From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed May 29 16:11:22 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id QAA00160; Wed, 29 May 1996 16:11:22 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 16:11:22 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199605292011.QAA00160@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #251 TELECOM Digest Wed, 29 May 96 16:11:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 251 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson ISDN News From NM (Roy A. McCrory) New Area Codes in California, etc. (Linc Madison) Reverse-911: Now Police Can Contact You (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: Collect Telephone Sleaze (Edward Connors) Loop-Around Pairs (Martin McCormick) Re: AT&T 8130 Protocol Request (Bruce A. Pennypacker) Re: Caller-ID Delay in California (Larry Lee) Re: MCI Cellular (Chris Wysocki) Re: Around and Around With Jeff Boy (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: More CID Frolics! (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: More CID Frolics! (Linc Madison) Telecom Archives CDROM Ordering Details (TELECOM Digest Editor) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Roy A. McCrory Subject: ISDN News From NM Date: 29 May 1996 15:50:38 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory US West Appeals ISDN Prices, the headline in this morning's paper. Looks like US West wants to do us a favor. All typos are mine. -Roy By Maggi Seiger, Journal Staff Writer US West asked the State Corporation Commission (our 'PUC' -Roy) on Tuesday to allow it to begin offering ISDN service immediately -- at higher rates than previously approved by the commission. The telephone company filed a motion Tuesday appealing the lower rates set by the corporation commission. The commission on May 13 ordered US West to offer residential Integrated Services Digital Network lines for a flat rate of $40.86 a month. The commission set a separate rate of $75.97 a month for business customers. But US West wants to begin service now, charging $75-a-month for both business and residential service for unlimited access, or $50 a month for up to 40 hours of service. US West, New Mexico's largest telephone company, fears it would be unable to recover the $1 billion investment necessary to to make New Mexico ISDN-ready under the commission's proposed rates, said Mack Haley, spokesman for the company. The company has found that less than one-tenth of a percent of customers have subscribed to the service in other states served by US West, he said. "We know there obviously are are segments of New Mexico that are very interested in (ISDN service)," Haley said. "Our concern is that our data shows the widespread interest needed to recover our investment is not there." US West said in a news release that allowing it offer service now would prevent further delays for customers who want ISDN. ISDN stands for ... Using ordinary copper phone lines, it offers a computer connection four times faster than a 28,800 bit-per-second modem. Gloria Tristani, chairwoman for the corporation commission, called US West's motion "unusual." "I don't know what rationale there would be to accept their prices over the prices we ordered," she said. "If they want to start offering (ISDN) service immediately, I'd think tyey'd use our prices and if we rehear the case and decide to change, then they could change the prices." End of quoted article. It's very hard to keep a straight face while typing this! Regards, Roy McCrory ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: New Area Codes in California, etc. Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 10:22:29 -0700 Organization: Best Internet Communications I just realized something about the new area code for southern California and the eastern Sierras. The new NPA is 760, but for many years (when I still kept track of such things), 760 was a test prefix, at least in 415 and 510. In some CO's, dialing 760 would immediately give you voice ANI readback; in others, you had to dial 760-xxxx, where the last four digits were changed from time to time and from CO to CO. Whenever a sales clerk asked for my phone number in a situation where I felt there was no need for it, I would rattle off 760-xxxx and make up a four-digit number. Give the telemarketers a little fun. As for the Bay Area, I did a little looking at prefix assignments and the "master list" of NPA assignments, and peered into my crystal ball. I'm guessing that the new NPA for the 415 split will be 870, and the new NPA for the 510 split will be 350. My guess is based on frequency of use as a prefix in other California NPA's, weighted by proximity. I emphasize that it's only a guess -- don't print your new stationery yet! Incidentally, I spoke with Bruce Bennett about Pacific Bell's lagging in activating new area codes in their switches, and his assistant got back to me, reporting that the word has been sent out, but it will take up to three weeks to update all the switches. I *still* cannot dial either area code 268 for Antigua and Barbuda or area code 561 for West Palm Beach, Florida, although those area codes have been in permissive dialing since 4/1/96 and 5/13/96, respectively. Interestingly, though, since I spoke to Bruce Bennett's office, the point at which calls to 561 get intercepted changed. I used to get intercepted immediately at 1-561, but I now have to dial 1-561-xxx-x before I get an intercept telling me that it is not necessary to dial a '1' before this number -- an invalid intercept message, since the switch should no longer ever assume that I could be trying to dial 1-NXX-XXXX without the NPA. The 415-561 prefix is also right here in the same rate center, San Francisco 1. The test numbers are 1-268-268-4482 (1-ANT-ANTIGUA) and 1-561-615-8484. I was assured that word would go out well in advance for the next round of NPAs -- four of them going into effect on 7/1/96 (three in small Caribbean territories and one in Virginia). Lastly, I finally resolved some of my confusion about the revised 713/281 split plan. The summaries I had heard referred to splitting along the "beltway" around Houston, which I had assumed referred to Interstate 610, "The Loop." It turns out that the "beltway" referred to is much farther out from town, the Loop 8 beltway including the West Sam Houston Tollway. The new boundary approximates the freeway, to the extent possible with existing exchange boundaries. Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 13:56:57 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Reverse-911: Now Police Can Contact You DuPage County, Illinois police can now make hundreds of telephone calls an hour to residents in an area where a crime has taken place or a suspect is on the loose. The DuPage County Sheriff last week inaugurated the 'Reverse-911' community communications system. It transmitted a recorded message to one thousand homes in an unincorporated area of Lombard, Illinois to warn residents about two suspected burglars driving in a Ford Taurus, Chief Deputy Sheriff Robert Soucek said. "For the first time, we are able to saturate an area with hundreds of phone calls an hour, and advise citizens of burglaries, a missing child, suspicious activities and any other circumstances where we could utilize our citizens to help us solve a crime," Soucek said. Using several telephone lines, the $30,000 system can quickly call, for examples, all homes on a certain street, or all day-care centers in the county. Some people who have information about a crime do not call the police and wait for police to question them according to Soucek. That problem might be solved by a phone canvass asking residents who have witnessed a crime to call investigators. The DuPage Sheriff is the first law enforcement agency in Illinois to use the system according to Jackie Bianchi of Sigma Micro of Indianapolis, Indiana, the company that designed the system. Nationwide, eight police departments are using Reverse-911, Bianchi said. In Portsmouth, VA, tips from businesses alerted by the Reverse-911 system led to the arrest of a man charged with passing counterfeit checks and the filing of charges against another man for passing bad checks Portsmouth police Sergeant John Holloway said. In addition, after police made calls about a rash of burglaries in one area and a string of car burglaries in another, both crime waves dropped to almost zero as neighbors became more watchful. A burglary suspect was later arrested. The Village of Vernon Hills, Illinois purchased the service and plans to begin using it in July according to Vernon Hills Police Chief Gary Kupsak. The system has been used for three years in Merrillville, Indiana and Police Chief Lance Huish said, "our citizens really like having this information come to them." The data base in each Reverse-911 system can be constructed from the existing 911 data base, except it is set by default to exclude unlisted or non-published phone numbers. Citizens who specifically want to be added or deleted can request this from the police. According to Soucek, citizens are demanding more and more of police and the answer seems to be in community policing. He said, "it is very simple to encourage citizen involvement. Law enforcement agencies must do all they can to enlist the help of citizens they serve. Most citizens would be willing to help if only they knew how." In addition to warnings to the community from police, the system can also be used to communicate with residents about other emergecies in the town such as a pending storm, a gas leak or a fire. System messages that are not answered or are met with a busy signal are called several additional times in an attempt to deliver the message which can be of varying lengths. If the caller hangs up the phone then the system also disconnects. As noted above, making entries in the data base is quite easy, and citizens can opt to be included or not following the initial default loading and installation. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 13:09:08 EDT From: Edward Connors Subject: Re: Collect Telephone Sleaze In the TELECOM Digest Volume 16 Issue 246 message 6 of 11 perry@netplaza.com wrote about billing by Telephone Billing Service ("TBS,Inc.") in behalf of Goldphone (Miami, Florida). Today 5-28-96 I telephoned to the customer service number 1-800-798-4309 and spoke to "Shirley" at TBS, Inc. She stated that this 800 number is intended for billing inquiries by customers who have accounts at TBS,Inc. and not for public use otherwise. She stated that I have no account with TBS, Inc. and that TBS,Inc. will not "block" charges for third-party or collect calls to me, because although TBS Inc. does process bills for Goldphone, she says TBS Inc. does not block calls to certain phone numbers. Shirley said she has no capability to log when an individual who is not a TBS customer has called to TBS Inc. Customer Service seeking to forbid all toll calls that might be claimed by Goldphone thru TBS Inc. in the future. (There is a technical name for a computerized process used by some carriers which, analogous to a credit authorization, will prevent toll calls from being connected if a customer's account has been flagged for possible fraud. I think Shirley is saying TBS Inc. does not have this kind of remote data base administration online, i.e., TBS Inc. has no information that a toll call is about to be made, TBS only sees the toll charges claimed after a call occurred.) The TELECOM Digest message cited above did indicate that TBS Inc. may "block" third-party or collect calls, but this is not so, according to Shirley. Shirley asked where did I read the misleading information about TBS Inc., and where did I get their 800 number. econnors@freenet.columbus.oh.us [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Shirley may have not been correctly informed. Other representatives there might possibly have a different answer; you know how that goes in telco customer service deparments. None the less, you will want to keep Shirley's 800 number handy so that in the event you are incorrectly billed by TBS you can call to get the neccessary adjustment. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Martin McCormick Subject: Loop-Around Pairs Date: 29 May 1996 15:36:57 GMT Organization: Oklahoma State University Stillwater, OK What exactly are loop-arounds anyway? I have heard about them for many years. Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK 36.7N97.4W OSU Center for Computing and Information Services Data Communications Group [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Loop-arounds are phone lines which, when you dial into them you are immediatly connected to another pair going right back out to new dial tone in the location where the loop is located. For example, for many years , dialing various Chicago numbers of the form 312-any exchange-9909 got you fresh Chicago dial tone via same-exchange-9910. What you then *did* with that new dial tone was where the problems arose. Whatever you did, it appeared that the new call originated from 9910 (which is correct) rather than from wherever you actually were. Consider loop arounds much like anonymous email re-forwarding services on the net. Loop-arounds were never intended for public use. They are not a public service provided by telco for people who need to make anonymous and hard to trace calls. . They are intended for telco testing purposes in most cases. In the case of 9909/9910 cited above, if you waited a few seconds after dialing 9909 and hearing the new dial tone issued to 9910, a dialer would come on the line and send out '611'. That went back to the days when a telephone repairman might be working in some territory other than his own, but he needed to contact his own office. Dialing 611 would get him the office in the territory where he was at that time. To get 'his own 611' he would dial exchange-9909 in his own territory and let it give him a jump to the 611 where he worked out of. That was the idea behind that one. What the phreaks disovered however was that when they heard that dial tone offered to 9910 (which had gone off hook which 9909 latched it) they had about five seconds to dial *whatever they pleased* before the dialer would wake up and do its thing. And by the time it did wake up and give out '611' it was too late: the network had already heard seven or ten or eleven digits from the phreak and was processing that call, not listening any longer to the poor dialer box. And what it pleased them to dial were all sorts of long distance and international calls; calls to 900/976 numbers, etc. Had the phreaks limited themselves to local area unmeasured, untimed calls and used those loop-arounds for the purpose of concealing themselves or confusing the issue when someone down the line started looking for them, all would have been well and fine. But in their greed, they started making five hour long distance calls, etc. Now even the Telephone Company gets phone bills. Department managers at telco get bills for the phone calls made in their office which they have to approve for 'payment', i.e. being charged against their budget, etc. Supervisors in Repair -- in the frames, etc -- started getting bills for all these calls being billed to whatever-9910; phones they had probably long forgotten even existed in the spaghetti-bowl of central office wiring, etc. Most loop-arounds are there for legitimate technical reasons: telco needs to test line conditions from some remote location but actually use a line in the desired place, etc. Some loop-arounds are owned by private companies too lazy or ignorant to know how very important it is to protect themselves against phreaks and hackers. As an example, for many years there was a local seven digit number here in the north suburbs of Chicago which which dialed gave the caller a hook right into the United Air Lines (Unitel) phone network. Just sitting there wide open so anyone calling that number got in response a Unitel dial tone. It was *intended* for executives of United Air Lines working at home to enable them to call directly to the desired centrex extension of UAL at the airline headquarters here. What they seemed to have forgotten -- but the phreaks knew quite well -- was that there were all these nifty three-digit tie line codes which in turn connected the caller to UAL facilties and associated centrexes all over the USA, each of them with in turn their own tie lines to wherever and nine-level outgoing local calls (in those respective communities, etc). And it sat there wide open for years. One three-digit code connected to outgoing WATS lines; another connected to outgoing Canadian WATS; still another connected to the centrex at Boeing Aircraft since UAL is or was about the largest customer of that Seattle firm. Loop-arounds now days are usually passcoded. Now and then one will show up where the owner forgot to properly lockdown his voicemail system against people calling in and getting a dialtone back out or he forgot about or never was told of the remote access port on his PBX which allows the company which installed it to repair it from off site. Maybe he knew about the DISA, but never bothered to change the default passcode which every phreak knows. When the Dimension PBX was a big thing back in the 1970's from AT&T, the passcode to the remote access port was always defaulted to '0000'. No one ever told the customers, and most people at AT&T did not know it either, but you can bet all the phreaks knew it. The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad had to learn it the hard way to the tune of about a hundred thousand dollars in one of the first major loop-around fraud scandals around 1975. Illinois Bell ate the loss, but not before they had security guys traveling far and wide talking to recipients of some of the long distance calls. General Motors had the same thing happen to them about 1975 or so, but it was closer to a million dollars before they finally locked out all the loop-arounds completely. Loop-arounds are still available, and phreaks still discover the passcodes for them. They are still used to 'anonymize' calls to places where the caller would rather not be personally associated. I hope this answers your question. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Bruce A. Pennypacker Subject: Re:AT&T 8130 Protocol Request Date: 29 May 1996 12:43:20 GMT Organization: Stylus Products Group, Artisoft Inc. In article telecom16.246.9@massis.lcs.mit.edu, tony@ics.com (Tony Aiuto) said: > Does anyone know the protocol spoken by the AT&T 8130 telephone? It > has a little serial port out the back which passes caller id > information out to a computer. It works fine with the provided > Windows software, but I want to make it talk to my own applications. > I have been trying to decipher it, but still can't make sense of > their caller id info. It is NOT the standard ascii stream, but some > binary protocol. I'm not sure about the actual protocol, but the AT&T 8130 did at one point have a TAPI service provider (driver) available for it. I'm not sure if you can still obtain it since the phone itself was discontin- ued by AT&T shortly after it hit the store shelves (a terrible shame, IMHO). If you can track down the TAPI service provider then it's pretty straightforward to communicate with the phone via the serial port. FYI, I might be able to track down a copy of the service provider here. We got one of those phones for testing our TAPI software but never actually used it since it got discontinued. Bruce Pennypacker | Stylus Products Group | Phone: +1 617 621 9545 Software Engineer | Artisoft, Inc. | Fax: +1 617 621 7862 Resident TAPI guru | 201 Broadway | http://www.stylus.com brucep@stylus.com | Cambridge, MA 02139 | sales: sales@stylus.com ------------------------------ From: lclee@primenet.com (Larry Lee) Subject: Re: Caller-ID Delay in California Date: 29 May 1996 06:10:02 -0700 Organization: Primenet In article TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein) who had written about a delay in implementing Caller ID in California: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I find it just incredible that you seem > to have so many people in California on this kick. What is with all > these people who seem to feel they have this right to hide themselves > when they make calls no matter whose time they waste or whatever fool- > ish calls they originate? I'll be glad to see 'blocked number blocking' > (where recipients have the right to block calls from persons who hide > their phone numbers) become universal. I am going to encourage everyone > to sign up for it. PAT] If you had any idea of the amount of negative ads that the phone companies have run and are continuing to run on radio and TV, you wouldn't find it incredible. I have not heard one positive or encouraging statement about caller id. It's my understanding that we can buy 'blocked number blocking' from Radio Shack and don't need to bother the phone companies! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 09:56:06 -0400 From: Chris Wysocki Subject: Re: MCI Cellular > I just received a soliciation to join MCI's cellular service and receive > a Nokia 100 phone for free (golly!!!). > Here in NYC, we already have an "A" and "B" system provider. Where > does MCI fit into this system? Can there be multiple "A" system > providers in the same market? I thought not ... > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is just one A/B in each area. > What MCI is doing is reselling either A or B, depending on whatever > was the best deal they could cut for themselves with one of the two. MCI bought Nationwide Cellular Service which is a reseller of both the A (AT&T Wireless) and B (Bell Atlantic / Nynex) carriers in the New York metro area. They run specials on one or the other carrier depending on which one is currently offering them the best deal. I have their service (with Bell Atlantic / Nynex as the underlying carrier) and have been generally pleased with it. Roaming has been relatively painless and auto call delivery works. They did insist that I get a PIN code though. Christopher Wysocki | chris@datalife.com | +1 201 239 7500 x232 Data Life Associates | 500 Bloomfield Ave | Verona, NJ 07044 USA URL: http://wyvax.datalife.com/chris | +1 201 239 0943 Fax ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Around and Around With Jeff Boy Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 11:04:17 -0500 From: TELECOM Digest Editor Here's an update from a reader: I think this system is probably connected to an ISDN line because I have never heard a ring. He appears to have the ability to lock out "problem" numbers because one can call the 800 number from some anonymous place and pester him for a while and then you notice that calls from that number no longer do anything but disconnect immediately. Going to another payphone gives one a whole new lease on life in making Jeffy understand what harrassment is all about. If you send any tones during the announcement, it stops abruptly and a female voice tells you to leave a recording. I am not sure of the upper limit on time, but it is pretty long. I am not sure if the recording time you get this way goes to the same mailbox as what you get if you just let the geek's message run its obnoxious course. I sure hope he's having a fun time listening to all the interesting program material that folks are probably leaving. It takes a whole village to razz a cad. :) ------------------ Another reader wrote to say he had already made Slaton's hit list and sent a copy of the letter Slaton wrote him as proof: Date: 29 May 96 14:07:50 EDT From: "Clifford D. McGlamry" <102073.1425@CompuServe.COM> Pat, I got a nastygram from Jeff Slaton. It is attached. All I did was asked him to remove me from his spam mail list. As you can see, his address is on the mail. I've already sent a notice to abuse@interamp.com for them to deal with him, but don't know what good it will do. Has anyone possibly checked with the State of New Mexico to see if this corporation exists and who/where the registered agent is? > Date: Sat, 25 May 1996 10:41:55 +0130 > To: 102073.1425@CompuServe.COM > From: exd917635@interramp.com (LIGHTNING BOLT v2.0) > Subject: CLIFFORD D. MCGLAMRY Congratulations! > CLIFFORD D. MCGLAMRY Congratulations! > You have been listed as an INTERNET HARASSER. > Those who call to harrass will have their names, addresses and phone > numbers posted in alt 2600, phrack,crack and hack for ALL to have fun. > Have a nice day;) WANK! > PS > We will be adding your SSN in the very near future so that there is a > complete file on you. > Best Regards, > Eunuchs, Etc. ------------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Cliff, from all us here at the Digest, our heartiest congratulations on this award from Jeff boy. As far as I know, you are the first in what may be a large number of netizens to receive this badge of accomplishment, and I hope you display it proudly. News from other places on the net is that a community goal for June is to cause Jeff boy to have a phone bill of at least one-hundred thousand dollars via his 800 number. I'm told the goal is to raise at least one-hundred thousand dollars monthly for the coffers of whatever telco Jeff boy chooses as his 800 carrier. Of course, this is a big project, and it is hoped everyone in the community will participate. It is *not* harrassment to call 800*351*8085 and ask to be removed from any and all mailing lists or data bases the company maintains, although Jeff boy may choose to award you the honor anyway as he did for Cliff as noted above. If it is harrassment you have planned, then I cannot help you with that; you are on your own, but bear in mind he is collecting ANI and issuing 'awards' to phone callers. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 12:43:28 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Re: More CID Frolics! On Wed, 29 May 1996, Stan Schwartz wrote: > Today, I received another "interesting" call. There was no message on > the machine, but all of my CID devices have the name "WASHINGTON" (for > the state, I assume), and a number 206-959-0525. This number is not > only not dialable, but 959 does not exist in either the 206, 360, or 509 > NPA's. > Can anyone help me with TODAY'S mystery??? The NPA-959 prefix, at least in *geographic/POTS* NPA's (i.e. those NPA's *not* of the N00 form, 888, 456, 710?, etc), has for *decades* been reserved by AT&T Long-Lines ("The Bell System"), now Bellcore for test functions. 959 'itself' usually doesn't show up in numerical listings of NXX's by NPA in most Bellcore and other numbering/routing documents. In Bellcore (and other) materials, 959 will usually be indicated in a section of "special" or "universal" central office codes (such as 950, 976, 555, etc). Historically the 55X, 95X, 97X and 57X couldn't be used for EXchange names, as there are no vowels on the 5, 7 and 9. It was difficult to compose a name for these four 'NN' numerical combinations. Notice how many "special" central office codes and test codes (ANAC, Ring-Back, Test Board) have been used in many places using such codes. Personally, I really don't think that a US West, AT&T or GTE test center in Washington state was calling you. A few months back, a friend of mine in the New Orleans area received several calls over a week's time where the CID box displayed a number 407-511-0000, and the word "FLORIDA". Now 407 *is* an area code in Florida. BellSouth serves New Orleans and many exchanges in the 407 Florida NPA. If a CID number transmits via a toll carrier and both the originating and receiving exchanges are both BellSouth, then the receiving end BellSouth switch does a database lookup in the BellSouth LIDB (Line Information DataBase) to get a "name" for the number. If the calling number is not in BellSouth's LIDB, then the receiving end switch gets a City/Ratecenter name and the two-letter abbreviation of the state, from the NPA-NXX of the calling number. On calls I've received from Canada, it seems that the lookup doesn't go down as far as the central office NXX code. It only gets the (primary) province name of the originating NPA. So on calls from Yukon (Area Code 403) or the 403 portion of the Northwest Territories, I get "ALBERTA" spelled out, as the primary province that 403 (presently) covers is Alberta. On calls to me from Prince Edward Island (902) where CID is carried, I also get "NOVA SCOTIA" spelled out, as 902's primary province is Nova Scotia. Well, in my friend's situation where he got "FLORIDA" and the number 407-511-0000, we know that N11 codes are *not* used as regular POTS central office codes -- they are *three-digit local service or special codes*, although I think that Pac*Bell has used local area only seven-digit numbers of the form 611-xxxx or 811-xxxx to reach their telco business office and repair service specialized departments. But you weren't able to dial a Pac*Bell NPA plus the N11-xxxx numbers from outside of Pac*Bell territory. Since the receiving end switch couldn't determine the City/Ratecenter name from 407-511, it simply 'defaulted' the name display to show "FLORIDA" as Area Code 407 is one of Florida's NPA's. It turned out that my friend was at home on one occasion when this 407-511-0000 call rang in. He has a close relative who is frequently in and out of local area hospitals, 'half-way' houses and 'care centers' due to an emotional condition. His close relative wouldn't really have much money, sometimes not even pocket change, when from time-to-time has 'slipped-out' of the care center, unauthorized. It turned out that the relative was *calling collect, locally*, from within the New Orleans area, from a *private payphone* (COCOT) which diverted the call to and through some *AOSlime private operator*, apparantly located in the Orlando FL area! This AOSlime somehow 'identified' its ANI or 'line' number (via SS7?) to/through itself (if the AOSlime company was 'carrying' the call itself) or whatever IXC *actually* carried the call back to the New Orleans BellSouth LATA as 407-511-0000. My friend doesn't remember which AOSlime verbally identified itself (if it even did) that there was a 'collect' call. He refused the charges, as the relative *knows* that they had better return to the care center, pronto! He *still got charged* by AOSlime, via the AOSlime or OAN pages which came with the BellSouth monthly bill, some *three months later*, but after one single call to BellSouth (and explaining to Bell that he would also be complaining to the La. Public Service Commission and the FCC), the charges were removed by Bell! MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: More CID Frolics! Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 10:04:31 -0700 Organization: Best Internet Communications In article , Stan Schwartz wrote: > Last week, we heard about the calls I'm receiving where my CID displays > show the first 10 digits of my account number with a regional bank. > Today, I received another "interesting" call. There was no message on > the machine, but all of my CID devices have the name "WASHINGTON" (for > the state, I assume), and a number 206-959-0525. This number is not > only not dialable, but 959 does not exist in either the 206, 360, or 509 > NPA's. 959 has (or at least had) the singular distinction of being the least-used prefix in the NANP. Only in Hawaii (808) is it in use as a regular prefix. Some telcos, I am told, use it for various test numbers and such. Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ Subject: Telecom Archives CDROM Ordering Details Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 10:42:16 -0700 From: TELECOM Digest Editor People have been asking how to order the Telecom Archives CDROM by mail order. Not everyone has been able to find it in a store as of yet. If you can find it in a store, you will save on the shipping charges, however it might simply be easier for you to order it direct from the publisher, so details are given below. The Telecom Archives is a fifteen year collection of the stuff which has appeared in TELECOM Digest since 1981 along with a few hundred other files of telecom related material. There are a lot of technical files, historical files, etc. Everything that was there through the end of 1995 is included. The cost is $39.95. Please buy a copy, as the royalties will help me a lot. Also, if sales are good, there will be an update with the 1996 material on it at some future point. ============================================================================ shipping information: ============================================================================ Shipping is $5 in the USA, Canada, and Mexico for First Class. Overseas is $9 PER ORDER. There is an additional $3 COD charge (USA Only). UPS Blue Label (2nd day) [USA Only] is $10 PER ORDER, UPS Red Label (next day) [USA Only] is $15 PER ORDER. Federal Express (next day) [USA Only] is $20 PER ORDER. For overseas courier rates, please email us. Ordering Information: You can order by sending a check or money order to Walnut Creek CDROM Suite E 4041 Pike Lane Concord CA 94520 USA 1 800 786-9907 (Toll Free Sales) [open 24HRS] +1 510 674-0783 (Sales-International) +1 510 603-1234 (tech support) [M-F 9AM - 5PM, PST] +1 510 674-0821 (FAX) orders@cdrom.com (For placing an order) info@cdrom.com (For requesting more information or for customer service questions) support@cdrom.com (For technical questions and technical support) majordomo@cdrom.com (Info Robot-automated product information and support) We accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, and Diner's Club. ALL credit card orders MUST include a phone or fax number. COD shipping is available for $8.00 in the US only, NO COD shipping to P O Boxes. Checks and Money Orders payable in US funds, can be sent along with ordering information to our normal business address. California residents please add sales tax. Shipping and handling is $5 (per ORDER, not per disc) for US, Canada, and Mexico, and $9 for overseas (AIRMAIL) shipping. Please allow 14 working days ( 3 weeks ) for overseas orders to arrive. Most orders arrive in 1-2 weeks. -------------------- Therefore, unless you want next day delivery by FedEx which would make it quite expensive you would send $39.95 plus $5 to Walnut Creek at thier address above, or authorize them to charge your credit card, etc. As noted also, customers outside the USA need to pay additional shipping costs. Write to Walnut Creek at the addresses above. If you can find it in a retail outlet then you save shipping and handling charges. In any event, please buy one today! PAT -------------------- The Telecom Archives remains a free resource for the Internet and is available using anonymous ftp massis.lcs.mit.edu. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #251 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed May 29 17:07:25 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id RAA06871; Wed, 29 May 1996 17:07:25 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 17:07:25 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199605292107.RAA06871@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #252 TELECOM Digest Wed, 29 May 96 16:32:48 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 252 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Video Compression, Aug.5-8, Portland (Fu Li) Re: Unbundling Local Loop Access (Yves Blondeel) Ameritech/MFS Interconnect Agreement (Yves Blondeel) Re: Cellular Caller ID (Lynne Gregg) Still Seeking Corporate Sponsorship (TELECOM Digest Editor) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: fli@ee.pdx.edu (Fu Li) Subject: Video Compression, Aug.5-8, Portland Date: 29 May 1996 13:02:34 -0700 Organization: Portland State University, Portland, OR Image and Video Compression: Fundamentals, Applications, and Standards A 4-Day Intensive Course For more information, please see our WWW homepage at http://www.ee.pdx.edu/short_courses/image_compression/ Seats are very limited, early registration is encouraged! About the course: Recent years have witnessed a surge in the need for storage and transmission of digital images and video. Digital cameras and scanners have proliferated the use of digital images in various consumer and commercial applications. Digital broadcast systems and digital video on CD-ROM, which can be played back by affordable multimedia-enabled PC's, have made digital video part of everyday life. Despite the increases in storage and transmission capacities, efficient storage and transmission of images and video is still the foremost challenge. Thus, image and video compression plays a key enabling role for almost all consumer, commercial, and scientific applications. Digital image and video compression is a current focus of research and international standardization. Recent standards such as JPEG, JBIG, H.261, H.263, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, and the emerging standards such as MPEG-4, reflect the state-of-the-art algorithms, and are important in facilitating interoperability among various imaging systems and wide-spread, cost-effective deployment of the technology. Emerging technologies such as wavelets have shown promise in replacing some of the current standards as they might provide more functionality than is available from today's standards. The course provides a detailed description of the fundamentals, a working knowledge of the various image and video compression standards, and a technical description of the emerging technologies. Upon completion of the course, students will be equipped with the background in information theory that will help them understand the performance limitations of various compression solutions. Further, they will gain a solid understanding of the basic principles and standards of digital image and video compression in such a way as to optimize their use for a particular application. Finally, they will gain a technical understanding of the emerging technologies, such as wavelets and fractals, that will enable them to assess their value in serving niche markets not addressed by the current standards, as well as their impact on the development of future standards. The course starts on the first day with a broad set of product and application examples that establish the need for compression. This is followed by a brief description of the existing and emerging image and video compression standardization activities, their scope and their functionalities. Next, the three main components of compression systems, representation, quantization, and symbol modeling and encoding are discussed. The topic of symbol modeling and encoding is studied in detail where fundamental concepts, such as Markov models, entropy, and Shannon's noiseless coding theorem, are discussed. A working knowledge of various encoding strategies, such as Huffman coding, arithmetic coding, LZW coding, and Rice coding, is presented and their relative merits and shortcomings are compared. Finally, lossless encoding algorithms, such as the current and emerging JPEG lossless standard and bit plane/JBIG coding, are explained. The second day focuses on lossy image compression and the JPEG standard. It also builds the foundation for video compression schemes such as the MPEG and the H.26x family of standards. First, a brief review of various quantization strategies, such as scalar, vector, and trellis-coded quantization, is provided and their performance merits are compared. This is followed by a detailed description of transform coding with particular emphasis on the discrete cosine transform (DCT), the fundamental building block of all image and video compression standards. Next, the JPEG international standard for the compression of continuous-tone color still images is studied and its baseline, extended, and enhanced modes of operation are described in detail. Various issues regarding the implementation of JPEG in practical systems, such as the design of Q tables, the effect of multiple coding and software and hardware speed, are discussed. Numerous image examples supplement the technical descriptions. The third day deals with emerging technologies and video compression. Wavelet and sub-band encoding schemes and their performance merits relative to DCT are studied both analytically and by subjective evaluation of many image examples. The basics of fractal image compression are reviewed. Video compression, and the major components of a video compression system, pre-processing, encoding, decoding, and post-processing, are discussed. Fundamental principles of motion estimation and an overview of widely used motion estimation algorithms, such as block matching and hierarchical block matching, are presented. Motion estimation utilizes the temporal redundancies in video sequences to increase compression efficiency. It also facilitates the development of multi-frame pre- and post-processing algorithms that are more powerful than their single-frame counterparts. Principles and algorithms of motion-compensated noise suppression and defect removal are presented as examples of pre-processing. Pre-processing is often among the differentiating factors used in evaluation of an entire video compression system due to its significant impact on the resulting compression efficiency. Video format standards conversion is an important post-processing step, especially in multimedia applications where the decoded video may have to be displayed by a system adhering to a different video format standard. Techniques for interlace-to-progressive scan conversion and frame rate conversion are discussed and the importance of motion information in standards conversion is demonstrated. Finally, a detailed discussion of the fundamentals and the working principles of the MPEG1 video compression standard is provided. The final day is devoted to MPEG2, MPEG4, H.261 and H.263 standards. The MPEG2 video compression standard is presented with emphasis on its differences from MPEG1. Its applications in digital video disk (DVD) and Advanced TV (ATV) standardization are also discussed. An overview of the emerging MPEG4 standard is presented which targets new application areas with increased interactivity and extendibility. The second half of this day is devoted to video conferencing standards beginning with H.261 which targets ISDN at data rates of multiples of 64 k-bits/sec. The newly developed standard, H.263, incorporates several recent innovations over H.261 and targets data rates less than 64 k-bits/sec. It has demonstrated acceptable quality over PST-N networks using 28.8 k-bit/sec modems and promises to bring video conferencing to the mass consumer market. Details of H.261 and H.263 will be presented, followed by demonstrations of video quality using simulations and product demos. Instructors: Majid Rabbani, Eastman Kodak Company M. Ibrahim Sezan, Sharp Laboratories of America Thomas Gardos, Intel Corporation Organizers: Fu Li Rolf Schaumann Portland State University Course Outline: Introduction: -- Need for compression (application and product examples.) -- Statistical redundancy and perceptual irrelevancy, examples -- Compression building blocks transformation, quantization, symbol modeling and encoding -- Brief overview of lossless and lossy compression standards Symbol Modeling and Encoding: -- Markov modeling and entropy -- Huffman coding -- Arithmetic coding -- Rice coding -- LZW coding Lossless Compression Techniques: -- Differential Pulse Code Modulation (DPCM) -- Bit plane encoding and JBIG -- Current and emerging JPEG lossless standards Quantization Strategies: -- Uniform scalar -- Nonuniform MM-SE scalar (Lloyd-Max) -- Entropy constrained quantization (ECQ) -- Vector quantization (VQ) -- Trellis-coded quantization (TCQ) The JPEG International Standard: -- Discrete cosine transform (DCT) -- Baseline JPEG -- Extended JPEG features -- Enhancements to JPEG (adaptive quantization for fixed-rate JPEG, etc.) -- JPEG implementation issues (fast DCT's, effect of multiple coding, design of quantization tables, etc.) Emerging Technologies: -- Wavelets (analysis and synthesis filter design, quantization and coding strategies, comparisons to JPEG, etc.) -- Fractals (Jacquin's technique, weighted finite automata (WFA)) Motion Estimation: -- Overview of widely used algorithms (block matching, hierarchical block matching) Pre-and Post-Processing: -- Motion-compensated noise filtering as pre-processing -- Video format conversion: interlace to proscan and frame rate conversion. Video Compression Standards: -- The MPEG1 standard -- The MPEG2 standard (including discussions on rate control, bit-stream syntax and utilization in Digital Video Disk and Advanced TV standardization). -- The H.261 and H.263 standards. Examples of silicon and board-level implementations of standards. -- Actual product demonstrations About the Instructors: MAJID RABBANI - received his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the UW-Madison in 1983. He is currently a Research Associate and the head of the image compression and video processing group in the Imaging Science Division of Eastman Kodak Research Laboratories. He is also involved in many educational activities among which are teaching graduate courses at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), satellite courses for NTU (National Technological University), and short course for SPIE, IS&T, SID, and other technical Societies. He is the recipient of the 1988 C. E. K. Mees Award (Kodak's highest award for for excellence in research) and the co-recipient of the 1990 Emmy Engineering Award in recognition of the Kodak Still-Video Transceiver System. He represents Kodak at the International JPEG and MPEG organizations. Dr. Rabbani has testified as an expert witness for the digital processing of images and video in several court cases, including the digital enhancement of the Rodney King beating videotape in 1993. His current research interests span the various aspects of digital signal and image processing where he has published over 40 technical articles and holds 11 patents. He is a fellow of SPIE and a senior member of IEEE. He also was the general Symposium Chair for the 1996 SPIE/IS&T co-sponsored Electronic Imaging Symposium in San Jose. He is the coauthor of the book "Digital Image Compression Techniques" published in 1991, the editor of the SPIE Milestone Series on "Image Coding and Compression", published in 1992. IBRAHIM SEZAN - received his Ph.D degree in Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1984. He is currently the Senior Manager of Digital Video Processing at Sharp Laboratories of America, Camas, Washington. He also holds an adjunct Associate Professor position at the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Rochester. From 1984 to 1996, he worked at Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, New York, where he headed the Motion and Video Technology Area in the Imaging Research and Advanced Development Laboratories from 1992 to 1996. Dr. Sezan was the co-recipient of the A. B. Du Mont award at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1984. During 1988-1992, he served as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging. From 1992 to 1994, he was an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Image Processing. He contributed to the books Image Recovery: Theory and Application (Academic Press, 1987), Mathematics in Signal Processing (Oxford, 1987), Handbook of Signal Processing (Marcell Dekker, 1988), Digital Image Restoration (Springer Verlag, 1991), Real-Time Optical Information Processing (Academic Press, 1994), and edited Selected Papers in Digital Image Restoration (SPIE Milestone Series, 1992). He is the co-editor of the book Motion Analysis and Image Sequence Processing, published by Kluwer in 1993. His current research interests include video modeling, analysis and processing, and their applications to video compression and digital video databases. Dr. Sezan is a participant in the MPEG standards; he actively publishes and teaches in the area of image and video processing. THOMAS GARDOS - received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia in 1993. He is currently senior engineer in the Intel Architecture Labs of Intel Corporation where he is technical lead on development of standards-based and propriety video compression algorithms for video conferencing applications. He represents Intel at the ITU H.263 standards group and is principal representative to ISO's MPEG4 group. He chairs the audio/video compression subcommittee of the Intel Research Council which is the formal channel of interaction to academia at Intel. He also is an adjunct instructor at Portland State University and Oregon State University where he teaches courses on digital image and video processing. He has served as Image Processing conference and session chairs at the SPIE Electronic Imaging Symposia in San Jose. He won the Best Student Paper award at SPIE's 1992 Visual Communications Conference and was awarded an NSF Fellowship in the 1991 Japan Summer Institute. His current interests are in image and video compression as well as multidimensional signal processing where he has authored numerous articles and patent applications. Registration Information: Dates: Monday, August 5 - Thursday, August 8, 1996 Times: Regular sessions will begin at 8:30 AM and end at 5:00 PM. Refreshments will be served at 8:00 AM daily and at breaks. Lunch periods will be from 12:00 to 1:30. Location: Classes will be held at Portland State University, (PSU), located in downtown Portland. Detailed information will be sent to registrants. For further information: Phone: (503) 725-3806 or 1-800-547-8887 ext. 3806 Email: laura@ee.pdx.edu WWW: http://www.ee.pdx.edu/short.course/image_compression/ Early Registration: $1195. Registration form and payment must be postmarked JULY 10, 1996. Late Registration: $1295. Registration form and payment postmarked AFTER JULY 10, 1996. All registration materials must be received JULY 25, 1996. Fees include lecture, course materials, refreshments and a Certificate of Completion. A 15% discount will be granted when 6 or more people from the same company location register for the course. Refund: A full refund will be given for cancelations received at PSU by mail, phone, or e.mail, prior to July 25, 1996. NO REFUND will be made for a cancelation notice received after July 25, 1996, or for no attendance. A substitute may attend in place of the registered participant. Accommodations: For reservations made by July 15, 1996, special rates for participants have been arranged with: Airline-Carlson Travel: 1-800-634-2306, 5% Airline discount (Credit Cards Only). Ask for Catherine. Days Inn City Center: 1-800-899-0248, $64 single and double occupancy Red Lion Inn, Portland Center: (503) 221-0450, $105 single, $120 double Mention Video and Image Compression when making reservations. Both hotels are a pleasant 10 minute walk to PSU. Buses and MAX trains in the downtown area are free, so it should not be necessary to rent a car. Other nearby hotels: The Benson:(503)228-2000 Heathman Hotel:(503)241-4100 Hilton Hotel:(503)226-1611 Mallory Hotel:(503)223-6311 Marriott Hotel:(503)226-7600 Excursions: Spousal/Companion activities will be arranged depending on interest. Intensive Course Registration Image and Video Compression: Fundamentals, Applications, and Standards August 5 - 8, 1996 Portland State University, Portland, Oregon Name_____________________________________________ Company__________________________________________ Address__________________________________________ City/State/Zip___________________________________ Work Phone_____________________Email address_____________________________ Payment Options: $1195 if postmarked BY July 10, 1996 $1015 per person for six or more registrations from one company location. $1295 if postmarked AFTER July 10, 1996 $1100 per person for six or more registrations from one company location. Enclosed is a check made payable to Portland State University - Electrical Engineering Department Please charge the registration fee to my credit card: Visa __________ MasterCard __________ ____________________________________________ Account Number, Expiration Date ____________________________________________ Signature I would like to receive information on the Spousal/Companion activities. MAIL OR FAX FORM TO: Portland State University Department of Electrical Engineering Image and Video Compression P.O. Box 751 Portland, OR 97207-0751 Phone: (503) 725-3806 Fax: (503) 725-3807 Email: laura@ee.pdx.edu All registration materials must be received by July 25, 1996 For more information, please see our WWW homepage at http://www.ee.pdx.edu/short_courses/image_compression/ ------------------------------ From: Yves Blondeel Subject: Re: Unbundling Local Loop Access Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 20:09:46 +0200 Organization: Brussels Free Universities VUB/ULB Reply-To: yblondee@vnet3.vub.ac.be Hello Andrew, and greetings to Stefan Stanislawski, Your question: > Does anybody know of the practical experience of unbundling of access > to the local loop (ie interconnecting at the line side of the central > office)? I am a regulatory affairs specialist rather than a technical expert, but I believe that relevant information (conceptual rather than technical) should be (or should soon become) available based on important interconnection agreements reached between Ameritech and MFS and between Frontier Telecom (RochesterTel) and Time Warner Cable. In both these cases, I understand that line-side access is explicitly included in the agreement and that the agreements are filed with the State regulatory authorities. I don't have the filed documents. In fact, I would be most interested in obtaining them. Do note that MFS and Time Warner Cable are local (access) network operators. Also, they both run advanced access networks rather than traditional twisted-pair networks. For your information, in the next message is a press release on the Ameritech-MFS interconnect agreement (MFS press release) and an extract from the Frontier Open Market Plan which can be found on their Web page: http://www.frontiercorp.com/corporate/open_market_plan.html Yves Blondeel, T-REGS yblondee@vnet3.vub.ac.be (Stefan may recall that I contributed to the ONP Local Loop Study). ------------------------------ From: Yves Blondeel Subject: Ameritech/MFS Interconnection Agreement Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 20:09:46 +0200 Organization: Brussels Free Universities VUB/ULB Reply-To: yblondee@vnet3.vub.ac.be MFS COMPLETES LANDMARK REGIONAL CO-CARRIER INTERCONNECTION AGREEMENT WITH AMERITECH First Such Agreement Since Telecommunications Act of 1996 Passed OMAHA, NEB., May 22, 1996 -- MFS Communications Company, Inc. (MFS) announced today that -- in line with the pro-competitive provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 -- it has entered into a comprehensive co-carrier interconnection agreement with Ameritech, covering Ameritech's entire marketing region, which includes Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. This is the first agreement between a Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) and a facilities-based competitor, which seeks to satisfy specific requirements of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. "Ameritech is to be commended for its quick action and efforts to meet its obligations under the new law," said James Q. Crowe, chairman and chief executive officer of MFS. "Ameritech understands our commitment to offer high quality local switched services and that this agreement, coupled with effective implementation by both companies, is key to accomplishing our goal." Under the new law, many of the new rights enjoyed by the RBOCs are contingent upon their ability to foster competition in their local markets. The Act mandates a specific 14 point co-carrier "check list" that defines various pro-competitive actions that RBOCs must take before being allowed to provide interLATA long-distance service within their own service territories. Under the sweeping agreement, MFS will be able to begin implementing broad based local exchange services throughout Ameritech's service territory. The agreement is designed to allow the prompt development of local competition in an economically efficient and technically feasible basis. In 1995, MFS reached a more limited interim interconnection agreement with Ameritech and is currently offering competitive local switched services in Chicago and Detroit markets. "For the first time in Ameritech's entire five-state region, a competitive carrier is in position to efficiently and cost-effectively offer customers a meaningful choice for local telephone service over its own fiber optic networks, augmented by unbundled leased local phone lines from Ameritech," said Crowe. "We entered this agreement because MFS is committed to offering extensive local switched services in the Ameritech region. This agreement provides us the specific tools to do so and accelerates our provision of competitive local services in this region. "This agreement is state-of-the-art in terms of promoting effective local telephone competition and establishes a benchmark for negotiations with other RBOCs," said Crowe. Agreement Provides Blueprint For Provision of Competitive Services The MFS-Ameritech agreement provides a detailed and comprehensive blueprint for the provision of competitive local services. It builds on MFS' practical experience of providing local services in other markets and addresses the myriad complex procedures necessary to effect local competition and the interconnection of the two companies' networks. Included in the agreement are provisions providing for: Interconnection at any technically feasible point within Ameritech's network, equal in quality to what it provides itself or to affiliates, including via a dual fiber optic SONET network connection. Access to the poles, ducts, conduits and right-of-way owned or controlled by Ameritech at just, reasonable and nondiscriminatory rates. Unbundled and reasonably priced network elements including local loop transmission from Ameritech's central offices to the customer's premises, distinct from local switching or other services. Exchange of all local traffic at a fully reciprocal and identical $.009 rate per minute, regardless of the point of interconnection. Receipt by MFS of terminating access charges for long-distance calls made to its customers. Nondiscriminatory access to 911 and emergency 911 services; directory assistance services to allow MFS customers to obtain telephone numbers; operator call completion services and white pages directory listings for MFS' customers. The agreement specifies the procedures for Ameritech to provision and implement these activities on a detailed, technical and practical basis. under the agreement, will subject Ameritech to damages and other penalties. The agreement will be submitted for approval to the individual state regulatory agencies and ultimately, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). MFS Quick To Initiate Telco Act Implementation On February 8, 1996 -- the same day President Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 into law -- MFS contacted Ameritech and all the other RBOCs and independent telephone companies active in its markets to initiate co-carrier interconnection negotiations. Teams of regulatory, operational and technical experts from the two companies began almost immediately negotiating the terms of this agreement. MFS is also engaged in interconnection discussions with other RBOCs and independents. Crowe credits the President and Congress for having created the progressive telecommunications environment making this agreement possible. "This agreement underscores the effectiveness of the provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which clearly encourages the RBOCs to cooperate and reach mutually acceptable agreements with competitive carriers," said Crowe. MFS is a leading provider of communication services for business and government. Through its operating company subsidiaries, MFS provides one-stop shopping for integrated local and long distance services as well as a wide range of high-quality voice, data and other enhanced services and systems specifically designed to meet the requirements of business and government customers. MFS' common stock is traded on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol MFST. MFS is headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. ***** ***** From: http://www.frontiercorp.com/corporate/open_market_plan.html Competitor Benefits Complete access to Rochester Telephone's existing, fully digital network Full interconnection of competing local networks Reciprocal compensation for network usage Equal access to network databases Equal access to local telephone numbers Convenient telephone number portability "We applaud the move. We are fast approaching the day when all services will be competitive."- Ameritech spokesperson By the end of the first quarter of 1995, the following companies had begun to offer or announced their intention to offer various telecommunications services in Rochester, New York. Many of them are using the Rochester Telephone local network as their platform for customer service: ACC AT&T Citizens Telecom Frontier Communications of Rochester ICS/Executone Telecom, Inc. MFS (Metropolitan Fiber Systems) TeleChoice Network Time Warner ------------------------------ From: Lynne Gregg Subject: Re: Cellular Caller ID Date: Wed, 29 May 96 11:11:00 PDT doc_dave@bga.com (David Brod) wrote: > I am not a paranoid regarding caller ID, but I am rather upset about > this. Since cellular users must pay for incoming calls, this seems a > valid reason to not have to pass around my cellular number via caller > ID. Additionally, since cellular phones do not offer caller ID, we > do not have the option not to answer the phone either. As Product Manager for AT&T Wireless' Caller ID service, let me assure you that we completely understand your position. When AT&T Wireless originally launched Caller ID on its cellular network in early 1995, I personally felt that the majority of consumers might feel just as you do. Therefore in the first few markets that offered service, Per Line Blocking was offered as a DEFAULT. We sent notices to customers offering to remove Line Blocking at no charge. We also explained the use of *67 and *82. However, during 1995, the FCC Order on Calling Number Services kicked in. This Order states that all phone companies -- including cellular companies -- MUST pass CPN (Calling Party Number in this case is your cellular number). They further cited an example similar to what we had been doing (defaulting to Line Blocking) and stated that this could no longer occur. So, to comply with the FCC Order, AT&T Wireless no longer offers Per Line Blocking as a default. We do send notices to all active customers (by way of Bill Letter -- so watch your invoices) prior to launch of Caller ID. This notice now offers Per Line Blocking at no charge (one or two States do not allow Line Blocking, so we have a couple of exceptions). If you call Customer Care or mail in your request on the Bill Letter, we will act on your order. I am pleasantly surprised to find that the majority of our customers DO want to send their cellular numbers (especially those calling wired users who have Anonymous Call Rejection). We have received numerous requests to remove Line Blocking in those markets where we applied a default (prior to FCC Order). In markets that offered Per Line Blocking, far less than expected numbers of customers are opting for the service (it *is* free). I believe that Caller ID is more valuable for cellular users. Since they do pay for incoming calls, knowing who's calling is clearly more valuable. also understand the flip side of this, which is of concern to you. By disclosing your cellular number, you may increase the incidence of unwanted inbound calls which result in a charge. By all means, order Per Line Blocking or use *67. Regarding the transmission of "other" numbers. The FCC is very clear that no substitutions occur. CPN is CPN. Despite numerous petitions, the FCC is standing firm on their Order. I believe that they are attempting to strike a balance among consumers. I also believe the primary concern is with the consumers who PAY for Caller ID. This issue came before the FCC because consumers who paid for Caller ID infrequently saw numbers appearing on their displays. In a nutshell, consumers were not getting what they were paying for. Also, there were inconsistencies among telephone companies in terms of passing and blocking CPN. So the FCC Order goes a long way to address these issues. Finally, AT&T Wireless WILL offer Caller ID to digital cellular subscribers in all cities by Fall, 1997. Please feel free to post to me directly if you have comments or questions. I'm glad to help. Regards, Lynne Gregg lynne.gregg@attws.com ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Still Seeking Corporate Sponsorship Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 17:00:00 EDT This is just a note to remind Digest readers that corporate sponsorship of the Digest effective July 1 is still urgently needed. The grant given by Microsoft to me last year expires at the end of June. If there is any way your company can be of assistance, please do so. PAT ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #252 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu May 30 14:19:20 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id OAA15517; Thu, 30 May 1996 14:19:20 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 14:19:20 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199605301819.OAA15517@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #253 TELECOM Digest Thu, 30 May 96 14:19:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 253 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Bell Atlantic Simplifies Richmond, VA Dialing (Tad Cook) Security Alert (kellyb@pipeline.com) "Thank You For Choosing Bell South!" (Chris Telesca) AT&T Movie Placement (Judith Oppenheimer) International Conference on Spoken Language 96 Update (Jim Polikoff) Information Wanted on Athena International (Carter Thomasson) Re: Cellular Caller ID (Mark Gabriele) Re: Cellular Caller ID (Andrew C. Green) Re: Cellular Caller ID (Boyd Roberts) AIN/SS7 Question (Adam H. Hersh) I Hate Hayes (Dennis Toeppen) Last Laugh! It Makes a Young Girl Cry (Kevin Tieskeotter via Kelly Breit) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Cook Subject: Bell Atlantic Simplifies Richmond, VA Dialing Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 09:23:56 PDT Bell Atlantic Simplifying Local Calls Between Richmond, Va., and Tri-Cities By Michael Martz, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News May 30--"Seven digits, not 11," is the new rule for Bell Atlantic- Virginia customers to remember when calling between the Richmond and Tri-Cities areas. Don't dial 1 or 0, and don't dial the area code. Just call the seven-digit local number. Beginning Saturday, calls between the Richmond and the Petersburg- Colonial Heights-Hopewell areas no longer will be subjected to long-distance tolls. The same applies to calls between parts of the Richmond area and Cartersville, Cumberland, Fife and West Point, and between Chester and the Dinwiddie, McKenney, and Waverly exchanges. But consumers beware: Seven-digit dialing comes at a price. Bell Atlantic's Community Choice local calling plan, already implemented among exchanges on the Eastern Shore, replaces long-distance tolls with three optional rates. All of them are much cheaper than Bell Atlantic's current long-distance tolls, but they're more expensive than a local telephone call. And, by the way, monthly local telephone rates will increase in all of the affected exchanges except for those in the Richmond area. The monthly increases range from $1.69 in Petersburg, Colonial Heights, Hopewell and Waverly to $3.44 in Cartersville, Fife and West Point. The rate will rise by $2.42 a month in McKenney and $2.76 in Cumberland. In return, customers in those exchanges will be able to call the Richmond area at reduced rates. Currently, for example, a four-minute call from Petersburg to Richmond costs 83 cents -- 32 cents for the first minute and 17 cents for each additional minute. Beginning Saturday, customers will have these choices for paying to make the same call: -- By the minute, the call would cost 22 cents (7.9 cents for the first minute and 4.5 cents for each additional minute); -- By five-minute blocks, the call would cost 20 cents; -- By flat rate, a residential customer would pay $15 a month to make unlimited calls. Anyone who doesn't choose will pay by the minute. Customers can change options without charge for six months, but then the company will make them pay to switch ($9 for residences, $17 for businesses). Some people will be able to get a jump on seven-digit dialing because the company has been carrying out the plan gradually. "For a number of phones right now, you can dial it locally," said spokesman Paul T. Miller Jr. But until Saturday, they'll be billed at the old toll rates. The State Corporation Commission approved the Community Choice plan in December. One commissioner, Hullihen W. Moore, dissented because he believed state regulation requires a public hearing that never was held. The plan represents the third part of Bell Atlantic's 1993 strategy of expanding local calling areas and options, both in response to customer demand and in preparation for competition in so-called short-haul longdistance markets. The company expanded calling in the Richmond area and eliminated tolls on calls between contiguous areas, including those separated by water, such as Newport News and Norfolk. Bell Atlantic estimates that it will lose about $27 million a year in revenue for the three initiatives, but the company avoids having to compete with long-distance carriers to serve the affected routes. ----- FOR ONLINE SERVICES: Visit Gateway Virginia, the online edition of the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch. On Prodigy, jump: Gateway Virginia. On the World Wide Web, point your browser to http://www.gateway-va.com ------------------------------ From: kellyb@pipeline.com Subject: Security Alert Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 13:34:42 GMT Organization: PSINet/Pipeline USA <<<<<<>>>>>>> Visit The SPYZONE for your Agency, Company or Personal Security Needs. Target your Web Browser to: http://www.spyzone.com Our products can capture spies, stop competitors, provide competitive edges and secure you from all sorts of harm. 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For complete product line and prices contact us online at ; Our Web Page http://www.spyzone.com Our Email spyzone@webscope.com Phone/East Coast-USA 1-800-722-4490 Phone/West Coast-USA 1-800-779-7055 Overseas please Phone 1-212-688-8500 FAX Number 1-212-983-1278 For many more info on our products or great links to related Security objectives. ------------------------------ From: Chris Telesca Subject: "Thank You For Choosing Bell South!" Date: 30 May 1996 04:10:04 GMT Organization: CampusMCI What's the deal with that recorded message thanking me for choosing Bell South for my local home telephone service. I don't have any freaking choice what company I get my local service from -- at least not yet. If given the choice, I will not choose the company that nickle and dimes me with all these local calling area options. I'm tired of all this crap, and with AT&T's Long-Distance calling plan. Just give me the lowest flat-rate for long-distance calls, and extend the local calling area. When I used to live in Hershey and Mechanicsburg, PA, I used to be able to call friends in the other communities as local calls -- even though they were in different counties and were probably 30 to 40 miles apart. Stop screwing around making us think that were getting a "special deal". and just lower the prices, like you assured us would happen with the new Telecommunications Bill. Chris Telesca PO Box 98102 / Raleigh, NC 27624-8102 Voice/Fax (call first for fax): (919)676-2597 Check out the NOREDNC web page at - http://www.angelfire.com/pages0/norednc ------------------------------ From: callbrand@aol.com (CallBrand) Subject: AT&T Movie Placement Date: 29 May 1996 21:44:25 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: callbrand@aol.com (CallBrand) Anyone know how much AT&T paid for placement in the movie, "The Truth About Cats & Dogs"? Judith Oppenheimer, President, Interactive CallBrand A leading source of information on 800 issues. CallBrand@aol.com, 1 800 The Expert, (ph) 212 684-7210, (fx) 212 684-2714 http://www.users.nyc.pipeline.com:80/~producer/ ------------------------------ From: polikoff@asel.udel.edu (Jim Polikoff) Subject: International Conference on Spoken Language 96 Update Date: 29 May 1996 19:21:45 -0400 Organization: AI duPont Institute ====================================================================== ICSLP 96 -- Update and Reminder ====================================================================== Fourth International Conference on Spoken Language Processing ****** October 3-6, 1996 Wyndham Franklin Plaza Hotel Philadelphia, PA, USA ****** We would like to announce the availability of the preliminary program for ICSLP 96 on our WWW site at http://www.asel.udel.edu/icslp. This site will provide up-to-date listings of the full contents of the preliminary program and allow authors and prospective attendees to search the ICSLP 96 abstract database by content. Visitors may use this web site to locate the session assignments of papers and to read abstracts of papers accepted for presentation (if available in machine readable form). Please note that the deadline for early registration is July 1, 1996. The registration form and hotel accommodation information are available at the ICSLP 96 web site. The registration form (in postscript) can be copied, printed and returned by post with payment enclosed. If fees are to be paid by credit card, the form may also be returned by FAX. ___________________Registration Information______________________________ Full registration includes: Admission to technical sessions, Reception, Banquet, Proceedings (printed & CD-ROM) Limited registration includes: Admission to technical sessions, Reception, Proceedings on CD-ROM Early Registration fees: Member* Non-Member Student Full $425 $525 $250 Limited $300 $400 $150 Late registration: After July 1, add $60 After August 9, add $100 Additional Tickets: Banquet $60 Reception $50 Additional Proceedings: Printed $125 CD-ROM $15 * Sponsoring and Cooperating Organizations: The Acoustical Society of America The Acoustical Society of Japan American Speech and Hearing Association Australian Speech Science and Technology Association European Speech Communication Association IEEE Signal Processing Society Incorporated Canadian Acoustical Association International Phonetic Association Linguistic Society of America ICSLP 96 A.I. duPont Institute P.O. Box 269 Wilmington, DE 19899 E-mail: ICSLP96@asel.udel.edu URL: http://www.asel.udel.edu/icslp Phone: +1-302-651-6830 Fax: +1-302-651-6895 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 16:23:07 EDT From: CThomasson@ASSOCDATA.COM (Carter Thomasson) Subject: Information Wanted on Athena International Looking for information on Athena Intenational. They offer international call back, smart card and other services. The services they offer seem to be good and well priced. Has anyone used them or compared them to others in this crowded field? Thanks, Carter Thomasson (CThomasson@assocdata.com) Associated Data Services ------------------------------ From: gabriele@rand.org (Mark Gabriele) Subject: Re: Cellular Caller ID Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 09:59:01 -0700 Organization: RAND In article , Lynne Gregg wrote: > As Product Manager for AT&T Wireless' Caller ID service, let me assure > you that we completely understand your position. When AT&T Wireless > originally launched Caller ID on its cellular network in early 1995, I > personally felt that the majority of consumers might feel just as you > do. Therefore in the first few markets that offered service, Per Line > Blocking was offered as a DEFAULT. [snip]... > So, to comply with the FCC Order, AT&T > Wireless no longer offers Per Line Blocking as a default. This raises a problem that is particularly irritating in some circumstances with which I am familiar. I post it only to ask if this type of situation is being given proper consideration. I can fully understand people setting "anonymous caller rejection" on their home phone lines. However, there are times when it is problematic. For example: A person calls a physician's office (after hours) with a medical emergency. The person's call results in the physician being paged to call the patient. The physician calls the patient from their phone (home or cellular), with blocking set ON. The physician's call is rejected because the patient has the "anonymous call rejection" set ON. Ooops. Now, in order to perform their ethical duty, the physician has to send caller ID to the patient in order for the patient to receive the call. Now, the patient can jot down the physician's home or cellular phone number and call at their convenience (such as the next time little Johnny is throwing up at 3:00 am, or when Sally suffers a mental health crisis because her beaux dumped her). This is not a desirable circumstance for the physician. What I would propose is that CID should be capable of sending a *different* number registered to the same person (or a corporate number, with the permission of the corporation or on a business line). This provides protection for people who for legitimate professional reasons may wish to retain their personal privacy. Unfortunately, I have not heard of any such capability in any jurisdiction with which I am familiar. I'm curious about why this seems to have escaped consideration, and what, if anything, ought to be done about it. Thanks, Mark Gabriele (PGP public key available upon request) gabriele@rand.org [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This has been discussed here in the past and I think that some people are annoyed with the idea that a professional person with whom they are dealing thinks their time or privacy is more important than the person they are dealing with. They do not feel that the 'professional' should be able to call them at home at their leisure (for example) and yet they are not able to do the same in return. Some people are annoyed for example by lawyers who always want to have your home number to reach you but refuse to give you their home number in return. I think that is where the problem arises here. I am not taking sides on it either way. