 [Richard Budd] Re: "Most Accurate Clock" [Robert Savery] Re: Do Network Interface Devices Make Fraud Easy? [Jess Anderson] Maryland Helpline Discusses Local Calls [Carl Moore] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: funky chicken Subject: Re: Alternate Cellular System Organization: University of Chicago Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 01:21:10 GMT In article sichermn@beach.csulb.edu (Jeff Sicherman) writes: > There was an article in the paper here (LA) the other day that said > there was a petition (due?) before the FCC to allocate a portion of > the spectrum currently used for commercial mobile phone systems (taxi, > delivery dispatching) to be divided up for an alternate cellular-type > phone usage. Sorry, I don't remember any of the technical details but > maybe someone else can follow-up. Being a mere interested hobbiest, my perspective might be a bit skewed, but here's what I know. This alternate cellular thang is going under names like "Personal Communications Networks" (PCN) and Cordless Telephone 2nd and 3rd Generations (CT2 and CT3, respectively). It is an attempt to improve upon the implementation of cellular phones so as to make them feasible on a very large scale. As we all know, the glory of the cellular phone is that it allows more direct, person to person (rather than station to station) calls. If the cellular system could be modified so to make wireless PBXs practical, a lot of people would be happy and a lot of people would rich. It'd also be nice if cellular services had enough quality to support high-speed data transfer and fax. The main obstacle is spectrum use. The way we're using it, there simply isn't enough radio spectrum to go around. (HDTV is having similar problems finding a space in which to broadcast). It seems likely that 1700 to 2300 MHz (which is being used in the UK for PCN) might be adopted as an international standard for PCN. And, of course, there are good reasons for wanting to have any US systems be compatible. Unfortunately, this frequency range is currently divided into five bands which are allocated to: the government; private- operational fixed microwave use; auxiliary broadcast and cable use, and public fixed microwave. Several solutions present themselves. The FCC can allocate some frequencies exclusively to PCN or it can establish some sort of sharing system. Estimates as to how much bandwidth PCN would need vary from 60 MHz up to 230 MHz (this is AT&T's upper estimate). Obviously, this is a messy issue. Existing users of these frequencies generally don't want to move or share. Some congresscritter (named Dingell?) has written legislation that would allocate some of the federal government's spectrum for private use. I don't know what frequency range he wants to move or whether it'd have the right propagation characteristics. On the other hand, we can use a spread spectrum approach. Part of the niceness of this would be that people using spread spectrum at less than one watt wouldn't need a license (a big plus from the market's point of view). There're a host of technical problems in implementing this, naturally. There are a lot of companies working on developing this. BellSouth, Bell Atlantic, NYNEX, Motorola, Ericsson all come to mind. Matt Funkchick ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 9:37:34 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: Is 1 + 703 Gone After This Year? You write that "1 + 703 dialing for calls outside of the metro area" appears in the Northern Virginia white pages (Jan. 1991). What calls does this apply to? Does this apply only to the extended-area calls from "Northern Virginia" to "Prince William"? If so, notice the following: Calls between "Northern Virginia" and "Prince William" were formerly long distance, but were changed to extended-area. When that change was made, such calls were reduced to 7D (from 1+7D?) going from "Prince William" to "Northern Virginia"; the other way around had to stay at 703+7D due to some prefix duplications, and then changed to 1+703+7D when N0X/N1X prefixes came to the DC area, and can LATER (after the dust settles from change to NPA+7D for inter-NPA local calls in DC area) reduce to 7D. (In other words, long distance within 703 would still be 1+703+7D.) ------------------------------ From: John Foos Subject: Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? Date: 19 Feb 91 15:41:02 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL John_Richard_Bruni@cup.portal.com writes: > This may be hazardous to one`s health, but I have on several > occassions seen phones hooked up to AC to ring the bell for plays ... > [Moderator's Note: What you are suggesting is a *highly dangerous* > practice which could -- would !!! -- damage the phone beyond future I hate to dissagree, but... I am the proud owner of a Western Electric (?) desk phone. I don't know its age, but it is the same model that Bogie talks on in Casablanca. It is quite heavy and when the dial is released it makes a pleasant whir. I got it from a retired electrician who had used it for many years as a 120 volt tester. He had wired a power plug to the cord and would test a circuit by plugging in the phone. If it rang the circuit was live. I have used it for many years now and the sound quality is better than any modern phone I have used (as a phone I mean). I would imagine, though, this is the exception rather than the rule. By the way, were these earlier phones made of bakelight (sp?) rather than plastic? ------------------------------ From: jdominey@bsga05.attmail.com Date: Mon Feb 18 15:40:13 EST 1991 Subject: Re: "Internal" Cordless Phones Re: The recent discussion of cordless phones in a business environment. As far as I know, AT&T's Merlin Cordless is still the only one designed to work with a multiline switch, as opposed to a single line set. The effective limit of base-to-handset distance is highly building-dependent, so I doubt it would work too well in a corporate campus environment. I don't have much info about the system at hand, but you may be able to get answers from the equipment folks at 800-247-7000. Jack Dominey, AT&T Commercial Marketing, Tucker GA voice: 404-496-6925 AT&T Mail: !dominey ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 15:48:38 -0500 From: Tim Irvin Subject: Re: ANI Demo Resurfaces Organization: Project NORTHSTAR, Dartmouth College In article <74674@bu.edu.bu.edu> Andy Jacobson writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 114, Message 10 of 10 >Access Logic Technology's (?) ANI demonstration (via MCI) is once >again available from an 800 number. It is 800-933-3258. Hitting the # >sign will cut to the chase. I, of course, have no affiliation with this >company. I tried this number from a phone behind the Dartmouth switch. The ANI gave me a local (but off campus) number as the one I was calling from. The exchange for Dartmouth is 646, and the number it gave me was 643-5856. I then called 643-5856 (area code 603, BTW) and I got a recording that "The number you have reached 6-4-3-5-8-5-6 is not in service in area code 6-0-3. . ." This strikes me as a great way to get around these ANI guys getting ahold of you and your number. Tim Irvin Project NORTHSTAR Dartmouth College [Moderator's Note: What I have discovered in my testing to date is that the number passed for ID may or may not be the actual number being used. If a bunch of phones are all associated with one billing number then often as not, the billing number gets passed. And what is true for Caller*ID is usually true for *57, *60 and *69 as well, meaning you may or may not trace / screen / call back the actual phone which called you . PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Feb 91 20:15 CDT From: Richard Budd Subject: Re: The Year Was 1960 > The Moderator writes in TELECOM DIGEST V11 #123 >> (The last COs in Chicago to go dial were cut in 1951.) No modems, no >> color television. And john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes in TELECOM DIGEST V11 #128 writes: > No color television? Speak for yourself, Pat. I was a high school > sophomore and augmented my income by baby sitting for neighbors. I > distinctly remember watching (of all things) the Perry Como show on > NBC on Saturday nights because it was very much in color on the > neighbor's RCA color TV. (The first color TV I ever saw was in 1956.) Actually, color television has been around longer than either Pat or John (if I deduce correctly from their high school graduation dates that they were born in the early 1940's). It's been available since the early 1930's, though before World War II it was strictly experimental. I'm not sure of the exact date, this information comes from a book published in 1943 on the development of radio and television by General Electric, RCA, and CBS, that I don't have in front of me right now. The Moderator then Noted: > [Moderator's Note: Maybe there was color television by then; I forget. > I am sure it was not all that common in households until the early > sixties sometime. Obviously there was no cable television, and FM > radio was in its infancy, virtually dwarfed by AM stations, which were > still doing the 'radio version' of the old shows (comedy, variety, > etc) which had begun migrating to television several years before. PAT] Color television wasn't rare, but color television programming certainly was before 1965. I remember back in grade school days when the NBC Peacock indicated that the upcoming program was in full living color. It was more a case of economics, the cost of producing a television program in color compared to black-and-white. The scarcity of color television sets before the mid-1960's made it more cost effective for the networks to broadcast in black-and-white. The same situation existed with FM programming. FM has also been around since the 1930's, but World War II and subsequent FCC regulations made it uneconomical for radio stations to broadcast in FM until the mid-1960's when the increased number of AM/FM radios and changes in the FCC by-laws made FM broadcasting practical; just in time to become the medium for the underground psychedelic music coming out of the West Coast and Texas. It wasn't the lack of technology, but rather unavailable "software" outlets and economics that made FM and color television rare commodities in 1960; the same reason VHS video-casettes became the main storage medium for VCRs instead of Betamax, even though the latter technology is more advantageous to the user. Richard Budd | E-Mail: IBMers - rcbudd@rhqvm19.ibm VM Systems Programmer | All Others- klub@maristb.bitnet IBM - Sterling Forest, NY | Phone: (914) 578-3746 [Moderator's Note: Thanks for a good history lesson. The first FM radio station in the USA was here in Chicago. Started in 1941 by the Zenith Radio Corporation to encourage the sale of FM radios by giving the new owner at least one station to listen to, WEFM broadcast classical music from 6 AM until midnight daily until 1978. The call letters stood for dward cCormick, the president of Zenith in the 1930 - 1940 era. The only advertising message was the simple statement "A service of Zenith Radio Corporation". The station was sold to Metromedia in 1978 and changed to top forty rock. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 02:20:56 PDT From: Robert Savery Subject: Re: "Most Accurate Clock" Reply-To: robert.savery%drbbs@iugate.unomaha.edu Organization: DRBBS Technical BBS, Omaha In a recent message, Steve Shankman (sshankman@mis.arizona.edu) writes: > A while ago I was at the planetarium at our university, and I saw an > interesting clock made by Heathkit. The clock was called "Most > Accurate Clock" and had a shortwave receiver built in which monitored > 5, 10, and 15 MHz (WWV?). The unit was smaller than a normal > clock-radio, and a bit bigger than those small "red-led-beeping-alarm" > alarm clocks. It had a led display with tenths of a second, and little > leds that indicated which frequency it was monitoring, and a fourth > led to show when it was actually getting a signal. > Does anyone know where I could get a clock like this, or better yet > the kit? I have seen lots of messages here about Heathkit, but I don't > know how to reach them for a catalog. The kit for that clock can be found in the latest Heathkit catalog. Kit number GC-1000-H ($249.95). Assembled GCW-1000-H ($380.00) You can also buy an RS-232 interface, the software for that, the tech manual for the clock, and an outdoor antenna. As several people have commented, Heathkit is alive and well. Although looking at the last catalog, I wonder if they shouldn't drop the "kit" from their name. There aren't as many kits available as there used to be. Those that can still be had seem to be designed for Simpletons. The TV's and other major items are 90% pre-assembled. What kits there are are more high school electronics than serious hobbyist type. Pertinent info : Heath Company P.O. Box 8589 Benton Harbor, Mi 49022-8589 (Orders) 1-800-253-0570 (Fax orders) 1-616-982-5577 (Tech support) 1-616-982-3496 (Comuserve on-line cat.) Go HTH See Ya'll Later! Bob Disclaimer: I have no connection with the Heath Co. I just get their catalogs. msged 1.99S ZTC [200:5010/666.5@Metronet] Trebor's Castle, Lavista Ne. ------------------------------ From: Jess Anderson Subject: Re: Do Network Interface Devices Make Fraud Easy? Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 02:46:02 GMT In article rborow@bcm1a09.attmail.com writes: [about plugging your phone into the network interface to determine if a problem is the telco's network, your inside wire, or your phone instrument. The question was about the security at the NID itself, which is apparently outdoors for Illinois Bell.] Here in Madison WI the network interface is inside the building, so the security problem couldn't arise. But the last time I had a problem, the telco repair person told me that in the event of future trouble, I should take a phone known to be in good working order and plug it in there to see if it was a telco problem or an inside problem, since I have to pay for the latter, before calling telco repair. Not long after, when again having a problem, I did this, was convinved it was on their side, and I told this to the telco repair service when I called (from elsewhere, obviously). It seemed to me they appeared almost instantly to fix it. Maybe it makes a difference in the service one gets. Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson NeXTmail w/attachments: anderson@yak.macc.wisc.edu Bitnet: anderson@wiscmacc Room 3130 <> 1210 West Dayton Street / Madison WI 53706 <> Phone 608/262-5888 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 4:30:06 EST From: cmoore@brl.mil Subject: Maryland Helpline Discusses Local Calls The Maryland helpline at 800-477-4704 will, if you entered a prefix which has local service across what will be the 301/410 border, add a recorded note telling that such local calls will become ten digits, and goes on to say "that is", 301 (or 410 as the case may be) + seven digits. However, I found no comment about local calls across an area code boundary other than the new 301/410 boundary. Notice these samples: 588 (Silver Spring) -- has the comment (see above) about local calls into area 410, which will include Columbia except for those lines local to DC. (Silver Spring already has NPA+7D for local calls to DC and Va.) 755 (Warwick) -- next to the Delaware border, and local to 302-378 Middletown; no comment made about local calls, so I assume 7D to Middletown, Delaware will remain as is. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #134 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa17936; 20 Feb 91 4:27 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa06642; 20 Feb 91 2:54 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa01996; 20 Feb 91 1:47 CST Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 0:44:28 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #135 BCC: Message-ID: <9102200044.ab28586@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 20 Feb 91 00:44:22 CST Volume 11 : Issue 135 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Caller*ID Finally On-Line in Atlanta [Bill Berbenich] Caller*ID Legislation [Peter Marshall] CIDCO Caller*ID Unit and Area Code Question [David Carter] Call*Trace [Jack Dominey] Caller*ID Data Scheme [cdp!cdi@labrea.stanford.edu] International Call Tracing [Kevin Boyd] Re: GTE & Caller*ID [Peter Marshall] Re: Caller*ID [Robert Jacobson] Re: Caller*ID [Erick Herring] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bill Subject: Caller*ID Finally On-Line in Atlanta Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 12:11:48 EST Reply-To: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu Sometime between approximately 12:10 A.M. this morning (Feb. 17) and 7:32 A.M., Southern Bell completed my order for Caller*ID service. After Nightline, I went to the trusty cellular and called my home number to see if the service had cut-in at midnight - this was not the case. But bright and early this morning at 7:32, I got a call while I was getting ready for work (which I was unable to answer at the time). When I headed out the door for work, I saw that the caller's number was beaming forth from my Slimlite 64 (tm) CLID box. It was not a number I recognized, so I called it back once I was at work. I was quite surprised (and so was the "callee") when I reached a telemarketing firm. At 7:32 in the morning, why would a telemarketer call anyone, I asked myself. And this guy wanted to know how I got _HIS_ number. Fancy that, a telemarketer wanting to know where I got _HIS_ phone number! What odd coincidence that this would be my first call under Caller*ID. Before I drove off for work, I called from both my "A" and "B" carrier cellular accounts ("B" is getting ready to get the axe, by the way - they cost more and have less features and flexibility in my case). Anyhow, calls from both showed up as "Out-of-area." Not surprising as I could neither Block nor Return*Call either one of them before. I further plan to at least discontinue the Call*Return and possibly also Call*Block (great for squelching local numbers which call to play a recording touting 900 numbers and the local telemarketers). I see no need for Call*Return _and_ Caller*ID. I never did see much practical use for Call Return anyway. Sure it's helpful if you want to unnerve a bothersome caller, but to pay $4.00 a month just to get some jollies from that ... :-) So, despite some fits and starts, it looks like metro Atlanta is finally on-line with Caller ID. I invite others here in Atlanta to share their experiences with me (and possibly this list?). Bill Berbenich Georgia Tech, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{backbones}!gatech!eedsp!bill Internet: bill@eedsp.gatech.edu ------------------------------ Subject: Caller*ID Legislation From: Peter Marshall Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 18:14:24 PST Organization: The 23:00 News In Washington (the other one), soon after US West announced recently it would abandon its Caller*ID legislation, into the breach quickly jumped some other, and lighterweight, telecom interests, including Contel and Pacific Telecom. With new amendments to the existing bills now starting to fly about, it is obvious that the beat goes on for Caller*ID in this Legislature. But the point behind the whole thing is still the same, proponents say -- to "resolve" legal impedimenta here allegedly in the way of PUC approval. It will be interesting to watch for any upcoming US West testimony on what should be one or more revised bills, particularly with US West having recently been told by the Idaho PUC to incorporate line blocking in their current Boise market trial, and with the company's recent public bailout from their WA legislation. Peter Marshall ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 23:52:20 EST From: gtnetdc@prism.gatech.edu Subject: CIDCO Caller ID Unit and Area Code Question Reply-To: gtnetdc@richsun6.gatech.edu.UUCP (David Carter) I took a closer look at the CIDCO caller ID unit at Macy's last Sunday. I noticed on the outside of the box, there is a PHOTO which shows an example display of "944-555-2829" along with a partial drawing which shows "914-555-2828." Looking at the unit itself, I could clearly tell that the LCD segments for the second area code digit are only able to display 0 or 1 [or 7 =) ]. The middle horizontal digit is not there! So my question is: how long before we begin having area codes in North America with other than 0 or 1 for the second digit? When that happens, the CIDCO box will become obsolete. Bill Berbenich wrote: > the {Atlanta Journal/Constitution} ... Feb. 14 ... Macy's had a > half-page ad on page A2 touting the CIDCO Slimline 64 and Slimline 10 > boxes at a "special" price of $99.99 and $59.99, respectively. Minor nits: it was a quarter page ad on page A3. Interestingly, the photo in the ad showed an area code with a 1 for the second digit. The price tag next to the ten-call memory model showed $70. I asked the salesperson 'what about the sale price?' He said that the sale price was supposed to end along with their storewide "home sale" the day before (Saturday, February 16), but since the ad didn't give an expiration date, people who mention seeing the ad would get the discount price 'for a little while longer.' David Carter Internet: gtnetdc@prism.gatech.edu uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!gtnetdc ------------------------------ From: jdominey@bsga05.attmail.com Date: Tue Feb 19 15:55:52 EST 1991 Subject: Call*Trace With the arrival of the latest Star*Service flyer in my Southern Bell bill, I started thinking about the Call*Trace feature. So I called Bell to make sure I understand how it works. The helpful Bellrep told me that the charge is $4.00/month. Anyone with this service can, after receiving an annoying phone call, press the appropriate code (*-something-something), and the call record will be sent to Security. After Security gets two of these "complaints" against the same number, they will send a written notice telling the subscriber that someone at that number is making harassing calls. Subsequent complaints could lead to denial of service and/or legal action. Interestingly, the only way for the Call*Trace customer to find out what effect his traces have done is to call Security at an 800 number. The helpful Bellrep thought Security would give out the number that the trace went to, but did not sound certain. 1) Obviously the potential for abuse is pretty high. Imagine your teenager getting hacked off at one of her friends and Call*Tracing any of the friend's calls. 2) That monthly service charge irritates me. Bell is obviously milking all these features (a.k.a. CLASS?) for every drop of revenue they can squeeze, but in this case, IMHO, they're working against the public interest. Call tracing has always been a service needed by specific individuals under specific (and rare) circumstances. Yet Bell is being allowed to charge for Call*Trace as if it would be used frequently and indiscriminately a la Caller ID. It would be far more appropriate to *require* the service be available anywhere the Central Office is capable, and charge $4.00 for EACH trace. I think a letter to my Public Service Commission may be in order here. Jack Dominey, AT&T Commercial Marketing, Tucker GA 404-496-6925 AT&T Mail: !dominey ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 11:26:04 PST From: cdp!cdi@labrea.stanford.edu Subject: Caller-ID Data Scheme There was a title in this conference called "Re: Caller-ID Information Decoding". I had meant to ask some questions on this subject myself, and then missed reading this message. I had hoped that either this message could be reposted if it were relevant or someone might find my question interesting enough to want to answer. 1. What is the data scheme used in calling number delivery? I have been told the baud rate is 1200 baud, but that the data scheme is an old Bell data scheme that Rockwell does not support in their datacomm chip sets. 2. How do you get a modem to do on-hook communications? 3. Does anyone know of a modem with this data-scheme? Last: Is the Bellcore Pub. TR-TSY-000031 "CLASS Feature: Calling Number Delivery" really worth the thirty dollars for this sort of information? What I was hoping to do is use this with my voice mail, which I use as an answering machine, to aid in telling me who called and to route specific messages for some of those calls, or call-forward them. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 1991 22:58 CST From: Kevin Boyd <8156BOYDK@vmsf.csd.mu.edu> Subject: International Call Tracing TELECOM Moderator wrote: >to it from a BT central office. In that CO they see the connection is >to an overseas circuit identified by a number. A call to AT&T in White >Plains, NY will get someone there to find that overseas circuit and >see that it is linked elsewhere. Yes, telcos cooperate with each other >on traces when required, when the call being audited or traced goes >from one telco to another enroute to its final destination. PAT] Pat makes it seem like an international trace is relatively simple, but that is not the impression I received from reading Cliff Stoll's book _The Cuckoo's Egg_. In that case, it was a call being traced from the US into West German. The West German Bundepost would not release the trace information without an official request from the US Legal Attache in Germany. I suspect the UK trace also required prior diplomatic approval and coordination. (BTW, after the book was mentioned several weeks ago in regard to secure telephones, I picked it up and read it. I highly reccommend it for all readers of this list. It deals with the Internet, call tracing, computer security and is a fascinating, true story.) Regards, Kevin Boyd | BITNET 8156boydk@MUCSD.BITNET Marquette University | INTERNET 8156boydk@VMSF.CSD.MU.EDU Milwaukee, WI, U.S.A. | Phone (414)223-4873 Broadcasting and Electronic Media & | FAX (414)288-3300 Computer Services Division | "All views expressed are my own..." [Moderator's Note: Any additional difficulties or delays encountered in an international trace are purely from the reasons you give if the telcos do not have an advance agreement. On domestic traces, the agreements seem to be in place. Even the big three competitors, AT&T, Sprint and MCI work together in matters 'of common concern' -- fraud being one such concern shared by all. PAT] ------------------------------ From: halcyon!peterm (Peter Marshall) Subject: Indiana Rejects GTE Caller*ID Proposal Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 08:23:53 PST Organization: The 23:00 News Lest we forget telecom companies other than US West -- From a recent {Newsbytes} report: "Indiana Rejects GTE's 'PNS' Proposal for Caller ID, Requires Blocking Options": The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission has rejected GTE Telephone Operations' proposal to test-market Caller ID with "protected number service" ... Caller ID with PNS esssentially provides two phone numbers with distinctive ringing patterns on a single line ... the commission said that it would approve a Caller ID test if GTE would offer all customers free per-call blocking and per-line blocking for a one-time, non-recurring charge of $5.00. Concern was also expressed over GTE's proposed pricing scheme. "While Calling Number ID is priced at about 200% over cost for a residential customer, PNS is priced at almost three times more than cost," the commission said. It noted that the proposed $8.50 monthly charge for PNS "is equivalent to the charge for monthly basic service" in the planned test areas. "This concern is aggravated by the fact that more than 80% of the alleged cost of PNS is attributed to an additional $2.50 charge for non-published service. This charge is simply the tariff rate for that service which has never been cost justified," the commission said. "Thus," it continued, "there is considerable concern about GTE's motivation in pricing PNS: clearly it is not the cost of providing the service, for such is cloaked in mystery. The fact that a subscriber to non-published service must pay a charge equal to his monthly service charge to maintain an inferior level of service under GTE's proposal appears inappropriate." Further, the commission said, "GTE indicates that it does not intend to offer PNS to a subscriber unless that subscriber calls GTE to complain about his number being involuntarily disclosed ... there is further confusion about GTE's intention to notify non-participating subscribers about Calling Number Identification in general. The bias in such an approach is both self-evident and disturbing". The commission also took issue with GTE's pricing proposal for Call Trace. GTE wanted to increase the price to $5.00 per month. "The cost of providing Call Trace ... the evidence indicates to be approximately 25 cents per month ... GTE has priced Call Trace at twenty times over cost." ------------------------------ From: Robert Jacobson Subject: Re: Caller*ID Date: 20 Feb 91 00:22:09 GMT Organization: Human Interface Technology Lab, Univ. of Wash., Seattle Telemarketers often use several rotating numbers, often with different base stations, so Caller*ID (even in its ideal form) provides little enough protection against telemarketing. The number you suppress today will be gone tomorrow. Bob [Moderator's Note: Except that what has been discovered thus far about the passing of the number, be it ANI, Caller*ID, Return /Screen Call or whatever is that quite frequently if a group of related numbers are all billed under one main number, then it is the main listed number which gets passed along. If the telemarketer has all of his phones associated with (let's say) the main number of his switchboard, then there is a likelyhood Caller*IO will pass the switchboard's main listed number. We've found that in some versions of the software, Call Screening will block every trunk on a PBX, even if the only thing entered by the recipient of the unwanted call was the listed phone number for the company. I've a feeling Caller*ID will respond in much the same way, with every telemarketing employee in their little cubicle sending the company's main listed number regardless of what actual outgoing trunk they seize. Obviously it won't happen that way in every case. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Erick Herring Subject: Re: Caller*ID Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 03:47:19 GMT Organization: Computer Science Engineering Univ. of Texas at Arlington In article peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: > In article , herbison@ultra.enet.dec.com > (B.J. 15-Feb-1991 1359) writes: >> My first thought was large numbers of people exchanging lists of >> telemarketer numbers. My second thought was the problems caused >> when a telemarketer changes numbers and someone else gets the number >> -- someone who is a friend or a potential client. > That's the user's problem. The simplest solution would be to expire > numbers after a time period. That way you may eventually get called by > that telemarketer again, but then you add it to the list and you're > safe from bothersome calls for another six months. There is one thing about this issue that I don't understand. It is obvious when some organization is setting up a large amount of phones for the express purpose of out-dialing. I'm certain that some of you could describe such a setup in detail sufficient to pass legal muster. Why can we not demand that the telcos set aside a certain block of numbers for these out-calling operations, and further demand that they make these numbers public. That solves a whole group of problems. I mean if we're going to demand blocking, and block-blocking, and C*ID anyway... :-) Erick herring@evax.uta.edu [Moderator's Note: But see the previous message. If the telemarketer runs a nice efficient phone room he'll have all the phone lines billed on a master account anyway ... and as it appears, if that is the case then you block the listed number and you block them all. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #135 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa20761; 20 Feb 91 6:39 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa12697; 20 Feb 91 5:01 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa29770; 20 Feb 91 3:55 CST Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 3:03:27 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #136 BCC: Message-ID: <9102200303.ab31872@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 20 Feb 91 03:03:17 CST Volume 11 : Issue 136 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Cables of the Megalithic Era [Donald E. Kimberlin] AT&T Calling Cards for Nordic Residents [Scanorama, via Howard Gayle] Telephone Surcharges for Deaf, Poor Anger IBT Customers [Kevin Boyd] Tracing Unlisted Numbers [David Mason] Why Do Telcos Use Window Envelopes For Payments? [Ron Heiby] Another Inconvenience of the "Other Guys" [John Higdon] Comprehensive International Phone Book Wanted [John T. Ellis] My New 800 Number From Telecom*USA [Steve M.Kile] Persistence the Key to Cellular Repairs [Randy Borow] Radio Telephone Information Needed [Joel Disini] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Subject: Telecom Cables of the Megalithic Era Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 There are untold miles of submarine cables ... In a comment about submarine cables (Digest v11, iss129), Roy Smith quotes from a US Coast Guard publi- cation saying that: > AT&T will gladly compensate the owner of any ship who's captain cuts > away his anchor rather than trying to pull it up if he suspects he has > snagged a cable. One of the things all too few "phone" people have any knowledge of is the untold miles of submarine cable that has been laid all over the planet for more than a century. The telegraphers had submarine cables literally ringing every continent and spanning every ocean, often in multiple routes, for there was an open marketplace for them. I have no estinate of the total, but once saw that even until the mid-1950's, the English interests that comprised what today is called Cable & Wireless had 155,000 nautical miles of telegraph cable in place. Multiply that by what the American, Canadian, French, German, Danish, Russian and other similar entities had placed, and it must have been a million or more miles! I once did a short stint at WUI in New York City where I saw the maps of what WUI inherited from its prior life as the Cable Division of Western Union Telegraph (which by the way traced its lineage back to Western Union buying the first fabled 1864 cable we all read of in school), and it showed the seas of the world littered with abandoned stuff ... a very large diameter insulated core of high-grade copper, tons of copper per mile, surrounded by multiple tons of steel armor wires, using the earth for a ground return thousands of miles long. It was some really heroic electromechanical era engineering, indeed, and I have often wondered if we couldn't with today's technol- ogy push some pretty respectable digital pulses down the cables them- selves. The breakdown rating of the cable was a few kilovolts, so one could launch some pretty strong pulses into it. But, I digress: The man who kept the charts had himself started his career as a cable station operator in (of all places!) Rockaway Beach in Brooklyn. There, telegraph cables extended right out through the swimming beaches to the Azores across the Atlantic, which were a major landing, crossing and interchange point for American, British, German and Italian telegraph cable between the U.S., Europe and South America. (The other end was the island of Horta to be specific, where there is today a museum kept of the rather large operating plants they all had.) The keeper of all these maps told me how Western Union had in- deed developed submarine vacuum-tube repeaters for these cables along with rather sophisticated test methods to locate a fault in the cable from the shore end, He also was the person on duty at Rockaway when visitations occurred from groups from Bell Labs, asking him all manner of details about what the gsket material for the underwater repeater cans was, how the power was sent down the cable and how the test methods were used, etc. He told me he read all about WUTCo's technology a few years later in the Bell System Technical Journal articles about AT&T's success at laying "the first transatlantic telecommunications cable." And now, nobody recalls what was there before, and lies now silent in the depths of the world's oceans, with a layer of coaxial and now fiber cable criss-crossing it. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 18:40:38 +0100 From: Howard Gayle Subject: AT&T Calling Cards for Nordic Residents Reply-To: howard@ericsson.se From {Scanorama} (SAS inflight magazine), Feb. 1991: SAS RVC, Club EuroClass and Diners Club cardholders in the Nordic countries can now use a new service to make telephoning easier when they make trans-Atlantic trips. They can request an AT&T Calling Card, available free of charge from Diners Club. Calls will be itemized on cardholders' monthly statements. Contact your local Diners Club office in the Nordic countries for further information. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 1991 23:25 CST From: Kevin Boyd <8156BOYDK@vmsf.csd.mu.edu> Subject: Telephone Surcharges for Deaf, Poor Anger IBT Customers From the Tuesday, February 19, 1991 {Chicago Tribune} comes the information that a class action suit has been filed against Illinois Bell protesting a fifteen cent surcharge to their phone bill. The surcharge began appearing on customers bills this month. It subsidizes a program called "Link Up II" that helps provide phone service for low-income residents. "And citizens are howling by the thousands, according to Illinois Bell. Clinton Krislov, a Chicago attorney, has filed a class action suit in Cook County Circuit Court to put a stop to what he calls an `Illegal Tax,' and the Illinois Commerce Commission Tuesday begins accepting written arguments in a request for repeal by the telephone companies serving the state." "Attorney Krislov said recently he may also take action against a similar, three cent monthly surcharge, in effect on phone bills since 1986 that provides free Telecommunications Devices for the Deaf." Regards, Kevin Boyd | BITNET 8156boydk@MUCSD.BITNET Marquette University | INTERNET 8156boydk@VMSF.CSD.MU.EDU Milwaukee, WI, U.S.A. | Phone (414)223-4873 Broadcasting and Electronic Media & | FAX (414)288-3300 Computer Services Division | "All views expressed are my own..." ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 15:36:30 -0600 From: dmason@digi.lonestar.org (David Mason) Subject: Tracing Unlisted Numbers Organization: DSC Communications, Plano Tx. At one time I had a legitmimate need to trace an unlisted number. That is, I needed the name and address of the party it was registered to. I contacted a private investigator and he told me this was possible with no other data than the number itself. Soon after that I no longer needed the information so I never followed through, but now I am curious. Is that really possible? He said it would cost me between $100-$200. If all he is doing is searching some database, that's a pretty healthy fee. Anybody know what database he could be getting into? Also, if this is the kind of information that would cause the feds to kick in your door, I'd like to know that too. News travels fast on my machine, so please reply via email. I'll summarize to the net if there is a lot of response. Dave Mason DSC Communications M/S 121 1000 Coit Rd, Plano TX 75075 The opinions expressed herein are INET: dmason@digi.lonestar.org not necessarily mine or those of UUCP: ...!texsun!digi!dmason my employer. [Moderator's Note: He probably has accounts on and searches several data bases, and not necessarily telco's. There are all sorts of places where one leaves an unlisted phone number: for example on an application for credit; on public records at the courthouse, etc. He feeds the phone number to several such data bases and asks them to give him any matches that are found. Worth the money? That is your decision to make. His membership on some of those data bases is probably very expensive. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Ron Heiby Subject: Why do Telcos Use Window Envelopes for Payments? Date: 19 Feb 91 15:22:47 GMT Organization: Motorola Computer Group, Schaumburg, IL 0004133373@mcimail.com (Donald E. Kimberlin) writes: > likely Tension Envelope would design the window layout to suit any > Telco. The thing about my IL Bell bill-paying envelopes, and many others, that I continue to find a mystery is, "Why the heck do they need that window on the envelope?" As far as I can tell, it's just to give me a pain by forcing me to a specific orientation of contents insertion. The envelope already has the city/state/zip+4. In fact, the zip+4 is BAR CODED on the envelope! It's not as though they are using the same envelope with multiple destinations for different customers. The zip+4 ensures that the USPS will quickly and efficiently process the envelope with automated equipment and deliver all of the bill-pay envelopes to a single lock-box. I doubt that anyone even *looks* at the actual address on these things. Why do they put those darn windows there, rather than printing their full address on the envelope? Ron Heiby, heiby@chg.mcd.mot.com Moderator: comp.newprod [Moderator's Note: Actually in the case of Illinois Bell, all you need to do is write '60669' on the front of an envelope and drop it in the mail. 60669 is Illinois Bell's very own pseudo-zipcode. Anything saying 60669 sorts to the back of a large van which delivers a couple hundred thousand payment envelopes to telco daily. I think remittance processing is still at 1512 Carmen Street in Chicago, but I am not certain. Like you, I've always wondered why the big fuss about making the coupon stand the right way in the envelope, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 21:17 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Another Inconvenience of the "Other Guys" This evening being bill paying time, I opened my Sprint bill and discovered an unpleasant surprise. There were about $125 worth of calls billed from a number that I had changed two years ago. Apparently, Sprint thought that I still had the number and billed the calls to my account. Let this be a lesson to anyone who changes or disconnects a telephone number: be sure to notify your IEC of the change or you, too, might end up being billed for $125 worth of calls to Edgecliff, TX. Funny, I don't recall having this problem with AT&T. And now that I have signed up for AT&T's "Reach Out California", I will no longer have it with Sprint, either. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! [Moderator's Note: In fairness to Sprint and others like them, the difference is that AT&T has the LEC do their billing for them. The problem you describe is one of the reasons the OCC's don't really like subscribers not registered with them making 'casual' calls through 10xxx. It takes awhile to get telco to provide information on who belongs to what number for the purpose of billing 'casual' users. Naturally the OCC keeps the information in their system once they get it from telco, but when the subscriber changes his number later on telco does not automatically advise the OCC of the change, and the next person with the number gets his calls billed to the original number-holder; that is unless the OCC also uses the LEC for billing. The problem you describe is a pain for everyone involved. You don't think Sprint *likes* having to write off an accounts receivable item to the billing suspense file pending LEC billing advice (subscriber identification) do you? They'd like the same up-to-date information AT&T gets from the LEC, be able to bill the call and collect their money. PAT] ------------------------------ From: John T Ellis Subject: Comprehensive International Phone Book Wanted Date: 19 Feb 91 18:41:23 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc. - Cellular Infrastructure Grp., Arlington Hgts, IL I am looking for either a book, pamphlet or reference that lists ALL the city and country codes of the world. I called AT&T and asked about such a beast. They said they had a pamphlet and would be more than happy to send me a copy. Unfortunately, this list was not as comprehensive as I would like. In short, what I would like to be able to do is this: "Let's see, today I want to call Puebla, Puebla, Mexico. Looking in my comprehensive, international book from ####, I see that the country code for Mexico is 52 and the city code for Puebla, Puebla is 22." Does such a book exist and if so, where can I obtain one? Thanks beforehand. John T. Ellis 708-632-7857 Motorola Cellular motcid!ellis@chg.mcd.mot.com [Moderator's Note: Such a thing certainly would not be in 'pamphlet' form. Have you ever seen the books used by 'Rate and Route' in the office in Morris, IL? A roomful of books is needed to list everything. The next best is probably the AT&T International Telecommunications Guide, an annual publication (currently) 88 pages in size listing all countries and *a lot* of cities and towns therein with dialing instructions, city/country codes, time zone maps, etc. For a free copy: 1-800-874-4000. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steve_M_Kile@cup.portal.com Subject: My New 800 Number From Telecom*USA Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 17:41:05 PST Pat: Back on January 25th I spoke with the folks at Telecom*USA about getting a Telecom*USA card and personal 800 number. As requested here is an update. It's been some three weeks since I called them. Some of the comments here on the net had me discouraged. Calls to Telecom*USA were not answered for the past few days. Today I was able to get through. My 800 number is now in service and working well (no PIN # required.) I verified the charges and was assured that the monthly charge is $2.75 and .29/minute daytime .22/minute night. Thanks to the folks who sent mail describing their experience with Telecom*USA. Sorry to those who wrote and may not have received a reply from me; but Portal is having big time hardware and software problems. Steve steve_m_kile@cup.portal.com [Moderator's Note: I'm glad Telecom*USA is still doing their own thing. You should like the way they handle 800 numbers. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rborow@bcm1a09.attmail.com Date: Mon Feb 18 09:53:54 CST 1991 Subject: Persistence the Key to Cellular Repair Service Like Kerry Neef's wife, I had similar problems with my cellular phone: people were telling me the reception was horrible. I took it in twice, but to no avail. Finally, I brought it in a third time and told the folks my car wasn't going to leave their shop until they fixed my problem completely. Guess what? Within an hour, a very knowledgeable (unlike the first two repairmen) young man had it fixed. He explained that my reception problem was twofold: first, the grounding of the phone was totally screwed up; he regrounded it. Secondly, the fuse on the phone (I didn't even know such phones had one -- shows you how much I know) was "almost totally burnt out," as he put it. He replaced it, and, voila! Not only was the reception now crystal clear, but the phone didn't shut off when not supposed to, which it did prior to being fixed. I don't know if this anything like what Mr. Neef has been experiencing; nevertheless, I just thought I'd pass on my experiences to at least give him something to go on. Good luck. Randy Borow Rolling Meadows, IL. ------------------------------ Subject: Radio Telephone Information Needed From: "Disini SW, Emmanuel Disini,PRT" Date: 19 Feb 91 01:19 GMT Has anyone heard of wireless (full-duplex) telephones that have a range of at least fifteen miles? (Yes, they do exist!) I am trying to get a hold of one such manufacturer (Alcom Inc. of Japan) but have been unsuccessful so far. (Their model transmits over the UHF range and is quite good as far as line quality goes. It's called the Pegasus 1000). If anyone knows Alcom's address or telephone number, or perhaps of a similar manufacturer's, I would appreciate it if they could provide me with some feedback (as well as addresses and phone numbers - or even E-mail addresses..) Joel Disini Manila, Philippines d1749@applelink.apple.com PS: Please cc your responses to me, as I'm not on this list! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #136 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa22135; 20 Feb 91 7:37 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa31150; 20 Feb 91 6:07 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab12697; 20 Feb 91 5:01 CST Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 4:05:43 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #137 BCC: Message-ID: <9102200405.ab07134@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 20 Feb 91 04:05:03 CST Volume 11 : Issue 137 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? [Colin Plumb] Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? [Floyd Davidson] Re: A History of the USA to Cuba Phone Links [Donald E. Kimberlin] Re: Why 900-STOPPER [Gordon Burditt] Re: Why 900-STOPPER [tanner@ki4pv.compu.com] Re: Why 900-STOPPER [Mike Neary] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ccplumb@rose.uwaterloo.ca (Colin Plumb) Subject: Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? Organization: University of Waterloo Date: Wed, 20 Feb 1991 00:11:21 GMT John_Richard_Bruni@cup.portal.com wrote: > This may be hazardous to one`s health, but I have on several > occassions seen phones hooked up to [120 V] AC to ring the bell > for plays ... > [Moderator's Note: What you are suggesting is a *highly dangerous* > practice which could -- would !!! -- damage the phone beyond future > use to say nothing of hurting the hapless person who picked it up at > the wrong time. Don't do it! PAT] It's awfully presumptuous of me, but I'd like to suggest otherwise. Remember, we're talkking genuine Bell mil-spec 500 sets here. Indestructible by any means up to and including inquisitive young TELECOM readers. I'm quite sure raw AC would quickly turn any electronic phone into a puddle of plastic, but good old-fashioned mechanics isn't as fragile. Certainly the plastic on that nice solid handset is more than enough to keep 120V from my tender skin. The main danger is picking the phone up during a ring and thus connecting that line current to the speaker. I think that's a Zener in there protecting the speaker, but that won't last long. To allay everyone's fears, I suggest disconnecting the network before (ab)using a telephone in this way. My "500 12/77 Made in Canada" I have lying open in front of me has the line connecting to clips labelled L1 and L2 on the network (for non-techies, that's the little bit of circuitry in the phone. Three capacitors, one transformer, and two unidentified white boxes "1.5J250P" and ".12K250P"), which have leads to the ringer and other places. The L1 and L2 connectors are not connected to anything on the PC board, so just unplug the one extra wire from L1 and two from L2. You can stash them in the unused connectors E1 and E2 if you like. The ringer has four wires, the other two which go to A and K on the network. These are connected by PCB traces to a. .47/400V capacitor. It can probably take it... After this modification, the only thing you can fry is the ringer itself, and I'd be really surprised if that couldn't take a measly 100% overload. No, this isn't particularly good for the phone, but I've never seen theatre people worry about what's healthy. ("I'll be glad to spray-paint the backdrop with the ventilation fans out of order!") Colin [Moderator's Note: But more important, for their own personal safety you figure they will know enough to re-wire the network of the phone according to your instuctions? Mighty big assumption! PAT] ------------------------------ From: Floyd Davidson Subject: Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? Organization: University of Alaska, Institute of Marine Science Date: Wed, 20 Feb 1991 05:49:04 GMT Roy Smith writes: >John_Richard_Bruni@cup.portal.com writes: >> I have on several occassions seen phones hooked up to AC to ring the >> bell for plays >Our Moderator replies: >> What you are suggesting is a *highly dangerous* practice ... > OK, I'll agree that it's a Bad Idea, and I'm not advocating >that you do it, but let's think about this for a minute. Just how >[Moderator's Note: An actual phone line not being used has closer to >forty volts DC on the line doesn't it? It goes up to ninety volts only >when ringing ... and only around ten volts DC when off hook ... I >think my figures are correct. But a straight 110-120 volts AC coming >into it for even a few seconds? Never! That is not really such a bad idea, *if* you do it right. *If* you do it wrong it is a *really* bad idea. Normal ringing voltage is about 100 volts at 20 Hz, and it is truely nasty stuff. Getting jerked around by 20 Hz current will teach some true respect. Don't confuse that with a relatively mild 60 Hz shock. (Either one can kill you.) But, the ring voltage is current limited. It is in series with a ballast lamp. Even a dead short will not blow a fuse. In an earlier post someone suggested a fuse and a 5k resister in series with the phone. It probably won't ring the phone. Rig up a lamp socket in series with the phone and a push button switch. Plug in a relatively small lamp, say a 15 watt job. If the phone rings loud enough, that's it, if not then use a larger lamp until it does. One word of caution: Have someone who understands electicity do this. The switch MUST be on the hot side of the wiring. If this is wired correctly there is no more danger from using 60 Hz current than from 20 Hz. Either way you end up with enough juice to knock your socks off if you touch it. And I'll admit to being semi scared to death of 60 Hz house current, but I'm also ten times as scared of 20 Hz ring current. It *HURTS*! Floyd L. Davidson | floyd@ims.alaska.edu | Alascom, Inc. pays me Salcha, AK 99714 | Univ. of Alaska | but not for opinions. [Moderator's Note: No problem! Everyone putting on an amateur play for their school, etc 'understands electricity' don't they? :) PAT] ------------------------------ From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: A History of the USA to Cuba Phone Links Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 In a reply to the original posting, Digest V11, iss129 has a reply from David Lesher that obviously indicates he has been in Havana to see some of the other end, something I was never able to do. He raises some points worthy of expansion: > 1) There IS something called "Western Union Havana" that runs circuits > to Key West, In the classic mode of "old" Telecommunications American- Style, there were separate "telephone" and "telegraph" companies in the Cuba that was under U.S. dominance. Western Union certainly was the "telegraph company" there in that era, as in many other places. However, what occurred and to what extent WUTCo was affected, I don't know. Moreso than AT&T or ITT, the joint owners of Cuban-American Telephone, WUTCo was likely to hire local nationals and have rather autonomous management, so it may have been so minimal as to simply take over the operation on paper. The office Lesher saw with its four channels only was certainly the one working to the US on the four channels of FDM that ultimately replaced the ancient mechanical TDM I referred to. In international cablegram operations, a partition of the international Telex network is used, with the different name of Gentex (numbers dialable only between Gentex machines so as not to get crossed with subscriber connections), so what looked like Telex could have been Gentex machines. > 2) The voice quality of the existing system is likely to be the worst > you have ever experienced. The crosstalk is equal to your desired > source -- on a good day. That certainly could be the state of that analog tropo, which if properly aligned and coordinated, would produce crystal-clear channels ... but there's no telling what sort of foul state it has fallen to with thirty years of no effective maintenance operations now. > 3) The Soviot Chancery has several four-metre {+/-3db ;-} dishes that > I assume talk to one of their birds. No doubt the Soviets have their own direct stuff to Moscow, and were one to get to the right part of the countryside, there's probably a proper international-class Molnya earth station for the public phone network. > 4) According to newspaper accounts, there is now fiber-optic cable in > place with boocoo capacity. {Who installed it?} The hangup in using it > involves transferring money to Cuba to maintain their end of the link. > Treasury does not want to break the boycott to that extent. That's a confusing story, because U.S. press has reported that AT&T got a recovered piece of "an old transatlantic cable" laid to Cuba (presumably by a cableship of a third nation, as AT&T wouldn't be able to get permission, much less its gargantuan cableships into Cuban coastal waters), and there are no "old" fiber transoceanic cables yet. > But, Bell South was rumored to be putting the screws on to get it > running. Why? Apparently, the existing link [I assume this refers to > the Florida City tropo setup] uses spectrum space Bell South wants for > cellular service in an area they see as a real gold mine - the Keys. Yes, the Florida City tropo to Cuba runs in the region of 950 megaHertz -- right where cellular telephones were later assigned. However, it doesn't fill the whole band that BellSouth would have available, and its signal is a focused beam right off the Florida coast toward Havana, not down along the Keys. Methinks BellSouth is simply playing politics, perhaps with tacit encouragement from AT&T in its obvious interest to get off that tropo anyway. > Confusing that is the fact I think I just saw a recent Bell South ad > for new Keys cellular service. Have they gone ahead without the needed > spectrum space? In view of the preceding comments, BellSouth certainly could. They just wouldn't have the whole ranch they want available to them. (I guess you roamers would hear some curious noises on a few channels.) > 5) Once you get to Havana, you still need working local plant to reach > your destination. Let me put this in c.d.t. terms: John Higdon, I've > got just the place for all that Pac*Bell stuff -- it would be several > orders of magnitude better. No doubt about that. Seeing as all the local plant Cuba is likely to have is what was placed thirty to forty years ago, it's a tribute to their resourcefulness that they have anything working. I was surprised when I got the task of commissioning the Marti Airport-to-Miami FAA ringdown that Castro agreed to for stopping hijackers that the Cubans came up with really clean, clear local plant to get it out to the airport from the Gaunabo tropo station. (Oh, yes, we had to use the Florida City tropo at the time, as it was one of the years the Key West-Havana cable was inoperative ... and the tropo hadn't gotten all that bad yet.) ------------------------------ From: Gordon Burditt Subject: Re: Why 900-STOPPER Date: 19 Feb 91 03:54:58 GMT Organization: Gordon Burditt >[Moderator's Note: The thing is, anyone who could subpoena your >records looking for certain connections would surely see the calls to >the 900 service, then supoena those records as well. All it would seem >to do (in the case of a professional investigator) is add an extra >step in the process. For the average John Doe whose only immediate way >of call tracing is via Caller*ID then the 900 service is virtually >useless at this time. Or is the 900 guy saying he would not respond to >a subpoena either? PAT] It is possible for someone to actually accomplish this, provided that: (1) The service has numerous incoming lines, say, 50, and an equal number of outgoing lines. (2) The service connects incoming lines to available outgoing lines randomly. (3) The service keeps no records itself that won't be on its phone bills anyway. (It doesn't really need them anyway, except maybe for line utilization studies.) (4) The traffic on 1-900-STOPPER is high enough so that, say, there's an average of ten calls per minute. Assuming call records are kept by minute, a given outgoing call might have come from ten incoming ones. Matching up call durations would probably leave two or three incoming calls that might have originated it, which might be sufficient legal doubt even if the police really know who did it. (5) Adding random delay times of zero to a few minutes would be viewed as user-hostile but would significantly increase the doubt over who originated which call. So would randomly disconnecting half of the callers before they were given a chance to dial. (6) The caller is careful to make use of the service ONCE ONLY for each other party where he doesn't want to be traced. Don't repeatedly use it to arrange selling classified information to a foreign power. The guy who makes a 3 AM ransom demand via 1-900-STOPPER is still likely to get nailed because there wasn't any other traffic. Expect feature (3) to quietly go away without anyone being told after an incident of gross misuse of the service. Gordon L. Burditt sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 07:35:05 -0500 From: tanner@ki4pv.compu.com Subject: Re: Why 900-STOPPER Organization: CompuData Inc., DeLand It is quite likely that the 900 STOPPER operator does not receive or retain records of who called at what time, and what numbers they dialed. A subpoena for non-existant or non-extant records is not likely to reveal much. !{bikini.cis.ufl.edu allegra uunet!cdin-1}!ki4pv!tanner ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 1991 19:19:55 PST From: MNeary.El_Segundo@xerox.com Subject: Re: Why 900-STOPPER This discussion on why (or why not) STOPPER is getting bogged down in details and IMHO most postings are missing the point: Most of the time, when an "security" issue arises, there is no such thing as absolutely secure communications (or whatever). Assertions to the contrary are, ahem, misunderstandings. All you can do is to raise the cost of obtaining the data above the price which the person seeking the data is willing (or able) to pay. Using the STOPPER unquestionably raises the "cost" of gathering the data. Local subpoenas are probably easier to get than out of town subpoenas. Two subpoenas are harder to get than one. The 'noise' of STOPPER's record keeping (or lack of) will slow the correlation of your call somewhat. The local District Attorney might even be naive to the whole concept of STOPPER. (They might think you called an 'information provider', or a contest, and skate right past them.) This may, or may not, be sufficient to obstruct the data gathering. Your mileage WILL vary. And that's MY point. Only the person trying to snoop on you will know whether it's worth it. And you won't find out till he either got the data or didn't. Mike (MNeary.El_Segundo@Xerox.com) */Standard disclaimer/* [Moderator's Note: You make an excellent point, and provide an excellent closing point for this thread, which has gone on longer than it should have. The key is, as you say. the 'cost' or effort involved in doing the trace. I do have to ask that this thread be closed at this time, with one *possible* exception: I received a note from a third party who is familiar with the proprietor of STOPPER, and he explained some aspects of the service in more detail to me. Through this third party I asked that the proprietor join us here and explain himself: how does he keep himself legally out of a jam, etc. If he chooses to call on us, of course the thread will resume. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #137 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa04856; 20 Feb 91 17:22 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa12494; 20 Feb 91 15:29 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa02630; 20 Feb 91 14:13 CST Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 13:46:19 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #138 BCC: Message-ID: <9102201346.ab28151@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 20 Feb 91 13:46:00 CST Volume 11 : Issue 138 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Finding Your Own Phone Number [Roy Smith] Re: Finding Your Own Phone Number [Bernard F. Collins] Re: Airphones and Receiving Calls [Ihor J. Kinal] Re: All Monthly Bills --> One Bill [John Slater] Re: International Call Tracing [Floyd Davidson] Re: Intra-LATA Private Lines [Barton F. Bruce] Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? [Barton F. Bruce] Re: The Year Was 1960 [David L. Phillips] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 11:29:00 EST From: Roy Smith Subject: Re: Finding Your Own Phone Number Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City > The easiest at NYNEX land [...] is to call 200-222-2222. I just tried this and all I got was a couple of rings and then a badly mangled recording saying "...ry your call again. Thank you". I tried just plain "222-2222" and got a live person saying "Special operator, what number are you calling?" Anybody have any idea what a "special operator" is? PS, I dialed this from work; it's possible that our switch automatically reroutes "funny" phone numbers, so I don't even know if I reached an AT&T, NYTel, or somebody else's "special operator". 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 [Moderator's Note: A 'special operator' (at least as the term is used in Chicago) is an operator who takes intercept calls and handles them manually as opposed to a fully automatic response. It sometimes happens there is a temporary equipment failure and that the number you are dialing (or calling from) does not get captured by the equipment. It is very rare, but I will now and then dial a number and have an operator come on the line to say " ... special operator. What number are you calling from, please?" ("what number are you dialing?"). PAT ------------------------------ From: "Bernard F. Collins" Subject: Re: Finding Your Own Phone Number Organization: University of Maryland at College Park Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 16:56:21 GMT In article <12672@accuvax.nwu.edu> scb@cs.brown.edu (Spyros C. Bartsocas) writes: >The easiest at NYNEX land (according to older postings and >experimentation) is to call 200-222-2222. For pay phones the number I discovered some time ago that in the Baltimore area (301), one could find out the number of most phones by dialing 811 or 311 (I forget which.) After dialing, I would hear some funny clicks and then a VERY faint voice that would recite my phone number. All of the X11 number combinations (except 011) terminate dialing. A few of them (411, 611, 911) have special functions. I have not tried the 811 trick in a few years so it may not still be true. Skip Collins, (301)792-6243, collins@wam.umd.