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 10:51:58 -0500 From: Andrew C. Green Subject: Re: Cellular Caller ID doc_dave@bga.com (David Brod) wrote: > I am not a paranoid regarding caller ID, but I am rather upset about > this. Since cellular users must pay for incoming calls, this seems a > valid reason to not have to pass around my cellular number via caller > ID. On a related note, I was wondering whether, in the three years or so that I've had my cellular phone(s), the fact that I've had not one single unwanted call (read: telemarketer) was simply dumb luck, or due to my phone's exchange being earmarked somewhere as a cellular prefix. While I myself would never give out the number, phone numbers in general do have a way of, shall we say, propagating to certain undesirables after a certain amount of time; indeed, I was amazed at how fast we started getting junk calls following our new home number some years back. Obviously a telemarketer calling a list of cellular numbers is likely to get primarily hostile (make that _very_ hostile) responses. While I'd like to think that no one in their right mind would want to call only cellular phones to give a sales pitch, is there some more-official reason why this doesn't occur more often? And has anyone out there had a call from a telemarketer intentionally going after cellphone users? Andrew C. Green (312) 266-4431 Datalogics, Inc. 441 W. Huron Internet: acg@frame.com Chicago, IL 60610-3498 FAX: (312) 266-4473 ------------------------------ From: boyd@france3.fr (Boyd Roberts) Subject: Re: Cellular Caller ID Date: 30 May 1996 12:03:24 GMT Organization: France 3 In article , lynne.gregg@attws.com says: > doc_dave@bga.com (David Brod) wrote: > As Product Manager for AT&T Wireless' Caller ID service, let me assure > you that we completely understand your position. ... Per Line > Blocking was offered as a DEFAULT. Caller ID should be mandatory. If you're not prepared to identify youself you shouldn't make the call. If you want to make an 'anonymous' call use a phone booth. Boyd Roberts ------------------------------ From: ahhersh@newstand.syr.edu (Adam H Hersh) Subject: AIN/SS7 Question Date: 30 May 1996 11:56:04 GMT Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY (USA) Reply-To: ahhersh@mailbox.syr.edu I understand that it is possible to set up b/c of AIN the ability to type #lotto on the local phone and have a call routed to your phone bank with todays lotto numbers. But how do I explain what I want to do to Ameritech, TCG, or MFS? Adam Hersh ------------------------------ From: dennis@net66.com (Dennis Toeppen) Subject: I Hate Hayes Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 18:57:53 -0600 Organization: Net66 Over the past five months or so, I have purchased nine Hayes Century-8 rack modems. They suffer from the following problems: * Individual modem cards often hang, which requires power-cycling to restore modem operation. * When a modem is power-cycled, multiple modems in a rack of 8 often reset, even though the product is advertised as hot-swappable. * The power supply connector on the back of the Century-8 is extremely prone to disconnecting. All of these problems result in significant inconvenience to users, and waste a large amount of sysop time. Hayes advertises that they will advance ship replacement modems when a unit fails, so that the user does not experience any downtime. When we requested this service, we were told that they didn't have any available to ship out, so we'd have to wait until our modems were repaired. Not until I had threatened to sue Hayes for non-performance did they offer to make good on their warranty. Hayes provided four advance-shipped replacement (of the nine we requested!). When the four replacements were recieved, only *ONE* of them worked properly. Today, I spent nearly an hour waiting on hold, trying to reach Hayes customer service. I finally gave up and sent an email to support indicating my dissatisfaction. Here is the reply I got: > Dennis, > Firstly, the following email addresses: > legal@hayes.com > dennis@hayes.com > sales@hayes.com > do not exist. > Secondly, this address (support@hayes.com) is set up to give tech support > only; I am not authorized to handle refund requests. If you wish to pursue > this matter, you will need to contact our customer service department at > (770) 441-1617. > Glenn -- Hayes Online Services And thus begins yet another HAYES RUNAROUND! Anybody had similar experiences? Any advice on dealing with these people? Anybody had favorable experiences with another modem vendor (a vendor who manufactures rack-mount modems)? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 08:19:43 -0500 From: kelly.breit@netalliance.net (Kelly Breit) Subject: Last Laugh! It Makes a Young Girl Cry Forwarded FYI to the Digest: Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 18:58:57 -0400 From: MacWay@aol.com To: macway@solutions.apple.com Subject: It Makes a Young Girl Cry This tidbit is from: (Kevin Tieskoetter) This is a letter that was apparently sent to Apple, was posted on the Always Apple web site, was retrieved by a friend of mine, sent over a small mailing list, and has now wound up on your computer. My apologies if you've already seen it a thousand times. The author of this letter is unknown. Dear Apple, My daughter didn't want to go to kindergarten this morning and when I asked why she sort of shuffled before coming up with the infamous "throw-up and maybe a headache" excuse. After a little chat, during which she admitted she wasn't sick, she began to cry. When I asked what was wrong she said that today was computer-lab day and she didn't like it because it was too hard. It was as if she had admitted a sin. She cried some more while I explained that making mistakes and learning from them was what school was all about. Besides, she was a pro on her computer at home (Performa 6200) so I knew she would get the hang of it. At that point she sat back, let out a big wailing sob and said, "But Daddy, these aren't Macintoshes and it's no fun." What's important about this story is that she thought computers were fun because she had learned on a Macintosh. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #253 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu May 30 15:38:19 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id PAA24736; Thu, 30 May 1996 15:38:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 15:38:19 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199605301938.PAA24736@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #254 TELECOM Digest Thu, 30 May 96 15:38:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 254 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FTC Halts Internet Pyramid Scam (Tad Cook) 415 NPA Relief Options (Tad Cook) Book Review: "Celebrities on the Internet" by Berry (Rob Slade) Seeking T-1 Vendors (Themos Pentakalos) Siemens Rolm - Northern Telecom Switch Combinations (David Payne) New URL for ICB - FYI (Judith Oppenheimer) Nortel Power Touch 350 Telephone - Serial Cable (Justin Hamilton) Thoughts About Spam and the Net (Lisa Hancock) Re: Reverse-911: Now Police Can Contact You (Peter Laws) Re: Reverse-911: Now Police Can Contact You (Dr. Robert Jacobson) Re: Reverse-911: Now Police Can Contact You (Boyd Roberts) Good Bye Ma Bell (Harry Lynn Beck) Help Needed Developing CTI System (S. Santosh) Re: Banned by Motorola - They Don't Like My Homepage (Steve Bagdon) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Cook Subject: FTC Halts Internet Pyramid Scam Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 22:03:50 PDT FTC halts Net pyramid scheme WASHINGTON (Reuter) - The Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday it halted an illegal pyramid scheme advertised on the Internet that bilked thousands of investors for more than $6 million. The FTC said the case was its largest to date involving fraud on the worldwide computer network. The agency obtained a federal court order temporarily halting the scheme, carried out by a company called Fortuna Alliance of Bellingham, Wash. The temporary restraining order freezes the company's assets and appoints a receiver to manage the company. The FTC also asked the court to issue a permanent injunction that would provide remedies for consumers hurt by the alleged scam. "Behind all the techno-jargon and the mathematical mumbo jumbo, this is just an elaborate, electronic version of a chain letter," said Jodie Bernstein, director of the FTC's bureau of consumer protection. "People are told that if they sign up and send money, they'll eventually end up at the top of the pyramid, collecting from those at the bottom. But most people never make it to the top." She added that while early entrants to the scheme may make some money, "eventually the pyramids collapse and most of the 'members' are left holding the bag." The FTC charged that Fortuna Alliance L.L.C. and five officers marketed the pyramid scheme through a home page on the World Wide Web, the multimedia portion of the Internet. The agency said the scheme's promise of huge investment returns spurred thousands of investors to plunk down anywhere from $250 to $1,750 to join. The company claimed that members would receive more than $5,000 a month in "profits" as others were induced to "enroll," the FTC said. It also charged that Fortuna and its officers provided advice and promotional materials for members to set up their own Web sites on the Internet to recuit new members. Officials at the company were not immediately available for comment. In papers filed with the court, the FTC contended that Fortuna already has taken in more than $6 million from consumers and transferred at least $3.5 million of that money to a bank in Antigua, West Indies. The FTC is seeking to have the money returned. The agency was tipped off to the scheme by police in Bellingham, who were flooded with consumer complaints, as well as by the Better Business Bureau serving northwest Washington. ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: 415 NPA Relief Options Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 22:27:48 PDT 415 Area Code Relief Options Unveiled Publicly; For The First Time Customers Will Get Chance To Comment On Plans At Three Public Meetings In June SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 29, 1996--Bay Area residents will have an opportunity to comment on plans for adding a new area code in the 415 region at a series of public meetings in June. Bruce Bennett, California area code relief coordinator, said a new area code is needed as early as December 1997 to keep up with the increasing demand for new telephone numbers, which is being spurred by the high-technology explosion of fax machines, pagers and cellular phones as well as competition in the local telephone industry. The 415 area code currently serves San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties, the northern portion of Santa Clara County and a small portion of Santa Cruz County. Dates and locations of the meetings are: Monday, June 24 San Francisco California Public Utilities Commission Auditorium 505 Van Ness Avenue Noon to 2 p.m. San Rafael Marin County Civic Center Board of Supervisors Chambers, Rm. 322 3501 Civic Center Drive, Third Floor 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday, June 25 San Mateo City Council Chambers 330 West 20th Avenue Noon to 2 p.m. During the meeting, two and possibly three plans will be presented to the public for comment. Three plans were proposed for 415 by the telecommunications industry -- two adding the area code through a geographic split, the other using the overlay method. However, an administrative law judge with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) ruled earlier this month that the number of 415 geographic split options should be narrowed to one. The judge ordered telecommunications industry representatives to meet with local government officials before June 19 to seek consensus on one of the geographic splits. The judge's ruling does not affect the presentation of the overlay option at the public meetings. If consensus is reached at the industry-local government meeting, scheduled for June 17, Bennett said one geographic split and the overlay option will be presented to the public for comment. If consensus is not reached, public comment will be taken on the overlay option and both split plans. In a geographic split, the area served by the existing area code is divided with roughly half the customers being required to change the area code portion of their phone number and the remaining customers keeping the old area code. In an overlay, the new area code is placed over the existing area code. Both have the same geographic boundaries. The new area code would be given to people who request a new phone number. Existing customers would keep their present area code. None of the plans would impact the price of calls. Call distance determines call price and is not impacted by the creation of a new area code. Currently, the options under consideration for the 415 area code are: + Geographic Split -- Option 1. In this option, the city and county of San Francisco, the northern portion of San Mateo County including the cities of Brisbane, South San Francisco, the eastern portion of Daly City, the northern half of Millbrae and most of the city of San Bruno (including the San Francisco International Airport) would stay in the 415 area code. The remaining 415 area including Marin County, the rest of San Mateo County, the northern part of Santa Clara County and a small portion of Santa Cruz County would receive a new area code. This would create a non-contigious area code, with Marin County and most of San Mateo County in the new area code, but separated by the city and county of San Francisco which would stay in the 415 area code. + Geographic Split -- Option 2. This option is identical to Option 1, with the exception that Marin County would also stay in the 415 area code. While fewer customers would change to the new area code in this option, the reconstituted 415 area code would run out of telephone numbers again in less than four years. + Overlay -- In the overlay option proposed for 415, the new area code would be placed over the existing 415 area code. The two codes would have the same geographic boundaries. The new area code would be given to people requesting a new phone number. Existing 415 customers would keep their area code. If an overlay is chosen, the CPUC has determined that 1 + 10-digit dialing (1+the area code and the seven-digit telephone number) will be required for all calls within and between the new and old area codes. At the meetings, to be moderated by representatives of the CPUC's Consumer Advisory and Compliance Division, details of the plans will be outlined followed by a public comment period. Under state law, the telecommunications industry is required to meet with customers and consider their input before a final area code relief plan is filed with the Commission. The Commission makes the final decision on area code relief. Customers unable to attend a meeting can send written comments to: Bruce Bennett California Area Code Relief Coordinator 2600 Camino Ramon, Room 1S900V San Ramon, CA 94583 For information on the 415 area code public meetings and any other updates, customers may call 1-800-544-0355. http://www.businesswire.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 13:57:24 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Celebrities on the Internet" by Berry BKCELINT.RVW 960514 "Celebrities on the Internet", Colin Berry, 1996, 0-7821-1811-9, U$12.99 %A Colin Berry cpberry@aol.com %C 2021 Challenger Drive, Alameda, CA 94501 %D 1996 %G 0-7821-1811-9 %I Sybex Computer Books %O U$12.99 510-523-8233 800-227-2346 Fax: 510-523-2373 jjigarjian@sybex.com %P 191 %S Pocket Tour %T "Celebrities on the Internet" In "E-Mail Addresses of the Rich and Famous", (cf. BKEMALRF.RVW) Godin provided a poorly researched, error prone, and generally misleading list of celebrity contacts. Berry has compiled a much more realistic resource. Drawing primarily from Web sites, newsgroups, and mailing lists, this work is a quick guide to online promotion, fandom, and gossip about the notorious. Although most of the entries arise from Hollywood, TV, and sports, there is also a section on politics and a welcome inclusion of the fine arts. Each entry is annotated, and the author is quite ready to explain the reasons for choosing this particular site over possible alternatives. Although I'm still not fully convinced of any *need* for this type of book (but then, what would you expect from an AOLer? :-), Berry has compiled a good quality handbook for the star-struck. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKCELINT.RVW 960514. Distrobution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters roberts@decus.ca slade@freenet.victoria.bc.ca Rob_Slade@mindlink.bc.ca Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER) ------------------------------ From: themos@umbc.edu (Mr. Themos Pentakalos) Subject: Seeking T-1 Vendors Date: 30 May 1996 14:12:24 -0400 Organization: University of Maryland, Baltimore County Hello, We need to establish a frac-T-1 between Atlanta and Chicago. Can someone point me to some reliable and not overpriced vendors? Thanks. Please email, Themos ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 09:02:59 -0500 From: DAVID PAYNE Subject: Siemens Rolm - Northern Telecom Switch Combinations The London Health Sciences Centre (950 bed Teaching Hospital in London, Ontario) is interested in establishing contacts with any organization that has or knows of a established Rolm - SL-1 network configuration. Presently we have two SL-1 Option 71 (release 20) switches and we would like to network them to either a Rolm 9751 or a Rolm 9000 switch. Other SL-1 or Rolm switches may be added later. Our goal is to establish: - a coordinated dialing plan; - a common switchboard with CAS and maybe NAS; - a common voice mail system or networked voice mail system; - trunking consolidation. A external consultant led us to believe there were less than five already networked Rolm - SL-1 combinations in North America. Is this true? This seems a pretty small number to me! Your readers comments and thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks, David Payne Technical Analyst, Telecom London Health Sciences Centre dpayne@lhsc.on.ca ------------------------------ From: callbrand@aol.com (CallBrand) Subject: New URL For ICB - FYI Date: 30 May 1996 14:44:53 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: callbrand@aol.com (CallBrand) My home page is now located at http://pwp.usa.pipeline.com/~producer/, and includes current industry comments regarding 800 portability and replication. Judith Oppenheimer, President, Interactive CallBrand A leading source of information on 800 issues. CallBrand@aol.com, 1 800 The Expert, (ph) 212 684-7210, (fx) 212 684-2714 http://pwp.usa.pipeline.com/~producer/ ------------------------------ From: Justin.Hamilton1@Bridge.BellSouth.Com (Justin Hamilton) Subject: Nortel Power Touch 350 Telephone - Serial Cable Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 11:10:15 GMT Organization: BellSouth ATG lab Having just got my PowerTouch 350 phone all hooked up to the telephone network, I am now looking to connect my PC via the port on the back of the 350 Module. Called BellSouth, whom I bought it through, told me to call Nortel. Called Nortel, they want $50 (FIFTY BUCKS !!) for the cable. So I decided I would rather build one myself. If anyone has details of the pinouts then it would be much appreciated if you could post or email them to me. If not, then I shall do some experimenting and let y'all know the results. Thanks, Justin Hamilton http://www.mindspring.com/~tmenet JHamilton@mindspring.com Justin.Hamilton1@Bridge.BellSouth.Com ------------------------------ From: hancock4@cpcn.com (Lisa) Subject: Thoughts About Spam and the Net Date: 29 May 1996 23:06:10 GMT Organization: Philadelphia City Paper's City Net I received one sales pitch with an 800 number, for which I was tempted to call from a pay phone, and let them know I didn't appreciate their pitching unsolicited over email. But then I thought the whole thing may be a joke or harassment -- that is, the 800 number might be for a legitimate business who's been targeted for harassment. I decided to ignore it. My employer (a large organization) gave us a lecture on their new web page and how enthused they are about the Internet. In my opinion, I think we have a while to WAIT before the Internet truly kicks off because of security problems. Until forged e-mail, unauthorized Usenet postings/forgeries and the like are stopped dead, the Internet is simply not secure to conduct business over. Sadly, there are some sick people out there, and some of them are very good with a computer and not at all hesitant to be malicious. ------------------------------ From: plaws@comp.uark.edu (Peter Laws) Subject: Re: Reverse-911: Now Police Can Contact You Date: 30 May 1996 15:17:41 GMT Organization: University of Arkansas ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) writes: > DuPage County, Illinois police can now make hundreds of telephone > calls an hour to residents in an area where a crime has taken place or > a suspect is on the loose. Great. Police phone spam. How nice. I'll stick with my scanner ... Peter Laws Desktop Unix Support Team Academic, Research and Client Services Computing Services, University of Arkansas +1 501 575-2905 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have a couple scanners also but folks like you and I -- and many readers here -- are in the minority. Most people don't own one. Plus, the information heard on the scanner is not going to be presented in the same way it will be presented to the general public via telephone. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dr. Robert Jacobson Subject: Re: Reverse-911: Now Police Can Contact You Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 22:52:15 -0700 Organization: Worldesign Inc. Seattle-Information Design [www.worldesign.com] TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > DuPage County, Illinois police can now make hundreds of telephone > calls an hour to residents in an area where a crime has taken place or > a suspect is on the loose. > The DuPage County Sheriff last week inaugurated the 'Reverse-911' > community communications system. It transmitted a recorded message to > one thousand homes in an unincorporated area of Lombard, Illinois to > warn residents about two suspected burglars driving in a Ford Taurus, > Chief Deputy Sheriff Robert Soucek said. > "For the first time, we are able to saturate an area with hundreds of > phone calls an hour, and advise citizens of burglaries, a missing > child, suspicious activities and any other circumstances where we > could utilize our citizens to help us solve a crime," Soucek said. > Using several telephone lines, the $30,000 system can quickly call, > for examples, all homes on a certain street, or all day-care centers > in the county. [Stuff deleted] Similar systems have been in operation in California for over a decade, for use by emergency services in the event of natural disasters and, more sinisterly, nuclear plant meltdowns. In case Diablo Canyon reactor went critical, San Luis Obispo had a system in place to get people out of the plume-affected regions. Bop ------------------------------ From: boyd@france3.fr (Boyd Roberts) Subject: Re: Reverse-911: Now Police Can Contact You Date: 30 May 1996 11:59:51 GMT Organization: France 3 In article , ptownson@massis.lcs. mit.edu says: > DuPage County, Illinois police can now make hundreds of telephone > calls an hour to residents in an area where a crime has taken place or > a suspect is on the loose. Trivial to do with GSM cell broadcasts, which all the phones in a cell receive, if they've subscribed to cell broadcasts and the particular message type. Vodafone UK uses them to indicate your current cell(s) and area code, which is kinda neat. Boyd Roberts ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 10:00:22 -0800 From: Harry Lynn Beck, P.E. Organization: HLB Engineering Subject: Good Bye Ma Bell Do you have any information/opinions about the integration of voice telephony with LAN technology, not in the current contexts, but in the context of completely eliminating the POTS (plain old telephone system). I'm working on just such an application here in Alaska. I would appreciate your comments. Thanks. Harry Lynn Beck, P.E. HLB Engineering P.O. Box 210606 Anchorage Alaska 99521 By the way, I am electric power consulting engineer and journalist. ------------------------------ From: santosh@ece.iisc.ernet.in (Santosh S) Subject: Help Needed Developing CTI System Date: Thu, 30 May 96 12:15:56 GMT Hello, I'm working on a project at Indian Institute of Science, India for developing a CTI system to provide voice messaging, fax-on-demand and other facilities.We plan to use a dual processor approach in which we are using a DSP for speech and tone (DTMF and call progress tones ) processing. Because of availability I have an option of using Analog Devices' (ADSP 2105, 2101) or TI's (TMS320CXX) DSPs only. I would like to know which would suit my application. I feel ADSP 2105 is inadequate for FAX. Thank you for any kind of info regarding the above. Regards, santosh e-mail- santosh@ece.iisc.ernet.in ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 19:02:49 -0500 From: bagdon@rust.net (S and K Bagdon) Subject: Re: Banned by Motorola - They Don't Like my Homepage! > Motorola cellular does not like my homepage. They sent me a nasty > letter. Check it out on my homepage ... > http://www.trilli.com/users/jyee Welcome to the big leagues, Jeff. You published a web page, which makes you responsible for researching the *origin* of anything that you published. Big corporations can get *very* sensitive of how their products are displayed, and I put Motorola up there almost with Disney. They get even *more* sensitive when you display a *very* recognizable piece of artwork, and they go *ballistic* when you copy 'camera-ready' art. At once time in my sordid past, I worked at a newspaper -- the Editor recieved a nasty letter from JetSki(r), because they published a picture of a JetSki(r) on the 'Local' section front page (owner airborne off of a wave), stated that it was a JetSki(r) in the by-line/slug, but left out the 'registered' mark. A corporate lawyer actually took the time to write a letter, because the reference was lower case and not 'registered' properly. I am disappointed that your message to TELECOM Digest was so short -- you are almost attempting to curry favor, by just telling your side of the story. How about something along the line of 'Motorola lawyers sent me a letter requesting that I remove a copyrighted picture of theirs from my web page'. I'm sure they loved your web page -- free advertising. What they *didn't* like was your use of their copyrighted material. Did you *ask* before 'publishing' this material? I'm sure they would have given you carte-blance (almost), if you had run it by their advertising/legal department, and followed their requests (copyright notices, etc). Heck, you might even have been able to publish it *without* their approval, if you had referenced the material as 'Copyright Motorola, 1996' -- remember the 'fair-use' rule? People, didn't we learn anything from MoToRoLa's experiences? Steve B. bagdon@rust.net (h) USFMDDKT@ibmmail.com (w) http://www.rust.net/~bagdon Katharine aNd Steve (KNS) ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #254 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu May 30 16:30:42 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id QAA00953; Thu, 30 May 1996 16:30:42 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 16:30:42 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199605302030.QAA00953@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #255 TELECOM Digest Thu, 30 May 96 16:30:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 255 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Cellular Caller ID (Jeffrey Rhodes) Re: Cellular Caller ID (Chris Hudel) Re: Caller-ID Delay in California (Dr. Robert Jacobson) Re: Caller-ID Delay in California (Rich Greenberg) Re: Sprint Sends Caller ID Today! (Charles A. Cremer) Re: LD Carriers and CID -- 5/96 Results (Matthew Stone) Re: CID Question (Sy Weiss) Re: MCI Cellular (macaw@ix.netcom.com) Re: United States Cellular's Stupidity (Jeff Carroll) Re: ANSI Spec For T1 Signaling Bits (kenshalo@anc.ak.net) Re: Seeking NEBS Standards (kenshalo@anc.ak.net) 916 NPA Relief Options (Tad Cook) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jeffrey.rhodes@attws.com Subject: Re: Cellular Caller ID Date: Thu, 30 May 96 10:13:37 PDT Organization: AT&T Wireless Services, Inc. In article , writes: > On June 15, in Austin, Tx, AT&T Wireless Communications will begin > passing cellular subscriber numbers through to the caller ID system. > I am not a paranoid regarding caller ID, but I am rather upset about > this. Since cellular users must pay for incoming calls, this seems a > valid reason to not have to pass around my cellular number via caller > ID. Additionally, since cellular phones do not offer caller ID, we do > not have the option not to answer the phone either. It may be annoying but *67 prefix will always prevent display of your Mobile Identification Number (MIN) for calls created at AT&T Wireless systems. If any system does not recognize *67 then you can be sure that Caller ID has not been offered in that cellular carrier's market yet. (*67 may be recognized but that will not guarantee that the display will be "Private", it may be "Out-of-Area"; the display is guaranteed to NOT be the MIN after per-call blocking *67 prefix has been dialed per FCC order). It is good advice to always use *67 prefix when roaming. You never know what surprises can occur as a result of using your cellular phone in a non-home system. Carry your home system's Customer Care number with you when roaming to help recover from roamer-freezes and other anti-fraud protection policies. More comments follow: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Except that the number you are referring > to would be essentially worthless to the recipient of the Caller-ID > information, and lend itself to confusion if they tried to dial it back. > For example, that number you are referring to *is* in fact available > and given to customers who get ANI. Invariably on trying to dial in to > it the response is the number is for outgoing calls only or it may not > be dialable at all, etc. My cellular phone is 847-727-xxxx and yet > the ANI it shows when I dial an 800 number is 708-870-something; a > totally different thing. I personally would say send nothing at all > unless it can be a two-way thing with cellular customers able to get > the same information in return subject to the technical requirements > of their phone, etc. Will *67 (number blocking) be available on your > outgoing cellular calls? That might be one way to partly solve your > problem. PAT] Pat, I assure you that if you bring your cellular phone to Seattle and complete an 800 call on AT&T Wireless (Band A) that the ANI presented will be your MIN 847-727-xxxx. AT&T Wireless has Equal Access agreements with LD carriers that require the cooperation of the LEC's Equal Access Tandem switch to interconnect to all carriers. An cellular 800 call either routes on Type1 trunks without ANI and the LEC creates a new 800 call (like in your home system) using a fixed ANI for the Type1 trunk, or the 800 call routes on Type2 Feature Group D Equal Access trunks like it does here in US West and GTE-NW land passing the ANI (read MIN) to the 800 provider's carrier. FGD signaling can pass ANI (but not Caller ID information!). An 800 number belongs to a specific long distance carrier and the 800 owner pays for the long distances charges. FGD signaling provides Carrier Information Code (CIC) of 110 to indicate that the LEC's Equal Access Tandem must complete one-stage call completion rather than the normal two-stage which sends the dialer's Preferred Interexchange Carrier as the CIC (288 or 0288 for AT&T) in the first stage, allows the LEC to set-up to the indicated carrier, and then passes MF tones for ANI and dialed number in the second stage "cutting through" to the long distance carrier's switch (faster call setup with two-stage "cut-thru" compared to two one-stage sequences). Cellular ISUP signaling direct to long distance carriers has yet to happen to my knowledge. Bell South Cellular did an ISUP trial with Bell South LEC two years ago. Even when AT&T Wireless is able to offer ISUP direct connect to long distance carriers, the 800 call will probably be handled with non-SS7 FGD signaling on LEC Type2 trunks because all cellular switches currently lack the "intelligence" to look up the 10 digit carrier translation for portable 800 numbers. This would imply that it will be a couple of years before both the ANI and the Caller ID of a cellular MIN will be available to 800 owners, even though a cellular ANI for 800 calls is indirectly available currently here in the Northwest US. AT&T Wireless is pursuing Type2 FGD interconnect for 800 calls with all LECs but the LEC isn't forced to have to do this if they don't want. I think the LEC makes more money on Type1 800 calls. Jeffrey Rhodes at jeffrey.rhodes@attws.com ------------------------------ From: hudel@hppad.waterloo.hp.com (Chris Hudel) Subject: Re: Cellular Caller ID Date: 30 May 1996 19:27:34 GMT Organization: Hewlett Packard (Panacom Division) Sorry if this has been suggested already, but how about "Name only Caller-ID?" Afterall, don't you want to know *who* is calling more than you want to know *what phone number* they are calling from? ------------------------------ From: Dr. Robert Jacobson Subject: Re: Caller-ID Delay in California Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 22:48:56 -0700 Organization: Worldesign Inc. Seattle-Information Design [www.worldesign.com] Larry Lee wrote: > In article TELECOM Digest Editor > noted in response to lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein) who had > written about a delay in implementing Caller ID in California: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I find it just incredible that you seem > to have so many people in California on this kick. What is with all > these people who seem to feel they have this right to hide themselves > when they make calls no matter whose time they waste or whatever > foolish calls they originate? I'll be glad to see 'blocked number > blocking' (where recipients have the right to block calls from persons > who hide their phone numbers) become universal. I am going to encourage > everyone to sign up for it. PAT] My friend Pat sees the world from an entirely too egocentric position. I worked to help pass California's Caller ID law, which instructs the PUC on the implementation of Caller ID. There are good reasons for being cynical about Caller ID, whatever its limited merits as a way of screening one's home calls. First, the service was devised to collect information on callers to businesses. This was stated explicitly several times by telephone company advocates when the service was introduced. The idea was that a business could cue its internal records on incoming phone call num- bers, to serve you, the caller, faster and better -- but also, by using the phone number as a surrogate ID number, companies could trade data about their customers and build big dossiers. Better than with your Social Security number, as the HMOs do. That's why whenever line blocking was proposed or made law in some states, the telcos moaned, "but that will take the economic value out of the service." Second, as the many posts here continue to testify, there are a hundred ways around Caller ID, from using new phone numbers or public telephone booths to simply fooling the underlying SS7 switching service. The woman who championed the Caller ID law, by the way, was secretary to an Assembly member who actually carried the bill, Mr. Eaves (now a supervisor in San Bernardino or Riverside County, I believe). She was worried, as a single mother, that a molester or other heinous character might record _her_ phone number during a call and track it back to her house, to savage her or her child. It was a reasonable fear. Caller ID sucks on a number of levels. Bob Jacobson ------------------------------ From: richgr@netcom.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: Re: Caller-ID Delay in California Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 22:32:09 GMT In article , Larry Lee wrote: [snip] > If you had any idea of the amount of negative ads that the phone > companies have run and are continuing to run on radio and TV, you > wouldn't find it incredible. I have not heard one positive or > encouraging statement about caller id. Very true. I was speaking to a PaBellDroid about an unrelated matter a few weeks ago and asked about that. She confirmed my suspicion that the wording of these ads was forced on Pa and GTE by the CPUC. Don't blame the LECs on this one. They don't like it either. Rich Greenberg N6LRT TinselTown, USA Play: richgr@netcom.com 310-649-0238 Pacific time. I speak for myself & my dogs only. VM'er since CP-67 Canines: Val(Chinook,CGC), Red(Husky,(RIP)), Shasta(Husky) ------------------------------ From: ao474@yfn.ysu.edu (Charles A. Cremer) Subject: Re: Sprint Sends Caller ID Today! Date: 29 May 1996 23:36:49 GMT Organization: St. Elizabeth Hospital, Youngstown, OH Reply-To: ao474@yfn.ysu.edu (Charles A. Cremer) In a previous article, bellaire@iquest.net (James Bellaire) says: > I just received a call from a relative who has been a long time Sprint > Business customer (he has been paying their business rates for at > least ten years, so I know he won't switch or 10xxx another service) ... > Usually his phone comes up 'OUT OF AREA' on caller id, but now he > shows up with a complete phone number and his business name. I've confirmed this also, from Austin, Texas to NYNEX near Boston. Will wonders never cease? Charlie ------------------------------ From: mstone@io.org (Matthew Stone) Subject: Re: LD Carriers and CID -- 5/96 Results Date: 29 May 1996 06:02:25 GMT Organization: Internex Online (shell.io.org), Toronto, Ontario, Canada Stanley Cline (scline@usit.net) wrote: > For the past several months, I've been periodically testing IXCs' > delivery of CID, using 1+, 0+ (calling card), and 800/calling-card > calling methods, as well as checking to see if the privacy flag (*67) > is recognized. > MCI: > 1+ = CID delivered, *67 displays "private" > 0+ = "Out of Area" > 800# calling card = Not tested > 1-800-Collect = Not tested My friends and I have used 1-800-Collect and this is the results. Las Vegas Nevada to Toronto, Ontario, Canada (905) area code ... a local 416 number shows up. When dialing the 416 number a Bell Canada message comes up saying there is "no service at that line". From Toronto, Ontario, Canada (905) area code to Lansing, Michigan (517) area code it shows up as "Out Of Area" on my friends CID. Dunno what to make of that ... Matthew Stone, 23 Roosevelt Drive, Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada L4C6V1 Pager (416)339-9052 ------------------------------ Date: 30 May 96 13:32:18 EDT From: Sy Weiss <72007.2462@CompuServe.COM> Subject: CID Question We have a request from a client (a large bank) to design and produce a product that will dial out to a central site when the device detects a failure condition. All the device will do is detect the failure, go off hook, dial a pre-set number, pause about ten seconds, and then go back on hook. About 250 locations will be equipped with this out-dialer. At the central location, the remote site calling will be identified and logged using a CID device. The call will not be answered, all that is required is to identify the calling site that has a failure. The product would have to be part 68 registered as a dial line interface. Question: Could CID be used in this manner? I have in mind the fact that information is transferred without the call being answered. Your input would be greatly appreciated. Sy Weiss 72007.2462@compuserve.com Dataprobe Inc. sweiss@dataprobe.com http://www.dataprobe.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What if for some reason the number being called is busy (another such device is ringing the line at the same time) or there is some other problem, i.e. network congestion 'call cannot be completed right now, please try again in a few minutes' and the calling line does not establish contact with the recipient; that is, is unable to get its ID displayed on the called line? If all you are going to do is go off hook for ten seconds and disconnect, what assurance to you have that the ID got delivered? How critical are these possible failures? What if one gets missed due to a condition like described above? Most alarm notification systems require the recipient of the call to at least do something such as press a button or two on the phone to acknowledge receipt. Of course if you are not paying for the call, you don't get that luxury. :) Have you thought about that? PAT] ------------------------------ From: macaw@ix.netcom.com (Macaw) Subject: Re: MCI Cellular Date: 30 May 1996 18:54:48 GMT Organization: Netcom In schuster@panix.com (Michael Schuster) writes: > I just received a soliciation to join MCI's cellular service and receive > a Nokia 100 phone for free (golly!!!). > Here in NYC, we already have an "A" and "B" system provider. Where > does MCI fit into this system? Can there be multiple "A" system > providers in the same market? I thought not ... > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is just one A/B in each area. > What MCI is doing is reselling either A or B, depending on whatever > was the best deal they could cut for themselves with one of the two. > Frontier is also a reseller of cellular; mostly the B side except they > resell A in some communities. You can get pretty good deals on prices > using the resellers I have found. PAT] In Boston there is Cellular One and Nynex now there are two other cell companies starting to put up their antennas. They are AT&T and Sprint. Cellular One is Southwestern Bell. I myself don't know how this will be done also. If anyone knows please let me know. The reason I know about the other two cellular companies is because Cellular One is renting from me. They have a cell site on my building and Sprint contacted me about setting up one of there cell sites on my building also. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When cellular phone service was being developed in the early 1980's -- it started as of 1983 I believe -- probably no one could ever imagine there would be a time when more than two carriers would ever be in existence in a given community and in most cases just one. Thus the A/B arrangement, with no real provision for a 'C' or 'D' carrier, or whatever they might be called. Does anyone know of any plans to open the market to a third or fourth (a 'C' or 'D' or whatever you would call them) carrier? I do not mean just as a reseller of A/B as happens now, I mean genuine infrastructure for a third or fourth cellular company in some markets? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jeff Carroll Subject: Re: United States Cellular's Stupidity Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 11:16:04 -0500 Organization: bigendian Reply-To: xfrosch@indy.net Stanley Cline wrote: > PS: Has anyone noticed that USCC's and 360 Communications' HQ are in > the same city, zip code, and even PHONE PREFIX (312-399)? These are > the very carriers that BellSouth and other carriers HATE (one much > more than the other, of course.) Weird coincidence ... They're practically sitting on a runway at O'Hare. Dunno if that has anything to do with it or not. jkc ------------------------------ From: kenshalo@anc.ak.net Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 14:57:56 -0800 Subject: Re: ANSI Spec For T1 Signaling Bits rich@netcommcorp.com (Rich Dodge) wrote: > Does anybody know which ANSI specification, if any, details the T1 > signaling bits as they relate to setting up a phone call? Your help > would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. You might try: ANSI T1.102, Digital Hierarchy - Electrical Interface Standard ANSI T1.107, Digital Hierarchy - Format Specifications AT&T TR 62415 - Access Specification for High Capacity (DS1/DS3) Dedicated Digital Services I only have the above AT&T TR, where reference is made to the above two ANSI specs, but gives no specific information about the uses of the signaling bits used with SF and ESF formats. If you find any concrete data, please let me know. Richard Kenshalo kenshalo@anc.ak.net Matanuska Telephone Association ------------------------------ From: kenshalo@anc.ak.net Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 10:02:59 -0800 Subject: Re: Seeking NEBS Standards > Can someone tell me where I can find the NEBS standards? Try: Bellcore TR-EOP-000063, Network Equipment-Building System (NEBS) Generic Equipment Requirements Bellcore TR-TSY-000487, Generic Requirements for Electronic Equipment Cabinets Richard Kenshalo kenshalo@anc.ak.net Matanuska Telephone Association ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: 916 NPA Relief Options Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 12:08:41 PDT [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In an earlier issue of the Digest today an almost identical announcment was printed pertaining to 415. PAT] 916 Area Code Relief Options Unveiled Publicly For The First Time; Customers Will Get Chance To Comment On Plans At Three Public Meetings In June SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 30, 1996--Northern California residents will have an opportunity to comment on two plans for adding a new area code in the 916 region at a series of public meetings in June. Bruce Bennett, California area code relief coordinator, said a new area code is needed as early as December 1997 to keep up with the increasing demand for new telephone numbers, which is being spurred by the high-technology explosion of fax machines, pagers and cellular phones as well as competition in the local telephone industry. The 916 area code currently serves all or portions of 23 Northern California counties from Sacramento north to the Oregon border, and the Mono County community of Coleville. Dates and locations of the meetings are: Wednesday, June 26 South Lake Tahoe Tahoe Seasons Resort 3901 Saddle Road Noon to 2 p.m. Roseville Maidu Community Center Reception Hall 1550 Maidu Drive 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday, June 27 Chico City Hall City Council Chambers 421 Main Street 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Redding City Hall City Council Chambers 1313 California Street 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Two plans proposed by the telecommunications industry -- one adding the area code through a geographic split, the other using the overlay method -- will be presented at the meeting. In a geographic split, the area served by the existing area code is divided with roughly half the customers being required to change the area code portion of their phone number and the remaining customers keeping the old area code. In an overlay, the new area code is placed over the existing area code. Both have the same geographic boundaries. The new area code would be given to people who request a new phone number. Existing customers would keep their area code. Neither plan would impact the price of calls. Call distance determines call price and is not impacted by the creation of a new area code. The options under consideration for the 916 area code are: - Geographic Split -- In the proposed geographic split option, the 916 portion of Sacramento County, south Placer County including the cities of Roseville, Loomis and Rocklin and the city of West Sacramento in Yolo County would stay in the 916 area code. The remainder of the 916 region would receive a new area code. This includes the rest of Placer County, the majority of Yolo County (excluding West Sacramento), the 916 portion of El Dorado County, all of Nevada, Yuba, Sutter, Colusa, Sierra, Butte, Glenn, Plumas, Tehama, Lassen, Shasta, Trinity, Modoc and Siskiyou counties, the 916 portion of Alpine County and small portions of Solano, Mendocino, Lake and Humboldt counties as well as the Mono County community of Coleville. - Overlay -- In the overlay option proposed for 916, the new area code would be placed over the existing 916 area code. The two codes would have the same geographic boundaries. The new area code would be given to people requesting a new phone number. Existing 916 customers would keep their area code. If an overlay is chosen, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has determined that 1 + 10-digit dialing (1 plus the area code and the seven-digit telephone number) will be required for all calls within and between the new and old area codes. At the meetings, to be moderated by representatives of the CPUC's Consumer Advisory and Compliance Division, details of the plans will be outlined followed by a public comment period. Under state law, the telecommunications industry is required to meet with customers and consider their input before a final area code relief plan is filed with the Commission. The Commission makes the final decision on area code relief. Customers unable to attend a meeting can send written comments to: Bruce Bennett California Area Code Relief Coordinator 2600 Camino Ramon, Room 1S900V San Ramon, CA 94583 For information on the 916 area code public meetings and any other updates, customers may call 1-800-544-0355. CONTACT: Pacific Bell Dave Miller, (916) 972-2811 Bill Kenney, (916) 972-6604 http://www.businesswire.com ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #255 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu May 30 20:12:01 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id UAA21117; Thu, 30 May 1996 20:12:01 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 20:12:01 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199605310012.UAA21117@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #256 TELECOM Digest Thu, 30 May 96 20:11:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 256 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Fight Turns Nasty: Ameritech/AT&T Take Off Gloves (TELECOM Digest Editor) Cellular One Chicago Announces 'Freedom Plus' (TELECOM Digest Editor) Internet Spam From AOL (Joe A. Machado) Wireless Ethernet Transceivers (Thaddeus Cox) Re: Cellular Caller ID (Tony Harminc) Re: Cellular Caller ID (Lynne Gregg) Re: Network Outages (David Chessler) Re: Hurting Public Utilities Hurts Public Service (Jeff Carroll) Re: Preventing Pickup on Busy Line (Tad Cook) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 19:32:04 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Fight Turns Nasty: Ameritech/AT&T Take Off Gloves Forget about minor marketing skirmishes. Now Ameritech and AT&T are engaged in full battle -- and customers of both companies are left in the middle, especially those with a calling card issued by either company. On Wednesday, Ameritech said a federal judge had ordered AT&T to stop using shared information from the two companies calling cards to try to convince Ameritech customers to switch to AT&T calling cards. AT&T called Ameritech's characterization of the court ruling outrageous. Also: o Ameritech claims that as of Friday AT&T will bar its card holders from making local calls within Ameritech's calling area. o AT&T has offered Ameritech customers three months of free local toll calls -- local calls of 15 miles or more -- if they switch to AT&T before June 30. o AT&T has filed new local toll call rates with the Illinois Commerce Commission to be extremely competitive. The developments Wednesday are the latest in what has become a very nasty fight in the 'telephone war' between Ameritech and AT&T that started out more than a year ago when Ameritech launched its 'Customers First' plan, its strategy to enter the long distance market. In the latest skirmish over calling cards, Ameritech had accused AT&T of abusing an agreement that allows each company to handle traffic using the calling card of the other company. Under the agreement, neither company was allowed to use any customer data for the purpose of soliciting customers to switch companies. Ameritech Chairman Richard Notebaert said his company discovered AT&T was illegally targeting Ameritech customers when some 'names on the list' started getting mailings sent by AT&T. He said there was no way 'those names' would have gotten anything like that in the mail had not AT&T been abusing their access to the Amertech data base. The mailings from AT&T to Ameritech customers offered fifteen minutes of free calling time if Ameritech customers signed up for an AT&T card and promised to use it instead of their Ameritech card in the future. Notebaert said the only way AT&T could have found out which customers to make that offer to was by 'getting into the data base illegally'. AT&T responded late Wednesday by saying no evidence of this was ever presented in court and the only ruling the judge made was to grant the parties' request for a stay. "There was no ruling and there was no finding that AT&T did anything wrong," an AT&T spokesman said. The court "simply granted a request for a stay, which will allow the parties to resolve the matter through arbitration." Ameritech now contends that AT&T must give some free time to the customers who responded to the AT&T promotion. AT&T refused to say how they will deal with the customers 'left hanging' in the process. Some Ameritech customers had received a new AT&T card which they will now apparently not be able to use on the Ameritech network. As matters now stand, effective Friday, May 31, AT&T calling cards will not be accepted by Ameritech and Ameritech calling cards will not be accepted by AT&T. It is unclear at this point what results will occur if a person with an Ameritech card uses a payphone which was defaulted to AT&T to make a long distance call. Isn't this a shameful state of affairs when customers have to get caught up in the middle of the fight? PAT ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 19:40:41 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Cellular One Chicago Announces 'Freedom Plus' Cellular One of Chicago announced Thursday a new system for Chicago area subscribers which will mimic the system which GTE has had available for some time. This new system called 'Freedom Plus' allows users to plug a phone base into a wall jack at home to use the same phone both there and on the road. The new system works like a cordless phone when at home and like a cellular phone as soon as you leave home. When the unit is in your home, the base 'senses' the portable is nearby and incoming cellular calls are automatically routed thorugh the normal land line system. Cellular One, which is a subsidiary of Southwestern Bell's SBC Commun- ications said the system including the base unit would retail for about $200. All current cellular customers would have to purchase the new phone if they wanted the new service. In addition, Cellular One will charge $4.95 per month for the service. The system is manufactured by Motorola. Cellular One said it should be available to customers later this summer. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 17:57:26 -0500 From: Joe A. Machado Subject: Internet Spam From AOL I have received over 35 mail messages from folks at AOL during the past few days. The mailing list is similar but the senders vary. Many of the messages contain words of frustration from other recipients and the content expressed variest. Responding to the messages with REMOVE or some statement to be taken off the mailing list at times causes repetition of the mailings, or the request being ignored. And many of the messages are the same but mailed several times -- three to five times at once! One mail message said that all complaints regarding these mailings should go to TOSEMAIL2@AOL.com but today I received another message stating that mailing to this person does not work. I have redirected all the junk mail to that ID but have as yet received a confirmation or had the mailings stop. Commenting on the wasted bandwidth, lack of following internet etiquette, or such arguments may be fruitless. The real issue is my belief that I have a right not to receive such mail. I wonder whether AOL has a duty to screen outgoing mass mailings or whether my ISP should consider complaints and initiate action on my behalf. In the non cyber world the U.S. Post Office delivers unwanted junk mail in order to gain the revenue from doing so. Is there a similar situation developing in cyberspace? Is there a benefit to censorship? By investigating user mailings are sender rights not being infringed? And do I care as long as the junk mail stops coming my way? With Universal Email a looming possibility is the public not to be protected from unwanted mail? Will the cost of junk mail not be a factor in the Universal Email debate? Should society tolerate Email entrepeneurship? Is there a benefit by not legislating E-Mail? There might be interest to some in how people try to entice others to participate in money making schemes via E-Mail. In the meantime I am looking for an email package that will allow me to screen mail from AOL and await any suggestions or comments from this group. Thanks, Joe A. Machado http://mweiser.bus.okstate.edu/students/jmachado/homepg.htm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 16:43:43 PDT From: Thaddeus Cox Subject: Wireless Ethernet Transceivers I am researching wireless ethernet transceivers and would like to tap the vast knowlege of the digest readership for suggestions. I'm a student at a smallish college and would like the dorms here to be wired for ethernet. This seems to be a very daunting task due to the composition of the building (concrete and steel) and the lack of any useful existing conduit for cabling. Wiring the building conventionally would require major renovation, drilling through structural members/concrete, etc. Currently we have small local networks established by running a single coax thinnet cable alongside heating pipes which run from room to room, spanning the length of each hall. This works fine for our local network. What we are looking for is a (pair of) devices which could be connected to one of these local networks and serve as a wireless connection between it and the campus-wide, internet-connected ethernet which appears in another part of the building, approximately 300-400' through concrete and steel construction. I don't know what kind of throughput these sort of devices offer, but I was thinking somewhere in the 1 to 2 megabit range. I'm interested in information on new or used equipment which would meet the requirements as I've laid them out, and any ideas about alternative solutions would also be gladly accepted. Email replies and I will forward them in condensed form to the digest if anyone is interested. Thaddeus Cox - coxt@mail.oit.osshe.edu Oregon Institute of Technology (541) 885-0212 voice (503) 497-7050 pgr/vm ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 May 96 18:30:30 EDT From: Tony Harminc Subject: Re: Cellular Caller ID gabriele@rand.org (Mark Gabriele) wrote: > I can fully understand people setting "anonymous caller rejection" on > their home phone lines. However, there are times when it is problematic. > For example: > A person calls a physician's office (after hours) with a medical > emergency. The person's call results in the physician being paged to call > the patient. > The physician calls the patient from their phone (home or cellular), > with blocking set ON. The physician's call is rejected because the > patient has the "anonymous call rejection" set ON. Ooops. Now, in > order to perform their ethical duty, the physician has to send caller > ID to the patient in order for the patient to receive the call. Now, > the patient can jot down the physician's home or cellular phone number > and call at their convenience (such as the next time little Johnny is > throwing up at 3:00 am, or when Sally suffers a mental health crisis > because her beaux dumped her). > This is not a desirable circumstance for the physician. Or when the physician calls from another patient's home phone while making a housecall (no jokes please -- some still do make housecalls). Then the second patient calls the first one demanding to speak to the doctor. > What I would propose is that CID should be capable of sending a > *different* number registered to the same person (or a corporate > number, with the permission of the corporation or on a business line). > This provides protection for people who for legitimate professional > reasons may wish to retain their personal privacy. Unfortunately, I > have not heard of any such capability in any jurisdiction with which I > am familiar. > I'm curious about why this seems to have escaped consideration, and > what, if anything, ought to be done about it. Exactly this service is available in Bell Canada territory. You can have any number that is installed at the same premises and billed to the same subscriber set up as your call display number. I have even seen an 800 number used this way. There is no charge to set this up, but an admin charge to change it thereafter. Tony Harminc ------------------------------ From: Lynne Gregg Subject: Re: Cellular Caller ID Date: Thu, 30 May 96 14:23:00 PDT Andrew C. Green wrote: > I'd like to think that no one in their right mind would want to call > only cellular phones to give a sales pitch, is there some more-official > reason why this doesn't occur more often? NPA/NXX's of cellular phones are not published. hudel@hppad.waterloo.hp.com (Chris Hudel) wrote: > Sorry if this has been suggested already, but how about "Name only > Caller-ID?" Afterall, don't you want to know *who* is calling more > than you want to know *what phone number* they are calling from? The FCC Order on Calling Number Services is very clear on this: If the caller blocks his number, NAME cannot be presented -- even alone (with no accompanying number). The Order also states that auto-callback *69 cannot be used either, if the caller blocks his number. Regards, Lynne ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Network Outages From: david.chessler@neteast.com (DAVID CHESSLER) Date: Thu, 30 May 96 14:56:00 -0400 Organization: Online Technologies, Inc. - Modem: 301-738-0000 Reply-To: david.chessler@neteast.com (DAVID CHESSLER) On 24 May 96, 03:26am, JONATHAN WELLS wrote to ALL on the subject of "Network Outages": > I am a student at the U of Penn, doing a graduate thesis. > I am trying to compile information about telco network outages. I > have searched all of the newsgroups hoping for a thread, but have not > found much. Could anyone help me? > If you have any information available about carrier network outages > which effected your business, or you know where I might find such > information, I would be very thankful.:) The FCC collects data on all outages affecting more than 50,000 phones. This is in the ARMIS series, available on the FCC Common Carrier "Statelink" BBS 202-418-0241 (it is not available on the Web Site, but you might be able to reach this BBS through fedworld.gov). ARMIS data is collected and maintained by the Accounting Division of the Common Carrier bureau. Someone from that division gave a presen- tation at the NARUC winter meetings. david.chessler@mix.cpcug.org david.chessler@neteast.com chessler@capaccess.org chessler@trinitydc.edu E-mail: ->132 1:109/459 david.chessler@mix.cpcug.org ------------------------------ From: Jeff Carroll Subject: Re: Hurting Public Utilities Hurts Public Service Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 12:17:30 -0500 Organization: bigendian Reply-To: xfrosch@indy.net Lisa wrote: > This kind of attitude will hurt the consumer. Despite massive > protest when the nuke plant was built, today its power is very much > needed in hot summers for air conditioning (and PCs, faxes, etc.) Had > that plant not been built, we'd have power shortages. (Some regions > face that on bad summer days.) The company would not have built the > plant, or not as big a plant if it felt the venture was too risky. As > a regulated monopoly, the power company had reduced risk. I agree with your position as it applies to nuclear plants. Obviously the construction of a nuclear power plant is something in which the community at large holds a huge stake, not just economically but in terms of public safety. Any locality which permitted wholesale, unregulated construction of nuclear plants would be begging for disaster. Another example which comes to mind is that of airline service. Clearly we have only one airspace to share, and that airspace MUST be managed as a public resource. In the days in which radio technology dictated narrowband channelized broadcast, it was necessary to regulate broadcasting since we have only one terrestrial electromagnetic spectrum. It used to be the case that construction of telecommunications networks was such a huge cost that society could only afford to bear it once. With the proliferation of cable TV, mobile phones, and (especially) digital wireless systems, this is clearly no longer so. Unless and until wireless communication is shown to be a hazard to public health (as I believe it never will), therefore, neither of the foregoing conditions mandating government regulation are satisfied. > Another benefit of regulation is lower rates. Because a service > territory is guaranteed, the government dictates a low rate of return. > Nobody gets rich on utility stocks. Further, the government dictates > service standards. This is a canard. Neither high standards of service nor low rates are guaranteed by utility regulation. The only conceivable explanation of why 2B+D ISDN is still $98/month in Indiana (as it was last time I checked) is the intransigence of the public utility commission and a cozy relationship with the telecom utilities. What government regulation really insures is that your technology will lag the state of the art by years if not decades. > But, like telephones, the electric company will lower its rates to > large users to meet competition, and raise rates to residences and small > businesses since nobody will want to serve them. In other words, they will rationalize their price structures. This would be a problem for customers of a power utility; in today's environment, however, the telecom consumer has an already broad (and still-expanding) range of local "loop" options; s/he will migrate toward the technology which serves him/her most effectively. > I'm a small potatoes consumer. Who's looking out for me? The > utility companies don't really want my $25/month account... My commercial bank really doesn't want my individual small potatoes account. My ISP really doesn't want to have to support my shell account; they'd rather make me use the same crippled winsock interface they give everyone else. My insurance company doesn't really want to carry my auto insurance policy; they'd rather focus on their main business, commercial liability. My local Chevrolet dealer would rather deal with fleet buyers than sell me one car. The airline I'm flying this weekend would rather serve me in my capacity as a corporate employee than as an individual consumer. My local supermarket would rather sell lots of groceries to rich people and corporations. Computer manufacturers prefer to build high-priced laptop models that are not affordable to most of us as individuals, because they can sell lots of them to large corporate customers. You don't have to look around America in 1996 for very long before this kind of argument starts to seem very silly. Regulated telecom was the only way to run a pair of copper wires to every residence back when that was the goal; today running a pair of copper wires to a residence is far from being a cost-effective solution in many cases. For those of us who essentially live out of automobiles, a pair of copper wires is completely unworkable. Prices ARE being kept artificially high and technology IS being restrained by government regulation. People have an amazing array of communications choices today, and, as long as antitrust legislation is properly enforced, the consumer has little if anything to fear from telecom deregulation save the mild stress of adapting to new technology. jkc ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: Re: Preventing Pickup on Busy Line Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 16:36:40 PDT A. Padgett Peterson wrote: > Pat, I have a real telco hardware question: I have been told that > there is a simple (e.g. one diode) circuit that can be used to prevent > a phone from picking up on a busy line. With FAX, modem, or other data > traffic picking up a handset can disrupt it. Proctor & Associates makes a variety of exclusion devices, either voltage operated or current operated, including current operated group exclusion modules that always give priority to one user. Contact Proctor at 206-881-7000, or via fax at 206-885-3282 or email at 3991080@mcimail.com. Ask for information on exclusion modules. > At the same time I need the phones to be able to pick up on either > line on request (push button?) when used for voice. Can you point me > to anything? With a two (or more) line phone this would be a function of the phone, not the exclusion module. The exclusion module would be wired ahead of the phone to prevent interruption. Tad Cook Seattle, WA tad@ssc.com ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #256 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu May 30 21:52:25 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id VAA29362; Thu, 30 May 1996 21:52:25 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 21:52:25 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199605310152.VAA29362@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #257 TELECOM Digest Thu, 30 May 96 21:52:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 257 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson A Nice Bit of Historical Trivia For You (TELECOM Digest Editor) London (Ontario) Yellow Pages on CD-ROM (Nigel Allen) Re: MCI Cellular (Lynne Gregg) Ericsson 337 Banned in USA? (mwong@mdsi.bc.ca) European CATV/Telecom Info -- Sources Needed (K. Walter) Re: University of Arizona Student Guards Internet Domain Names (M. Deignan) Updated GSM List 05/30/96 (Jurgen Morhofer) Re: Telcos and ISPs in Canada: Setting the Record Straight (Jean Mezei) Taking Care of Health Matters (TELECOM Digest Editor) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 21:20:03 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: A Nice Bit of Historical Trivia For You I have here about three dozen very old telephone bills from the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company in Boston, MA dated in the period September, 1932 through December, 1936. In addition, I have rent receipts for the same period of time. Two men were in business together, or at least they shared an office together at the time: Jacob Fisher & Samuel Steinberg Suite 718 - Providence Building 333 Washington Street Boston, Massachusetts Oddly, the phone number was not shown on any of the phone bills, which appear to be for coin telephone service in their office. There is a reference to an account number which is given as 'P 7622 LAF'. That may have been some central office designation. The phone bills look like this: Bell in a circle Bell System logo New England Telephone & Telegraph Co. American Telephone & Telegraph Co. New England Telephone and Telegraph Company The address of our BUSINESS OFFICE is shown in the front part of your telephone directory. When paying in cash please present both bill and stub. September 20, 1932 Monthly charge not covered by coin deposits, one month ending date of bill ..............................