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 16:39:39 EST From: Ihor J Kinal Subject: Re: Airphones and Receiving Calls Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories In article , lemson@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (David Lemson) writes: > It's simply much easier to have only dial-out. If you need the > opposite direction, that's why they make SkyPager: an alphanumeric > pager that works all over the country, including in planes. Since the pager is an electronic device, is its use authorized by the FAA? [Remember someone who had a cellular phone active in his luggage, and it received a call, activating a SMOKE DETECTOR - rather embarrassing to explain, don't you think!!!] Also, the SKYPAGER is not a SATELLITE broadcast of a paging signal, it's merely a satellite broadcast to numerous city broadcast towers, which then broadcast the paging signal. Coverage is NOT guaranteed nation-wide, by their own admission. #include 'standard disclaimers' Ihor Kinal att!cbnewsh!ijk ------------------------------ From: John Slater Subject: Re: All Monthly Bills --> One Bill Date: 20 Feb 91 12:05:32 GMT Reply-To: John Slater Organization: Sun Microsystems Inc. The National Westminster Bank here in the UK has a similar service. It's called Actionline. Here's how it works: There are several access numbers throughout the UK, so it's a local call for maybe half of the population. Voice prompts guide the customer through the process, but experienced users can interrupt these. I dial in my account number and PIN (not user-selectable, but 5 digits rather than the usual 4), and then select the options which are printed on the flimsy plastic card they gave me to carry around in my wallet : List of services : 01 for bill payments 02 for inter-account transfers (to and from savings, and the like) 03 for a mini statement (audio - last 5 transactions) 04 to order a statement (printed, by mail) 05 to order a cheque book 06 to order a paying-in book 07 for balance(s) (savings accounts as well as checking) 00 to end call On the reverse of the card are my personal two-digit codes for bill payments and transfers which I have set up (I get a supply of forms to do this). I have arranged for all my regular bills to be paid this way, including utilities and credit cards. Payment can be initiated immediately or up to one month in advance. This is very useful, particularly for credit card bills which I delay as long as possible to get the maximum interest-free period. I arrange the payment as soon as I get the bill, ensuring I don't forget to do it later. The system works either from a touch-tone phone or by voice recognition. They recommend the touch-tone method, and I normally use that. Out of curiosity I just tried the voice method, and it works very well indeed. It recognises digits 0-9 (including both "oh" and "zero"), and the words "yes", "no" and "stop" (to terminate a monetary amount). I get confirmation by mail of each transaction. I've been using it happily for about a year and like you, Pat, I've never had to deal with an error. The best thing about it is the cost. It started out at #3.50/quarter, but after six months they dropped the charge and it's now free. They even give out a free pocket touch-tone bleeper when you start the service, and I use this for my answering machine as well as the banking service. Disclaimer : I have no connection with NatWest other than as a satisfied customer. John Slater Sun Microsystems UK, Gatwick Office ------------------------------ From: Floyd Davidson Subject: Re: International Call Tracing Organization: University of Alaska, Institute of Marine Science Date: Wed, 20 Feb 1991 13:11:06 GMT In article 8156BOYDK@vmsf.csd.mu.edu (Kevin Boyd) writes: >TELECOM Moderator wrote: >>to it from a BT central office. In that CO they see the connection is >>to an overseas circuit identified by a number. A call to AT&T in White >>Plains, NY will get someone there to find that overseas circuit and [...] >Pat makes it seem like an international trace is relatively simple, >but that is not the impression I received from reading Cliff Stoll's >book _The Cuckoo's Egg_. In that case, it was a call being traced >from the US into West German. The West German Bundepost would not >release the trace information without an official request from the US >Legal Attache in Germany. I suspect the UK trace also required prior >diplomatic approval and coordination. Physically tracing a call is one thing, getting the information is another. Either of the two may be easy or hard. >(BTW, after the book was mentioned several weeks ago in regard to >secure telephones, I picked it up and read it. I highly reccommend it >for all readers of this list. It deals with the Internet, call >tracing, computer security and is a fascinating, true story.) [...] >[Moderator's Note: Any additional difficulties or delays encountered >in an international trace are purely from the reasons you give if the >telcos do not have an advance agreement. On domestic traces, the >agreements seem to be in place. Even the big three competitors, AT&T, >Sprint and MCI work together in matters 'of common concern' -- fraud >being one such concern shared by all. PAT] It has been awhile since I read the book, but didn't they also have a physical problem with doing the trace due to it going into some old mechanical switch? Tracing a call through some of the old mechanical switchers was time consuming and difficult. On the other hand it takes a few seconds to trace a call through a modern digital switch, and a new hire with two hours on the job can do it. Cliff Stoll's book really facinates telephone types. I took my copy to work and haven't seen it since. The guys who have read it got a big kick out the fact that they understand the parts that Stoll said were a mystery (the telephone stuff). They don't have the slightest idea what all that computer and network stuff means, but call tracing and testboard chit-chat, even though only briefly mentioned, made it interesting. Floyd L. Davidson | floyd@ims.alaska.edu | Alascom, Inc. pays me Salcha, AK 99714 | Univ. of Alaska | but not for opinions. [Moderator's Note: Now there you raise a good point involving the old mechanical offices; the steppers and #5 crossbar, etc. Yes, a technician not previously alerted to a trace underway -- with some beginning clues where to start looking, etc -- could easily spend an hour for a successful trace. When a request was made to start a trace, someone had to go in the frames and look and look and look and look until they found it. And when they found it? Maybe it turned out to be coming from another central office someplace, so the foreman in the first office would call the foreman in the other office and he would send someone in the frames at that office to look and look and look and look. And just about the time they *almost* found where the call was coming from, there would be that sickening noise ... a sort of crash/bang sound as the call disconnected and the switch returned to it's normal position -- before someone could get up to it to examine it's position. And the guys would look at each other and say, "We lost 'er this time." In those days, an obscene or harrassing caller could do his thing with virtual impunity. If the person receiving the call said 'I am going to have this call traced' the caller -- if he knew how the system worked, although many did not -- would say 'go ahead and trace the call; that gives me another 45 minutes to talk to you, and when I hang up, the trace is lost anyway.' PAT] ------------------------------ From: "Barton F. Bruce" Subject: Re: Intra-LATA Private Lines Date: 20 Feb 91 04:06:32 EST Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc. In article , rsj@ox.com (Rick Jaffe) writes: > From our office in Purchase, New York (near White Plains) we run > fourteen ARD's and a 56Kb data line into various locations in the Wall > Street and Midtown areas. > . NYTel refuses to allow digital traffic over their "CO mux", so our > 56Kb line can't be routed this way. The 'you-control-their-DACS' version of CO Muxing in NY is called NRS (Network Reconfig Service) and costs about $100/mo for a T1, and about $5 (the wrong person priced it during a strike, and they WILL raise it!) per seperate DS0 (e.g. DDS line). N.B. that DDS-II -is- available and DOES cost vastly less that old rip-off DDS. In NY ANY DDS speed from 2.4k to 56k with or without secondary channel is the SAME price. 56k with secondary channel passes ALL the bits you need for 64kb, so order that and buy GOOD CSU/DSUs that can hack the latest speeds. Just because there is no tarrif doesn't mean it won't work. A T1 into the NRS DACS lets you dynamically route DS0s! If you paid for a SECOND T1 connection out of their DACS (you are controlling which DS0 goes where - remember) and into their CO Mux service, you could route the voice lines there, and in NRS route the DDS line to a DDS-II ckt. How much is a seperate DDS-II link to upstate, though? All this NRS stuff to simply drop out a single DDS DS0 may not be worth it. If you have several DS0s of data and the rest voice, NRS + CO muxing should work. It may also be possible to get VOICE off the NRS DACS, just ask, and if so it solves all your problems! Actually the CO Muxing is done with a D4 channel bank and COULD easily handle voice and data. Getting them to do it is another problem. If ALL your ckts were 56/64kb DDS lines and you put the somewhat expensive (but readily available from several sources) voice compressor+mux boxes you can pack 2 or more voice ckts + lots of data onto each 56/64k line. Are several voice ckts terminated at the same location?? Your T1 -> DS0 splitting could still be NRS. I am positive that CO Mux here in MA can be used for DATA and we are also in a NYNEX brat's clutches. Nynex product managers now seem to BE Nynex troops rented (for big bucks no doubt) to NYTel and NETel. They ARE listening to customers at last, and are very afraid of Met Fiber and Teleport, etc. It is quite possible they have what you want or could provide it under special assembly. If you just needed analog 3002 data ckts at each site, you can easily derive them from DDS ckts (a $380 card - neat trick). But you need the ring down functions that a channel bank provides so easily. ONLY use DDS-II, not the old DDS, and DO check out their NRS service. If you had T1s or bigger to distribute, you could be talking to Met Fiber, Teleport, Locate, or even Manhatten Cable TV. For voice and DDS loops, you are probably stuck with NYNEX. Do hack your way past the sales types and get to Product Managers. They MAY have the answers, and DO need/deserve feedback from pissed customers. And you owe me mail if you uncover anything of great interest. ------------------------------ From: "Barton F. Bruce" Subject: Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? Date: 20 Feb 91 04:27:35 EST Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc. Certainly running a stage phone off 110 is a dangerous idea, but the main problem is that it may well NOT work. The standard 'straight line' ringer will work over the full ringing range phones are rung with - ~16 - 66 hz, BUT the weird frequencies are normally done with tuned ringers designed to ONLY ring at that frequency. The straight line ringers normally are used on 20hz from the CO and 30 hz in a Key system. At 60hz you may need up near 160 volts to get it ringing. Normally ringing is SUPERIMPOSED on DC to provide for ring tripping, but the DC is blocked by the .5 mfd cap, so is irrelevant for clanging the bell. N.B. that the original post was by an AT&T Bell Labs type. Early on I mailed to him suggesting simply grabbing (at work presumably there should be LOTS somewhere) a small plug in key system ringing generator like the WE 118A. It is the size of a FAT modem transformer, but has a short cord + plug rather than built in prongs. I suggested wiring the phone directly to it, and plugging it in to the stage light panel so some existing switch would ring the bell. These supplies are 30hz and are very current linited. For someone not working for Bell Labs, the local phone company is apt to help with school plays - free. ------------------------------ Organization: Penn State University Date: Wednesday, 20 Feb 1991 09:30:26 EST From: "David L. Phillips" Subject: Re: The Year Was 1960 In article , KLUB@maristb.bitnet (Richard Budd) says: >> The Moderator writes in TELECOM DIGEST V11 #123 >> [Moderator's Note: Maybe there was color television by then; I forget. >> I am sure it was not all that common in households until the early >> sixties sometime. Obviously there was no cable television... [whole bunch deleted] One more piece of history: although it was not as ubiquitous as it is today, cable television (or community antenna television, as it was known then - CATV) was important to TV viewers in mountainous areas like Pennsylvania and Oregon in the early 1950's. It was the only way those folks hidden behind the hills could watch over-the-air TV. You might guess that the first system was started so a music store retailer in Lansford, PA, could sell TV sets. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #138 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa06430; 20 Feb 91 18:30 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa18789; 20 Feb 91 16:39 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab12494; 20 Feb 91 15:30 CST Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 14:34:34 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #139 BCC: Message-ID: <9102201434.ab00179@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 20 Feb 91 14:34:14 CST Volume 11 : Issue 139 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Cordless Eavesdropping [Spy Magazine Advertisement, via Steve Thornton] Western Union Undersea Cables [haynes@ucscc.ucsc.edu] Western Union Revisited [Gabe Wiener] Prodigy DID Come Through With My Refund [Brian Gordon] Publisher Seeks Editor for Telecom Handbook [Jane Fraser] Some World-Class Phreaking in Algeria [Donald E. Kimberlin] Re: NXX Count (1-15-91) [David Leibold] Re: Why do Telcos Use Window Envelopes for Payments? [Syd Weinstein] Re: Do Network Interface Devices Make Fraud Easy? [Toby Nixon] Re: FCC Proposed Rule Changes; Equal Access [Peter da Silva] Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? [Gabe Wiener] Re: Can Email be Sent to the Troops? [Volkhart Baumgaertner] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 00:54:06 EST From: Steve Thornton Subject: Cordless Eavesdropping There's an interesting ad in the March 1991 {Spy Magazine}, p. 72. It says: EAVESDROP!! on any CORDLESS PHONE! LISTEN TO: Family, Friends, Neighbors, Enemies, Employees, Businesses, ANYONE! (Used by Law Enforcement & P.I.'s). Intercepts Cordless Phone Airwaves! No Messy Wiring or Obvious Phone Connections! Listen Live or Record From ANYWHERE! * Cordless Phone Eavesdropping & Surveillance Techniques MANUAL...$15.00 * Cordless Phone Listening Device + FREE MANUAL Reg. $235.......NOW $175 * Optional Mini Voice Activated Recorder (For Unattended Monitoring).............$60.00 Send Name, Address, & Payment to: Sophisticated Surveillance 230 N. Michigan Avenue 11th Floor Chicago, Illinois 60601 Phone (312) 461-9676 * LONGRANGE RECEPTION * HI-TECH * HAND-HELD * PORTABLE * EASY TO USE * EASY TO CONCEAL ----------- And you thought your local COCOT was a sleazy operator. I suppose this is marginally legal in at least some of the proposed applications (employees!?!) but, criminy, this is amazing. Anyone wanna place a bet on how many pages in the "manual"? I'm guessing this is an unsuccessful private investigator trying to branch out. steve thornton / harvard university library / 617.495.3724 netwrk@harvarda.bitnet / netwrk@harvarda.harvard.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 09:22:56 -0800 From: 99700000 Subject: Western Union Undersea Cables There used to be a magazine titled "Western Union Technical Review". WU's cable technology, including amplification, was published in there. With all due credit to WU, and they did some fine engineering, the AT&T effort was a lot more extensive. WU's undersea amplifier was a single amplifier located not too far offshore, primarily to get some gain over the noise from all the other cables passing nearby. AT&T had to provide a whole string of amplifiers the entire length of the cable. ------------------------------ From: Gabe Wiener Subject: Western Union Revisited Organization: Columbia University Center for Telecommunications Research Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 17:03:25 GMT Lately there's been a great deal in the Digest about Western Union, particularly w.r.t. their role in international message handling to Cuba and elsewhere. To that end, I'm prompted to ask ... what is WU up to these days? With the advent of $400 fax machines and inexpensive electronic mail, I can't imagine that the market for telegrams and Telex is _anything_ like it was even 20 or 30 years ago. I don't see their name cropping up terribly often in the long distance carrier world, so I must ask ... what is the current mainstay of their business? Gabe Wiener - Columbia Univ. "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings gabe@ctr.columbia.edu to be seriously considered as a means of gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu communication. The device is inherently of 72355.1226@compuserve.com no value to us." -Western Union memo, 1877 [Moderator's Note: As you know, to conserve space here I nearly always reduce .signatures and delete cute.quotes entirely. Today I decided to include yours. Western Union is not in very good financial condition these days. A few months ago they sold off their EasyLink electronic mail service to AT&T Mail, and the two electronic mail services are now in the process of being merged. They still have their money order and cash wire-transfer business as well as the telex/twx part of the operation. Needless to say telegrams and mailgrams are almost a dead issue these days. They got out of the clock / time signal business over twenty years ago. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Brian Gordon Subject: Prodigy DID Come Through With My Refund Date: 20 Feb 91 17:27:30 GMT As one of the many who bad-mouthed Prodigy, specifically their censorship practices, and who dropped out on 01 Jan 91 when they started charges for "extra" e-mail, I previously reported that they seemed quite civilized about the whole process, and promised a refund (I had prepaid for six months). I commented then that seeing would be believing. At long last, after one "reminder letter" to them in late January, my refund check came yesterday. Brian G. Gordon briang@Sun.COM (if you trust exotic mailers) ...!sun!briangordon (if you route it yourself) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 09:55:11 -0500 From: Jane Fraser Subject: Publisher Seeks Editor for Telecom Handbook A leading Manhattan based STM (scientific, technical, medical) publisher is seeking someone to assume the role of editor/author for a handbook of telecommunications. Reply to me and I'll pass on the replies to the publisher. Jane Fraser Center for Advanced Study in Telecommunications The Ohio State University ------------------------------ From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Subject: Some World-Class Phreaking in Algeria Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 In an article about his (obvious) personal experiences in Cuba (Digest v11, iss129), David Lesher writes: > Ironically, however, the three "international" hotels in town all have > new Mitel systems ... just don't count on anything happening when you > dial "9." I can't help but recall from that remark a peripheral "phone experience" had on an early trade mission to Algeria. The Algerians are firmly in the Soviet orbit, and it seems the US pays out hard dol- lars, more than $500 million a year, for liquified natural gas to the Algerians, while they spend it all in Russia, not returning the trade one penny's worth. Our nominal task was to find any ways we might get some business with our "high tech," but so far as the Algerians were concerned, it was a real opportunity to "get the gringos." They ripped us right and left at every turn, and we could tell they were enjoying twisting the dirty capitalists' tails. It just so happened that the only hotel in Algiers suitable to put us up in was aptly describable as a "people's socialist palace" called the Hotel Aurassi. The Aurassi was a typically barren and un- finished heap of modern cubist concrete rubble, all bare gray cement and none of the visible gaps for amenities equipped. The only function- ing "restaurant" was the coffee shop, which lacked even the asphalt tiles on its rough cement floor, to give an indication of the state of the place. Being a quizzical telecom type, I found the elevator emergency phones had dials and signs in several languages saying that in event of an emergency, to dial 9 and a seven-digit number that proved to be thje outside lines of the hotel! Best they could do, I later found out, as ringdown equipment is something unknown in most such nations. A day or so into our visit into what must have been what Pancho Villa would have done to the gringos were he into foreign trade, there was an article in the Algiers paper loudly proclaiming that International Subscriber Dialing was working in Algiers. I couldn't resist the temptation, of course, so got into the elevator and dialed the published "01" for international, then "01" for North America, followed by my then current New Jersey area code and number ... et voila, madames et messieurs, my charming wife was speaking to me in the elevator at Algiers! I enjoyed a nice chat courtesy of the Algerian PTT, and then told everybody else on the trade mission, who all took nice long elevator rides that evening! (I sure hope the Algerian secret police don't read the Digest!) ------------------------------ From: woody Subject: Re: NXX Count (1-15-91) Reply-To: djcl@contact.UUCP (woody) Organization: Contact Public Unix BBS. Toronto, Canada. Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 04:33:33 GMT In article tropix!moscom!de@uu.psi.com (Dave Esan) writes: > I have not included the 52? series of area codes that are in use for > Mexico, since they are not yet dialable from the US. (Note: Don't ask > me when they will be dialable, I don't know although I will guess > sometime after 1995.) Is the plan indeed to have the 52X area codes to link into Mexico? Or is this something of a hack on the tape to allow for call costings into Mexico exchanges? Given that Mexico's system is separate from the NANP, and given the population growth, is it not likely that Mexico City, or perhaps other places, could have situations which require yet a new digit (say, eight digit Mexico City local numbers, like France and Tokyo were expanded). That could wreck the idea of having 52X area codes soon after they get started if that were the case. > I have not included the 82? series of area codes which include many > more Mexico exchanges, as well as the non-diable locations in the > NANP. Do you have any details on what these 82X area codes would represent? > #9 416 - no plans to split at this point. Ten digit dialling in > affect for non-local calls. There are announced plans to split with permissive dialing 4 Oct 93, and mandatory dial likely Jan 94. No official announcement of what the split code will be; 210 is a good bet, though. ------------------------------ From: Syd Weinstein Subject: Re: Why do Telcos Use Window Envelopes for Payments? Reply-To: syd@dsi.com Organization: Datacomp Systems, Inc. Huntingdon Valley, PA Date: Wed, 20 Feb 1991 15:10:11 GMT Ron Heiby writes: > 0004133373@mcimail.com (Donald E. Kimberlin) writes: > The thing about my IL Bell bill-paying envelopes, and many others, > that I continue to find a mystery is, "Why the heck do they need that > window on the envelope?" As far as I can tell, it's just to give me a > pain by forcing me to a specific orientation of contents insertion. The reason is very simple, its to make sure you remember to include the payment coupon. Having the make the address show through the window makes it much more likely that the customer will include the payment coupon. Our local power company and the water company go one better, the window only is big enough to show the name of the company, the address and bar code are pre-printed. Again, its just to make sure that the proper page is returned and that a page is returned. Otherwise too many people just send in a check and no 'bill payment page'. 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: Toby Nixon Subject: Re: Do Network Interface Devices Make Fraud Easy? Date: 20 Feb 91 11:12:31 GMT Organization: Hayes Microcomputer Products, Norcross, GA In article , rborow@bcm1a09.attmail. com writes: > in the phone itself or in the line. Apparently, according to the > geniuses at IBT, all you need to do is pop open the NID box -- located > on the back of your house about five feet off the ground -- with a > screwdriver or something, pull out a wire, and insert your phone's > modular plug. If you can make or receive a call through this point, > then the problem lies with your nonworking phone. If you cannot make > or receive a call, then the problem probably lies with Bell's network. > My worry is simple: with these NID's located so conveniently for > anyone to use, shouldn't I (or anyone else with these NID's) be > concerned with the probability of fraud? In Southern Bell land (our subdivision, anyway), these boxes have latches on them on which you can place a padlock. The telephone installer who came to our house strongly recommended making use of this feature! We put on a combination padlock, like you'd use on a gym locker, so that if we ever need service we can tell the repair office the combination to the lock, which they record on the repair order, and we don't need to be there to provide a key. Toby Nixon, Principal Engineer | Voice +1-404-840-9200 Telex 151243420 Hayes Microcomputer Products Inc. | Fax +1-404-447-0178 CIS 70271,404 P.O. Box 105203 | UUCP uunet!hayes!tnixon AT&T !tnixon Atlanta, Georgia 30348 USA | Internet hayes!tnixon@uunet.uu.net ------------------------------ From: Peter da Silva Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Rule Changes; Equal Access Organization: A corner of our bedroom Date: Wed, 20 Feb 1991 17:30:01 GMT Re: AT&T versus 800 number access. Yes, now that equal access is here AT&T is at a disadvantage. I carry a Sprint FONcard around simply because I can't depend on getting through to AT&T on my Universal card. peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com ------------------------------ From: Gabe Wiener Subject: Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? Organization: Columbia University Center for Telecommunications Research Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 16:38:02 GMT In article motcid!foos@uunet.uu.net (John Foos) writes: > I hate to dissagree, but... > I am the proud owner of a Western Electric (?) desk phone. I don't > know its age, but it is the same model that Bogie talks on in > Casablanca. It is quite heavy and when the dial is released it makes > a pleasant whir. I got it from a retired electrician who had used it > for many years as a 120 volt tester. He had wired a power plug to the > cord and would test a circuit by plugging in the phone. If it rang > the circuit was live. I have used it for many years now and the sound > quality is better than any modern phone I have used (as a phone I > mean). I would imagine, though, this is the exception rather than the > rule. By the way, were these earlier phones made of bakelight (sp?) > rather than plastic? The danger isn't necessarily frying the phone (though I'm quite sure that with the low level of quality of today's telephones, most of them would fry) as much as it is frying the ACTOR who picks up the phone while wall current is flowing through it. Most early phones from the 20's and even into the 30's were metal. Some of the later models, particularly the first models with internal ringers, were indeed plastic. I don't remember if it's bakelite or not. Gabe Wiener - Columbia Univ. gabe@ctr.columbia.edu gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu 72355.1226@compuserve.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 14:50:57 EST From: Volkhart Baumgaertner Subject: Re: Can Email be Sent to the Troops? Thanks to all who sent me the information on e-mailing troops in Saudi Arabia I recently requested. As soon as I get back in touch with my friends who want to send mail, I will try it out. If I should get any feedback (I doubt it, though, for as of yet the connection works only in one direction according to the info I received) I will post a short report about my experiences, if there is any interest for that (Pat?). Volkhart Baumgaertner Internet: t720019@univscvm.csd.scarolina.edu Bitnet : t720019@univscvm [Moderator's Note: Certainly you may send along a summary. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #139 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa13448; 21 Feb 91 0:07 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa26553; 20 Feb 91 21:51 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa11825; 20 Feb 91 20:44 CST Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 20:12:08 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #140 BCC: Message-ID: <9102202012.ab09856@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 20 Feb 91 20:11:38 CST Volume 11 : Issue 140 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: {Journal-Constitution} Editorial on Prodigy [Michael Graff] Re: Apple Wants Radio Waves For Data Transmission [Rolf Meier] Re: Cordless Eavesdropping [King Ables] Re: Why do Telcos Use Window Envelopes for Payments? [Steve Kass] Re: Why do Telcos Use Window Envelopes for Payments? [Lang Zerner] Re: Finding Your Own Phone Number [Tim Irvin] Re: Tracing Unlisted Numbers [David Lesher] Criss-Cross Services / Publications [Nathan Banks] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 12:56:28 PST From: Michael Graff Subject: Re: {Journal-Constitution} Editorial on Prodigy Reply-To: graff@mlpvm2.iinus1.ibm.com In issue 131, Peter Marshall writes: > Prodigy argues it's an electronic newspaper, and like the J-C > itself can set its own rules. But the newspaper said Prodigy > e-mail "closely resembles a common-carrier communication medium > like the mails or the phone systems ..." I'm reminded of the old Saturday Night Live TV commercial parody in which a husband and wife argue whether a new consumer product is a floor wax or a dessert topping. A Friendly Announcer steps in and tells them "You're both right, it's a floor wax AND a dessert topping!" It seems to me that Prodigy could be classified as both an electronic newspaper and a common carrier, depending on which part of Prodigy you're talking about. For that matter, so could GEnie, CompuServe, and most of the other commercial online services. And if the BOCs are allowed to become information providers, they'll be in the same boat. ...Michael ------------------------------ From: Rolf Meier Subject: Re: Apple Wants Radio Waves For Data Transmission Date: 20 Feb 91 17:22:49 GMT Organization: Mitel. Kanata (Ontario). Canada. In article Alan Ruffer writes: > The REALLY sad part about all this is that 902.0 - 928.0 Mhz is the > amateur radio 33 centimeter band. Devices that operate in this band > are NOT guaranteed freedom from interference! There are other > wireless gadgets that operate in this frequency range too. Buyers of > these devices should be aware of this. While it is illegal for an > amateur to intentionally interfere, these devices are subject to > unintentional interference, and amateurs may ALSO be subject to > interference from these transmiters. In theory, narrowband transmissions in the 902-928 band should not cause interference to spread spectrum transmissions in that band, and vice versa. That is the whole purpose of allowing spread spectrum to operate in that band. Now, any band is subject to interference from transmissions which operate illegally within that band, but that is a matter of enforcement, not regulation. There are a number of spread spectrum systems operating successfully in the ISM (industrial, scientific, medical) bands, such as 902-928. According to my chart of spectrum allocations, this is a "secondary" amateur band, whatever that means. I don't believe it is encouraged for amateur usage. Rolf Meier Mitel Corporation ------------------------------ From: King Ables Subject: Re: Cordless Eavesdropping Date: 20 Feb 91 23:19:21 GMT Organization: MCC ACT Program, Austin, TX From article , by NETWRK@harvarda. harvard.edu (Steve Thornton): > There's an interesting ad in the March 1991 {Spy Magazine}, p. 72. It > says: > EAVESDROP!! on any CORDLESS PHONE! Not that this is directly related, but I was in a store the other day looking at cordless phones. A woman and her three kids were wandering around looking at various things, not seeming to shop for anything in particular. Her son was looking at cordless phones and she told him he didn't want one of those "because the police could listen to your conversation." This is either an indication of the kinds of calls she makes or the level of paranoia she has about law enforcement. Either way, it's a sad commentary. Had she said "somebody could listen" then I'd just assume she's a privacy lover. The fact that her first thought was police kind of bothered me. For what that's worth. King Ables Micro Electronics and Computer Technology Corp. ables@mcc.com 3500 W. Balcones Center Drive +1 512 338 3749 Austin, TX 78759 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 11:47 EDT From: Subject: Re: Why do Telcos Use Window Envelopes for Payments? In TELECOM Digest #136, Ron Heiby writes: > The thing about my IL Bell bill-paying envelopes, and many others, > that I continue to find a mystery is, "Why the heck do they need that > window on the envelope?" As far as I can tell, it's just to give me a > pain by forcing me to a specific orientation of contents insertion. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > The envelope already has the city/state/zip+4. In fact, the zip+4 is > BAR CODED on the envelope! [...] It may give you a pain to put the contents into the envelope in a particular way, but it aids the Telco's automation. If the check is always behind the bill and the bill is right side up, a machine can open the letter, separate the check from the bill, pull up the customer record and present an employee with the check. The employee simply types the amount of the check into a terminal and all the rest is taken care of automatically. I don't know for a fact that this is the reason, but it's the only one I can come up with that makes sense. Steve Kass/ Math&CS Dept/ Drew U/ Madison NJ 07940 2015141187/ skass@drew.edu ------------------------------ From: lang@panews Subject: Re: Why do Telcos Use Window Envelopes for Payments? Reply-To: lang@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com (Lang Zerner) Organization: IBM AWD Palo Alto Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 20:30:48 GMT > [Moderator's Note: Actually in the case of Illinois Bell, ... Anything > saying 60669 sorts to the back of a large van which delivers a couple > hundred thousand payment envelopes to telco daily ... Like you, I've > always wondered why the big fuss about making the coupon stand the > right way in the envelope, etc. PAT] Consider what happens at the other end, when those couple hundred thousand envelopes arrive at the processing center each day. Each one has to be opened, and the remittance sheet handled both by a human (to enter the amount received) and (I presume, based on the machine-readable digits on the sheet) by a machine to record the payment. The person handling the remittance has to take the sheet out of the envelope, read it, and probably insert it in the correct orientation into some processing machine. Consider it from an efficiency engineer's point of view and you'll see that adding the step of flipping the sheet around to the correct orientation to read it and send it through the processing machine could cost, say, two seconds. Even if only 30% of the envelopes came in with the sheets in an "incorrect" orientation, Pat's estimate of 200,000 envelopes per day yields 60,000 envelopes requiring special handling to reorient the remittance document. Assuming the flow of envelopes is constant six days a week, two second for each of those 60,000 envelopes comes to 16.66 hours per day, or 5197.92 hours per year. Even allowing for a fifty-hour work week, that still comes out to two extra full-time employees. While not a large expense compared to the outrageous profit margins of the operating companies, two full-time employees has *got* to cost more than the difference between standard and window envelopes. So, from a manager's point of view, the choice makes sense. Be seeing you... Lang ------------------------------ From: Tim Irvin Subject: Re: Finding Your Own Phone Number Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 18:03:09 -0500 "Bernard F. Collins" writes: > I discovered some time ago that in the Baltimore area (301), one could > find out the number of most phones by dialing 811 or 311 (I forget > which.) After dialing, I would hear some funny clicks and then a VERY > faint voice that would recite my phone number. I just moved from N.C. Southern Bell (at least in Asheville, NC) used 200 (just 200) to get the phone number -- I once saw a repair man doing this. After dialing the 2-0-0, the line would be absolutely silent (just as if it was waiting for more digits) for ten to fifteen seconds, then a few clicks, and finally the familiar DA voice read my phone number off to me. I once tried to dial 200 from two different lines at the same time, I got a busy signal from one of them (after the ten to fifteen second wait), leading me to believe they were only set-up to handle one call at a time (at least in my exchange - which was the smallest one in the city). Prior to this "200" business, I overheard a repair man call the Operator and say "T and I please", or maybe it was "TNI please". So I tried it when he left, and sure enough the Operator told me my phone number. A few months later I tried it again and was firmly told to "Speak with your supervisor, that code has changed!!!" In Knoxville, TN (BELLSouth territory also -- but South Central Bell is the BOC), 200 didn't work. I could never figure out what the secret code might be there -- I went through all the X00 combinations I could think of. On a slightly different subject: One time in Knoxville, while getting my phone line fixed, the repair man dialed some number, hung up and the phone rang back. In Asheville, NC that was accomplished by dialing the phone's telephone number and hanging up. But I had never figured out how to do it in Knoxville. So I asked the guy what he dialed. "Sorry sir but we are not allowed to give out that information." "Why not?" "If customers start doing this, it would jam our equipment." Kind of a feeble excuse I thought. Tim Irvin Project NORTHSTAR Dartmouth College ------------------------------ From: David Lesher Subject: Re: Tracing Unlisted Numbers Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 18:07:13 EST Reply-To: David Lesher Organization: NRK Clinic for habitual NetNews abusers David Mason asked why it cost so much to trace an unlisted number. Mr. Moderator responded with what I regard as absolute nonsense about a database subscription. Look, the PI did what I used to do: Call a friend in Repair. Ask her the "who and where" you need. (The difference is, he likely bribed the "greenie" with cash. I used a box of chocolates, myself.) Repair/Cable or whatever Outside Plant is calling itself MUST know where an assignment terminates. How could they track down complaints on noisy pairs, or avoid reassigning an 'in-use' one if they did not have end-to-end records? The only thing an unlisted number gets you is a few obstacles to getting the name from the public end of the LEC. And please, spare me the morality speech, both on my getting numbers, and people that provide them. Last time I wanted an "unlisted" number, Ma made me sign a release that said: We guarantee NOTHING except to charge you extra. They kept their word - they soaked me EVERY MONTH to as someone put it "slide all the rest of the names in the book up one space." BTW: "greenie" came from the olive drab color of the trucks. I always wondered -- did they get that color paint DOD/GSA surplus ;-? wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (305) 255-RTFM pob 570-335 33257-0335 [Moderator's Note: Fine ... no morality speech, however I would like to say that most ethical PI's won't use that approach since if they get caught/convicted they might well lose their license -- something far more important to them than one client looking for a phone number. I'd like to think that *most* telco employees are not so easily bribed. We did have a story in the Digest a few months ago about an employee of IBT who was given an offer such as you describe. She thought about what she would stand to lose if she got caught and chose instead to report the person trying to bribe her, even though as a result of her relationship with the person in another matter she was caused considerable personal embarassment when the attempted bribery became known. Most telco employees will turn those offers down. Some will report it. You might pay a very heavy price. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Nathan Banks Subject: Criss-Cross Services / Publications Date: 20 Feb 91 22:20:05 GMT Organization: VITec Is there a concise list of criss-cross pubs, numbers, services available? When I was in college in SWB territory I would call the BO when the roomates could not recognise a long distance call. The BO would criss cross it for me, giving me a name and *sometimes* an address. When presenting this info to my roomates someone whould recognise the call and 'fess up and (*usually*) cough up the $. The only restriction was that I had to give her an item number on the bill and read the number to her. When she concurred with what I read with what was on her screen, the info came through. (I never tried exceeding the boundary conditions.) I grew up in Houston. I remember using the criss-crosses in the Houston Public Library - downtown, the libraries up here don't have any. Now I am in *rural* Contel territory and when the bill contains LD calls (he** just about every d**n line is LD) that are two months old, I start getting the same behavior from my family as I got from my roomates back in college. No I don't take the phone bill out of the kid's allowance -- but that's not a bad idea. I do like to audit the bill and make sure the CCN hasn't been stolen and the big ticket items are my own. Anyway, Contel folks can't criss cross like the SWB Lady can. They tell me that all they can do is call the number I am interested in and find who is there. Well I can do that, but of course I have to pay for the d**n call again. The best I ever got from an operator (SWB|GTE|CONTEL) is a name-place request. Has anyone out there every gotten an operator to criss-cross? Are there any alternatives beside that 900 CRISSCROSS service? If I cannot get criss-crossing for cheap then auditing outgoing DTMF is my next question. WARNING THIS IS PROBABLY AN FASR Does any one have the schematic for a cheap audit box I can connect to the phone line to print to a paper calculator printer (or EEPROM for later uploading to a PC): o outgoing DTMF, o date time and o when on-hook happens time (or elapsed time) RadioShack has a DTMF decoder chip for $12 and a schematic to send the BCD to an LEDDisplay. I am not an EE, so I cannot even begin to redesign that, but how difficult could it be send the BCD outputs to EEPROM? I have not built a circuit in fifteen years, I wuold appreciate any helpful advice/directions to documentation. BTW: A friend of mine bought a handheld DTMF to LED widget from one of those MercenaryToysRUs catalogs. I will try to get the catalog address if anyone is interested. APPRECIATIONS: Contel service. Fiber is just 250 feet away from the house. (Hoping for ISDN or fiberTV someday haha). DMS-10? 0.5 miles away. Friendly service personel. Isn't an appreciation paragraph better than a FLAME. DTMF:+1 214 985 2270 UUCP:uunet!vitec!nathan Nathan Banks, Senior Software Engineer Visual Information Technologies (VITec) 3460 Lotus Drive, Plano, TX 75075 [Moderator's Note: I suspect both SWB and Contel (most telcos?) actually call the business office of the telco serving the questioned number and get current information to provide in response to your question 'who did we call at that number?' They would not use a printed criss-cross because those books are only as accurate as the alphabetical directory they were sorted from. There are a dozen or so publishers of criss-cross books, the largest being Haines, Dresslers, City Publishing Co. and Donnelly. They seem to each take parts of the country and seldom overlap each other. Most libraries have at least the local criss-cross in their reference department and larger libraries may have several for nearby cities, etc. None of the criss-cross publishers solicit leases (they never sell their books) to individuals. They attempt to deal only with businesses, institutions and governments. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #140 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa15348; 21 Feb 91 1:37 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa09215; 20 Feb 91 23:57 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa18016; 20 Feb 91 22:51 CST Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 22:01:10 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #141 BCC: Message-ID: <9102202201.ab11668@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Wed, 20 Feb 91 22:01:00 CST Volume 11 : Issue 141 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Airphones and Receiving Calls [Javier Henderson] Re: Alternate Cellular System [Craig Ibbotson] Re: Can Email be Sent to the Troops? [Brian Crawford] Re: Caller*ID [Robert Jacobson] Re: How Times Change [Peter da Silva] Re: Comprehensive International Phone Book Wanted [David E. A. Wilson] Need Suggestions/Opinions on PBX, Voice Processing [Esti Weissman] Office Phone Set-up -> Home Phone Set-up [Richard E. Banks] MCI Personal 800 Question [Timothy Newsham] They'rrreee Baaack! [John Higdon] 911 Dispatcher Works Late at the Office [Dale Neiburg via John R. Covert] Re: Extended Range Cordless Phone [Ken Jongsma] --------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Javier Henderson - TMS Group Subject: Re: Airphones and Receiving Calls Date: 20 Feb 91 07:02:50 PST Organization: Avnet Computer - CTC Group; Culver City, CA In article , lemson@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (David Lemson) writes: > opposite direction, that's why they make SkyPager: an alphanumeric > pager that works all over the country, including in planes. As I recall from reading the in-flight magazine provided by the airline, the use of any receiving or transmitting device in the airplane is not permitted (a stewardress once asked me to turn off my ham radio ht, even though I was just listening). Are skypagers exempted from this rule? Javier Henderson Engineering Services Avnet Computer Los Angeles, CA henderson@hamavnet.com {simpact,asylum,elroy,dhw68k}!hamavnet!henderson ------------------------------ From: Craig Ibbotson Subject: Re: Alternate Cellular System Date: 20 Feb 91 16:51:55 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Div., Arlington Hgts, IL den0@midway.uchicago.edu (funky chicken) writes: > In article sichermn@beach.csulb.edu > (Jeff Sicherman) writes: >> There was an article in the paper here (LA) the other day that said >> there was a petition (due?) before the FCC to allocate a portion of >> the spectrum currently used for commercial mobile phone systems (taxi, >> delivery dispatching) to be divided up for an alternate cellular-type >> phone usage. Sorry, I don't remember any of the technical details but >> maybe someone else can follow-up. > Being a mere interested hobbiest, my perspective might be a bit > skewed, but here's what I know. > This alternate cellular thang is going under names like "Personal > Communications Networks" (PCN) and Cordless Telephone 2nd and 3rd ... stuff deleted I believe this alternate cellular system is NOT PCN but actually a third carrier in each city. This week's {U.S News and World Report} has a short article describing the decision. I don't have the article with me, but if I remember correctly they are going to allow taxi and other dispatching services to use their frequency allocation for cellular purposes. The article specifically stated it is the FCC's intention to create a third carrier in order to bring down the cost of cellular service. If no one else posts the article, I will post it tomorrow. ------------------------------ From: Brian Crawford Subject: Re: Can Email be Sent to the Troops? Date: 21 Feb 91 01:34:50 GMT Organization: Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ I have already had success with the EMail service. The last I had heard from a friend currently stationed in eastern Saudi Arabia, the first letter sent a week before the war began took 20 days. Now, things are getting to him in under a week. One item worth mentioning: someone posted the address information slightly differently than the way I'm aware and have been following. The line "LOCAL FORCES" I'm told should go on the FIRST line (before the Name, rank SSN), and not the last. This is an issue which should be solved, as if incorrect addressing format is used, the message gets zapped with the originator never being notified. Brian Crawford INTERNET (current): crawford@enuxha.eas.asu.edu PO Box 804 (permanent): crawford@stjhmc.fidonet.org Tempe, Arizona 85280 FidoNet: 1:114/15.12 USA Amateur: KL7JDQ ------------------------------ From: Robert Jacobson Subject: Re: Caller*ID Date: 20 Feb 91 19:46:11 GMT Organization: Human Interface Technology Lab, Univ. of Wash., Seattle Rather obviously, Caller*ID is a spurious solution to telemarketing nuisances (unless one rejects every unidentified call). In point of fact, telemarketers and others who rely on the telephone to collect and make commercial contacts are positively delerious over Caller*ID, which suggests a deeper motive in its offering. Bob Jacobson ------------------------------ From: Peter da Silva Subject: Re: How Times Change Organization: A corner of our bedroom Date: Thu, 21 Feb 1991 01:39:27 GMT In article , john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > Peter da Silva writes: > > The up-front capital costs of a FAX machine, plus a second > > line at the recipient end, don't help the economics much. Remember, > > not that many people Here I'm talking about individuals, not businesses. > > have these new toys, and the majority of the USPS > > mail volume already gets a more favorable rate. > On the face of it, this would appear to be true. But for various > reasons, the FAX machine has become ubiquitous in businesses large and > small. How much mail is first-class mail between businesses? The majority is direct mail (gets a better rate) or to or from residences (no fax). > post office has screwed me over just once too often. If I really > expect the distant party to receive my document, I will use any method > other than the US mail. But you have never been the USPS main customer. Myself, I tend to use Email. And I can send a Fax by Email if I have to. peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com ------------------------------ From: David E A Wilson Subject: Re: Comprehensive International Phone Book Wanted Organization: Dept of Computer Science, Wollongong University Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 23:44:15 GMT motcid!ellis@uunet.uu.net (John T Ellis) writes: > "Let's see, today I want to call Puebla, Puebla, Mexico. Looking in > my comprehensive, international book from ####, I see that the country > code for Mexico is 52 and the city code for Puebla, Puebla is 22." Well, for this example I can just look at my trusty White Pages directory in the OTC International Direct Dial pages and find: Mexico $2.10 AEST less 16-18 hours Tones: Ring=E, Busy=D 0011 + 52 + area code + local no Acapulco 748 Merida 99 Tijuana 66 Ciudad Juarez 161 Mexico City 5 Torreon 17 Guadalajara 36 Puebla 22 Veracruz 29 E = Short tone followed by a longer pause D = Short sharp tone repeated at frequent intervals ----------- Of course if the town in Mexico hadn't been on this list I would have to call the international operator. Your mileage will vary. David Wilson Dept Comp Sci, Uni of Wollongong david@cs.uow.edu.au ------------------------------ From: Esti Weissman Subject: Need Suggestions / Opinions on PBX, Voice Processing Date: 20 Feb 91 20:21:27 GMT Organization: Datability Software Systems, New York, NY I'm looking for a new phone system for my company (PBX + voice processing [auto attendant, voicemail]). Does anybody out there have suggestions/opinions on the best system(s) to look at? (I'm not adverse to buying one's PBX and another's voice processing) Some general requirements: PBX: - capability to take in at least one T1 circuit (maybe two), and a bunch of telco trunks (maybe 8 or 12) - phone sets that connect via standard modular jacks - multiple zone paging - minimum of approx 150-200 phones, good expansion capability (max around 300 - 350) - analog capabilities (so that our programmers and support people can still have dial out modem capability from their desks through the switch) - HIGH RELIABILITY (so that when something goes wrong it's either one of our carriers, or there's a blue moon) Voice Processing: - minimum of 16 dynamically allocatable (across trunks, auto attendants, mailboxes) ports, expandable - multiple auto attendants - "cascaded outdial" (caller leaves a message on a special mailbox, system outdials to a number, if mailbox hasn't been accessed in, say 15 min., call the next number, then the next...) - remote system administration (dial in, network access via dumb terminal) (while system is in operation) - "seamless" integration with the pbx (eg. "message waiting" lamp on phone sets [stuttered dial tone n.g.]) - lots of flexibility in programming an autoattendant function - we want to set up an unattended interactive customer service application with many "nodes" This will replace a Mitel SX200 (analog) with 28 trunks, two attendant's consoles, around 100 single line phones (13 x 8 station line cards) and about 24 Superset phones (multiple lines, softkeys, speedials). Thanks!!! Esti Weissman Datability, Inc. 322 Eighth Avenue New York, New York 10001 (212) 807-7800 esti@doc.dss.com ------------------------------ From: rbanks@wookumz.ai.mit.edu (Richard E. Banks) Subject: Office Phone Set-up -> Home Phone Set-up Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 20:21:59 GMT I recently received a few phones that came from the office. The phones have ten or eleven lines. The cable is standard 24 gauge modular wire; 50 leads with connecter. It appears the phones may have been set-up in some sort of star configuration. I suppose that every four, six, or eight conductors were for each of ten or eleven lines. I want to adapt the phones so I can use them in my RJ11 jacks at home using one line. Is there any easy way to do this? If what I said above is correct, how would I be able to find the four right wires to attach a RJ11 connecter to so I can plug it in? Would that be to hard to do? Could it even be done at all? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 14:36:55 hst From: Timothy Newsham Subject: Question About MCI Personal 800 Number PINS Someone posted a message to this newsgroup detailing the Personal 800 number they just got from MCI. In it he/she noted that one who calls his/her 800 number must enter a four digit code when he/she hears a tone after dialing the 800 number. My question: Does that mean that other people will have the same 800 number as you, and the call will be routed to the correct person depending on the four digit number they enter? Or is it a security measure to insure that the person who calls your 800 number is authorized to use it since only an authorized person will know the four digit code? And if a person calls your 800 number and enters the wrong code, are you charged for the connect time still? newsham@wiliki.eng.hawaii.edu [Moderator's Note: I know there will be corrections sent if I am wrong on this. Although MCI is promoting it as a way to insure that you only get calls from people you have authorized to call (by giving them the PIN) the actual circumstances appear to be that several subscribers share the same 800 number with the PIN being used to route the call accordingly. By promoting the story that 'the PIN is your security against unwanted calls' MCI seems to be saving face while operating a less than professional looking 800 service and skimping on the quantity of 800 numbers -- admittedly soon to be in short supply -- that they hand out. One problem with their system is that unlike a more common 800 number, callers from rotary dial phones have no way to insert the PIN. I don't know how they get through, or if they do. I much prefer having a regular 800 number -- albiet with no line termination; Telecom*USA's switch just accepts the call DID-style and outdials to my home phone number on the 'distinctive-ring' number -- and taking my chances with calls coming through I did not authorize. And yes, with any style of 800 number you pay for the calls whether you wanted them or not. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 13:14 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: They'rrreee Baaack! Last night the {San Jose Mercury}'s telemarketing fiasco was back with a vengence. Every one of my lines was called between 7 PM and 8 PM by a dweeb wanting to know if I was getting the paper OK. I asked to speak with the supervisor, and when I mentioned my name the person practically swallowed her tongue. "Oh, no. Your name is very familiar to us. I must now call my boss and tell him. I can't apologize enough." That is correct; she could not apologize enough. This morning I called Pac*Bell and began the formal complaint procedure against the {San Jose Mercury}. My complaint will mention the repeated attempts to request that the Merc cease and desist calling my number with marketing pitches; how those requests have been ignored and how the harrasment continues. I also called the head of telemarketing at the Merc to tell him of my action. He recognized my name, again told me about how it was the fault of the software, and asked that I withhold my complaint. I told him that my patience had come to an end and that I was no longer convinced that any good faith action was really being taken. He then admitted that he had other people complain and that he would shut down the whole operation until the vendor could assure him that all was in order. I told him that our last converstion ended with the same assurances and now it was time for him to deal with Pac*Bell. The reason I called him was not to hear more assurances, but to make sure he knew just who was responsible when Pac*Bell landed on him. I intend to push as far and and hard as I can. I will cut the Merc absolutely no slack in this. I was patient for over a year. Time's up. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! [Moderator's Note: Good for you! Please keep us posted as the matter progresses. Anyone willing to take on the hassles involved in getting a large corporation to obey the law and respect the rights of little guys deserves our applause. (clap, clap!) PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 14:49:59 PST From: "John R. Covert 20-Feb-1991 1450" Subject: 911 Dispatcher Works Late at the Office From: Dale Neiburg Organization: National Public Radio Date: 20 Feb 1991 Another telecommunications tidbit as reported by the WASHINGTON POST of 13 Feb 1991: "A 911 operator earned nearly $100,000 to become the highest-paid city employee in Portland, Oregon, last year because the city's emergency system has chronic staffing problems. The operator, whom the city declined to identify, routinely worked 90-hour weeks." ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Extended Range Cordless Phone Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 19:33:54 EST From: Ken Jongsma While looking through a small newsletter, I noticed the following sentence: Super Cordless Phone. Operates to 1/2 mile from home base. Code-a-Phone Epic 9000. Available in May, $200. I have no additional info on this, but it sure looks interesting. Maybe it runs up in the 900MHz range. If anyone else has any deatils, please let us know. Ken Jongsma ken@wybbs.mi.org Smiths Industries ken%wybbs@sharkey.umich.edu Grand Rapids, Michigan ..sharkey.cc.umich.edu!wybbs!ken ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #141 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa03431; 21 Feb 91 14:24 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa16897; 21 Feb 91 12:11 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa26147; 21 Feb 91 11:04 CST Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 10:46:45 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #142 BCC: Message-ID: <9102211046.ab01993@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 21 Feb 91 10:46:34 CST Volume 11 : Issue 142 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson The Status of 1+703 Dialing [Greg Monti, NPR via John R. Covert] Intra-Lata Deregulation in California [Jeff Sicherman] Caller*ID Comes to California; Well Sorta, Maybe [Jeff Sicherman] MCI Uses Sneaky Marketing Tactics; Pulls Credit Files [A. N. Shekar] Looking for T1 via Satellite Information [Hank Nussbacher] Talking About ANI and Wink Starts [Tom Lowe] Charges for CLASS Services [Sean Williams] What is Roaming America? [David E. Sheafer] Alternate (Third?) Cellular System [Scott Loftesness] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 00:27:02 PST From: John R. Covert Subject: The Status of 1+703 Dialing From: Greg Monti, National Public Radio, Washington, DC 202 822-2633 Fax 202 822-2699 Date: 19 February 1991 Re: The Status of 1+703 Dialing A couple of recent postings plus a recent {Washington Post} article make this a suitable time to bring Telecomers up to date. 1. To my knowledge, there is NO move afoot to remove 1+703 dialing from *toll* calls within the 703 area. A call from Arlington to Roanoke, about 200 miles, will continue to be 1 + 703 + seven digits when dialed in either direction. 2. On March 1, 1991, *Extended Area Calls* (which are a half-breed between local and toll calls) from *Northern Virginia* to Prince William County, Virginia, (and to the Arcola Rate Area [703-327] in Loudoun County, Virginia) will be reduced from 1 + 703 + seven digits to just seven digits. These calls were once toll but dropped into the Extended Area rate category in mid-1988. In Virginia, there appears to be a standard that EA calls are seven digits. This seven-digit standard could not apply in 1988 because, at that time, local calls from Northern Virginia to Suburban Maryland were seven digits and about a half-dozen prefixes in Prince William duplicated existing local prefixes in Maryland. Dialing seven digits for both kinds of calls would be ambiguous. Once ten-digit dialing to Maryland, even for local calls, became mandatory on October 1, 1990, the 1 + 703 + seven digits requirement to reach Prince William County could be lifted. To prevent a lot of "wrong number" calls immediately after October 1, C&P decided to wait five months until March 1, before removing the 1 + 703 requirement for Prince William. Currently, one receives a blocking recording when attempting to dial from NVA to PW with 7D. The recording varies according to whether you've dialed one of the duplicated prefixes or not. (If not duplicated, "Your call cannot be completed as dialed ...". If duplicated in local Maryland, "... you must first dial 301 when placing this call ... this is a local call.") Beginning March 1, the seven digit calls *will* go through to PW and 1 + ten digit calls to PW exchanges will be blocked by a new recording similar to the one used *from* Prince William to Northern Virginia (which went into effect immediately in 1988), "It is no longer necessary to dial 1 or 703 when placing this call; please hang up and dial your call again without dialing 1 or 703." 3. On June 29, 1991, calls from Northern Virginia to the Leesburg Rate Area (703-729, 771 and 777) in Loudoun County, Virginia, will be dropped from inter-LATA toll rates and will become Extended Area calls. Dialing will be reduced immediately at that time from 1 + 703 + seven digits to just seven digits. This marks a fairly unusual happening in the post-divestiture telephone industry because Leesburg is not in the Washington LATA (it's in the Culpeper LATA). Calls that were once the purview of competitive long distance carriers are being sucked back into the purview of the local operating companies. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 02:11:06 -0800 From: Jeff Sicherman Subject: Intra-Lata Deregulation in California Organization: Cal State Long Beach According to a recent article in the {Orange County Register}, the PUC is preparing to hold hearings (in March) preparatory to allowing competition for local toll calling, including long distance companies and 'other' carriers. This will introduce competition for PacBell and GTE within their LATA's for all but the closest phone calls (about 16 miles - how does compare to the expanded local call radius that was 'given' in return for 'free' touch-tone recently ?). It is claimed this will produce sharp cuts in rates for toll calls, which are claimed to comprise 40-50 percent of the average client's bill. To compensate our friendly neighboorhood phone companies for this grand sacrifice, the PUC will let basic fees creep higher (they may be using creep in the wrong context here) because they previously allowed PacBell and GTE to use high toll rates to subsidize basic service and because basic phone service rates in California are among the lowest in the nation. Personally, it sounds like this will be of benefit mostly to business while residence costs will rise to compensate. Who will be subsidizing whom then ? One of the less attractive aspects of the proposal is that the PUC is leaning away from allowing a designated toll carrier (1+ for LD) and will require the caller to dial a three-digit code to reach a specific regional carrier. Oh sure, one more thing to make life using a phone more complicated and confusing for the average user. Doubt it will ever fly. The other potential carriers will not let the advantage to PacBell and GTE stand (they would be the default if not selected). Jeff Sicherman ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 23:08:48 -0800 From: Jeff Sicherman Subject: Caller*ID Comes to California; Well Sorta, Maybe Organization: Cal State Long Beach The phone bill Insert-of-the-Month for February was an notice of Public Hearing by the California PUC to allow the public to learn about and comment on Caller Id and Call Trace. They are to be offered as part of seven new COMMSTAR (sm) calling services. The usual suspects are included. Of particular note is that Pacific Bell is proposing to offer per-call blocking but not per-line blocking, though both are described. There is no mention of block-blocking. They are currently only planning to offer it initially in San Francisco, San Jose, and Los Angeles though it is not clear how they are defining those areas (metropolitan area, city, county ??) There is going to be a hearing in my city so I may just attend for the entertainment and information. Of course it is on April 1st here so ... Jeff Sicherman ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 15:44:44 CST From: "A. N. Shekar" Subject: MCI Uses Sneaky Marketing Tactics; Pulls Credit Bureau Files The following item appeared in the RISKS-FORUM Digest 11.12 on USENET, and appears worth re-posting here (assuming someone hasn't already done so). RISKS-LIST: RISKS-FORUM Digest Sunday 17 February 1991 Volume 11 : Issue 12 Date: Thu, 14 Feb 91 18:57:34 EST From: janson@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Subject: Credit enquiries appear to expose client lists to competitor's scrutiny I have become sensitive to my exposure due to electronically compiled and disseminated personal data, but, until recently, I had never considered ways in which the users of such data expose themselves to possible losses. I was both amused and disconcerted to learn that a company which uses a credit reference service makes it easier for a competitor to target customers through traces which are maintained by the credit agency. This last week I received in the mail, from MCI, an offer for a rebate in exchange for electing them as my long distance carrier. [Ignore for the present discussion ethical issues raised by the particular incentive mechanism which MCI employed.] I had expected, and did receive, a number of enquiries from various alternative carriers at the time when equal access provisions went into effect in this area. I was, however, perplexed as to why they chose to target me now. It took a bit of reflection, but I finally concluded that one focus of MCI's current mailing is the holders of ATT Universal cards. [MCI used an address which gave them away.] Not really the kind of thing which one company would deliberately give to a competitor. So I called ATT to ask what happened. I was informed that they knew the likely path which the information had traveled, but that once they had made a credit enquiry, they were powerless to prevent MCI from approaching the credit agency and obtaining a list of those people for whom ATT had requested credit histories. < End of Excerpt from RISKS Digest > For those that don't know this, most credit bureaus not only give out your credit history to virtually anyone that asks, they can _also_ report the names of all those persons/organizations that have verifed your credit history in the recent past. Yet another thing to worry about for the privacy conscious. Incidentally, MCI has been my long distance carrier for the last couple of years, and I was astonished to have one of their marketing reps call some weeks ago to offer me a "courtesy rebate certificate for $10", to show "appreciation to a valued customer", etc., or words to that effect. Their certificate(s) arrived promptly in the mail, and I am still puzzled as to why they would call up current subscribers and offer these rebates ... I mean luring people away from the competition is one thing, but this was strange! A. N. Shekar (shekar@mwk.uucp) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 13:26:06 IST From: Hank Nussbacher Subject: Looking for T1 via Satellite Information I am looking into the possibility of running a T1 circuit via a satellite circuit. The questions I have are: - Are there any gotchas to running a T1 satellite circuit via cisco routers that I should know about in advance? How well does IP respond to the delays? - How much does a complete ground station cost? I intend to bypass my PTT and deal directly with Intelsat. Has anyone tried anything like that? - Anything else that would be helpful that I should know about when looking at the various satellite ground station proposals I am getting would be appreciated. Thanks, Hank ------------------------------ From: telpc!tel@cdsdb1.att.com Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 06:44 EST Subject: Talking about ANI and Wink Starts When I recently had my wink start outbound trunks installed (the ones I posted about with the answer supervision), I had an interesting problem. It seems I couldn't place long distance calls. The Phone Companies computer showed my PIC (Preferred Interexchange Carrier) ((That's what NJBell officially calls your 10xxx code) was 10288 (AT&T), and couldn't find any reason at all for the calls not to go through. I could place intra-lata calls with no problem. I couldn't even make 800 calls. If I tried a 0+ call to make a calling card call, the operator asked me what number I was calling FROM. I told her and she put the call through. I finally called the Operator to ask what line I was calling from, and she said her console showed "FAIL". I then got the suspicion that NJ Bell forgot to program in the ANI for the trunk group. I called them up and sure enough, they forgot it. They had a clerk punch in the ANI for the trunk group (All 16 trunks got the same number). Long distance calls still failed. I called the Operator again and she said "0547000" and got confused. What she should have read off was 9460547. It seems that the clerk forgot to enter the 946 in front of the 0547. Anyway, I called NJ Bell back and informed them of their blunder and requested that the set the ANI to one of my DID numbers, so that it had some meaning. 9460547 just rings forever. No problems any more and ANI reports my DID number. Interesting side note, the number doesn't show up on "Caller*ID" from these trunks, even though it does from other 946 numbers. It does report the ANI (the DID number I asked for) on the 800 ANI Demo line. Tom Lowe ------------------------------ From: seanwilliams@attmail.com Date: Wed Feb 20 21:20:06 EST 1991 Subject: Charges for CLASS Services In TELECOM Digest V11 #135, Jack Dominey writes: | That monthly service charge irritates me. Bell is obviously milking | all these features (a.k.a. CLASS?) for every drop of revenue they can | squeeze [. . .] It would be far more appropriate to *require* the service | be available anywhere the Central Office is capable, and charge $4.00 for | EACH trace. This is not necessarily true in all regions. Bell of Pennsylvania, in Harrisburg (Capital LATA), at least, offers it's CLASS services on a charge-per-use basis. Services such as Call*Block, Priority*Call, and Select*Forward are billed at a daily rate for each day that a phone number is programmed into the respective service's list. If you would prefer to subscribe to the services you will use most frequently, the monthly rate is cheaper than the daily/per-use rates. But remember, an advantage to Bell of PA's system is that the services are always available, whether or not customers subscribe to them. Sean E. Williams | attmail.com!seanwilliams 333 Prospect Avenue / PO Box 227 | seanwilliams@attmail.com Duncannon, PA 17020-0227 USA | voicemail: (717)/957-8139 ------------------------------ From: "David E. Sheafer, Class of 1989" Subject: What is Roaming America Date: 20 Feb 91 23:18:05 GMT Organization: Merrimack College, No. Andover, MA Could some one tell me what Roaming America is and from what cellular carriers it is available from. Thanks, David E. Sheafer internet: nin15b0b@merrimack.edu or uucp: samsung!hubdub!nin15b0b GEnie: D.SHEAFER Bitnet: Sheafer_davi@bentley [Moderator's Note: It is the name for the agreement between cellular carriers which allows customers of one carrier to automatically place and receive calls while traveling in the territory of another cellular carrier. Almost every cellular carrier in the USA participates in one or both (A or B) of the agreements. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 14:19 GMT From: Scott Loftesness <0003801143@mcimail.com> Subject: Alternate (Third?) Cellular System Just a bit more background on these headlines recently about the FCC creating a third cellular system to compete with the existing cellular carriers (two) in major markets. Specifically what the FCC did last week (Wednesday, February 13th to be exact) was to approve a waiver request submitted originally about a year ago by a company named Fleet Call. Fleet Call is a company that started acquiring Specialized Mobile Radio Service (SMRS) licenses in major markets around the US (the top 6 specifically) a couple of years ago. In those markets, they have accumulated a collection of licenses such that they are typically the major provider of SMRS services. SMR's provide fleet dispatch services (base to many mobiles) to small businesses. SMR's also offer limited telephone interconnect services. Fleet Call's waiver request involved asking the FCC's permission to re-engineer their SMR systems from their typical high-level, high power master sites to multiple, low-level, lower-power master sites (ala a cellular approach) in these major markets. In addition, they asked for approval to use a different (digital) modulation scheme which would provide improved spectrum efficiency while staying within the authorized 25 kHz bandwidth allocated for SMR channels. The SMR channels Fleet Call has are all in the 800 MHz range, by the way, and nestled in between the input and output cellular bands also in the 800 MHz spectrum. A number of issues remain to be addressed before what Fleet Call has could be called a third cellular service. They include, for example, Fleet Call's status as a private (not a common) carrier, somewhat vague rules about telephone interconnection with SMR's, etc. Scott Loftesness W3VS 76703.407@compuserve.com 3801143@mcimail.com sjl@world.std.com w3vs@well.sf.ca.us [Moderator's Note: Mr. Lofesness is the sysop of the new telecommunications forum started on Compuserve. From any Compuserve prompt "GO TELECOM" to reach his SIG. And as an aside, I hope it is developing well for you, Scott! PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #142 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa07529; 21 Feb 91 17:34 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa21314; 21 Feb 91 15:22 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa09413; 21 Feb 91 14:12 CST Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 13:13:27 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #143 BCC: Message-ID: <9102211313.ab01990@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 21 Feb 91 13:13:13 CST Volume 11 : Issue 143 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Radio Telephone Information Needed [John R. Levine] Re: Alternate Cellular System [John Higdon] Re: How Do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? [Floyd Davidson] Re: Tracing Unlisted Numbers [Floyd Davidson] Re: Tracing Unlisted Numbers [Barton F. Bruce] Re: FCC Proposed Rule Changes; Equal Access [S. H. Schwartz] Re: Finding Your Own Phone Number [John Palmer] Re: Finding Your Own Phone Number Re: NXX Count (1-15-91) [Nigel Allen] Telecom Acronyms [Lester Bartel] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Radio Telephone Information Needed Organization: I.E.C.C. Date: 20 Feb 91 14:59:39 EST (Wed) From: "John R. Levine" In article is written: > Has anyone heard of wireless (full-duplex) telephones that have a > range of at least fifteen miles? This may not be what you want, but Motorola makes some rather nice remote radio units. One end looks to the phone network like a telephone, the other end looks to the telephone like the phone network. Both ends need 110V power. These came to my attention at a religious conference center on an island ten miles off the New Hampshire coast. There's a pair of units in the top of the hotel on the island communicating with a pair in the steeple of a church on the mainland, providing two phone lines. On the island, regular phones are attached via regular phone wire. The conference center owns the radio units, the local church provides a little space and power on the mainland end, and the phone company provides two ordinary phone lines. I'm not sure whether FCC licenses for the radios are needed, but if they are, they were no big deal to get. These phones provide real New England Tel dialtone out on the island, a huge improvement over the previous arrangement which was basically an MTS (not even IMTS, all calls were operator dialed) car phone. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 00:04 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Alternate Cellular System Craig Ibbotson writes: > I believe this alternate cellular system is NOT PCN but actually a > third carrier in each city. That is correct. And it will not be a cellular system in the classic sense, but will be an alternative to cellular service. The cellular providers have been lobbying overtime in the halls of Congress to attempt to get legislation passed that will block the FCC from approving this alternate system. You can understand the cellular providers' position. As a person who worked on the engineering of some of the first applications, I heard all the behind the scenes glee about how operating a cellular system would be a license to print money. Charge what you like, no competition, and like Burger King, everything would be your way. This has turned out to be somewhat true: PUCs essentially let the providers set the rates and considering the demand, two carriers per market is hardly competition. Now, enter the alternative. The FCC has indicated that one of the reasons to introduce this service is to bring cellular prices down. The traditional cellular providers can already feel the dollars leaking out of their pockets. And what do you do in this country when you feel threatened by the competition? Why, you follow the lead of AT&T and you go to Congress for relief. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: Floyd Davidson Subject: Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? Organization: University of Alaska, Institute of Marine Science Date: Thu, 21 Feb 1991 08:39:38 GMT In reference to using 117 VAC 60 Hz to ring a phone: In article gabe@sirius.ctr.columbia. edu (Gabe Wiener) writes: > The danger isn't necessarily frying the phone (though I'm quite sure > that with the low level of quality of today's telephones, most of them > would fry) as much as it is frying the ACTOR who picks up the phone > while wall current is flowing through it. I posted my view on this subject earlier. Since Pat seems to have missed the essense of what I said, and this article more or less falls in line with Pat's feelings that it is intrinsically and specifically hazardous... One more time: 100 VAC 20 Hz is JUST as dangerous, if not more so, that 117 VAC 60 Hz. Using house current to ring the phone is no more, and no less, dangerous, than ANY other reasonable way you can make the ringer work. In fact 60 Hz current may be less dangerous than 20 Hz. 60 Hz current can cause all the normal damage everyone is familiar with if you get a shock, but 20 Hz does something that perhaps most people are not aware of: Your muscles can and will go into clonic-tonic jerks at the 20 Hz rate. They cannot respond that way to 60 Hz current as it is too fast. Hence, in one way, it might be said that 20 Hz current is MORE of a problem than 60 Hz. 20 Hz current will certainly hurt more and usually will be harder to get loose from, than 60 Hz. The difference between having 90-100 VAC and 105-120 VAC (ringing voltage vs. house current voltage) is insignificant. Hence what I am saying is that using 60 Hz is a viable way to ring the phone, just as 20 Hz is, IF WHOEVER HOOKS IT UP KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING. If they don't it is just as hazardous either way. If the phone is well enough insulated for the normal ring voltage, it is well enough insulated for house current. And it certainly is. Floyd L. Davidson | floyd@ims.alaska.edu | Alascom, Inc. pays me Salcha, AK 99714 | Univ. of Alaska | but not for opinions. ------------------------------ From: Floyd Davidson Subject: Re: Tracing Unlisted Numbers Organization: University of Alaska, Institute of Marine Science Date: Thu, 21 Feb 1991 08:50:30 GMT In article David Lesher writes: > David Mason asked why it cost so much to trace an unlisted number. > Mr. Moderator responded with what I regard as absolute nonsense about > a database subscription. > Look, the PI did what I used to do: Call a friend in Repair. Ask her > the "who and where" you need. (The difference is, he likely bribed the > "greenie" with cash. I used a box of chocolates, myself.) > Repair/Cable or whatever Outside Plant is calling itself MUST know > where an assignment terminates. How could they track down complaints > on noisy pairs, or avoid reassigning an 'in-use' one if they did not > have end-to-end records? > The only thing an unlisted number gets you is a few obstacles to > getting the name from the public end of the LEC. And please, spare me Yes of course the telco has those records available for internal use. > [Moderator's Note: Fine ... no morality speech, however I would like > to say that most ethical PI's won't use that approach since if they > get caught/convicted they might well lose their license -- something > far more important to them than one client looking for a phone number. > I'd like to think that *most* telco employees are not so easily > bribed. We did have a story in the Digest a few months ago about an Pat is right, except maybe in refering to an "ethical PI" ;-) The telco employee stands to lose too much. It is much easier to call your local friend in the police department, who has the same info, and isn't quite as legally restricted. Floyd L. Davidson | floyd@ims.alaska.edu | Alascom, Inc. pays me Salcha, AK 99714 | Univ. of Alaska | but not for opinions. [Moderator's Note: It isn't even ethics so much as plain common sense at times. Let's say you've worked for telco for twenty years. You have a nice easy job; a lot of benefits and seniority; and some authority in the company. Then one day you blow it all away by violating the trust you have been given. You get called up to the Personnel Department where a guy from security is waiting, along with the head of Personnel and the union steward. You are asked to relinquish your company identification and keys; handed your final paycheck -- paid up to that minute along with unused benefits you have coming -- and then walked downstairs and out the door to the sidewalk with a friendly warning not to return to the building or be on company property for any reason. There is nothing the union can do for you. It is up to you to go home and tell your wife and children what happened, of course. PAT] ------------------------------ From: "Barton F. Bruce" Subject: Re: Tracing Unlisted Numbers Date: 21 Feb 91 02:12:36 EST Organization: Cambridge Computer Associates, Inc. In article , dmason@digi.lonestar.org (David Mason) writes: > At one time I had a legitimate need to trace an unlisted number. > That is, I needed the name and address of the party it was registered > to. I contacted a private investigator and he told me this was > possible with no other data than the number itself. Soon after that I Dial the number from where it WILL be long distance, keep the answered connection up long enough so you WILL be charged, and then mumble something about wrong number and hangup. When the bill comes, call the business office. Say you don't know whose number that is on your bill and generally they will get you the name BEFORE they consider giving you credit for a improperly billed call. Generally, a name jogs one's memory and that is the end of it. Certainly don't insist you didn't make it, because you DID. Just saying you are a bit confused about who it might be, and could they help is being quite honest. ------------------------------ From: "S. H. Schwartz" Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Rule Changes; Equal Access Date: 21 Feb 91 13:49:23 GMT Reply-To: "S. H. Schwartz" Organization: Expert Systems Lab., NYNEX Sci. and Tech., White Plains NY In article Jim Gottlieb writes: > AT&T must get a nationwide 950 or 800 number if it wishes that its > customers be able to use AT&T long distance from any telephone. ... as long as it isn't a COCOT. One such animal in Boston tried to take $4.00 from me for an 800 number. Granted, it's an exception -- most phones of any gender permit free 800 calls -- but there's nothing to stop a COCOT-meister from inventing his own charges. S. H. Schwartz schwartz@nynexst.com Expert Systems Laboratory 914-683-2960 NYNEX Science and Technology Center White Plains, NY 10604 [Moderator's Note: I don't see why AT&T has to get an 800 number. The rules established for this plainly call for equal access via 10xxx, and thus far, AT&T has been insisting everyone follow the rules. I've heard all the arguments about fraud and difficulty in billing 10xxx calls, but that is the COCOT owner's problem ... not AT&T's. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jpp@tygra.UUCP (John Palmer) Subject: Re: Finding Your Own Phone Number Organization: CAT-TALK Conferencing Network, Detroit, MI Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 14:45:28 GMT In Michigan, at least in the Detroit area, it varies. Our switch (a #1ESS) allows you to get your number by dialing 200-555-1212. When I'm at my father's house (a different switch), this does not work. All I get is a fast busy. The same thing at my grandmothers house (a third switch). My theory: 1> It depends on the model of the switch or version of the software that its running or 2> It is a feature that can be enabled/disabled by the telco. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 12:52:52 est From: jlangri@relay.nswc.navy.mil Subject: Re: Finding Your Own Number Surely someone on this list must have a good explanation why Roy, Bernard, myself or anyone else can't generate a "ringback" or number ID. There can't possibly that many people like us who don't know the phone number we're calling from or working on ... can there? Last fall I was working on lines from one of our remote buildings that did not pass thru our PBX. Because of the poorly ID'd connections in the phone closet, I dialed the operator to ask what number I was calling from. It might have been easier for me to trace the wires back to the CO. I did get the information after explaining why I needed it several times. Come'on, WHAT'S THE BIG SECRET!?!?!? I just went back over Skip Collins's msg again and started with 011, 111, 211 ... WOW! it worked ... 211 on Contel service provides ANI!!! Now for ringback...I'll let you know. Jim Langridge | jlangri@relay.nswc.navy.mil Synetics Corp. [Moderator's Note: The 'big secret' is that it might be you working on a legitimate project and needing the number - or - it might be one of your phreak neighbors looking for a pair of wires and a number to go with it to make phraud calls. Telco is exercising a reasonable amount of security by not automatically giving the number to whoever asks. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 18:56 EST From: Nigel Allen Subject: Re: NXX Count (1-15-91) Organization: 52 Manchester avenue In Volume 11, Issue 133, Message 9, goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) asks: > Also, what do you mean by "non-dialable locations in the NANP"? NANP = North American Numbering Plan, the formal name for the allocation of area codes. The acronym NPA is a synonym for area code (or sometimes the area itself). Some remote locations in northern Ontario, northern Quebec and the Northwest Territories have dial telephone service, but long-distance calls to those points are (or were) handled by the operator. They have telephone numbers in the usual format, though. ------------------------------ From: lester@infonode.ingr.com (Lester Bartel) Subject: Telecom Acronyms Organization: Intergraph Corp. Huntsville, AL Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 16:37:53 GMT I have been reading the telecom group for several months now, and am still lost regarding the acronyms used here. Could someone please explain to me and perhaps to the net what the acronyms are and what they mean? Some examples are PTT, COCOT, CO, intra-NPA, ANI and CIDCO. Other terms have only a fuzzy meaning to me: switch, crossbar. A definition of these and other terms would help me understand what is being said, and possibly remove any erroneous definitions I may have determined from context. Lester Bartel b23b!naomi!lester@ingr.com Dazix, An Intergraph Company uunet!ingr!b23b!naomi!lester [Moderator's Note: Ah, a chance to plug the Telecom Archives again! We have just the files you are looking for. In my spare time -- moderating this Digest does not keep me all that busy :) -- I maintain the Archives; a collection of the past ten year's worth of Digests and dozens of other telecom related files. You would want the three files in the 'glossary and acronyms' category. The Archives is ftp'able for users on the Internet. Other need to use an archives mail server. Using ftp: 'ftp lcs.mit.edu'. Login anonymous, and give your own net address (name@site.domain) as the password. When on line, you must 'cd telecom-archives'. Then use regular ftp commands to search the main and various sub-directories and 'get' the files you want. Use the command 'dir' to check exact file names. You will find three which begin with the word 'glossary'. To address your specific inquiries: PTT = Post, Telegraph and Telephone. (A generic name for the telephone administration in many foreign countries). COCOT = Coin Operated, Customer Owned Telephone. (The private payphones you see around everywhere.) CO = Central Office. (The telephone company switching center). ANI = Automatic Number Identification (When the number you are calling from is given automatically to the recipient of the call). For those of you who have the glossary files already, at least one of them has been updated by Mike Patton so you may wish to get a more recent version of the file. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #143 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa09032; 21 Feb 91 18:35 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa04069; 21 Feb 91 16:30 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab21314; 21 Feb 91 15:22 CST Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 14:20:12 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #144 BCC: Message-ID: <9102211420.ab17528@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 21 Feb 91 14:20:05 CST Volume 11 : Issue 144 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Free Desert Storm Messaging for Non-Internet Readers [Donald E. Kimberlin] SaudiNet: Sending Email to Servicemembers [Nigel Allen] MailStorm Project (Email to Saudi Arabia) [Rich Zellich] Unwanted 800 Calls (was Question About MCI 800 Number) [Paulo Santos] Early Color Television [Sander J. Rabinowitz] No Internet/EasyLink Gateway Yet [Nigel Allen] Re: Telephone Surcharges for Deaf, Poor Anger IBT Customers [R. Jacobson] Zip-Area Correlation [Carl Moore] Re: The Status of 1+703 Dialing [Carl Moore] Call Back Modem Needed [Steven M. Harclerode] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Subject: Free Desert Storm Messaging for Non-Internet Readers Date: Wed, 22 Feb 91 There have been a number of posts advising ways that Internet users can file messages to the troops. For those not having Internat access, here's a way GEnie has provided for the general public, from a the kind sysop of the St. Petersburg Prorgram Exchange in FL: * * * * * * * * * * * * Date: 02-18-91 (21:18) Number: 12630 From: DENNIS NICHOLSON Refer#: NONE To: ALL Read: NO Subj: GEnie to the rescue Conf: (0) Main Board GEnie has offered to take calls from anyone that has a computer and modem and transmit these as letters to our troops in the gulf. The phone numbers are: (813) 447-9521 St. Petersburg (During working hours before 6 PM) (800) 638-8717 After hours and on Saturday and Sunday I would hope if you call the general 800 number listed at the end of this they would give you the local number where you live. In dialing into GEnie it is a good idea to use a script. It requires you to type in "HHH" and if you are not fast the whole thing goes to sleep and you have to disconnect. It is looking for ASCII or TTY transmission, 7 Data bits, Even parity, 1 stop bit (not 2), and half duplex. After connection you enter (or your program and script enter) ASCII, HHH, GEnie responds with #U and the reply is LETTERS - The first time through be sure to turn on the capture feature since after you type letters there will be a lot of information on how to use this section. The next question is: Press or croll? If you have capture on, type "s" and return. The system will first request some information from you about yourself (your mailing address, phone number, etc.). This information will used for statistical purposes - for security reasons it will NOT be printed on the letter or otherwise disclosed. Before sending a Letter from Home you must know the following information about the intended recipient: - Name & Rank - Social Security Number - Unit or Ship Name - APO or FPO Number If you are unable to supply any of the above information, the system will not allow you to enter a letter. NOTE - While it may be possible to "create" information which the system will accept, entering incorrect or inaccurate information will most likely result in your letter NOT being delivered to the intended recipient. Please make sure you have the information listed above BEFORE you try to send your Letter from Home. For further information about the GEnie service, please call GEnie Client Services at 1-800-638-9636. ~ EZ 1.30 ~ St. Petersburg, Florida >> HOT Old Folks << * * * * * * * * I called GEnie Customer Service on (800) 638-9636 and found the rep most helpful and interested in seeking the widest dissemination of news of this free service. I hope it's useful to readers here. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 1991 00:17:00 From: Nigel Allen Subject: SaudiNet: Sending Email to Servicemembers Organization: 52 Manchester Avenue Volkhart Baumgaertner asked about getting e-mail to U.S. troops in the Gulf. This message from kmcvay@oneb.UUCP (Ken McVay) should help. Newsgroups: can.general,bc.general Subject: SaudiNet: Sending mail to servicemembers in the Gulf Message-ID: <235@oneb.UUCP> Date: 19 Feb 91 08:25:18 GMT Distribution: can Organization: 1B Systems Management Limited The Saudi Connection Guidelines The Saudi Connection is copyright 1990 by Mark Niwonger. It is a private net which 1B Systems Management Limited has accessed by accepting the terms and limitations imposed upon all member systems within SaudiNet. It is not available on any network backbone. Users are not permitted to read messages posted to SaudiNet, since they are of a private nature, but those wishing to show support for servicemen in the Gulf area are encouraged to contact them. There are NO guarantees that any message will be delivered to Saudi Arabia. Every effort will be made to do so however. At this time approximately 98% of all messages entered in the SAUDI group are being delivered to Saudi Arabia. The ones not being delivered are due to address errors. All properly address letters are being delivered to the Military Post Office in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. 1B Systems Management accepts no legal responsibility for messages posted to the net, but will do it's best to see to it that they are delivered to the SaudiNet distribution centre in the United States within 48 hours of their receipt here. All outbound messages are censored at the distribution site at the request of the United States Department of Defense, and racial slurs, incitement to war, etc. will be removed from messages prior to delivery to Saudi Arabia. SaudiNet reserves the right to reject inappropriate messages without explanation, should they be outside the operating guidelines set by the Department of Defense. Address your messages to: saudinet@oneb.wimsey.bc.ca Message text entered must be in the following format: LOCAL FORCES LOCAL FORCES {receipients name}{receipients SSN} Any Servicemember {receipients Unit}DEPLOYED Operation Desert Storm [APO/FPO] New York, NY {Zip Code} APO New York 09848-0006 NOTE: If you know the recipients' Zip Code *use* it otherwise use the generic Zip Code for the US Military Post Office. For service personnel stationed on ships in the Gulf, use FPO NY, NY 03866-0006. For 2nd. Marine Division, use FPO NY NY 09502-0204. {Body of Letter (ie, the message)} Are these messages censored? Yes, they are censored by SaudiNet originators for such things as: racial slurs, profanity, incitation to war and obvious things of that nature. This is at the direction of the Department of Defense of the United States. (Regulations from the Canadian military, when provided, will also be adhered to.) Will there be two-way mail? Eventually there will be. At this time there is not but we are working on it. We are in the process of sending volunteers to Saudi Arabia to set up receiving staations. We are working directly with the US Command Central, specifically through Lt. General James Cassitty and his staff. What's in it for me? The feeling that comes from doing a nice thing for someone. Is there any charge for sending a message? No - SaudiNet is a public service offered by bulletin board operators throughout the world. 1B Systems Management Limited delivers messages originating here without charge. We have contacted the Canadian military, and our local MP, with regard to establishing liaison between the American mail depot in Saudi Arabia and Canadian forces serving in Qatar and elsewhere. If you have Canadian FPO addressing information, use it in the format shown above, and we will do our best to deliver it for you. When we have received word from the military, we will advise everyone via a post in can.general. Adopt a Marine Pen-Pal today! Send your mail| ANY MARINE via saudinet@oneb.wimsey.bc.ca, and use the | H&S Co.Maint.Plt.2nd. LAI Btn. address on the right to reach our 'adopted' | (Deployed) unit. (Email me for instructions reaching others)| FPO NY NY 09502-0204 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 7:47:17 CST From: Rich Zellich Subject: MailStorm Project (Email to Saudi Arabia) From today's {St. Louis Post-Dispatch}: Mail to Troops UMSL COMPUTER SYSTEM SENDS LETTERS TO GULF Letters from home have taken on a dedicedly high-tech cast in this high-tech war. Now people can send mail to the Persian Gulf by comput- er - at no cost, thanks to a service set up locally by the University of Missouri at St. Louis. The system, part of a natinwide effort called the MailStorm Project, is open to anyone with a computer, a modem and the name of a soldier in the gulf. The messages are transmitted over an electronic bulletin board system at UMSL's School of Optometry, which in turn transmits the mail through a network that includes bulletin board operators in Saudi Arabia. Delivery time has been averaging about 48 hours. The UMSL system can take two calls at a time, for 24 hours a day. Here's how it works: * Call the bulletin board at 553-6475. * Select and enter a password. Once you've selected a password, you use the same one each time you send a message. * Follow directions from the system. Virginia Hick [The above phone number is in area code 314. I called it to make sure the PD printed the right number; a modem answered, but I didn't try to log in to verify it any further. -RWZ] ------------------------------ From: Paulo Santos Subject: Unwanted 800 calls (was: Question About MCI 800 Number) Date: 21 Feb 91 16:07:03 GMT Reply-To: Paulo Santos In article our Moderator Notes: > And yes, with any style of 800 number you pay for the calls whether > you wanted them or not. PAT] This has not been my experience. Telecom*USA has always been very forthcoming in removing charges from my bill regarding calls I did not want. They are always 1 minute calls, and I never picked one up myself. Presumably they are picked up by my answering machine when I am not home, but no one has ever left a message. And as I said, Telecom*USA always removes those charges when I call their customer service. Paulo Santos Internet: pas@cc.gatech.edu Georgia Tech, College of Computing uucp: ...!gatech!kong!pas Atlanta GA 30332-0280, U.S.A. Voice: (404) 853-9393 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 12:25:06 EST From: "Sander J. Rabinowitz" Reply-To: sjr@mcimail.com Subject: Early Color Television H> john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) B> Richard Budd (18 Feb 91 20:15 CDT) H> No color television? Speak for yourself, Pat. [...] H> I distinctly remember watching (of all things) the Perry Como show on H> NBC on Saturday nights because it was very much in color on the H> neighbor's RCA color TV. (The first color TV I ever saw was in 1956.) B> Actually, color television has been around longer than either Pat or B> John (if I deduce correctly from their high school graduation dates B> that they were born in the early 1940's). It's been available since B> the early 1930's, though before World War II it was strictly B> experimental. Hmmm ... that's very interesting. It seems like if color television was around _that_ early, that it must be of the mechanical, spinning disk variety. Having said that, how long has the NTSC-compatible color TV system been around? B> Color television wasn't rare, but color television programming B> certainly was before 1965. What I find amazing was that there was technology to _record_ color TV through videotape in the early 50's. I believe that was done with the late Mary Martin's "Peter Pan" TV special in 1954, and that has got to be the earliest videotape on record. Sander J. Rabinowitz | sjr@mcimail.com -or- | +1 313 478 6358 Farmington Hills, Mich. | sander@attmail.com | 8-) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 1991 03:15:00 -0500 From: Nigel Allen Subject: No Internet/EasyLink Gateway Yet Organization: 52 Manchester Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada I asked AT&T Mail's help desk (atthelp2@attmail.com) how to reach EasyLink mailboxes from the Internet. The reply was quite blunt: > Sir, > EasyLink does not have a connection to Internet. > Thank You > Reggie > ATTHELP AT&T's EasyLink unit must be working on a gateway, but obviously the help desk people aren't saying anything about it. (If anybody hears anything definitive about such a gateway, please post the information here.) [Modertor's Note: AT&T Mail itself can be reached from the Internet by addressing letters to the subscriber's name @attmail.com. I assume if there is *some* gateway between AT&T Mail and EasyLink it could be reached by clever addressing, but I don't know the gateway name, or even for that matter if it does exist. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Robert Jacobson Subject: Re: Telephone Surcharges for Deaf, Poor Anger IBT Customers Date: 20 Feb 91 19:58:26 GMT Organization: Human Interface Technology Lab, Univ. of Wash., Seattle How sad that people who rely on the telephone to do their business and make their living choose not to share this resource with the poor who need phones just to stay in touch. When we were preparing legislation to undergird continued universal telephone service in California (which has since passed legal muster), we examined telephone cost tradeoffs and found unequivocal evidence of very large savings on the part of business customers (particularly those with interLATA dealings) at the expense of local service, which has had dumped upon it loads of "unfair taxes" in the form of FCC and state-imposed "access charges." In fact, the annual income redistribution, from small, local customer to large, usually interLATA and interstate customer, is about $6 BILLION. I know this doesn't matter to hard-nosed types who want to hoard their savings, to further control the lives of others in ways that benefit themselves, but the surcharges discussed in Illinois, to keep poor people on the line, don't even approach the disproportionate income transfers already in place. From poor to rich is how divestiture is working out, and you might almost think it planned. Bob Jacobson ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 12:16:17 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Zip-Area Correlation There was a Moderator's Note saying: > You are of course correct that zip codes have no connection with > telephone area codes. They were set up by different organizations, but the zip-area directory I pointed out earlier is a correlation of these. I must caution, however, that it is subject to "noise" along an area code boundary; i.e., a zipcode could cross an area code boundary (the zip-area directory only lists the area code for some "majority" of each zip code). ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 13:47:44 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Re: The Status of 1+703 Dialing Minor correction: The article says that "Once ten-digit dialing to Maryland, even for local calls, became mandatory ..." Try "Once ten-digit dialing for local calls to Maryland became mandatory ..." (Toll calls to Maryland remain 1+NPA+7D.) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 14:37:03 EST From: Steven M Harclerode Subject: Call Back Modem Needed I am searching for a modem that will call back a pre-assigned phone number when it is called. I am looking for it in regards to trying to make a dial link more secure by having the local end call a modem. The modem answers, then hangs up and calls the preprogramed number to run the communication over. If anyone knows of a modem that has this ability could you please let me know? Thanks in advance for any information. My email address is: smh@hrmso.att.com or att!hrmso!smh Thanks again. Steve Harclerode ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #144 ******************************  ISSUE 145 TRANSMITTED OUT OF ORDER AND APPEARS FOLLOWING ISSUE 148.  Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa18579; 22 Feb 91 2:22 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa18720; 22 Feb 91 0:45 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab23978; 21 Feb 91 23:40 CST Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 23:01:52 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #146 BCC: Message-ID: <9102212301.ab08126@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 21 Feb 91 23:01:40 CST Volume 11 : Issue 146 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Do Network Interface Devices Make Fraud Easy? [Sean Petty] Re: Do Network Interface Devices Make Fraud Easy? [Fred E.J. Linton] Re: Apple Wants Radio Waves For Data Transmission [Allyn Lai] Re: Apple Wants Radio Waves For Data Transmission [Barry Ornitz] Re: Tracing Unlisted Numbers [Spyros C. Bartsocas] Re: Ground Start Trunks (was Answer Supervision) [Macy Hallock] Re: The Status of 1+703 Dialing [Tim Irvin] Can CLASS Software Run on a DMS-100? [Sean Williams] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sean Petty Subject: Re: Do Network Interface Devices Make Fraud Easy? Date: 21 Feb 91 21:11:05 GMT Organization: A civilization beneath the Earth, The Underground Empire. > In Southern Bell land (our subdivision, anyway), these boxes have > latches on them on which you can place a padlock. The telephone > installer who came to our house strongly recommended making use of > this feature! We put on a combination padlock, like you'd use on a > gym locker, so that if we ever need service we can tell the repair > office the combination to the lock, which they record on the repair > order, and we don't need to be there to provide a key. In Bell of Pennsylvania country, these boxes provide the same padlock feature, but with a helpful twist. The box has two sides. One side, marked "Customer Access" and the other marked "Telco Access ONLY". The customer side has a Phillips head screw holding it closed, and the telco side has a recessed hex nut (to prevent the old crescent wrench trick). However, to keep from having to record any combinations, or worry about not being able to get in, they design the box so that the customer side overlaps the telco side, and when the telco nut is removed the ENTIRE cover opens back. You can take your padlock off, and access your side only, but they can get into the entire thing. Pretty good idea, but then a thief need only have a nut socket to get in rather that bolt cutters and a screwdriver. Sean Petty - Somewhere in Pennsylvania ------------------------------ Date: 21-FEB-1991 19:04:24.96 From: "Fred E.J. Linton" Subject: Re: Do Network Interface Devices Make Fraud Easy? In TELECOM Digest Volume 11, Issue 134, Message 8 of 9 [about plugging your phone into the network interface to determine if a problem is the telco's network, your inside wire, or your phone ... ] After the third time that squirrels ate through my pole feed, I interposed a DPDT knife switch between the incoming line and my premises wiring, with incoming line going to the two "common" 's, premises wiring going to the two poles at one throw, and an RJ11 test jack going to the two poles at the other throw. It was then a cinch to verify (with a phone known to be good in the test jack, and the knife switch in the "test" position) that I had no dial tone, no battery, no nothin'; what's more, the voice at 611 Repair Service understood immediately that the problem _had_ to be outside the demarc; and the linesman who came to undo the squirrels' handiwork opined that he wouldn't mind at all if such a quick way to disconnect premises wiring were to be made mandatory. Re security: no locked housing around the knife switch -- it's within my basement, high and dry, just a few inches from the sill through which the copper enters the house (and the house is a single-family). Cost: maybe 29 cents, a spare RJ11, and a spare hour for installation. Fred or ------------------------------ From: portal!cup.portal.com!Allyn@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: Apple Wants Radio Waves For Data Transmission Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 10:34:17 PST >There are a number of spread spectrum systems operating successfully >in the ISM (industrial, scientific, medical) bands, such as 902-928. >According to my chart of spectrum allocations, this is a "secondary" > ^^^^^^^^^^^ >amateur band, whatever that means. I don't believe it is encouraged >for amateur usage. I believe "secondary" means that the 902-928 band is to be shared with other services. This is different from the two meter band (144-148) which is an exclusive Amateur Radio allocation. Amateur Radio isn't discouraged from 902-928 mhz. But it isn't real easy to get on it either. There is a lack of commercially available gear (available to your average ham that is). So you either have to use transverters or modify 800 mhz gear. Allyn Lai allyn@cup.portal.com ------------------------------ Reply-To: ornitz@kodak.com From: Barry Ornitz Subject: Re: Apple Wants Radio Waves For Data Transmission Organization: Eastman Kodak Co, Rochester, NY Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 00:07:59 GMT In article Rolf Meier writes: > In article Alan Ruffer adept.uucp> writes: >> The REALLY sad part about all this is that 902.0 - 928.0 Mhz is the >> amateur radio 33 centimeter band. Devices that operate in this band >> are NOT guaranteed freedom from interference! There are other >> wireless gadgets that operate in this frequency range too. Buyers of >> these devices should be aware of this. While it is illegal for an >> amateur to intentionally interfere, these devices are subject to >> unintentional interference, and amateurs may ALSO be subject to >> interference from these transmiters. Legal operation by amateurs can cause interference to these systems. Likewise amateurs can have these systems shut down if they cause interference to the amateurs. > In theory, narrowband transmissions in the 902-928 band should not > cause interference to spread spectrum transmissions in that band, and > vice versa. That is the whole purpose of allowing spread spectrum to > operate in that band. Unfortunately, many manufacturers have skimped on their designs and narrow band transmissions can cause significant interference. > Now, any band is subject to interference from transmissions which > operate illegally within that band, but that is a matter of > enforcement, not regulation. > There are a number of spread spectrum systems operating successfully > in the ISM (industrial, scientific, medical) bands, such as 902-928. > According to my chart of spectrum allocations, this is a "secondary" > amateur band, whatever that means. I don't believe it is encouraged > for amateur usage. The 902 to 928 MHz Amateur Radio band is licensed for use in ITU Region 2 on a secondary basis. This basically means that hams must not cause harmful interference to stations in the Government Radiolocation Service and they are not protected from interference from the same. There are also some special limitations in areas of Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, and New Mexico. Amateurs are not protected by ISM devices operating on these bands either. However, radio modems are not ISM devices (these are usually dielectric heaters, diathermy equipment, industrial microwave ovens, etc.). The spread spectrum devices recently allowed by the FCC on this band are Part 15 devices. According to the FCC, they must be operated on a non-interference basis to any licensed users of this band including amateurs. This means that they may not cause harmful interference to licensed operations and they must accept any interference that these systems may cause to their own operations. Some of the current spread spectrum devices for this band have virtually no tolerance for interference, and often a narrowband amateur transmission can completely lock up their system. Once again the FCC has demonstrated their lack of technical expertise in spectrum planning! :-( Finally, use of the 902 MHz band by amateurs is not discouraged. It is gaining popularity with amateurs for digital networking by packet radio. Barry L. Ornitz ornitz@kodak.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 14:42:25 -0500 From: "Spyros C. Bartsocas" Subject: Re: Tracing Unlisted Numbers >> At one time I had a legitimate need to trace an unlisted number. > Dial the number from where it WILL be long distance, keep the answered ... > When the bill comes, call the business office. Say you don't know > whose number that is on your bill and generally they will get you the ... About a year ago, I came back from a trip to find a phone number I did not recognize in the AT&T portion of my bill. Although it was afterhours I called AT&T and asked them who that number belongs to. They said that I would have to call the next day for that, but they would be happy to take it off my bill. Spyros Bartsocas scb@cs.brown.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 21:04 EST From: Macy Hallock Subject: Re: Ground Start Trunks (was Answer Supervision) Organization: Hallock Engineering and Sales Medina, Ohio USA +1 216 722 3053 In article John Higdon writes: > This prompts a question: Do other telcos (than Pac*Bell) always > consider ground start lines to be design circuits? It depends. In Ohio Bell territory, they are always design circuits. That's because, under Ohio tarrifs, gound start is only offered on TMC service (Trunk Measured Combination) ... which is more expensive that 1MB (Single party Measured Business) service. There is an extra charge for the ground start ($3.50/mo over TMC rate). Touch tone on a TMC is also more expensive that on a 1MB, too. TMC costs about $ 7.50/mo more than 1MB service. That makes a TMC with touch tone and ground start about $ 45.00 a month, with 70 free calls, overcalls are $ .09/ea (no timing). Ohio Bell always engineers TMC's. They do a good job, too ... they are nearly always 3.5 db down, very seldom any lower. TMC's are repaired by the Special Service dept., which even has its own repair number. DID lines are considered a premium service offered on a TMC. You pay an additional $ 30.00/mo for a DID arrangement on a TMC. Installation interval on TMC's is ten working days ... 25 days for DID service. In GTE and United territory, the story is different. You pay for a PBX trunk (flat) and can specify ground start if you want it. PBX trunks cost more than key trunks, which cost more that single business lines ... They do not do any special transmission engineering on PBX trunks unless you pitch a fit. Then they will, very grudgingly, treat the circuit. It should be noted that GTE is getting very tough about PBX services now that they offer Centrex (centranet). GTE has raised the rate for a same CO Off Premise Station from $12 four years ago to (are you ready?) $90.00 !!! Rates on PBX trunks are going up, too. Its called forced migration to Centrex, folks. (And just try and get one fixed quickly, too! ... I pitched a fit about a dead OPS to GTE for a client of mine recently, and the GTE rep called the customer and said "You wouldn't have so much trouble if you got Centranet!") Still steaming from that one ... Macy M. Hallock, Jr. macy@fmsystm.UUCP macy@NCoast.ORG uunet!aablue!fmsystm!macy ------------------------------ From: Tim Irvin Subject: Re: The Status of 1+703 Dialing Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 15:33:04 -0500 In TELECOM Digest V11 #142, Greg Monti writes: > This marks a fairly unusual > happening in the post-divestiture telephone industry because Leesburg > is not in the Washington LATA (it's in the Culpeper LATA). Calls that > were once the purview of competitive long distance carriers are being > sucked back into the purview of the local operating companies. This brings up a point I have been wondering about. I live very close to the New Hampshire - Vermont border, in New Hampshire. The entire state of NH is one LATA, and the same goes for VT. However, my local calling area is made up of two NH exchanges, and three VT exchanges. How is it that I can call across a LATA boundary as a local call? Also, I have discovered that payphones in my exchange aren't aware of this cross-LATA local calling area. In placing a call to a VT store which is about .5 miles from the NETel PayPhone in my NH exchange I was using, I got the friendly recording telling me to deposit $2.50 for the first three minutes (or some such). I opted to drive the 1/2 mile. In related issue, my New England Telephone Directory (now simply marked as the NYNEX YELLOW PAGES and [in much smaller letters] White Pages) states in "Local and Nearby Calling" Section: -------------- IF YOU ARE CALLING FROM A COIN TELEPHONE Your local calling area also includes telephones LOCATED WITHIN THE SAME CITY OR TOWN AS THE COIN TELEPHONE, but served by exchanges other than those shown for the local calling area. Here's how to dial these calls: Dial "0" + the seven-digit number and charge the call to your New England Telephone Calling Card. When you receive your bill, call your Service Representative and ask to have the charge adjusted to the local coin rate, including overtime charges. Remember, this adjustment applies only to customer dialed station-to- station calls made with your New England Telephone Calling Card. All other calls are long distance calls and regular charges apply. ---------------- I take it they are refering to FX lines. Well, I have a few questions about this: 1. How many people actually read the "Customer Guide" at a payphone before making a call? Those that don't won't be able take advantage of this handy feature, and those that do will have to remember to call their Service Rep at month's end. 2. What happens if you are not a New England Telephone customer? I guess the tourists just get left out of this deal, unless of course NETel is providing Calling Cards to everyone worldwide, that is. 3. What do you think happens if you make one of these calls from a COCOT, and you tell the Service Rep at the end of the month that you want this $29.43 five-minute call adjusted to ten cents? (Sure a slight exaggeration -- but you get the idea). Tim Irvin Project NORTHSTAR Dartmouth College ------------------------------ From: seanwilliams@attmail.com Date: Thu Feb 21 21:45:27 EST 1991 Subject: Can CLASS Software Run on a DMS-100? Earlier this week I posted a message asking if CLASS services would be deployed in my area. Jon Baker (bakerj@gtephx) replied to my message saying that maybe he could answer my question if I could tell him what equipment United Telephone System was using in my CO. I called repair service, and they checked with another department. Eventually they got back to me and told my that my CO had a DMS100 switch, which Jon told me was a Northern Telecom product. With this information, is there anyone from NT or UTS out there who could tell me if a DMS100 switch is capable of running CLASS software? I can't get an answer out of the local United Telephone people. When I asked them what switch was in my CO, they told me it was a very old model and that no one knew for sure *what* it was! They must have been looking at information from several years back, because until then Duncannon was served by a Strowger system. I know this only because one Saturday afternoon I walked up to the CO and banged on the door. When the technician opened up, I asked him to show me around. He told me that the system would be replaced in a few years by a silent digital system, which would take up 1/4 the space. And just as he said, it was replaced about a year later. Sean E. Williams | attmail.com!seanwilliams 333 Prospect Avenue / PO Box 227 | seanwilliams@attmail.com Duncannon, PA 17020-0227 USA | voicemail: (717)/957-8139 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #146 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa20068; 22 Feb 91 3:20 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa25821; 22 Feb 91 1:51 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab18720; 22 Feb 91 0:45 CST Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 0:16:15 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #147 BCC: Message-ID: <9102220016.ab31869@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 22 Feb 91 00:16:04 CST Volume 11 : Issue 147 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: NXX Count (1-15-91) [Arnold Robbins] Re: NXX Count (1-15-91) [Dave Esan] Re: Telephone Privatization/Deregulation in Canada [Tony Olekshy] Re: Telephone Surcharges for Deaf, Poor Anger IBT Customers [Mike Nesel] Re: Airphones and Receiving Calls [Sean Petty] Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? [Kevin P. Kleinfelter] Re: 800 Numbers, Voice Mail, and Privacy [Bob Yazz] Re: Early Color Television [Syd Weinstein] Re: Criss-Cross Services / Publications [Bernard F. Collins] Re: MailStorm Project (Email to Saudi Arabia) [David Lemson] Re: Remote Recharger Needed for Cordless Phone [Norris Stolp] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply-To: arnold@audiofax.com From: Arnold Robbins Subject: Re: NXX Count (1-15-91) Date: 21 Feb 91 22:33:24 GMT Organization: AudioFAX, Inc., Atlanta Georgia In article tropix!moscom!de@uu.psi.com (Dave Esan) writes: > #5 404 - no plans to split at this point. I have no data on ten > digit dialling for non-local calls. Within the Atlanta area, 7D. To the rest of 404, 1+404+7D. Other NPAs, 1+NPA+7D. The 1+404+7D is fairly recent, within the past two to four years if I remember right. (If not, someone with a better memory for these things can correct me.) It used to be just 1+7D. It is also a fairly recent innovation to have exchanges that could be area codes, (e.g. 319-xxxx). > Has anyone in Atlanta heard about an impending split? I thought > Atlanta was a major growth area, and as #5 on the NPA chart (and > rising rapidly as 201 and 214 get reduced with the end of permissive > dialling) some thought must have been given. I don't know anything official. Given that the range of avaialable NXX exchanges has increased dramatically recently, it'll probably be a while before 404 splits. But I don't doubt that it will happen; Georgia is currently only two area codes altogether. Probably Atlanta will keep 404 and the rest of North Georgia would get the new area code. The Atlanta LATA is apparently the largest free calling area in the world, from what an adjunct professor who works for Southern Bell once told me. Incidentally, we've had 1 + ten digit dialing here for years and years, at least fifteen, probably more. I was in college in NYC in 1978 when it was just being introduced there, and remember wondering what all the crying and complaining was about. Likewise, I'd never seen PE6-5000 style numbers until I went to NYC, either, and remember thinking how outdated that was. Arnold Robbins AudioFAX, Inc. 2000 Powers Ferry Road, #200 Marietta, GA. 30067 INTERNET: arnold@audiofax.com Phone: +1 404 933 7612 UUCP: emory!audfax!arnold Fax-box: +1 404 618 4581 ------------------------------ From: Dave Esan Subject: Re: NXX Count (1-15-91) Date: 21 Feb 91 21:02:45 GMT Reply-To: Dave Esan Organization: Moscom Corp., E. Rochester, NY In article goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 133, Message 9 of 11 > In article , tropix!moscom!de@uu.psi.com > (David Esan) writes: >> I have not included the 82? series of area codes which include many >> more Mexico exchanges, as well as the non-diable locations in the >> NANP. > Could you please elaborate on the 82X series of area codes? Well, the V&H Tape includes area codes that begin with 88. There are 2500+ such sites, so I will not include them here, nor will I burden the system by mailing them to anyone. From what I gather from reading them, they are non-dialable locations in the US, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. For example, the Mexican sites include the following eleven abbreviations for provinces: AG, CA, CH, CO, DU, FE, GU, HI, JA, LO. An example of the Mexican area is: NPA NXX City ST Country 881 002 ACACOYG CH MX 881 004 ACAJETE VE MX 881 006 ACAMNTL GU MX 881 008 ACANCEH YU MX 881 011 ACATLAN HI MX 881 013 ACATLAN VE MX 881 016 ACAHTLN HI MX 881 017 ACAYUCA HI MX 881 022 ACUXCMC ME MX 881 024 ACULA VE MX For the non-Mexican portions I recognize some of the names and will include some here. 887 488 RAVENDALE2 CA 887 548 FISHCREEK1 NV 887 748 REESEVLY 5 NV 888 048 UGANIK BAY AK 888 148 SWRSBR4686 CA 888 448 DADE PARK KY 888 848 WALTON MT AB (Does John-Boy live here? :-) ) 889 048 CPBELELGHT BC 889 248 TSINHIA BC 889 481 JARVISLAKE ON 889 483 INCO LAKE ON 889 484 GURNEY ON 889 485 CENTRELAKE ON 889 486 HANSENLAKE ON 889 488 LOWRY LAKE ON 889 489 DONA LAKE ON 889 548 ABBIE LAKE ON 889 648 TRADING LK ON 889 748 LACMALURON PQ 889 848 LAC DANIEL PQ 889 948 QUIET LAKE YT 889 418 KILLINIQ NT This last one I recognize as being in the far north and probably being some sort of non-dialable earth station. --> David Esan de@moscom.com ------------------------------ From: Tony Olekshy From: tony@oha.UUCP (Tony Olekshy) Subject: Re: Telephone Privatization/Deregulation in Canada Date: 21 Feb 91 14:39:09 GMT Organization: Olekshy Hoover & Associates Ltd., Edmonton, Alberta, Canada In message , cyberoid@milton.u. washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) writes: [About Unitel, Canada, Telecom, and so-called `Economics', from Mr. Sid Shniad, Staff Economist, British Columbia Telecommunications Workers Union] In case anyone didn't catch this, suffice to say that Mr. Shniad may not be in a position to be unbiased in his account. There are many Canadians who: - Are looking forward to telecom competition, not only in long lines, but also in subscriber loops, via all that cable TV coax. - Are participating in Canada's own discussion of such topics as 970-type numbers, caller identification, COCOTs, and slamming. - Remain in favour of the free trade agreement, having benifited from it or otherwise not having seen overriding negatives (often these folks are not previously protected union workers). - Think that imported labour union bureaucrats remain a major problem in Canada, and that unions in British Columbia are the worst of the lot. I know that other Digest subscribers are keeping The Rest Of The World up to date on many of the details of the points that I have summarized, and that this is off topic for this Digest, but unless you publish some other rebuttal, I would hope that the opinions in the referenced posting would at least recieve some balance. Yours etc., Tony Olekshy. Internet: tony%oha@CS.UAlberta.CA BITNET: tony%oha.uucp@UALTAMTS.BITNET uucp: alberta!oha!tony ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 16:18:24 PST From: nesel@elxsi.dfrf.nasa.gov Subject: Re: Telephone Surcharges for Deaf, Poor Anger IBT Customers Reply-To: Mike Nesel These surcharges are a form a charity, and in my opinion should therefore be entirely voluntary. In addition, as a charity, these donations should be subject to commonly accepted accounting practices as applied to charitable institutions. I want a statement at the end of each year from the utility, summarizing my charitable contributions. I'd also want a statement summarizing how ALL contributions were invested and spent, and the percent of my contribution that went to G & A overhead, advertising, etc. By the way, if I choose NOT to contribute to this charity, will I still be allowed phone service? Is this charitable contribution a mandatory condition for receiving service? Mike Nesel ------------------------------ From: Sean Petty Subject: Re: Airphones and Receiving Calls Date: 21 Feb 91 21:02:19 GMT Organization: A civilization beneath the Earth, The Underground Empire. > Also, the SKYPAGER is not a SATELLITE broadcast of a paging signal, > it's merely a satellite broadcast to numerous city broadcast towers, > which then broadcast the paging signal. Coverage is NOT guaranteed > nation-wide, by their own admission. Very much true. I own a SkyPager, and have found that it is FAR from reliable. My department purchased two kinds of pagers for it's officers, SkyPagers (which I got :( ) and Motorola Bravo's (which are essentially the same pager, just different means of recieving the messages). I found that 99.9% of the pages to the Simple, 900 MHz, Plain Motorola Bravo's got through, as compared to about 50% with my SkyPager. It was actually kind of funny. I could be sitting at my desk, call in a page, receive it ... walk say twenty feet away to another desk, call in a page, and not receive it. Yet, when up in a helicopter, (my work takes me funny places), generally I received on the order of 90% of the pages. I think it is just a matter of the SkyPager people refining their equipment, and increasing their transmission sites. It is a tremendous concept (country, or worldwide paging) yet has not had all the bugs worked out yet, and is not up to full potential. Just give it some time. Sean Petty - Somewhere in Pennsylvania ------------------------------ From: "Kevin P. Kleinfelter" Subject: Re: How do You Hook up a Phone For a Play? Date: 21 Feb 91 18:09:23 GMT Organization: Dun and Bradstreet Software, Inc., Atlanta, GA So take a toy train transformer and use it. Use an AC one. Crank it from 0 to the point where you get a ring. If 120V is a problem, the 12V coming from the transformer should not be. If 12V is not enough, get a 24V transformer. Kevin Kleinfelter @ Dun and Bradstreet Software, Inc (404) 239-2347 {emory,gatech}!nanovx!msa3b!kevin Look closely at the return address. It is nanovx and NOT nanovAx. ------------------------------ From: Bob Yazz Subject: Re: 800 Numbers, Voice Mail, and Privacy Date: 21 Feb 91 19:12:03 GMT To get personal financial information about me, without my knowledge: My bank requires only your account number OR your ATM number. They said when I asked that fewer people would use the service if a PIN was required and there was no way to be removed from the system! My cable company requires only my phone number (I've changed that code to something that starts with 0 so they won't bother any innocents with telemarketing drivel). I think the whole state of privacy is apalling. They don't even tell you when they put these things in. Bob Yazz -- yazz@lccsd.sd.locus.com ------------------------------ From: Syd Weinstein Subject: Re: Early Color Television Reply-To: syd@dsi.com Organization: Datacomp Systems, Inc. Huntingdon Valley, PA Date: Thu, 21 Feb 1991 21:41:21 GMT sjr@m-net.ann-arbor.mi.us (Sander J. Rabinowitz) writes: > What I find amazing was that there was technology to _record_ color TV > through videotape in the early 50's. I believe that was done with the > late Mary Martin's "Peter Pan" TV special in 1954, and that has got to > be the earliest videotape on record. Ok, I know this is off the track, but perhaps Pat will let one more in before he closes the door ... Color TV (NTSC) was stanardized in the 1950's. The reason color did not get popular until 1966 was the patent RCA had on the color picture tube. All color picture tubes prior to the patent running out had to be licensed from RCA. Now, to push the sales of RCA sets, and color tubes in general, RCA's network NBC did a large amount of its schedule in color (Thus the peacock and all the hoopla around color by NBC). Once the patent expired, all the networks that next year were suddenly in Color. I am sure the reason was more political than economic. Mary Martin's special in 1954 was not video taped at all. It was in black and white. As was the second one (I think 57, but I am unsure). The third one was in color, and that is the tape that was restored. It was done in 1960 (I may be off a year or two) and was recorded in 'low band color', the first color recording technique. The RCA VTR's that did this were really upgraded black and white ones that had been extended for low band color. This lead to a lot of restoration necessary to recover a good picture from the tapes. Modern 2" Quad (circa 1970) was high band color (a shift in the carrier) and had more bandwidth and time base stability. 