$ 3.75 Toll Service and Telegrams (statement enclosed) ........... .25 Deficit and other charges and credits (statement enclosed) . .20 Directory Advertising one month ending date of bill ....... ---- Amount due from previous bill ............................. ---- Total Due ............. $4.20 Sometimes there is a second page with an itemization of toll and sometimes there is not. On the front of each of these over the four year period in question there appears a round rubber stamp indicia with the date, the words 'Paid, Teller # __' and the phrase 'Bell System - New England Telephone and Telegraph Company.' The envelope for each has the traditional circle with the bell and Bell System logo in the middle of the circle. The first several give a return address of 881 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston. The postage meter indicia says it was mailed in Boston, two cents postage and 'one cent additional postage paid'. Beginning in late 1933, the return address on the envelope changes and is given as 705 Mt. Auburn Street, Watertown, Massachusetts, with a postage meter indicia showing Watertown and two cents postage. Beginning in 1935 the envelopes show a return address of 'P.O. Box 2256' in Boston, but they continue to have postal indicia from Watertown, again with two cents postage. They are all in 'window envelopes' so the address on the bill itself shows through the window, however in every case the flap which you slice open is at the *bottom* of the envelope rather than at the top. ----------------------- The other item with these phone bills are the corresponding rent receipts for the same time period. Mr. Fisher and Mr. Steinberg paid the grand sum of $62.50 per month rent for their office in the Providence Building, and there is a $5 credit on many of the bills showing the actual amount due was $57.50. Their landlord was Geo. L. DeBlois & A.N. Maddison, Agents, at 11 Pemberton Square, Boston 1, Massachusetts. Each rent bill has a rubber stamp on the front showing paid and the date, with the signature of the person who took their money. These rent bills are typed out on a very old fashioned sort of typewriter. The phone bills appear to have been prepared on a comptometer machine. ----------------------- I think the main interest some people might have in these items are the postal indicias and the cashier's indicias as they appear on the envelopes and invoices, etc. They would probably be of some interest to people who have followed the history of Nynex over the years and/or possibly local history in Boston. ----------------------- Would you like one? If you have not yet sent in the suggested voluntary annual donation of twenty dollars as 'subscription' to TELECOM Digest and would like to do so at this time, please include with it a *long* self-addressed stamped envelope and request one. If you have already given your subscription for this year and would like one of these, just send the long self addressed envelope. If you want a specific month and year, indicate this and I will include it if possible. The dates range from September, 1932 through December, 1936 however not all are available. Write to: TELECOM Digest PO Box 4621 Skokie, IL 60076 My thanks to William Lee Roberts of the Arctos Group, Chestnut Hill, MA for passing these along to me with the suggestion that Digest readers might like to check them out. No favoritism shown; I'll just fill these orders as they come in from the top of the pile. Not only will you get a nice bit of history, but your money will help keep the Digest around for another year or so. Thanks! PAT ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 21:14:18 -0400 From: Nigel Allen Subject: London (Ontario) Yellow Pages on CD-ROM Organization: Internex Online (shell.io.org), Toronto, Ontario, Canada Tele-Direct (Publications) Inc., the Yellow Pages subsidiary of Bell Canada, has announced plans to publish the London (Ontario) Yellow Pages on CD-ROM. Here is a press release from Tele-Direct, which I found on the Canada NewsWire web site at http://www.newswire.ca/ I don't work for Bell Canada or Tele-Direct. TELE-DIRECT (PUBLICATIONS) INC. - THE YELLOW PAGES(TM) DIRECTORY NOW AVAILABLE ON CD-ROM All the information you need at just a click of the mouse MONTREAL, 30 May /CNW/ - Tele-Direct (Publications) Inc. announces the launch of a new initiative that could revolutionize the way consumers locate the products and services they seek. The Yellow Pages(TM) directory, for decades Canada's most widely used and most comprehensive listing of businesses and services, will now be available on CD-ROM. Initially, the Yellow Pages directory on CD-ROM will be available in London, Ontario. However, after the initial launch this November, consumers in seventeen communities in Quebec and Ontario will gradually have access to the Yellow Pages directory through this new and easy-to-use medium. ``The Yellow Pages directory will be made available on CD-ROM to these communities by the year 2000,'' says Claude Phaneuf, Manager, Product Development of Tele-Direct (Publications) Inc. ``Many consumers will find this a very efficient and comprehensive way to locate both national and local advertisers.'' CITY MAP HELPS LOCATE ADVERTISERS Pop in your Yellow Pages directory on CD-ROM and the information you need is just a click of the mouse away. Businesses can be located by name or category with helpful information such as address and telephone number appearing right on the screen. In addition, with just one more click of the mouse, a city map appears showing you the way to the establishment of your choice. And for a select number of advtisers, a final click of the mouse brings to the screen more in-depth information in brochure format about the products they sell. With the CD-ROM version of the Yellow Pages directory, consumers can even create their own personal directory. Over time, as they locate the establishments they want, they can slowly put together a personal list of their favourite and most frequented businesses. In addition, Tele-Direct will put the residential directory in their communities on CD-ROM. Thus, their personal directory can include businesses as well as names of friends and family. ``We have put a lot of effort into the design of this software to make it as user friendly as possible while providing all the information people need,'' continues Phaneuf. ``Like the printed version, in London, we will offer the Yellow Pages directory on CD-ROM free of charge to consumers. Everybody wins, consumers and advertisers alike.'' A LOOK AHEAD Today, millions of Canadians turn to the Yellow Pages directory as their first and most credible choice when seeking an establishment that offers the product or service they need. By introducing the Yellow Pages directory on CD-ROM, Tele-Direct hopes to make access to this comprehensive directory even more widespread. ``We are the definite leaders in this field, and with the introduction of the Yellow Pages directory on CD-ROM in the months and years to come, we will be offering national advertisers the possibility of brand advertising linked to point of sales advertising, thus reaching the people who are ready to buy. Tele-Direct (Publications) Inc. is one of the world's largest publishers of directories. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of BCE, it sells advertising, compiles, publishes and delivers the alphabetical and Yellow Pages directories for communities in Ontario and Quebec served by Bell Canada. In addition, it publishes specialized neighbourhood directories within well-defined areas of larger cities, and provides similar services for other telephone companies both within Canada and internationally. For further information: Claude Phaneuf, Tele-Direct (Publications) Inc., (514) 934-2603 forwarded to the TELECOM Digest by Nigel Allen, Toronto, Ontario ndallen@io.org http://www.io.org/~ndallen/ ------------------------------ From: Lynne Gregg Subject: Re: MCI Cellular Date: Thu, 30 May 96 15:47:00 PDT From: macaw@ix.netcom.com (Macaw) > In Boston there is Cellular One and Nynex now there are two other cell > companies starting to put up their antennas. They are AT&T and Sprint. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When cellular phone service was being > developed in the early 1980's -- it started as of 1983 I believe -- > probably no one could ever imagine there would be a time when more > than two carriers would ever be in existence in a given community and > in most cases just one. Thus the A/B arrangement, with no real provision > for a 'C' or 'D' carrier, or whatever they might be called. Does anyone > know of any plans to open the market to a third or fourth (a 'C' or 'D' > or whatever you would call them) carrier? I do not mean just as a > reseller of A/B as happens now, I mean genuine infrastructure for > a third or fourth cellular company in some markets? PAT] Actually, the new carriers in the area hold PCS licenses. The major technical difference in service is that they will operate on different spectrum bands (than existing cellular carriers). They are officially designated "PCS 'a' and 'b'" operators. Regards, Lynne ------------------------------ From: mwong@mdsi.bc.ca (mwong) Subject: Ericsson 337 Banned in USA? Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 20:20:51 GMT Organization: mdsi Does anyone know if Ericsson 337 has been banned in US for too high radiation? Is it true or not? ------------------------------ From: K. Walter Subject: European CATV/Telecom Info -- Sources Needed Date: 30 May 1996 22:48:47 GMT Organization: Global Access (USA), Inc. I am looking for general materials on several European CATV/telecom projects -- any suggestions on sources would be appreciated. 1. BT = (OTIAN) Optical Telecom in the Access Network. 2. Deutsche Telekom = (OPAL) Optical Access Line. 3. France Telecom = (DORA) Deploiement de l'Optique dans le Reseau d'Access 4. Italian PTT = any CATV projects. 5. Swiss PTT = any FITL projects. 6. Telefonica de Espana = PLAN FOTON and any CATV projects. Thanks in advance. ------------------------------ From: kd1hz@anomaly.ideamation.com (Michael P. Deignan) Subject: Re: University of Arizona Student Guards His Internet Domain Names Date: 29 May 1996 22:49:55 -0400 Organization: The Ace Tomato Company In article , Tad Cook wrote: > While Grossman ended his pursuit for trophies when claims started to > cost, others have continued to grab. David Graves, business manager > for Internic, says 364,000 domain names have already been registered, > and 10,000 are being processed weekly. Let's run the numbers, shall we? 364,000 x $50/year = $18,200,000 per year in renewals. 10,000 x $100 = $1,000,00 per week in additional revenue. Looks like running an InterNic is a very profitable decision. I guess I know where the rationale for these fees came from. Anyone know any venture-capital firms out there where I can get a couple million to start my own Internic too? > peta.com : Two groups are battling for ownership of this name -- > People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals and a small group called > People Eating Tasty Animals. Actually, I thought it was peta.org. Oh well. MD ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 02:27:29 +0200 From: Jurgen Morhofer Subject: Updated GSM List 05/30/96 For the latest edition of this list look at my Web-Site: http://www.cs.tu-berlin.de/~jutta/gsm/gsm-list.html kindly supplied by Jutta Degener. And if you're already on the Web, take a look at my commercial site: http://www.pobox.com/~globaltel. I really would appreciate your business! (Changes in the list marked by "*") Date 05-30-1996. Country Operator name Network code Tel to customer service ------ ------------- ------------ ----------------------- Andorra STA-Mobiland 213 03 Int + 376 824 115 Argentina Australia * Optus 505 02 Int + 61 2 342 6000 Telecom/Telstra 505 01 Int + 61 18 01 8287 Vodafone 505 03 Int + 61 2 415 7236 Austria * Mobilkom Austria 232 01 Int + 43 1 79701 Bahrain Batelco 426 01 Int + 973 885557 Belgium Belgacom 206 01 Int + 32 2205 4000 Mobistar Brunei 536 ?? Bulgaria Citron 284 01 Cameroon Chile * China Guangdong MCC 460 00 Guangxi PTB 460 01 Liaoning PPTA 460 ?? Croatia HR Cronet 219 01 Cyprus CYTA 280 01 Int + 357 2 310588 Czech Rep. Eurotel Praha 230 02 Denmark * Sonofon 238 02 Int + 45 9936 7196 Tele Danmark Mobil 238 01 Int + 45 8020 2020 Egypt Estonia EMT 248 01 Int + 372 6 397130 Radiolinja Eesti 248 02 Int + 372 6 399966 Fiji Vodafone 542 01 Int + 679 312000 Finland Radiolinja 244 05 Int + 358 800 95050 * Telecom 244 91 Int + 358 800 7000 France France Telecom 208 01 Int + 33 1 44 62 14 81 SFR 208 10 Int + 33 1 44 16 20 16 Germany D1, DeTeMobil 262 01 Int + 49 511 288 0171 D2, Mannesmann 262 02 Int + 49 172 1212 Ghana * Gibraltar GibTel 266 01 Int + 350 58 102 000 G Britain * Cellnet 234 10 Int + 44 753 504548 * Vodafone 234 15 Int + 44 836 1191 * Jersey Telecom 234 50 Int + 44 1534 882 512 Guernsey Telecom 234 55 Manx Telecom 234 58 Int + 44 1624 636613 Greece Panafon 202 05 Int + 30 94 400 122 STET 202 10 Int + 30 93 333 333 Hong Kong HK Hutchison 454 04 SmarTone 454 06 Int + 852 2880 2688 Telecom CSL 454 00 Int + 852 2803 8450 Hungary Pannon GSM 216 01 Int + 36 1 270 4120 Westel 900 216 30 Int + 36 30 303 100 Iceland * Post & Simi 274 01 Int + 354 800 6330 India PT SATELINDO Airtel 404 10 Int + 98 10 012345 Essar 404 11 Int + 98 11 098110 Maxtouch 404 20 BPL Mobile 404 21 Command 404 30 Mobilenet 404 31 Skycell 404 40 RPG MAA 404 41 Indonesia TELKOMSEL 510 10 Int=A0+ 62 778 455 455 PT Satelit Palapa 510 01 Int + 62 21 533 1881 Excelcom 510 11 Iraq 418 ?? Iran T.C.I. Int + 98 2 18706341 Ireland * Eircell 272 01 Int + 353 42 38888 Digifone Italy * Omnitel 222 10 Int + 39 349 2000 190 Telecom Italia Mobile 222 01 Int + 39 339 9119 Ivory Coast* Japan Jordan 416 ?? Kenya * Kuwait MTC 419 02 Int + 965 484 2000 Laos 458 ?? Latvia * LMT 247 01 Int + 371 256 2191 Lebanon Libancell 415 03 Cellis 415 01 Liechtenstein Natel-D 228 01 Lithuania Omnitel 246 01 * Mobilos Telkom 246 02 Int + 370 2 232929 Luxembourg P&T LUXGSM 270 01 Int + 352 4088 7088 Lybia Orbit Macao CTM 455 01 Int + 853 8913912 Malawi 650 ?? Malaysia Celcom 502 19 Binariang 502 12 Malta Advanced 278 ?? Marocco O.N.P.T. 604 01 Int + 212 220 2828 Mauritius Cellplus 617 01 Monaco France Telecom 208 01 Int + 33 1 44 62 14 81 SFR 208 10 Int + 33 1 44 16 20 16 Mongolia * Mozambique * Namibia MTC 649 01 Int + 264 81 121212 Netherlands PTT Netherlands 204 08 Int + 31 6 0106 * Libertel 204 04 Int + 31 6 54 500100 New Caledonia * New Zealand Bell South 530 01 Int + 64 9 357 5100 Nigeria Norway NetCom 242 02 Int + 47 92 00 01 68 * TeleNor Mobil 242 01 Int + 47 22 78 15 00 Oman 422 ?? Pakistan Mobilink 410 01 Philippines Globe Telecom 515 02 Int + 63 2 813 7720 Islacom 515 01 Int + 63 2 813 8618 Poland 260 ?? Portugal Telecel 268 01 Int + 351 931 1212 * TMN 268 06 Int + 351 1 791 4474 Qatar Q-Net 427 01 Int + 974 325 000 Rumania 226 ?? Russia Mobile Tele... Moscow 250 01 Int + 7 095 915-7734 United Telecom Moscow =20 NW GSM, St. Petersburg 250 02 Int + 7 812 528 4747 SaudiArabia Saudi Telecom=20 Seychelles SEZ SEYCEL 633 01 Serbia Singapore Singapore Telecom 525 01 Int + 65 738 0123 Slovenia South Africa*MTN 655 10 Int + 27 11 445 6001 Vodacom 655 01 Int + 27 82 111 Sri Lanka MTN Networks Pvt Ltd 413 02 Spain * Airtel 214 01 Int + 34 07 123000 * Telefonica Spain 214 07 Int + 34 09 100909 Sweden Comviq 240 07 Int + 46 586 686 10 Europolitan 240 08 Int + 46 708 22 22 22 Telia 240 01 Int + 46 771 91 03 50 Switzerland PTT Switzerland 228 01 Int + 41 46 05 64 64 Syria SYR MOBILE 417 09 Taiwan * LDTA 466 92 Int + 886 2 321 1962=20 Tanzania Thailand TH AIS GSM 520 01 Int + 66 2 299 6440 Tunisia * Turkey Telsim 286 02 Int + 90 212 288 7850 Turkcell 286 01 Int + 90 800 211 0211 UAE UAE ETISALAT-G1 424 01 * UAE ETISALAT-G2 424 02 Int + 971 4004 101 Uganda Celtel Cellular 641 01 Vietnam MTSC 452 01 Zaire * Zimbabwe 648 ?? Many Thanks to Kimmo Ketolainen, Robert Lindh and Alex van Es for their precious help. ------------------------------ From: Jean-Fran=?iso-8859-1?Q?=E7ois Mezei ?= Subject: Re: Telcos and ISPs in Canada: Setting the Record Straight Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 19:04:21 GMT Organization: Vaxination Informatique Reply-To: jfmezei@istar.ca Ian Angus wrote: > Are Canada's telephone companies out to crush independent Internet > Service Providers? Are they engaged in a campaign to take over the > Internet and drive out all competitors? No, but they may buy out some of these ISPs to gain market share. This is what will happen in Australia with Telstra agumenting its presence in the ISP scene by buying out smaller ISPs in regions where it has no presence. In the end, you may end up with 2 large national independant ISP, the telcos, the cable companies and a couple of small ISPs who resist the tide of the big guys. In the case of Australia, this is even more imminent since the cable industry has just started and they are starting off with bi-directional cable plants whereas in North America, cable companies are stuck with older uni-directional plants for the most part. > Telecom Canada. In March 1992, Telecom Canada reorganized, and changed > its name to Stentor. That was more than a name change. I beleive that with Stentor, telcos's votes are weighted instead of being equal. This gives Bell a greater control of the orgaisation from what I was told. > THE NET >> "Bell Canada even tried to claim 'The Net' as its >> registered trademark. They prepared to sue Canadian >> ISPs who used 'The Net' in their advertising. But >> the trademark was challenged by small ISPs and Bell >> backed down. Instead, they called their service >> 'Sympatico.'" I beleive that Bell/Stentor (either directly or through their Mediatel division/entity) wanted to designate their Envoy 100 and Inet services on which are based their e-mail and EDI services as "THE NET" which, at the time, were not even connected to the real NET (the internet). I know that I saw some ads for some of their ENVOY and EDI services with the use of "THE NET" and I thought it was silly because it was pretentious for Bell/Stentor to think that their services were important enough to be considered *THE* net. At that time, even Bell Canada was confused about who was actually providing these services. Invoices were partly by Telecom Canada, partly by Stentor and partly by Bell Canada, and when you called for support, it was a company called Mediatel that answered the phone. (All of which were either the telco association (Telecom Canada or Stentor) or subsidiaries of Bell Canada. Since the "NET" is now an obvious reference to the Internet and since Bell's services which were encompassed in "THE NET" had nothing to do with the Internet (althought Envoy now has a connection to the internet), it was only normal that Bell/Stentor stop using that designation. > Not so. Bell Canada filed its trademark claim in 1992, before the term > "The Net" was widely used as a synonym for the Internet. May have been unknown to the Bell folks and the general public, but back in 1992, the internet was already being refered to as "the net" inside the information systems industry. As a customer of ENVOY, by the time I saw "The NET" in advertising, the Internet was already very public. I have never seen "the NET" in invoices sent to me. The service is still called ENVOY 100. I considered "THE NET" as yet more vapourware. > And so far as I am aware, there was never any plan to use The Net as a > name for Bell's Internet access service. I agree, but that is because Bell, until last year, still thought that the term "Information Super Highway" meant 500 TV channels and that the general public would not be interested in having a computer at home and never expected the Internet would grow out of its community. > So any ISP which was "sent scrambling" by Sympatico's rates was > probably in pretty bad shape to begin with. I beleive that small ISPs must still fear Bell/Stentor's very powerful marketing/advertising locomotives even if Bell's rates are not the best. Bell can push its way into the market with a massive advertising campaign that small ISPs could not match. If not, they will end up buying their way into the market by buying the smaller ISPs. And ISPs are aware of this, this is why they are NOW advertising before BELL gets its act together and launches its locomotive that will crush other advertising. The bigger the customer base an ISP now has, the more chances of survival it has and/or the more attractive it will be to a potential buy-out by one of the big guys. > ** Most small and medium-sized ISPs in Bell Canada's > territory use low-priced Centrex telephone lines for > customer access. In November, Bell informed them that > this use was contrary to regulations, and that they > should be using higher priced Information System > Access Lines. (ISALs) Interesting. When I called Bell in Montr=E9al for a quote for a similar setup (for a private network, not internet) the solution given was Centrex and no mention was made of ISALs). > And how can we square this story of monopoly power and market > dominance with the fact that the fearsome Sympatico service is still > an also-ran in the fight for market leadership, with fewer customers > than iSTN, HookUp, ID Internet Direct, CyberSurf, Internet Canada, and > others? If Bell does it right and provides state of the art access points and does not underestimate the intelligence of its customers (in other words, if Bell has learned from its Alex experience) and IF Bell puts its advertising power to work, it might becomes a very fiercesome force in the ISP market in Canada. Cogeco has already begun ISP services over cable in Quebec, and Videotron will begin its equivalent service in a few weeks. If Bell cannot keep up, its current dominance in the telecommunications industry will be eroded as fast as the cable companies can convert their network to bi-directional. Bell's services such as Datapac and Envoy just have not kept up and their rate structures still discourage private use. The large guys always seem to take longer to wake up to technological advances in the public. IBM was an "also ran" when it introduced its PC, well after APPLE and Commodore had their consumer products out. Microsoft was late in its entry in the software industry compared to companies/products such as Visicalc. But in the end, these guys used their marketing force to win their way to marklet dominance rather quickly. ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Taking Care of Health Matters Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 21:45:00 EDT Just a note to let everyone know I have to go back to the doctor for a bit more testing and treatment. It'll only be a day or two and I should be back here Monday or Tuesday at latest in case you don't see anything here for a few days and actually miss me! :) May I suggest you hold off on sending in submissions to the Digest at least until Monday, June 3 or Tuesday, June 4 since there is still plenty of backlogged stuff to get out when I am back at my post. Thanks, PAT ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #257 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu May 30 22:34:10 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id WAA03021; Thu, 30 May 1996 22:34:10 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 22:34:10 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199605310234.WAA03021@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #258 TELECOM Digest Thu, 30 May 96 22:34:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 258 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: 800/888 and COCOTS (Van Heffner) Re: 800/888 and COCOTS (Dave Levenson) Re: Does Dialing LD Access Code Prevent IntraLATA *69 Function? (J Rhodes) Re: Hurting Public Utilities Hurts Public Service (Henry Baker) Re: Hurting Public Utilities Hurts Public Service (Dave Levenson) Re: Graybar Electric (Stan Schwartz) Re: Great Circle Mileage Equations (John Mayson) Re: Bell Atlantic Proposes 412 Overlay (Daniel Greenfield) Re: 10-Digit Dialing is Easy (Dave Close) Satellite Phone on Mt. Everest (A.E. Siegman) I'll be away about three days with the doctor; look for more here about Tuesday! Please order a CD ROM of the Archives today! PAT] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 02:31:39 -0700 From: vantek@northcoast.com (VANTEK COMMUNICATIONS) Subject: Re: 800/888 and COCOTS > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would not let something as silly as > that stop me from visiting Texas, which is a wonderful place with some > very fine people. The theory behind charging for calls to 800/888 from > a COCOT is that the COCOT owner has no way to be compensated for the > call otherwise, and it is felt he is entitled to compensation on all > calls, the same as any telco. Like any other long distance call, part > of the charge (usually collected from the recipient in the case of > 'toll free' calls) goes back to the originating telco. In other words, > the revenue from those calls is divided among the carriers involved > the same as on regular long distance calls. On regular long distance > calls, the COCOT operator has you put the money in the box, therefore > he gets his portion after paying the telco whose line he is on. In > the case of 800/888, there is no money to put in the box, but he still > wants his portion. A point could be made perhaps that telco should be > required to pay commissions on long distance traffic handled by COCOTs > which would take care of that problem, but that is not how it is done > at this time. That is why the COCOT user has to pay. PAT] My big problem with this is that the fee effectively puts a $.25 surcharge on each of my calling card calls. Most LD carriers now have 800 access numbers to use their calling cards. Part of the convenience of having a calling card is not having to carry around a bunch of loose change. That's no longer possible in Texas. The only way to make a "changeless" call from these phones will now be the LEC's prepaid "smart cards". What a great way to promote the use of their own (overpriced) cards ... place a $.25 surcharge on other company's calling card calls! I guess that if you don't have a "smart card", you will need to use their AOSlime to make a call (without change). This puts LD (card) competitors (and consumers) at a real disadvantage. Keep in mind that the LEC's (SW Bell and GTE) are already making money on other company's calling card calls by charging access fees to the carrier. This $.25 fee just adds insult to injury for those wishing to use a competitor's services. After all, it's not like you can "shop around" for other payphones, in most locations. It was GTE and SW Bell who pushed for these new fees, NOT so much the COCOT's (they have far less phones there anyway). This is one case where the LEC payphone operators are being even greedier than the COCOT's! The two above LEC's threatened to pull many of their public payphones out of a huge number of installations in Texas, unless this legislation was passed. Part of the reason for passing the legislation was the fact that the state felt that it would be very inconvenient (and perhaps even a threat to public safety) to let the two companies remove their payphones from many rural (many nonprofitable) locations throughout the state. IOW, the state more or less had the thing shoved down their throats. Van Hefner - Editor Discount Long Distance Digest On The Web: http://www.webcom.com/longdist/ ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: 800/888 and COCOTS Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 01:22:18 GMT Mike Seebeck (seebeck@lace.colorado.edu) writes: > It is a poor solution to a payphone company wanting to collect revenue > to require users of 800 calling cards to carry change with them in > order to use their calling cards. I travel often and use real money > as little as possible (it is soooo messy). I do not care to carry a > role of quarters so I can use my calling card from airports. I agree completely. I believe that help is on the way. One tiny article within the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996 states that payphone operators should be compensated for the use of their equipment. The FCC is required by the act to impose regulations to effect this compensation. The FCC is moving toward requiring the carrier (who bills the called party for an 800 call) to share the revenue in some way with the owner of the payphone from which the call originated. This is likely to happen around the end of 1996. The state of Texas, in trying to accomplish the same thing before the Act was passed, and unable to exert its influence over 800 service providers outside of Texas, permitted payphone operators in the state to collect a per-call `set-use fee' in coin. When the public phone compensation part of the Act takes effect, it is likely that Texas will no-longer permit the per-call coin deposit on 800 and 888 calls. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: uunet!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ From: Jeffrey Rhodes Subject: Re: Does Dialing LD Access Code Prevent IntraLATA *69 Function? Date: 30 May 1996 14:46:01 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services I'll venture a guess. The calling party number must be delivered for the *69 call back CLASS feature to work. Some XXX carriers have been given a waiver from FCC Docket 91-281 which requires long distance carriers to pass the CPN when received. The FCC order became official on December 1, 1995 but some long distance carriers' switches (not AT&T) were unable to comply. The waiver is up on June 1, 1996. Maybe the XXX carrier has finally got switch software to pass the CPN! When you dial 10XXX for intra-LATA, the call goes out to a long distance carrier and loops back to the LEC to complete the call within the LATA. When *69 returns the call,the long distance carrier is not involved. Another guess is that the carrier has upgraded to SS7 signaling to the LEC and previously used Feature Group D (FGD) signaling which passes ANI, not CPN. Incidentally, there is another CLASS feature to connect a call to a busy line when the line becomes unbusy. Global Title Translation of your received CPN allows the LEC to contact your switch to retry the call when the called line is unbusy (your switch first calls you, you answer and then the call is placed). I wonder if this will work when you first dial 10XXX? I think *67 before the 10XXX will prevent a callback by *69. Your calling number is still delivered to the called switch, it won't be available for display (a court order can obtain it, though, when the called party dials *56 immediately after the call), but the LEC would have to show the number dialed on the customer's invoice which would defeat the privacy of *67. Jeffrey Rhodes at jeffrey.rhodes@attws.com ------------------------------ From: hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker) Subject: Re: Hurting Public Utilities Hurts Public Service Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 04:53:06 GMT In article , hancock4@cpcn.com (Lisa) wrote: > This kind of attitude will hurt the consumer. Despite massive > protest when the nuke plant was built, today its power is very much > needed in hot summers for air conditioning (and PCs, faxes, etc.) Had > that plant not been built, we'd have power shortages. (Some regions > face that on bad summer days.) The company would not have built the > plant, or not as big a plant if it felt the venture was too risky. As > a regulated monopoly, the power company had reduced risk. > Another benefit of regulation is lower rates. Because a service > territory is guaranteed, the government dictates a low rate of return. > Nobody gets rich on utility stocks. Further, the government dictates > service standards. > I'm a small potatoes consumer. Who's looking out for me? The > utility companies don't really want my $25/month account -- they're > looking to widen their territories and grab big industrial users. The > so-called "consumer advocates" on PUCs care only about the very poor > users, not the middle class. Boy, have you been taken in by the well-oiled utility PR folks! For an historical perspective, you might look at: Nye, David E. "Electrifying America". MIT Press, 1990, ISBN 0-262-64030-9. Electrical power plants were originally built and paid for by industrial users. Then they noticed that they had all this expensive capital equipment sitting idle _during the evening after the workers went home and the plants were idle_, so they began offering electrical power to consumers at _extremely attractive rates_ -- in some cases _flat_ rates! In other words, for X dollars per month, they would hook you up and you could use as much electricity _as you could get through your circuit breaker_. So long as your subscription fee paid for the capital costs of the wires/pipes/etc. and maintenance, the power plant was way ahead of the game. The city utility plants, on the other hand, were typically built for street lighting, and therefore could not offer low rates to consumers since they needed the electricity themselves at the same time. Oh, by the way, many cities had three or more power companies, and they began to compete with one another. So you can now guess what havoc was then wreaked by 'regulation'. Technical progress sloowweedd wwaayy dddooowwwnnn, because slow depreciation made investments in new technology impossible, and cheap rates were replaced by 'rational' (but much higher) rates. Although no one was making 'obscene' profits, everyone was being screwed by the lack of any technical progress in the industry. So the law of unintended consequences (the one law that politicians can't understand) guaranteed that costs and prices would remain high because no one had any incentive to lower them. Obscene profits in a highly competitive industry have a tendency to be relatively short-lived, unless the profiteer is extraordinarily nimble, and is working as hard or harder than others to bring costs down. In this case, he is doing as much for you as he is for himself, and you should thank him profusely for improving your productivity for you, rather than begrudging him rewards for a job well done. So you as a consumer have much more to gain from utility competition than big industrial customers, who already have the option of building their own power plants. www/ftp directory: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/hb/hbaker/home.html ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: Hurting Public Utilities Hurts Public Service Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 01:38:57 GMT Lisa (hancock4@cpcn.com) writes: > When the phone company broke, what consumer expected higher prices > for COCOT phones and long distance? Long distance is far less expensive today than it was pre-competition. Many COCOT phones charge less than utility-owned payphones (even though the utility-owned payphones are subsidized by ratepayers). While competition is not the answer to every problem, it does offer us alternatives. If we make informed decisions, we benefit. What we lose with competition is subsidies. (If one group of customers subsidizes another, a competitor will offer the customers who pay the subsidy an opportunity to avoid paying it.) If you have been paying these subsidies, you benefit. If you have been receiving them, perhaps you don't ... but ask yourself why you deserved to be subsidized in the first place! Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: uunet!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 16:36:53 EDT From: Stan Schwartz Subject: Re: Graybar Electric In Mark J. Cuccia's very informative article in TD #234 "WUTCO, WECO, Graybar", there was some doubt as to the current existence of Graybar. Fear not, as I stumbled upon a booth that they had set up at the ITEC Expo in Charlotte, NC last week. I asked the reps there if they were the "same" Graybar, and sure enough they are. I don't know how many offices they still have in the states, but a packet of info that they mailed to me had the logo "Everything Electrical - Graybar Electric Company - Since 1869" on the mailing label. They still have catalogs (which are on their way), and their address here is: Graybar Electric Company, Inc. 1451 Bryant Street Charlotte, NC 28208 (704) 375-9831 Once I get the catalog(s), if there's a toll-free number and/or e-mail address, I'll post it. Stan (stan@vnet.net) ------------------------------ From: jmayson@p100dl.ess.harris.com (John Mayson) Subject: Re: Great Circle Mileage Equations Date: Thu, 30 May 96 12:30:18 EDT I derived this formula to calculate great circle mileage equations. I don't know if this is the best way to do it, but it works. Define NORTH latitudes as POSITIVE, SOUTH latitudes as NEGATIVE. Define EAST longitudes as POSITIVE, WEST longitudes as NEGATIVE. Convert the coordinates of both points to Cartesian. x=RHO * sin(PHI) * cos(THETA) y=RHO * sin(PHI) * sin(THETA) z=RHO * cos(THETA) However note that PHI is defined as being 0 degrees at the North Pole and 180 and the South Pole. It is necessary to let PHI=(90 - LON). THETA simply equals LAT. RHO is the radius of the earth. Assume the circumference is 25,000 miles. Divide by 2*PI to get RHO. So we now have these equations: x=RHO * sin(90 - LON) * cos(LAT) y=RHO * sin(90 - LON) * sin(LAT) z=RHO * cos(LAT) To find the linear distance between the two points use: d = SQRT[ (x2-x1)^2 + (y2-y1)^2 + (z2-z1)^2 ] This is the distance if you're a groundhog and care to burrow through the earth. However you can easily calculate the arc length from this. 2*RHO*arccos[d/(2*RHO)] where arccos is in RADIANS!! Also note you can factor RHO out of the equation for d. I'll call this d'. In that case your equation is simply: 2*RHO*arccos(d'/2) Now here's my question for you. How would I find the azimuth (direction) of one point on earth wrt to another? John Mayson | Palm Bay, Florida | john.mayson@harris.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 30 May 96 13:03 EST From: Daniel Greenfield <0007129704@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: Bell Atlantic Proposes 412 Overlay Continuing the discussion raised by John Cropper's submissions on Bell Atlantic Proposes 412 Overlay in Vol 16, Issue 240 -- This may be of interest to your readers. A coalition of telecommuncations service providers and Pittsburgh region-based independent telephone companies issued the following in reponse to the 412 area code exhaust issue. Dan Greenfield MCI 712-9704@mcimail.com COALITION FORMS TO SUPPORT GEOGRAPHIC SPLIT FOR NEW AREA CODE IN PITTSBURGH Pittsburgh, Pa., May 10,1996 - Five of Pennsylvania's largest communications companies today announced they have formed a coalition to support the geographic split as the most proconsumer and procompetitive method of implementing new area codes for the Pittsburgh area. The coalition asserts that Bell Atlantic's plan, which overlays the new code in the existing 412 area, is anticompetitive and would force consumers and businesses to dial 10 digits for every call they place, , including local calls. The "Pennsylvania Coalition for Area Code Relief," comprised of AT&T, MCI, MFS Communications Co., Inc., Sprint and Teleport Communications Group, supports a geographic area code split plan in which part of the Pittsburgh region would keep the 412 area code and part would adopt a "new" area code. The new code is necessary because growth in the use of fax machines, computer modems, cellular phones, pagers and the use of second (or third) telephone lines in many households is rapidly depleting the available pool of telephone numbers. As a result, the Pittsburgh region faces the prospect that phone number reserves in the 412 area code will be exhausted next year. The coalition supports the geographic split because it minimizes customer confusion, minimizes inconvenience, maintains a community's identity with a specific area code and helps promote the development of telecommunications competition. It also enables the majority of residents to continue dialing seven digits for their local calls. "If Bell Atlantic has its way, neighbors will have different area codes, and, in cases where consumers add fax or additional telephone lines, there would be two different area codes in the same house," said Joe Karas, AT&T president in Pennsylvania. "In addition, consumers would have to dial the full 10 digits for all their local calls. You shouldn't have to dial extra digits to place a local call -- or dial a different area code to call your teenager down for dinner," he said. "It's obvious that Bell Atlantic's approach is not consumer friendly." Chip Casteel, MCI regional executive of public policy, agrees. "The coalition is sending a wake-up call to Pittsburgh consumers -- Bell Atlantic's proposal would confuse consumers and delay the benefits of local telephone competition in Pennsylvania," he said. "The traditional geographic split has been used almost universally for nearly 50 years to solve area code exhaust. In fact, California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Missouri and Illinois recently favored a split, determining it to be in line with the development of competition and better for consumers." The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission is currently receiving comments on this issue and will soon consider the best way to implement the new Pittsburgh region area code. ------------------------------ From: dhclose@alumnae.caltech.edu (Dave Close) Subject: Re: 10-Digit Dialing is Easy Date: 30 May 1996 06:56:40 GMT Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena cra@servtech.com (Curtis R. Anderson) writes: > Well, in New York, all intra-NPA calls are dialed as seven digits. > There were all sorts of complaints about having to do this. Folks > would have prefered to dial "1+" 7 digits so they would understand > that they were placing a toll call. Calling a particular number may be a toll call if placed over one network and not a toll call if placed over a different network. It may be a toll call if placed from a phone with one class of service (business, say) and not a toll call if placed from a phone with a different class of service (residence, say, or coin). It may be a toll call if placed from a line with measured service or "life-line" service and not a toll call if placed from a line with unmeasured service. A call which involves an additional charge may still not be a toll call if the carrier chooses to name it a "message unit" call. A call placed with 10XXX access may be charged a toll when the same call placed without the prefix would not be so charged, even if the default carrier is the same as the 10XXX carrier. The above are only some of the variables which exist today. In the near future, we will have other variables to contend with, including caller-pays PCS or cellular service. Those who dream of 1+ being required to place a "toll" call are only dreaming. The technical effort to evaluate all the variables in real-time would be uneconomic. But the consumer backlash may have the desirable effect to inducing carriers to offer more flat-rate service. Competition may push in the same direction. Just as there are COCOTs today with flat-rate nationwide calling (usually at 25c/min), I expect one of the cable companies will offer nationwide unlimited calling for a fixed monthly rate within three years. I only hope the rate will be attractive. Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu ------------------------------ From: siegman@ee.stanford.edu (A. E. Siegman) Subject: Satellite Phone on Mt. Everest Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 14:43:00 -0700 Organization: Stanford University Surely one of the more bizarre and thought-provoking telecom stories during the past month must have been the climber trapped a few thousand feet below the summit of Everest by a suddenly emerging storm, telephoning his seven-months pregnant wife from his emergency snow cave via satellite phone to tell her he's OK and will soon be rescued, despite having no tent, minimal supplies, unable to move further because of frostbite in his legs, and with absolutely zero hope of rescue. One thinks on the one hand of trapped polar explorers of the past, leaving behind diaries with entries written as they and their comrades slowly die of cold or starvation, with these diaries to be found in some cases not until decades later. And on the other hand, despite the grim reality of the situation one can't help having visions of dialogs like, "I have a collect call for anyone from Annapurna; will you accept the charges?"; "Anna WHO..?". ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #258 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jun 3 18:45:07 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id SAA01824; Mon, 3 Jun 1996 18:45:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 18:45:07 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606032245.SAA01824@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #259 TELECOM Digest Mon, 3 Jun 96 18:45:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 259 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Arrogant Internet Providers (Tad Cook) Telecom and Disability Conference (Jim Tobias) Intelligent Networks For Mobile Users? (Eric Tholome) Excel Goes Head to Head With Sprint - Offers .09/min (Tom Zinn) Digital Communications Action Group (Monty Solomon) Help with Draconian Contract (Romesh C.D. Singh@spider) UNIX DTMF-Decoding "Voicemail" Software? (Jeremy Elson) "Historic Telephony" Webpage (Mark J. Cuccia) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Cook Subject: Arrogant Internet Providers Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 18:17:49 GMT Arrogant Internet providers tell customers to get lost By Peter H. Lewis {New York Times} In Moscow, desperate people must sometimes wait years, or pay exorbitant bribes, to get telephone service that is expensive and unreliable. By those standards, Internet access in the United States is pretty good. But recent events and trends in the on-line access business have led some Internet customers to reassess their service providers and begin shopping around for new homes in cyberspace. Many people, perhaps most, are happy with their Internet service. Many others are not. The complaints often arise from general overcrowding on the Internet and the World Wide Web, but they also come from what seems to be a new arrogance on the part of Internet access providers who only a year or two ago were begging for customers. For example, Netcom On-Line Communications Inc. of San Jose has informed some of its customers that they are no longer wanted. Sophisticated users are being shown the door. "Frankly, it's not profitable to service your account anymore," a technical support representative told me. It seems the company regrets that it offered me a so-called Unix shell account several years ago and now wishes me to cancel it and sign up for the more profitable (to them) Netcruiser service. To drive the point home, the Netcom technician informed me that the company no longer accepts telephone calls from shell account customers who need technical support. Rather, all questions have to be submitted by electronic mail. When I explained that my problem involved Netcom's locking my electronic mail account, the technician was unmoved. "You'll have to send us e-mail," he said. So I did as I was told. A month later, I got a response that had nothing to do with my shell account. The average response time for this electronic support is measured in weeks, which makes the 20-minute hold times for telephone support seem like a fond memory. Meanwhile, at the other end of the country and of the Internet service spectrum, the Internet service Pipeline in New York City recently announced that it was no longer interested in serving Internet beginners. Internet newcomers require too much hand-holding and technical assistance, it seems, making them more trouble than they are worth. According to William L. Schrader, chief executive of Psinet Inc., the national Internet service company that bought Pipeline more than a year ago, the company's new strategy is to let AT&T, America Online Inc. and other larger companies recruit and train the beginners. Then, once these on-line ragamuffins are properly schooled and polished, Pipeline will be happy to have them back, at higher fees. "We will build a billion-dollar business from AT&T's crumbs," Schrader said, borrowing an image from the novel "Bonfire of the Vanities." Mysterious swelling And then there is the IDT Corp. of Hackensack, N.J., which is one of the nation's fastest-growing Internet service companies. IDT, whose advertisements are inescapable in some parts of the country, used to offer "unlimited and "uncensored" Internet and World Wide Web access for $15 a month. That would be quite a bargain, many former customers say, except that it was often impossible to get connected to the Internet through IDT because of incessant busy signals, and that the software provided by IDT did not allow Web access and that the expected $15 bill often mysteriously swelled. IDT officials say the critics are being unfair, and that any misunderstandings about service and billing have been rectified. Long-term commitment Internet customers, whether novices or sophisticates, ought to keep these unsettling situations in mind when shopping for a service provider. It pays to do a lot of homework before choosing a provider, because changing services, which means changing e-mail addresses, business cards and the like, is far more annoying and expensive than signing up in the first place. As always, the best resource for anyone looking for a reliable Internet connection is a friend who already has service. Beyond the obvious questions about price, ask the friend: Are busy signals ever a problem? Is telephone support readily available at convenient times? Is the help desk helpful when there are problems? One can ask the same questions of the provider, of course, but candid answers are less likely. No response My search for a new provider has been unsettling. To get a list of providers in my area code, I visited The List on the World Wide Web (address: http:// www. thelist.com) and started calling. (For beginners, the search will probably start with the Yellow Pages or advertisements in newspapers and magazines.) If the office phones are representative of the modem lines, I reasoned, my first calls would be a gauge of future service. Of the six local providers I dialed, not one answered the phone directly. Some lines were constantly busy. Others were answered by answering machines. Only one provider called back by the end of the day. My friends in Moscow write that the telephone service there is slowly getting better. I am not sure I can say the same about Internet access here. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, I will tell you one *excellent* source here in the Chicago area: RIPCO Communications. Their dialup for information online is 312-665-0065. They charge me $35 for three months of unlimited shell access. Bruce and his associate Dave Richards have always been prompt to respond to my concerns and wishes. There is also a voice number which unfortunatly is answered a great deal of the time by a machine at least during the day, but that may be because the guys have to work elsewhere or have other places to be much of the time which would be understandable if it is the case. I've been by their site which is centrally located on the north side of Chicago at Western and Belmont Avenues. They have a *large* number of dialups (about a hundred) so I have never gotten a busy signal when dialing in. I'd recommend them to Chicago/north suburban users. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jim Tobias Subject: Telecom and Disability Conference Date: Mon, 03 Jun 1996 14:05:11 -0400 Organization: Inclusive Technologies Reply-To: tobias@inclusive.com INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS ARE ENTERING A NEW ERA... ... SO SHOULD YOU! INFORAMPS 96 New Markets and Inclusive Communications A National Conference on Designing and Using an Accessible Information Infrastructure July 11 & 12, 1996 Kellogg Conference Center Gallaudet University, Washington, DC *Get an edge on the future!* Hear industry leaders describe how user-friendly universal design of telecommunications technology gives them a competitive advantage. *Do Business Inclusively!* Learn how to increase your potential market size by opening up your products and business practices to new users. *Create better products and services for everyone!* Designing information technology, products and services that can be used by people with disabilities results in innovations that help everyone! *INFORAMPS 96* Will celebrate the work and knowledge already gained regarding the design of a user-friendly electronic environment; recognize pioneering efforts within the industry; showcase exhibits of new developments and breakthroughs; bring together professionals and consumers with common interests; and add to the growing momentum toward universal design. *Interactive Virtual Conference* A parallel, virtual conference will be accessible from any home or office computer for participants who are unable to come to the site at Gallaudet University. Join INFORAMPS 96 via audio conference, download real-time transcripts and ask questions and give comments via fax and E-mail. PRELIMINARY CONFERENCE AGENDA July 11, 1996 9:00 - 9:15 Welcoming Remarks *I. King Jordan, President, Gallaudet University *Deborah Kaplan, Issue Dynamics, Inc. 9:15 - 10:00 Keynote Address *Vice President Al Gore (Invited) 10:00 - 10:30 Technology Demonstration *John Gage, Chief Scientist, Sun Microsystems 10:30 - 12:00 Roundtable Discussion: Creating a New Paradigm of Universal Design Within the Industry *Moderator, Steven Miller, Author, Civilizing Cyberspace *Esther Dyson, EDventure Holdings, Electronic Frontier Foundation *Tom Wheeler, Cellular Telecommunication Industry Association 12:00 - 2:00 Luncheon and Exhibits 2:00 - 2:30 Technology Demonstrations and Remarks about the Value of Universal Design to the Disability Community *Moderator, George Covington 3:45 - 5:00 Roundtable Discussion: Universal Design: Markets or Mandates/What are the Incentives? *Larry Roffee, Access Board *Karen Krueger, Motion Picture Association of America 5:00 - 6:30 Evening Reception and tour of INFORAMPS 96 exhibits *remarks from Larry Irving, Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department Commerce, National Telecommunications Information Administration July 12, 1996 9:30 - 5:00 CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS - July 12 Choose from four tracks focusing on specific case studies: POLICY *The Telecommunications Act of 1996 *PCS Summit Process - Solving Hearing Aid Incompatibility and Interference Problems TECHNICAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT *Accessible Information Kiosks *Multimedia and World Wide Web Access PUBLIC SECTOR *Texas Electronic Textbook Accessibility *State Purchasing Strategies: Incorporating Accessibility into Contracts BUSINESS PRACTICES (For information industry representatives only) *Market Research and Analysis: Demographics, Research Tools *Operational Issues: Customer Service, Dealer/Supplier Relations *CONFERENCE REGISTRATION* (Lodging Deadline June 17) Please return the following information to: INFORAMPS 96 World Institute on Disability 510 16th Street, Suite 100 Oakland, CA 94612-1500 Name: Organization/Affiliation: Address: City: State: ZIP: Phone (voice): (TTY): FAX: E-mail: One Day Attendance fee (circle one): Non-Profit/Government @ $75.00 Foundations/Corporations @ $150.00 or Two Day Attendance fee (circle one): Non-Profit/Government @ $125.00 Foundations/Corporations @ $275.00 (Make checks payable to the World Institute on Disability) Please circle which workshop track you will attend on July 12: Policy Technical/R&D Public Sector Business* *For information industry representatives only Virtual Conference Registration @ $75.00 (circle if desired) Please indicate any accommodations you need to participate in the conference (circle any which apply) ASL interpreter CART (Computer Assisted Real Time) Sighted Guide Assistive listening device Other (specify) In what format would you like to receive INFORAMPS 96 materials? Regular print Braille Computer disk (specify) LODGING: Fully Accessible rooms are available at Kellogg Conference Center on first come, first served basis at a cost of $99/night (single). Reserve by June 17 by calling (202) 651- 6002. Reference INFORAMPS 96. For those wishing to stay off campus, non-wheelchair accessible rooms are available at the Bellevue Hotel, near Union Station, (202) 638-0900. CONFERENCE SPONSORS *American Express Foundation *AT&T Foundation *Bellcore *Citibank *The Dole Foundation for Employment of People with Disabilities *Florida Endowment Foundation for Vocational Rehabilitation *NEC Foundation of America *NYNEX *The JM Foundation *The David and Lucile Packard Foundation CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS *World Institute on Disability *CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media *Trace Research & Development Center, University of Wisconsin *Alliance for Public Technology *Information and Technology Accessibility Advisory Group *Inclusive Technologies For further information on INFORAMPS 96 please contact Clay Carter at the World Institute on Disability: Phone (Voice or TTY) 510-763-4100 FAX 510-763-4109 E-mail: clay@wid.org Jim Tobias Inclusive Technologies tobias@inclusive.com 908.441.0831 v/tty 908.441.0832 fax ------------------------------ From: tholome@francenet.fr (Eric Tholome) Subject: Intelligent Networks For Mobile Users? Date: Mon, 03 Jun 1996 22:58:27 +0200 Hi all, I am currently doing some research on the subject of Intelligent Networks applied to mobile networks. More specifically, I am looking for data concerning either existing IN services (what type of service, how much it costs, how popular it is, etc.) or projected use in the mobile environment. If you are aware of any report on the subject (ideally a study by an independent consulting company) or know of existing services, I would appreciate if you could let me know, preferably by email, and I will summarize if other people show some interest. Thanks in advance, Eric Tholome private account 23, avenue du Centre tholome@francenet.fr 78180 Montigny le Bretonneux phone: +33 1 30 48 06 47 France fax: same number, call first! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 03 Jun 96 16:50:43 EST From: Tom Zinn Subject: Excel Goes Head to Head With Sprint - Offers .09/min Excel Telecommunications, Inc (ECI - NYSE) has announced that as of June 1st it will offer .09 cents per minute on calls to anyone in the lower 48 and Hawaii. The rate is offered from 7 pm to 7 am and weekends. Existing Excel customers can get the service by calling 1-800-4EXCEL-9. For more information about Excel discount Long Distance and Pager Service contact Tom Zinn at ExcelTZ@aol.com Tom Zinn 703-352-5290 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 04:36:32 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Digital Communications Action Group Reply-To: monty@roscom.com Forwarded to the Digest FYI: Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 12:52:50 -0400 (EDT) From: James Love Subject: Digital Communications Action Group There is an interest in forming a focused advocacy group, perhaps named the Digital Communications Action Group (DCAG), which would participate in state PUC proceedings and FCC proceedings, focusing on three issues: 1. Pricing of BRI ISDN service. (Seeking lower rates in markets where the LEC does not face competition). 2. Rules for interconnection and unbundling, focusing on rules that will make it easier for new entrants to lease the local loop to provide new digital services, such as ISDN, ASDL, HDSL, etc... 3. Reform of long distance network access fee structure, with a special effort to prevent the incumbent local exchange carriers (LECs) from imposing per minute fees or other usage charges on Internet Service Providers. The membership of the DCAG would include technology firms (ISPs, software and computer hardware manufactures), content providers (newspapers, database companies), non-profits (consumer, library and education groups) and others. Right now I need to know the names of firms or groups that would be interested in participating. I'm not too concerned about funding, at this point, but mostly about who may be willing to allow their company or organization to be publicly identified with advocacy on these issues. On this score, its worth noting that several large fortune 500 firms have been lobbied against active participation on these issues by LECs (certainly by PacBell, Bell Atlantic and US West, for example). I would like to hear from persons who might be interested in this effort. Please contact me directly: James Love / love@tap.org / P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036 Voice: 202/387-8030; Fax 202/234-5176 Center for Study of Responsive Law Consumer Project on Technology; http://www.essential.org/cpt Taxpayer Assets Project; http://www.tap.org ------------------------------ From: Romesh.C.D.Singh@spider.rmplc.co.uk Subject: Help With Draconian Contract Date: 3 Jun 1996 22:09:15 GMT Organization: TRD Inc. Reply-To: rsingh@rmplc.co.uk I am looking for some help in the interpretation of a Licence agreement signed by the previous Government of a less developed country and a Public Company for the sale of that country's telephone network. I am interested in providing voice /data communications, Internet and payphone services throughout the country. How can I provide these services without getting into legal battles with the new owners. Is there some different interpretation of the proposed services so that it doesnt breach the agreement? What about providing these services for members of a cooperative society, or company providing services to private customers? Your help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Romesh LICENCE AGREEMENT The Government covenants and undertakes as follows- LICENCES-The Government will grant subject to the provisions of this agreement,to XXX Company licences under the Post and Telegraph Act of the laws of YY Country,or any legislation enacted to replace it,to carry on,operations to provide the following services: (a) Public telephones,radio telephones (except private radio telephones systems which do not interconnect with XX Company network) and paystation telephone services,national and international voice and data transmission; (b) Sale of advertising in any directories of telephone subscribers; (c) Switched or non switched private line service supported by facilities constructed over public rights of way; (d) Terminal and customer premises equipment; (e) Telefax,telex and telegraph services and telefax network services, excluding the following operations: (i) sales of telefax or teleprinter machines; (ii) maintenance of telefax or teleprinter equipment; and (iii) operation of any facility for sending and receiving of telefax- copies or teleprinter messages, and (f) cellular radio telephones service. TERMS OF LICENCES - The licence granted to XXXCompany in respect of services referred to in sub paragraphs(a),(b) and (c) of SectionXX will be exclusive licence for a period of twenty years and shall be renewable at the option of XXX Company for a further period of twenty years. During that period of the exclusive licence, no other company, nor government, shall provide any services to which the licence relates. The licence granted to XXX Company with respect to the services referred to in sub-paragraphs (d) and (e) of Section .. shall be exclusive for a period of ten years,and shall be renewable at the options of XXX Company on a non exclusive basis. Cellular Radio Telephone Licence - The Government shall Grant to XXX Company a non exclusive licence to provide cellular radio telephone services anywhere within the country The licence shall be for a period of twenty years and shall be renewable at the option of XXX Company for a further period of twenty years. ------------------------------ From: jelson@condor.cs.jhu.edu (Jeremy Elson) Subject: UNIX DTMF-Decoding "Voicemail" Software? Date: 3 Jun 1996 15:08:07 -0400 Organization: The Johns Hopkins University CS Department Hi, I am interested in setting up an interactive telephone service which will allow customers to get information on my company and, more importantly, check on the status of their orders by dialing their account number on a touch-tone phone. This will be similar to the system that credit-card companies have for checking on your account. In other words, I want to be able to do something like this: "Hello, Welcome to Acme Widgets. Press 1 for general information. Press 2 to check on the status of an existing order. Press 3 to.." <2> "Please dial your 5-digit account number now." <1-4-2-4-2> "Please wait while we check on the status of your order..." "Your order was shipped on February Twenty Three." Now, my major constraint is that I have relatively little money to spend on this system (say, $500 or so). I've found a number of consultants who would be more than happy to sell me a system to do this but they are far out of my price range. I currently have a UNIX system which will have a database (updated in realtime) with the status of all orders. This voicemail should be able to run side-by-side in the same system. So, I have two questions. First, what kind of hardware do I need to put in my UNIX box (a PC running Linux) to get this to work? And, second, what I'd like to find is if there are any public domain (freeware, GPL, or whatever) software packages that will let me do this, or even software libraries that will let me write my own software to do this under UNIX. Am I going to be able to do this "on the cheap" or do I have to spend big bucks to get this to work? Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. Jeremy Elson :: jelson@jhu.edu :: N3UUO :: http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jelson ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 03 Jun 1996 15:38:41 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: "Historic Telephony" Webpage Pat: I found an *EXCELLENT* webpage regarding historical aspects of telephony, http://www.cybercomm.net/~chuck/phones.html produced by Chuck Eby (chuck@cybercomm.net). There are links to the Antique Telephone Collector's Association, the Museum of Independent Telephony, various telecom websites which have historical pages, various associations and individuals which have websites which have telecom history, etc. Chuck also has a growing list of 'sub' directory pages which have photos of old WECO/NECO equipment and a description of these old phones. There are also links to webpages of other collectors and dealers in antique telephones. This (IMO) is probably the BEST *webpage* which tries to collect and consolidate telecom history, as a webpage. Of course, Pat has the best *newsgroup* and *ftp archive site* regarding all aspects of telephony, present and future, as well as historical! MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #259 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jun 3 20:47:57 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id UAA11850; Mon, 3 Jun 1996 20:47:57 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 20:47:57 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606040047.UAA11850@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #260 TELECOM Digest Mon, 3 Jun 96 19:04:06 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 260 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson More on Trinidad's 868 NPA (Mark J. Cuccia) Northern Telecom "Services" Menu (Paul Cook) Northern Electric - as Was (Steve Hayes) Nevada Attorney General Investigates Excel (Tad Cook) What Does A/B Carrier Mean? (Alexander Cerna) BellSouth Ordered to Provide Wholesale Margin (Clifford D. McGlamry) Telco Leveling Laws Can't Crumble Central Office (Jorene Downs) Positions Available: Cambridge, MA (Bruce A. Pennypacker) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 03 Jun 1996 12:57:12 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: More on Trinidad's 868 NPA Well, for some weeks now, Bellcore NANPA *has* publically/officially identified (via its webpage, http://www.bellcore.com/NANP/newarea.html) that Trinidad and Tobago is to have 868 as its new NPA code, to split from 809, as every NANP Caribbean location is eventually to have its own NPA code (area code). However, the dates, test numbers, trouble contact numbers were 'to-be-determined'. Update as of 31 May 1996, Bellcore has now mentioned 264 for Anguilla on its webpage. And they have announced the dates, test numbers and trouble contact numbers for 868 Trinidad. Trinidad begins using 868 (or 809 as permissive dialing) on 1 June 1997, one year from now. Last date of 809 as permissive is 31 May 1998 (new 868 *MUST* be used after that date) -- TWO years from now. The test number for 868 Trinidad and Tobago will be 868-809-8378. (TEST) Trouble contact numbers for Trinidad and Tobago are to be: 809-625-3202 (Tel) 809-627-0859 (Fax) And here is my latest recompilation of the NANP Caribbean: NANP Caribbean recompilation (as of Saturday 1 June 1996) N Begin Begin O New PERMISSIVE MANDATORY T NPA Location Dialing Dialing E S (BHA) 242 Bahamas ..................... 01 OCT 96 31 MAR 97 --- 246 Barbados .................... 01 JUL 96 15 JAN 97 (ANG) 264 Anguilla .................... DATES-TO-BE-ANNOUNCED a (ANT) 268 Antigua & Barbuda ........... 01 APR 96 31 MAR 97 (BVI) 284 British Virgin Islands ...... DATES-TO-BE-ANNOUNCED a --- 340 US Virgin Islands ........... DATES-TO-BE-ANNOUNCED b --- 345 Cayman Islands .............. DATES-TO-BE-ANNOUNCED b --- 441 Bermuda ..................... 01 OCT 95 30 SEP 96 (GRE) 473 Grenada & Carricou .......... DATES-TO-BE-ANNOUNCED a,d (946 reversed) 649 Turks & Caicos Islands . DATES-TO-BE-ANNOUNCED b,c (MNI) 664 Montserrat Island ........... 01 JUL 96 01 JUN 97 (SLU) 758 St.Lucia .................... 01 JUL 96 01 JAN 97 (ROS) 767 Dominica .................... DATES-TO-BE-ANNOUNCED b,c (SVG/SVI) 784 St.Vincent & the Grenadines . DATES-TO-BE-ANNOUNCED b,d (PUR/PTR) 787 Puerto Rico ................. 01 MAR 96 31 JAN 97 (TNT) 868 Trinidad & Tobago ........... 01 JUN 97 31 MAY 98 --- 869 St.Kitts & Nevis ............ DATES-TO-BE-ANNOUNCED a --- 876 Jamaica ..................... DATES-TO-BE-ANNOUNCED b 809 should remain The Dominican Republic (NOTE: The Dominican Republic is *NOT* the same as "Dominica") ADDITIONAL NOTES: a) "Officially" announced by Bellcore, via IL or on its Webpage, but effective dates are still TBA: 264 Anguilla 284 British Virgin Islands 473 Grenada & Carricou 869 St.Kitts & Nevis b) These codes are noted by Bellcore as "reserved" for the Caribbean, but they have not yet "officially" announced *which specific* island locations they are for. However, I have been able to determine the specific locations after telephone and email inquiries directly from the various Caribbean local telcos: 340 US Virgin Islands 345 Cayman Islands 649 Turks & Caicos Islands 767 Dominica 784 St.Vincent & the Grenadines 876 Jamaica c) 649 (946 reversed) Turks & Caicos Islands, since for *years*, 809-946 was the *ONLY* 809-NNX code for Turks & Caicos); 767 = ROS Dominica-- ROS probably because 'Roseau' is the capital city d) The Grenadines is a series of several *VERY* small islands between St.Vincent and Grenada. While still quite small, the larger islands of the Grenadines from North to South are: Bequia, Mustique, Palm Island, Union Island, Carricou Geographically, politically and telephonically: Carricou is associated with Grenada (473) Bequia-Mustique-Palm-Union are all associated with St.Vincent (784) NEW Caribbean NPA's, *alphabetically by location*: Anguilla ............................................. 264 Antigua & Barbuda .................................... 268 Bahamas .............................................. 242 Barbados ............................................. 246 Barbuda ........................... (see Antigua & Barbuda) Bequia - GRENADINES ..... (see St.Vincent & the Grenadines) Bermuda .............................................. 441 British Virgin Islands ............................... 284 Caicos Islands .................... (see Turks & Caicos Is) Carricou ......................... (see Grenada & Carricou) Cayman Islands ....................................... 345 Dominica ............................................. 767 Dominican Republic ................................... 809 Grenada & Carricou ................................... 473 Grenadines .............. (see St.Vincent & the Grenadines) Jamaica .............................................. 876 Montserrat Island .................................... 664 Mustique - GRENADINES ... (see St.Vincent & the Grenadines) Nevis .............................. (see St.Kitts & Nevis) Palm Island - GRENADINES (see St.Vincent & the Grenadines) Puerto Rico .......................................... 787 St.Kitts & Nevis ..................................... 869 St.Lucia ............................................. 758 St.Vincent & the Grenadines .......................... 784 Tobago ............................ (see Trinidad & Tobago) Trinidad & Tobago .................................... 868 Turks & Caicos Islands ............................... 649 Union Island - GRENADINES (see St.Vincent & the Grenadines) US Virgin Islands .................................... 340 Virgin Islands: British .................. (see British Virgin Islands) U.S. .......................... (see US Virgin Islands) MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Jun 96 17:39 EST From: Proctor & Associates <0003991080@mcimail.com> Subject: Northern Telecom "Services" Menu I've been playing around with a slick little Northern Telecom PowerTouch 350 phone. It has all kinds of neat features, such as the ability to move Caller ID info into your dialing database. One feature I don't quite fathom is connected with something called "Services." Under Services, the manual says: "The large display on your telephone offers you the advantages of full screen services, much like an automatic banking machine. You can subscribe to enhanced telephone company features and services such as home banking, catalog shopping, movie libraries, and restaurant guides. You can also subscribe to telephone network services such as network voice mail." The manual then gives instructions for getting the phone to download a list of subscriber services from the telco. There is no information on how the data is transferred, protocols, or anything. Has anyone heard of this? Is "Services" a feature only available on lines served by Northern Telecom DMS central offices? What signal does the telephone send out when you punch the Services button? Paul Cook 3991080@mcimail.com Proctor & Associates Redmond, WA ------------------------------ Date: 03 Jun 96 01:15:04 EDT From: Steve Hayes <100112.606@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Northern Electric - as Was In "Stentor, Bell Canada, Independents - Some History", Mark J. Cuccia wrote: > In years past, Northern Electric also had a licensing arrangement with > Western Electric. For a while, WECO owned as much as 44% of NECO. As a > collector of nostalgic mid-20th Century telephones, I know that NECO > equipment was *virtually identical* to that of WECO. Both used the > same model numbers for telephones and parts. Even NECO's old three-slot > payphones looked *just like* WECO's. This reminded me of when I worked for Northern Electric back in the mid 70's. The licensing agreements with Western Electric had ended not long before and co-workers used to reminisce about the old days. Apparently, the engineering department consisted mainly of people with red and yellow pencils. Their jobs had involved going through documents, crossing out the word "Western" with the yellow pencil and writing "Northern" in in red, before sending them to drafting. The other task was adding a "Q" to every part number. If things had been computerized in those days, find and replace could have done the whole job! The speculation always was that Western Electric had expected Northern to roll over and die when the agreements ended. Instead, as we could see at the time(and even more so since) they unleashed a pretty fearsome competitor. Steve Hayes, Swansea, UK ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: Nevada Attorney General Investigates Excel Date: Mon, 03 Jun 1996 00:05:46 PDT Nevada Attorney General's Office Investigates Long-Distance Company By MICHELLE DeARMOND Associated Press Writer LAS VEGAS (AP) -- A long-distance marketer that employs Las Vegans is being studied by the attorney general's office, although officials are quick to note the investigation is common and does not imply any wrongdoing. Shares in Excel Communications, a Dallas-based company, have yielded hyperfast growth and controversy in the past. The multi-level marketing network buys long-distance minutes from Frontier Communications in Rochester, N.Y., and resells them through direct marketing representatives across the country. Margaret Stanish, senior deputy attorney general of Nevada's telemarketing and consumer fraud unit, confirmed Thursday her office is looking at the business, but denied reports that Excel may be a pyramid scheme. "This office commonly reviews the practices of businesses that come to our attention," Stanish said. "Our office is here to protect both the marketplace and the consumer." Stanish refused to say what prompted the study, but said investigations come about through a variety of ways. "We work with the consumer affairs division. Sometimes we get information from law enforcement agencies. ... Sometimes I'm watching T.V. and see an advertisement that catches my attention," she said. Excel recruits people to sell the long-distance time as well as recruit other sellers, a tactic known as multi-level marketing that is also used by companies like Mary Kay Cosmetics or Amway. Stanish said it requires complex economic analysis to determine if a multi-level marketer is an illegal pyramid scheme, and she was not prepared to say whether "Excel is good or bad." Amway was found by the courts to not be a pyramid scheme. "Something like Amway is an acceptable practice ... because there are internal safeguards to prevent the building of a pyramid," she said. Excel has raised eyebrows on Wall Street, where analysts have questioned the way Excel defers expenses, which makes earnings look better than they are. The company last year reported a profit of $44.5 million, but it deferred expenses of $85 million in the first two months of this year. The representatives earn money from the sale of long-distance service plus bonuses for the performance of the people they recruit. The company also has acknowledged that claims by some of its representatives have prompted consumer complaints to attorneys general in some states. An Excel employee was charged in a Federal Trade Commission investigation earlier this year for allegedly making unsubstantiated claims about earnings for work-at-home businesses. Robert Serviss of Stamford, Conn., was accused of offering no proof that consumers would earn up to $4,000 or more each month, as they were told. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think when all is said and done, the facts will emerge that Excel is *NOT* illegal in any way, shape or form. I had someone write me the other day to complain that I was very prejudiced against multi-level marketing; and the truth is I do not really care for that business practice, however it is legal as long as it does not become a 'pyramid scheme', and in Amway's case at least, it has been ruled legal. I feel pretty sure that Excel is following the law closely. One thing I do feel merits a close look is Excel's new pricing of nine cents per minute at night, putting them in direct and very close competition with Sprint. If you have a high volume of traffic at night, it may well be that at this time Excel is the best bargain around. PAT] ------------------------------ From: cerna@ntep0403.ntep.tmg.nec.co.jp Reply-To: Alexander Cerna Subject: What Does A/B Carrier Mean? Date: Mon, 03 Jun 96 09:34:33 +0900 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is just one A/B in each area. > What MCI is doing is reselling either A or B, depending on whatever > was the best deal they could cut for themselves with one of the two. I'm sorry if I'm totally ignorant, but what does it mean to be an A or B carrier? And why can there be only one in each area? Thank you very much in advance. Regards, Alexander Cerna cerna@ntep.tmg.nec.co.jp NEC Tech Phils, Inc VOX: +63 (32) 340-0451 PEZA, Lapulapu 6015 FAX: +63 (32) 340-0457 Philippines VOX: +63 (915) 207-1167 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: We have to go back to the early 1980's when cellular service was first getting underway. The rulings of the Federal Communications Commission provided that in each market there should be two carriers, mainly so that the local telco -- who it was assumed would get into cellular ASAP -- would not have a monopoly position. The ruling was that the traditional telephone company of record in the community would be granted one of the two cellular radio licenses if they wanted it -- of course, they all did -- and the second license would be granted to a competitor. The competitor would receive the 'A' license and the landline telco would receive the 'B' license. The assumption was further made that the various 'B' carriers (or existing telephone companies) would probably band together and work in each other's best interest through roaming agreements, etc. The new competition in each community (the 'A' license holders) were likewise expected to 'stick together' and help each other compete against the telcos who held the 'B' licenses. Well, what actually happened is a bit different. It turned out the only people really in a position with the technical knowledge and financial ability to start a cellular company in competition to the local telco were other telephone companies. So it came down to the local telephone company having the 'B' license as planned, but a phone company in some other distant community operating under some other name holding the 'A' license. For example, here in the Chicago area we have Ameritech (the 'traditional' telephone company of record) holding the 'B' license while Southwestern Bell, d/b/a/ Cellular One has the 'A' license. In St. Louis the exact opposite is the case where Southwestern Bell is the 'telco of record' and they operate the 'B' side as Southwestern Bell Mobility and Ameritech is the 'A' carrier there under some other name. Throughout the USA that is largely the case: telcos run the cellular service; the 'out of town' telco intrud- ing on the scene as the 'competitor' operates under a different name as the 'A' carrier. The 'A' carriers for many years generally used the trade name 'Cellular One' for brand identity purposes. That is changing now somewhat. They all stick together, theoretically at least to provide 'competition' to the 'B' or traditional telco side. I am reminded of the divestiture of Standard Oil a hundred years ago. Each of the 'Standard Oil Companies' created as a result of divestiture had to go into competition with each other; but even today they still respect each other's territories. The old Standard Oil of Indiana still does business as Standard Oil here in the midwest, but when they do business on the east or west coast they are known as Amoco. Standard Oil of New Jersey comes over to this part of the country and does business as Exxon. Standard Oil of California goes over to the east coast and I forget what name they use there, but it is not Standard Oil. Well, ditto the telcos in the cellular business. In their home towns they use their name; when they move into a competitor's territory as the 'A' carrier they use some other name. Is that all clear as mud? To add to the confusion, now there are lots of cellular resellers around which is something the regulators never considered at all back in 1983. According to Lynn Gregg, some of the newcomers with their own infrastructure won't be A or B ... they will be on their own radio frequencies with a totally different thing altogether. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 03 Jun 96 11:00:48 EDT From: Clifford D. McGlamry <102073.1425@CompuServe.COM> Subject: BellSouth Ordered to Provide Wholesale Margin It was announced last week that the Georgia Public Service commission has ordered BellSouth to give discounts to AT&T and all potential competitors who want to use the BellSouth lines as part of their own local service offerings. This order has reportedly left both AT&T and BellSouth unhappy. BellSouth had proposed discounts of 11% for residential and 9.5% for business users. The commission ordered in a unanimous 5-0 decision margins of 20.3% and 17.3% respectively. AT&T had previously indicated that they needed 35 to 40% margins to operate. BellSouth has taken its usual tact of whining and complaining about the order and indicated that it intends to possibly ignore the order or sue. This should not surprise industry observers who have watched BellSouth's profits rise to the highest levels of the industry. BellSouth has historically resisted any attempts to force it to leave its monopoly position in the marketplace. As usual, BellSouth is indicating the residential customers will suffer increased rates due to the loss of business customer subsidies. In Atlanta, BellSouth charges approximately $16 per month for flat rate residential users and $55 per month for flat rate business customers. ------------------------------ From: jcdowns@strategic-vision.com (Jorene Downs) Subject: Telco Leveling Laws Can't Crumble Central Office Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 18:11:52 GMT Organization: Strategic Vision Reply-To: jcdowns@strategic-vision.com C-bw@clari.net (The Insight Research) wrote: LIVINGSTON, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 30, 1996--The telephone company central office, the center of telecom deregulation efforts, remains local telephone services' unique asset despite attempts at legislative leveling, says a new report from Insight Research. Even after the FCC announces its new rules for hooking into local phone networks, removing the artificial distinction between local and long-distance phone services, the CO will continue as the preeminent center of all telecommunications traffic. Moreover, a technology overhaul now under way ensures its longevity. According to "Telecommunications in the 21st Century: Change and the Central Office," the unassailable value of the CO lies in its function -- as an access line concentration point. The overriding design consideration behind the CO was to physically locate it near the geographic center of a cluster of subscribers. With only modest changes in population demographics over the last twenty years, the number and locations of COs has changed little, so it remains the tangible point of contact to nearly all telecom users. "Right now we've got a new law on the books that is going to try to level the playing field for competing local and long-distance carriers," explains Insight's president Robert Rosenberg. "And it may well work from the pricing point of view, but the central office remains a unique asset that can't be duplicated overnight by AT&T, MCI, or Sprint." Indeed, with the size of investment they represent, COs won't be duplicated at all; in the densest urban areas, they concentrate as many as 300,000 access lines under one roof and across multiple switches. Even in small towns, COs serve business areas where density is 5,000 access lines per square mile. To get to their customers, the long-distance providers all have to pass through those offices. Their pass-through rights are now legislated. As part of the technology overhaul, the switching function traditionally taking place within the walls of the central office is being pushed closer to the end user, in the form of small, remote switches and digital loop carrier systems that increase the carrying capacity of subscriber lines. The net effect of this trend paradoxically increases the importance of the CO's concentration function, since increasingly larger circuit groups terminate there. Further projections and analyses are published in "Telecommunications in the 21st Century: Change and the Central Office," now available from Insight Research for $3,495. Insight Research, based in Livingston, NJ, is a leading provider of telecommunications market research and analysis. Insight can be reached via the World Wide Web at http://www.wcom.com/Insight/insight.html. For more information on this study, please contact: Tara D. Mahon, The Insight Research Corporation, 354 Eisenhower Parkway, Livingston, N.J. 07039-1023, phone: (201) 605-1400, fax: (201) 605-1440, Internet: tara@insight-corp.com. ------------------------------ From: Bruce A. Pennypacker Subject: Positions Available: Cambridge, MA Date: 3 Jun 1996 13:34:15 GMT Organization: Stylus Products Group, Artisoft Inc. The Stylus Product Group of Artisoft, Inc. is the industry leader in Windows based computer telephony software. Their flagship products Visual Voice and Visual Fax have won numerous awards, most recently including PC Magazine Editors' Choice for 1996. Our Cambridge, MA office is located in Kendall Square, the heart of Cambridge's high-tech startups, close to the Charles River and the Cambridge Brewery. Stylus maintains a fast paced, casual work environment. Employees are empowered to do whatever they feel is necessary to get the job done. Please send resume to: Stylus Product Group, Artisoft, Inc. Attn: Human Resources 201 Broadway Cambridge, MA 02139 or e-mail them directly to brucep@stylus.com as a Word document or plain text file. ================================ Available positions as of May 30, 1996: Q.A. Software Engineer: (5 openings) Responsibilities include developing and implementing test/integration plans for our telephony product line, designing and maintaining diagnostic tools and installation procedures as well as coordinating product release cycles and beta tests. Successful candidates should have a working knowledge of Visual Basic (or similar language) and strong organizational skills. Windows experience required. Windows NT, OLE Controls are pluses. Product Manager: (1 opening) Position requires strong Visual Basic applications development skills, strong project management skills, and experience in telephony and fax applications development is preferred. Software Engineers: (2 openings) This position requires a strong background with Windows Visual C++, development and one or more of the following: WIN32, MFC, MAPI, OLE, TCP/IP, Winsock, Netbios, GUI design/implementation. Visual Basic Developer: (1 opening) Will architect and implement new additions to our telephony product line. Applications include telephony/ network communications development and GUI design. Requires expertise with VB4.0, and solid experience with OOD, WIN32 and databases. C++ a plus. Sales Engineer: (4 openings) Responsible for speaking to prospects about the technical aspects of our products and their application requirements, much of which is done by telephone. Position calls for 1-2 yrs. of previous sales experience and a background in software application development is preferred. Technical Support: (1 opening) Responsible for providing detailed telephone support for customers. Requires expertise with Visual Basic and Windows 95. Experience with WIN32, hardware installation, telephony and fax applications all a plus. Requires 1-2 years of previous technical support experience. Jr. Marketing Representative: (1 opening) Strong technical background. Excellent oral and written communication and strong presentation skills. Ability to learn quickly in a fast paced environment. 2-4 years previous experience. BSCS or related discipline. Bruce Pennypacker | Stylus Products Group | Phone: +1 617 621 9545 Software Engineer | Artisoft, Inc. | Fax: +1 617 621 7862 Resident TAPI guru | 201 Broadway | http://www.stylus.com brucep@stylus.com | Cambridge, MA 02139 | sales: sales@stylus.com ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #260 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jun 3 21:25:47 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id VAA15610; Mon, 3 Jun 1996 21:25:47 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 21:25:47 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606040125.VAA15610@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #261 TELECOM Digest Mon, 3 Jun 96 21:26:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 261 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson CPT on FCC Interconnection Proceeding (James Love/TAP via Monty Solomon) Digital Cellular in North America Question (jfmezei@istar.ca) Problems with Raj Telecom (srb@t10.lanl.gov) What Really Happens: Get Rich Quick on the Net! (Tad Cook) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 04:35:48 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: CPT on FCC Interconnection Proceeding Reply-To: monty@roscom.com Forwarded to the Digest, FYI: Date: Fri, 31 May 1996 13:10:03 -0400 (EDT) From: James Love Subject: CPT on FCC Interconnection Proceeding ----------------------------------------------------------------- TAP-INFO - An Internet newsletter available from listproc@tap.org ----------------------------------------------------------------- INFORMATION POLICY NOTE May 31, 1996 - FCC Interconnection Proceeding There were the CPT reply comments in the FCC "Interconnection" proceeding. We wrote these in support of the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) comments on Interconnection and Unbundling of the local loop. We focus on the need to set rules which allow competitors to use the copper wire "local loop" for ISDN, ADSL, HDSL and other higher speed digital technologies. The incumbent local exchange carriers (companies like Bell Atlantic, NYNEX, US West, etc.), who own the local loop, want to limit the network unbundling to "Plain Old Telephone Service" (POTS). The Interconnection and unbundling proceeding is one of the most important of the more than 80 FCC rulemaking that are now underway to implement the new telecommunications act. Here are the comments. Jamie (love@tap.org, 202/387-8030) Before the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION Washington, DC 20554 ) In the Matter of Implementation of ) the Local Competition Provisions in ) the Telecommunications Act of 1996 ) CC Docket No. 96-98 Act of 1996 ) May 30, 1996 REPLY COMMENTS OF CONSUMER PROJECT ON TECHNOLOGY ON INTERCONNECTION AND UNBUNDLING A. Introduction 1. The Consumer Project on Technology offers reply comments on the Commission's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPR) on the above captioned proceeding addressing the interconnection and unbundling provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 ("1996 Act"). Our comments are supportive of those filed earlier in this docket by the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI). ITI urged the Commission to take steps to facilitate deployment of bandwidth services by providing national uniform parameters that encourage new competition for services such as ISDN, ADSL or HDSL. We agree with ITI that there is significant unmet demand for the provision of high bandwidth services for the residential market, and that national uniform parameters for interconnection, collocation and pricing are important. 2. The Consumer Project on Technology is a non-profit organization which was started by Ralph Nader to promote the consumer interest in matters concerning the development of new technologies, including information technologies. For additional information about CPT see our Web page at http://www.essential.org/cpt. B. Unmet Demand for High Bandwidth Services for Residential Market. 3. According to the ITI pleadings, more than one third of all U.S. homes have one or more personal computers, and most new computers sold today are equipped with analog modems. Analog modems are a very inefficient device for network connections. Not only are analog modems relatively slow when compared to off-the-shelf digital technology (28.8 Kbps for analog modems versus 128 Kbps for BRI ISDN), but the analog connections are less reliable, and suffer from a much more time consuming launch and connect (and disconnect) times than ISDN or other digital technologies. High quality audio, usable video conferencing, and even browsing on graphic intensive Internet Web pages requires faster network connections that can be delivered over Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS). End-to-end digital lines can also support JAVA and other new methods of pushing network intelligence out to a decentralized base of users. 4. The most likely new technologies for delivering higher bandwidth connections to the home market are cable modems or a variety of digital services delivered over the copper wire infrastructure. Early optimism about deployment of cable modems has given way to more realistic mid-term pessimism. Less than 10 percent of cable systems currently support any type of interactive communications. Even under optimistic scenarios for deployment, it is very unlikely that a majority of homes would be passed by cable systems that can offer cable modem technology within a period of five to seven years. 5. The only ubiquitous high speed digital network connection for the residential market today is BRI ISDN, but the incumbent local exchange carriers (iLECs) are reluctant to deploy the technology, or price it reasonably. Companies like Bell South, Bell Atlantic, US West, NYNEX and SBC are pricing residential ISDN service between five and twenty times the cost of POTS (in packages likely to satisfy most residential ISDN users), too high for all but a handful of residential consumers. The premiums charged for ISDN service are far in excess of the company's long run incremental costs (LRIC) for upgrading POTS to ISDN. 6. For example, in a recent Commission proceeding, U.S. West estimated that the monthly non-traffic sensitive cost of its BRI ISDN lines was only $1.18 per month more than the cost of its POTS lines. (U.S. West, "Comments: in the Matter of End User Common Line Charges," FCC CC Docket No. 95-72, June 29, 1995, Appendix A.). However, US West tariffs for BRI lines are several multiples of its POTS charges. For example, in Utah a residential ISDN users would pay from $39 to $149 per month for BRI ISDN (plus a $6 SLC), with $74 per month the most likely tariff (based upon the US West pre- paid usage options and the $6 SLC). As a result, very few Utah consumers have BRI ISDN service. Indeed, US West reported that as of March 1996, it had only installed 53 BRI ISDN lines. 7. In some states, residential ISDN tariffs are even higher. We have heard from a consumer in Delaware (Bell Atantic) who was billed more than $1,000 for a month of local calls for BRI service, and a consumer in Massachusetts (NYNEX) received a bill for more than $700 for local calls. These higher tariffs have hurt ISDN deployment. Earlier this year Bell Atlantic said it had less than 300 residential consumers for BRI ISDN service in Maryland, a state with a huge interest in modern telecommunications. PacBell recently sought large increases in its residential ISDN tariff, and eliminated commissions on residential ISDN BRI connections to its sales force. 8. ISDN tariffs are highly varied from state to state, and residential consumers are completely dependent upon pricing strategies of local iLECs and state regulators. For example, the Northern Arkansas Telephone Company (NATCO) charges only $17.90 per month, flat rate, for residential ISDN service. The Roseville Telephone Company, the 23rd largest telephone company in the US, which serves California's southern Placer County and northern Sacramento County, sells residential ISDN at $29.50 for unlimited usage. Four of the five Midwest states served by Ameritech (Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin) have flat rate residential ISDN for $28 to $35 per month. But in Indiana, Ameritech charges residential consumers $100 to $1,829 for ISDN service. BellSouth charges less than $30, flat rate, for ISDN in Tennessee (a state where a key regulator was an ISDN user), and $57 to $75 per month elsewhere. Bell Atlantic's unlimited usage option for residential users runs from $249 to $1,200 per month, depending upon the state. In the US West service area, the unlimited usage options are all over the map: $40 in New Mexico, $63 in Washington State, $149 in Utah (the proposed tariff), and $2,309.64 in Oregon (a state without a flat rate option). 9. When the iLEC charges ISDN usage fees, prices are also highly arbitrary, providing striking evidence of monopoly power. For example, Bell Atlantic (BA) basic proposed usage charge for residential ISDN is $1.20 to $2.40 per hour, for a 2B ISDN connection. However, under its new "call pack" options, which is only available in some states, BA charges $.75 to $.30 per hour for ISDN (2B) usage. In recent rate cases for ISDN Centrex, BA said that its usage costs for ISDN voice service (the same technology as is used for data) were less than $1 per month. In Delaware, the PSC staff said that the residential ISDN tariff should include a $1.60 per month flat rate option, which is a little more than a nickel per day for 2B service. Consumers (and implicitly, the value added content providers) who pay hefty usage fees are being ripped off. 10. US West usage rates are also highly varied. Last fall, US West tried to get $12 per hour for a local ISDN call in Utah. The current standard US West usage charge is $3.60 per hour (for 2B). In the newly proposed (but not yet implemented) Utah tariffs, some usage packages are priced at $.90 to $.22 per hour for 2B service. Cost studies in the Utah proceeding show that even the $.22 per hour charges are far above cost. These high usage charges are efforts by the iLECs to "tax" value added services provided by unaffiliated companies. With iLEC entry into value added services, this will lead to anticompetitive business practices, since the iLECs can offer value added services at lower rates, since the usage charges at only transfer payments within the company. 11. In a competitive market consumers would not see such huge differences in residential ISDN tariffs. It is essential to adopt interconnect and unbundling rules which allow new entrants to use the local loop to provide ISDN and other newer digital services. C. Explanations for iLEC's failure to deploy ISDN 12. There are a number of theories as to why iLECs don't want to market ISDN as a mass market residential service. Here are some of the most popular: i) iLECs want to sell second POTS lines. (A BRI ISDN service provides the functionality of two POTS lines, including separate telephone numbers). For example, in Utah the best usage option for BRI ISDN service is priced approximately $10 above the cost of two business POTS line. ii) iLECs hope to offer high speed Internet services, bundled with ISDN or ADSL services, and they do not want to provide a low cost alternative over a common carrier platform. iii) iLECs are concerned about cross-elasticities between BRI ISDN and other business services (such as US West's expensive commitment to frame relay ), or to expensive residential mulitmedia networks (most of which are still on the drawing boards). iv) iLECs are concerned about high quality Internet telephony delivered over ISDN or other digital home connections. v) In Utah, Scott Rafferty raised the general issue of centralization of network intelligence, and the fact that high quality end to end digital network connections allow this intelligence to be decentralized, much of it into the highly competitive market for customer premise equipment. This issue is analogous to the PBX/Centrex issue. Of course, incompetence is also possible. D. New Digital Technologies. 13. BRI ISDN is a digital technology that can be delivered today to the residential market. Newer technologies that may be available in 5 to 7 years in some communities include ADSL or HDSL. There is considerable interest in ADSL as a platform for Internet connections. While ADSL is more costly to deploy than ISDN, it may offer higher bandwidth connections over the existing copper wire infrastructure. However, ADSL and other xDSL (the family of DSL services) services require special equipment and connections to information service providers. It is essential that iLEC competitors are able to receive services on a non-discriminatory basis, or the iLECs will monopolize services that are delivered over xDSL services. The rules for interconnection and unbundling should focus on how competition can develop for xDSL services. 14. ITI asked the Commission to adopt rules which require carriers to: i) unbundle local loops, ii) condition (when necessary) local loops to carry digital signals, iii) lease "dry copper" pair at reasonable prices (no greater than for POTS), iv) remove load coils at reasonable costs, v) cooperate in testing of xDSL services, and vi) otherwise make it possible and feasible to promote entry into advanced transport services delivered to the home. These suggestions are very important. The FCC should not set rules with POTS only in mind. E. Collocation is Required and Needed for More than Basic Transmission Equipment. 15. The Commission should reject the iLEC's efforts to limit the types of equipment that may be collocated on their premises. Collation obligations of iLECs under the 1996 Act are not simply limited to "basic transmission equipment." Indeed, the Congress added language during its Conference committee which has expanded collocation obligations beyond those originally adopted in the Commission's Expanded Interconnection proceeding. While the versions of the bill which passed both the Senate and the House only required collocation consistent with it's proceeding on interconnection [See, for example, H.R. Report No. 104-204, 104th Congress, 1st Session, pt. 1, at 73 (1995), which mentions the need to clarify the Commission's authority due to court challenges to the Commission's rules], the Conference Committee expanded the iLEC's duties, to require them to provide for "physical collocation of equipment necessary to interconnection or access to unbundled network elements at the premises of the local exchange carrier." By adding the additional phrase, "or access to unbundled network elements," Congress expanded the scope of collocation. The collocation equipment should not be restricted to traditional telephony. It should include equipment that may be needed for ISDN, ADSL, HDSL and other new technologies. This is also required by Section 706(a), which states that the Commission should "encourage the deployment on a reasonable and timely basis of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans.by utilizing.methods that remove barriers to infrastructure investment." As noted earlier, it is not appropriate to adopt rules for collocation which apply to POTS only service. G. The Commission Should Avoid Usage Based Fees for Unbundled Services. 16. One of the principal sins of the iLECs has been repeated efforts to impose usage based fees for fixed cost services. These usage based fees are largely designed as mechanisms for price discrimination, based upon expected differences in willingness to pay. This is possible because of the monopoly power of the iLECs. Any new unbundling requirements that are based upon usage charges for fixed cost services will further institutionalize a highly inefficient and socially undesirable pricing systems for the fixed cost aspects of the network. H. Unbundling Can Provide Important Yardstick Measurements. 17. Unbundling is important, even if it isn't widely employed, because it will provide an important yardstick of true economic costs for the deployment of new services. Thus, for example, if new digital technologies are provided at much lower costs in some markets where collocation and unbundling occur, this will help regulators in other markets determine reasonable prices for new advanced network services, even when economic barriers to entry as so great that monopoly power remains. Indeed, we expect that competition for local residential services will be very limited over the next decade, and this yardstick benefit will be very important for those consumers who do not benefit directly from competition. May 30, 1996 Sincerely, /s/ James Love, Director Consumer Project on Technology P.O. Box 19367 Washington, DC 20036 http://www.essential.org/cpt 202/387-8030; fax 202/234-5176 INFORMATION POLICY NOTES is a free Internet newsletter sponsored by the Taxpayer Assets Project (TAP) and the Consumer Project on Technology (CPT). Both groups are projects of the Center for Study of Responsive Law, which is run by Ralph Nader. The LISTPROC services are provide by Essential Information. Archives of TAP-INFO are available from http://www.essential.org/listproc/tap-info/ TAP and CPT both have Internet Web pages. http://www.tap.org http://www.essential.org/cpt Subscription requests to tap-info to listproc@tap.org with the message: subscribe tap-info your name TAP and CPT can both be reached off the net at P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036, Voice: 202/387-8030; Fax: 202/234-5176 ------------------------------ From: jfmezei@istar.ca Subject: Digital Cellular in North America Question Date: Mon, 03 Jun 1996 03:09:37 +0000 Organization: Vaxination Informatique Reply-To: jfmezei@istar.ca In a recent trip to Australia, I met a lot of overseas travelers who had brought their GSM phone and were using it in Australia. Being from Canada, I could not do that if I had had a digital telephone. In Europe, manufacturers of personal organisers such as PSION have already developped SMS applications for GSM phones such as NOKIA etc. In North America, it *seems* that the push for digital cellular phones is not very strong. (At least Cantel no longer pushes digital phones). Are digital telephone more popular in GSM countries compared to those few who resisted GMS to go with the USA standard ? Are applications such as SMS available for North American cellullar systems? Or do they lag behind? (I assume that the USA dig system does have the same functionality as SMS?) Is there any chance that GSM would eventually be supported in North America by some operators (operating both GSM and the USA system). ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Jun 96 16:29:10 MDT From: srb@t10.Lanl.GOV (srb) Subject: Problems With Raj Telecom Article: 43107 of soc.culture.indian.telugu From: gt5686b@prism.gatech.edu (Sujatha Ramprakash Krishnaswamy) Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian.telugu,alt.consumers.experiences Subject: Raj Telekom reported to Better Business Bureau Date: 24 May 1996 08:00:22 -0400 Last week I had posted to numerous newsgroups about how Raj Telekom (Transasian Communications) ripped us off $100. Listening to the advice given by my friends, I have reported the company to the Better Business Bureau. I did this online. BBB's URL is http://www.bbb.org. If you were unable to get a refund or had problems with Raj Telekom, please do report this to the BBB. Maybe they can settle the dispute. I have also faxed the posting(given below) to Raj Telekom for whatever its worth. Following is the article which I posted, in case you did not see it before. --------------------------------- I just want to share my bitter experience with RAJ TELEKOM, a.k.a. Transasian Communications. I urge you to please read the whole message and pass it on to your friends and family ... so that no one goes through the ordeal again!!! Trust me, no one deserves to! Like several others hunting for cheap telephone rates to India, I made the mistake of choosing Raj Telekom. The huge ads in {India Abroad} prompted me to choose them over the numerous others in the same business. To cut a long story short, this is the synopsis of the fiasco - * Paid $100 by check around April 10. Was informed that we would be contacted by the concerned person about the authorization code. * Waited for two weeks. Called to find out myself -- took over an hour to get through their numerous telephone numbers -- was asked to call between 6-9 pm. * Religiously tried every day, until I got the number a week later. * The authorization code did not work. So I couldn't use it to call India. Since then (3rd week of April), have been wasting an hour each evening calling them about my problem. No solution in sight yet! * Their most heartwarming messages : - "Call back at 8 p.m." - "Mr. RAJ is not in the office. He is the only one who can give authorization codes. Call at 9.30 p.m." - "Call during the day and speak to the supervisor Mona Kotish". - "There is no supervisor. Mona Kotish is not the supervisor" - "Just hold". (Never mind that you are promptly disconnected) - "Mr. Raj is on an emergency" - "Send a fax about your complaint" ... and many more, that I have even lost count! * Spoken to practically every customer service (???????) reps - Natasha, Kajol, Michelle, Sheetal ... * Since Mr. RAJ seems to be a terribly busy man, always on an emergency, sent him a fax about my problems. I knew even while sending the fax that it is not going to improve the situation. But it is my $100 and I have worked for it! * Operators have no authority except saying "hello" and listening/putting on hold your complaint. I cannot imagine how Mr. Raj can answer each phone to give the authorization codes, when he is never there! However, the operators keep asking everyone to keep calling - almost as if all of us have nothing better in life to take up our time! * I am sure the operators have never seen Mr. Raj and how he looks. They might not recognize him if he walks into the office! Is he a fictional character? To me, the whole situation resembles a money lender desperately trying to get his 50-year old loan back from an insolvent borrower! WHAT DO I WANT FROM THIS? * NOBODY SHOULD REPEAT MY MISTAKE. * PASS ON THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW. * READ SIMILAR VIEWS ON THIS SUBJECT - VISIT MAHESH'S WEB PAGE (http://www.jagunet.com/~mahesh) * I WANT RAJ (IF HE IS NOT A FICTIONAL CHARACTER) TO PERSONALLY APOLOGIZE TO ME FOR THE GREAT INCONVENIENCE & WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY. Any suggestions to get the money back greatly appreciated. Sujatha (gt5686b@prism.gatech.edu) ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: How it Really Works: Get Rich Quick on the Net! Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 18:24:21 PDT I've seen and heard their ads, and wondered if they were teaching people how to spam the net. Here is an article that reveals what goes on at one of those "get rich on the net" seminars Tad Cook tad@ssc.com Utah's Profit Education Systems Markets Internet 'Storefront' Home Pages By George Hesselberg, {The Wisconsin State Journal} Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Jun. 1--A $125-a-month electronic storefront in the mall along the superhighway, and a $3,000 plan to build it, that's what those "road to riches" advertisements and seminars at a local hotel were all about Friday. Profit Education Systems, of Provo, Utah, which set up three workshops -- including one this morning (June 1) -- at the Sheraton Madison Hotel on John Nolen Drive, is actually selling "home pages," which they call storefronts, on the Internet. A university telecommunications expert and training competitor, however, pooh-poohed the operation as a "typical get-rich-quick plan." A home page is a space on a vast computer network. A person or business fills in the information, and computer travelers on the world of Internet can visit those pages, of which there are hundreds of thousands. The newspaper advertisements, with teasers to "Learn the Secrets," and "Want a Second Paycheck (Thousands of Dollars/Month) Without Getting a Second Job?" invited Madison area residents to the hotel for a $15 workshop. The fee was waived if a person called ahead of time. The presentation was actually a pitch to buy in to a later two-day workshop in Milwaukee costing $2,995. Madison is the last stop in a tour of Wisconsin cities to sign up people interested in attending an "Internet Marketing Workshop" in Milwaukee at a cost of $2,995 (including hotel), said Dahlen Downing, a workshop presenter. He estimated about 60 people attended the Madison warmup. The Milwaukee workshop will teach attendees how to create a home page and will set up a storefront in the "Galaxy Mall," a "mall" on the Internet that includes the home pages created at the workshop. Barry Orton, a UW-Madison telecommunications professor, attended the first workshop Friday. He said the attendees were asked if they wanted to get rich on the "information superhighway." The workshop operators then showed examples of businesses selling products on the Internet through home pages, and the final pitch was to attend the workshop at the Marriott in Milwaukee June 21 and 22. There were "scholarships" available to that seminar for $1,500 if payment was made at once, cutting the cost in half. Literature distributed at the first workshop in Madison placed the value of this training session at $16,000. Downing, of Profit Education Systems, said the traveling seminars attract people who already have home pages and people who are starting from scratch. "We give you the storefronts and the programming know-how to be able to promote your storefronts," he said. Those storefronts, however, are in the Galaxy Mall, which charges $450 every three months for maintenance, according to information on the mall's home page. (http://www.galaxymall.com) The workshop literature, however, said the maintenance cost is $125 per month. Downing said someone who pays for the training gets four storefronts and additional listings in the mall's classified ads, which can be resold. (The literature notes, however, that the maintenance fee is $375 every three months per storefront.) For comparison, Orton said the University Extension operates home page training sessions costing from $100 to $250 per day. He added that commercial on-line computer services, such as American On Line and CompuServe, provide free basic home page training and a home page for as little as $20 a month. "I don't see that these people were offering anything that is near worth the amount of money they are charging for their workshop," said Orton. Downing said his workshop is different because "a lot of others will give you a home page for an inexpensive fee, but that doesn't do you much good if you have no good product or way to promote it out there," he said. Orton urged consumers to look carefully at the literature provided by the training company and to check the Galaxy Mall address on the Internet to see if their business is compatible. "I didn't see anything that was illegal here," Orton said, "but what initially bothered me was the overuse of the words 'information superhighway.' Generally if anyone is selling anything to you with these words, you should run the other way." ON THE INTERNET: Visit the Wisconsin State Journal on the World Wide Web. Point your browser to http://www.infi.net/madison/news/wsj.shtml ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #261 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jun 3 22:01:02 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id WAA19546; Mon, 3 Jun 1996 22:01:02 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 22:01:02 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606040201.WAA19546@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #262 TELECOM Digest Mon, 3 Jun 96 22:01:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 262 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson User Needs Help Creating Newsgroup (Patrick A. Townson) FCC To Re-auction 18 Defaulted PCS Licenses (Jorene Downs) Re: University of Arizona Student Guards Domain Names (Christopher Ambler) Re: 415 NPA Relief Options (Linc Madison) Re: Cellular Caller ID (Eric A. Carr) Re: Cellular Caller ID (Hank Karl) Re: Hurting Public Utilities Hurts Public Service (Dr. Robert Jacobson) Re: Internet Spam From AOL (E. Devinney) Re: Internet Spam From AOL (Robert McMillin) Re: Internet Spam From AOL (Jeff Carroll) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 21:34:49 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Subject: User Needs Help Creating Newsgroup I am in a conversation with a fellow who wants very much to create a new newsgroup called 'alt.fan.uma-thurman'. I have no idea who uma-thurman is or what the group would be about. He is looking for news admins who might be willing to carry the group and help him get it started. He says he has read various documents sent to him about creating a alt newsgroup and still is having problems doing it the right way. Would any news admins be willing to assist this fellow? I'll pass along his name and the letter he sent me to any of you who respond favorably. Thanks for your help. PAT ------------------------------ From: jcdowns@strategic-vision.com (Jorene Downs) Subject: FCC To Re-auction 18 Defaulted PCS Licenses Date: Mon, 03 Jun 1996 02:40:32 GMT Organization: Strategic Vision Reply-To: jcdowns@strategic-vision.com In clari.tw.telecom, newsbytes@clari.net (NB / WAS) wrote: WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., 1996 MAY 31 (NB) -- Looking for one more chance to get into the personal communications services (PCS) business? The Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Wireless Telecommunications Bureau will re-auction 18 broadband PCS entrepreneurs' block licenses which defaulted on their required down payments. The required down payments were not received from the winning bidders by the May 15 deadline, FCC spokesperson Kara Palamaras told Newsbytes, "and have been deemed to be in default by the Bureau." The Commission's rules provide that if a winning bidder fails to remit the required down payment, the FCC may either re-auction the license or offer it to other highest bidders, Palamaras said. "In this situation, it has been decided that a re-auction would rapidly and efficiently assign the licenses," Palamaras told Newsbytes. On May 15, BDPCS Inc., a unit of QuestCom Inc., Portola Valley, California, and National Telecom PCS Inc., Stamford, Connecticut, failed to make the required down payment on the licenses for which they were the high bidders in the recently completed Entrepreneurs' Block auction. BDPCS failed to make the required down payment on 17 licenses and National Telecom failed to make its down payment on one license. In an order adopted May 17, Palamaras said, the Bureau denied a waiver request by BDPCS seeking additional time to tender its five percent down payment and declared the company in default. The Bureau yesterday denied BDPCS' petition for reconsideration of the May 17 order, as well as National Telecom's request for a waiver of the bid withdrawal payment, Palamaras said. The licenses will be re-auctioned in a simultaneous multiple round auction tentatively scheduled to begin on July 3, 1996. Palamaras said that FCC Form 175 applications for participation in this auction and upfront payments are due June 14. The Bureau will announce further details regarding filing dates and requirements, bidding procedures and other information for the C Block re-auction in a public notice to be released June 3, Palamaras said. Markets for which licenses are to be re-auctioned include: Minneapolis and St. Cloud, Minnesota; Denver, Colorado Springs and Fort Collins, Colorado; Seattle, Olympia, Bremerton and Bellingham and Longview, Washington; Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona; Portland, Salem and Eugene, Oregon; Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico; and American Samoa. For further information, contact Louis Sigalos or Jason Guesman, Auctions Division, FCC, tel 202-418-0660. (Bill Pietrucha/19960531/Press Contact: Kara Palamaras, Federal Communications Commission, tel 202-418-0600) ------------------------------ From: chris@kosh.punk.net (Christopher Ambler) Subject: Re: University of Arizona Student Guards His Internet Domain Names Date: 3 Jun 1996 06:14:06 GMT Organization: Punknet Secret Headquarters and Day Care Centre kd1hz@anomaly.ideamation.com (Michael P. Deignan) says: > Let's run the numbers, shall we? > 364,000 x $50/year = $18,200,000 per year in renewals. > 10,000 x $100 = $1,000,00 per week in additional revenue. > Looks like running an InterNic is a very profitable decision. I guess > I know where the rationale for these fees came from. Now, let's talk service. I run a web service company, and we register on the average of three or four domains a week. Recently, the Internic sent us a bill for these domains, lumped into one bill, with one fee due. I called them and politely told them that these domains were for seperate clients, and for $100 a pop, I'd like seperate bills to submit. Their answer? "Tough. We can't change it." When they told me to use seperate billing addresses, I remarked that initially I did, but each time they "automatically" changed the address associated with my NIC handle. New domain, new address change. They then sent a 15-day notice on three of the domains. The notice was mailed on the 8th, and arrived on or around (within two days of) the 19th. Even if I decided to pay, there wasn't enough time to get a check in the mail. Their billing department refuses to do anything about it. Promises of a call-back from a supervisor on FIVE occassions have gone unfufilled. Requests to not change the address on my NIC handle when I submit separate billing addresses have been refused. Is this a way to run a business? If there were competition, I would go elsewhere. Obviously, I don't have that option. If I had half-a-million sitting around, I'd start my own Internic service. dot-corp or dot-bus anyone? chris@punk.net http://www.punk.net/~chris http://www.rhps.org ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: 415 NPA Relief Options Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 00:45:12 -0700 Organization: Best Internet Communications In article , Tad Cook wrote: > Currently, the options under consideration for the 415 area code are: > + Geographic Split -- Option 1. [edited for verbosity] > In this option, San Francisco and the northern portion of San Mateo County > including Brisbane, South San Francisco, the eastern portion of Daly City, > the northern half of Millbrae and most of San Bruno (including SFO Airport) > would stay in the 415 area code. The remaining 415 area including Marin > County, the rest of San Mateo County, northern Santa Clara Co. and a small > [tiny] portion of Santa Cruz County would receive a new area code. > This would create a non-contiguous area code, with Marin County and most > of San Mateo County in the new area code, but separated by San Francisco > which would stay in the 415 area code. A couple things here: the part about "the eastern portion of Daly City" is thoroughly bogus, because the only exchange boundary in Daly City is the line between the northern portion (in San Francisco 3 rate center) and the southern portion (in South San Francisco/San Bruno rate center). The SF3 exchange area extends from one side of the peninsula to the other. Also, the geographic discontinuity of the new area code is quite severe. > + Geographic Split -- Option 2. > This option is identical to Option 1, with the exception that Marin > County would also stay in the 415 area code. > While fewer customers would change to the new area code in this > option, the reconstituted 415 area code would run out of telephone > numbers again in less than four years. Why not have San Francisco and Marin keep 415 and move San Mateo County, *including* the airport, into the new area code? (Of course, 415 would still include some of San Mateo County, because of exchange boundaries.) Either that or do a three-way split, with Marin County getting its own area code. With a little bit of careful planning, we could have just done a realignment of the 415/707 line, moving Marin into 707, but there are a number of duplicated prefixes, mostly in San Rafael. 707 has only about 200 prefixes, so this clearly could have been avoided. Marin County has about 50 prefixes, while the South S.F./San Bruno exchange has about half that many. Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ From: C10973@email.mot.com (Eric A. Carr) Subject: Re: Cellular Caller ID Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 10:11:15 -0800 Organization: Motorola SmartNet Trunked Systems In article , gabriele@rand.org (Mark Gabriele) wrote: > This raises a problem that is particularly irritating in some > circumstances with which I am familiar. I post it only to ask if this > type of situation is being given proper consideration. > I can fully understand people setting "anonymous caller rejection" on > their home phone lines. However, there are times when it is problematic. > For example: > A person calls a physician's office (after hours) with a medical > emergency. The person's call results in the physician being paged to call > the patient. > The physician calls the patient from their phone (home or cellular), > with blocking set ON. The physician's call is rejected because the > patient has the "anonymous call rejection" set ON. Ooops. Now, in > order to perform their ethical duty, the physician has to send caller > ID to the patient in order for the patient to receive the call. Now, > the patient can jot down the physician's home or cellular phone number > and call at their convenience (such as the next time little Johnny is > throwing up at 3:00 am, or when Sally suffers a mental health crisis > because her beaux dumped her). > This is not a desirable circumstance for the physician. > What I would propose is that CID should be capable of sending a > *different* number registered to the same person (or a corporate > number, with the permission of the corporation or on a business line). > This provides protection for people who for legitimate professional > reasons may wish to retain their personal privacy. Unfortunately, I > have not heard of any such capability in any jurisdiction with which I > am familiar. Mark makes some good points (IMHO) regarding anonymous call rejection. It seems to me it is sort of false advertising to call this service "caller ID" -- it is more accurate to call it "ANI-for-subscribers", but I guess it doesn't sound as good ;-) I personally choose not to answer calls marked as "ANONYMOUS" from experience of being harassed previously by someone using per call blocking; this is on top of the fact that whoever is calling doesn't want me to know ahead of time for some reason. This does have drawbacks, though. In Chicago, calls originated by a cellular subscriber on the "A" band (Cellular One) show up as "ANONYMOUS" on an ANI display box. Calls marked as such cause a LED to flash in cadence with the ring cycle on my ANI box, so if I see this while the phone is ringing I will not answer the call. I do have friends and some family members who have service on Cellular One and I have missed calls from them on occasion because of this. Calls originated by someone on the "B" band (Ameritech) show up as "UNAVAILABLE", which I'm more likely to answer*. * sidenote - a double edged sword. Telanoyance marketing droids are notorious for having their calls show up as "UNAVAILABLE" on an ANI display box. It is more the norm that I come home with three to six calls on my ANI display marked as "UNAVAILABLE" with no message left on the answering machine. More often than not, calls I answer marked as "UNAVAILBLE" start out with "Hello, this is XYZ Useless Widgets and associates, may I speak to Mr. or Mrs. ... ". Here's a novel idea; basic ANI display service (number only) from Ameritech is something like $6. To get the number _and_ name is an extra $2.50, which implies that ANI information passed to your display unit can be somewhat selective. Why not implement ANI service that just shows the name? Currently before dialing, *67 blocks everything. Make it so some combination of *XX blocks only your number. That way just your name shows up on ANI boxes that are so equipped while number-only displays show "NO INFORMATION SENT" as it is when no data is transmitted between ring cycles. Eric Carr c10973@email.mot.com ------------------------------ From: hankkarl@ix.netcom.com (Hank Karl) Subject: Re: Cellular Caller ID Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 15:49:13 GMT Organization: Telenetworks Reply-To: hk@tn.com On Thu, 30 May 96 18:30:30 EDT, in comp.dcom.telecom Tony Harminc wrote: > You can have any number that is installed at the same premises and > billed to the same subscriber set up as your call display number. I > have even seen an 800 number used this way. How about a 900 number? :-) Hank Karl ------------------------------ From: Dr. Robert Jacobson Subject: Re: Hurting Public Utilities Hurts Public Service Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 01:01:32 -0700 Organization: Worldesign Inc. Seattle-Information Design [www.worldesign.com] Dave Levenson wrote: > Lisa (hancock4@cpcn.com) writes: >> When the phone company broke, what consumer expected higher prices >> for COCOT phones and long distance? > Long distance is far less expensive today than it was pre-competition. > Many COCOT phones charge less than utility-owned payphones (even > though the utility-owned payphones are subsidized by ratepayers). It's also true that most long distance calls by far are made by corporations and agencies of government. The cost savings, which surely have been magnificent, have disproportionately favored those already in privileged positions. The cost for residential customers and small businesses has been higher prices for the mostly local calls these customers make. The redistribution of wealth from individuals and small businesses to large corporations and agencies has been truly staggering, in the tens of billions of dollars since Divestiture. I doubt that a day of searching will produce a COCOT phone with lower costs than regulated telco-provided public phones. Of course, there are fewer and fewer of the latter available, now that service provision of this type is no longer a condition of holding a franchise. > While competition is not the answer to every problem, it does offer us > alternatives. If we make informed decisions, we benefit. What we > lose with competition is subsidies. (If one group of customers > subsidizes another, a competitor will offer the customers who pay the > subsidy an opportunity to avoid paying it.) Yeah. Law of the jungle. Works every time. If you're an individual or small business customer, your choices are few and far between. I don't see alternative local carriers rushing to sign up households or small businesses. Do you? > If you have been paying these subsidies, you benefit. If you have > been receiving them, perhaps you don't ... but ask yourself why you > deserved to be subsidized in the first place! Bogus argument. Subsidies are never deserved, they result from political power. Fairness is a chimera. Corporate income taxes are well below what they "fairly" might be. Do you renounce these subsidies? Well, what are you going to do about it? Or rather, _try_ to do about it: not a chance will you succeed. Small telecom customers are much easier marks, and so they pay. Without choice. Bob ------------------------------ From: edevinney@aol.com (EDevinney) Subject: Re: Internet Spam From AOL Date: 3 Jun 1996 11:58:19 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: edevinney@aol.com (EDevinney) Check the headers -- as often as not the spam I've seen directed at mailing lists is from an ISP different from AOL, but with worked-over headers ... Cheers, Ed Devinney edevinney@aol.com(w),Devinney_E@mediasoft.net(h) ------------------------------ From: rlm@netcom.com (Robert McMillin) Subject: Re: Internet Spam From AOL Organization: Charlie Don't CERF Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 07:54:06 GMT On 30 May 1996 15:57:26 PDT, Joe A. Machado said: > I have received over 35 mail messages from folks at AOL during the > past few days. The mailing list is similar but the senders vary. Many > of the messages contain words of frustration from other recipients and > the content expressed variest. Responding to the messages with REMOVE > or some statement to be taken off the mailing list at times causes > repetition of the mailings, or the request being ignored. And many of > the messages are the same but mailed several times -- three to five > times at once! [deletia] It's an easy thing to write off Usenet's decline to simple numbers of idiots. AOL was the worst thing to happen to the Net, so the wags told us. Not really so: what was bad was unleashing them on the Net with second-rate software and no guidance. The fact that AOL can *still* get away without killfiles and decent quoting on their newsreader is pretty astonishing. Every popular Unix-based newsreader (aside from trivial hacks) has these features, but as a percentage of the newsreaders out there, they're a small and declining number. Likewise, procmail, Stephen R. van den Berg's wonderful hack to bozofilter incoming e-mail, is available only to Unix users. (Maybe the folks at Qualcomm making Eudora, or Microsoft making Exchange, will read this and do something and/or correct me.) What I'm getting at is the tools necessary to cope with the Net's monstrous volume are now pretty rare. This is one reason we're hearing so many calls for net.censorship of one species or another: people can no longer filter out the Bob Allisats of the world. On the Net, everyone can hear you scream, and the 7/Eleven's don't stock earplugs. But even when you CAN do something about it, sometimes it's just not enough. Perhaps the best recent example of this problem is the Scientology-driven spam on alt.religion.scientology. The Curse, er, Church has decided that, if they can't destroy Usenet and everyone associated with it, their Ministry of Truth will spew happyspeak until the Enemy gets terminally bored. They couldn't have been more obvious if they'd rented a broom to skywrite "Surrender, Dorothy". What to do? Federal policing of the Net won't stop people from behaving boorishly. What we *do* need is better filtering. How that's going to be achieved remains to be seen, but I do know I smell a business opportunity. Robert L. McMillin | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Netcom: rlm@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: Jeff Carroll Subject: Re: Internet Spam From AOL Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 11:59:26 -0500 Organization: bigendian Reply-To: xfrosch@indy.net Joe A. Machado wrote: > With Universal Email a looming possibility is the public not to be > protected from unwanted mail? Will the cost of junk mail not be a > factor in the Universal Email debate? Should society tolerate Email > entrepeneurship? Is there a benefit by not legislating E-Mail? Get real. The USPS delivers junk mail, the telco delivers junk calls, and AOL delivers spam. In fact AOL spams customers pretty hard themselves ... except that they don't fool around with email, using an even more insidious interface to do it. If you haven't read William Gibson's _Neuromancer_, I suggest that you go find a copy and take a look. Three years ago I thought this book was malinformed nonsense; now I see that Gibson's ideas (or the ones he picked up and recycled) are serving as a paradigm guiding technology development. Not only is the net not going to be regulated (or regulatable), it's not necessarily even going to be civilized. The Exons and the Coatses who think that they can protect the electorate from those devastating little blips of electricity are either going to have to insulate themselves ever farther from reality, or stage a coup d'etat and cut the cables. The net, like the market, is a stateless entity, and the greatest irony of the twentieth century will no doubt be that such an entity was created by the United States Department of Defense. Governmental attempts at control merely drive the offending activity underground, and the only sure way to control the net, in a very close analogy with "markets" in centrally planned economies, is to destroy it. In fact, the fundamental issue was rather conclusively dealt with by most jurisdictions when caller ID became available. The force of law, more often than not, acts on the behalf of the spammers rather than in the interest of individual liberty. Many (if not most) states, in making up CID blocking schemes, legislated enactments of the principle that you do NOT have the unrestricted right to refuse delivery of unwanted messages. There ARE laws against wire fraud and mail fraud. That is the practical limit of your recourse under the law (but I'm not a lawyer, so if you REALLY care about this issue, go hire one). As far as the content of your email; there are sophisticated tools for de-spamming newsfeeds. The techniques are general and could easily be applied to the email protocols - but don't hold your breath waiting for AOL to do it for you. jkc ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #262 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jun 3 23:28:01 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id XAA28273; Mon, 3 Jun 1996 23:28:01 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 23:28:01 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606040328.XAA28273@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #263 TELECOM Digest Mon, 3 Jun 96 23:28:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 263 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: MCI Cellular (Mike Fox) Re: MCI Cellular (Russell E. Sorber) Re: MCI Cellular (Jay R. Ashworth) Re: Fight Turns Nasty: Ameritech/AT&T Take Off Gloves (Jeffrey Rhodes) Re: Fight Turns Nasty: Ameritech/AT&T Take Off Gloves (Wendy Rensik) Re: Interesting New Spam Twist (Jay R. Ashworth) Re: Around and Around With Jeff Boy (North Coast Communications) Re: Around and Around With Jeff Boy (Frank Pizer) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Fox Date: 3 Jun 96 15:59:50 GMT Subject: Re: MCI Cellular > In Boston there is Cellular One and Nynex now there are two other cell > companies starting to put up their antennas. They are AT&T and Sprint. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When cellular phone service was being > developed in the early 1980's -- it started as of 1983 I believe -- > probably no one could ever imagine there would be a time when more > than two carriers would ever be in existence in a given community and > in most cases just one. Thus the A/B arrangement, with no real provision > for a 'C' or 'D' carrier, or whatever they might be called. Does anyone > know of any plans to open the market to a third or fourth (a 'C' or 'D' > or whatever you would call them) carrier? I do not mean just as a > reseller of A/B as happens now, I mean genuine infrastructure for > a third or fourth cellular company in some markets? PAT] I don't think they are really bringing in two new *cellular* carriers. I think they are setting up two *PCS* services. The fact that he called it "Sprint" instead of "360 Degree Communications" confirms that IMO, as Sprint spun off their cellular business into 360 Degree so they can concentrate on PCS. Later, Mike ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 16:47:45 -0500 From: Russell E. Sorber Subject: Re: MCI Cellular Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Group In article Pat writes: > Does anyone know of any plans to open the market to a third or > fourth (a 'C' or 'D' or whatever you would call them) carrier? I do > not mean just as a reseller of A/B as happens now, I mean genuine > infrastructure for a third or fourth cellular company in some markets? Pat, Yes. New infrastructure is being installed by the PCS operators in many US cellular markets. The FCC auctioned off these PCS frequencies several months ago. In the Chicago area, PCS Primeco (An Airtouch, USWest New Vector, NYNEX, BellAtlantic Mobile consortium) and AT&T Wireless are the two additional providers but they are not in commercial service yet. Somewhere on the WWW I've seen a page which lists which operators won the rights to which city. Every major US city will be getting at least two new wireless operators. Russ Sorber Software Contractor - Opinions are mine, Not Motorolas! Motorola, Cellular Division Arlington Hts., IL (847) 632-4047 ------------------------------ From: jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) Subject: Re: MCI Cellular Date: 3 Jun 1996 18:26:00 GMT Organization: University of South Florida Macaw (macaw@ix.netcom.com) wrote: > In schuster@panix.com (Michael > Schuster) writes: >> I just received a soliciation to join MCI's cellular service and receive >> a Nokia 100 phone for free (golly!!!). > In Boston there is Cellular One and Nynex now there are two other cell > companies starting to put up their antennas. They are AT&T and Sprint. > Cellular One is Southwestern Bell. I myself don't know how this will > be done also. If anyone knows please let me know. The reason I know > about the other two cellular companies is because Cellular One is > renting from me. They have a cell site on my building and Sprint > contacted me about setting up one of there cell sites on my building > also. AT&T Wireless bought McCaw Communications, the operator of Cellular One. I'd suspect Sprint might possibly have gotten into some deal with Nynex; that, or what _they_ want is a site for a PCS cell, instead. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When cellular phone service was being > developed in the early 1980's -- it started as of 1983 I believe -- > probably no one could ever imagine there would be a time when more > than two carriers would ever be in existence in a given community and > in most cases just one. Thus the A/B arrangement, with no real provision > for a 'C' or 'D' carrier, or whatever they might be called. Does anyone > know of any plans to open the market to a third or fourth (a 'C' or 'D' > or whatever you would call them) carrier? I do not mean just as a > reseller of A/B as happens now, I mean genuine infrastructure for > a third or fourth cellular company in some markets? PAT] From my understanding of the cellular protocols, it's not technically feasible, Pat. The A and B carriers (competitive and wireline) are using two actually different sets of frequencies for their calls. The band only has room, as currently bandplanned, for those two chunks, and certainly that's all the phones know how to do. No, I suspect that any further company expansion in the wireless voice market will be strictly PCS based stuff. Cheers, Jay R. Ashworth jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us Member of the Technical Staff Junk Mail Will Be Billed For. The Suncoast Freenet "The world will remain dangerously unstable Tampa Bay, Florida as long as it is populated." --me +1 813 790 7592 ------------------------------ From: Jeffrey Rhodes Subject: Re: Fight Turns Nasty: Ameritech/AT&T Take Off Gloves Date: 3 Jun 1996 19:12:30 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services I don't speak for AT&T on this subject but I certainly understand why AT&T characterizes the Ameritech legal action as outrageous. I disagree with the poster that consumers are caught in the middle. ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) wrote: >o Ameritech claims that as of Friday AT&T will bar its card holders > from making local calls within Ameritech's calling area. Really? When the Illinois consumer with both an AT&T calling card and an Ameritech calling card dials 102880 + ten digits for a call that completes in Illinois, AT&T won't let that call be billed to an AT&T calling card? I would guess that AT&T won't let an AT&T calling card be used for 0+seven or 0+ten digit intra-Ameritech calls because AT&T's network will not be used for this call. >o AT&T has offered Ameritech customers three months of free local > toll calls -- local calls of 15 miles or more -- if they switch to > AT&T before June 30. Were only Ameritech calling card consumers targeted? I would think AT&T would target all Ameritech consumers. There are any number of ways to obtain Ameritech consumer billing addresses without using LIDB database information or information obtained from LIDB database real-time access. For instance, AT&T Worldnet Directory Search has a very impressive engine that can focus on a state, a region or the entire country, to obtain mailing addresses and telephone numbers. >o AT&T has filed new local toll call rates with the Illinois Commerce > Commission to be extremely competitive. My local AT&T TV advertising is concentrating on 9 cents a minute plus quantity discounts for monthly bills over $25 dollars. Then Sprint has the dime lady and MCI has an X-generation Valley Person to put in writing MCI discounts compared to non-discounted AT&T plans. The long distance pricing wars have begun and this will only benefit consumers. > The developments Wednesday are the latest in what has become a very > nasty fight in the 'telephone war' between Ameritech and AT&T that > started out more than a year ago when Ameritech launched its 'Customers > First' plan, its strategy to enter the long distance market. > In the latest skirmish over calling cards, Ameritech had accused AT&T > of abusing an agreement that allows each company to handle traffic > using the calling card of the other company. Under the agreement, > neither company was allowed to use any customer data for the purpose > of soliciting customers to switch companies. > Ameritech Chairman Richard Notebaert said his company discovered AT&T > was illegally targeting Ameritech customers when some 'names on the > list' started getting mailings sent by AT&T. He said there was no way > 'those names' would have gotten anything like that in the mail had not > AT&T been abusing their access to the Ameritech data base. "Those names" are not available by other reverse white pages databases? Richard Notebaert has to know that Ameritech would gain more from raiding the LIDB database than AT&T. > As matters now stand, effective Friday, May 31, AT&T calling cards > will not be accepted by Ameritech and Ameritech calling cards will not > be accepted by AT&T. Ameritech consumers aren't able to use their MCI or Sprint calling cards when using AT&T's toll network, either. Is that any surprise? I'm pretty sure that AT&T toll operators are required to give the access codes for calling card verifcation failures and probably vice versa for other long distance toll operators. > It is unclear at this point what results will occur if a person with > an Ameritech card uses a payphone which was defaulted to AT&T to make > a long distance call. I would think not. This may imply that Ameritech payphones may require the non-Ameritech calling card consumer to dial 10XXX0+ or 101XXXX0+ to reach any other long distance carriers' LIDB calling card billing verification services. > Isn't this a shameful state of affairs when customers have to get > caught up in the middle of the fight? Customer dialing habits may need to change but the entire telephone system is changing to allow LECs like Ameritech become long distance providers and long distance providers like AT&T become local line service providers like Ameritech. This will provide more competition for both services, though I have to notice how the LECs are currently more inclined to merge than to compete in each other's territory. Jeffrey Rhodes at jeffrey.rhodes@worldnet.att.net ------------------------------ From: Wendy Rensik Subject: Re: Fight Turns Nasty: Ameritech/AT&T Take Off Gloves Date: Mon, 03 Jun 1996 17:33:36 -0700 Organization: Exec-PC BBS - Milwaukee, WI You're right about the fact that the heat has been turned up between AT&T and Ameritech. However, AT&T is the company that is disadvan- taging its own customers in the process. The AT&T calling card has had one unique advantage over the other ld cards for years -- it provided 0+ calling over all the RBOC networks. Not anymore. > o Ameritech claims that as of Friday AT&T will bar its card holders > from making local calls within Ameritech's calling area. This is true, and Ameritech is not the only RBOC. AT&T already cancelled the Mutual Card Holding Agreement (MCHA) with Nynex on April 30 and will cancel all MCHA's with RBOC's as the contracts expire. Interestingly, AT&T has refused to publicly admit to taking this action. In fact, in Nynex territory, they sent deliberately misleading information to their customers which implied that Nynex was responsible for blocking AT&T card holder calls. > As matters now stand, effective Friday, May 31, AT&T calling cards > will not be accepted by Ameritech and Ameritech calling cards will not > be accepted by AT&T. Not quite true. Ameritech calling cards will still work on AT&T's network. With an Ameritech card, you can dial 0+ and get through whether it's local or long distance. With an AT&T card, you have to dial 1800CallATT or 10288 when placing a local call. > It is unclear at this point what results will occur if a person with > an Ameritech card uses a payphone which was defaulted to AT&T to make > a long distance call. The call will go through! (So which card would you rather have in your pocket??) > Isn't this a shameful state of affairs when customers have to get > caught up in the middle of the fight? What's shameful is that AT&T is cancelling the MCHA's with the RBOC's (and refuses to come clean about it with the press or their own customers.) The reason is simple ... they want to divert calling revenue from the Bell networks to the AT&T network. And they're doing it on the backs of their own customers. Wendy Resnik ------------------------------ From: jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) Subject: Re: Interesting New Spam Twist Date: 3 Jun 1996 06:03:59 GMT Organization: University of South Florida Ron Mackey (rem@dsiinc.com) wrote: > Okay, this guy thinks it's okay to spam 10,000 newgroups with his > garbage, but doesn't want to be bothered with junk calls himself. > What I really would like to know is the legality of threatening to > bill for an 800 call. Does this guy really have any legal recourse > to stop offending junk calls to his 800 number or are we all free > to spam his 800-number the same way he's been spamming us? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It probably is not legal and he may be > able to do it somehow if he has a contract with some sleazy telco > billing agency. I'd say handle calls to 800-555-8655 with the same > discretion as calls to Slaton: see to it whatever ANI they pick up > is essentially worthless. Everyone passes several payphones in a day's > time or knows of some trusty looparound. PAT] Actually, as I noted in an earlier posting, it _is_ illegal, although I'd have to dig out the rulemaking that says so. It's been cited here in the past month, I think ... Worse, though, the 800 number is likely bogus anyway. The 800-555 exchange, to the best of my knowledge, belongs to Bellcore themselves, and I don't think they've let it out to anyone. As opposed to 900-555, which is another matter, entirely. Cheers, Jay R. Ashworth jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us Member of the Technical Staff The Suncoast Freenet Tampa Bay, Florida +1 813 790 7592 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Jun 96 22:36:00 EDT From: North Coast Communications <0005082894@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: Around and Around With Jeff Boy FYI: According to the Automated RespOrg Lookup Service that I have access to, 800.351.8085, uses LCI International. So I guess they would be the "beneficiary" of the net community's worthy goal. Wonder what the "per minute" rate is on this number? I am also curious why Mr. Jeff picked such a strange name for his operation (Eunuchs?). Perhaps it is self-descriptive in his case? So many pay phones, so little time! ;+) Kristen [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Remember, spam will cease when spam is unprofitable. It is only profitable when customers can reach the spammer. You (a generic you, meaning the net community) essentially wasted all the email addresses those birds were using; note how they now want a phone call. The quandry is if it were a regular phone number not many people would call, yet if it is an 800 number then everyone calls. Pass the word: a goal for the community during June and subsequent months is to generate about a hundred thousand dollars per month in billings to our favorite spammers. Do not call it harassment, because it is not. You want to learn more about the product; you want to call and let them know you decided not to order it; you want to call and let them know to quit sending you mail, etc. Just because it is more convenient for you to call from a payphone at the corner store does not make it harassment either. If it is harassment you are into, then I cannot help you because harassment is illegal. A hundred thousand dollars sounds like a lot of money, and it is if you have to pay the phone bill but if there are even the same number of netizens interested in the cause and each makes three or four calls to a spammer then between us all we can make short work of it. I feel there should be a 'spammer of the month' who receives the community's blessings that month. For example, this time around make it Jeff Boy, then next month maybe the hair thinner people, etc. Now you know if Jeff gets hit with a huge bill like that from LCI he is probably not going to be able to pay; sure as I am sitting here LCI will cut him and place him with an agency or else take it legal right away. If he goes with another carrier, the community will find out soon enough. After all, he has to spam the net with his new number doesn't he if he wants to promote whatever he has to sell that time. Remember, a hundred thousand dollars. Let's do this like Pledge Week on National Public Radio. You can 'phone in' your pledges; we can have a big graph where we show the progress being made toward reaching the goal, etc. :) If you send me mail with the subject line 'My Pledge to Jeff' I won't run those messages but I will summarize the totals each day or two. Do not exagerate; make it realistic. And I repeat: no harassment! Don't be like that guy in Georgia who personally ran up the 800 bill on Jerry Falwell a quarter-million dollars over two months by having his modem redial over and over all day and all night. Just make a few calls to ask a few questions or make a few comments. Spam will quit when there no further place for the spammers to go to get customer responses. Pass the word. PAT] ------------------------------ From: bidscan@mail.saix.net Date: Mon, 03 Jun 1996 09:49:51 -0700 Subject: Re: Around and Around With Jeff Boy [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Frank wrote me last week but his original message went astray; it is repeated below. In the repeat transmission to me, he added a few new comments. PAT] I haven't received anything further, so possibly mail to postmaster@interramp.com helped. I've also taken a look at interramp.com, and they look like a respectable enough setup, so perhaps they're victims of this "lightning bolt" crap themselves. Cheers, Frank R Pizer bidscan@mail.saix.net ------------------- Subject: Caller-ID/ISP abuse, plus unwanted, unsolicited sleaze e-mail Date: Fri, 24 May 1996 00:09:24 -0700 From: bidscan@mail.saix.net Pat, I'm none too sure if you are the right one to turn to, but with the undertones of caller-id and ISP abuse, I feel that even if you can't help with my problem, you would at least be able to sound some sort of warning in the right places. After the "Are you a displaced AT&T etc" message of yesterday, of which I sent you a copy, and having sent back a polite "Kindly remove from your mailing list" reply to it, (which, btw, bounced as undeliverable, bounce message attached below), I have now today received something even LESS wanted, from the same source. (also attached below). I have as a first resort, mailed to postmaster@interramp.com, asking for help, but for all I know, that is the sender of the sleaze. Is there anything you or your readers can suggest to halt what looks like becoming a stream of unwanted, unsolicited, crud. The sad part of it all is that they probably don't realise that I'm not in the USA, and am unable to reply via their 0800 number which they insist on as the only means of making contact, thereby making the whole thing pointless in the first place .... Cheers, Frank R Pizer Bidscan@mail.saix.net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: From now on, forget the postmasters and system admins. Don't bother them any longer with mail on spammers. Now that the spammers have invited phone calls let's deal with it that way. See my earlier message in this issue. Let's give the postmasters and admins some relief on this for a change. I also got mail from someone who pointed out that cellular phones are unlikely as presently configured to produce any worthwhile ANI to the spammers. That is a good point, and I would say as long as you don't have to spend in total more than a dollar or so to do your part for the community this month, go ahead and use your cellular phone for it. If you are not sure of the results in your case, then best stick with the payphone. Remember, no harassment! Just interested customers who want more information, or to comment on the situation. And if Jeff Boy presents any of you with his 'net harasser recognition award' be sure to let us all know. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #263 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jun 4 11:50:11 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id LAA14302; Tue, 4 Jun 1996 11:50:11 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 11:50:11 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606041550.LAA14302@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #264 TELECOM Digest Tue, 4 Jun 96 11:50:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 264 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Help Needed Building Step-by-Step Switches (Mike G. Zaiontz) What the Government Pays For Long Distance (Roy A. McCrory) Bouygues New Phone Network in France (Jean-Bernard Condat) FTC Warns of Internet Scams (Tad Cook) Play Modem and PC Speakers Thru Sound Card: Possible? (domo@xs4all.nl) Re: More CID Frolics! (Vance Shipley) Re: More CID Frolics - One Problem Solved! (Stan Schwartz) Re: Nevada Attorney General Investigates Excel (Van Hefner) Re: Northern Telecom "Services" Menu (Tim Jenkins) Re: Digital Cellular in North America Question (Guy St-Pierre) Photos from Telephone Pioneer Museum (Bob Baxter) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike G. Zaiontz Subject: Help Needed Building Step-by-Step Switches Date: Tue, 04 Jun 1996 08:04:31 -0500 Organization: MEPTEC - Mobil Oil Corporation In reading the TELECOM Digest, I've noticed an interest in older telephone systems. I am not a telecom professional, but a collector of old telephone equipment. Someone in this group may be able to assist me. I am attempting to assemble a very small step-by-step switch. This switch has four linefinders, first selectors, final selectors and connectors. Most of what I need I have been able to locate, but need help in locating some shelves, trunk switches and other parts. This switch will tie into my WE-555 and WE-557 cord switchboards and 1A2 key system (37 extensions). Any info or comments would be appreciated. You can e-mail me directly at mgzaiont@nol.mobil.com or call 504-566-6090. Thanks in advance, Mike ------------------------------ From: Roy A. McCrory Subject: What the Government Pays For Long Distance Date: 4 Jun 1996 13:41:22 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory Article entitled "Sprint to cut its rates (FTS 2000)" in the 27 May issue of FEDERAL Computer Week, Vol 10, Number 12. Apparently the government is conducting some kind of Chinese auction between ATT and Sprint on its FTS 2000 internal long distance network. Article reports that "Sprint will drop its rates from 8 cents per minute to 5.9...." "... the agreement almost completely eliminates the price difference between ATT and Sprint." Roy ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 04 Jun 1996 14:37:59 +0100 From: Jean-Bernard Condat Subject: Bouygues New Phone Network in France Paris (France), Juny 4th, 1996--All over the streets of the French capitale, you can look at some pictures on the walls giving information on the new telecommunications network born May 30th: Bouygues Telecom's one. For 240 FF (including taxes),you can freely phone in Paris and in a 30-km circle near the capitale. After, you must paid 2 FF in business time and 1 FF in home time. Four terminal DCS 1800 are now available between 550 to 990 FF. If you leave Paris you can forward your calls by the command to a no-portable phone number! The phone number of Bouygues' products are 8-digit numbers beginning by 02 (normally 09 for SFR and 07 for Itineris). Bouygues Telecom has awarded Nortel a two-year contract extension estimated at $US50 million for expansion of its national personal communications network (PCN). This increases the total value of Bouygues Telecom's PCN radio infrastructure supply agreement with Nortel (announced in December 1994) to over $US100 million. Nortel will supply, install and commission several hundred DCS 1800 base transceiver stations, based on the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) standard, for the new coverage in the d'Azur and Lyon regions, and for expansion of existing coverage in the Ile de France area. Service is scheduled to begin in these areas at the start of 1997. "We are very pleased to see our relationship with Bouygues Telecom developing," said Pascal Debon, vice president and general manager, GSM Wireless Networks, Nortel. "This new contract underlines the performance of the GSM technology developed by our teams. Equally, while we have won many GSM contracts in other parts of the world, this contract proves our ability to compete and win in Europe." According to Yves Francois, director of information technology at Bouygues Telecom, "we chose Digital because of their complete understanding of our business needs, and their superior telecomm- unications technology and solutions capability to manage a vast and complex radiotelephone network from a single point." Jean-Claude Sainctavit, Digital's worldwide vice president for the telecomm- unications industry, said that "Digital's industry-leading Alpha technology, along with our clustering, solutions and support capabilities will provide Bouygues Telecom with a lower cost of operations and an almost immediate network problem solution capability with scalable advanced technology." He added that "our partnership with co-contractor SEMA Group, the use of our TeMip (Telecommunications Management Information Platform) platform, and the experience gained from managing similar telecom projects worldwide, most recently, for example, in Germany and Malaysia, were the final determining factors in our selection by Bouygues Telecom." Bouygues Telecom is a company controlled by Bouygues (a major multi-trade group). Bouygues Telecom brings together the principal operators of DCS 1800 networks in Europe, Cable & Wireless (United Kingdom), Veba (Germany), and US West (United States), along with the Jean-Claude Decaux Group, Banque Nationale de Paris, and Compagnie Financiere de Parisbas. Bouygues officials noted that the technical performance, high-capacity and attractive price of this new generation of easy-to-use mobile phones will meet the expectations of a wide public. Bouygues Telecom plans to gain a significant share of a market estimated at more than 10 million customers over the next 10 years. The company will base its development on the quality of its customer service. The arrival of Bouygues Telecom as the third licensed mobile operator in France is expected to further stimulate the development of mobile phones, and help France catch up with the other main European countries in this field. Personal telephony is a major line of development for Bouygues already present in the telecommunications sector since 1987 (3RP Public Access Mobile Radio, ERMES paging network). Jean-bernard Condat, Senior Consultant, Smart Card Business Unit | Informix, La Grande Arche, 92044 La Defense Cedex, France | Phone: +33 1 46963770, fax: +33 1 46963765, portable: +33 07238628 | Private: +33 1 41238807, e-mail: jeanbc@informix.com ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: FTC Warns of Internet Scams Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 23:57:23 PDT FTC warns of Internet scams Reuters WASHINGTON -- Hordes of scam artists -- already skilled at ripping off consumers through telephone fraud -- may soon stalk new victims over the Internet, the Federal Trade Commission warned Monday. The worldwide computer network offers crooks advantages such as anonymity and cheap startup costs, making it tougher for law enforcement officials to track down con artists in cyberspace, the FTC said. "Fraudulent marketers will continue to use the telephone, but they soon may gravitate to the Internet in large numbers," the agency said in a report titled "Consumer Protection Policy in the New High-Tech, Global Marketplace." In general, the report added, new technologies involving telephones, television and computers will give consumers access to unlimited amounts of information and other benefits. But they also offer fertile ground for old-fashioned scams. "There is no sign that low-tech scams will go away and strong evidence that `next-tech' scams will increase and be more difficult to detect and track across international borders," the report said. "Law enforcement agencies must work harder, smarter and in concert to maximize the impact of their limited resources." The report is part of a two-volume study the FTC issued after hearings last year into how growing global competition and new technologies affect businesses and consumers. The FTC said it is reviewing its regulations "to assure that they are well-suited to the new global marketplace." The agency is prepared to change outdated rules. The report said the multimedia portion of the Internet known as the World Wide Web offers crooks cheap opportunities to rip off consumers. "Indeed, for $30 a month or less and the cost of a computer and modem, scam artists can be in business on the World Wide Web, taking orders from anywhere in the world," it said. Just last week, the FTC said it halted an illegal pyramid scheme on the Internet that bilked thousands of investors out of more than than $6 million. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am beginning to think that about ninety percent of the commercial stuff on the World Wide Web is just fraud. I may be overestimating the percentage a little. I thought a good companion piece to this message is a posting I found in misc.rural telling how YOU can make **big $$** working at home posting messages on the net. It seems a very ominous sign of things to come. Read on and see what you think. Subject: Rural Folks Needed to Work as Newsgroup Posters Date: 4 Jun 96 12:03:32 -0700 From: webhost@msn.com (D.J Hamilton) Organization: The Microsoft Network (msn.com) Newsgroups: misc.rural Newgroup Marketing Representatives Needed Worldwide. Come Joing our team of Newsgroup marketers who are earning an average of $5000 per month. Job Number: 5000 Job Category: Marketing Company Name: Net Marketing & Multimedia Address1: 1602 Alton Road Suite 442 City/State/Zip: Miami Beach County: Florida Country: USA Contact Name: Darryl Hamilton Contact Title: Recruiting Coordinator Phone: 305-460-2257 Fax: 352-378-9939 E-mail: webhost@msn.com Always better to contact via e-mail Status: Part-Time / Full-Time Salary/Benefits: Initially, Compensation will only include commission, and after a 120 day evaluation period, employee will receive a weekly salary in adjunct to commissions. The salary will equal $1200/month + commissions. Commission and salary payments will be made in the form of a check or direct bank deposit for employees living outsite of the United States. Other payment arrangements can be made if the listed above are not satisfactory. Location1: Worldwide Description: Join Net Marketing & Multimedia, one of the nation's largest Web marketing Firms. Our marketing representatives are trained to handle a full range of products and services and deal in both the individual as well as business markets. Job Duties: Individual will post messages throughout certain newsgroups, and on the world wide web, indicating the availability and location of a new product. on the web. Simply put, you will point users to the location of web pages that display a product. You will receive a commision for every product that is sold as a result of your efforts. Send E-mail if interested in positions ... Posted by: Net Publications: http://nminc.com/jobs mediaworld@msn.com ---------------------------- [Me again: Well, at least they did not spam. I cannot see any evidence where they posted this in six hundred different newsgroups all at the same time. Still, I don't like this. It seems like these outside commercial organizations are detirmined to take over the Usenet newsgoups doesn't it? My solution here is I generally am going to stop posting messages from people saying 'look at my web page' unless it has something specific to do with telecom. I may not hold to that rule absolutely. I get quite a few 'look at my web page' messages each day. You don't really want to see all those do you? PAT] ------------------------------ From: domo@xs4all.nl (domo) Subject: Play Modem and PC Speakers Thru Sound Card: Possible? Date: Mon, 03 Jun 1996 22:23:00 GMT Organization: XS4ALL, networking for the masses Reply-To: domo@xs4all.nl Does anyone know if and how I can re-route the sounds of my modem speaker and system speaker through my soundcard to my speakers? Is there a software solution is it a hardware thing? I did find a program that can send the sound of normal telephone conversations to my modem speaker: (folis20, at ftp://ftp.omen.com.au/pub/files_3/comms/folis20.arj) but the sound is horrible and this is only part of what I would like to have. Actually this is a limited version of a question that seems to be more complicated than I thought (I get no answers). If you can answer that one I would really be grateful. Here is my original question: Here's a question that looks simple in my non-technical mind. I want to do handsfree telephoning from the desk where I have my computer. I could buy a handsfree telephone, but it seems to me I already have the equipment. I have a computer with a 14k4 modem, an AWE32 soundcard, a microphone and speakers. I don't know if my modem has voice capabilities; probably not. As I see it a telephone is nothing more than a serial device with a microphone, a speaker, a bell and some buttons that make beeps. All this can be done with a soundcard, with the modem just as a way to plug in the telephone connector. Is there more to it than this? What (shareware) software do I need? I have seen this question posted elsewhere but haven't seen answers other than "I know you can but I don't know how". Please reply by email also. Thanks, Max domo@xs4all.nl ------------------------------ From: vances@xenitec.xenitec.on.ca (Vance Shipley) Subject: Re: More CID Frolics! Organization: Telco Consulting Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 16:30:13 GMT In article , Stan Schwartz wrote: > For the last few weeks, I've been puzzled by a number that had been > appearing on my all of my CID devices (I'm up to 5 in the house). It > wasn't any valid NPA or NNX and the name showed up as "--------------". > Last night, it clicked. The number displayed is the first ten digits > of an account number that I have with a bank in the northeast. This > doesn't seem like mere coincidence to me. What piece of software is > able to manipulate CID, and does the FCC know about this? This has > the potential of rendering CID data useless. Over the years I have insisted on referring to ANI when appropriate and CLID when that term applied instead. Many people like to call the CLID information they receive ANI but it is not. ANI cannot be misrepresented by a customer, at least through any means I am aware of. CLID however is often controlled by the customer explicitly. The case of a University would be an example. A typical university might have several directly dialable numbers or even a whole NXX range. For example let's say UofX, a small university, has (XXX)555-1000 through 1999. Calling any of the numbers 555-1000 through 555-1999 will result in the call being sent to the UofX PBX (over a few ISDN Primary Rate trunks) which will in turn ring the appropriate extension. The callee at the UofX will have the callers number and name if available displayed on her telephone. The CO sent the information to the PBX. Now consider the case where a caller from the UofX places an outside call. If the callee is to have an accurate call display information set it will have to come from the PBX at the UofX. The CO could display only the main listed directory number of the UofX (555-1000) and the name of the university but that would not be very usefull when the caller is directly reachable and ISDN connected as well. When placing the call the UofX PBX will send to the CO the originating number to be used for the call as well as the name to be displayed if that service is available. In this way the most usefull service is provided. When a callee receives a call from the UofX extension phone the display will show the DID number and current name of the caller. The local CO should have filters in place which will ensure that the Uof;X PBX only sends valid CLIDs on outgoing calls. It should only allow the range of numbers assigned to the UofX (555-1000 to 555-1999). In reality most CO equipment is incapable of doing this filtering. In most cases the PBX could have sent any string of digits that was ten digits in length (some restrictions will apply). The name information is of course very dynamic, extensions can be reassigned at any time and the names of employees or students will change often. The originating name information can be anything. In article , Stan Schwartz wrote: > Last week, we heard about the calls I'm receiving where my CID displays > show the first 10 digits of my account number with a regional bank. > Today, I received another "interesting" call. There was no message on > the machine, but all of my CID devices have the name "WASHINGTON" (for > the state, I assume), and a number 206-959-0525. This number is not > only not dialable, but 959 does not exist in either the 206, 360, or 509 > NPA's. > Can anyone help me with TODAY'S mystery??? The trend toward computer controlled telephony has produced a wealth of products to enable organizations to take advantage of ISDN in their unique applications. An organization may create their own "PBX" today and may do as they wish with the CLID and name information. Vance Shipley +1 519 579 5816 (tel) Telco Consulting +1 519 579 5136 (fax) vances@telco.on.ca http://www.telco.on.ca ------------------------------ From: Stan Schwartz Subject: Re: More CID Frolics - One Problem Solved! Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 17:13:13 -0400 First, I'd like to thank everyone for their quick response on my Caller ID predicament. The responses I received led me to call AT&T, USWest, and GTE Northwest and they all pointed fingers (which ever one they chose) at each other. The answer I received from USWest and GTE was, "Maybe it's a cellular number and we don't have those in our database." I couldn't convince them that even cellular numbers are assigned to a central office SOMEWHERE and would be in a searchable database. The mystery was partially solved when the caller finally left a message on my voice mail. I cross-checked the timestamp on that and my CID box(es) and Viola! The call originated from somewhere in the Bill Gates empire. NOW I have to wonder if this has a connection with my other CID mystery. Does Microsoft have the same CID-masking software that the bank had? Is this a Microsoft product? WinFake '95? BTW, the USWest rep told me that the 959 exchange is in general use in some of their other territories (Colorado, for example). Stan ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 07:08:06 -0700 From: vantek@northcoast.com (VANTEK COMMUNICATIONS) Subject: Re: Nevada Attorney General Investigates Excel > Nevada Attorney General's Office Investigates Long-Distance Company > By MICHELLE DeARMOND > An Excel employee was charged in a Federal Trade Commission > investigation earlier this year for allegedly making unsubstantiated > claims about earnings for work-at-home businesses. Robert Serviss of > Stamford, Conn., was accused of offering no proof that consumers would > earn up to $4,000 or more each. I am constanly amazed at how some reporters will publish "facts" without even attempting to validate them whatsoever. This Robert Serviss character has/had absolutely NOTHING to to with Excel Communications (NYSE: ECI) of Dallas, TX. He ran a completely different company, which just happened to call itself by the same name. He did not sell long distance. He sold some type of "Get Rich Quick" manual by mail-order that had nothing to do with long distance. Before I wrote an article on the subject, I actually bothered to pick-up the phone and ask the FTC about the case. It took me all of five minutes. I have no connection whatsoever to Excel, but I really hate to see their name dragged through the mud (further) by such incompetent journalism as that practiced by the above writer. I find it a bit ironic that there is apparently a higher degree of professionalsm and journalistic competence on internet mailing lists than there is at the Associated Press. Van Hefner - Editor Discount Long Distance Digest On The Web: http://www.webcom.com/longdist/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would like to think there is a bit more journalistic competence on many on the mailing lists. I got notes also from a couple of Excel people who complained about the way Excel got attached to the article in question. I personally do not like the sort of sales approach Excel uses but like yourself I see no reason to besmirch their character even further when there is little or no truth to something which appears in the papers. So thanks very much for your response, Van. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 12:41:17 +0000 From: tim jenkins Subject: Re: Northern Telecom "Services" Menu Organization: Bell-Northern Research In article , Proctor & Associates <0003991080@mcimail.com> wrote: > I've been playing around with a slick little Northern Telecom > PowerTouch 350 phone. It has all kinds of neat features, such as the > ability to move Caller ID info into your dialing database. > One feature I don't quite fathom is connected with something called > "Services." Under Services, the manual says: > "The large display on your telephone offers you the > advantages of full screen services, much like an > automatic banking machine. You can subscribe to > enhanced telephone company features and services > such as home banking, catalog shopping, movie > libraries, and restaurant guides. You can also > subscribe to telephone network services such as > network voice mail." > The manual then gives instructions for getting the phone to download a > list of subscriber services from the telco. > There is no information on how the data is transferred, protocols, or > anything. > Has anyone heard of this? Is "Services" a feature only available on > lines served by Northern Telecom DMS central offices? What signal > does the telephone send out when you punch the Services button? This is ADSI, which stands for Analog Display Services Interface. It's an open standard currently defined by Bellcore specs, if my memory serves me correctly. Nortel was heavily involved in the definition of the specifications. Basically, it operates this way: Somewhere on the network (and it could be the CO) there exists an ADSI server. This server sends information to your phone either as voice, but preferably as data in the form of modem signalling. Your phone can tell which is being sent, so the modem data goes to your screen and the voice to your handset/speaker/etc. The display can include menus, so selection of menus (for example) can be done by softkeys. The softkey pressed is sent back to the server by your phone using DTMF. Bank of Boston did a trial using ADSI some time ago. I don't know if they're still using it. There were numerous other trials as well. Other applications include advanced services from the CO such as directed call waiting, etc. etc. And no, it doesn't need to have anything to do with Nortel COs. Tim Jenkins tjj@nortel.ca ------------------------------ From: Guy St-Pierre Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 07:33:30 -0400 Subject: Re:Digital Cellular in North America Question About digital phones in North America, jfmezei@istar.ca wrote: > In North America, it *seems* that the push for digital cellular phones > is not very strong. (At least Cantel no longer pushes digital phones). > Are digital telephone more popular in GSM countries compared to those > few who resisted GMS to go with the USA standard ? It is true that the GSM has slightly better voice quality than the D-AMPS digital in North America. But improvements in D-AMPS digital are coming up soon. The performance of digital has a lot do with cell planning and network performance. BTW, GSM is digital only (control and voice channels). > Are applications such as SMS available for North American cellullar > systems? Or do they lag behind? (I assume that the USA dig system does > have the same functionality as SMS?) The North American market will start promotion of SMS (short message services) in a very near future. Same goes for Canada. Note that you will need a DCC phone (digital control channel, IS-136 standard) to use this feature. Regards, Guy St-Pierre Montreal ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 22:58:53 EDT From: Bob Baxter Subject: Photos From Telephone Pioneer Museum In April, 1996 I visited the Telephone Pioneer Museum, located in Commack, Long Island, New York. A one hour guided tour was given. In the course of the tour, I took a dozen pictures of the equipment and exhibits. The pictures have been put up for viewing. The URL is: http://www.panix.com/~bobbles/telpio.htm If visitors can ID the pieces of equipment shown, I will update the picture descriptions. Regards, Bob Baxter (bobbles@panix.com) ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #264 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jun 4 14:42:16 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id OAA02322; Tue, 4 Jun 1996 14:42:16 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 14:42:16 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606041842.OAA02322@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #265 TELECOM Digest Tue, 4 Jun 96 14:42:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 265 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Supreme Court Backs Long Distance Companies (TELECOM Digest Editor) Third Wireless Carrier in a Market (Greg Monti) Pac Bell *69 (Return Call) (Zev Rubenstein) Name-Only Caller-ID (was Re: Cellular Caller ID (Mike Fox) Re: European CATV/Telecom Info -- Sources Needed (Robert Bononno) Re: European CATV/Telecom Info -- Sources Needed (Stefano Cazzani) Re: European CATV/Telecom Info -- Sources Needed (David Larsen) Re: Cellular Caller ID (Jeff Carroll) Re: Cellular Caller ID (Ronell Elkayam) Re: Caller-ID Delay in California (JSeder@syntel.com) Re: Caller-ID Delay in California (mwcoen@hooked.net) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 13:51:50 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Supreme Court Backs Long Distance Companies On Monday the Supreme Court let stand an order requiring local telcos to repay millions of dollars in what the court termed 'excessive earnings' to long distance carriers that buy access to local lines. Without comment, the court turned down the local telcos' argument that they were wrongly ordered to pay damages because there was no finding that any specific rates were unreasonable. The telcos' appeal said a Federal Communications Commission order would require 49 local phone companies to pay more than $83 million plus interest to long-distance carriers. Chicago-based Ameritech said it could not be detirmined at this time how much each specific company would owe in the process, however the impact on Ameritech itself would be 'minimal'. The long distance companies -- including AT&T, MCI and Sprint -- sought damages on a claim that the local companies exceeded their maximum rate of return on investment set by the FCC. The challenge involved rates charged for long-distance access to local lines between 1985 and 1990. In 1990, the FCC adopted a new ratemaking method for the largest local companies which serve 90 percent of all phone subscribers in the USA. The government now sets maximum rates for those companies, but it allows smaller companies to set their own rates as long as they stay under a maximum rate of return. The FCC ruled for the long-distance companies. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia agreed, ordering the local telcos to refund the excess earnings. In the appeal resolved by the Supreme Court on Monday, the local telcos argued that they should not be forced to pay damages without a specific finding that their rates were too high and that the long distance carriers suffered injury as a result. The appeal also contended that the local companies should not be penalized retroactively because they could not predict whether their rates would lead to earnings above the maximum rate of return. Justice Department lawyers and attornies for the long-distance companies said in response that the FCC reasonably could decide that rates yielding excessive earnings are unlawful. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 22:37:31 -0400 From: cc004056@interramp.com (Greg Monti) Subject: Third Wireless Carrier in a Market Patrick Townson wrote: > [Regarding number of cellular carriers in a market]: Thus the A/B > arrangement, with no real provision > for a 'C' or 'D' carrier, or whatever they might be called. Does anyone > know of any plans to open the market to a third or fourth (a 'C' or 'D' > or whatever you would call them) carrier? I do not mean just as a > reseller of A/B as happens now, I mean genuine infrastructure for > a third or fourth cellular company in some markets? PAT Yes, there are now other wireless carriers popping up, although they don't go under the name "cellular" and don't use the same frequency band nor the same analog protocols. In Washington-Baltimore, a Personal Communications Service carrier called Sprint Spectrum has been in commercial service since December, 1995. They don't (yet) provide the same level of service breadth and roaming as the A and B cellular carriers do, but they are a viable wireless service with their own switches and their own antennas and base stations. In effect, they are the 'C' carrier in Washington-Baltimore. Sprint Spectrum is substantially owned by American Personal Communications, which is substantially held by the Washington Post Company. They are one of the PCS carriers who performed market and technical research on the viability of PCS. They (and two other companies) were given 'pioneer's preference' PCS licenses before the PCS spectrum auctions heated up. Greg Monti Jersey City, New Jersey, USA gmonti@interramp.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 04 Jun 1996 14:33:49 -0500 From: zev@wireless.attmail.com (zev) Subject: Pac Bell *69 (Return Call) I recently discovered that Pac Bell charges for CLASS services that do not complete calls. For example (my case), they charge for *69 (return call) even if the service can't complete the call due to the returned number being cellular or out of area. Just the use of the service was enough to be charged. It's not just for no call completion due to Busy/Ring no Answer, but even if you get a recording saying that the service won't work to the number attempted (which happens on cell/out of area) there is a charge. I find this state of affairs hard to swallow. The rep and supervisor at P*B both said that if you "activate" the service, you are charged. The fact that you get a recording indicates that "the service works". I countered that by that logic, if I make any call and I get a busy signal I should be charged, since the fact that I get a busy signal means "the service works". In addition, the service guide in the white pages gives no indication that the user will be charged just for activating the feature, even if no calls are completed due to the lack of support for certain calls. When I lived in NY, call return usage was charged ONLY if a call completed. Finally, I did not use call return at all this past month, so I presume the charges were just delayed-billing for attempts in prior months. The bill has no call detail (no date, time or calling number), just a line with the total number of attempts. I didn't even press the issue, since I knew what the answer would be. When asked for call detail, the rep said that they can't provide call detail if the call was local - since it's on the same switch - and for calls where it could not complete (cell/out of area) the switch has no number. Again, I didn't press the issue: if the FBI wanted the local number, I'm sure P*B has a way to get it. The P*B supervisor took off the charges after our debate. She also offered to block call return on that line, which I accepted. Does anyone know what other LECs do regarding these services? Are there others that charge for attempts that are not possible? I plan to write to the California PUC about this - anyone have a useful name to write to? Zev Rubenstein zev@attmail.com Independent Telecommunications Consultant ------------------------------ From: Mike Fox Date: 4 Jun 96 16:29:40 GMT Subject: Name-Only Caller ID (was Re: Cellular Caller ID > Sorry if this has been suggested already, but how about "Name only > Caller-ID?" Afterall, don't you want to know *who* is calling more > than you want to know *what phone number* they are calling from? I haven't seen it discussed in TELECOM Digest, but it has come up on alt.dcom.telecom. I think this concept is an interesting litmus test for people's REAL views on caller-id. After all, name-only caller-id should satisfy all the people who say that caller-id is their god-given right to know who is calling them before they pick up, and it should also satisfy all the people who say that it is their god-given right to keep their actual phone numbers a secret. IMO, this is the solution that could solve the caller-id dilemma. Except it doesn't ... Because many of the caller-id advocates are using "I want to know who's calling me" as a smoke screen when they really want to collect phone numbers. These are the ones who say that name-only caller-id is completely unacceptable, only the number will do or the name-and-number will do (when I pressed them on alt.dcom.telecom on why they absolutely HAD to get a number, they always disappeared from the debate rather than answer). Many of the caller-id haters are using the "I want to keep my phone number away from databases, etc" as a smoke screen when they really want to be able to call anonymously to solicit or annoy or whatever. These people would HATE it if "ANNOYING MKTG CORP" or "MCI LD MKTG" could appear on your box when the phone rings at dinnertime. These are the ones who completely reject any kind of caller-id, including name-only. Some interesting arguments against name-only caller-id came up, but they all looked like excuses not to accept it to me. The most common excuse was that the technology and programming is not available for it. To that I say BS. I remember when caller id was first coming out a few years ago, the phone companies claimed that the technology and programming was not available for per-call or per-line blocking. But once these capabilities became requirements for the phone companies to be able to offer and make money from this service, they magically appeared. I contend the same is true for name-only. Hell, name-only is even easier to do. Just implement name-and-number caller-id, and if the caller has name-only, have the originating switch send blanks or dashes or zeroes in place of the number. The next most common excuse was "what happens if roomates share a phone line or if someone uses a line that belongs to someone else." Basically, the name doesn't definitively identify the caller. But that is no different from the situation with today's number-only or name-and-number caller id, and could be rectified by allowing the subscriber to customize the string that gets sent (could say SMITH/JONES, or JOE OR MARK for example). Or, I bet if this service were offered, phone companies would offer a version that's like "reverse ringmaster": have several strings saved at the phone company database, press a *xx combination to decide which one gets sent. There's just as much room for creativity here as there is for creativity in finding excuses to not accept the name-only idea. Until I heard of name-only caller id, I thought that caller id was a bad thing. I have per-line blocking at home (and have never had anyone use "block the blocker" on me either, so there :). But if name-only were available, I would enthusiastically embrace it, and I think many others who want to exploit this cool technology but don't want to give out their numbers would too. I bet if name-only were available, a LOT of people who currently block caller id or plan to would opt for name-only. I know I would. I just wish this had been thought of earlier. Or maybe it has been and never caught on because those selling caller-id know that its real economic value is in the business of number collecting. Later, Mike ------------------------------ From: bononno@acf2.nyu.edu (Robert Bononno) Subject: Re: European CATV/Telecom Info -- Sources Needed Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 23:50:09 -0400 Organization: New York University In article , K. Walter wrote: > I am looking for general materials on several European CATV/telecom > projects -- any suggestions on sources would be appreciated. > 1. BT = (OTIAN) Optical Telecom in the Access Network. > 2. Deutsche Telekom = (OPAL) Optical Access Line. > 3. France Telecom = (DORA) Deploiement de l'Optique dans le Reseau > d'Access France Telecom has an office for North America in New York City. They're at 1270 Avenue of the Americas. They should have some information about fiber-optic deployment. Robert Bononno ++++ bononno@acf2.nyu.edu ++++ Techline ------------------------------ Date: 04 Jun 96 12:56:27 EDT From: Stefano Cazzani <100010.3371@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: European CATV/Telecom Info -- Sources Needed > I am looking for general materials on several European CATV/telecom > projects -- any suggestions on sources would be appreciated. You can very often find information about the many European CATV projects on Communications International, a monthly magazine published by Emap Computing and widely circulated free of charge to qualified professionals everywhere except in the USA. Stefano Cazzani Communications International's Italy correspondent ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 14:38:35 -0400 From: larsendg@mcgraw-hill.com (David Larsen) Subject: Re: European CATV/Telecom Info -- Sources Needed Comprehensive coverage of European CATV/telecom market and technology issues can be found in Convergence Strategies & Technologies, a service from Datapro Information Services Group based in Delran, NJ. Datapro can be contacted on 1 800 328 2776 toll free or 609 764 0100. A useful contact there is Tim McElgunn. ------------------------------ From: Jeff Carroll Subject: Re: Cellular Caller ID Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 13:31:00 -0500 Organization: bigendian Reply-To: xfrosch@indy.net Chris Hudel wrote: > Sorry if this has been suggested already, but how about "Name only > Caller-ID?" Afterall, don't you want to know *who* is calling more > than you want to know *what phone number* they are calling from? There's no way to authenticate that until we barcode your forehead and install a SIR port. jkc ------------------------------ From: relkay01@fiu.edu (Ronell Elkayam) Subject: Re: Cellular Caller ID Date: 3 Jun 1996 19:37:44 GMT Organization: Florida International University On Thu, 30 May 1996 09:59:01 -0700, Mark Gabriele (email: gabriele@rand.org) posted: [Talking about when a physician has to call back a patient at home while being forced to give his home number (due to Anonymous Call Rejection.] > Unfortunately, I have not heard of any such capability in any > jurisdiction with which I am familiar. You've heard wrong. ;) There are plenty of ways anyone could protect their identity calling FROM HOME while preserving privacy. For one, get a second line. Use it for outgoing calls only, or use it for incoming calls only. Cost -- $12-$20/mo (depending on whether you'll make outgoing calls). Or alternatively, you could do something funky like order RingMaster (AKA Distinctive Ringing) and Call Forwarding Main Number. Cost -- $7/mo combined. What good does that do? Well, when you call anyone, the number that'll show up on their CID display will be the main number. When they try to call back that number -- oops, they're being forwarded to an answering service/the office number/whatever. The only way to make your phone ring is to call the unlisted RingMaster number. Or you could use a calling card to place that call ... Or push 0 and talk to the operator ... Or set-up a three-way hop-off device to complete the call from the office line ... Certainly you don't expect the solution to be free. Or else, what's the point in having Anonymous Call Rejection when it can be bypassed at any time. A telemarketer wouldn't want to spend much money to reach you, a crank caller wouldn't either. In an emergency situation, you're still always available. Ron Miami, FL ------------------------------ From: JSeder@syntel.com Subject: Re: Caller-ID Delay in California Date: 03 Jun 1996 23:58:29 GMT Organization: BRAINSTORM Networks Reply-To: JSeder@syntel.com In , Dr. Robert Jacobson writes: > I worked to help pass California's Caller ID law, which instructs the > PUC on the implementation of Caller ID. Shame on you. > First, the service was devised to collect information on callers to > businesses... The idea was that > a business could cue its internal records on incoming phone call num- > bers, to serve you, the caller, faster and better -- but also, by > using the phone number as a surrogate ID number, companies could trade > data about their customers and build big dossiers. Better than with > your Social Security number, as the HMOs do. Well, so what? They do this anyway. Do you hesitate to use an 800 number because the company you're calling will add some information (like what you are ordering, your address, your credit card number) to your dossier? No one has ever tried to eliminate per-call blocking, which isn't even an option on 800 calls, and which could be used for this purpose if you are really worried about these "dossiers". Frankly, I find these dossiers make my life more convenient -- I don't have to keep spelling my name or providing my address. > That's why whenever line blocking was proposed or made law in some > states, the telcos moaned, "but that will take the economic value out > of the service." Since everyone I have talked to plans to opt for per-line blocking (as the PUC has demanded that Pac Bell practically require), I don't expect to get much for the $6.50/month I will pay for Caller ID. > Second, as the many posts here continue to testify, there are a > hundred ways around Caller ID, from using new phone numbers or public > telephone booths to simply fooling the underlying SS7 switching > service. Right. But Caller ID could effectively put an end to harrassing telephone calls and other abuses. I firmly believe that the right to know who is ringing a bell in your house is more important than the "right" to ring that bell anonymously. That is, I believe recipients of telephone calls have rights which dominate any historical "right" to make anonymous telephone calls. > The woman who championed the Caller ID law... was > worried, as a single mother, that a molester or other heinous > character might record _her_ phone number during a call and track it > back to her house, to savage her or her child. It was a reasonable > fear. Well, if she's afraid that the number she's calling belongs to a "molester or other heinous character", she can use per-line blocking or go to a pay phone. Everyone agrees that halfway-houses, physicians, and other special cases should get per-line blocking. This not a good argument that Caller ID is bad. You possibly live in Massachusetts, which took a more practical approach to Caller ID. Tell me, have there been complaints about how Caller ID cost people their anonymity? Did it make Big Brother a reality in the Bay State? What Caller ID does is make a caller think twice before making harrassing, unkind, childish, or prank calls. It lets someone decide whether to respond to an insistent bell in their home. It corrects a historical accident that twisted the rights and responsibilities of telephone users. It is important and it should not be delayed or weakened. JDS ------------------------------ From: mwcoen@hooked.net Subject: Re: Caller-ID Delay in California Date: Tue, 04 Jun 1996 04:03:48 GMT Organization: Hooked Online Services Dr. Robert Jacobson wrote: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I find it just incredible that you seem >> to have so many people in California on this kick. What is with all >> these people who seem to feel they have this right to hide themselves >> when they make calls no matter whose time they waste or whatever >> foolish calls they originate? I'll be glad to see 'blocked number >> blocking' (where recipients have the right to block calls from persons >> who hide their phone numbers) become universal. I am going to encourage >> everyone to sign up for it. PAT] > My friend Pat sees the world from an entirely too egocentric position. > I worked to help pass California's Caller ID law, which instructs the > PUC on the implementation of Caller ID. There are good reasons for > being cynical about Caller ID, whatever its limited merits as a way of > screening one's home calls. > First, the service was devised to collect information on callers to > businesses. This was stated explicitly several times by telephone > company advocates when the service was introduced. The idea was that > a business could cue its internal records on incoming phone call num- > bers, to serve you, the caller, faster and better -- but also, by > using the phone number as a surrogate ID number, companies could trade > data about their customers and build big dossiers. Better than with > your Social Security number, as the HMOs do. > That's why whenever line blocking was proposed or made law in some > states, the telcos moaned, "but that will take the economic value out > of the service." > Second, as the many posts here continue to testify, there are a > hundred ways around Caller ID, from using new phone numbers or public > telephone booths to simply fooling the underlying SS7 switching > service. Thank you Bob. Californians are known for our leading edge reputation when it comes to legislation and ballot issues. I wrote to the CA PUC years ago asking for caller ID (CID) in the very form it now appears. That is, line blocking with per call enabling. I wrote that I believe the telco's are solely in this to deliver the residential customer to the business customer. We have not heard a word about costs yet. About $5-8/month for the *service*. At that price, most residents can't afford it or won't be willing to spend that much each month to see who is calling them. However, businesses can afford that. I would like the option to block all blocked calls. In a subsequent letter to the CA PUC I asked that CID be offered as part of basic phone service. Someday it will. Mike mwcoen@hooked.net ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #265 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jun 4 15:27:06 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id PAA07265; Tue, 4 Jun 1996 15:27:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 15:27:06 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606041927.PAA07265@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #266 TELECOM Digest Tue, 4 Jun 96 15:27:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 266 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: MCI Cellular (Lynne Gregg) Re: What Does A/B Carrier Mean? (Lynne Gregg) Re: What Does A/B Carrier Mean? (Robert McMillin) Re: Cellular Caller ID (Mike Fox) Re: Cellular Caller ID (Lynne Gregg) Re: Cellular Caller ID (Jay R. Ashworth) Re: Digital Cellular in North America Question (Lynne Gregg) Ninety Day Right of Recission on Term Contracts? (Mark S. Halperin) Telecom Positions Open (Harris Kern) Now Who Needs Whom? (was Re: Fight Turns Nasty (William J. Halverson) Re: Graybar Electric (Dave Levenson) Re: Graybar Electric (John Agosta) Re: Hurting Public Utilities Hurts Public Service (Henry Baker) Re: Hurting Public Utilities Hurts Public Service (Ira Sutton) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lynne Gregg Subject: Re: MCI Cellular Date: Tue, 04 Jun 96 11:11:00 PDT > From my understanding of the cellular protocols, it's not technically > feasible, Pat. The A and B carriers (competitive and wireline) are > using two actually different sets of frequencies for their calls. This is not correct. A and B cellular carriers in the U.S. all operate at 850 mhz radio frequency. The new PCS entrants will operate at 1900 and others. Mike Fox wrote: > I don't think they are really bringing in two new *cellular* carriers. > I think they are setting up two *PCS* services. The fact that he > called it "Sprint" instead of "360 Degree Communications" confirms > that IMO, as Sprint spun off their cellular business into 360 Degree > so they can concentrate on PCS. Technically speaking, there is *no* difference between PCS and cellular systems in the U.S. aside from those systems operating on different radio frequencies. Regards, Lynne ------------------------------ From: Lynne Gregg Subject: Re: What Does A/B Carrier Mean? Date: Tue, 04 Jun 96 10:44:00 PDT In response to the original post from Alexander Cerna , TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > According to Lynn Gregg, some of the newcomers with their own > infrastructure won't be A or B ... they will be on their own radio > frequencies with a totally different thing altogether. PAT] Just to clarify, the new entrants offering wireless services are now referred to as "PCS a,b, and c" carriers (with probably more to follow, i.e., d, e...). They will operate on different radio frequencies than the embedded cellular carriers. All are using existing cellular technologies (TDMA, CDMA, or GSM) tuned to 1900 mhz frequencies. Regards, Lynne ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 07:50:32 -0700 From: rlm@netcom.com (Robert McMillin) Subject: Re: What Does A/B Carrier Mean? On 02 Jun 1996 17:34:33 PDT, PAT said: > I am reminded of the divestiture of Standard Oil a hundred years ago. > Each of the 'Standard Oil Companies' created as a result of divestiture > had to go into competition with each other; but even today they still > respect each other's territories. The old Standard Oil of Indiana > still does business as Standard Oil here in the midwest, but when they > do business on the east or west coast they are known as Amoco. Standard > Oil of New Jersey comes over to this part of the country and does > business as Exxon. Standard Oil of California goes over to the east > coast and I forget what name they use there, but it is not Standard > Oil. It's no longer Standard Oil of California, but Chevron, after their familiar (to Californians, at least) gas station logo. Robert L. McMillin | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Netcom: rlm@netcom.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I've noticed around here they are also getting away from what for years had been the 'Standard Oil Division of Amoco Oil' and are going with Amoco everywhere. But many years ago when the west coast bunch was known as Chevron around here (although we never did have many of them) it was d/b/a/ Standard Oil there in California. The trouble was, none of the 'Standard Oil' companies were allowed to use that name once they got outside their own immediate territory, thus the use of Chevron, Amoco, Exxon, Sohio, Boron, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Mike Fox Date: 3 Jun 96 11:13:19 GMT Subject: Re: Cellular Caller ID In , Lynne Gregg writes: > The FCC Order on Calling Number Services is very clear on this: > If the caller blocks his number, NAME cannot be presented -- even > alone (with no accompanying number). The Order also states that > auto-callback *69 cannot be used either, if the caller blocks his > number. Hmmm, that's interesting. Here in Bell South territory, I have had calls I've made returned with *69, and I have blocking. It was to my brother's phone. He said that normally when he does *69, a recording gives him the number and then calls it. In the case of my number, the recording states that it cannot give him the number, then calls it. So he calls me and doesn't know who he's calling until I answer. That's too bad about the FCC order prohibiting name-only caller id. I wonder why they did that. Later, Mike ------------------------------ From: Lynne Gregg Subject: Re: Cellular Caller ID Date: Tue, 04 Jun 96 11:05:00 PDT C10973@email.mot.com (Eric A. Carr) wrote: > In Chicago, calls originated by a cellular subscriber on the "A" band > (Cellular One) show up as "ANONYMOUS" on an ANI display box. > Calls marked as such cause a LED to flash in cadence > with the ring cycle on my ANI box, so if I see this while the > phone is ringing I will not answer the call. There's an easy fix for your situation. Tell your cellular caller(s) to either ask the carrier to remove Per Line Blocking from their account or they may use *82 on a per call basis (prepended to the dialed number) when calling you or others who will need to see the number. According to the FCC, all carriers including cellular operators must support *67 and *82 for per call blocking options. Though it may seem a nit to some, Caller ID (calling party number) and ANI *are* not one in the same. The ANI reference here is technically incorrect. > Calls originated by someone on the "B" band (Ameritech) show up as > "UNAVAILABLE", which I'm more likely to answer*. This indicates that the carriers outbound trunks are still old MF and not yet upgraded to ISUP. As conversion occurs, this will change and you will either see the cellular callers number or "ANONYMOUS" if they block their number. > Why not implement ANI service that just shows the name? Because the FCC is very specific: if the caller blocks his number, NAME may not be shown either. Regards, Lynne ------------------------------ From: jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) Subject: Re: Cellular Caller ID Date: 4 Jun 1996 14:20:28 GMT Organization: University of South Florida Chris Hudel (hudel@hppad.waterloo.hp.com) wrote: > Sorry if this has been suggested already, but how about "Name only > Caller-ID?" Afterall, don't you want to know *who* is calling more > than you want to know *what phone number* they are calling from? Someone will get their button pushed on this one ... might as well be me. When are people going to learn that "Calling Name ID" is crap? For example, I've had roommates in the past, who've taken advantage of the fact that I maintain a spare DN on my voice line, courtesy of GTE's SmartRing distinctive ringing service. Even had it listed separately for one long time roomie. So, if he calls someone, _my_ name should show up? The _real_ problem is when people come to depend on technology, the operation of which they're being lied to about. Cheers, Jay R. Ashworth jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us Member of the Technical Staff The Suncoast Freenet Tampa Bay, Florida +1 813 790 7592 ------------------------------ From: Lynne Gregg Subject: Re: Digital Cellular in North America Question Date: Tue, 04 Jun 96 10:56:00 PDT jfmezei@istar.ca wrote: > In North America, it *seems* that the push for digital cellular phones > is not very strong. (At least Cantel no longer pushes digital phones). The reason that digital phones are "pushed" in Europe and other countries is that those systems were developed from the outset to be GSM. This differs from the cellular scene in the U.S., where mature cellular networks are analog networks. Most major cellular carriers (including Cantel in Canada) have built digital into the infrastruc- ture and are encouraging customers to choose digital phones. Though digital phones in the U.S. are generally more expensive than analog, the price differential is decreasing. Digital phones offer a raft of new features that can't be found on analog (Caller ID, Message Waiting Indicator, Short Messaging). > Are applications such as SMS available for North American cellular > systems? Or do they lag behind? (I assume that the USA dig system does > have the same functionality as SMS?) Yes. SMS services are beginning to be offered by several cellular operators including AT&T Wireless. > Is there any chance that GSM would eventually be supported in North > America by some operators (operating both GSM and the USA system). GSM systems are going into commercial operation in the U.S. by a number of PCS operators (as are other digital technologies). Although AT&T Wireless' U.S. network is not GSM, we do offer a seamless roaming service that allows our customers to roam on GSM networks in 37 countries. The service is called CellCard. Regards, Lynne ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 14:13:45 -0400 From: msh@world.std.com (Mark S. Halperin) Subject: Ninety Day Right of Recission on Term Contracts? Industry lore (and it may only be just that) in the sales end of long distance states that a long distance customer can rescind a new term contract within the first 90 days. I have seen such a provision in many major carrier contracts and have always assumed that it was there because it was required by federal or state regulation. I have approached a number of people in the industry who say that the right is unequivocal but no one can cite any authority to that effect. Does anyone know the background on this lore? Mark Halperin TELECOM PARTNERS 92 Church Street, Winchester, MA 01890 Tel: 1-617-721-9720 Fax: 1-617-721-6749 "Fulfilling your communications needs with exemplary customer service" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 14:31:03 -0400 From: Harris Kern Subject: Telecom Positions Open WinStar Communications, Inc. leads the industry in the provision of wireless local telecommunications access services to users throughout the United States. With its array of local access services, competitive local exchange service, and comprehensive long distance services, WinStar is poised to put reliable, cost-effective communications within reach. WinStar occupies a unique position in the telecommunications industry. As Congress continues to knock down barriers between local and long distance telecommunications markets, WinStar is already aggressively staking a claim in both arenas. We have coupled our exclusive 38 GHz licenses with the latest technological advances in millimeter wave radio technology to provide high speed, high bandwidth local digital telecommunications services. With license authority in 41 of the 45 largest metropolitan areas in the United States, WinStar covers more than 100 cities with populations greater than 100,000 people. We currently have opening for Switch Operations Managers in the following cities: New York Los Angeles San Diego Chicago Boston San Francisco The Switch Operations Manager will manage the installation and operation of the WinStar telephone switch(s) in each city. They will oversee the performance of the Service Coordinators. (Service Coordinators provide technical support to sales during order taking, coordinate new service installation, and provide first line trouble resolution for in service customers.) Provide escalation point for technical issues concerning service, both pre and post installation. Notes: Ideal candidate should have first or second level experience as a switch foreperson for AT&T, NYNEX, etc., preferably in turning up a #5 ESS. Candidate should also have technical expertise in provisioning beyond the switch; i.e., access, CPE, all major brands of PBX and Key Equipment, digital and analog transmission and interface equipment. Please send resume to: Harris B. Kern Director, Switch Operations WinStar Telecommunications, Inc. 7799 Leesburg Pike Falls Church, VA. 22043 or e-mail direct to hkern@winstar.com ------------------------------ From: William J. Halverson Subject: Now Who Needs Whom? (was Re: Fight Turns Nasty) Date: Tue, 04 Jun 1996 11:34:21 -0700 Organization: Pacific Bell's Healthcare Market Group It's interesting to contemplate the effects of the following two scenarios on people living in Ameritech's service territory: Scenario 1: All of Ameritech's employees go home tonight and turn off power to their switches. Scenario 2: All of AT&T's employees go home tonight and turn off power to their switches. Results? Pretty obvious to me. In Scenario 1, 95% of the phone users will not have service until somebody turns the power back on. In Scenario 2, 5% of the phone users [only those businesses with direct facility links to AT&T] are off line until the power comes back on. Moral of the story: The phone users in Ameritech territory need Ameritech much more than they need AT&T ... AT&T and Ameritech both know this. So I wonder what the _real_ reason behind this fight are ... Bill Halverson Pacific Bell PH 415 542 6564 wjhalv1@pacbell.com FAX 415 542 4744 PGP Key at http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/~bal/pks-toplev.html ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: Graybar Electric Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 03:06:02 GMT Stan Schwartz (usfunx2b@ibmmail.com) writes: > In Mark J. Cuccia's very informative article in TD #234 "WUTCO, WECO, > Graybar", there was some doubt as to the current existence of Graybar. >> I don't know how many offices they still have in the states, but a Here in New Jersey, you'll find local Graybar sales offices in Hackensack (a block North of US Route 46) and in North Brunswick on Livingston Avenue, a (few blocks north of US Route 1). We regularly call Graybar when we buy telephone cable, non-dial telephone sets, and a few other somewhat hard-to-locate telecom supplies. Why would we want non-dial telephone sets? (Everybody wants to know ... they're often more expensive than sets which include dials, as the Graybar rep keeps telling me.) We offer them as extension phones on our COCOT lines. The phones with dials built-in are often incapable of having the dial removed, either physically or electrically. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: uunet!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There are many uses for telephone sets without dials. For example, many are used as 'ring-down' or leased line phones to specific businesses. If you go in a few places here in Skokie such as the hospital lobby or the lobby of the Northshore Hilton Hotel you will find phones like this: when the receiver is lifted they connect immediatly with the American Taxi Company. About twenty years ago when I was operating my telephone recorded information service, in addition to being able to dial direct into it, a few business places had a phone without a dial connected direct to my service. When someone lifted the receiver, the phone connected immediatly to the bank of answering machines on my end of the line. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jagosta@interaccess.com (John Agosta) Subject: Re: Graybar Electric Date: 4 Jun 1996 16:30:54 GMT Organization: Agosta and Associates In article , Stan Schwartz says: > In Mark J. Cuccia's very informative article in TD #234 "WUTCO, WECO, > Graybar", there was some doubt as to the current existence of Graybar. There is a Graybar franchise in Bloomingdale, Illinois. I go there often to buy widgets, do-dads, and thingamajigs ... 847 893 3600 is the phone number. ja ------------------------------ From: hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker) Subject: Re: Hurting Public Utilities Hurts Public Service Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 16:26:18 GMT In article , xfrosch@indy.net wrote: > It used to be the case that construction of telecommunications networks > was such a huge cost that society could only afford to bear it once. > With the proliferation of cable TV, mobile phones, and (especially) > digital wireless systems, this is clearly no longer so. I disagree with your premise that telecom networks cost so much that society could only afford to bear it once. I don't think that this was _ever_ true, except in the minds of certain politicians. In the early days of electrification, there were many competing companies. In the early days of telephony, there were many competing companies. Rather than encourage cooperation on standards, governments bought into specious arguments that you didn't want to have two sets of telephone poles, electric poles etc., and therefore a regulated monopoly would be optimum. The telcos and electric companies loved this argument, since they no longer had to compete. The reason this argument is specious is because it is based on the premise of _no technical progress_. And, of course, the argument is self-fullfilling, because with a monopoly there won't be any technical progress. Suppose I have two competitors providing service to the same customers in the same city, and suppose that they have to 'duplicate' the infrastructure. Even in the worst case, the total cost is only double that of the lowest cost single provider. But now consider the monopoly, and factor in the featherbedding of the monopoly service unions, the backdoor payments by the monopoly to the politicians (legal here in L.A.), the bloated tax payments on 'phantom profits' generated by unrealistic depreciation schedules, the continued use of completely obsolete 50-100 year old technology, and your 'infrastructure cost' balloons to at least 10X that of the lowest cost system. Thus, two _highly efficient_ competitors utilizing the best available technology may have a slight overlap in infrastructure, but this additional 'cost' is what we pay for continued innovation and competition to assure the lowest overall prices. It is therefore a screaming bargain. In biology, this 'duplication' is called 'diversity'. What of 'universal service'? The problem with 'universal service' is the endemic problem of bureaucracies that 'the minimum becomes the maximum'. Although laws and regulations are always written requiring 'minimum' standards, have you noticed that no one ever provides more than this 'minimum'? This is because all incentive to compete in this particular dimension is removed once the minimum standards have been set. Technical progress requires that a percentage of the customers be 'early adopters' to pay for and test out new equipment and services. But the moment someone tries to innovate, one hears idiotic statements from politicians about the technology 'haves' and 'have nots'. Since it makes no sense to foist untested ideas on 100% of the public at the same time (something that policitians love to do), there must always be some differences between customers in the technology they can afford. Furthermore, since customers have different needs and budgets, these differences allow customers to choose what makes the most sense to them. But politicians can't stand for their constituents to think for themselves, and continually offer up Procrustean beds for us to sleep in. [snip] > What government regulation really insures is that your technology will > lag the state of the art by years if not decades. You betcha. [snip] > Prices ARE being kept artificially high and technology IS being > restrained by government regulation. People have an amazing array of > communications choices today, and, as long as antitrust legislation is > properly enforced, the consumer has little if anything to fear from > telecom deregulation save the mild stress of adapting to new > technology. And the 'stress' of adapting to vastly lower prices. :-) www/ftp directory: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/hb/hbaker/home.html ------------------------------ From: irasut@ro.com (Ira Sutton) Subject: Re: Hurting Public Utilities Hurts Public Service Date: Tue, 04 Jun 1996 15:46:22 GMT Organization: RENAISSANCE INTERNET SERVICES Jeff Carroll wrote: > Lisa wrote: >> Another benefit of regulation is lower rates. Because a service >> territory is guaranteed, the government dictates a low rate of return. >> Nobody gets rich on utility stocks. Further, the government dictates >> service standards. > This is a canard. Neither high standards of service nor low rates are > guaranteed by utility regulation. The only conceivable explanation of > why 2B+D ISDN is still $98/month in Indiana (as it was last time I > checked) is the intransigence of the public utility commission and a > cozy relationship with the telecom utilities. > What government regulation really insures is that your technology will > lag the state of the art by years if not decades. > Prices ARE being kept artificially high and technology IS being > restrained by government regulation. People have an amazing array of > communications choices today, and, as long as antitrust legislation is > properly enforced, the consumer has little if anything to fear from > telecom deregulation save the mild stress of adapting to new > technology. Another case in point on how government is in bed with the regulated is here in Alabama. Rates for ISDN Bell South service have been "regulated" at $65 per month, In TN, Bell South is regulated at about $18 for the same ISDN service. How do the AL regulators justify the difference? In AL they run for office and are the lackies of the utility companies. Apparantly, we can't get someone elected that will look out for the people. But Lisa I know it is comfortable to think that the government is fair and is looking out for you and I. You must be very young, have your head in the sand, or be one on the inside trying to convince us that everything is all right. Regards, Ira >jkc ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #266 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jun 4 16:51:17 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id QAA15886; Tue, 4 Jun 1996 16:51:17 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 16:51:17 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606042051.QAA15886@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #267 TELECOM Digest Tue, 4 Jun 96 16:50:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 267 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Followup on Sprint Fridays Free (Craig Richey) Help Needed With Diamond Tel Cellular Phone Problem (Ronny H. Angkasa) Re: Telco Voice Mail Signaling (Guy St-Pierre) Re: Fight Turns Nasty: Ameritech/AT&T Take Off Gloves (Steven Lichter) Newsgroup alt.lang.intensional (R. Jagannathan) Re: Will Sprint Comply on June 1? (Paul L. Schmidt) Re: How Long Ago Was This Made? (Jay R. Ashworth) Home Phone Switch Needed (Willie Peloquin) Nokia 232 Questions (Bill Breckinridge) Re: Arrogant Internet Provider (Reverend Tweek) AT&T 9300 - Spread Spectrum "Technology"? (Doug Zipser) Overstock of Product - Disposal (Guy Lessard) Re: AT&T Movie Placement (Larry Appleman) Re: Line Monitor/Protocol Analyzer (John Skenesky) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 4 Jun 96 14:14 EST From: Craig Richey <0005221992@mcimail.com> Subject: Followup on Sprint Fridays Free Hello, I'm just wondering how you finally settled your Fridays Free issue with Sprint. My wife and I have a small Import/Export business that was on the program before the change. My in-laws also work with us and were on the program but they had to sign a contract first (I guess the sales rep heard the Indian voice and knew what was coming). When Sprint changed the rules I put in several calls to Mr Loyed's office (someone forwarded your mail message to me) but got no response. I also called the Sprint Custumer Service and told them I didn't intend to pay any charges until this was settled. Since India is the bulk of our calling my in-laws dropped Sprint. Sprint is now billing $200 for a contract break. I haven't dropped the service but have done all my calling on our other line (MCI). I am now being billed for the $50/mo service charge even though there is no usage. The whole thing is getting ridiculous. What do you suggest? Thanks in advance, Craig Richey (703) 415-6314 (703) 802-3020 fax 5221992@mcimail.