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: "Bernard F. Collins" Subject: Re: Criss-Cross Services / Publications Organization: University of Maryland at College Park Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 18:07:55 GMT In article vitec!vitec.com!nathan@ uunet.uu.net (Nathan Banks) writes: > When I was in college in SWB territory I would call the BO when the > roomates could not recognise a long distance call. The BO would criss > cross it for me, giving me a name and *sometimes* an address. When > presenting this info to my roomates someone whould recognise the call > and 'fess up and (*usually*) cough up the $. The only restriction was > calls (he** just about every d**n line is LD) that are two months old, > If I cannot get criss-crossing for cheap then auditing outgoing DTMF > is my next question. Have you considered using AT&T's Call Manager service? It is free. It allows several people using the same phone to automatically keep track of who made what call. One dials the long distance number as if using a calling card, i.e. 0+10D. After the bong, instead of entering a calling card number, enter a four-digit code beginning with 15. The next two digits can be anything from 00 to 99. Each person can be assigned his own two digit code. Calls are sorted by these "account numbers" when the bill arrives. The whole scheme adds four digits to every LD call. But the annoyance of unclaimed calls at the end of the month is not missed. Skip Collins, (301) 792-6243, collins@wam.umd.edu ------------------------------ From: David Lemson Subject: Re: MailStorm Project (Email to Saudi Arabia) Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Date: Fri, 22 Feb 1991 04:16:40 GMT zellich@stl-07sima.army.mil (Rich Zellich) writes: > The system, part of a natinwide effort called the MailStorm Project, > is open to anyone with a computer, a modem and the name of a soldier > in the gulf. The messages are transmitted over an electronic bulletin > * Call the bulletin board at 553-6475. > [The above phone number is in area code 314. I called it to make sure > the PD printed the right number; a modem answered, but I didn't try to > log in to verify it any further. -RWZ] This is the Optometry Online BBS, an IBM PC. It is running Opus, connected to FidoNet. I believe this is the same SaudiNet service that we've heard about that's just a FidoNet Echo that's Echomailed to a BBS in Saudi Arabia. Also note that Optometry Online supports USR HST modems up to 14.4 bps. Not sure on V.32. And they have lots of good IBM files, too! David Lemson U of Illinois Computing Services Student Consultant Internet : lemson@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu UUCP :...!uiucuxc!uiucux1!lemson ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 03:02:24 PDT From: Norris Stolp Subject: Re: Remote Recharger Needed for Cordless Phone Reply-To: norris.stolp%drbbs@iugate.unomaha.edu Organization: DRBBS Technical BBS, Omaha Uniden makes a cordless phone with seperate recharging and base stations. The handset stays on recharging station when not in use and base station may be placed wherever convenient. Ybbat (DRBBS) 8.9 v. 3.13 r.5 [200:5010/666@metronet] Support Free Lithuania (200:5010/666.0) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #147 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa22580; 22 Feb 91 5:39 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa31133; 22 Feb 91 3:58 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa20003; 22 Feb 91 2:52 CST Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 2:20:20 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #148 BCC: Message-ID: <9102220220.ab23632@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 22 Feb 91 02:20:09 CST Volume 11 : Issue 148 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: AT&T's (appropriate) New Market [Dan Margolis] Re: Many Software Designers of Caller ID Also Disliked it [David Gast] Re: ANI Demo Resurfaces [Scott Hinckley] Re: Why do Telcos Use Window Envelopes for Payments? [Jim Rees] Payment Processing [Ed Greenberg] How do Businesses Get ANI? and a 911 (711) Story [Steve Kass] Eavesdropping on Cordless / Cellular Phones [Jim Langridge] Cordless Phones: Tweaks and Twiddles [Tim Steele] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: dam@mtqua.att.com Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 18:17 EST Subject: Re: AT&T's (appropriate) New Market John Higdon wrote to the Digest to discuss a deal to sell AT&T phone systems in the USSR. He said: > Well, isn't that special? At last AT&T has found a promising market > for its virtually featureless small telephone systems. What better > place to sell them than somewhere that the competition is either > non-existent or dreadful? > Someday AT&T may wake up and come to the party, but for now its > equipment offerings leave a lot to be desired. Even the mighty Systems > 25, 75, and 85 have major inflexibilities that render them useless for > many potential applications. (No station CPC, inflexible station > numbering, inflexible hardware configurations, to name a few.) WRONG ON ALL THREE COUNTS! Systems 25, 75, and 85 all provide station CPC. The station numbering is completely flexible (0 for operator is fixed). The hardware configurations are extremely flexible (any card in any slot, cards may be inserted and administered while system is up) In fact the three systems use many of the same port cards. Where do you get your facts? The Panasonic brochure? > The Spirit is too weenie to even use in my residence, while the Merlin > is way too expensive (and still does not have some of the capabilities > that I require). I think the "capabilities" you require are simply that it says Panasonic on it. You show your lack of knowledge about the MERLIN product line by refering to it as MERLIN. Do you mean MERLIN II? Of course it's too expensive for you, but it's a pretty big system. It has a 120 station x 56 CO line capacity. Or do you mean MERLIN Plus? It is smaller and cheaper than MERLIN II, but still has quite a rich feature set. Or do you mean one of the old MERLIN systems that has been discontinued? It may not have the most modern features because it's an old product. You can't lump all of these into one generic "MERLIN." It does not make sense to talk about the capabilities or price of MERLIN without specifying which one. By the way, MERLIN, MERLIN PLUS, and SPIRIT are all market leaders, so they obviously fill the needs of a whole lot of customers. > The PARTNER is unknown, but given the information > posted so far and AT&T's past performance in this arena, initial > indications are that it is similarly lacking in features that people > really need and use. Don't judge PARTNER before you've seen it. It may not satisfy your needs, but your needs are hardly representative of the rest of the world. > Someone suggested to me recently that AT&T would do well to BUY a > Panasonic KX-T123212, set it up, see how it works, and then correct > its deficiencies and enhance its features. What a killer system that > would be! Believe me, AT&T knows the Panasonic line and feels quite confident that the AT&T line is superior. It certainly sells better. > But as it is, I get e-mail from AT&T employees singing the > praises of the company's brain-dead offerings from a position of > obviously never even seeing the competitions' wares. I have said this > before and will say it again, when AT&T finally gets its head out of > the sand in the equipment market, it wiil become a force to be > reckoned with. The competition had better watch out; someday it may > happen. Whose head is in the sand? You obviously don't know too much about MERLIN because you don't specify which MERLIN you are talking about. You don't know too much about Systems 25, 75, and 85, because you were incorrect in all three attributes you listed. I'm not sending you email, but that's because I don't see any point in discussing this with you. (I presume there is a close connection between Panasonic and your source of income). I would just like to point out your biases and misinformation to our fellow Digest readers. I am probably taking a risk in posting this article because I am an AT&T employee, but these views are my own. I want to point out that there is no proprietary information in this article, and that it does not point out any deficiencies in any AT&T or non-AT&T product. It is a rebuttal to an incorrect article. Dan Margolis ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 21:24:52 -0800 From: David Gast Subject: Re: Many Software Designers of Caller ID Also Disliked it Carl M. Kadie writes: > At the same time, you will be able to block your number when you call > a business, and so you will be able to avoid being automatically > placed on their mailing list. [Except Radio Shack, which will probably > not accept blocked calls :-)] > It seems like a perfect solution; it provides people with the most > service; and yet, the phone companies are against it. Why? The phone company is not interested in privacy or customer service, they are interested in selling (unneeded) junk/services. Who will be the big buyers of CID info? Businesses to sell the information. Naturally, TPC does not want you to block it, that would diminish the demand by busineses for CID. They want everybody to be forced to buy it. If X has it and you do not, you will be at a disadvantage, so you will be forced to buy it. The arguments they make on TV about how CID will protect your privacy is just propaganda, designed by their marketing staffs to affect the biggest emotional appeal. Do you really think they would sell service that will allow you block telemarketing calls? Those people are some of their best customers. David ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 1991 12:58:07 -0600 From: scott@huntsai.boeing.com Subject: Re: ANI Demo Resurfaces I also tried this demo. I called from a work phone (which I assume gets patched to one of a number of outgoing trunks). Though the number I am at can be dialed directly, I was (I assume) given the number of that outgoing trunk line. The number I was given had the correct area code and prefix, but the last four digits were incorrect. hmmm... Scott Hinckley Internet: scott@huntsai.boeing.com UUCP: ...!uunet!uw-beaver!bcsaic!huntsai!scot DISCLAIMER: All contained herein are my opinions, they do not represent the opinions or feelings of Boeing or its management. BTN: 205-461-2073 [Moderator's Note: You are probably in a DID group where calls dialed to the four digits of your phone reach you, but outgoing calls are routed through another group of lines. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rees@pisa.ifs.umich.edu (Jim Rees) Subject: Re: Why do Telcos Use Window Envelopes for Payments? Reply-To: rees@citi.umich.edu (Jim Rees) Organization: University of Michigan IFS Project Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 20:21:35 GMT In article , Ron Heiby writes: > Why do they put those darn windows there, rather than printing their > full address on the envelope? My first wife worked for a leasing company that had all kinds of automated billing stuff run by an IBM System/38. The combination of window/insert makes it necessary for you to put the bill in the envelope with a particular orientation. This makes it possible for a machine to remove the bill and your check, read your account number off of the bill, and pass the check on to another machine that reads your checking account number from the bank code in the lower left corner. The only manual intervention required is someone to read the amount of the check and key it in. And these days, even that isn't needed if you have an OCR reader that's good with handwriting (remember, it only needs to recognize digits). What's that got to do with telecom? Next time you have trouble with your phone bill and need to get a human in the loop, send the bill and your check in your own envelope. A warm-blooded human will have to deal with it. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 09:48 PST From: Ed_Greenberg@3mail.3com.com Subject: Payment Processing In one of my past lives, I did data entry for the Mastercard (oops, I mean Master Charge) operation of a major New York Bank. (Chemical Bank.) Since the subject of payment processing has come up, I thought I'd describe the payment processing operation, and how we tried to be sure that everybody got the right payment credited to their account. Remember that in a bank, everything must balance to the penny. Payments were received in a mailroom and the envelopes were oriented by means of the stripes printed on the envelope edges. The envelopes were opened by machine and the check and billhead removed. The checks and billheads were separated into two piles and, when about one hundred transactions were accumulated, the piles were rubberbanded together. If a check came in without a payment ticket, one was written, assuming that the account number was on the check. If not, the check went to some sort of exception processing. If the ticket came in without a check, the transaction took a left turn there too. Next the batch went to the encoding machines. These behemoths would take a stack of checks and show them to the operator one by one. The operator would enter (ten-key) the amount, which would be encoded below the signature line. The amount was also printed on a tape, and when the batch was done, the total amount encoded was printed on the bottom of the tape. This total became the batch total and the magic number for the batch. Remember that everything must balance. The encoding department totalled ALL the payment batches, which were subtracted from the totals of all the charge batches (another article, maybe) and thus made part of the whole days business, which also had to balance before it could be released for posting. Next the payments went to Data Entry. The process was this: Open a batch on the terminal by providing the batch number and the total (generated from the encoding procedure.) Now key the account numbers and amounts into the terminals, taken from the billheads. This is why you write the amount paid on the billhead. Note that nobody has totalled the billheads yet. Once the billheads were entered, the terminal would present the batch total (from the checks) and the transaction total (from the billheads.) If they matched, you were "IN BALANCE", you released the batch and went on to the next one. If not, they were "OUTA BALANCE" (really!) and you had to prove them. Proving the transactions involved comparing the entered amounts (displayable on the screen) with the encoding tape. Several error possibilities present themselves. A keying error by the data entry operator, a keying error by the encoding operator, or a billhead that carried an amount different from the check. Once the transaction(s) were proved the batch would balance, and you would release the batch and go on to the next one. If you couldn't prove the batch in about ten minutes, you would hold the batch in the computer, and pass it to Sara. Sara had the eyes of an eagle or a hawk and could find anything. And that, friends, is how your payment got onto your Master Charge, back in 1975. edg PS: Trivia: Who remembers Unicard? What banks pushed it? What did it grow into? What was the logo? How about the jingle? Ed_Greenberg@HQ.3Mail.3Com.COM ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 21:09 EDT From: Steve Kass Subject: How do Businesses Get ANI? And a 911 (711) Story Maybe this has been asked before, but I've been wondering how it is that businesses get inter-LATA ANI already. It's not coming for years to residential customers, it seems, so if American Express (or whoever) knows the number of the caller in real time, how do _they_ get it, and why can't I? A related story: I tried to get verbal ANI from 201-514 by calling 211, 311, etc., and got "Sorry, the # ..." until I got to 711. After 10 rings a voice answered "Emergency, 911." Strange. But stranger yet: we don't have 911 at all in these parts. I don't really want to call back and bother whoever answered. Any guesses out there? Steve Kass/ Math & CS Department/ Drew University/ Madison NJ 07940/ 2014083614/ skass@drew.edu [Moderator's Note: They get inter-LATA ANI for the same reason I get it: They have an 800 number. When you are paying for the calls you get told who you are paying for. If you accept a collect call, the operator will tell you what number is calling also, if you ask. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 09:25:57 est From: jlangri@relay.nswc.navy.mil Subject: Eavesdropping on Cordless / Cellular Phones "Sophisticated Surveillance" must be making a fortune! The fact is that of the cordless phones that I'm familiar with transmit and receive on either 49mhz or 27mhz. I think cellular is somewhere between 460-580 mhz. A child's walkie talkie works in the 49mhz area and can pick up cordless conversations. I haven't seen a 27 mhz phone in quite a while ... but any that are still around can be tuned in on most multiband radios and probably quite a few old "bootleg" CB radios and ham radio receivers. As for cellular phones, a programable scanner sells for as little as $99.95. Just "punch in" the frequencies and scan away. I'm a little rusty on my FCC rules and regs but if I remember correctly, It is perfectly legal to "monitor" all of these freqencies. It is however, illegal to "give out", "divulge" or use the information for "profit". I think the public should be better informed by the manufacturer of course. With technology moving as rapidly as it is today and all of the neat "gadgets" available today, John Q. Public is so anxious to have the gadgets that they don't stop to ask some pretty important questions. Privacy is often taken for granted! Jim Langridge Synetics Corp. jlangri@relay.nswc.navy.mil King George, Va. [Moderator's Note: You are correct that privacy is often taken for granted, but you made a few errors in your article. The older cordless phones were around 1700 khz, or 1.7 mhz. I never saw any in the CB range. The ones at 1700 khz could be picked up on an AM broadcast radio that had the tuner warped upward a little. Cellular service is in the mid-800 mz range -- not around 500 as you mentioned. Most scanners in the $100 range do NOT include 800 megs, but the more expensive ones do, and although Radio Shack got the heat turned up on them to lock out the cellular frequencies, the mods are very easy. But part of the cellular user's protection against invasion of privacy is BOREDOM on the part of the pirate listener. Listening to cellular calls on a scanner is really a non-issue, IMHO. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tjfs@tadtec.uucp (Tim Steele) Subject: Cordless Phones: Tweaks and Twiddles Organization: Tadpole Technology plc Date: 19 Feb 91 12:44:06 In the UK we use a cordless phone standard that specified 8 (?) channels with the base station transmitting around 1.6 MHz and the handset transmitting around 47 MHz. The standard was recently upgraded to require a 16 bit code to be exchanged between the handset and base station as a security measure. The audio is plain old FM, I think. a) How does the US standard work? b) Does anyone know any tweaks to make cordless phones work better? I have discovered the position of the aerials *and the phone cord* is critical for good performance, but lengthening the MW aerial doesn't seem to make any difference. Tim [Moderartor's Note: You can peak the base unit a little to get another quarter watt or so out of it, and you can trim the antenna to a half-wave instead of the eighth (or quarter)-wave on most units, but I recommend against it simply because there is very little you can do to increase the performance on the remote unit, and why bother with a super strong base unit heard all over the neighborhood if the remote can't get back to it after more than a city block or so distant? PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #148 ******************************  NEXT COMES 145 WHICH GOT HERE OUT OF ORDER, THEN 149-150 FOLLOW THAT.  Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa24685; 22 Feb 91 7:27 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ac03025; 22 Feb 91 6:28 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa23978; 21 Feb 91 23:40 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa24924; 21 Feb 91 22:33 CST Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 21:48:00 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #145 BCC: Message-ID: <9102212148.ab23181@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Thu, 21 Feb 91 21:47:50 CST Volume 11 : Issue 145 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Some Comments on WUTCo Replies [Donald E. Kimberlin] Re: Why do Telcos Use Window Envelopes for Payments? [Tom Olin] Re: Why do Telcos Use Window Envelopes for Payments? [Roy Smith] Re: Why do Telcos Use Window Envelopes for Payments? [Dan'l DanehyOakes] Re: All Monthly Bills --> One Bill [Scott D. Green] Re: All Monthly Bills --> One Bill [William Warner III] Re: All Monthly Bills --> One Bill [John Levine] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 05:40 GMT From: "Donald E. Kimberlin" <0004133373@mcimail.com> Subject: Some Comments on WUTCo Replies In response to a thread about early submarine telegraph cables, 99700000 writes: > With all due credit to WU, and hey did some fine engineering, the > AT&T effort was a lot more extensive. WU's undersea amplifier was > a single amplifier located not too far offshore, primarily to get > some gain over the noise from all the other cables passing nearby. > AT&T had to provide a whole string of amplifiers the entire length > of the cable. No doubt that AT&t's work represented a leap in the technology, but AT&T made no effort to credit the place that gave them a launching pad for it. I once met an old ITT submarine cable engineer and one of his projects was to build a locating loop and amplifier that could hang on several miles of cable over the side of a ship to listen for the broken end of a cable one the ocean floor. He achieved more than 100 dB of gain in a pressure-tight box with triode tubes ... ten of them down there! Solid-state engineers are probably not impressed, but those readers who understand hollow-state electronics will be suitably impressed. The old telegraphers were truly heroes of mega- lithic telecom; people who have been lost in the mists of telephone history. I regard as a lot more than simply "fine engineering." It was pioneering. Let's not trivialize their contributions. Then, Gabe Wiener poses the question: >... what is WU up to these days? And our Moderator gave a pretty good rundown, except I'm not too sure about how WUTCo is going to separate their TWX/Telex domestic operations from Easylink, because they ahd in fact made many of the old TWX and Telex machines points on the Easylink network with aliases. From what I perceive about WUTCo, having interfaced and watched them for many years, they are likely to hae made a deal in which AT&t does the switching and transmission for them, winding up paying out so much they will lose what's left of their now-ragged shirt on that. WUTCo just seems to have had a financial death wish since about 1925, when they borrowed so much they never were able to pay off their debt despite repeated concessions, and literal handouts from the Feds. One could always sense in WUTCo's approach to the Feds, in both regulatory and contract matters, a choir singing, "There'll Always be a WUTCo," (to the tune of "There'll always be an England.") WUTCo liked to file FCC pleadings that referred to AT&T as "the Telephone company," while they called themselves, "the Telegraph company." (Emphasis on the capital T's they really used. I think that style spoke volumes about how WUTCo saw itself ... as an institution of telecommunications the government and people of the United States would feed forever; some sort of crown jewel of American history of a class akin to the Liberty Bell. WUTCo actually got away with it for several decade, too. Meantime, their debt bomb just got bigger and bigger, while their top management fiddled away ... literally. I have plenty of personal stories for the bar after this session! Finally, Gabe ponders what with all the Fax machines, how can Telex even be a viable business today (sic)? I do maintain some contact with the good old Telex business, having pounded Baudot keyboards in about 70 nations around the globe, (pity my poor PC keyboard!) and have found that Telex to and among the developed nations is in rapid decline. But, Telex actually got out there to more of the underdeveloped countries far before international telephony, to an extent that if your business is with the Third World, Telex is still the prime medium of communications. It is, however, a mixed bag, for some of the least developed never had much Telex, and fax is making strong inroads there, too. They can import fax machines cheaper than teleprinters and use their now-developing phone network. The upshot: I fear Gabe's portent of an early grave for Telex is on the mark; it just isn't dying instantly. By 2000, it probably will be gone. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 08:45:37 EST From: Tom Olin Subject: Re: Why do Telcos Use Window Envelopes for Payments? In TELECOM Digest #136, Ron Heiby writes: > The thing about my IL Bell bill-paying envelopes, and many others, > that I continue to find a mystery is, "Why the heck do they need that > window on the envelope?" As far as I can tell, it's just to give me a > pain by forcing me to a specific orientation of contents insertion. According to an information insert in one of my New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) bills a few months back, that is exactly the reason they use window envelopes. They speed processing at the office. Tom Olin uunet!adiron!tro (315) 738-0600 Ext 638 PAR Technology Corporation * 220 Seneca Turnpike * New Hartford NY 13413-1191 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 15:23:37 EST From: Roy Smith Subject: Re: Why do Telcos Use Window Envelopes for Payments? Organization: Public Health Research Institute, New York City This is having increasingly little to do with telephones, but it's a fun tangent, so what the heck? Besides, evaluating the cost of running a utility has always been fair telecom digest fodder, hasn't it? Let's start with some assumptions by lang@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com, namely that it takes two seconds to re-orient a mis-oriented piece of paper and that you have to do it with 30% of the envelopes you get. Do these assumptions justify Lang's statement that: > While not a large expense compared to the outrageous profit margins of > the operating companies, two full-time employees has *got* to cost > more than the difference between standard and window envelopes. Today's {NY Times} classified section has three ads for data entry clerks; two list salaries (one $7/hr the other $17k/year). At about 1900 hours per work year, $7/hr is 13.3k/yr, but my guess is that unionized telco employess make near the high end of the scale, so I'll take the $17k/yr as a reasonable figure. That's about $9/hr, which turns into costing the employer about $12/hr with benefits, or .33 cents/second. My King Printing and Stationary catalog has 3-3/8" x 6-1/2" envelopes as $11.19/500 for plain and $14.49/500 for windows, in 10-box lots. That's 2.24 and 2.90 cents per, respectively. Add 10% for inflation (it's a 1989 catalog) and you get 2.46 and 3.19, or an extra 0.73 cents for windows. I'll take a wild guess and say telco buys custom printed ones in billion lots for the same price I can buy stock ones in 5000 lots. To process ten envelopes, the clerk will, on average, have to re-orient three pieces of paper, at an added cost of six seconds, or two cents. To save those six seconds by using window envelopes, telco would have spent an extra 7.3 cents, putting them 5.3 cents in the hole on the deal. If the basic assumptions are true, then lang's claim is false; the people are cheaper than the envelopes. Of course, my estimate of the clerk's wages could be off by a lot, and maybe telco can buy envelopes a lot cheaper than I thought, but both would have to be wrong by factors of two (in opposite directons) to make it break even. Maybe you lose more than two seconds per re-orientation? Well, just to make things more interesting, I asked the controller here what he pays for both kinds of envelopes (he found researching this to be a nice diversion from doing our corporate taxes). To my surprise he said it doesn't cost them anything different for the two kinds. I find that hard to believe, but would be remiss if I didn't report the datum. Another tidbit is that while NYTel uses windows, Brooklyn Union Gas doesn't. Go figure. 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: Dan'l DanehyOakes Subject: Re: Why do Telcos Use Window Envelopes for Payments? Date: 21 Feb 91 21:37:26 GMT Reply-To: Dan'l DanehyOakes Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA In article SKASS@drew.bitnet writes: > It may give you a pain to put the contents into the envelope in a > particular way, but it aids the Telco's automation. Speaking as a consumer (rather than a telco employee, which I also am), why should I *give* a frog about aiding the Telco's automation? If it saves the vendor (in this case, a Telco) labor at cost of convenience to the Customer, it's bad marketing -- period. The Roach ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 12:29 EDT From: "Scott D. Green" Subject: Re: All Monthly Bills --> One Bill It's generally not in my nature to praise banking institutions for their service and value, but Mellon Bank's Bank-by-Phone product seems to be a leader, at least in comparison to other reports recently. First, participation is not limited to a select group of merchants; any merchant or individual that the customer designates can be set up with a Merchant Number for your use. One may designate automatic payments to be made to certain merchants (ie mortgage, loans, cable) while the rest can be on demand. The whole thing, of course, works through your touchtone phone. They assign your sixteen-digit account number, you pick your four-digit PIN. You may pay a merchant "immediately" (next business day), or designate a date up to thirty days in the future to pay a bill, allowing you to deal with all your bills in one session. In addition, you may transfer among accounts, check balances, check whether personal checks have cleared, issue stop payments on personal checks, and reach a live person, 8AM-midnite weekdays, and (I think) until 8PM weekends and holidays. The best part (aside from it being *free* with a minimum balance) is their follow-up service. Once you (correctly) enter a payment request, the bank assumes full responsibility for making sure that the payment is correctly credited with the merchant. A phone call to their live person is all it takes. They then deal with the merchant, and issue a letter to the customer detailing what happened. In cases where a finance charge was levied, it was removed without my having to be involved. I have even received from the bank copies of *their* cancelled checks showing the merchant's endorsement and pay dates. About the only downside that I can see is that I lose the float on my check, because my account is debited the day the check is issued. All in all, its a good product with excellent service behind it. Scott ------------------------------ From: WARNER%ODNVMS@MPS.OHIO-STATE.EDU (Bill Warner) Subject: Re: All Monthly Bills --> One Bill Date: 21 Feb 91 17:17:49 EST Organization: The Ohio Data Network Pat, this is a little off of the telecom subject, but you brought it up! I subscribe to a service by a company CHECKFREE. They allow you to pay bills using a Macintosh or IBM-PC using a hayes compatable modem. You use a front end program that runs on the Mac or PC that is a relatively good checkbook register program. You can set up a list of people to be paid either electronically or manually. You can pay bill weekly, biweekly, monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, twice a year or yearly. You can tell CHECKFREE to pay a bill sometime in the future. One limitation is that it requires at least four business day before the payment date to process the payment. The latest version of QUICKEN (a money management program) for the IBM-PC allows you to use this service with it, but the program they provide is plenty for my purposes. This is all done locally, until you "SEND to CHECKFREE." Then the local program calls CHECKFREE's computer in Westerville, Ohio and sends all the payments. (If it is a regular payment you only send it once and CHECKFREE's computer handles it from then on.) CHECKFREE sends the payment in one of two ways. If possible, they send it via the Federal Reserve Electronic Funds Transfer network. Most companies can deal with payments like this. The local phone company Ohio Bell has no problem with this. If the person/company that is being paid can not receive payments this way, CHECKFREE will print a check and mail it to them. This usually adds a couple of days to the processing of the payment. Two examples I have of this is my Rental Company and the Columbus Dispatch News Carrier (Not many News carriers have connections to the EFT Network!). Since they pay via "Electronic Checks" (Or physical checks) you can use any checking account at any bank (or equivalent.) On my month Checking Account Statement electronic payments show up as a "CHECK or PAYMENT" with a identification code that includes the name of the PAYEE. I have been pleased with their service. I had one problem initially in setting up their software: My name is William Warner, III (With no middle name) and they did not expect a name in this format, so I have to be Mr. Warner, III to them. They have a handly customer service email from their front end that you can send questions to. They do not send the response electonically, but mail you a postcard with the question and answer, but I guess I wouldn't want them calling my computer anyway. The cost is about $35 for the initial software and sign up. From then on there is a $9/month fee for up to twenty transactions. I can not remember the charge for additional transactions but it is in the ballpark of $0.50 each. Of course, they bill the monthly fee electronically. The number for CHECKFREE (From the Columbus OH phone book): (614) 899-7500 William "Bill" Warner, III (N8HJP) WARNER%ODNVMS@MPS.OHIO-STATE.EDU Ohio Data Network WARNER@OHSTPY (Bitnet) 65 E State St, Suite 810 +1 614 466 6683 (Voice) Columbus, OH 43215 +1 614 466-8159 (FAX) ------------------------------ Subject: Re: All Monthly Bills --> One Bill Organization: I.E.C.C. Date: 20 Feb 91 22:34:23 EST (Wed) From: "John R. Levine" In article is written: > The National Westminster Bank here in the UK has a similar service. > It's called Actionline. Nat West has two subsidiaries in the U.S.: NatWest USA and NatWest New Jersey. (It takes a special kind of person to live in New Jersey.) I have an account at NatWest NJ which also has telephone payments, which I use for all regular payments related to my beach cottage in New Jersey. It's a great deal, you can pay anyone you want for 20 cents/payment, far less than the 29 cents it would otherwise cost for a stamp, and payments to a NatWest credit card account are free. You tell them who your payees are, what account number should go with the payment, and a three digit number you use when making the payment. To pay someone, you call up, enter a long account number unrelated to your bank account number, and then enter payee codes, amounts, and optionally the date to pay. There are also the usual other services such as balance inquiry, recent cleared checks inquiry, and transfers from one account to another. You can have multiple checking and savings accounts tied to the same phone payment account; it's quite flexible. This service actually dates from long before NatWest bought the bank, but I'm glad that NatWest had the sense to keep it. If I didn't live in Massachusetts eleven months of the year, I'd use it for all my bills. There used to be a few banks here in Massachusetts that offered pay by phone, but it never caught on here for some reason. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #145 ******************************  NEXT FOLLOWS 149 AND 150. 146-147-148 GOT HERE AHEAD OF 145 FOR SOME REASON.   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa05772; 22 Feb 91 16:15 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa31128; 22 Feb 91 14:07 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id aa12600; 22 Feb 91 13:01 CST Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 13:00:48 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #149 BCC: Message-ID: <9102221300.ab30061@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 22 Feb 91 13:00:02 CST Volume 11 : Issue 149 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson IBT Service Reps Make Sales Pitches Also [Randy Borow] Training Simulation Software for Telex Needed [Nagi Rao] How Can a 900 Service be Determined Without Calling it? [Jim Thomas] Correction: Bad Zipcode in Article on Military Mail [Carl Moore] Can I Connect With French Minitel via Internet? [Arun Baheti] Re: Airphones and Receiving Calls [Jeff Carroll] Re: ANSI X3.64 Document Needed [Richard Shuford] Re: Another Inconvenience of the "Other Guys" [Jonathan Whitcomb] Re: How do Businesses Get ANI? And a 911 (711) Story [Bernard F. Collins] Re: FCC Proposed Rule Changes; Equal Access [Arnold Robbins] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: rborow@bcm1a09.attmail.com Date: Thu Feb 21 13:36:18 CST 1991 Subject: IBT Service Reps Make Sales Pitches Also Well, it finally happened! After finally getting bombarded with sales pitches from the reps whom I call (you read it right: I'm doing the calling to clear up my account, inquire about it, etc.), Illinois Bell has decided to get into the act. Now, I'm used to the big LD carriers incessantly pitching their wares at me, but now I have to hear it from my little, ole telco. I called IBT recently to inquire about my balance due (seems like with a bunch of adjustments recently I got lost), and after all was said and done, the otherwise friendly rep. went into this scripted diatribe about how they have this new service called "multi-ring service". She rambled off all the features and benefits, at which time I proceeded to ask her if this was the same as distinctive ringing (answer: no). She went into another explanation of what exactly distinctive ringing is and did (of course, my flu-infested mind was now totally befuddled). After much interesting (?) talk, she tried to get me to purchase these custom-calling features. I politely explained to her that I have enough such features (four of them) presently on my bill, and that I'm really only [very] interested in automatic callback, call screening, and caller ID. She very nicely looked in her system to see if my exchange had yet been converted to provide those services. Unfortunately, none were presently available, although she said auto callback would be ready June 1st. She even offered to contact me at the end of May to order it to be up and running by the 1st of June. I was gratified, and I'll be even more surprised if she does indeed contact me in three months as promised. This is the first time Illinois Bell -- during a customer-initiated call -- had lain upon me a repertoire of sales pitches, from their Linebacker service to their custom-calling features. While not upset about it (not yet, at least), I was admittedly taken back by it. Oh well, the never-ending world of telecommunications. Randy Borow Rolling Meadows, IL. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 14:12:27 -0600 From: Nagendra Nagi Subject: Training Simulation Software for Telex Needed Hi, A friend of mine is looking for Training Simulation Software which runs in an IBM PC environment. The Training Simulator is to help train people to be Telex Operators by providing them with simulated interactive sessions which gives them "hands on" operation experience (and maybe also tutorial sessions). I was hoping there might be someone on the net who has come across such software (or something similar). I am looking for info such as price, vendor, hardware requirements etc. I would appreciate any information you can give me. I would prefer E-Mail. My contact address is: nrao@digi.lonestar.org Thanks a lot, Nagi Rao ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 03:23 CST From: jt Subject: How Can a 900 Service be Determined Without Calling it? A friend indictated that there is a 900 number (900-990-3415) that one can call and service provided is apparently one of determining whether there is a tap/trace on the caller's line. I have two questions about this: 1. Is it possible from a second line to determine such things as tap/traces, INR's, and other stuff? Aren't things like INR's determinable only from a records' office? Can a tap/trace be identified through such a service? 2. Is there any way to determine what actual services a 900 number provides short of calling it? (I'm told this number auto-bills $25). [Moderator's Note: The presence of a tap/trace on your line cannot be detirmined by a distant number. Who knows how your call was connected between you and the other end? What tests could *they* possibly perform that would mean anything? What a total ripoff! And for $25 yet! The catch with all 900's is you don't get to hear what worthless information you are getting until after you have paid for it. And to the 'information' provider's point of view, that is just as well. In the old crossbar offices, the presence of a pen-register on the line could be detected by an experienced ear by listening for a very faint amount of 'AC hum' in the half second or so before dial tone arrived. But in the ESS offices, why would they have old mechanical things? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 10:06:33 EST From: Carl Moore (VLD/VMB) Subject: Correction: Bad Zipcode in Article on Military Mail A message about sending mail to servicemembers in the Gulf (cross- posted to TELECOM Digest, which is where I saw it) used zipcode 03866 for Any Servicemember on ship. Try 09866. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 09:59 CDT From: Arun Baheti Subject: Can I Connect With French Minitel via Internet? Is anyone aware of an Internet'able link to the Minitel system? I've heard from a couple of friends in Europe that the system does connect to a few European networks, but am not sure if these are myth or reality. Thanks. [Moderator's Note: We have some information about Minitel in the Telecom Archives (sub-directory: Minitel.info). The archives can be accessed via ftp anonymous login at lcs.mit.edu. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jeff Carroll Subject: Re: Airphones and Receiving Calls Date: 21 Feb 91 19:43:05 GMT Reply-To: Jeff Carroll Organization: Boeing Aerospace & Electronics In article henderson@esvax.hamavnet.com (Javier Henderson - TMS Group) writes: > As I recall from reading the in-flight magazine provided by the > airline, the use of any receiving or transmitting device in the > airplane is not permitted (a stewardress once asked me to turn off my > ham radio ht, even though I was just listening). Are skypagers > exempted from this rule? No. In fact, neither are laptop computers or pocket calculators. Why they allow people to wear digital watches is beyond me :^). On a recent flight on Eastern Airlines (well, OK, not all that recent), I held my AM/FM Walkman about six inches from the LED display on the passenger service unit in my seat (the plane, I believe, was an Airbus A310). The noise floor of the receiver was raised by at least 10 dB (judging with my well-trained ear). Moral of the story: Protect yourself from exposure to dangerous electromagnetic radiation and self-jamming aircraft. Fly only on American-made planes :^) Claimer: my employer would probably agree with the preceding sentiment. Jeff Carroll carroll@ssc-vax.boeing.com ------------------------------ From: Richard Shuford Subject: Re: ANSI X3.64 Document Needed Organization: University of Tennessee, Knoxville--Dept. of Computer Science Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 05:34:56 GMT In TELECOM Digest, Volume 11, Issue 114, Message 5 of 10, eplrx7! dupont.com!cristy@uunet.uu.net (John Cristy) writes: > I need a copy of the ANSI X3.64 document. Apparently that is the > specification for ANSI terminal emulation. Please Email your answer. > And thanks in advance. Until the next Great Disk Space Crunch, a file containing a summary of the control codes of the ANSI standard "X3.64 -- Additional Controls for Use with the American National Standard for Information Interchange" is available for anonymous FTP from the host CS.UTK.EDU (128.169.201.1). The file is: pub/shuford/ansi_x3_64.txt There is a companion ASCII table: pub/shuford/ascii_table.txt If you really want to understand all the codes, you'll still need to read the full standard, but perhaps this will help you get started. Richard S. Shuford shuford@cs.utk.edu BIX: richard ------------------------------ From: Jonathan Whitcomb Subject: Re: Another Inconvenience of the "Other Guys" Date: 21 Feb 91 18:53:49 GMT Reply-To: Jonathan Whitcomb Organization: Alcatel Network Systems, Raleigh NC In article John Higdon writes: > This evening being bill paying time, I opened my Sprint bill and > discovered an unpleasant surprise. There were about $125 worth of > calls billed from a number that I had changed two years ago. > Apparently, Sprint thought that I still had the number and billed the > calls to my account. Let this be a lesson to anyone who changes or > disconnects a telephone number: be sure to notify your IEC of the > change or you, too, might end up being billed for $125 worth of calls > to Edgecliff, TX. > Funny, I don't recall having this problem with AT&T. And now that I > have signed up for AT&T's "Reach Out California", I will no longer > have it with Sprint, either. I too, have recently been having billing problems with Sprint, but this can't be attributed to sloppy internal communications, but rather to some questionable account policies. I shared an apartment with three other people in Brookline, Massachusetts for two years, and the turnover of roommates was very high. We all took responsibilities for paying a utility bill, and when the person who handled the Sprint account left, I transferred it over to my name, along with the calling cards associated with the account. When it came my turn to leave, I obtained an account transfer form from Sprint, filled out my portion and left it with the person who was going to take over the account. Suspecting that he had not gone through with the paperwork, I called Sprint about a week after I moved out. Sure enough, the account was still in my name. At this point, I felt I had fulfilled my responsibility to my former roommates, and it was time to look after my own affairs, so I asked the Sprint representative to cancel the entire account. He said he would do it, and I thought the affair would be finished. Not so. Sprint recently sent me a bill containing phone card charges dated up to two months after I had cancelled the account. When I called customer service, I was told that my account had been changed to a "card only" account. When I complained that I had not authorized such an account, I was chastised for leaving the phone cards behind, and was asked "You wouldn't leave your Visa card behind, would you?" When I finally spoke to a supervisor, I was told that it was "standard procedure" not to cancel accounts, but rather to change them over to card accounts. My question is this: can Sprint legally change the status of an account without the account holder's permission (other than cancelling it for lack of funds)? Am I obligated to pay for charges made to an account I did not authorize? It looks as if my attempt to save my old roommates some hassles and re-connection charges may end up costing me big bucks! At any rate, if Sprint has these kinds of policies, I for one have no intention of doing any more business with them. Jonathan Whitcomb UUCP: <...!mcnc!aurgate!whitcomb> (919) 850-6231 Raleigh, NC ------------------------------ From: "Bernard F. Collins" Subject: Re: How do Businesses Get ANI? And a 911 (711) Story Organization: University of Maryland at College Park Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 15:29:48 GMT In article SKASS@drew.bitnet (Steve Kass) writes: > [Moderator's Note: They get inter-LATA ANI for the same reason I get > it: They have an 800 number. When you are paying for the calls you get > told who you are paying for. If you accept a collect call, the > operator will tell you what number is calling also, if you ask. PAT] Interesting. I tried the ANI demo 800 number after I had blocked Caller ID for my call using *67 which C&P just implemented. No change. They ID'd my number just the same. Are normal LD calls ID'able outside of Maryland when I use *67? Skip Collins, (301)792-6243, collins@wam.umd.edu [Moderator's Note: It is not that calls are ID'able outside of Maryland, but rather, that you misunderstand what *67 will and will not accomplish. Under the assumption that a call is otherwise ID'able -- that the serving CO knows your number and is able to pass it along one way or another to the other end -- admittedly a big assumption until inter-LATA transfer of this information is universal -- then what *67 (or whatever your blocking code is) does is instructs the serving CO thus: "If the recipient of the call subscribes to Caller*ID then do not pass this information to him." Period. *67 does not permit you to avoid passing your number to the CO itself, to an operator handling your call or to the billing equipment. Although both ANI and Caller*ID deliver your number to the recipient of the call, they are technically different functions. *67 only addresses the Caller*ID aspect of it. The act of passing your number to the recipient of an 800 call is actually ANI, not Caller*ID. ANI is not without it's flaws: It passes the billing number sometimes, an otherwise irrelevant DID trunk number at other times, etc. But it is almost 100 percent universal throughout the USA. Caller*ID is not. PAT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: arnold@audiofax.com From: Arnold Robbins Subject: Re: FCC Proposed Rule Changes; Equal Access Date: 22 Feb 91 15:50:59 GMT Organization: AudioFAX, Inc., Atlanta Georgia In article The Moderator Notes: >[Moderator's Note: I don't see why AT&T has to get an 800 number. The >rules established for this plainly call for equal access via 10xxx, >and thus far, AT&T has been insisting everyone follow the rules. I've >heard all the arguments about fraud and difficulty in billing 10xxx >calls, but that is the COCOT owner's problem ... not AT&T's. PAT] Wrong. It's your problem and my problem. I.e., *the customer*. I don't care where I happen to be travelling, if I want to use AT&T to make a long distance call and I can't, then it's my problem. If getting to ATT through an 800 number works where 10xxx doesn't, then that makes life easier for *the customer*, the guy who buys the service and keeps all these folks in business. Pat's point is fine, in theory. But we all know about the difference between theory and practice. Arnold Robbins AudioFAX, Inc. 2000 Powers Ferry Road, #200 / Marietta, GA. 30067 INTERNET: arnold@audiofax.com Phone: +1 404 933 7612 UUCP: emory!audfax!arnold Fax-box: +1 404 618 4581 [Moderator's Note: But the fact that you cannot access AT&T via 10288 is not AT&T's fault. It is a greedy private operator who is denying access illegally. What is to prevent the same greedy operator from blocking access to 950 numbers if desired, or assessing some outrageous surcharge for calling an 800 number, both of which would make it impossible or impractical to use AT&T? The standard set up by the FCC to access the carrier *of your choice* was via 10xxx routing. If a greedy operator decides to deny you your choice of long distance carriers because his deal with that carrier is not as lucrative as with another, then your complaint is with that operator. What the local telcos should do is whenever they find 10-anything access being tampered with at the subscriber level is cut the the service off entirely until the subscriber agrees to bring himself into compliance with the regulations. Then watch the COCOT owner squeal about how his commissions went down that month. Down to zero! PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #149 ******************************   Received: from hub.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa12156; 22 Feb 91 21:49 EST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab26677; 22 Feb 91 20:15 CST Received: from mailinglists.eecs.nwu.edu by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id ab07007; 22 Feb 91 19:10 CST Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 18:59:06 CST From: TELECOM Moderator [To]: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #150 BCC: Message-ID: <9102221859.ab01277@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> TELECOM Digest Fri, 22 Feb 91 18:58:52 CST Volume 11 : Issue 150 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: AT&T's (appropriate) New Market [John Higdon] Re: Telephone Surcharges for Deaf, Poor Anger IBT Customers [Larry Seals] Re: Telephone Surcharges for Deaf, Poor Anger IBT Customers [Will Martin] Re: Finding Your Own Number [Kim Greer] Re: Why 900-STOPPER [Seth Breidbart] Re: Your Evolving Phone Number [Claus Tondering] Re: Early Color Television [Jamie Hanrahan] Re: Early Color Television [Sander J. Rabinowitz] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 10:49 PST From: John Higdon Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: AT&T's (appropriate) New Market dam@mtqua.att.com writes: > Systems 25, 75, and 85 all provide station CPC. Well, you got me there. A number of people (including some from within my organization) corrected me on this. However, it is not particularly useful since it arbitrarily delays upon disconnect. > The station numbering is completely flexible (0 for operator is > fixed). And how, sir, do you assign a button on a digital voice terminal to have the appearance of the single line phone's extension number? Not a DSS button but an actual appearance of the extension? > The hardware configurations are extremely flexible (any card in > any slot, cards may be inserted and administered while system is up) > In fact the three systems use many of the same port cards. But do the stations use the same card? Can I use a single line phone with an analog or digital voice terminal card? There are a number of PBXs out there that allow that. Saves inventory. > Where do you get your facts? The Panasonic brochure? Well, as a matter of fact I spent an entire day in Oakland experiencing the biggest rassle-dassle multi-media show ever seen outside of Las Vegas. AT&T really pulls out all the stops when the salespeople are trying to impress the customer. (I was PBX shopping for a client.) There were more suits in one place than I have ever seen in my life. However, your sarcasm belies your disclaimer. AT&T's standard tactic is to brush aside critisism by making concerns seem trivial and silly. > [word games over MERLIN, deleted] ALL MERLIN systems are overpriced. Every one that I have personally laid hands on has been unintuitive and bizzare. Are you going to try to tell me that a single line phone can be added to a MERLIN (ANY MERLIN), cheaply and easily, and once added has any flexibility? For that kind of money, I would expect more. > By the way, MERLIN, MERLIN PLUS, and SPIRIT are all market leaders, > so they obviously fill the needs of a whole lot of customers. Well, it does show that AT&T can still trade on its image as The Phone Company. I have had some "happy" SPIRIT customers see my (name deleted) phone system and ask why they had never heard of it before. And wish they had. > Don't judge PARTNER before you've seen it. It may not satisfy your > needs, but your needs are hardly representative of the rest of the > world. No, but between my associates, my clients, and my friends, a pattern does begin to emerge. > It certainly sells better. And what in the world does that prove? > Whose head is in the sand? You obviously don't know too much about > MERLIN because you don't specify which MERLIN you are talking about. Sorry, should have said ALL MERLIN. Satisfied? > You don't know too much about Systems 25, 75, and 85, because you were > incorrect in all three attributes you listed. I was incorrect about one. You were misleading about the other two. But I'll back off on the PBX attack if you like. While the systems are somewhat expensive, they are for the most part full featured, modern systems. Where I will never back off is on the small key systems. They are NOT well thought out, do NOT address customers' real needs, and they are NOT inexpensive. > I'm not sending you email, but that's because I don't see any point > in discussing this with you. Typical AT&T attitude. We're too big and important do swat flies like you. Your concerns are not important to us. WE know all there is to know about telephony. You can buy our superior wares, and take what you get or you can waste your money on the inferior competition. > (I presume there is a close connection between Panasonic > and your source of income). I would just like to point out your > biases and misinformation to our fellow Digest readers. You presume wrong. I do not sell phone systems (including the Panasonic), I do not get kickbacks from those who do. Unlike you, I do not work for a manufacturer of telephone systems. Yes, I will admit bias. I am always biased in favor of well thought out, economical products that fill needs. I am always biased against products that do not, but trade extremely well because of image, sales efforts, and public ignorance of the alternatives. > I am probably taking a risk in posting this article because I am an > AT&T employee, but these views are my own. But they are very reminiscent of AT&T's stock attitude. It is only fair to point out that another gentlemen from AT&T has taken the time to e-mail me on behalf of the PARTNER. Unlike this silly exchange, we have been conducting a rational discussion off-line. He (unlike this gentleman) seemed concerned about my critisisms of the AT&T line and wanted to evaluate them and take them back to his group. As the off-line discussion progresses, I will be in a position to speak authoritatively in the matter of the PARTNER. > It is a rebuttal to an incorrect article. How? By just saying I am full of excrement? By going into a semantical review of the use of the word MERLIN? By accusing me of some hidden agenda? By trumpeting to the world the great sales success of the AT&T product line? I am not impressed. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: "Larry W. Seals" Subject: Re: Telephone Surcharges for Deaf, Poor Anger IBT Customers Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service Date: Fri, 22 Feb 1991 15:52:37 GMT In this day and age, it seems like those things that used to be privileges are now being considered as rights. In addition, those who can afford the privileges are being asked to subsidize these "rights" via hidden charges or "access fees". I pay higher insurance premiums because of the uninsured motorists, even though (in NC) you aren't supposed to be issued a license or plates without proof of insurance (and while driving is a PRIVILEGE, some regard it as a God given right). There seems to be that same mentality at work here. Just because the telephone is ubiquitous does not mean that the service it renders has become a right available to anyone for asking. Given the number of goods and services I pay for on which there are these hidden subsidies for those who want the privilege without the cost, how far are we down the road to a socialist society without even knowing it? Anyway, though it sounds cynical, there are phone booths and collect calls and other methods of reaching out and touching someone without reaching out and toucing my wallet. Keep your flammage - you may need it to stay warm... Larry Seals @ Trailing Edge Software ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 13:57:13 CST From: Will Martin Subject: Re: Telephone Surcharges for Deaf, Poor Anger IBT Customers Can anyone explain why there is such a brouhaha, what with class-action suits and vast publicity, over this lousy *15-cent* surcharge, when the $3.50-a-line "FCC-mandated-access-charge", which would better be termed a "Fancier-cars-and-better-country-club- memberships-for-telco-executives-charge", gets imposed with practically *no* public outcry? Why don't these people devote the money they are putting into legal fees, and their time and energy, into a fight that has a far more lucrative possibility as the outcome? Why gripe over 15c when you let $3.50 pass unprotested? Regards, Will wmartin@stl-06sima.army.mil ------------------------------ From: Kim Greer -- rjj Subject: Re: Finding Your Own Number Date: 22 Feb 91 16:18:47 GMT Organization: Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC In article jlangri@relay.nswc.navy.mil writes: > Surely someone on this list must have a good explanation why Roy, > Bernard, myself or anyone else can't generate a "ringback" or number > ID. > There can't possibly that many people like us who don't know the > phone number we're calling from or working on ... can there? > Come'on, WHAT'S THE BIG SECRET!?!?!? If I understand the question correctly, ("why can't I get the number that I'm calling from?") one reason that crops up from personal experience is that of a visitor/nosey relative/otherwise-obnoxious-person coming to visit in the home. Let's say the number is unlisted or non-published or whatever, and the owner would like to keep it that way. The guest asks if it's okay to phone the time-temperature number or some other bogus call, but calls the "tell me the number I'm calling from" number. Bingo, no more private number. Kim L. Greer Duke University Medical Center klg@orion.mc.duke.edu Div. Nuclear Medicine POB 3949 voice: 919-681-5894 Durham, NC 27710 fax: 919-681-5636 ------------------------------ From: Seth Breidbart Subject: Re: Why 900-STOPPER Date: 22 Feb 91 17:50:50 GMT Organization: Morgan Stanley, & Co., Inc. / New York City, NY The Moderator claims that 1-900-STOPPER is worthless because any trace need merely trace through their system; this adds one step, it doesn't stop anyone. I think that depends on the amount of business they get; if I am the only person using 1-900-STOPPER then the outdial call they make must be mine; if there are 500 calls per minute using it, then it might be difficult to tell which one was mine, and impossible to prove it. Also, there may be many people with access to my phone bill (e.g. a burglar or dishonest detective) who don't have access to STOPPER's records. It's cheaper, safer, and almost as easy to use a payphone (non-COCOT), but that's the customer's choice. Seth sethb@fid.morgan.com [Moderator's Note: I had hoped we might receive a message from the person who operates STOPPER with his description of the service, but to date, nothing. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Claus Tondering Subject: Re: Your Evolving Phone Number Organization: Dansk Data Elektronik A/S Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 12:04:32 GMT AAT@vtmsl.bitnet (Asif Taiyabi) writes: > More and more commercial phone numbers are being advertised with a > name or word as part of the number. We are urged to dial 335-DIET or > 970-LOAN. And later: > All-number calling (...) made possible direct > dialing from Europe and other parts of the world. Most countries had > never had letters on their dials. First, thanks to Asif for passing on an interesting article! Second, please note the contradiction in the quotations I have picked out above: 1) More and more phone numbers are advertised with letters n them. 2) All-number dialing is necessary when calling from abroad. American companies, please listen to this piece of advice from a European: If you want business from overseas, do not include letters in your phone numbers. We can't use them over here. Claus Tondering Dansk Data Elektronik A/S, Herlev, Denmark ct@dde.dk ------------------------------ From: Jamie Hanrahan Subject: Re: Early Color Television Date: 22 Feb 91 14:25:30 PST Organization: Simpact Associates, San Diego CA In article , sjr@m-net.ann-arbor.mi.us (Sander J. Rabinowitz) writes: > B> Richard Budd (18 Feb 91 20:15 CDT) > B> Color television wasn't rare, but color television programming > B> certainly was before 1965. CBS being the last holdout. At least part of the first season of _Mission: Impossible_ (Fall of '66, the ones with Stephen Hill playing Dan Briggs as head of the IMF) was filmed in glorious black and white. And THAT, my friends, was one of the highest-budget shows in tv at the time (yes, Paramount was pait more $ per episode for M:I than for Star Trek) > What I find amazing was that there was technology to _record_ color TV > through videotape in the early 50's. I believe that was done with the > late Mary Martin's "Peter Pan" TV special in 1954, and that has got to > be the earliest videotape on record. I spent some time hanging around Loyola Marymount (LA area) College's TV Arts department in '72 or so. Those were the days when color was just about everywhere and the big Ampex 2" quad VTRs were king. Loyola had TWO of them along with the editing console, the HS100 slow-motion disk machine and the HS200 programmer to go with it, two Norelco color cameras, a Grass Valley switcher, the works ... everything but a transmitter. The point of this rambling is that it is absolutely incredible to me that one can buy, for just $200, a machine that will put two hours of video on a spool of tape that can fit in a pocket (if you take it out of the cassette). Or less than a thousand for an S-VHS machine that has better horizontal resolution than those Ampex's had. Sure, it's not genlocked, and the chroma bandwidth and noise aren't very good, but the fact that such inexpensive boxes can do this job AT ALL is pretty damn amazing. Yes, yes, Pat, I know, this should go in rec.video. Jamie Hanrahan, Simpact Associates, San Diego CA Internet: jeh@dcs.simpact.com, or if that fails, jeh@crash.cts.com Uucp: ...{crash,scubed,decwrl}!simpact!jeh [Moderator's Note: And to rec.video it must go -- or go *somewhere* anyway! A final message from SJR follows immediatly, to close the thread where telecom is concerned. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Feb 91 16:23:58 EST From: "Sander J. Rabinowitz" Reply-To: sjr@mcimail.com Subject: Re: Early Color Television SJR> sjr@m-net.ann-arbor.mi.us (Sander J. Rabinowitz) SW> syd@dsi.com (Syd Weinstein) (Feb 21, '91) SJR> What I find amazing was that there was technology to _record_ color TV SJR> through videotape in the early 50's. I believe that was done with the SJR> late Mary Martin's "Peter Pan" TV special in 1954, and that has got to SJR> be the earliest videotape on record. SW> Ok, I know this is off the track, but perhaps Pat will let one more SW> in before he closes the door ... Pat, if you must close this topic, what Usenet newsgroup would be more appropriate? I'd like to continue this, if I can. SW> Mary Martin's special in 1954 was not video taped at all. It was in SW> black and white. As was the second one (I think 57, but I am unsure). SW> The third one was in color, and that is the tape that was restored. (SJR looks embarassed) I have to admit I got taken in. Being born in the 60's has its advantages, but this is not one of them. I had been watching an obituary report on Mary Martin when she died last year, and it showed the color version of Peter Pan with the announcer stating it was sometime in the 50's. Further research does indicate that Mary Martin did Peter Pan at least twice ... once in 1955 (not in '54, my mistake), and once again in 1956; both times were for NBC's Producers Showcase. I'm surprised either of these weren't in color, given RCA's push for color broadcasting then. SW> It [the Mary Martin Special] was done in 1960 (I may be off a year SW> or two) and was recorded in 'low band color', the first color recording SW> technique. Is it possible the 1956 version _could have_ used this technique, or is even this too early? Sorry for misleading anyone on the net. Sander J. Rabinowitz | sjr@mcimail.com -or- | +1 313 478 6358 Farmington Hills, Mich. | sander@attmail.com | 8-) [Moderator's Note: rec.video is a good place to continue. Thanks. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #150 ******************************