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It has been awhile since anything about this was dicussed here, so perhaps others who were victimized by this scam of Sprint have some comments to add. I have heard from a couple other people that Sprint is continuing to bill the service charge each month while ignoring any/all requests for explanations or an opportunity to speak with Robin Loyed, etc. I personally would not waste any more time speaking to their customer service representatives. Even if they are paying for the call via their 800 number it would still be a waste of your time which also has to be worth something. My suggestion at this point is take your last one or two bills from Sprint, clearly indicate on the face of the bill 'Payment is Refused; Refer to Robin Loyed for explanation.' Include a short note stating your belief that Sprint deliberatly engaged in a fraudulent act by entering into a contract with you which they knew at the time they had no intention of upholding. State that you require *in writing* an explanation from Robin Loyed along with a telephone number where he can be reached. Inform them that future billings will be regarded as continuing the fraud and that they are to make no further contact with you except as specified. Send this to them by registered/certified mail. Save the green card receipt you get in return. Wait for further response from them. Does anyone else have anything to add? PAT] ------------------------------ From: rhast4+@pitt.edu (Ronny H Angkasa) Subject: Help Needed With Diamond Tel Cellular Phone Problem Date: 4 Jun 1996 05:44:40 GMT Organization: University of Pittsburgh I have a Diamond Tel celullar phone, model DT 22X. I dropped it last month, and it has not been working since then. I brought it to AT&T Wireless near my place but they couldn't fix it after trying for a few minutes. They told me that it would cost too much to fix it; even if I tried to send it to Mitsubishi it would too much for labor etc. The phone itself I think cost about $200. The warranty has expired. If anyone have any suggestions how this phone can be put back to work, please let me know; I will appreciate it very, very much. Thanks, Ronny Angkasa email address : rhast4@pitt.edu http://www.pitt.edu/~rhast4/index.html ------------------------------ From: Guy St-Pierre Date: Tue, 04 Jun 1996 06:26:46 -0400 Subject: Re: Telco Voice Mail Signaling Paul Chehowski (paulc@sulis.com) wrote: > Does anyone know how telco voice mail systems manage to signal a > subscriber's phone when they have voice mail waiting? The signaling > seems to be done without taking the phone off hook, and it seems to be > done on a regular basis to the phone (if you disconnected the phone > and plug it back in the light on the phone will come back eventually). > Could someone point me to a reference on this type of signaling? The type of signalling used by the Voice Mail manufacturer we are most familiar with (OCTEL) is R1 signalling (MF). They also support X.25, and SS7 through ISUP trunks. A typical scenario would go like this for an ERICSSON mobile switch-OCTEL combination, but can apply to most CLASS-5 exchanges: A message is deposited in the user's voice mail. The OCTEL machine then calls back the switch with a procedure call using MF codes, something like "7700 + subscriber number, meaning ALL MESSAGES RETRIEVED" or "7701 + subscriber number, meaning NEW MESSAGE DEPOSITED"... The switch analyses those digits through data translations and updates the subscriber record accordingly. Next time the mobile phone registers, the switch would then call the mobile, all of this, of course, assuming the subscriber has the Message Waiting Indicator feature active. The Switch will keep calling you every time you power on your phone until you clear your messages. The example above was with R1 (MF) signalling, but trunks using SS7 signalling as well as X.25 links can also be used. I guess you could contact OCTEL Corp. for more details. Regards, Guy St-Pierre ------------------------------ From: slichte@cello.gina.calstate.edu (Steven Lichter) Subject: Re: Fight Turns Nasty: Ameritech/AT&T Take Off Gloves Date: 4 Jun 1996 04:15:12 -0700 Organization: GINA and CORE+ Services of The California State University ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) writes: > Forget about minor marketing skirmishes. Now Ameritech and AT&T are > engaged in full battle -- and customers of both companies are left in > the middle, especially those with a calling card issued by either > company. > o Ameritech claims that as of Friday AT&T will bar its card holders > from making local calls within Ameritech's calling area. Last week AT&T notified GTE that it was cancelling the agreement to use the AT&T cards on GTE's network. It was stated that GTE's cards would still work on AT&T's Network. This seems to be happening all over the country, but does not effect Alaska or Hawaii. It seems like AT&T does not really care about its customers in local areas and is planning to offer local service and customers be damned and confused. SysOp Apple Elite II and OggNet Hub (909)359-5338 2400/14.4 24 hours, Home of GBBS/LLUCE Support for the Apple II and Macintoch computers. slichte@cello.gina.calstate.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 17:53:29 GMT From: R. Jagannathan Organization: Computer Science Laboratory, SRI International Subject: Newsgroup alt.lang.intensional Reply-To: R. Jagannathan alt.lang.intensional is a newly formed newsgroup for discussions on intensional programming and related areas. If your news reader is unable to find such a group, contact your news sysadmin to create one per the control message (cmsg) sent all over the internet to do so. For the uninitiated, intensional programming means programming in a language or systembased on intensional (eg modal or temporal) logic and indexical (possible worlds) semantics. These languages/systems are usually implemented using eduction: tagged, demand-driven data flow - the tags represent indices/possible worlds. For further details on intensional programming, visit http://lucy.uvic.ca Here is the charter for alt.lang.intensional: Newsgroup devoted to discussion of the following: (1) Intensional languages such as Lucid, GLU, Chronolog, and visualJava. (2) Theory including intensional logic, dataflow, verification, non-determinism, extended Kahn principle, higher-order logic, termination. (3) Software including version control, visual programming, parallel programming, and Web programming. (4) Applications in areas such as image processing, real time computing, signal processing, graphics and animation, databases and hardware design. Look forward to your participation in this newsgroup. Regards, R Jagannathan, SRI, Menlo Park, California USA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 11:42:07 -0500 From: Paul L. Schmidt Subject: Re: Will Sprint Comply on June 1? In article Magee@cris.com wrote: > I was wondering if Sprint will really comply this time to the FCC's > requirement to pass caller ID data along with LD calls? Caller-ID started working sometime early last week (must have been May 27 or 28) on my Sprint residential 800 number. Looks like they may have made it. And yes, there IS someone who reads this newsgroup who has Sprint and hasn't had any problems; I am a low-volume long distance user (about ten bucks a month for my LD bill, most of which has been the stupid per-call card fees and high per-minute credit-card rates) for short calls home generally around 8 PM. I just switched to Sprint Sense and residential 800 service because -- in my case -- it works out to my benefit: slightly less cost but a lot easier dialing and the shoulder-surfing risk is virtually gone. YMMV. Paul Schmidt Bloomfield, IN USA Amateur Radio K9PS Public PGP key available @ MIT server ARRL Life Member fingerprint: 24 9F D3 BD AE E3 50 72 QCWA Life Member 26711 23 AB A0 64 BB 9E 2B 8D ------------------------------ From: jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) Subject: Re: How Long Ago Was This Made? Date: 4 Jun 1996 06:00:01 GMT Organization: University of South Florida Dale Miller (domiller@ualr.edu) wrote: > While moving recently, I came across a very low-tech item I had all > but forgotten about. It's a yardstick. This particular one is > emblazoned with "Beard's Furniture Co. - Little Rock, Ark. - Phone No. > 7484". I know some SWBT folks read this group regularly, and I was > wondering if anyone might be able to shed some light on the age of > this item. Since I'm sure Little Rock wasn't in the forefront of > telephone installation, I can't imagine that they had four-digit numbers > for very long before moving to named exchanges. Old numbers are fun, aren't they? I have a customer who makes great hay in their marketing materials of an ad they placed in an early-1900's cookbook which lists them has having "Phone No. 1" in St Petersburg, Florida. Wonder when the first automatic switch actually went in, and what it was ... Cheers, Jay R. Ashworth jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us Member of the Technical Staff The Suncoast Freenet Tampa Bay, Florida +1 813 790 7592 ------------------------------ From: n8mdy@falcon.ic.net (n8mdy) Subject: Home Phone Switch Needed Date: 4 Jun 1996 17:01:38 GMT Organization: ICNet ... Your Link to the Internet ... 313-998-0090 Hello, I have a problem with telephone lines, long distance and abusive children. We recently received a $280 phone bill, all local long distance calls. My teenage son thinks it ok to talk to the next exchange for hours at a time. Well, I cut off long distance service on the family telephone; I have a separate line in my office for my own use. Is there a phone switch, which would cost $500 or less, available? I would like to assign access codes, call accounting and possibly an intercom or paging system. Thanks, Willie Peloquin wpeloqui@medar.com Software Engineer Medar, Inc. ------------------------------ From: WBRECK@aol.com Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 15:07:11 -0400 Subject: Nokia 232 Questions Greetings to Editor Townson and all TD'ers! I have just purchased a new Nokia 232 cellular phone, and after a couple passes through the manual I still have a couple questions maybe someone out there can help with: 1) does this phone have a theft lock feature, where it is automatically locked at power up, and a code has to be entered before it can be used? 2) how does the "Call Barring" function (menu 14) work? I have selected "Allow National" (bars international calls), but the manual says something about the international prefix has to be programmed by the dealer in order for this to work? 3) the manual is rather vague on the "Keyguard" function (menu 16). My phone seems to always say "Keyguard Active" when I go into this menu, yet I can dial no problem! Can anyone explain how this works and what it's supposed to do? 4) I seem to have the one-touch emergency dialing with the 9 key setup and working OK (I keyed in 911 and the word emergency and saved to location 9...), even though the manual says it has to be programmed by the dealer??? Any other insights, hints, secrets, etc. into the efficient working and/or programming of this phone would be welcome! Best Regards, Bill Breckinridge wbreck@aol.com Plano, TX USA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 12:17:00 -0700 From: Reverend Tweek Subject: Re: Arrogant Internet Providers Sender: tweek@moraga.ness.com (Reverend Tweek) Organization: Our Lady of Perpetual Freedom Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 19:16:34 GMT In article , Tad Cook relays: > Arrogant Internet providers tell customers to get lost > By Peter H. Lewis > {New York Times} Ahhh, Yes ... been talking about this article ALL LAST WEEK over on netcom.general. Seems that Mr. Lewis is not being completely truthful. > For example, Netcom On-Line Communications Inc. of San Jose has > informed some of its customers that they are no longer wanted. > Sophisticated users are being shown the door. From what I understand, Mr. Lewis had a PNC account. PNC was Netcom's offering prior to Netcruiser, and hasn't been offered for almost two years. PNC accounts were (are) a PPP account. Netcruiser is a PPP/Cslip account. Existing PNC accounts were grandfathered in when Netcruiser came out, but no new PNC accounts were offered. > "Frankly, it's not profitable to service your account anymore," a > technical support representative told me. > It seems the company regrets that it offered me a so-called Unix shell > account several years ago and now wishes me to cancel it and sign up > for the more profitable (to them) Netcruiser service. Uh, Right ... Netcom STILL offers Shell accounts. I have a shell account, and Netcom still offers shell accounts to this day. Lets look at the last few days of No-New-Users at Netcom (from a Shell User's stats): i Dallman Ross 3 New Shell-User Report for 06/04/96 There were no new users. No accounts were removed. g Dallman Ross 3 New Shell-User Report for 06/03/96 Say "Yo!" to These 3 New Users: electra oracle q Say "Adieu" to These 3 Users: eataylor phfff sharaf f Dallman Ross 3 New Shell-User Report for 06/02/96 Say "Yo!" to These 29 New Users: a6 aldous archvile bmchenry dscomama eberman eknight geordan granite hilliker hmaster jchodoro jcoates jmstrang kbanjara koslow lleong mark52 mtramm mwanzi nikim ratnaker rbtn resist schui testing vilearch vodopis wannis No accounts were removed. > To drive the point home, the Netcom technician informed me that the > company no longer accepts telephone calls from shell account customers > who need technical support. Rather, all questions have to be submitted > by electronic mail. From the Very Begining, Netcom NEVER offered telephone support for PNC accounts, and if Mr. Lewis looks at the original materials from when he signed up for his PNC account, he would see that he is in error. Netcom DID give an accompanying Shell account to PNC users so that they could connect and send e-mail to the PNC support desk when they were having problems with their PNC account. So was Mr. Lewis having a problem with his Shell account, or with his PNC account? Must be his PNC account, as Mr. Lewis mentions that he was "locked out" of his mail. Mr Lewis "writes" about computers, and one would think that he would have the knowledge to check $HOME/.mailbox/ incoming (Yep, in his HOME directory) and be able to say "My mailbox is chown to root and I can't access it on the shell system". Of course, if he was using the POP3 access for his PNC account, he might not know what the problem is ... Reverend Tweek A Netcom User [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks very much for setting the record straight on this. Honestly, I had never heard any complaints about Netcom before this and the newspaper article was a bit of a surprise. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Doug Zipser Subject: AT&T 9300 - Spread Spectrum "Technology"? Date: Tue, 04 Jun 1996 07:41:24 -0700 Organization: Netcom The 9300 900MHz cordless phone is advertised as having spread spectrum technology. It also has "100 channels"; the two features seem to be contradictory because, as I understand it, spread sprectum operation connotes frequency hopping, within a band, to get around interference. I would really appreciate an explanation from someone who knows. The 9300, for what it's worth, is very pleasant to use. It's light, exceptionally clear, and has plenty of volume. ------------------------------ From: Enter.your.e-mail.address.here@mercury.cc.uottawa.ca Subject: Overstock of Product - Disposal Date: 4 Jun 1996 17:28:42 GMT Organization: University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa currently has the following items available for sale. BIX 1A4 - G Green stickers for BIX (5 per sheet) QTY 120 sheets BIX 1A4 - S Grey stickers for BIX (5 per sheet) QTY 300 sheets BIX 1A4 - W White stickers for BIX (5 per sheet) QTY 180 sheets QNE4PAIF4G Grey faceplates flush mount QTY 500 packaged in original boxes QCBIX 1A punch down blocks QTY 50 QMBIX31B (NTLQMBIX31B) Bix mounts 50 prs with cover QTY 30 Items are available on a first come first served basis. Offers will be accepted for all or part of the items. Shipping + Customs and brokerage fees if applicable would belong to the successful bidder. Guy Lessard Network Administrator Telecom (613) 562-5800 x 1425 fax: (613) 562-5998 ------------------------------ From: larry@world.std.com (Larry Appleman) Subject: Re: AT&T Movie Placement Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 19:43:27 GMT In article , CallBrand wrote: > Anyone know how much AT&T paid for placement in the movie, "The Truth > About Cats & Dogs"? I don't know how much they paid, but I was amused to hear the AT&T ad when I saw the movie at a free advance screening sponsored by MCI! Larry Appleman 31 Murray Hill Rd., Cambridge, Mass. 02140 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What was the general reaction of the audience or the MCI people present at the screening? PAT] ------------------------------ From: johns@rentelco.com (John Skenesky) Subject: Re: Line Monitor/Protocol Analyzer Date: 3 Jun 1996 20:42:33 GMT Organization: McGrath RenTelco Communications & Fiberoptic Test Eqpt Rentals In article , stevek@binc.net says: > Does anyone use or know of a line monitor/protocol analyzer that > can handle async speeds up to 115.2 kbps?? > We are implementing a BBS-based product and need the capability to > monitor the traffic. I have an HP J2301A protocol analyzer on the shelf that will work up to 256kBs. It includes RS232, RS449 and V.35 interfaces, it also has a T1 interface in it that will work at T1 Line speeds. This unit is available for rent. If your interested give me a call or E-mail John Skenesky www.rentelco.com Communications & Fiberoptic Test Equipment Rentals McGrath RenTelco 800-233-5807 1901 N. Glenville Dr. #401A 214-234-2422 Richardson, TX 75081 fax 214-680-0070 ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #267 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jun 5 13:25:41 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id NAA10789; Wed, 5 Jun 1996 13:25:41 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 13:25:41 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606051725.NAA10789@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #268 TELECOM Digest Wed, 5 Jun 96 13:25:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 268 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Followup on Sprint Fridays Free (Poll Dubh) Re: AT&T 9300 - Spread Spectrum "Technology"? (Dave Gellerman) BRI Butt Set - Cheap ? (John Schmerold) CID Number and/or Name (Mark J. Cuccia) Old Phone Bills (Jim Jacobs) Sprint and CallerID (Richard Jefferson) Re: More CID Frolics! (David Hough) Test Your Telecom Knowledge (David Crowe) Re: Internet Domain Names (Robert Shaw) Re: Northern Telecom "Services" Menu (Christoph F. Strnadl) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: singular@oort.ap.sissa.it (Poll Dubh) Subject: Re: Followup on Sprint Fridays Free Date: 5 Jun 1996 14:49:41 GMT Organization: ICTP-Trieste-Italy > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It has been awhile since anything about > this was dicussed here, so perhaps others who were victimized by this > scam of Sprint have some comments to add. I have heard from a couple > other people that Sprint is continuing to bill the service charge each > month while ignoring any/all requests for explanations or an opportunity > to speak with Robin Loyed, etc. I personally would not waste any more > time speaking to their customer service representatives. Even if they > are paying for the call via their 800 number it would still be a waste > of your time which also has to be worth something. PAT: one thing about all the informal advice/personal opinions you have expressed about this affair in your Digest is the insistence on the _person_ of Robin Loyed. In dealing with a business like Sprint, it is not the person but the office that counts. What I believe I would have done if I had been on Sprint's program is: -- call customer service _and ask for the mailing address to which billing complaints and queries should be sent_; nothing more. -- write (certified mail) asking for confirmation of the change in terms and conditions, and pointing out that I consider the service (and my liability for payment) suspended until an official answer is received, and terminated in the event the changes are confirmed. The name of Mr. Loyed could be mentioned in connection with the infamous telegram, but the letter would be addressed to Sprint as a corporation. The trouble with trying to resolve disputes like these over the phone is that, as one often reads on credit card statements in the US, "you may phone us but doing so will not preserve your rights [in the event of a billing dispute]". > My suggestion at this point is take your last one or two bills from > Sprint, clearly indicate on the face of the bill 'Payment is Refused; > Refer to Robin Loyed for explanation.' Include a short note stating your > belief that Sprint deliberatly engaged in a fraudulent act by entering > into a contract with you which they knew at the time they had no > intention of upholding. State that you require *in writing* an > explanation from Robin Loyed along with a telephone number where he > can be reached. Inform them that future billings will be regarded as > continuing the fraud and that they are to make no further contact with > you except as specified. Send this to them by registered/certified > mail. Save the green card receipt you get in return. Wait for further > response from them. Does anyone else have anything to add? PAT] Anger does not help. The letter should point out that you engaged in the service contract under certain terms, and that since Sprint changed the terms (it doesn't matter what their original intentions were) without your consent the contract has been voided (by them, not by you). That being the case, their billings are in error and you request that Sprint correct the error as soon as possible and send you a written explanation. Keep photocopies of any letter you send, or have your attorney write in your name. Do save the green card receipt as PAT suggested. Do not request Mr. Loyed's phone number: the dispute can be resolved without it. Besides, it's best to keep everything in writing; telephone contacts on the side would only muddle the issue and allow them to claim that you agreed to something different over the phone. Let's face it: Sprint made a mistake in launching this promotion, and they are trying to back out of it. Eventually they'll accept that it's best for them to drop the charges on your bill and put the whole thing behind them. It may also be best for you to let them do that without fuss. Do refuse payment, but stay cool. Oh, and do pay the part of the bill that is not under dispute. Your only excuses for not doing that would be that the math is too complicated for you to work out, or that essential information is missing; if that is the case, say so in your letter. Sergio Gelato (not a lawyer, no connection with Sprint, no US phone number) P.S. There must be a time limit for them to reply to you. (Something like 30 days for the initial response? Better check. Any failure to reply in time could be quite useful to you.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Excellent points. I like your ideas better than my own on this yesterday. I recommend people follow your advice. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dave_gellerman@newbridge.com (Dave Gellerman) Subject: Re: AT&T 9300 - Spread Spectrum "Technology"? Date: Wed, 05 Jun 1996 10:59:26 -0500 Organization: Newbridge Networks In article , Doug Zipser wrote: > The 9300 900MHz cordless phone is advertised as having spread spectrum > technology. It also has "100 channels"; the two features seem to be > contradictory because, as I understand it, spread sprectum operation > connotes frequency hopping, within a band, to get around interference. > I would really appreciate an explanation from someone who knows. The > 9300, for what it's worth, is very pleasant to use. It's light, > exceptionally clear, and has plenty of volume. Well in a direct sequence spread spectrum, a "chirp" ( psuedo-random bit stream) is used in the modulation process to scatter the signal over a very wide spectrum -- however, very fast frequency hopping systems also qualify as spread spectrum. In either case, you could call the chirp characteristics a "channel" (as the receiver must be using the same sequence to demod your signal) or you might call the hopping pattern a channel. DRG ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Jun 96 09:39:51 From: John Schmerold Subject: BRI Butt Set - Cheap ? Anyone know a source for BRI Butt set? John Schmerold Katy Computer Systems, Inc. 86 Meramec Valley Plaza Drive St. Louis, Missouri 63088 Internet Address: john@katy.com Telephone Number: 314/215-4070 Facsimile Number: 314/861-2222 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Jun 1996 10:33:25 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: CID Number and/or Name Regarding whether "name only" CID would be better than "number only" CID, the method used to display the name is determined by a LIDB (Line Information Data Base) lookup *based on the number* which is transmitted. The original standards were developed to transmit (via SS7) the number of the calling party (or trunk line) and to display (or not display, based on the use of *67/11-67 flagging by the called party or per-line default) that number. When they bagan to develop the "Name" with Caller-ID, the standards are *not* that the "Name" is transmitted from the originating switch. Only the number transmits. The receiving end switch then does a LIDB lookup based on that number (via SS-7) to get the "Name". If the number is not found, the receiving end switch will display either dashes, the city/state, province name, or some other indication that the name is unavailable, while still displaying the number. Recently, I received a call from a number I frequently get calls from. It also happened that the number was in *my own central office switch*, 504-24X. But I received "NEW ORLEANS, LA" in the name part of the CID box, when I usually get the calling party number "account" name. It could have been that the database lookup was slow, and the actual call was 'more important' than waiting for database (LIDB) lookup. And it has been reported here that *not* all LIDB's are yet interlinked for CID-Name when the call is between two different LEC's. That's why we are still getting city/state, or state (province) spelled out on long distance calls while still getting the full ten-digit number. As for blocking or allowing far-end display of name but not number or number but not name, instead of 'only' blocking both or allowing both, I think that in Canada they have that option. If I'm not mistaken, there are distinct Bellcore assigned *-XX (11-XX) codes to block *just* number but allow the name, or vise-versa, as well as block/allow both, regardless of the default status of your line regarding display on the far end. I don't know off-hand what each code is, other than *-67 (11-67) and *-82 (11-82), for blocking both and displaying both (respectively), regardless of the 'default' status of the calling line. Of course, this all depends on whether the long distance carrier or interoffice SS-7 trunks (or the originating switch itself) can even transmit the number, rather than doing an "out-of-area". BTW, as CID (number only at the time) was being introduced locally in individual areas, there were some areas where *-67 (11-67) 'toggled' the status of your line. You would have to know *in advance* that the line was 'default display' or 'default private' before deciding whether or not to use *-67 (11-67). Some locations used *-67 (11-67) to 'privatize' the number and *-67 (11-68) to 'display' the number, regardless of the default status. Then Bellcore changed the 'master' list of 'display' from *-68 (11-68) to *-82 (11-82) a few years ago. MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 04 Jun 1996 20:48:48 -0400 From: Jim Jacobs Subject: Old Phone Bills On Thu, 30 May 1996, Pat Townson wrote: > I have here about three dozen very old telephone bills from the > New England Telephone and Telegraph Company in Boston, MA dated > in the period September, 1932 through December, 1936. In addition, > I have rent receipts for the same period of time. > Two men were in business together, or at least they shared an office > together at the time: > Jacob Fisher & Samuel Steinberg > Suite 718 - Providence Building > 333 Washington Street > Boston, Massachusetts > Oddly, the phone number was not shown on any of the phone bills, which > appear to be for coin telephone service in their office. There is a > reference to an account number which is given as 'P 7622 LAF'. That > may have been some central office designation. The building at 333 Washington St. was primarily occupied by "wholesale jewelers" who, more often then not, sold to retail customers referred to them by friends, relatives, or other customers. The building (which I believe is still standing) is located in downtown Boston, a few steps away from what was the major department store area. The LAFayette telephone exchange served the area. It would be reasonable to conclude that the P stood for Pay Phone or Pay Station, LAF for Lafayette, and that 7622 were the remaining digits in the number. > Beginning in late 1933, the return address on the envelope changes and > is given as 705 Mt. Auburn Street, Watertown, Massachusetts, with a > postage meter indicia showing Watertown and two cents postage. There used to be a huge Western Electric manufacturing facility on Mt. Auburn St. Is it possible that New England telephone shared space with Western Electric? JIM JACOBS e-mail jjacobs@worldfax.com Tampa, Florida, USA Voice Mail +1 813 330 2500 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for your followup. I know nothing at all, or very little about Boston, so I am glad someone who does know the area was able to contribute to this. What about the address of 881 Commonwealth Avenue, which is the return address on the envelopes during 1932 and much of 1933? Anyway, for readers who wish to send the annual voluntary subscription donation (suggested amount is twenty dollars), if you want one of these old phone bills include a long, self-addressed stamped envelope with your request to me at PO Box 4621, Skokie, IL 60077. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 10:46:00 -0400 From: richard jefferson Subject: Sprint and CallerID Well, it doesn't seem like Sprint is 100% there to me. I called my parents last night (04 June) and I still came up 'Unknown Number.' Anyone want to start a pool? Me- Located: Morrisville, NC (border of RTP) LEC BellSouth IEC: Sprint Them- Located: Beaufort, NC (on the coast) LEC: Sprint Carolina Telephone (formarlly CT&T), might matter IEC: AT&T, probably doesn't matter Oh well ... Richard Jefferson, Dept. 3S15 | (919) 991-8095 | Home: (919) 319-6994 Emergency Services Development | ESN: 294-8095 | mercury@vnet.net ------------------------------ From: David Hough Subject: Re: More CID Frolics! Date: Wed, 05 Jun 96 10:04:50 GMT In article vances@xenitec.xenitec. on.ca (Vance Shipley) writes: > Now consider the case where a caller from the UofX places an outside > call. If the callee is to have an accurate call display information > set it will have to come from the PBX at the UofX. The CO could > display only the main listed directory number of the UofX (555-1000) > and the name of the university but that would not be very usefull when > the caller is directly reachable and ISDN connected as well. > When placing the call the UofX PBX will send to the CO the originating > number to be used for the call as well as the name to be displayed if > that service is available. In this way the most usefull service is > provided. When a callee receives a call from the UofX extension phone > the display will show the DID number and current name of the caller. In my experience of the UK telecom environment, there are few PBX systems which manage to correctly present valid information to the CO. The CO switch does its best to convert this information to something helpful, so it is possible to get something like '01285648550X2556', which is where the base number is 648550 and the extension concerned is 2556. In fact, for the example concerned, what you will see is '01285648X556', because the PBX on that number does its job properly and passes useful information. The 'X' is the telco's way of telling the callee that they don't guarantee the accuracy of any digits after the 'X'. I don't know if the 'X' appears for analogue CLI because all my tests have been done using ISDN. There is a reasonable degree of filtering at the CO -- if you send an incorrect number of digits (the example given assumes three digits) then the base+extension format is what usually results. If you send the correct number of digits but they are outside your allocated range, what appears at the far end is the base of your allocated range. This is further confused when trying to make use of the '1471' feature, which tells you the number of the last caller (unless CLI was withheld). When I originally did some tests, 1471 returned the base number. I commented on this in uk.telecom and the feature mysteriously started working correctly (big brother *does* read Usenet :) ), identifying the number required to call the originating phone. However, I think it is on an exchange-by-exchange basis, because a test originating at another exchange once again produced the base number. You don't get the 'X' indication with this service either. Lines which use Q.931 signalling instead of DASS2 signalling behave slightly differently again: for the example above I think you would see '01285648X' if the correct digits were not supplied, whereas DASS2 would produce '01285648550'. I haven't yet seen a call which I know came from a Q.931-based system with anything after the 'X', so either the protocol can't handle it or most PBX systems don't provide the digits. Dave djh@sectel.com Tel +44 1285 655 766 Fax +44 1285 655 595 ------------------------------ From: David Crowe Subject: Test Your Telecom Knowledge Date: Tue, 04 Jun 1996 16:02:10 +0000 Organization: Cellular Networking Perspectives Ltd. Reply-To: crowed@cadvision.com The monthly "Cellular Networking Perspectives" quiz has been updated. Test your telecom knowledge, and possibly win a prize! http://www.cnp-wireless.com/quiz.html David Crowe Editor, Cellular Networking Perspectives 71574.3157@compuserve.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Jun 1996 09:22:10 +0100 From: shaw Subject: Re: Internet Domain Names chris@punk.net wrote > If I had half-a-million sitting around, I'd start my own Internic > service. dot-corp or dot-bus anyone? Please think very seriously about the implications. What you've mentioned is basically what's in an Internet draft proposed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) at: ftp://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts/draft-postel-iana-itld-admin-00.txt Personally I think the proposal is a very bad idea. It is a historical accident that the US (unlike every other country in the world) does not use ISO country codes (e.g., .fr, .uk) to manage their top level domain (TLD) registrations. Although there is a .US TLD (see RFC 1480), it is not widely used since "domain name envy" makes everyone want to be in .com, .net or .org (currently with around ~350,000 registrations). Since the relationship between trademarks and domain names is now very well established (there are hundreds of resultant disputes), creation of new non-ISO country code TLDs will only magnify what is basically a US mess (who account for about 93% of .com registrations) into a global one. This is because trademark law is fundamentally national law (there is no such thing as a widely recognized international trademark). By registering a domain name in an international TLD not associated with a country code like .com, you immediately put yourself in the position of having to defend your domain name against any national trademark. I'm sure there is some company, somewhere in the world, who has a federal trademark for the name "punk" (your domain name). According to current policy at NSI, who does registration for your TLD .net, they only have to produce this trademark to take this domain name away from you. If new "international" TLDs like .corp or .bus are created, it isn't going to solve the problem. It's clear that IBM or even much smaller companies (even from other countries) who think you are infringing their trademark are going to come down on you (e.g., there is no way that IBM will let you have IBM.CORP or IBM.BUS). This problem is going to take a lot more thought and debate. Cheers, Robert Shaw shaw@itu.ch International Telecommunication Union http://www.itu.ch Information Services Department Switzerland ------------------------------ From: cstrnadl@austria.cp.philips.com (Christoph F. Strnadl) Subject: Re: Northern Telecom "Services" Menu Date: Wed, 05 Jun 96 11:16:53 GMT Organization: Philips C&P In article , Proctor & Associates <0003991080@mcimail.com> wrote: > I've been playing around with a slick little Northern Telecom > PowerTouch 350 phone. It has all kinds of neat features, such as the > ability to move Caller ID info into your dialing database. > One feature I don't quite fathom is connected with something called > "Services." Under Services, the manual says: > [some lines deleted, cfs] > The manual then gives instructions for getting the phone to download a > list of subscriber services from the telco. > [deletia, cfs] > Has anyone heard of this? Is "Services" a feature only available on > lines served by Northern Telecom DMS central offices? What signal > does the telephone send out when you punch the Services button? The "Services" Nortel speaks about are interactive information retrieval and transaction services based upon the Bellcore ADSI (Analog Display Services) Standard. The ADSI protocol, by providing bi-directional data communications over analog, voice-grade facilities between CPE and a local server, allows customers to access information and call management features via their CPE. Examples of such services are: * home banking - equiring your account balance - initiating transactions * directory services * home shopping * information retrieval services - airline arrival/departures * travel enquiry & reservation services The ADSI server handles the screen phones on the customer side via the ADSI protocol and the various different content providers (viz. banks, travel agencies) and their proprietary protocols (X.25,...) on the other side. The ADSI protocol uses: * binary FSK signaling (Bell 202) from the server to the CPE (1200 baud, though) * DTMF signaling from the CPE to the network/server. Its main features are: * virtual screen size up to 33 lines x 40 characters * 6 softkeys supported * allows concurrent (well, virtually ;-) transmission of data *and* voice from the server to the CPE * device independence (as long as CPE complies to ADSI standard) ADSI has been defined in 1993 in a set of Bellcore Technical Reports and Special Reports, the most important of which are: * TR-NWT-001273 Generic Requirements for an SPCS to Customer Premises Equipment Data Interface for Analog Display Services * SR-INS-002461 Customer Premises Equipment Compatibility Considerations for the Analog Display Services Interface, both of which can be ordered directly from Bellcore (www.bellcore.com). A complete set of all standards pertaining to ADSI and the connected enhanced telephony services (Caller-Id, Caller-Name- Delivery, CID on Call Waiting, Call Waiting Deluxe) are available as the Family Requirments FR-12 from Bellcore. BTW, the Nortel PowerTouch 350 is not the only ADSI capable (a so-called Type 3 CPE in Bellcore speak) device available: You may want to have a look at the Philips ScreenPhone P100 and the Alcatel A2xxx screen phones as well, amongst others. Please feel free to continue this thread, if interested! Christoph F. Strnadl | "What's a cynic?" Technical Manager/ScreenPhone Services | "A man who knows the price of ORIGIN Information Technology / Austria| everything and the value of Tel +43 1 60101/1752 Fax +43 1 6023568 | nothing." (O.Wilde) cstrnadl@austria.cp.philips.com | #include ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #268 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jun 5 14:12:09 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id OAA15350; Wed, 5 Jun 1996 14:12:09 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 14:12:09 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606051812.OAA15350@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #269 TELECOM Digest Wed, 5 Jun 96 14:12:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 269 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Calling Cards: AT&T vs. the LEC's (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: Fight Turns Nasty: Ameritech/AT&T Take Off Gloves (Thomas Peters) Re: Digital Cellular in North America Question (Jean-Francois Mezei) Re: Digital Cellular in North America Question (Pat Cronin) Re: MCI Cellular (Jay R. Ashworth) Re: MCI Cellular (Henry Mensch) Re: MCI Cellular (Dave Levenson) Re: MCI Cellular (Bill Walker) AC 210 May be Split Into Four (Brian Purcell) Re: Nokia 232 Questions (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Nokia 232 Questions (Osman Rich) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 05 Jun 1996 09:50:29 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Calling Cards: AT&T vs. the LEC's Regarding the current feud between AT&T and the LEC's in the matter of calling card use, sometime aroung 1990, AT&T and the LEC's began using their own methods for assigning calling card numbers. Prior to that period, they shared the old Bell System's CCIS#6 interconnected billing validation database. After 1990, the LEC's began to start their own LIDB's, while AT&T maintained their own database system, and SS#7 began to be used for message signaling. Line-number-based cards became the "domain" of the LEC's, along with the original special and non-line-number based RAO-based calling cards. AT&T (and other participating carriers) began to use fourteen- digit cards of a CIID Bellcore format. Participating carriers which had operating and business arrangements would accept each others' issued cards, but bill them at their own rates. In AT&T's case of accepting LEC line-number-based cards, they were to be billed at basic AT&T rates, even if that customer had a calling-card discount plan. If you had a card discount plan with AT&T and wanted their discounted rates, you would have to use *their* issued card number of a CIID format, the cards beginning with AT&T's Bellcore-assigned CIID's NXX-0XX or NXX-1XX. A few years ago, AT&T began to come out with their "True-Choice" *proprietary* card number scheme. This is a "less-than-fourteen" digit card number. The 'base' part of the card can be anywhere from seven to nine digits followed by a four digit PIN number. The card *cannot* begin with the digits '0' or '1', as entering an initial '0' at the "bong" tone cuts through right away to the Operator, while an intial '1' at the "bong" tone is the first of a two (or future three) digit 1X(X) automated "special billing" service request code (i.e. 11 for Collect, 12 for Third Party, 13 for Person, 15 for "room-mate" billing accounts, 16 for Spanish prompts, 17 for French prompts, and 19 seems to be reserved for 19X future three-digit expansion). These card numbers *can* be used to place intra-LATA calls, but *only* using AT&T's OSPS system, accessed by 800-CALL-ATT, 800-321-0ATT or 10-288/101-0288-0+ten-digits. These "True Choice" card numbers are AT&T propreitary, and are *not* available in the LEC TOPS/OSPS systems. LEC assigned line-number-based and RAO-based fourteen-digit card numbers are stored in a network of SS#7 connected LIDB's. The LEC's must allow any participating carrier (with business arrangements) non-discriminatory access to their databases. For the time being, LEC cards will probably continue to be accepted by AT&T for both intra and inter LATA calls (as long as you reach AT&T's system with their 10-288/101-0288-0+ code where necessafy, or 800-CALL-ATT type numbers), and LEC cards will continue to be accepted by *other* carriers (such as MCI, Sprint, etc) on their networks, as well as AOSlime companies from private payphones and "hospitality" industry PBX systems. Many "other" common carriers (MCI, Sprint, etc), while holding Bellcore assigned CIID codes of the form NXX-0XX/1XX for 'interoperable' fourteen digit card numbers, have also been issuing their *own* proprietary cards for over a decade. Some of these cards are fourteen digit card numbers, based on the ten-digit POTS line number of the customer's account "contact" number. If you live at a relative's home where *they* pay the telephone bill in *their* name, you could get an MCI 'proprietary' card number actually based on your relative's telephone number, rather than an 'arbitrary' looking CIID-type card. Even the PIN number could begin with a '0' or '1' although Bellcore standards say that PINs on "standardized" card numbers should *never* begin with '0' or '1'. Of course, these are carrier issued proprietary cards. Sometimes, the fourteen digit carrier issued proprietary non-CIID card could be the carrier's assigned number beginning with '0' or '1'. This makes matters even more confusing if you attempt to use that card to place cards on another carrier or network! I don't know how things will evolve in the future when there is a developed competition in the LATA or even *local* areas. Presently in Louisiana, I use either BellSouth or AT&T for intra-LATA toll calls, as BellSouth has recently lowered their rates for intra-LATA toll. I have discount package plans with both my LEC *and* AT&T. For *local* area calls which I want to bill to my calling card (such as when at a private payphone which charges by the minute for local coin), I *try* to access BellSouth's TOPS since the BellSouth rate for a *local* call billed to a calling card placed via their TOPS is *ONE* dollar *FLAT* (untimed). Yes, its more than 25-cents, but it is better than feeding quarters into the COCOT on a single local call. The long distance carriers (even AT&T) charge by the minute even for a local call billed to a card or account number through *their* network or operator system. There is yet *another* standard for card numbers. It is the International standard which is administered by the ITU-T (formerly CCITT). This is the "89" card format. A card number in the interna- tional format can be twenty digits long and maybe even longer. It begins "89" followed by the country code, followed by an "IIN" (Issuer Identifier Number) of two or three digits. IIN's for carriers and networks in the NANP (Country Code +1) are all three digits long. Some carriers have two unique ITU-T assigned IIN's, used for different types of cards they issue. The remainder of the fourteen digits follow the IIN for NANP issued card numbers. Sometimes, there is an additional 'check' digit in a full international format card number. *In theory*, the "89" format would make *all* types of telephone billing cards issued by various carriers (worldwide), for calls routed over various networks, much more interoperable, *as long as* all companies involved arrange network operation and business arrangements. MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ From: tpeters@hns.com (Thomas Peters) Subject: Re: Fight Turns Nasty: Ameritech/AT&T Take Off Gloves Date: 5 Jun 1996 16:57:33 GMT Organization: Hughes Network Systems Inc. >> Ameritech Chairman Richard Notebaert said his company discovered AT&T >> was illegally targeting Ameritech customers when some 'names on the >> list' started getting mailings sent by AT&T. He said there was no way >> 'those names' would have gotten anything like that in the mail had not >> AT&T been abusing their access to the Ameritech data base. > "Those names" are not available by other reverse white pages databases? Not necessarily. Map makers like to add imaginary cul-de-sacs to their products to make it easy to prove that a competing product has copied them. Databases are often seeded in a similar fashion. Ameritech may have such customers in their database with home addresses of company employees. I don't have any idea if AT&T is guilty. But if they are, don't assume that Ameritech can't prove it. Tom Peters [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is the way I heard it also, that Ameritech has their data base 'salted' or 'seeded' here and there with imaginary people and circumstances/calling patterns which exist only to catch others who should not be getting into places they do not belong. It is a simple enough technique. I even have a couple 'names' like that in the telecom mailing list. You want to rip the list off and you think you are smart by deliberatly excluding my name from any mailings so I won't find out what you did? I'll find out soon enough anyway. Almost all lists -- especially the big, huge commercial ones like {Reader's Digest} or Sears or Publisher's Clearing House do the same thing, to trace where things are going and who is doing what. There is no reason telcos would not employ that technique. Ameritech even keeps a few phony names in the telephone directory for the same reasons: you want to copy their work, go ahead and try it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jean-Francois Mezei Subject: Re: Digital Cellular in North America Question Date: Tue, 04 Jun 1996 18:31:17 +0000 Organization: Vaxination Informatique Reply-To: jfmezei@istar.ca Lynne Gregg wrote: > Although AT&T Wireless' U.S. network is not GSM, we do offer a > seamless roaming service that allows our customers to roam on GSM > networks in 37 countries. The service is called CellCard. How do North American digital telephones operate when in GSM areas? Are there hybrid telephones that do both protocols or do these 37 countries also support the north american standard as a side bar to their GSM backbone? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Jun 96 09:34:04 BST From: eeipcn@eei.ericsson.se (Pat Cronin) Subject: Re: Digital Cellular in North America Question jfmezei@istar.ca wrote: > Is there any chance that GSM would eventually be supported in North > America by some operators (operating both GSM and the USA system). In Europe, digital cellular systems that support both the GSM 900 and DCS 1800 band ranges are being rolled out. Multiband (GSM 900 and DCS 1800) phones are becoming available. Basically these systems support handover/handoff between GSM and DCS 1800 cells in the same system. In North America, in addition to the AMPS/D-AMPS standard, a GSM derivative, PCS 1900 is in use. The following would be possible where the PCS 1900 standard is planned to be used. I know of California and Washington, DC. It would be easy today to build a system that is largely PCS 1900 cells, with some GSM cells to support roamers, say for major events. I would think that the designed systems could handle this senario today, if '900 bandwidth' is available in conjunction with '1900 bandwidth'. It would be technically feasible to make a system that supported multiband operation (GSM 900 and PCS 1800) in exactly the same way that the systems in Europe do. The limiting factors would be availability of bandwidth, the economics of providing GSM 900 cells in a largely PCS 1900 market, the design and availability of muliband (GSM and PCS 1900) phones, and some small switch and base station redesign, perhaps. So, with a GSM based system, it is technically feasible to support the North American and European based standards in the same system. But perhaps, the business case is not so strong? Also there may be other solutions, using interworking register nodes, that allow a, say, PCS roamer access to a GSM system, but having temporary use of a GSM phone in that market. ------------------------------ From: jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) Subject: Re: MCI Cellular Date: 5 Jun 1996 00:36:00 GMT Organization: University of South Florida Lynne Gregg (lynne.gregg@attws.com) wrote: >> From my understanding of the cellular protocols, it's not technically >> feasible, Pat. The A and B carriers (competitive and wireline) are >> using two actually different sets of frequencies for their calls. > This is not correct. A and B cellular carriers in the U.S. all > operate at 850 mhz radio frequency. The new PCS entrants will operate > at 1900 and others. Hmmmm ... You're a McCaw person, right? Before calling you misinformed, I checked a couple references. They all list the Telco (or wireline carrier) and the RCC (Radio Common Carrier, or non-wireline carrier, i.e. you guys) as occupying _separate channels_ in the band to route their traffic over. This is, I believe, subsumed in the phrasing "different sets of frequencies". > Mike Fox wrote: >> I don't think they are really bringing in two new *cellular* carriers. >> I think they are setting up two *PCS* services. The fact that he >> called it "Sprint" instead of "360 Degree Communications" confirms >> that IMO, as Sprint spun off their cellular business into 360 Degree >> so they can concentrate on PCS. > Technically speaking, there is *no* difference between PCS and > cellular systems in the U.S. aside from those systems operating on > different radio frequencies. Actually, there is. PCS systems will be using, (and I believe it's already been decided, but I don't remember which way) the CDMA protocol designed by Qualcomm (IS-84?), which is also going into service with some cellular carriers to provide "digital service", or a protocol very silimar to, if not identical to the GSM (Groupe System Mobile, I believe is the French spelling) protocol used for all cellular service in Europe. Since most currently operating cellular telephony systems use either AMPS analog or TDMA digital, I think that saying that there's "no" difference, especially with emphasis ... and _especially_ since you post from a site that would tend to cause people to attribute more than casual weight to your remarks, is a bit rash. Cheers, -- jr 'check your facts, next time, please' Jay R. Ashworth jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us Member of the Technical Staff (Off Duty) The Suncoast Freenet Tampa Bay, Florida +1 813 790 7592 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 22:13:53 PDT From: henry mensch Subject: MCI Cellular Well, I called their number to inquire (the deal they seemed to offer which implied no long distance charges on long distance calls seemed too good to be true), and they do offer service in San Francisco. They offer a package with a Nokia 100 phone (you can't opt out of their phone). Their rates looked just like everyone else's rates, but with not so many features. The agent on the phone only knew about one plan, and couldn't provide details on any other rate plans. henry mensch / po box 14592; sf, ca 94114-0592 / http://www.q.com/henry/ ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: MCI Cellular Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 12:38:53 GMT Lynne Gregg (lynne.gregg@attws.com) writes: >> From my understanding of the cellular protocols, it's not technically >> feasible, Pat. The A and B carriers (competitive and wireline) are >> using two actually different sets of frequencies for their calls. > This is not correct. A and B cellular carriers in the U.S. all > operate at 850 mhz radio frequency. The new PCS entrants will operate > at 1900 and others. Both statements are correct; the A and B carriers are both at 850 MHz, and they use different frequencies. The A and B carriers each use half of the bandwidth allocated to cellular service in the 800 MHz band. That is, of the 860 channels, 430 belong to the A carrier and 430 belong to the B carrier. Each phone is configured to scan one or the other group of channels first when looking for a paging/access channel. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: uunet!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 [The Man in the Mooney] ------------------------------ From: wwalker@qualcomm.com (Bill Walker) Subject: Re: MCI Cellular Date: Wed, 05 Jun 1996 14:39:22 -0700 Organization: QUALCOMM, Inc. In article , Lynne Gregg wrote: > Technically speaking, there is *no* difference between PCS and > cellular systems in the U.S. aside from those systems operating on > different radio frequencies. No, technically speaking, there are major differences between current and future U.S. cellular and PCS systems (analog vs. digital, GSM/DAMPS/CDMA protocols, etc.). But I'll agree that from the customer's point of view, with the services initially being offered, any differences are very minor. They both look like wireless telephone service to the customer. Bill Walker, QUALCOMM, Inc., San Diego, CA USA WWalker@qualcomm.com ------------------------------ From: bpurcell@centuryinter.net (Brian Purcell) Subject: AC 210 May be Split Into Four Date: Tue, 04 Jun 96 23:21:53 GMT Organization: Wide-Lite We may soon see the first (as far as I know) area code split that will result in multiple new codes carved out of a single exisiting area in an effort to give longer life to the newly assigned codes. Soutwestern Bell recently announced that AC 210 (San Antonio region), which was just created in 1992, will soon be split into as many as _four_ codes. SWB originally proposed two schemes for dividing 210 into just one new area- both variations on splitting metro San Antonio away from the existing 210. One plan was rejected outright because it put non-contiguous areas into the same AC. With the remaining plan, SWB estimated that metro SA would need another AC by the year 2002. So the PUC had SWB come up with three new options to provide longer life for the new codes. These plans are currently being reviewed: - Give metro SA one code and divide the remaining area into two codes. - Give metro SA two codes in an overlay and give the remaining area another code. - Give metro SA two codes in a "doughnut" and split the remaining area in half with two codes as well (total of four codes including original 210). Having observed how the PUC handled the recent Houston/Dallas AC case, I doubt they will go for the overlay. And, the PUC has indicated that they want new codes to last longer to minimize disruptions to the residents and businesses, so they will probably opt for the 4-from-1 scheme to provide a plethora of numbers (for a little while, anyway.) SWBell estimates 210 will be in jeopardy by the 2Q 1997, so I expect this change to be decided by the 3Q of 96 and implemented with a short permissive period early in 1997. Brian Purcell bpurcell@centuryinter.net ------------------------------ From: mds@access.digex.net Subject: Re: Nokia 232 Questions Date: 5 Jun 1996 02:37:47 GMT Organization: Wilkinson, Barker, Knauer & Quinn Reply-To: mds@access.digex.net (Michael D. Sullivan) In , WBRECK@aol.com writes: > I have just purchased a new Nokia 232 cellular phone ... > 3) the manual is rather vague on the "Keyguard" function (menu 16). > My phone seems to always say "Keyguard Active" when I go into this > menu, yet I can dial no problem! Can anyone explain how this works > and what it's supposed to do? Keyguard prevents your phone from being accidentally dialed (e.g., phone is in briefcase or purse and bangs into stuff). It locks out the number pad entirely, except for the [Menu][Star] combo that unlocks it. Press anything else and it displays "Press Menu", and then after you do so, "Press *". Turn it on with [Menu][Star] or scrolling the menu to "Keyguard," press [Sto], and getting the "Keyguard active" message. > 4) I seem to have the one-touch emergency dialing with the 9 key setup > and working OK (I keyed in 911 and the word emergency and saved to > location 9...), even though the manual says it has to be programmed by > the dealer??? The one-touch emergency dialing uses a hidden, unnumbered memory location that must be programmed in via the setup mode the dealer uses to set your MIN (phone number) and options. It doesn't use location 9. Instead, if you simply press the "9" key and hold it down for 2 seconds or so, the contents of the hidden memory location are dialed, and "Send" is sent automatically. In the US, the dealer's instruction sheet directs the installer to set the hidden code to "911". Michael D. Sullivan, Bethesda, MD (USA) email: mds@access.digex.net Also online as avogadro@well.com and 71460.1134@compuserve.com ------------------------------ From: Osman Rich Date: Wed, 05 Jun 96 08:59:00 PDT Subject: Re: Nokia 232 Questions > 1) does this phone have a theft lock feature, where it is automatically > locked at power up, and a code has to be entered before it can be used? I believe so,, there should be a menu selection for this > 2) how does the "Call Barring" function (menu 14) work? I have selected > "Allow National" (bars international calls), but the manual says something > about the international prefix has to be programmed by the dealer in order > for this to work? Yes, the "+" sign when you dial is the international access code. Your service provider needs to have programmed the international access code (011 in most cases) for this to work. > 3) the manual is rather vague on the "Keyguard" function (menu 16). > My phone seems to always say "Keyguard Active" when I go into this > menu, yet I can dial no problem! Can anyone explain how this works > and what it's supposed to do? Try pressing "Menu" and "*" in sequence. This locks the keyboard. The menu entry enables and disables the feature (so "Menu" and "*" in sequence work) > 4) I seem to have the one-touch emergency dialling with the 9 key set-up > and working OK (I keyed in 911 and the word emergency and saved to > location 9...), even though the manual says it has to be programmed by > the dealer??? There are several entries for emergency numbers. If they are programmed by the dealer correctly, any can be dialed with Keyguard enabled *or* the phone locked. "9" "SEND" will also call the first emergency number in the stored list even if keyguard is enabled. (I think.) Rich Osman (speaking for myself, not my employer) ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #269 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jun 6 13:03:08 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id NAA22956; Thu, 6 Jun 1996 13:03:08 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 13:03:08 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606061703.NAA22956@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #270 TELECOM Digest Thu, 6 Jun 96 13:03:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 270 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson 800-555 (was Re: New Spam Twist) (Mark J. Cuccia) Cellular Caller ID Deadline? (Michael Israeli) Canadian ISDN and Inmarsat B (Chris Paulse) Distinctive Ring Support in Voice Mail (Miles B. Whitener) Re: Caller-ID Delay in California (Kevin R. Ray) Fax-On-Demand / Fax Back Help (Kevin Pan) Local Exchange Information (cannet.com@cannet.cannet.com) Re: Great Circle Mileage Equations (John Fricks) Bearing (was Re: Great Circle Mileage Equations) (Mark E. Kaminsky) Re: AT&T 9300 Spread Spectrum 'Technology' (Ralph Sprang) Voice Over Data? (Jim Murphy) Video Over 100Mbps Ethernet (Switched) (Anthony S. Chang) Wanted: Information on CID via CW (iceberg@indy.net) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 05 Jun 1996 09:50:28 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: 800-555 (was Re: New Spam Twist) In TELECOM Digest v.16 #263, jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) wrote: > Worse, though, the 800 number is likely bogus anyway. > The 800-555 exchange, to the best of my knowledge, belongs to Bellcore > themselves, and I don't think they've let it out to anyone. That was true prior to November 1994. At the time of divestiture, existing 800 services was turned over to AT&T in association with the Bell and independent LEC's. However, it was intended for toll-free inward WATS to also be offered by competitive Long Distance carriers. Around 1982, AT&T (The Bell System) began their own CCIS and database function for geographic portability of 800 numbers. Prior to 1982, 800-NNX codes had specific geographic termination or service function. All sixty-four 800-NN2 codes had been assigned (and 're-used') on a state-to-state basis for intra-state toll-free inward WATS. 800-555 was used for directory assistance and other special telco-provided services, (in both the US and Canada),such as the now discontinued "Bell Answer Line" at 800-555-5000, AT&T (WECO now Lucent) equipment customer service at 800-555-8111, etc. 800-855 was (and is) used for services for the "hearing impaired" via TDD/TTY terminals. Some 136 additional 800-NNX codes had been assigned to inter-state toll free services, assigned to specific terminating locations (NPA regions) in the US and Canada. When CCIS#6 (a predecessor to CCS7/SS7) and AT&T's nationwide database was introduced by 1982, the rigidity of assignments of these 800-NNX codes no longer applied, except, in Canada, although there were cross-border arrangements made between AT&T and the Telecom-Canada (now Stentor) telcos. However at that time, AT&T did *not* increase the number of possible 800-NNX (or 800-NXX) codes to include all possible 640 (or 792) theoretical codes. Shortly after divestiture, when other carriers wanted to provide toll-free 800 services, they wanted access to AT&T's 800 database. The courts turned them down, and recommended determination of carrier by 800-NXX code, as there were just under 600 possible NXX codes not being used at that time. Bell Communications Research's Numbering and Dialing Plan Group (now Bellcore's NANPA) developed assignment guidelines for assigning 800-NXX codes to specific applying carriers. AT&T (and Canada) would be "grandfathered" in with their existing 800-NNX codes (except 800-555 and 800-855). The 800-N11 codes would not be available so as not to cause customer confusion with three-digit N11 local service codes. The sixteen 800-N02 and N12 codes would be reserved for intrastate "RCC" paging and wireless services. 800-555 and 800-855 would not be assigned to any particular carrier. Bellcore would assign the last four digit line numbers within these two codes, but existing users would be "grandfathered" in. In Canada, the Telecom-Canada (now Stentor) companies have continued to provide the routing for 800-555 and 800-855 numbers within Canada, while AT&T continued to provide routing for 800-555 and 800-855 within the US. The ultimate plan for 800 was intended to be "full" portability, using LEC provided number databases using SS-7 signaling. That was accomplished in the US in early 1993. Canada joined into the North American 800-number portability database system in early 1994. There are still a few Caribbean islands which have *dedicated* 800-NXX codes for their use, and these 800-NXX's are not available for use in the US or Canada, and are not included in the portability pool of NXX's. However, 800-555 and 800-855 continued to be routed by AT&T or Stentor, as before. In November 1994, AT&T (and Stentor), Bellcore and the 800 Database administrator put 800-555 into the "general" portability pool. Again, existing 800-555-xxxx numbers continued to be "grandfathered" in, using AT&T (or Stentor) as the carrier for routing. 800-855 is still used for TTY/TDD services. I don't know if there is carrier portability in that NXX yet or if AT&T (and Stentor) still do all of the carrier routing. Last year, the 800 Database administrator began to allow use of the N11 codes as valid 800-NXX codes, *except* for 800-911 so as not to cause customer dialing errors resulting in a call to a local 911 Emergency Center. And now we have 888-NXX codes, with Special Area Codes 877, 866, 855, 844, 833 and 822 reserved for future use for toll-free services. > As opposed to 900-555, which is another matter, entirely. The 900-NXX's are still not "portable". Neither are the 500-NXX's nor the Canadian 600-NXX's. The NXX's are still assigned by Bellcore NANPA (or the numbering administrator with the Canadian Government's Industry Canada in the case of 600) to *specific* carriers or functions. 900-555 had been an AT&T (Bell System) code in use since the 1970's, and it remained with AT&T (and Telecom Canada, now Stentor) after divestiture. On another but related matter, people have asked if local ten-digit dialing becomes mandatory in any particular area if there could be NPA-0XX or NPA-1XX central office codes. Similarly, since 500, 600, 700, 800 (and 888) and 900 numbers *must* be dialed as a full-ten digit number if there could be N00-0XX and N00-1XX codes. For "geographic POTS" area codes, there are 0XX and 1XX codes used 'after' the NPA code used for internal network routings and test functions, as well as LEC/AT&T operator codes used to reach other operators. Also, special or non-line-number based calling cards use the RAO (Revenue Accounting Office) code if they are issued by the LEC, or CIID (Card Issuer IDentifier) codes if they are issued by an interexchange carrier (if that carrier follows Bellcore/Stentor standards for such). For card purposes, an RAO/CIID begins NXX-0XX or NXX-1XX. The RAO is *not* the area code of the location, but the use of 0XX and 1XX after the NXX RAO/CIID is used so as not to cause a "code conflict" with actual NXX Area Codes. At the "bong" tone, you enter a fourteen digit card number whether it is an LEC assigned line-number based card or a LEC or Long Distance Company assigned RAO/CIID card number. Use of actual telephone numbers of the form NPA-0XX or NPA-1XX would cause a "code conflict" when issuing or entering calling cards, unless another numbering standard were to be adopted. As for "special" area codes of the form N00 (500, 600, 700, 800/888 and 900 are the only ones in use as of now), there are no RAO/CIID-based cards beginning with 600, 700, 800/88X or 900. There *are* RAO/CIID assignments beginning with 400 and 500. As of last year, there weren't any RAO/CIID's beginning with 200 or 300, but those might have become assigned since then. In theory, there *could* be numbers of the form 800-0XX-xxxx or 800-1XX-xxxx, and the same *could* apply to 900 numbers. This has been brought up before at INC/ICCF meetings, but the general opinion is that *every* switch (local, toll, PBX, etc) used in North America (and possibly other parts of the world) would have to be reprogrammed to handle such codes. Some switching systems might be unable to handle such codes *at all*. There would only be a maximum of two-hundred codes available, while using 888-NXX made virtually eight-hundred possible NXX codes available. And there would be customer confusion resulting to misdialed calls (i.e. not dialing the N00 before the seven-digit portion) to the Operator or 0+, thus either tying up the equipment in a partial dial, tying up the time of the Operator, or maybe even reaching a toll number! But there might come a time in the future when N00-0XX and N00-1XX codes will be used, and if the internal network routing codes and RAO/CIID cards are re-numbered or another standard is adopted, we also might at some point see NPA-0XX-xxxx and NPA-1XX-xxxx "POTS" numbers. MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ From: izzy@izzy.com (Michael Israeli) Subject: Cellular Caller ID Deadline? Date: 5 Jun 1996 17:30:48 GMT Organization: Izzy Internet Services Did cellular phone companies have to comply with the June 1 deadline in providing caller ID information on all outgoing calls? Both carriers in the Philadelphia, PA area (Bell Atlantic NYNEX mobile and Comcast Cellular) do not deliver caller ID. Michael ------------------------------ From: Chris Paulse Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 09:01:56 -0400 Subject: Canadian ISDN and Inmarsat B Organization: Ohio State University Physics Dept. I'm told that Stentor is blocking all ISDN calls from within Canada that are headed to Inmarsat B landstations. Can anyone elaborate on this problem, and perhaps give some indication of when this fiasco will be resolved? ------------------------------ From: Miles B. Whitener Subject: Distinctive Ring Support in Voice Mail Date: Wed, 05 Jun 1996 20:04:39 -0500 Organization: I-Theta Corporation I am looking for a PC voice mail system that supports the Distinctive Ring feature. This would allow automatic routing to different mailboxes depending upon the number dialed. (Distinctive Ring gives a single line up to three numbers -- incoming calls calls are distinguished by the ringing pattern -- normal, short-long-short, etc.) ------------------------------ From: kevin@eagle.ais.net (Kevin R. Ray) Subject: Re: Caller-ID Delay in California Date: 05 Jun 1996 16:06:46 GMT Organization: Bob Ray & Associates, Inc. Reply-To: kevin@bobray.kray.com Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com) wrote: > Greetings. At the request of Pacific Bell, the California PUC has > granted a one month delay in the implementation of CNID in California, > from June 1 to July 1. The reason? The local telcos have been > swamped with requests by subscribers for "complete" (per line) CNID > blocking, and have fallen behind in processing the backlog of phoned > and written-in requests. The test numbers established for subscribers > to determine if blocking is set properly on their lines have also been > yielding "all circuits busy" intercepts for long periods in many areas > around the state. It should be fascinating to see what the stats end > up looking like. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I find it just incredible that you seem > to have so many people in California on this kick. What is with all > these people who seem to feel they have this right to hide themselves > when they make calls no matter whose time they waste or whatever fool- > ish calls they originate? I'll be glad to see 'blocked number blocking' > (where recipients have the right to block calls from persons who hide > their phone numbers) become universal. I am going to encourage everyone > to sign up for it. PAT] My solution (in IL) has been simple. I have a CID box which "blocks" blocked calls. This has caused a problem in that Cellular One automatically makes your cell name/number "Anonymous". Anyone calling me from a cell-one cell phone is blocked. You can call Cellular One and have them transmit the CID down the wire (I did). As for making calls. I got a multi-ring number which I consider to be my home/voice number. So when I make a call the base line number is transmitted which doesn't do anyone (aka telemarketers) any good. Calling me back at that number will give you a computer modem, maybe a fax machine, an accounce only answering machine (with a intercept message recorded :-), etc (depends on my mood). Two rings (which I ignore) and then never a person. Two rings to get THEIR CID info ... :-) I've been doing it this way for years and can't remember the last time I was interrupted (like from dinner) with someone trying to sell me something. It just doesn't happen. BTW, multi-ring numbers are by default unlisted/unpublished (ie: which otherwise would cost more $$$). ------------------------------ From: kevinp@pacific.net.sg (Kevin) Subject: Fax-On-Demand / Fax Back Help Date: Wed, 05 Jun 1996 22:49:26 +0800 Organization: Kevin Pan Hello! We are looking urgently for a software (or hardware/software combination) to turn a non-PowerPC Mac into a Fax-On-Demand / Fax Back machine. I would also appreciate if anyone could point to some information. Many thanks in advance! Regards, Kevin Pan ------------------------------ From: cannet.com@cannet.cannet.com Subject: Local Exchange Information Wanted Date: 5 Jun 1996 13:42:53 GMT Organization: APK - Internet Provider for Ohio. Reply-To: cannet.com@cannet.cannet.com In which publication is it identified which Local exchanges an call other local exchanges? This seems like some very simple information that is very hard to get. I am always pointed to the front of the phone books. Does there exist a entire list of local calling areas by Area-code exchange? Does the FCC require the Local telephone to identify this information? How does one get it? Thanks in advance, Dave T. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not think there is any single consolidated source for this information, although I could be wrong. I think because the list of such would be so long and tedious and cross-referenced, you need to ask each telco, meaning basically check each telephone directory to see what the 'local arrangements' are. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Jun 1996 22:00:47 +0000 From: John_Fricks@nt.com Subject: Re: Great Circle Mileage Equations Organization: Nortel In article , jmayson@p100dl.ess. harris.com (John Mayson) wrote: > I derived this formula to calculate great circle mileage equations. > I don't know if this is the best way to do it, but it works. > Now here's my question for you. How would I find the azimuth > (direction) of one point on earth wrt to another? Here's the method I use for both great circle distance and azimuth. Formula are written for Excel spreadsheet, in which trigonometric functions require angles expressed in radians rather than degrees: Great Circle Calculations Objective: Distance and azimuth between major cities Enter coordinates of origin: (Raleigh, North Carolina) ORGLAT 35.7833 ORGLON 78.6500 Enter coordinates of destination: (Nairobi, Kenya) DESLAT -1.2833 DESLO -36.8167 Is origin closest to the pole? NSF 1 =IF(ABS(ORGLAT) wrote: > The [AT&T] 9300 900MHz cordless phone is advertised as having spread > spectrum technology. It also has "100 channels"; the two features seem > to be contradictory because, as I understand it, spread sprectrum > operation connotes frequency hopping, within a band, to get around > interference. While frequency hopping is one type of spread spectrum, the more commonly used form of spread spectrum is direct sequence. I believe that DS is used by the AT&T phone. In direct sequence SS, the signal is pseudorandomly spread into a wider bandwidth. The center frequency of the spreading is generally regarded as the 'channel frequency'. Ralph Sprang ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 06 Jun 1996 02:34:09 -0600 From: Jim Murphy Subject: Voice Over Data? A company I have done some work for has asked me to look into using their T1 and 56K circuits to send voice along with the data. We would like to basically be able to go off hook in City A and get dial tone from City B. Since we already have the connection via the T1 or 56K, could we somehow connect dial tone lines from City A and B to some kind of multiplexer at each end and be able to access that dial tone from either end? Thanks for your help! Jim ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 06 Jun 1996 08:30:31 PDT From: Anthony S. Chang Subject: Video Over 100Mbps Ethernet (Switched) Does anyone have info on how full motion video fares on 100Mbps (shared and switched) ethernet LANs? We are using Cisco Catalyst 5000 switches and want to know if the capabilities are there and what the quality of service would be. Thanks. Anthony Chang Northrop Grumman 310-331-4119 achang@world.northgrum.com ------------------------------ From: iceberg@indy.net (IceBerg) Subject: Wanted: Information on CID via CW Date: 05 Jun 1996 21:57:53 GMT Organization: IndyNet - Indys Internet Gateway (info@indy.net) I am trying to find technical information on how the new Caller ID with Call Waiting service operates. It is available here in Indianapolis on our local carrier Ameritech. Any information you can help me with would be appreciated. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #270 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jun 6 15:02:34 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id PAA04546; Thu, 6 Jun 1996 15:02:34 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 15:02:34 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606061902.PAA04546@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #271 TELECOM Digest Thu, 6 Jun 96 15:02:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 271 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Determining the Public Interest in Telecommunications? (Ronda Hauben) New International Freephone Standard (Robert Shaw) Toronto, Montreal Slated to Get New Area Codes (Dave Leibold) AT&T Wireless Tells Cell Roamers: Don't Call Police on #95 (P. Robinson) Reel World Product Placement (Tad Cook) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ronda@panix.com (Ronda Hauben) Subject: Determining the Public Interest in Telecommunications? Date: 6 Jun 1996 12:33:32 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC The following conference about the public interest in telecommuni- cations is planned for June 10 by the Benton Foundation and the NTIA - Interesting that it is happening. However, it seems to leave out any discussion of the history and development of the Net and of the battle for access to the Net and to telecommunications. Thus it seems to perpetuate the myth that the new U.S. telecommunications law is founded on, i.e. that you can ignore past experience and build a telecommunications infrastructure on the ideology that the so called "market" of big corporate entities will solve the problems. The conference is being called to explore the question: how is the public interest interest faring in the new telecommunications environment? Yet where is the voice of the public in the conference? Unless there is some way such organizations as the NTIA and the Benton Foundation open up their activities to more input from the public, especially the online public, it doesn't seem there is any way their actions will be any more helpful to the public and the public interest than the pro corporate Telecommunications Act that was just passed by the U.S. Congress. This kind of conference suggests why there needs to be research into and discussion of the vision for the future of the Net and the telecommunicaitons infrastructure that will serve the public rather than the one that the large corporate entities are promoting. The current issue of the Amateur Computerist begins to suggest that there is a very different vision of those who want the net and the telecommunications infrastructure to serve the public than those who are out to gain the biggest possible profits for the big corporate interests. Ronda ronda@panix.com ae547@yfn.ysu.edu ================= Begin forwarded message ================= From: benton@benton.org (Benton Foundation) Subject: Up for Grabs Conference Date: Wed, 05 Jun Benton Foundation and NTIA convene more than 200 community networkers, educators, library leaders, policymakers, government officials, industry representatives, scholars, funders, and advocates in Washington, D.C. on June 10, 1996 to explore the question: how is the public interest faring in the new telecommunications environment? A RealAudio live internet feed will allow people outside the beltway to plug in and hear what's going on. To access the feed, visit http://www.benton.org/upforgrabs. For information call 202-778-1460. AGENDA Up for Grabs: Communications Practice & Policy in the Public Interest Co-sponsored by BENTON FOUNDATION NATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION (NTIA) Gallaudet University, Kellogg Conference Center, Washington, D.C. Monday, June 10 9:00am Welcoming Remarks -- Ballroom Speakers: Denise Cavanaugh, Principal, Cavanaugh,Hagan & Pierson, Inc. Larry Irving, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information, Department of Commerce Henry Rivera, Ginsberg, Feldman, and Bress, Chartered 9:20am Roundtable--Ballroom "Mapping the Post-Telecommunications Act Environment" Moderator: Andrew Blau, Benton Foundation Speakers: Al Hammond, Director, New York Law School, Communications Media Center Ed Markey, US House of Representatives Bob Rowe, Commissioner, Montana Public Service Commission A vigorous, moderated conversation will paint the "big picture" of the post-Telecommunications Act landscape, and explore the critical skills and strategic relationships needed to strengthen the public interest. The outcome of this conversation will identify obstacles and opportunities and frame the issues to be addressed in the breakout sessions. 10:30am Guided Breakout Sessions Challenged by the panel to respond to their descriptions of opportunities and barriers, participants from all sectors will be guided by group leaders to analyze more deeply their local experience and to take ownership of their own knowledge and practice. Outcomes will be distilled over lunch to inform the strategic agenda-setting activities of the afternoon. Group Leaders: Karen Buller, National Indian Telecommunications Institute Ellis Jacobs, Legal Aid Society of Dayton Ceasar McDowell, Civil Rights Project Incorporated Alan Melchior, Heller School, Brandeis University Steven E. Miller, Massachusetts NetDay '96 Maxine Rockoff, United Neighborhood Houses of New York, Inc. Eleanor Jo Rodger, Urban Libraries Council Alan Shaw, Music/LUV Toni Stone, Community Technology Centers Network (CTCNet) Armando Valdez--LatinoNet 12:45pm Keynote--Auditorium Introductions: Charles Benton, Chairman of the Board, Benton Foundation I. King Jordan, President of Gallaudet University Speaker: Robert Kerrey--US Senate 1:15pm Afternoon Panel "Fulfilling the communication needs of communities in the new marketplace" Introduction: Mark Lloyd, Attorney, Dow, Lohnes & Albertson Moderator: Dorothy Ridings, President, Council on Foundations Speakers: James Burger, Senior Director, Worldwide Government Affairs, Apple Computer, Inc. Ed Ferran, Program Coordinator, National Community Building Network Thomas Kalil, Senior Director, National Economic Council Robert McChesney, Associate Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison. LaVarr Webb, Deputy for Policy, Governor Leavitt, Utah Representatives from the administration, corporations, and the foundation/NGO community will look at the adequacy of the new marketplace for meeting the needs of communities. 2:45pm Creating an Action Agenda Facilitator: Denise Cavanaugh Morning breakout discussions will be distilled and reported out simultaneously. In a strategically moderated meeting of the whole, the group leaders and others will be called upon to explain, compare, defend, and promote the positions and plans developed in the morning breakouts. In small groups and as a whole, participants will develop an action agenda for individual and collective activity after the conference. 5:00pm Summing Up -- Ballroom Reactions from representatives of the public and private sectors, as well as closing comments by the NTIA and the Benton Foundation. Moderator: Charles Benton, Benton Foundation Speakers: Julius Genachowski, Counsel to the Chairman, Federal Communications Commission Major Kiddick, Chief of Staff, Governor Glendenning's Office, Maryland Charlotte Kahn, Director, Boston Persistent Poverty Project, Boston Foundation ----------- Amateur Computerist available free via email ae547@yfn.ysu.edu Vol. 7 No. 1 "Netizens and Online Access" Winter/Spring 1995/6 "Will Access to the Net Be a Privilege or a Right?" Access for All FAQ History of Cleveland Freenet An Online Prototype for Policy Decisons ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 06 Jun 1996 09:43:00 +0100 From: shaw Subject: New International Freephone Standard Hi Pat, Thought your readers might be interested in the following ITU press release on the New International Freephone Standard. Regards, Robert Shaw shaw@itu.ch International Telecommunication Union http://www.itu.ch Information Services Department 4 June 1996 ITU approves new standard for international freephone The International Telecommunication Union has recently approved a new standard which will allow users to make 'freephone' calls internationally. The new ITU-T Recommendation, number E.169, will allow International Freephone Service customers to be allocated a unique Universal International Freephone Number (UIFN) which will remain the same throughout the world, regardless of country or telecommunications carrier. 'Freephone' is a service which permits the cost of a telephone call to be charged to the called party, rather than the calling party. Pioneered in the United States in 1966, the freephone service now carries around 100 million calls per day in that country alone. US companies currently hold around 90 per cent of the world's nine million freephone numbers. Freephone has proved particularly popular with business subscribers, who are often willing to bear the cost of a telephone call in order to promote their services or to encourage customers to order their products by phone. Recent estimates by AT&T indicated some US$100 billion is currently traded over the freephone service every year. Until now, however, companies have been restricted by only being able to use their freephone number in one country. Those organizations wishing to offer services or products to customers on an international basis have had no choice but to register a separate number in each country, which has proved unwieldy and often inefficient. The ITU's new standard for international freephone will greatly free-up companies' ability to operate across international markets, and will benefit consumers by allowing them to obtain information or to 'shop around' for goods and services at no personal expense. It is hoped the new standard might also stimulate the market for freephone services in Europe and Asia-Pacific, regions that until now have been slow to take up the service. The potential market for the new international freephone service is expected to be considerable. The 'globalization' of markets via new technologies such as the Internet means that many companies are now able to offer their products and services to users in different countries, and will benefit from being able to advertise a single 'toll-free' number to potential customers all over the world. Calls to the new global number can also be routed to different destinations, allowing companies to direct their incoming calls to the most appropriate location for efficient handling. While perhaps not as glamorous as 'sexy' new technologies such as multimedia or video-on-demand, freephone services are nevertheless expected to represent a more important source of revenue in the foreseeable future. In developing the new Universal International Freephone Numbering system, the ITU followed four principal objectives: * Portability of the UIFN, allowing companies to retain their global number if they change carriers; * A flexible structure (a UIFN is composed of a three digit country code for global service application, 800, and an 8-digit Global Subscriber Number [GSN], resulting in an eleven-digit fixed format) which allows companies to choose the digits they wish and embed existing freephone numbers into the available number space [see fn 1]; * A format which allows for efficient routing of calls between service providers; * An impartial system of allocation and handling of numbers, via an international registrar. Following the approval of the standard, the June session of the ITU Council is expected to ratify the mandate for the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau to act as the registrar of the new system, and to undertake the task of allocating and maintaining a central global registry of international freephone numbers. The organization has already begun work on the establishment of the new UIFN database and will allocate numbers on a first-come, first-served basis, with a fee to be charged to offset the cost of maintaining the system. Progress towards the commencement of registration of UIFNs is now well-advanced, and it has recently been decided to extend the acceptance of applications by 60 days instead of the 30 days mentioned in the Recommendation, in order to allow ample time to process the large number of applications which are anticipated. The schedule for applications is as follows: 3 September 1996: advertising notification 3 December 1996: collection of applications 1 February 1997: amend all invalid applications 4 February 1997: onwards: conflict resolution and assigning UIFNs From 1 February onwards applications will be treated on a first come, first served basis, but number reservations will not be made until all conflict resolutions are complete. For those interested, more information concerning application forms, payment of registration fee, contact number of the Registrar, application procedures and so on will be provided via ITU Circular. Preliminary information will be available from July 1996 on the World Wide Web at http://www.itu.ch, under the heading Telecommunication Standardization Bureau. [fn 1] An international freephone service caller must dial an international prefix prior to the UIFN. For example, a caller dialling from Switzerland would dial: 00 (international prefix), 800 (international country code for freephone), then the eight-digit Global Subsriber Number. FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT Telecommunication Standardization Bureau Mr Zoltan John Tar Fax: +41 22 730 5853 Internet: tar@itu.ch Mr Ah-ho Mafat Fax: +41 22 730 5853 Internet: mafat@itu.ch Press and Public Information Tel: +41 22 730 6039 Fax: +41 22 730 5939 Internet: pressinfo@itu.ch More information about the ITU is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.itu.ch ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 00:39:32 EDT From: Dave Leibold Subject: Toronto, Montreal Slated to Get New Area Codes From the Angus Telemanagement Update this week (off the website http://www.angustel.ca/) there was news that Montreal area code 514 could be split by the end of 1998, and another Toronto area code added around 2000 (to the 416 area presumably ... or maybe 905 is also involved?). This news is probably not too official at present. One or both of these could be overlays, something that would be decided by Bell Canada. An overlay seems likely if the new code is for NPA 416 since Metro Toronto has been treated as a single exchange area for local calling and rating purposes for many years. However, there could be a geographic division available, such as the City of Toronto proper keeping 416 while the outer Metro areas (North York, Scarborough, Etobicoke, etc.) get the new (to be announced) code, or it could be a New York style assignment where the new area code is for cellular, pagers and other services. A geographic division of the Montreal-area 514 NPA might be handy, such as the Montreal island keeping 514, with the rest switching to the new area. Geographic splitting would be easier to do in 514 than in 416. Or maybe an overlay will happen in 514 after all ... only Bell Canada knows for sure. The new NPA for Montreal was something of a surprise to hear, considering that various predictions (reports on the COCUS, various Digest reports on NPA-NXX lists, Rifton NPA split info) have generally not considered 514 to be at capacity for the near term. There is also the lack of population growth and muted business activity in the region, mainly due to the continuing Quebec separatist scare. However, Montreal has the second-largest Canadian metropolitan area and no doubt has its share of cellular, fax and modem activity. Other than plans for a separate NWT/Yukon NPA, and the previously- announced 604/250 split in British Columbia, the only other split situation to watch for in the near term seems to be Alberta. Even with the NWT and Yukon out of 403, there are plenty of NXX assignments in there. David Leibold -+- dleibold@else.net ++ aa070@freenet.toronto.on.ca :: ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Jun 1996 20:06:52 EDT From: Paul Robinson Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company/TDR, Inc. Silver Spring, MD USA Subject: AT&T Wireless Tells Cellular Roamers: Don't call NJ Police on #95 On traveling Interstate 95 between the Washington DC area and the New York City - Jersey City - Newark Airport area I discovered some interesting things during the past four trips I've had to make there: - All gasoline sold in New Jersey is both mandatory Full Service, it is at least 15 to 40c per gallon cheaper than any gas, even self service, in New York City, Delaware or Washington, DC. - In Washington, DC, Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware, if you see a vehicle that has had a problem, you may call #77 as a free call to report it. - I'm traveling using a car which has a (B-System) cellular phone with Cellular One and a 703 number (Northern Virginia). I have been able to report cars I've seen abandoned or disabled on freeways everywhere from Fredericksburg, VA to the south all the way to Newark, Delaware, (to the north) by dialing #77. - If you go into New Jersey, the signs tell you to dial #95 to report such things to the state police. - The state radio system (1610 AM) reports such calls are toll and airtime free from MOST major cellular services. - Along part of the New Jersey Turnpike - near exit 10, for example - calls *do go through* using #95. - When attempting to use the service past the airport at Newark, New Jersey, (exit 14A/B/C, Jersey City and the Holland Tunnel) to report a car abandoned on the road, dialing #95 produces an error message similar to the following: This is AT&T Wireless Services. The number you have dialed is not valid. If you are calling a number outside of your own area code, you must first dial "1" plus the area code and the number. What surprises me is that I both placed and received calls while in several states, on an automatic basis without having to register the phone or perform any special operations, yet apparently AT&T is unable or unwilling to allow people roaming to connect to the state police. I didn't use 911 to make this type of report because it wasn't that serious. But it does say something about the - what is a good term here - lack of professionalism or lack of forethought in not making the service operate correctly. Obviously, Cellular Carriers are not "giving away" these special code sequences; they charge for them as well as collecting the airtime charge from the customer, the same way MCI charges me a monthly fee and a per-minute charge for every call that is received on my company's 800 number. Why exactly is AT&T having a problem providing the same service that all the other carriers "from DC to DE" have no trouble doing? Maybe they want to keep the "foreigners" (roamers from foreign systems) from calling just like they do in poorer neighborhoods in large cities trying to use their calling cards in areas where high fraud problems occur? :) Paul Robinson General Manager Tansin A. Darcos & Company/TDR, Inc. Among Other things, we sell and service ideas. Call 1-800-TDARCOS from anywhere in North America if you are interested in buying an idea to solve one of your problems. ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: Reel World Product Placement Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 15:14:23 PDT This may seem off-topic, except that there was a recent thread about product placement in movies, and questions about how that happens. THE REEL WORLD Product Placement: Consumerism Reaches New Heights in Movies By JOHN HORN AP Entertainment Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Here's the swing -- and the pitch. You have to look closely, but Kevin Costner packs a Taylor Made Burner Bubble driver in his "Tin Cup" golf bag. Tom Cruise surfs the net on an Apple PowerBook 5300 in "Mission: Impossible." Pierce Brosnan's "Goldeneye" James Bond has traded up to a BMW Z3 Roadster. And "Demolition Man's" Sylvester Stallone dines at a Taco Bell. Or is it a Pizza Hut? Consumer products have never played a more prominent co-starring role in the movies, and the marketing doesn't stop on screen. In a multi- million dollar effort to cash in on hit films, companies of all stripes are laying out huge sums to become promotional partners with Hollywood blockbusters -- even when their product doesn't appear in the movie. For the manufacturers, the advantages are twofold. For minimal cost, a product can share the screen with Bruce Willis or Julia Roberts. And with the right advertising campaign, something as dull as a hamburger can enjoy a fortune of brand-name publicity. Reese's Pieces got a huge boost from "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," and "Toy Story" sparked an avalanche of once-defunct Slinky Dog sales. In the last several months, McDonald's, PepsiCo, Apple and BMW all have shelled out millions to become promotional partners with Hollywood's top filmmakers. McDonald's pact with Disney doesn't mean Big Macs will start appearing in animated musicals, but McDonald's will be Disney's primary promotional partner for 10 years. "More and more marketers are trying to do movie promotions," says Dean Ayers, president of the Entertainment Resources and Marketing Association. "Today's films are a major force in creating icons and showing what's hip and trendy. They drive people into the stores." For the studios and filmmakers, the placement and promotion deals are a sure-fire daily double. Products lend a movie real-world authenticity, and can help defray costly prop and wardrobe budgets. More important is the free advertising: BMW and Apple spent $15 million apiece advertising "Goldeneye" and "Mission Impossible." Taylor Made will run "Tin Cup" ads in seven golf magazines -- and Warner Bros. won't spend a dime. Just like studio executives, marketing experts struggle to pick which film will -- or will not -- be a hit. And even with a filmmaker's promise, a product placement can backfire. Black & Decker paid to have a drill featured in one of the "Die Hard" movies, but the power tool landed on the cutting room floor. Coca-Cola successfully asked Oliver Stone to cut a Coke commercial from the ultraviolent "Natural Born Killers." Orkin lent its pest-control name to "Pacific Heights," but was aghast (and later sued) when the movie depicted an Orkin technician as a hopeless dolt. Many films do not lend themselves to product placement and promotional tie-ins. Jack Daniels, for instance, would have been crazy to sign on with the alcoholic drama "Leaving Las Vegas." The babes-and-burgers chain Hooters turned down a chance to cross-promote the even lower-rent "Showgirls." Some people have criticized Apple's appearance in "Mission: Impossible." Although Cruise's character spends much of the film typing on a computer keyboard, it's not always clear he's working on an Apple. The fancy BMW also didn't get much screen time in "Goldeneye" -- Bond clearly still favors an Aston Martin. Some product plugs are almost unnoticeable. "They can be both obvious and subliminal at the same time," says Michael Schau, the executive editor of the Entertainment Marketing Letter, a trade publication. "You could be seeing a lot more Chrysler than you imagine." Such is the case with Taylor Made golf clubs. As part of the "Tin Cup" plot, Roy McAvoy (Costner) doesn't have access to fancy sponsors and top-of-the-line equipment: he's a backroad hustler. Costner personally golfs with Taylor Made metal woods, so the film's prop department took sandpaper to such a club, gave it a wood-grain paint job, and passed it off as a steel-shafted persimmon driver. Don Johnson, who stars opposite Costner as a PGA pro, doesn't have to disguise his brand. His clubs -- and golf bag -- all say Taylor Made. Johnson's golf hat, thanks to another product placement deal, is from Nissan. Cast and crew members say the real benefit of product placement is free loot. Taylor Made has given away valuable golf equipment to two dozen Warner Bros. executives, and Nike is loved throughout Hollywood for showering everyone down to the bagel boy with free shoes and sporting goods. The only reason Travolta and Christian Slater wear Adidas boxing shoes in "Broken Arrow" is because one of the producers wanted Adidas freebies for his personal shoe collection. Movie makers are showing increasing flexibility to work products into films. As originally filmed, a key scene in "Flipper" had Elijah Wood's character kick a Coca-Cola can into the water. The brainy dolphin flicks the can back on the dock, and a filmic friendship is formed. Shortly before the film was released, Pizza Hut joined with Universal Pictures to promote the movie. One problem: Pizza Hut is owned by Pepsi, which also owns Taco Bell and KFC. So the filmmakers reshot the aquatic bonding scene, this time with a Pepsi can. Pepsi also figures in one of the stranger product placement scenes in recent years. In the 1993 futuristic thriller "Demolition Man," Sandra Bullock informs Stallone that only Taco Bell has survived the franchise wars of the 20th century -- it's literally the only restaurant left. It was a great plug -- with a catch. Taco Bell has 4,600 outlets in the United States but only a handful overseas. Sister restaurant Pizza Hut, on the other hand, has 3,300 international locations. For the film's international release, special effects experts digitally removed the Taco Bell logo from the film, added a new restaurant and rerecorded Bullock's dialogue. Now, when the movie is shown overseas, Taco Bell has failed, just like all the other chains. There's only Pizza Hut. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #271 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jun 6 15:54:27 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id PAA10184; Thu, 6 Jun 1996 15:54:27 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 15:54:27 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606061954.PAA10184@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #272 TELECOM Digest Thu, 6 Jun 96 15:54:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 272 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telecom Archives CD-ROM Ordering Details (TELECOM Digest Editor) Research Proposal Toward Vision of Future of the Net (Ronda Hauben) WebPhone 2.0 beta (Jorene Downs) Sprint Fridays Were Free (Dan Ryan) Re: Followup on Sprint Fridays Free (Tom Horsley) Problems With US Robotics Service (Cathryn Gries) Summary Report on ISLIP 96 (Dr. Edward Ashcroft) TRADE Project - 3D Telemedical Environment Over Global ATM (M. Macedonia) Re: AC 210 May be Split Into Four (John Cropper) Invented Dial Tone? (Fred R. Goldstein) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Telecom Archives CD-ROM Ordering Details Date: Thu, 06 Jun 1996 18:42:16 -0700 From: TELECOM Digest Editor People have been asking how to order the Telecom Archives CDROM by mail order. Not everyone has been able to find it in a store as of yet. If you can find it in a store, you will save on the shipping charges, however it might simply be easier for you to order it direct from the publisher, so details are given below. The Telecom Archives is a fifteen year collection of the stuff which has appeared in TELECOM Digest since 1981 along with a few hundred other files of telecom related material. There are a lot of technical files, historical files, etc. Everything that was there through the end of 1995 is included. The cost is $39.95. Please buy a copy, as the royalties will help me a lot. Also, if sales are good, there will be an update with the 1996 material on it at some future point. ============================================================================ shipping information: ============================================================================ Shipping is $5 in the USA, Canada, and Mexico for First Class. Overseas is $9 PER ORDER. There is an additional $3 COD charge (USA Only). UPS Blue Label (2nd day) [USA Only] is $10 PER ORDER, UPS Red Label (next day) [USA Only] is $15 PER ORDER. Federal Express (next day) [USA Only] is $20 PER ORDER. For overseas courier rates, please email us. Ordering Information: You can order by sending a check or money order to Walnut Creek CDROM Suite E 4041 Pike Lane Concord CA 94520 USA 1 800 786-9907 (Toll Free Sales) [open 24HRS] +1 510 674-0783 (Sales-International) +1 510 603-1234 (tech support) [M-F 9AM - 5PM, PST] +1 510 674-0821 (FAX) orders@cdrom.com (For placing an order) info@cdrom.com (For requesting more information or for customer service questions) support@cdrom.com (For technical questions and technical support) majordomo@cdrom.com (Info Robot-automated product information and support) We accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, and Diner's Club. ALL credit card orders MUST include a phone or fax number. COD shipping is available for $8.00 in the US only, NO COD shipping to P O Boxes. Checks and Money Orders payable in US funds, can be sent along with ordering information to our normal business address. California residents please add sales tax. Shipping and handling is $5 (per ORDER, not per disc) for US, Canada, and Mexico, and $9 for overseas (AIRMAIL) shipping. Please allow 14 working days ( 3 weeks ) for overseas orders to arrive. Most orders arrive in 1-2 weeks. -------------------- Therefore, unless you want next day delivery by FedEx which would make it quite expensive you would send $39.95 plus $5 to Walnut Creek at thier address above, or authorize them to charge your credit card, etc. As noted also, customers outside the USA need to pay additional shipping costs. Write to Walnut Creek at the addresses above. If you can find it in a retail outlet then you save shipping and handling charges. In any event, please buy one today! PAT -------------------- The Telecom Archives remains a free resource for the Internet and is available using anonymous ftp massis.lcs.mit.edu. ------------------------------ From: rh120@merhaba.cc.columbia.edu (Ronda Hauben) Subject: Research Proposal toward Vision of Future of the Net Date: 6 Jun 1996 15:18:55 GMT Organization: Columbia University Recently in post on the Netizens Association Mailing List, Kerry pointed out the following grant that the nsf has available. >From The Scout Report - May 10, 1996 http://rs.internic.net/scout/report/current/#1 NSF Recognition Awards for the Integration of Research and Education: A new National Science Foundation program represents one aspect of the Foundation's commitment to the core strategy of integrating research and education, as described in the strategic plan, "NSF in a Changing World." The program will make awards that recognize up to ten research-intensive universities that have shown leadership, innovation, and achievement in their efforts to integrate research and education (specifically college freshmen through Ph.D.) throughout their organizations. Preliminary applications are required and must be received by July 5, 1996. Full information on the Recognition Awards can be found on the NSF Recognition Awards Web page. http://www.nsf.gov/od/osti/raire/recintro.htm Recently I went to a program describing some of the research work a neighboring university was beginning. When I commented that there seemed to be a need for work regarding communication and networking, the person holding the program asked me to write up a proposal. I wrote up the following proposal and it seems that it is the kind of proposal that the NSF grant might make possible. I welcome comments and suggestions about it. I haven't gotten any response from the person asking me to send him a proposal, but I spent time working on the proposal so it should be circulated anyway and it should help encourage the creation and development of worthwhile research work. From Time Sharing to the Internet What Is the Future the Net Makes Possible? A Proposal towards a Pilot for a Research Institute Significant computer communications developments have occurred in our time. We have seen the creation of interactive computing and time sharing, the development of the ARPANET, Usenet and then the Internet. (See "Netizens: An Anthology on the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet" The URL is http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook). What is the desirable future that these communications developments make possible? This is a proposal to set up a pilot research project to examine how the Internet and Usenet can have a beneficial impact on the society. The pilot project would consist of: 1) A monthly lecture series about the history and impact of the Net with each lecture and discussion based on the topics in "Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and Internet." These would be held both online and in a university setting. 2) A seminar for those in the university community interested in exploring the communication developments that the Net makes possible. 3) A 3 year research project supporting a few researchers full time and multiple student part time researchers to contribute to the work. A) At least one researcher to study the Net and its development as the paradigm for the future. The first year's research project could be something like a study of the posts on early Usenet toward a monograph at the end of the year's study. This could be followed by a two year project interviewing pioneers of Usenet and the Internet towards a book of interviews and also towards a conference about the Future of the Net. B) At least one researcher would study the effect the Net is having on society. These studies will provide some of the basis for the conference on the Future of the Net. C) Student researchers working on self chosen topics to contribute to the work. Students would be invited to submit research proposals. D) In the third year, there will be a conference with some of the networking pioneers on the topic of "Developing a Vision for the Future of the Net". The conference will build on a similar conference held in 1961 at MIT about the Future of the Computer. At that conference there was discussion of the impact the computer would have on the University, Libraries, Management, Politics, etc. The conference will be held in the Fall of 1998 and a book of the proceedings will be published in Spring of 1999 in time for welcoming in the new millennium in the year 2000. Students will be encouraged to participate as presenters and discussants. E) There will be an effort to develop an online research institute to help researchers collaborate towards the 1998 conference, and to collaborate with others doing similar research around the world. 4) Monthly dinner meetings for researchers who are studying the new communications technologies with papers exploring their impact. 5) There will be a need for office space, for administrative support when needed, and for a computer with sufficient memory that can be set up as a virtual research center on the Internet to help support the work. There will be an effort to gather the research available online about the Net and make it available at the virtual research center. Accounts will be issued for researchers so they can collaborate in real time and discuss their respective work on line, etc. 6) There will be planning and preparation for a conference on the Future of the Net which will look at how the Net can impact the University, the Community, Government, the Press, Libraries, and the Net itself. There will be work done to prepare for the conference by supporting online discussion lists, or newsgroups, etc. on these issues. 7) Funding for a University library to begin archiving online research resources like Usenet archives. 8) The pilot for the Institute will be available as a resource to those in the University community interested in exploring the communications advance that this new technology makes possible. Comments and suggestions towards this proposal welcome. Please send to rh120@columbia.edu ronda@panix.com Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 11:50:17 PDT From: Jorene Downs Subject: WebPhone 2.0 beta I did a brief follow-up on the recent article announcing the release of the WebPhone 2.0 beta, and received this response: From: ross schindler[SMTP:ross@netspeak.com] Sent: Thursday, June 6, 1996 12:50 To: 'jcdowns@strategic-vision.com' Subject: RE: WebPhone 2.0 > Thank you for your interest in the WebPhone 2.0 beta 1. Currently > the beta version of the WebPhone does contain a text area called the > Noteboard. You can do multi-line conference calling. You do not need > to have a static IP address to use the WebPhone. You dial by e-mail > address. Please visit our web page at www.netspeak.com to see the > WebPhone and it features. This Internet phone release looks as if it might be mature enough to be considered as more than a "isn't this fun!" add-on for the PC. There is still the issue of no standards (the different Net phone applications are currently unable to interconnect), limitations (technology is available to connect with traditional phone service, but it is not commonly available), and the potential for Net capacity problems. Regardless, the option of multi-line conferencing (they indicate 4 lines available, so I *assume* that is the limit) just moved Internet Telephony into a new arena. Many businesses would find a 4-line conference call very adequate for their daily needs, and certainly cheaper than a toll call. There is good opportunity for internal office (Intranet) usage as well, particularly with the voice messaging capabilities. The nominal investment in software, full duplex sound, and a speaker and mike / headphone / handset / earpiece would quickly pay for itself. Jorene ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 03:03:17 PDT From: Dan Ryan Subject: Sprint Fridays Were Free Maybe we might all get a little more satisfaction from Sprint if we didn't react to every action of theirs by summoning lawyers, and maybe made a few calls to their friendly customer service people instead. Like many others here, I was billed the $50 minimum on Sprint Fridays last week, despite having long since left their program. I called customer service, and within two minutes it had been dealt with and the appropriate credit applied to the bill. All done efficiently and courteously. Shouldn't we remember that everyone who subscribed to Sprint Fridays Free got two months of free calls? Much as we would have liked to have gotten ten more months, we all knew too that it was intended as a business promotion, even if the Sprint sales people told us otherwise. Otherwise, why was it an offering of Sprint Business Sense? Like found money, there was no offence committed by the recipient, but neither were we entitled to it by right. Sprint has lost a packet on this, and the conclusively demonstrated incompetence has kiboshed any imminent promotions of those responsible. So why don't we lighten up on them. After all, on the same bill where I was overcharged by Sprint, there was also a substantial overcharge by my present carrier. Sprint has no monopoly in mistreating customers ... Dan Ryan [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Very good point. Maybe we should lay off them a little, but I still believe it is important that no one pay any bills issued by Sprint as part of this fiasco, and I believe it is important to document in writing what takes place in the event that Sprint continues trying to pursue collection. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tom@news.hcsc.com (Tom Horsley) Subject: Re: Followup on Sprint Fridays Free Date: 05 Jun 1996 20:39:36 GMT Organization: Harris Computer Systems Corporation Reply-To: Tom.Horsley@news.hcsc.com > Does anyone else have anything to add? Sure. Make copies of everything, along with an explaination of the circumstances and send it off to your congresscritter. After all, its an election year, and they might sense an opportunity to look good by holding hearings and dragging Robin Loyed up before the committee. Heck, you might even see what he looks like on C-SPAN. Tom.Horsley@mail.hcsc.com or Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net Work: Harris Computers, 2101 W. Cypress Creek Rd. Ft. Lauderdale FL 33309 The 2 most important political web sites: http://www.vote-smart.org (Project Vote Smart), and http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/TomHorsley (Me!) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh, really now, I don't think writing to Congress about this is worth the effort. I would not bother those people with this issue. Anyway, in order to get Robin Loyed there, they would have to find him first, and I am still not convinced there is such a person; it might be just a phone name used by Sprint to tip them off in advance as to the nature of the latest cranky customer on the line and what they intend to complain about. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Cathryn Gries Subject: Problems With US Robotics Service Date: Wed, 05 Jun 1996 16:41:38 -0500 Organization: RLj Consulting, Ltd. I wanted to share a bad experience I recently had with US Robotics service. About two months ago (April 2 to be exact), I placed a replacement parts order for a PCMCIA modem cable. I was told the order would be filled within two weeks. I gave an American Express credit card number for billing. After about a month, I called and was told that the parts had been backordered and had just come in. I should again expect a shipment in two weeks. On 5/24, I called back and found out that my order was still open. The service rep said she would escalate it and ensure that it got filled. My phone number was on the order. After never hearing back her, I called again yesterday and was informed that they do not take American Express - I needed to provide a Visa/Mastercard number. I have now been without a modem for over two months. Not to mention all the time I've wasted on hold waiting for various service reps. Get your act together. Or is this a ploy to wear down my patience so that I will buy another modem? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 14:44:19 -0700 From: Dr. Edward Ashcroft Subject: Summary Report on ISLIP 96 Reply-To: Dr. Edward Ashcroft ISLIP 96 Successful! The Ninth ISLIP, the International Symposium on Languages for Intensional Programming, was held at Arizona State University on May 13 through May 15th. The meeting was successful, even though it started with a record temperature of 109 degrees, Fahrenheit! One of the events at ISLIP 96 was the first ever preannounced, formal presentations of Visual Java, demonstrated by its inventor and implementor, our own Tony Faustini. (Visual Java is based on Operator Nets, the graphical form of Lucid.) If anyone wants a copy of the proceedings, copies are available from me for $10. As was done for ISLIP 95, expanded and improved versions of the papers will be made into a book: Intensional Programming II, by World Scientific. Bad news: Bill Wadge will NOT be spending his Sabbatical at Grenoble next year, and so the next ISLIP will not be there. Bill WILL be at Victoria, and he has agreed to host ISLIP 97 at Victoria. (Since we now have a large contingent from Australia, I perhaps need to emphasize that that is Victoria, BC.) Ed Ashcroft ------------------------------ From: Michael Macedonia Subject: TRADE Project -- 3D Telemedical Environment Over Global ATM Date: Wed, 05 Jun 1996 22:04:41 -0400 Organization: brainiac Services CRCG Demonstrates 3D Telemedical Environment over Global ATM The Fraunhofer Center for Research in Computer Graphics (CRCG), Providence, RI successfully demonstrated today for the first time the use of global ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) networks for distributed 3D telemedicine. CRCG conducted the trial use of TeleInViVo with the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics (IGD) in Darmstadt, Germany via the May intercontinental ATM network sponsored by Global One, Teleglobe Canada, German Telekom and its subsidiary, DeTeBerkom. The network is being used by the partners to investigate high-bandwidth distributed multimedia applications for use over global ATM links. TeleInViVo is a joint project between IGD and CRCG. Medical visualization is heading towards telepresence, virtual and enhanced reality systems featuring a high level of interactivity, distributed and collaborative work, physically-based modeling and realism. The goal of the TeleInViVo project is to facilitate diagnosis, medical training, surgery, therapy planning and treatment by means of a powerful, multi-functional, real-time visualization system in a distributed environment. TeleInViVo will provide state-of-the-art visualization tools for the medical profession that effectively decrease medical costs while improving overall quality and throughput. Since TeleInViVo displays any type of 3D scalar data, it can also be applied to a wide range of applications in areas as diverse as forensics, geology, and mechanics (i.e. structural analysis). Data, such as 3D Ultrasound, MRI, CT, etc., can be analyzed and presented. CRCG is located near Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The mission of the Center is to be a leading group in 3D graphics applications and services over high-speed global networks. CRCG thanks our sponsors, especially Hewlett-Packard, and the leaders of the May group, Global One, Teleglobe Canada, and German Telekom. Michael R. Macedonia, Ph.D. | URL: http://www.crcg.edu Vice President | EMAIL: mmacedon@crcg.edu Fraunhofer CRCG | 167 Angell Street | PH : (+1) 401 453-6363 Providence, RI 02906 | FAX: (+1) 401 453-0444 ------------------------------ From: psyber@usa.pipeline.com (John Cropper) Subject: Re: AC 210 May be Split Into Four Date: 6 Jun 1996 02:38:36 GMT Organization: Pipeline USA On Jun 04, 1996 23.21.53 in article , bpurcell@centuryinter.net (Brian Purcell) wrote: > We may soon see the first (as far as I know) area code split that will > result in multiple new codes carved out of a single exisiting area in > an effort to give longer life to the newly assigned codes. If and only if the split is simulataneously implemented. 708 was carved into three sections, but the splits occurred over a seven month period. Washington's 206 _should_ have done the same, and still may see a three-way split come early 1997, since it is getting close to exhausting once again. > Soutwestern Bell recently announced that AC 210 (San Antonio region), > which was just created in 1992, will soon be split into as many as > _four_ codes. Excuse me, but this is the same company still fighting those idiotic Texas state regulators, who still haven't handed down a decision on 713/281 (713 is already 97.2% exhausted), as well as 214/972 (214 is 96.6% exhausted). If they expected a logical conclusion, they should've submitted a plan in mid-95 for review. 817 is facing exhaustion shortly as well, do you honestly believe that we'll get something easy out of that? :-) > SWB originally proposed two schemes for dividing 210 > into just one new area- both variations on splitting metro San Antonio > away from the existing 210. One plan was rejected outright because it > put non-contiguous areas into the same AC. With the remaining plan, > SWB estimated that metro SA would need another AC by the year 2002. > So the PUC had SWB come up with three new options to provide longer > life for the new codes. These plans are currently being reviewed: > - Give metro SA one code and divide the remaining area into two codes. > - Give metro SA two codes in an overlay and give the remaining area > another code. > - Give metro SA two codes in a "doughnut" and split the remaining area in > half with two codes as well (total of four codes including original 210). > Having observed how the PUC handled the recent Houston/Dallas AC case, > I doubt they will go for the overlay. And, the PUC has indicated that > they want new codes to last longer to minimize disruptions to the > residents and businesses, so they will probably opt for the 4-from-1 > scheme to provide a plethora of numbers (for a little while, anyway.) Great, so SA doesn't exhaust until 2004, and all the snakes and cacti in the outlying codes are good for another six years beyond that? :-) > SWBell estimates 210 will be in jeopardy by the 2Q 1997, so I expect > this change to be decided by the 3Q of 96 and implemented with a short > permissive period early in 1997. We shall see, since SWB is also recommending a third code for the 713/281 Houston fiasco ... John Cropper, President NiS Telecom Division POB 277, Pennington, NJ USA 08534-0277 voice: (800) 247-8675 fax: (609) 637-9430 psyber@usa.pipeline.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 05 Jun 1996 17:21:27 -0400 From: Fred R. Goldstein Subject: Invented Dial Tone? Those ubiqutious new ads from Lucent are cute. One big theme is "Invented Dial Tone". Wow. Makes the point, no? But what did Lucent (then known as Western Electric) invent, and when? We Digest readers all know that Almon Strowger invented the dial in the 1890s, that Automatic Electric was the pioneering manufacturer of dial equipment, and that AT&T/WECo. didn't even begin to deploy dial until the 1920s! The implication, if Lucent isn't lying, is that the early AE steppers didn't have dial tone. The Line Finders worked silently. Dial tone was thus invented later, by WECo., as a way to handle congestion in the switches. Early dials said "Wait for dial tone" and indeed you often had to. Was dial tone originally part of the (WECo invention) panel exchange? Or did they add it to the (Strowger-designed) stepper? Or are they taking *great* liberties with the whole thing? I suppose they have *some* rights to AE's glory, because AT&T acquired half(?) ownership of Automatic Electric a few years ago when GTE threw in the towel on trying to compete head-on. The resultant venture, AG Communications (?), is presumably moving from AT&T to Lucent's domain. It still supports the GTD-5 switches (yes, they do have working ISDN PRI now) and other legacy AE hardware. Is this the part of Lucent upon whom the dialtone claims are based? (Side digression: In the Soviet Union, "dial tone" had a different meaning. Anybody out there know the Russian word for it? I think it referred to the top "nomenklatura" -- party wheels so important that even their phones worked, and their imporance was ranked by the shortness of their phone numbers. In this sense, Lenin or Stalin could have claimed to have "invented dial tone"!) Fred R. Goldstein fgoldstein@bbn.com BBN Corp. Cambridge MA USA +1 617 873 3850 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One of these days I will devote an issue of the Digest to the topic, "Who Invented Fred Goldstein?" . Thanks, Fred, for a great conclusion to this issue of the Digest. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #272 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jun 6 17:35:02 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id RAA19247; Thu, 6 Jun 1996 17:35:02 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 17:35:02 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606062135.RAA19247@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #273 TELECOM Digest Thu, 6 Jun 96 17:34:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 273 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AT&T Attacks GTE (Tad Cook) 513/937 Split Revised (John Cropper) VPN/Opportunity/Announcement (Bill McMullin) Local Call Costs in Various Countries? (David Baker) TRADE Project -- Intercontinental ATM Link (Michael Macedonia) Vodafone Employees Organizing Announcment (David Lyons) Computer Telephony Equipment For Sale (mhubert@host.igs.net) Re: Caller-ID Delay in California (Ross Oliver) Re: AT&T Movie Placement (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: Cellular Caller ID (Jay R. Ashworth) Re: Telco Voice Mail Signaling (Dave Coles) Re: Internet Domain Names (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Cook Subject: AT&T Attacks GTE Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 12:13:06 PDT AT&T Uses Florida Businesses in Attack Ads against GTE Local Service By Robert Trigaux, St. Petersburg Times, Fla. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News TAMPA, Fla.--Jun. 4--Catch AT&T Corp.'s local ads these days and you'd think GTE Corp. can't even tie its own shoes. On area radio and television and in newspapers, AT&T claims GTE is: -- Twice as likely to have a failure of its long-distance network as AT&T. -- Three times as likely to lose one of its toll-free 800 calls. -- Three times as likely to fail to connect a phone call when first dialed. The Tampa Bay campaign against GTE's reliability is AT&T's first marketing attack anywhere against a local phone company since laws changed this year, allowing long-distance and local phone companies to invade each other's turf. GTE, a longtime provider of local-phone service to the Tampa Bay area, in April began offering long-distance service to anyone in Florida. Meanwhile, AT&T -- the country's largest long-distance carrier -- plans to offer local phone service in all 50 states. It has teamed up with Time Warner Communications in the Tampa Bay area to provide local phone service to businesses by this fall and to consumers by 1997. AT&T's ad campaign should help soften up the Tampa Bay market when AT&T is expected to start offering local-phone service at a discount to lure newcomers. The AT&T ads bashing GTE make the political sparring in Dole and Clinton advertising seem tame. AT&T, which says its own Bell Lab researchers came up with the negative data on GTE, has also introduced its campaign to the Seattle and Dallas markets. "We feel our ads clarify the facts and educate the public," AT&T spokeswoman Julie Spechler said. "It's all part of the changing telecommunications landscape." If AT&T is an old hand at picking on long-distance competitors like MCI and Sprint, GTE is the rookie. GTE, primarily a monopoly provider of local phone service in more than 20 states, has had little opportunity -- or need -- to wage marketing or price wars for customers. Now no turf is sacred, as new players scrap for customers across the full range of telephone services. In fact, many companies might be expected to retaliate against AT&T's negative ads. But GTE says it's taking the high road. "We're not surprised by the AT&T ads, but we feel that to win in the competitive marketplace, we need to communicate the benefits GTE can bring to its customers," GTE product marketer Leah Bailey said. "From our research, negativity -- just like in a presidential campaign -- is not a positive thing," said Bailey, who has fought consumer goods marketing wars while at Procter & Gamble. GTE will continue to run its current "Help!" ad campaign, featuring the old Beatles tune, to position GTE as a company that can sort out the confusing telecommunications revolution for consumers. Bailey did counterpunch at one AT&T allegation, though. GTE's long-distance service -- which is supplied by WorldCom, the country's fourth-largest long-distance provider -- has a reliability rate of 99.997 percent, she said. AT&T's strategy is to push into local-phone service around the country. In the Illinois market, where local service was controlled by Ameritech Corp., a Baby Bell, AT&T says it will offer new customers three months of free, unlimited "local-toll" calling in the Illinois region. Local-toll calls are those calls that originate and end in the same local area code but still carry a fee. And in Connecticut, where competitors are nipping at AT&T's long-distance share, the company may offer customers a flat rate of five cents per minute on all calls -- long distance, local or toll service. That would amount to less than half the current discounted rates. "In competitive markets you can only be aggressive, giving the customers value, or you will lose," says Joseph Nacchio, AT&T's president of consumer services. Such moves indicate that the first big battleground in the new era of phone competition will be in local-toll calls. Ultimately, the richest terrain to capture will be long distance, a $70-billion market, and regular local service, a $100-billion business. Holding on to customers is crucial as the telecom rivalry heats up and AT&T and other carriers move toward offering a bundle of local, long-distance, wireless and video services. In the Tampa Bay market, AT&T already has severed an old alliance with GTE and now separately bills AT&T long-distance customers in the area. Last week, AT&T canceled its nationwide agreement with GTE that allowed the AT&T calling card to be used for local toll calls on GTE's network. For local impact, AT&T's ads use real Tampa Bay businesses. Among them: Crab Cooler Seafood, a Tampa fish market, says "Holy Mackerel" and Tampa's Ye Olde Clock Repair adds "I'm Ticked" in ads when the businesses learn they would save more with AT&T long-distance. Says AT&T's Spechler: "To get the customer's attention, you've got to be hard hitting." -- Information from the {Wall Street Journal} was used in this story. ON THE INTERNET: Visit sptimes.com, the World Wide Web site of the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times. Point your browser to http://www.sptimes.com ------------------------------ From: psyber@usa.pipeline.com (John Cropper) Subject: 513/937 Split Revised Date: 6 Jun 1996 21:15:41 GMT Organization: Pipeline USA From Cincinatti Bell Telephone (www.cinbelltel.com): May 16, 1996: Telephone Industry Responds to Customer Input, Revises Area Code Plan for Butler and Clermont Counties A telecommunications industry committee said today that a proposed 513 area code split for customers living in Southwestern Ohio is being revised to better reflect the needs of residents living in areas of Butler and Clermont Counties. The team's original plan had called for a geographic split to be made along the Cincinnati Local Access Transport Area (LATA) line. That proposal, which was announced in March, would have divided the number of access lines using the 513 area code almost equally north and south of the line, as well as maintaining seven-digit dialing for local calls for the vast majority of customers. The revised plan calls for customers living in Middletown, Trenton and Monroe in Butler County, and Felicity in Clermont County, to retain their 513 area code. Customers living in the areas north and east of the new area code boundary lines will use the new area code 937. The new area code is necessary because 513 area code numbers will be exhausted sometime during the first quarter of 1998. "The team made every effort to balance the needs of our customers with the national area code relief guidelines established by the telecommunications industry," said Roger Werth, Senior Network Architecture Planner, Cincinnati Bell Telephone. Werth is chairman of the industry team that has been studying the need for 513 area code relief. Government, community and educational officials in both counties had told the industry team that two area codes would create an air of division with county communities. New research also showed that business and residential customers wanted to retain the 513 area code even if it meant 10-digit dialing to the Dayton area. Calls from the affected areas to Dayton still remain local calls under the revised plan. By keeping most of Butler County and all of Clermont County in the 513 area code, the revised plan does accelerate the need for another 513 area code split. Under the old plan another split was projected for May 2006 -- that date now moves up to February 2005 with 90,000 additional telephone numbers remaining in the 513 area code. The revised plan still calls for a nine-month "permissive dialing period" that will begin on Sept. 28, 1996. The permissive dialing period will allow individuals to make calls to residential and business customers living in the affected areas using either the 513 or new 937 area code. Mandatory dialing, meaning calls will only be connected using the 937 area code, is scheduled to begin on June 14, 1997. Produced by Zender + Associates and Cincinnati Bell Telephone Copyright 1996 (c) Cincinnati Bell Telephone John Cropper, President NiS Telecom Division POB 277, Pennington, NJ USA 08534-0277 voice: (800) 247-8675 fax: (609) 637-9430 psyber@usa.pipeline.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 06 Jun 1996 07:59:20 -0300 From: Bill McMullin Reply-To: bill@interactive.ca Organization: Info-InterActive Inc. Subject: VPN/opportunity/announcement Pat, I am trying to find a good contact that knows the world of Virtual Private Networks very well. We are trying architect a network for switched voice calls which allows us to place a telephony system at a central point in a LATA (I guess a wire center) and have this box accessible as a local call to a radius of about 25 miles, still within the same LATA. As an example, in California, each local calling area has only a 13 mile radius which means there are a *lot* of calliing areas. It is not feasible to place a box in each one of these areas. I suspect it is feasible to backhaul calls from the 25th mile into the wire center through dedicated facilities. Whatever the solution it is critical that the signalling information associated with the calls (ie. CLID, DNIS, redirecting number etc) be kept in tact. The boxes will be trunked to the local switches through PRI ISDN. Any suggestions on who might be the guru of this networking? On another note, we (the board of my company) recently appointed Colin Beaumont, just retired Nortel Chief Engineer, to our board of directors. Colin will also be a special advisor to my company as he has retired to Halifax where the company is located. I would like to get the word out to the telecoms industry that Colin is "on board" with us. Could this be posted to the Digest? As you can imagine, involvement by such a high calibre individual in a small upstart company will be tremendously impacting. He confirms and enhances our credibility. Colin is the 'grandfather' of the DMS as well as a number of other key products which came out of Nortel over the last 25 years. Regards, Bill Info InterActive Inc. is a publicly traded company on the Alberta Stock Exchange. The company specializes in the development and management of a variety of network based enhanced services utilizing telephony, Internet, and wireless data technologies. ------------------------------ From: David Baker Subject: Local Call Costs in Various Countries? Date: Thu, 06 Jun 1996 09:49:59 +0800 Organization: Unconfigured We have just moved to timed local calls here in Malaysia, going from untimed calls of approx US$0.05 to timed calls of US$0.04 for the first 3 minutes + US$0.01 per minute after that. I am trying to compare this against local call costs in other countries as the local telecoms authorities have published figures to support their increase, but I can't believe them - US$3.50/hour for Australia being one of them when I know they have untimed calls of US$0.20. Would anyone know if there is a source of information on the Net detailing costs of local calls around the world? If it was correlated against average yearly wages this would be perfect! (I guess average wage here is about US$6000/annum). I am especially interested in which countries have timed local calls, which have untimed local calls and even which have free local calls (NZ for instance). If not, would anyone be able to tell me the price of local calls in the following countries (I have written the costs published by the authorities here for comparison): Country Per hour Australia US$3.50 Indonesia US$0.92 Japan US$6.00 Singapore US$0.60 UK US$3.00 I would very much appreciate it if any repliers could cc to my email address as well as posting -- our newsfeed to Malaysia is very poor and I don't want to miss any info. (I will check Alta Vista in a day or two just in case). Dave ------------------------------ From: Michael Macedonia Subject: TRADE Project -- Intercontinental ATM Link Date: Wed, 05 Jun 1996 22:07:06 -0400 Organization: brainiac Services CRCG Establishes First Intercontinental ATM Link for Virtual Reality Fraunhofer Center for Research in Computer Graphics (CRCG), Inc., Providence, RI, has established the first international asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network for virtual reality (VR) research. The new network is part of the MAY project sponsored by Deutsche Telekom and Sprint International to investigate high-bandwidth distributed multimedia applications for use with global telecommunications. The network is composed of several links. The first is between Providence and Sprint International in Reston, Virginia, using the National ATM service of Sprint USA. The next hop is provided by a Sprint International transatlantic fiber cable to Europe. Deutsche Telekom distributes the data via a German national ATM network to the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics in Darmstadt. CRCG is the first Sprint National ATM customer in the state of Rhode Island. CRCG has also led the way in the state on the use of ISDN and other advanced technologies for international video teleconferencing, workflow automation, manufacturing design applications and WWW development. These technologies are essential to companies trying to compete in a global econonmy. ATM offers the potential advantage of providing communications with minimal delay with high bandwidth -- critical requirements for interactive environments such as VR. CRCG is developing a number of distributed VR applications for testing over the network, including team-building environments and training systems for potentially hazardous environments. CRCG is also exploring the use of the Virtual Reality Modeling Language and the Java language from Sun for virtual environments. For further questions about this ATM link don't hesitate to contact us. Michael R. Macedonia, Ph.D. | URL: http://www.crcg.edu Vice President | EMAIL: mmacedon@crcg.edu Fraunhofer CRCG | 167 Angell Street | PH : (+1) 401 453-6363 Providence, RI 02906 | FAX: (+1) 401 453-0444 ------------------------------ From: David Lyons <101644.2210@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Vodafone Employees Organizing Announcement Date: 6 Jun 1996 07:35:44 GMT Organization: Society of Telecom Executives The Society of Telecom Executives, the UK's premier Union for IT people is organising in Vodafone. Offering a first class range of benefits and services for Vodafone employees, now is the time to find out more. Freefone: 0800 371 402 INTERNET: ste-orgniser@geo2.poptel.org.uk For a confidential chat on any work related matter telephone: 01702 291825 or 0468 437575 Thank you for your interest. David Lyons STE - Organiser ------------------------------ From: mhubert@host.igs.net (mhubert) Subject: Computer Telephony Equipment For Sale Date: 6 Jun 1996 15:08:59 GMT Organization: IGS - Information Gateway Services Reply-To: mhubert@igs.net Equipment for sale: We were using the following equipment from Dianatel Corporation to offer Internet access using T1 lines. Since our company no longer offers Internet access, we are selling the equipment. Dianatel Corporation specializes in providing telephony solutions based on PC. If you need information on how this equipment could be used, do not hesitate to contact me at mhubert@igs.net . For more information on Dianatel products, visit their WWW site at www.dianatel.com. Everything was purchased only three months ago and is practically brand new. In fact, one of the Central Office24 Unit and one of the EasyAccess24 card have never been used. They were purchased as backup equipment. Here's the list of equipment from Dianatel Corporation: Description Quantity EasyAccess24 3 Central Office24 Main Unit 3 CentralOffice24 4-port Borad 18 Cables for Office24 Unit 4 Cables for EasyAccess24 card 2 The total value of this package was $12,850 US three months ago. Please email your offer to mhubert@igs.net before June 14. Thank you. ------------------------------ From: reo@crl.com (Ross Oliver) Subject: Re: Caller-ID Delay in California Date: 4 Jun 1996 14:03:53 -0700 Organization: The Air Affair: http://www.airaffair.com/ mwcoen@hooked.net wrote: > We have not heard a word about costs yet. About $5-8/month for the > *service*. At that price, most residents can't afford it or won't be > willing to spend that much each month to see who is calling them. > However, businesses can afford that. When I ordered CID service for my Sunnyvale residential line, I was quoted a price of $6 per month, plus $5 installation. CID is not yet one of the orderable features on Pac Bell's automated order line, where you can activate or deactivate any of the other custom calling features (call waiting, call forwarding, speed dialing, etc) with no installation charge. I suspect in a few months, CID will be orderable this way also, thus eliminating the installation charge. Don't forget the $30-40 for a CID box. I haven't bought mine yet. Since the monthly CID cost is comparable to other custom calling features, (I pay $3.95/month for call forwaring, for example) I don't think afforability is an issue. Once CID decoding becomes a standard feature of most telephones (like speed dial is now), more people will get interested in the capability, although it may always be a specialty service. Ross Oliver reo@taos.com ------------------------------ From: callbrand@aol.com (CallBrand) Subject: Re: AT&T Movie Placement Date: 4 Jun 1996 18:04:14 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: callbrand@aol.com (CallBrand) Pat, there was no reaction at all in the movie theater. I think it went right over most peoples' heads, although to me it stood out quite audibly above the rest of the movie's background noise. Whether or not it performs on some sort of unconscious suggestability level would be interesting to find out. Judith Oppenheimer A leading source of information on 800 issues. CallBrand@aol.com, 1 800 The Expert, (ph) 212 684-7210, (fx) 212 684-2714 http://pwp.usa.pipeline.com/~producer/ ------------------------------ From: jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) Subject: Re: Cellular Caller ID Date: 6 Jun 1996 00:18:48 GMT Organization: University of South Florida Mike Fox (mjfox@raleigh.ibm.com) wrote: > Hmmm, that's interesting. Here in Bell South territory, I have had > calls I've made returned with *69, and I have blocking. It was to my > brother's phone. He said that normally when he does *69, a recording > gives him the number and then calls it. In the case of my number, the > recording states that it cannot give him the number, then calls it. > So he calls me and doesn't know who he's calling until I answer. This is the way the FCC has mandated that it has to work, if it's allowed at all. NorTel lists this in their DMS marketing literature as "Last Call Return - Block to Private", and of course, they charge the telco extra for it, so if they don't feel like paying for it, you probably won't get LCR at all. Cheers, Jay R. Ashworth jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us Member of the Technical Staff The Suncoast Freenet Tampa Bay, Florida +1 813 790 7592 ------------------------------ From: dcoles@datlog.co.uk (Dave Coles) Subject: Re: Telco Voice Mail Signaling Date: 6 Jun 1996 15:03:40 GMT Organization: Data Logic Limited Guy St-Pierre (lmcgust@LMC.Ericsson.SE) wrote: > Paul Chehowski (paulc@sulis.com) wrote: >> Does anyone know how telco voice mail systems manage to signal a >> subscriber's phone when they have voice mail waiting? The signaling [snip] Setting the message waiting indicator on a (digital) phone (lighting a lamp) or via a single ring (or tinkle!) on an analogue phone at pre-determined intervals, can either be accomplished by using one of the voicemail systems lines to send DTMF tones to the switch, or in the case of IBM's DirectTalk/6000, and others, by using a separate signalling link to the switch. Depending on the switch, the link can be either RS232, X.25 or proprietary link. The voicemail system will receive signalling information from the switch (called/calling id etc. associated with a call on an incoming channel) and send message waiting indicator set/unset commands to the switch. Protocols supporting these functions are VMS, SMSI and SMDI. Regards, David Coles email: dcoles@datlog.co.uk Data Logic Limited, Tel : +44 (0)181 715 9696 CI Tower, St George's Square, DDI : +44 (0)181 388 0405 High Street, New Malden, Fax : +44 (0)181 715 1771 Surrey, KT3 4HH www : http://www.datlog.co.uk ------------------------------ From: rishab@CERF.NET (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Subject: Re: Internet Domain Names Date: 6 Jun 1996 12:33:05 -0700 Organization: CERFnet Dial 'n' CERF Customer shaw (ROBERT.SHAW@ITU.CH) wrote: > chris@punk.net wrote: >> If I had half-a-million sitting around, I'd start my own Internic >> service. dot-corp or dot-bus anyone? > Personally I think the proposal is a very bad idea. It is a historical > accident that the US (unlike every other country in the world) does > not use ISO country codes (e.g., .fr, .uk) to manage their top level > domain (TLD) registrations. Although there is a .US TLD (see RFC > 1480), it is not widely used since "domain name envy" makes everyone > want to be in .com, .net or .org (currently with around ~350,000 > registrations). The nice thing about the Internet is that it doesn't matter whether you, the ISO, or anybody else thinks something is a bad idea or not. The reason the current domain management structure -- and any other protocol -- works is that those who think it is a _good_ idea use it, and those who don't don't have to -- they're free to set up alternatives, in full knowledge that communication between the two may be impossible. Personally, I do not think .com, .net and .org (or .edu or .gov for that matter) should be administered as if they were US domains. As a matter of fact they were neither intended to be -- it happened by an "historical accident" -- nor are US domains. Unlike .us domains for US sites, .fr for French etc, anyone anywhere in the world can get a .org domain. If US origins dominate among non-ISO-country-code domains, it is only because the US dominates the Internet as a whole. I am aware that under present US law my dxm.org domain can be challenged by an American trademark owner -- though I may own the trademark in India, where the domain is located. I am also aware that under present US (Minnesota) law, Wagernet, an on-line gambling site, is illegal -- though it's in Belize. > This problem is going to take a lot more thought and debate. For a look at some of the thought on the Internet's effect on traditional legal jurisdiction, see the paper by David Johnson and David Post (of the Cyberspace Law Institute) in First Monday, May 1996. Hint: they advocate treating the Internet as a separate jurisdiction. Rishab Ghosh First Monday - The Peer-Reviewed Journal on the Internet http://www.firstmonday.dk/ Munksgaard International Publishers, Copenhagen International Editor - Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (rishab@dxm.org) H-34-C Saket New Delhi 110017 INDIA Tel +91 11 6853410; Fax +91 11 6856992 NOTE: New address (after June 9) Pager +91 11 9622 162187 A4/204 Ekta Vihar, 9 Indraprastha Extn, New Delhi 110092 INDIA ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #273 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jun 6 18:51:25 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id SAA26404; Thu, 6 Jun 1996 18:51:25 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 18:51:25 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606062251.SAA26404@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #274 TELECOM Digest Thu, 6 Jun 96 18:51:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 274 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson 800 Numbers Now Customer Dialable Only (phractal@cloud9.net) Re: What Does A/B Carrier Mean? (Alan Dahl) Re: What Does A/B Carrier Mean? (Ed Ellers) Re: What Does A/B Carrier Mean? (David Crowe) Re: Third Wireless Carrier (Robert Beeman) Re: MCI Cellular (Stu Jeffery) Re: MCI Cellular - Clarifications (Lynne Gregg) Need WIN95/Rockwell Solution (J. David Cooper) Cellular Message Waiting Indicator (Jeremy Bond Shepherd) Looking For 12V Power Cord For Morotola Phone (Gerry Wheeler) Information Wanted on SMCM Long Distance: Legit? (Derek J. Tarcza) Re: UNIX DTMF-Decoding "Voicemail" Software? (Innovative Technologies) Re: Digital Cellular in North America Question (David Crowe) Re: Nevada Attorney General Investigates Excel (Ken Leonard) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: phractal Subject: 800 Numbers Now Customer Dialable Only Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 18:08:50 EDT That's right, as of June 4th in the 914 area code in Nynex territory, the 800 ac is customer dialable only. The operators say this is because of FCC regulations, but there are still many other ac's in which 800 numbers are not customer dialable only. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is news to me. Perhaps other readers will be able to report not only their experiences but whatever guidelines their local telco is using. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Alan Dahl Date: Thu, 6 Jun 96 13:29:46 -0700 Subject: What Does A/B Carrier Mean? PAT writes: > Well, what actually happened is a bit different. It turned out the > only people really in a position with the technical knowledge and > financial ability to start a cellular company in competition to the > local telco were other telephone companies. So it came down to the > local telephone company having the 'B' license as planned, but a > phone company in some other distant community operating under some > other name holding the 'A' license. For example, here in the Chicago > area we have Ameritech (the 'traditional' telephone company of record) > holding the 'B' license while Southwestern Bell, d/b/a/ Cellular One > has the 'A' license. In St. Louis the exact opposite is the case > where Southwestern Bell is the 'telco of record' and they operate the > 'B' side as Southwestern Bell Mobility and Ameritech is the 'A' carrier > there under some other name. Throughout the USA that is largely the > case: telcos run the cellular service; the 'out of town' telco intrud- > ing on the scene as the 'competitor' operates under a different name > as the 'A' carrier. Now, PAT you know that's not (or was not in the time frame being discussed) strictly true, by far the largest non-wireline 'A' side carrier used to be McCaw Cellular, which had no non-cellular phone interests (it was a cable-TV company and not a big one at that). It's also true that the bulk of the "Cellular ONE" network consisted of markets wholly or partially owned by McCaw. Of course with the sale of McCaw to AT&T a couple of years ago this has changed but to infer that the bulk of A-side carriers were owned by out-of-area landline telephone companies is overstating things just a bit. Alan Dahl Axys Core Development Team alan.dahl@attws.com AT&T Wireless Services Phone: (206) 702-5231 P.O. Box 97060 Fax: (206) 702-5452 Kirkland, WA 98083-9760 http://www.eskimo.com/~adahl ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: What Does A/B Carrier Mean? Date: Wed, 5 Jun 96 14:51:27 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to : > The ruling was that the traditional telephone company of > record in the community would be granted one of the two cellular > radio licenses if they wanted it -- of course, they all did -- and > the second license would be granted to a competitor. I'm not aware that the FCC ever reserved the wireline licenses for the local wireline carrier of record; in fact I can name three cities right off where a different LEC's cellular subsidiary got the license. (Indianapolis, in Ameritech territory, has GTE; Cincinnati, served by Cincinnati Bell, has Ameritech cellular service; and Lexington, a GTE city, has BellSouth Mobility cellular service, with GTE now owning the *other* cellular carrier there!) ------------------------------ From: David Crowe Subject: Re: What Does A/B Carrier Mean? Date: Wed, 05 Jun 1996 13:28:11 +0000 Organization: Cellular Networking Perspectives Ltd. Reply-To: crowed@cadvision.com When cellular licenses were first granted, they were given to two companies in each area. The "B" license was given to the local telephone company and the "A" license was put up first for comparative hearings, and then lotteries. Since there are only two cellular licenses in any one geographical area, there can only be one "A" carrier and one "B" carrier. David Crowe ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jun 1996 12:33:34 -0500 From: Robert Beeman Subject: Re: Third Wireless Carrier Pat, I hope I can clear up some erroneous information regarding Sprint Spectrum and PCS in general. On June 3, 1996 Greg Monti wrote: > Yes, there are now other wireless carriers popping up, although they > don't go under the name "cellular" and don't use the same frequency > band nor the same analog protocols. In Washington-Baltimore, a > Personal Communications Service carrier called Sprint Spectrum has > been in commercial service since December, 1995. They don't (yet) You can distinguish between the existing cellular carriers who occupy the "A" and "B" cellular blocks of frequencies in the 800 MHz region, and the new PCS carriers who also have "A" and "B" blocks of frequencies in the spectrum from 1850 MHz to 1990 MHz. The PCS "A" and "B" block frequency auction was completed in March of 1995, and the winners of these MTA (Major Trading Area) licenses are now building their systems. APC in the Washington/Baltimore MTA was the first operator to go on the air with commercial PCS services on November 15, 1995. APC received their MTA license as a "Pioneer's Preference" award by the FCC for their research and contribution to PCS technology. They still had to pay big dollars for their "A" block license, but they were assured of this opportunity by the award. The PCS "C" block frequency auction was completed last month, but these licenses occupy much smaller geographical areas called Basic Trading Areas (BTA's). Since an MTA includes several BTA's, there are many more BTA licenses than MTA licenses. Yet to be auctioned are the "D", "E", and "F" BTA blocks. With the two existing cellular carriers, and the six possible PCS operators there can be as many as eight wireless companies per market, and this does not count the ESMR guys! > Sprint Spectrum is substantially owned by American Personal > Communications, which is substantially held by the Washington Post > Company. They are one of the PCS carriers who performed market and > technical research on the viability of PCS. They (and two other > companies) were given 'pioneer's preference' PCS licenses before the > PCS spectrum auctions heated up. The preceding information is not accurate. Sprint Spectrum purchased the Washington Post's equity in APC, Inc. Sprint Spectrum now owns 49% of APC, with APC retaining a 51% stake. Sprint Spectrum itself is owned by Sprint Corporation, plus the three cable companies Cox, Comcast, and TCI. Sprint Spectrum is owned as follows: Sprint Corporation has 40%; TCI has 30%; Cox and Comcast own 15% each. The Sprint Spectrum BRAND is being marketed by APC, and will be marketed by all the other MTA operations in the Sprint Spectrum fold. These include APC, the Cox "Pioneers Preference" Los Angeles MTA, and the 30 other MTA licenses owned outright by Sprint Spectrum. The Sprint Spectrum brand will be deployed nationally, marketing to 182.5 million pops. I hope I have been of some help in correcting information about Sprint Spectrum, and in supplying additional information about PCS in general. Regards, Bob Beeman Sprint Long Distance Wireless Marketing Group ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 21:29:08 -0800 From: stu@best.com (Stu Jeffery) Subject: Re: MCI Cellular In a posting to TELECOM Digest V16 #269 jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) wrote: >> Mike Fox wrote: >> Technically speaking, there is *no* difference between PCS and >> cellular systems in the U.S. aside from those systems operating on >> different radio frequencies. > Actually, there is. PCS systems will be using, (and I believe it's > already been decided, but I don't remember which way) the CDMA > protocol designed by Qualcomm (IS-84?), which is also going into > service with some cellular carriers to provide "digital service", or a > protocol very silimar to, if not identical to the GSM (Groupe System > Mobile, I believe is the French spelling) protocol used for all > cellular service in Europe. > Since most currently operating cellular telephony systems use either > AMPS analog or TDMA digital, I think that saying that there's "no" > difference, especially with emphasis ... Then Mike Fox stated there is no difference, except for the frequency band, and I think he is correct. (Of course the frequency band effects are real, especially in rural areas where smaller PCS cell site radius impact cost of network build out.) The Qualcomm CDMA protocol IS-95 is actually a cellular protocol and it is being deployed in a number of cellular networks currently. Yes, it has also been chosen by a number of PCS operators and will be deployed in that band. GSM, called PCS-1900 in North America, will be extensively deployed in the PCS bands, but so will IS-136 TDMA, IS-661, PACS, and some other technologies. Considering only the A and B band PCS licenses, upbanded IS-95 (CDMA) has almost national coverage, with PCS-1900 (GSM) and PCS IS-136 TDMA each having about one half of national coverage. Further, the PCS IS-136 TDMA operators are ATT Wireless and SBC, both of which have extensive cellular IS-54/IS-136 networks which are geographically complementary to their PCS networks. So I think Mike Fox's comments are right on target. Stu Jeffery Internet: stu@best.com 1072 Seena Ave. voice: 415-966-8199 Los Altos, CA. 94024 fax: 415-966-8456 ------------------------------ From: Lynne Gregg Subject: Re: MCI Cellular Date: Wed, 05 Jun 96 15:50:00 PDT [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As sometimes happens, there becomes confusion over exactly who said what when a thread gets three or four people replying to each other. I think Lynne Gregg made some of the comments attributed to Mike Fox above. I sent Lynne copies of some messages which ran here yesterday and she will now try to sort some of it out. PAT] Thank you for writing me directly on this, Pat. I appreciate your calling it to my attention. To clarify: My point was, aside from frequency, there are no other differences in today's cellular technologies and the PCS technologies being deployed by those carriers who will operate at 1900 mhz. These technologies (or protocols, to be correct) are all CURRENTLY deployed in cellular networks running at other frequencies here in the U.S. and abroad: AMPS, TDMA, GSM, NAMPS. CDMA is being tested in some cellular markets in the U.S. and abroad. Bill (WWalker@qualcomm.com) says: > They both look like wireless telephone service to the customer. Cellular and PCS services *are* identical from a user point of view. Now to respond to other comments: First, I WAS a McCaw person. Now I belong to AT&T Wireless. Second, to address the question at hand, here is a simple example that proves both A and B cellular carriers talk the same frequency: Each year, millions of cellular customers in the U.S. roam seamlessly between A and B networks. They all use analog cellular phones tuned to 850mhz frequency to do so - no matter who their carrier is (A or B). It's a fact. We (A and B side carriers) all use the same AMPS technology operating at the same frequency. A significant portion of AT&T Wireless' business (A side) comes from former B side customers who bring along their analog phones for activation on our system. Each cellular phone is tuned to a particular frequency band. Today, for cellular that's 850 mhz. For PCS entrants that will be 1900 mhz. Regards, Lynne ------------------------------ From: J. David Cooper Subject: Need WIN95/Rockwell Solution Date: Wed, 05 Jun 1996 15:53:51 -0400 If anyone has Cheyenne's Bitware 4.0 (a 16bit product and the only version that runs correctly in WIN95) or knows where I can get a hold of a complete voice/fax mailbox system that will run my Rockwell Chipset based Zoom 14.4 V/F/P voice/faxmodem PLEASE let me know! The Bitware product does it all including fax forwarding/backing, paging, caller ID etc etc etc, only v4 runs right in WIN95 according to Cheyenne. jdcooper@wsii.com ------------------------------ From: jbond@netcom.com (Jeremy Bond Shepherd) Subject: Cellular Message Waiting Indicator Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 11:19:35 PDT I've been bugging my cellular carrier (Cellular One San Francisco) to upgrade their network to enable the "Message Waiting" indicator on my phone. This indicator is designed to provide a visual indication that a new message is waiting in my voice mailbox. Rolling out this feature seems to be a very low priority for C-1. So I was just wondering: what other carriers in the US are offering this service? (I know AT&T in Seattle is offering it.) If you have the service, how well does it work for you? Do you find that it significantly enhances the value of your cellular/voicemail service? For you, does the message waiting indicator negate the need for carrying pager notification service and a separate pager? Does your carrier charge you a premium over the standard cellular and voicemail service charges? Thanks in advance for your impressions. Jeremy ------------------------------ From: gwheeler@gate.net (Gerry Wheeler) Subject: Looking For 12V Power Cord for Morotola Phone Date: Thu, 06 Jun 1996 13:27:37 GMT Organization: SpectraFAX Corp. Reply-To: gwheeler@gate.net I'm looking for a 12V power cord for use with a Motorola cellular phone. There are several for sale in the stores, but none mentions the particular model of phone I have. Can anyone tell me which Motorola models are equivalent and use the same cord? The phone I have says "Motorola Pocket Classic 910" on the front. It uses the same battery as the more common Motorola flip phone. It has two connectors on the bottom -- a round type for the small overnight charger, and the bigger port for the usual accessories. I don't care which type the cord plugs into (I've seen both), although I think the round one is easier to use. Gerry Wheeler gwheeler@gate.net SpectraFAX Corp. Phone: 941-643-8739 Naples, FL Fax: 941-643-5070 ------------------------------ From: Derek Subject: Information Wanted on SMCM Long Distamce: Legit? Date: 06 Jun 1996 00:52:10 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services I am currently checking into the LD reseller SMCM. They have a program, Affinity, which will give me an additional 10% of what I currently save with AT&T. Right now, I'm on AT&T's True Savings, where if I spend $10-49, I'll save 25%. They say with them, I'll get 25% + their 10%, a whopping 35%. I would like to know if they are true to their word, and this is not a gimmick. Also, if you have any experiences with the company, I'd like to hear about them. Thanks for your help. Derek J. Tarcza DerekJ609@worldnet.att.net Lawrenceville, NJ (609) 895-0234 ------------------------------ From: innovative_technologies@actcom.co.il (innovative technologies) Subject: Re: UNIX DTMF-Decoding "Voicemail" Software? Reply-To: innovative_technologies@actcom.co.il Organization: innovative technologies Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 00:04:39 GMT jelson@condor.cs.jhu.edu (Jeremy Elson) wrote: > I am interested in setting up an interactive telephone service which > will allow customers to get information on my company and, more > > So, I have two questions. First, what kind of hardware do I need to > put in my UNIX box (a PC running Linux) to get this to work? A voice modem. > And, second, what I'd like to find is if there are any public domain > (freeware, GPL, or whatever) software packages that will let me do > this, or even software libraries that will let me write my own > software to do this under UNIX. We've heard about a configurable voicemail system for the PC called VoiceGuide. Unfortunetly it runs only in WINDOWS ... > Am I going to be able to do this "on the cheap" or do I have to spend > big bucks to get this to work? Big bucks or BIG TIME INVESTMENT (with big BUGS...:-) Thats our two cents. Best regards, Innovative Technologies Telecom, Multimedia and VoiceMail products and home of the TYIN adavanced utilities. email: innovative_technologies@actcom.co.il Check our WEB site at: WWW: http://www.israel.net/innovative/ PS: When responding, an email in addition to posting here would be appreceated. ------------------------------ From: David Crowe Subject: Re: Digital Cellular in North America Question Date: Wed, 05 Jun 1996 13:32:55 +0000 Organization: Cellular Networking Perspectives Ltd. Reply-To: crowed@cadvision.com > In a recent trip to Australia, I met a lot of overseas travelers > who had brought their GSM phone and were using it in Australia. Being > from Canada, I could not do that if I had had a digital telephone. No, but you could do that with an AMPS analog phone! > In North America, it *seems* that the push for digital cellular > phones is not very strong. (At least Cantel no longer pushes > digital phones). I don't think that is true. There is a second generation of TDMA digital cellular coming out any time now (IS-136, the standard is published, but little equipment is yet available). And, the first CDMA system has been turned up for limited commercial service in LA. > Are digital telephone more popular in GSM countries compared to > those few who resisted GMS to go with the USA standard ? If you want a compatible, worldwide system, you have two choices, GSM or AMPS. One happens to be digital, the other analog. I don't think that customers care too much. > Are applications such as SMS available for North American cellullar > systems? Or do they lag behind? (I assume that the USA dig system > does have the same functionality as SMS?) SMS and similar applications will be available with second generation TDMA digital (IS-136) and CDMA digital. Standards are already in place, it is just necessary to get equipment in place. David Crowe ------------------------------ From: ken@kaiwan009.kaiwan.com (Ken Leonard) Subject: Re: Nevada Attorney General Investigates Excel Date: 5 Jun 1996 13:59:05 -0700 Organization: KAIWAN Internet (310-527-4279,818-756-0180,909-785-9712,714-638-4133,805-294-9338) Tad Cook (tad@ssc.com) wrote: > Nevada Attorney General's Office Investigates Long-Distance Company > By MICHELLE DeARMOND > An Excel employee was charged in a Federal Trade Commission > investigation earlier this year for allegedly making unsubstantiated > claims about earnings for work-at-home businesses. Robert Serviss of > Stamford, Conn., was accused of offering no proof that consumers would > earn up to $4,000 or more each month, as they were told. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think when all is said and done, the > facts will emerge that Excel is *NOT* illegal in any way, shape or > form. I had someone write me the other day to complain that I was very > prejudiced against multi-level marketing; and the truth is I do not > really care for that business practice, however it is legal as long > as it does not become a 'pyramid scheme', and in Amway's case at > least, it has been ruled legal. I feel pretty sure that Excel is > following the law closely. One thing I do feel merits a close look > is Excel's new pricing of nine cents per minute at night, putting > them in direct and very close competition with Sprint. If you have > a high volume of traffic at night, it may well be that at this time > Excel is the best bargain around. PAT] Pat, thanks for clearing up your position on MLM and Excel in general. These 'investigations' will continue to occur as Excel continues to grow. There are a lot of people out there that would love to see Excel fail. AT&T I am sure would love to see Excel get in trouble in one state so that they could eliminate a very hairy thorn in their side. As for the new Simply One 9.00 cpm rates. I have a comparison chart published in our latest newsletter and in most cases ExcelPlus II is better than Spints Sense plan and of course Excel's Simply one. I will send along this comparison later when I have time. Ken ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #274 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Jun 7 10:59:22 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id KAA26434; Fri, 7 Jun 1996 10:59:22 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 10:59:22 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606071459.KAA26434@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #275 TELECOM Digest Fri, 7 Jun 96 10:59:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 275 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Teleglobe Canada Reduces Rates (Martin Stewart) Top Message: Second Virtual Answer System by France Telecom (J. Condat) Free CD-ROM Giving 25 Million France Telecom Users (Jean-Bernard Condat) Call Waiting and Caller ID Together (Art Kamlet) LD Competition in Canada (Philip Evans) FCC Crackdown on AOS Pricing (Ed Ellers) Roam Cell Calls on AT&T Wireless Dallas Not Possible? (Alexandre Polozoff) Nokia 232 Accesories (was Re: Nokia 232 Questions) (Jeffrey C. Honig) USA 456 Area Code From the UK (James E. Bellaire) TR303/V5.2 Protocol (Paul Rheaume) Re: 800 Numbers Now Customer Dialable Only (Mark Brader) Re: 800 Numbers Now Customer Dialable Only (Lisa Hancock) Re: Telco in the Movies (was Reel World Product) (aerostar@ccia.com) Re: Digital Cellular in North America Question (Jean-Francois Mezei) AT&T Calling Card & Caller ID (Derek J. Tarcza)) Re: Sprint Fridays Were Free (Joel M. Hoffman) Re: Followup on Sprint Fridays Free (Tom Horsley) Re: Followup on Sprint Fridays Free (Joel M. Hoffman) Re: AT&T Wireless Tells Cellular Roamers: Don't Call Police (lr@access2) Re: Fight Turns Nasty: Ameritech/AT&T Take Off Gloves (Joel M. Hoffman) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 15:42:01 -0700 From: Martin Stewart Subject: Teleglobe Canada Reduces Rates Teleglobe Canada recently announced that as of June 1st, they have reduced their international calling rates by 5% across the board! My concern is whether the Stentor member companies in Canada will pass on these savings to the consumer. I would appreciate any comments concerning this issue from Stentor members. Martin Stewart CTI Telecommunications ** www.stockgroup.com/CLO.htm tel: 604-893-1555 fax: 604-893-1599 1-800-573-3284 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 07 Jun 1996 11:10:31 +0100 From: Jean-Bernard Condat Subject: Top Message: The Second Virtual Answer System by France Telecom Paris (France), Juny 7th, 1996--France Telecom propose today a new service called "Top Message" for all the Ile-de-France users. It's a classical voice system that work without any special box. You can memorize all possible phone calls messages without having a voice mail private system. Top Message is only a link between an already existing phone line and a voice mail box. It's for travel people or those receiving a great number of phone calls. You have the possibility of receiving 50 messages of maximum two minutes. You can receive five messages at the same time. The message are stored and maintain until the first reading, and 48 hours after they have being read. They can be delete as soon as read, too. You can easily read a message from a simple phone. To test the service you can dial the toll free number 36 75 10 10 from your phone line. A four-digit secret code will be create for a security reasons. Each Top Message' client can choose a second phone number on which he can receive all the messages. The fees are of 22 FF monthly. The reading of the message is free from the phone line and at a local cost from all other phone number. The only option of this service is the "message notification" (5 FF monthly) that permit to the owner of the phone line to receive a call asking it to read his/her voice mailbox. If the caller don't answer, 3 other tentatives are do to deliver the message noti- fication. If the line is busy, you can receive a voice message, too. This service is already available in Paris, near Paris, and in Toulouse or Metz. If all the users don't ask for the "satisfy or paid back" option of the two months countrat, Top Message will be available in France for the end of the year. Good luck for this service that I already have use via a corporate service called PRV ("poste restante vocale", voice poste restante). Try to test the service by calling my PRV' virtual voice mailbox: +33 1 41238807. Jean-bernard Condat, Senior Consultant, Smart Card Business Unit Informix, La Grande Arche, 92044 La Defense Cedex, France Phone: +33 1 46963770, fax: +33 1 46963765, portable: +33 07238628 Private: +33 1 41238807, e-mail: jeanbc@informix.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 07 Jun 1996 11:42:39 +0100 From: Jean-Bernard Condat Subject: Free CD-ROM Giving 25 Million France Telecom Users Paris (France), Juny 7th, 1996--France Telecom propose to all people asking the toll free number 05 23 45 67 to test the new edition of the French electronic phone book on CD-ROM. Betwwen Juny 6 and July 31, France Telecom freely send you the CD-ROM called "Les Pages Coup de Fil." Compatible with all PC or Macintosh, this CD-ROM give only the phone number of all phone, fax, ISDN for 25 million of France Telecom's users. No address will be available. You can combine all availble fields (name, vorname, department, Zip code, town, activity) with the boolean operators. For a quickest connection, you have the possibility to compose automatically a phone number found. Two years ago, France Telecom tested this concept with the CD-ROM called "Disque Telecom" propose to all companies. This time, it's a CD-ROM for all that integrate new genial idea. October 18th at 23:00, all phone numbers with pass from 8 to 10 digits. The CD-ROM will automatically change the old numbers in new phone numbers. If you don't have the chance to live in France, try to use the marvellous Web site to ask the French electronic phone book: http://www.epita.fr:5000/11/. Jean-bernard Condat, Senior Consultant, Smart Card Business Unit Informix, La Grande Arche, 92044 La Defense Cedex, France Phone: +33 1 46963770, fax: +33 1 46963765, portable: +33 07238628 Private: +33 1 41238807, e-mail: jeanbc@informix.com ------------------------------ From: kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) Subject: Call Waiting and Caller ID Together Date: 6 Jun 1996 22:29:36 -0400 Organization: InfiNet Reply-To: kamlet@infinet.com Today I received a brochure from Ameritech (Ohio) offering call waiting service with Caller ID. Using an Ameritech Display Phone they offer to provide the CID of the call waiting caller "at no extra charge." The catch is you have to purchase an Ameritech display phone. Has anyone heard of this before? I assume the line has to be somehow set to provide something like "CID on busy/cw" -- is that a new CLASS feature? I assume it does not require anything as exotic as DDSN or else they'd be charging quite a bit more? I currently have both call waiting and CID/ they claim there is no additional charge to get CID on busy/cw, as long as I get the phone -- either purchase it or rent it at $7/month. Any insights? Am I right in assuming I don't need the phone but they won't provision my line with CID on busy unless I get it? Do I really have to buy the phone in order to get the feature? Art Kamlet Columbus, Ohio kamlet@infinet.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No, I think you *do* need the phone. It has some electronics in it to make the process work. Caller-ID is not normally transmittable when your phone line is in use. Others here may be able to give you a more technical explanation. You may not need to buy *their* phone, but you do need a special phone. PAT] ------------------------------ From: pevans@mindlink.bc.ca (philip evans) Subject: LD Competition in Canada Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 02:49:39 GMT Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada I don't make a lot of LD calls, so I was a bit surprised when Unitel called me today to offer "25% off". "25% off WHAT" I asked. "Off whatever LD plan, including discounted rates, that you currently have." "If I say 'yes', do you change my default LD provider." "Hunh?" [I repeat the question, s-l-o-w-ly]. "Um, yes, we do." "Ok, send the the details IN WRITING and I'll consider it." [Turns out they know my address, etc.] I call BC Tel Customer service, go through voicemail prompts, get a busy. Twice. I dial zero, the operator says, "no problem, I'll connect you to a *special* line." She does so. Lois answers on the second ring. Lois says that yes, she is aware of Unitel and Sprint doing some cold-calling. I ask her if there are LD access carrier codes, she says yes, BC Tell is 10323, but she does not any other companies' codes. Lois also tells me that the Unitel offer is 25% off if I make over $25 worth of calls per month, it's 15% for $15 to $25, and zero below $15. Lois hints that some LD companies and re-sellers have done b-a-d things like blocking access codes, but that in such cases BC Tel can remove such blocking. Lois is quite nice and polite. So was the Unitel guy. Maybe If I wait a bit there'll be some cheques offered. I'll let you know what the Unitel deal is when it comes in the mail. ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: FCC Crackdown on AOS Pricing Date: Thu, 6 Jun 96 21:09:07 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) The Associated Press is running a story (which I saw on CompuServe) that the FCC is considering a regulation on long-distance calling from coin phones to force any company whose rates are more than 15% more than the average of the major carriers to play a recording announcing the rate for the call before ringing the called party. ------------------------------ From: aspex@ibm.net (Alexandre POLOZOFF) Subject: Roam Cell Calls on AT&T Wireless Dallas Not Possible? Date: Fri, 07 Jun 1996 00:37:45 GMT Reply-To: Alexandre POLOZOFF This last week I drove from Austin back to my home Cellular One district in Durham, NC. When I was in AT&T Wirless-Dallas I tried to call a friend of mine in Dallas. I got the "You are not authorized .. " recording and dialed 611 as suggested in the recording. The rep that came one was helpful and we spent a good 15 mins while he tried to figure out what was wrong. All he could find was some switching problem with my home Cell carrier?? But why was it a problem for Dallas and not elsewhere?? (I had no problems making phone calls from AT&T Wireless-Austin). Essentially, he ended up having to dial the phone number for me and patching me through on his 611 line. Is this where we are at in cellular technology?? Alexandre Polozoff aspex@ibm.net http://www.exoweb.com/polozoff/ ------------------------------ From: jch@bsdi.com (Jeffrey C Honig) Subject: Nokia 232 Accesories (was Re: Nokia 232 Questions) Date: 07 Jun 1996 13:47:25 GMT Organization: Berkeley Software Design, Inc.; Ithaca, NY USA And speaking of the Nokia 232, does anyone know an inexpensive place to get accessories for one? Hello Direct now carries 232 specific accessories (car cradle, batteries, chargers, hands-free adaptors), but they seem pretty pricey. Thanks. Jeff ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 06 Jun 1996 20:36:32 -0500 From: James E. Bellaire Subject: USA 456 Area Code From the UK I found the following in uk.telecom and was wondering if you could shed some light on it: > From: Traci Shanahan > Newsgroups: uk.telecom > Subject: USA 456 area code from the UK > Date: 4 Jun 1996 07:03:10 GMT > Organization: Cloud 9 Internet, White Plains, NY, USA > Is anyone famillar with the US 456 area code that can only be > called from the UK. Apparently UK companies can earn money with it. > I have some info, if anyone else has any more please email me. > Traci I thought 456 was 'for 56k data'. I wonder if the sleaze carriers are using it for International Inbound to porn? Any thoughts? James E. Bellaire (JEB6) bellaire@tk.com WebPage at http://www.holli.com/~bellaire/ ------------------------------ From: prheaume@toucan.net (Paul Rheaume) Subject: TR303/V5.2 Protocol Date: 7 Jun 1996 01:42:19 GMT Organization: Toucan Internet Publishing Looking for TR303 and V5.2 protocol stacks and vendors of TR303/V5.2 test equipment. ------------------------------ From: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) Subject: Re: 800 Numbers Now Customer Dialable Only Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 05:00:48 GMT > That's right, as of June 4th in the 914 area code in Nynex territory, > the 800 ac is customer dialable only. ... Huh? Please explain. Mark Brader, msb@sq.com SoftQuad Inc., Toronto [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In the past if you asked (for whatever reason) for assistance from an operator in dialing an 800 number, they would do so. Now it appears there are some places in the USA where the operator is unable to dial an 800 number from her console. It has always been the case as far as I know that zero-plussing an 800 number never did accomplish anything, but you could just dial zero and discuss it with the operator. The writer contends that no longer works in area code 914. I asked for other experiences on this. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@cpcn.com (Lisa) Subject: Re: 800 Numbers Now Customer Dialable Only Date: 7 Jun 1996 01:35:56 GMT Organization: Philadelphia City Paper's City Net For years I've had trouble getting an operator to connect me to an 800 number. If I dialed 0, the operator would say in response to a complaint "well, you are probably outside of the service area of that number." If I dialed 0+800+number, an operator would NOT answer, but it would go directly through to the connection (or non-connection as they case may be.) In my area, there were never any clear signals if an 800 number you were dialing was out of range -- you got some vague intercept. ------------------------------ From: aerostar@ccia.com Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 02:37:39 EDT Subject: Re: Telco in the Movies (Was Reel World Product Placement) Tad Cook wrote: > THE REEL WORLD Product Placement: Consumerism Reaches New Heights in > Movies By JOHN HORN > AP Entertainment Writer > LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Here's the swing -- and the pitch. > Coca Cola successfully asked Oliver Stone to cut a Coke commercial > from the ultrviolent "Natural Born Killers". Funny, but when I saw this weird movie on cable, the Coke commercial was in there. For a number of years now I have noticed the AT&T logo (letters, not the death star) on the lower portion of the handset when an actor is on the phone, but I have never seen the logo on any *real* AT&T phone. Product placement in the movies has been around for a while, but the pioneer must be Stanley Kubrick's "2001 A Space Oddity" circa 1968. We are just a few years away from the time when this movie takes place. Without mentioning the obvious differences, Kubrick did his best to give us a grand vision of the future, and there was a distinct effort to *ground* the audience in subtle ways. Do you recall the 1964 era Bell System logo on the PicturePhone that Dr. Floyd used to call call his daughter on from the space station Hilton? A toll charge was shown at the end of the call, which I don't recall exactly, but it seemed expensive (6-7 dollars?). Maybe Dr. Floyd should have signed up for "Friends And Family". Hello, Dime Lady...? Probably the most interesting was HAL; (just a step ahead of IBM, get it?) a great big mainframe. HAL was the natural progression of computer technology as seen with late 1960's goggles on. Hindsight vision is 20/20. We have watched computer technology proliferate to a point unimaginable twenty five years ago. On the other hand, the U.S. space program is still bogged down with a system that lacked a vision just as far back. Eric Friedebach aerostar@ccia.com ------------------------------ From: Jean-Francois Mezei Subject: Re: Digital Cellular in North America Question Date: Thu, 06 Jun 1996 21:31:41 GMT Organization: Vaxination Informatique Reply-To: jfmezei@istar.ca >> In a recent trip to Australia, I met a lot of overseas travelers >> who had brought their GSM phone and were using it in Australia. Being >> from Canada, I could not do that if I had had a digital telephone. > No, but you could do that with an AMPS analog phone! When will the analog telephones no longer be supported? When Cantel introduced its digital services, I had been told that within ten years, it would no longer support analog phones. But now that Cantel is practically giving away analog phones with its Amigo service, I doubt that Cantel still intends to stop supporting analog phones. What are policies around the world with regards to long term support of the analog phones? > If you want a compatible, worldwide system, you have two choices, GSM > or AMPS. One happens to be digital, the other analog. I don't think > that customers care too much. Well, I care if AMPS is to be phased out because right now, AMPS is the only worldwide standard. Once AMPS is gone, North Americans will be restricted to their own continent and a few pockets here and there while others will be technically free to roam with their phones. I do not know who is responsible for preventing North America from supporting the worldwide GSM standard, but I hope that they will be remembered as the ones who perpetuated a stupid and silly politics game that we all hoped would have stopped at analog TV (NTSC, PAL, SECAM etc) I also find it hard to understand why companies such as Motorola and Nokia would not have strongly objected to this split since in the end, they have to make different models for each telephone. (Motorola GMS phones are made in Singapore, so I guess some USA jobs were lost because of that). ------------------------------ From: Derek Subject: AT&T Calling Card and Caller ID Date: 5 Jun 1996 19:17:38 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Today, 6/5, I used a payphone at a local deli during my lunch break to check messages at home, using my AT&T universal card. When I get home, looking at the caller ID, the name and number actually showed up from where I called. Normally, all I would get is "out-of-area." New feature? If it is, will using *67 still render 'private'? Thought this would be of interest to many of you. Derek J. Tarcza DerekJ609@worldnet.att.net Lawrenceville, NJ (609) 895-0234 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Jun 96 19:18:00 EDT From: joel@exc.com (Joel M. Hoffman) Subject: Re: Sprint Fridays Were Free Organization: Excelsior Computer Services In article is written: > Maybe we might all get a little more satisfaction from Sprint if we > didn't react to every action of theirs by summoning lawyers, and maybe > made a few calls to their friendly customer service people instead. > [...] > Shouldn't we remember that everyone who subscribed to Sprint Fridays [got two months of free Fridays] I see two problems. First, real businesses (such as myself) had the program changed in the middle, and that's simply illegal. Secondly, people who were lured by Sprint representatives into accepting Free Fridays were victims of illegal bait and switch advertising. There are clear laws against what Sprint is doing. What will happen when your bank tells you that they'll give you 15% interest for one year if you switch, and then changes the rate to 2.4% because they're losing money? Even if you get 15% for a month, you lose, becuase you've probably already planned ahead based on the money you were going to get. Maybe you've already spent it. Anyone who planned on using Sprint's promised service for the entire year (e.g., promised to call people overseas, made billing arrangements based on free calls, etc.) is LOSING MONEY because of Sprint's tactics. This is not simply a matter of have gotten only two months instead of twelve. It's a matter of Sprint getting money illegally. Joel (joel@exc.com) ------------------------------ From: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net Subject: Re: Followup on Sprint Fridays Free Date: 06 Jun 1996 21:33:29 -0400 Organization: Society for Performance Based Government Reply-To: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh, really now, I don't think writing > to Congress about this is worth the effort. I would not bother those > people with this issue. Hey, these were the people talking about holding hearings on breakfast cereal prices only a month or two ago. Nothing is too trivial for them if they sense an opportunity to get on TV :-). See for information on Government by Performance ------------------------------ From: joel@exc.com Date: Thu, 6 Jun 96 19:21:00 EDT Subject: Re: Followup on Sprint Fridays Free Organization: Excelsior Computer Services >> Does anyone else have anything to add? > Sure. Make copies of everything, along with an explaination of the > circumstances and send it off to your congresscritter. After all, its > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh, really now, I don't think writing > to Congress about this is worth the effort. I would not bother those Neither do I. But I did file a complain with the FCC, and never heard back from them. I called them to follow up, left a message, and never heard back from them. Does anyone know how the complaint process works, and how long it's supposed to take them to take action on a complaint? (I sent the letter when Sprint first threatened to take Israel off of their free calling list.) Joel (joel@exc.com) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And if you wrote to congress I doubt you would hear anything back from them either. PAT] ------------------------------ From: lr@access2.digex.net (Sir Topham Hatt) Subject: Re: AT&T Wireless Tells Cellular Roamers: Don't call NJ Police Date: 7 Jun 1996 00:20:11 GMT Paul Robinson (paul@TDR.COM) wrote: > - All gasoline sold in New Jersey is both mandatory Full Service, it > is at least 15 to 40c per gallon cheaper than any gas, even self > service, in New York City, Delaware or Washington, DC. The small service station operators have a very powerful lobby and have kept it out. The reason gas is cheaper is that there is no state gasoline tax. It helps that there are two large oil companies headquartered in the state (Exxon and Citgo). ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Jun 96 19:33 EDT From: joel@exc.com (Joel M. Hoffman) Subject: Re: Fight Turns Nasty: Ameritech/AT&T Take Off Gloves In article you write: >> Isn't this a shameful state of affairs when customers have to get >> caught up in the middle of the fight? > What's shameful is that AT&T is cancelling the MCHA's with the RBOC's > (and refuses to come clean about it with the press or their own > customers.) The reason is simple ... they want to divert calling > revenue from the Bell networks to the AT&T network. And they're doing > it on the backs of their own customers. And what's really shameful is that most countries are moving toward easier and more convenient calling, while America is moving the other way! In most countries, you can buy a phone card, from >the< telco, and place calls with it from any payphone at a low, standard, rate. Here in the US, you have to dial digits (11 for 1800callatt, 14 for your card number, and 10 for the number) from a payphone to make a call if you don't have change. >That's< outrageous. In most countries you can still get an operator, too, and directory information. (Here in Nynex country, I usually get a fast busy from 411.) The bottom line is that the phone network is not supposed to be a money-making endeavor. It's supposed to be a service to citizens. And America isn't providing that service. Joel (joel@exc.com) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Now wait a minute! *Who says* that telecom is not supposed to be a money-making endeavor? Perhaps that is the case in some countries, but here in the USA telephone companies have stockholders and pay dividends to those stockholders. Do you think the investors put money in just for the sake of being good guys to the rest of the nation? PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #275 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jun 10 12:09:25 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id MAA12518; Mon, 10 Jun 1996 12:09:25 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 12:09:25 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606101609.MAA12518@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #276 TELECOM Digest Mon, 10 Jun 96 12:09:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 276 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson LA Cellular Rumors (John Marquette) 508/978 and 617/781 Splits (John Grossi) Re: Home Phone Switch Needed (Bob Bell) Re: Information Wanted on SMCM Long Distance: Legit? (Jeff Colbert) Soundcard/Voice Modem/Phone/Phone Line Integration (Innovative Tech) Re: Webphone 2.0 Beta (Charles Fitzgerald) Re: Around and Around With Jeff Boy (North Coast Communications) Re: Hurting Public Utilities Hurts Public Service (Robert Jacobson) Re: Digital Cellular in North America Question (Osman Rich) Re: AT&T 9300 - Spread Spectrum "Technology"? (Roy A. McCrory) Re: Great Circle Mileage Equations (Col. G.L. Sicherman) Dueling Machines (ADAD versus Answering-Machine) (Melvin Klassen) Re: Sprint Fridays Are Free (Clifford D. McGlamry) Re: Sprint Fridays Were Free (Heflin Hogan) Re: Sprint Fridays Were Free (Poll Dubh) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Marquette Subject: LA Cellular Rumors Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 08:48:27 -0700 Organization: Caltech Can anyone provide any insight on the future of LA Cellular? I understand AT&T has a 50% ownership share, and a friend of a friend said that a name change from LAC to AT&T Wireless was imminent -- along with a MEGA rate reduction ($15 access per month). In fact, an Office Depot (or was it Staples?) ad for cellphones in the LA Times a couple of days ago stated that activation was through AT&T Wireless. I wonder what's going to happen to our company's "500+" deal with LAC, in which individuals can get corporate pricing instead of retail pricing? Will rates plummet or will we be tied into the current approx. $30/month access and $0.33/0.215 charges? John ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 11:33:46 -0400 From: John Grossi Subject: 508/978 and 617/781 Splits The June 7 {Boston Globe} had an article on the new area codes that are slated for Eastern Massachusetts. NYNEX is still favoring the overlays, but a consortium of would be competitors (AT&T, MCI, Continental Cablevision, etc...) have advanced a proposed split. Basically the 617/781 split moves the following major towns to the new area code: Waltham, Woburn, Medford, Lynn (basically the northern suburbs with the Charles as a dividing line) Boston's Charlestown neighborhood is slated to go to the new area code, while Cambridge is slated to stay 617. (The following towns are also slated to go both ways: Newton, Somerville, Watertown). I'd personally expect to see the towns sent one way or the other. The 978/508 split is again a north/south split. 978 would get the following major towns: Athol, Gardener, Fitchburg, Leominster, Lowell, Lawrence, Haverhill, Salem. 508 would stays for: Worcester, New Bedford, Fall River, Brockton, and Cape Cod. (again several towns such as Marlborough and Framingham are thrown both ways-- a sure fire way for a big political fight) The splits that the paper shows don't look like the best thing to me ... personally a better thing to do would be to let Worcester county keep 508. Send the old Plymouth Colony to 978, and then send Essex County, and the northern 'burbs of Boston (Middlesex County mostly) to 781 ... that makes some sense ... admittedly it's rearranging the 508/617 line but ... John Grossi jgrossi@bbn.com ------------------------------ From: bbell@incite.com (Bob Bell) Subject: Re: Home Phone Switch Needed Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 10:40:01 GMT Organization: Intecom On 4 Jun 1996 17:01:38 GMT, n8mdy@falcon.ic.net (n8mdy) wrote: > I have a problem with telephone lines, long distance and abusive > children. We recently received a $280 phone bill, all local long > distance calls. My teenage son thinks it ok to talk to the next > exchange for hours at a time. Well, I cut off long distance service on > the family telephone; I have a separate line in my office for my own > use. > Is there a phone switch, which would cost $500 or less, available? > I would like to assign access codes, call accounting and possibly an > intercom or paging system. Panasonic makes a very nice small switch. Called the 803, I think, it supports eight stations and three CO lines. It has a wide variety of features and includes least cost routing and access codes, if I remember correctly. A company I did some work for once used it as a test switch. The cost for the switch as of three years ago was about $700.00. This may have dropped in the interrim. I saw it through the "Shoppers Advantage" electronic mall on Compuserve. Hope this helps, Bob Bell Principal Engineer Incite Division, Intecom Inc. bbell@incite.com ------------------------------ From: Jeff Colbert Subject: Re: Information Wanted on SMCM Long Distance: Legit? Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 08:03:51 -0700 Organization: Earthlink Network, Inc. I could be wrong, but usually when they say something like that it is 10% off the discounted portion which would equate to 32.5% instead. Still good, but not 35%. Jeff ------------------------------ From: innovative_technologies@actcom.co.il (innovative technologies) Subject: Soundcard/Voice Modem/Phone/Phone Line Integration Solution Reply-To: innovative_technologies@actcom.co.il Organization: innovative technologies Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 10:01:48 GMT Dear fellow net'ers, Due to many past requests on usenet for a flexible and reliable solution to integrating a sound card, a voice modem, a telephone and the phoneline, as well as simply interfacing a sound card to the phone line (two way), we thought it might interest the usenet community that such a device is indeed available, low cost. We call it "VOICEbox". For further info, please visit our WWW site (prefered method) or send us email. Best regards, Innovative Technologies Telecom, Multimedia and VoiceMail products and home of the TYIN adavanced utilities. email: innovative_technologies@actcom.co.il Check our WEB site at: WWW: http://www.israel.net/innovative/ (PS: When responding, an email in addition to posting here would be appreceated). ------------------------------ From: Charles Fitzgerald Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 03:37:19 -0700 Subject: Re: WebPhone 2.0 Beta > I did a brief follow-up on the recent article announcing the release of the > WebPhone 2.0 beta, and received this response: > From: ross schindler[SMTP:ross@netspeak.com] > Sent: Thursday, June 6, 1996 12:50 > To: 'jcdowns@strategic-vision.com' > Subject: RE: WebPhone 2.0 >> Thank you for your interest in the WebPhone 2.0 beta 1. Currently >> the beta version of the WebPhone does contain a text area called the >> Noteboard. You can do multi-line conference calling. You do not need >> to have a static IP address to use the WebPhone. You dial by e-mail >> address. Please visit our web page at www.netspeak.com to see the >> WebPhone and it features. > This Internet phone release looks as if it might be mature enough to > be considered as more than a "isn't this fun!" add-on for the PC. > There is still the issue of no standards (the different Net phone > applications are currently unable to interconnect), limitations > (technology is available to connect with traditional phone service, > but it is not commonly available), and the potential for Net capacity > problems. Actually, there are standards for realtime communications over the Internet (and circuit-switched networks as a bonus), courtesy of the ITU. T.120 supports multi-point data conferencing and H.323 provides standards for call setup, audio and video. Microsoft NetMeeting was introduced last week and supports these standards. T.120 dataconferencing capabilities include whiteboard, file transfer, chat and the ability to share arbitrary applications so everyone on the conference can view and/or control them without having to have that application installed on any machine except that of the user who is sharing it. And it supports H.323-based Internet telephony. And about 20 companies like MCI, ConferTech, VideoServer, CheckPoint, etc. announced network conferencing services, bridges, firewalls, etc. that interoperate thanks to those standards. First version is Windows 95 - Windows NT and Macintosh versions on the way as well as H.323 video. NetMeeting is freely downloadable from http://www.microsoft.com/ie/conf. A rich set of collaboration tools, tens of millions of people to talk to, plus the infrastructure in the network is going to make change the way people communicate in realtime. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 96 10:40:00 EDT From: North Coast Communications <0005082894@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: Around and Around With Jeff Boy Silly me. While calling Jeff @ 800.351.8085 (to ask questions about ^ his product of course ;+), I reached 800.351.8084 and got some guy ^ that "sounded just like him" with a different sales spiel. What do you think guys? Is it my hearing or what? Sounds like the same person to me. ;+) And maybe you telecom experts can tell me ... is 800.351.8086 (dialed ^ accidently of course!) a fax machine or computer? Hmmmmm....8083...8087... Kristen (Still waiting for one of Mr. Jeff's awards!) ------------------------------ From: Dr. Robert Jacobson Subject: Re: Hurting Public Utilities Hurts Public Service Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 01:22:27 -0700 Organization: Worldesign Inc. Seattle Information Design - www.worldesign.com Henry Baker wrote [in part]: > Suppose I have two competitors providing service to the same customers > in the same city, and suppose that they have to 'duplicate' the > infrastructure. Even in the worst case, the total cost is only double > that of the lowest cost single provider. But now consider the > monopoly, and factor in the featherbedding of the monopoly service > unions, the backdoor payments by the monopoly to the politicians > (legal here in L.A.), the bloated tax payments on 'phantom profits' > generated by unrealistic depreciation schedules, the continued use of > completely obsolete 50-100 year old technology, and your > 'infrastructure cost' balloons to at least 10X that of the lowest cost > system. In fact, the early history of the railroad industry may be pertinent. Hoardes of speculators obtained federal licenses to build railroads to both cash in on "unlimited" demand and salt away some land grants. When unlimited demand did not materialize -- can it ever? -- the industry went into total collapse, leading eventually to de facto monopolies on many, if not most, railroad lines. An earlier example of the same sort of overdone "infrastructure" might be seen in the Great Tulip Crash that nearly destroyed Holland as a nation in the 17th Century. If infrastructure is overbuilt, there is a collapse. If it's under- built, demand is unsatisfied. In both cases, given the free market, monopoly or at best, duopoly emerges. Who looks out for everyone else? Bob ------------------------------ From: Osman Rich Subject: Subject: Re: Digital Cellular in North America Question Date: Mon, 10 Jun 96 07:17:00 PDT eeipcn@eei.ericsson.se (Pat Cronin) wrote: > It would be technically feasible to make a system that supported > multiband operation (GSM 900 and PCS 1800) in exactly the same way > that the systems in Europe do. The limiting factors would be > availability of bandwidth, the economics of providing GSM 900 cells in > a largely PCS 1900 market, the design and availability of muliband > (GSM and PCS 1900) phones, and some small switch and base station > redesign, perhaps. > So, with a GSM based system, it is technically feasible to support the > North American and European based standards in the same system. But > perhaps, the business case is not so strong? Actually the problem is that there are services in the US using the bands that GSM900 and DCS1800. This prevents licensing GSM and DCS systems. > Also there may be other solutions, using interworking register nodes, > that allow a, say, PCS roamer access to a GSM system, but having > temporary use of a GSM phone in that market. This is a service that AT&T Wireless offers today. ------------------------------ From: Roy A. McCrory Subject: Re: AT&T 9300 - Spread Spectrum "Technology"? Date: 10 Jun 1996 10:17:27 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory So does anyone know how frequently the tx frequency hops for this cordless? Roy ------------------------------ From: root@nntpb.cb.att.com Subject: Re: Great Circle Mileage Equations Date: 9 Jun 1996 20:51:32 GMT Organization: Save the Dodoes Foundation In , jmayson@p100dl.ess.harris.com wrote: > I derived this formula to calculate great circle mileage equations. I don't > know if this is the best way to do it, but it works. You have a few typos, and indeed this can be done more efficiently. > Define NORTH latitudes as POSITIVE, > SOUTH latitudes as NEGATIVE. > > Define EAST longitudes as POSITIVE, > WEST longitudes as NEGATIVE. O.K. This "bc" program prints the great-circle distance between two points, and the bearing from the first point along the great circle. For non-UNIX people, the functions s, c, a denote sin, cos, and arctan. This is GUARANTEED to have no more bugs than the average UNIX program.... #!/bin/ksh # Print spherical distance in radians from lat1,long1 to lat2,long2. # Arguments are in degrees. # Also prints bearing from point 1 along great circle to point 2 in # degrees clockwise from N. if [ $# -ne 4 ]; then print -u2 "usage: spherical lat1 long1 lat2 long2" exit 1 fi if [ $1 -gt 90 -o $1 -lt -90 -o $3 -gt 90 -o $3 -lt -90 ]; then print -u2 "spherical: latitude must be between -90 and 90" exit 1 fi if [ $2 -gt 180 -o $2 -lt -180 -o $4 -gt 180 -o $4 -lt -180 ]; then print -u2 "spherical: longitude must be between -180 and 180" exit 1 fi print " define r(x) { /* radians */ auto x return (x*3.1415925/180) } define j(q) { /* arc cos (q squared) */ auto q if (q==0) return (3.14159265/2) return (a(sqrt(1/q-1))) } define k(x) { /* arc cos */ auto x if (x<0) return (3.14159265-j(x*x)) return (j(x*x)) } define y(q) { /* arc sin (q squared) */ auto q return (a(sqrt(1/(1-q)-1))) } l = r($1) m = r($3) o = r($2) p = r($4) e = 1-c(o-p) d = (1-c(l-m)+c(l)*c(m)*e)/2 /* sin squared of central angle/2 */ /* PRINT THIS: */ 2*y(d) /* we need sin of the full central angle: */ u = 2 * sqrt(d*(1-d)) /* dot product of normal vectors: */ define w (l) { auto l return((c(l)*s(m) + s(l)*c(m)*c(o+p)) / u) } z = k(w(l)) /* correct it to get the shorter way around */ a = o-p if (a<0) a =+ 2*3.14159265 if (a<3.14159265) z =+ 3.14159265 /* PRINT THIS: */ z * 180/3.14159265 " | bc -l Beware - usually the bearings at the ends won't match. Great-circle routes don't have constant bearings. The constant (loxodromic) bearing from one point to another isn't so simple -- when you travel in a constant direction other than north or south or along the equator, you don't travel along a great circle. Col. G. L. Sicherman sicherman@lucent.com ------------------------------ From: klassen@UVic.CA (Melvin Klassen) Subject: Dueling Machines (ADAD Versus Answering-Machine) Date: 10 Jun 1996 10:58:03 GMT Organization: University of Victoria Recently, my personal answering-machine (actually, it's the telco's voice-mail system) has been recording messages consisting of: > is interested in finding out about the fastest-growing > home-based business, press 1 now, or, if not, hang-up. Thank you. Obviously, the Automatic Dialing-Announcing Device is "talking" long before the 'beep', so that's all that is recorded. :-) I've contacted the telco, and asked them to remind their customer that the use of ADAD's for purposes of solicitation is prohibited. Caller-ID shows that the originating-number is (604) 479-0923, but calls to that number connect to a voice-response system. Sigh! ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jun 96 11:00:42 EDT From: Clifford D. McGlamry <102073.1425@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: Sprint Fridays Are Free I have a friend who works for Sprint. I asked her if Robin Loyed even exists. She said that he is in fact a real person who lives and works in Dallas, TX. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe she should tell him to check his voicemail once in a while and clear it out. The other day it was full and would accept no new messages. PAT] ------------------------------ From: mhh001c@pdnis.paradyne.com (Heflin Hogan) Subject: Re: Sprint Fridays Were Free Date: 10 Jun 1996 15:15:00 GMT Organization: AT&T Paradyne In article , joel@exc.com (Joel M. Hoffman) writes: > In article is written: [snip] > I see two problems. First, real businesses (such as myself) had the > program changed in the middle, and that's simply illegal. > Secondly, people who were lured by Sprint representatives into > accepting Free Fridays were victims of illegal bait and switch > advertising. Actually, you seem to have only one point: that Sprint has done something illegally. > There are clear laws against what Sprint is doing. What will happen > when your bank tells you that they'll give you 15% interest for one > year if you switch, and then changes the rate to 2.4% because they're > losing money? Even if you get 15% for a month, you lose, becuase you've > probably already planned ahead based on the money you were going to > get. Maybe you've already spent it. Please demonstrate that Sprint has broken the law (and what law, while you're at it). I doubt you will be able to. I am sure whatever tariff that Sprint filed for the program has language that allows them to do just what they did. > Anyone who planned on using Sprint's promised service for the entire > year (e.g., promised to call people overseas, made billing arrangements > based on free calls, etc.) is LOSING MONEY because of Sprint's tactics. > This is not simply a matter of have gotten only two months instead of > twelve. It's a matter of Sprint getting money illegally. Once again you assert that Sprint has done something illegal. Where is your proof? If I do business with XYZ Corp and fail to read the contract, has XYZ Corp violated the law? If you failed to read Sprint's filings and take them into account, whose fault is that? Please understand that I am not defending Sprint's decisions. They *should* swallow the loss that bad marketing caused. However, a good legal department gave them an out and they took it. Bad business, yes. Unethical, probably. Illegal, no. This whole debacle is a good reason to do away with the tariff system, at least as far as IXCs go. The tariff substitutes for a contract or disclosure sheet for the long distance conmpanies, and it makes it difficult for the small business or individual to know the terms that they are doing business under. Heflin Hogan ------------------------------ From: singular@oort.ap.sissa.it (Poll Dubh) Subject: Re: Sprint Fridays Were Free Date: 9 Jun 1996 14:57:06 GMT Organization: Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate In article , Joel M. Hoffman wrote: > I see two problems. First, real businesses (such as myself) had the > program changed in the middle, and that's simply illegal. Perhaps. (I'm no lawyer, and I haven't read every clause of Sprint's original contract with you, so it's doubly impossible for me to be more definite.) What does that mean in practical terms? That you may be able to persuade/force Sprint to pay you damages. If you think it's in your best interest to do so, go ahead and try. It is still likely that Sprint's readiness to indemnify you will depend on the total amount of claims they get. If others settle, it may make Sprint less nervous about forking out to you. > There are clear laws against what Sprint is doing. What will happen > when your bank tells you that they'll give you 15% interest for one > year if you switch, and then changes the rate to 2.4% because they're > losing money? Even if you get 15% for a month, you lose, becuase > you've probably already planned ahead based on the money you were > going to get. Maybe you've already spent it. What does a bank do when people default on their loans? It recovers what it can, swallows the loss, and tries to make safer loans to compensate. What do you do when your bank, or telephone company, or whatever, defaults on its engagements? You recover what you can (as I said, go ahead), swallow the loss, and lower its credit rating, i.e. stop lending it money/relying on its services/etc. What amazes me is that you didn't see this coming, i.e. that you thought Sprint's offer worthy of credit in the first place. After all, giving out free calls in the US only costs Sprint extra load on its network but free overseas calls mean actual payments to the phone companies at the other end and so have a direct impact on cash flow. Do you also buy into pyramid schemes? And when you go on vacation, do you always look for the absolute cheapest fares, on chartered flights by obscure airlines, the kind that goes bankrupt before your return trip? Not without first assessing the risks, I hope. > Anyone who planned on using Sprint's promised service for the entire > year (e.g., promised to call people overseas, made billing > arrangements based on free calls, etc.) is LOSING MONEY because of > Sprint's tactics. This is not simply a matter of have gotten only two > months instead of twelve. It's a matter of Sprint getting money > illegally. I can readily believe that the unexpected change is making you lose money. I'm less convinced that Sprint is "getting money" in this affair; it's more likely that they are trying to cut their own losses. That doesn't mean they don't owe you compensation for the trouble they caused. How much is a matter between you and them and any judges and lawyers you choose to bring in. "Timeo Sprint et dona ferens" (as they might say in Troy, NY?) ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #276 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jun 10 13:33:02 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id NAA21376; Mon, 10 Jun 1996 13:33:02 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 13:33:02 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606101733.NAA21376@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #277 TELECOM Digest Mon, 10 Jun 96 13:33:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 277 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson More USCC Stupidity (Stanley Cline) Can't Call 500 Numbers! (Stanley Cline) Indian Cable Union Bans ESPN For Charging (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Pacific Bell Foundation Publishes Annual Report On WWW (Mike King) Nevis-St. Kitts Telco (Determine@aol.com) Modems in Spain (Kris Nelson) Splitting Ends Of A T1? (Craig Nordin) 52nd UCLA Engineering and Management Program (Bill Goodin) CallerID *Only* Line? (Hillary Gorman) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: scline@usit.net (Stanley Cline) Subject: More USCC Stupidity Date: Sun, 09 Jun 1996 00:06:04 GMT Organization: Catoosa Computing Services United States Cellular is getting even worse than I thought. Because of their obnoxious behavior in Knoxville, TN (I'm in Chattanooga) and other areas, I re-established service with Cellular One/GTE (which covers virtually the whole state of Tennessee.) The intent here is to use the CellOne number in Tennessee (to avoid USCC in Knoxville, and intrastate long distance charges) and other specific areas where roaming rates are lower, and the BellSouth line in Georgia (most of GA is either 35c or 65c/min, unlike CellOne) and out-of-state. While talking with the CellOne salesperson about my hellish experiences with USCC, I found this tidbit out: As I may have said before, CellOne has been trying for *years* to do something about Dalton, GA, just to the south of here. In Dalton, the A-side carrier is USCC; the B-side carrier is BellSouth. CellOne (along with Atlanta AirTouch and certain other carriers) have been clamoring for lower rates and NACN availability in Dalton. USCC finally gave into pressure, making NACN roaming available in Dalton. They also lowered the rate for Atlanta AirTouch roamers to 35c/min, to be more in line with BellSouth. USCC also told GTE that they would charge Chattanooga roamers 60c/min. (As it stood, Chattanooga A-side roamers must switch to the COMPETITOR -- BellSouth -- for 60c/min roaming!) The problem: USCC is still billing Chattanooga roamers $3/day and 99c/min (the $3/day charge was once eliminated, but they reinstated it!) This is DESPITE WHAT THEY TOLD GTE. Also, when roaming in the USCC Dalton area, it is IMPOSSIBLE to call a "Georgia-only" 800/888 number ... all calls from Dalton are switched in Concord/Knoxville, TN, 140 miles to the north. ANI from USCC's system is sent as "423-680-xxxx" (just as if I were on the Knoxville B system), NOT a NPA 706, 770, or 404 number as would be expected -- therefore throwing off NPA/geographic routing of 800/888 calls, and making IXCs believe 800/888 calls originate in Tennessee rather than Georgia. I have seen this odd ANI/800/888 behavior in cellular systems that split states (such as both carriers in Chattanooga TN-GA, Memphis TN-MS-AR, and Bristol TN-VA) but for a system (coverage area, to be more specific) that is ENTIRELY within Georgia this is unacceptable. BellSouth (who switches their calls in Atlanta/Decatur, GA) has no such trouble. Their switch sends ANI as "404-792-xxxx." USCC is selling the Dalton RSA (GA-1) to Palmer Wireless (who is supposedly entering into a switch agreement with GTE, so that Dalton-area cellular calls are switched in Chattanooga!) -- it is obvious it's high time for it. Now if only something would happen with Knoxville. I believe USCC's consistent overbilling may be grounds for a class-action lawsuit, or at the very least a complaint with the TN and GA Attorneys General. It is beginning to look like fraud. ... ... 6/7/96: I received a personal reply from H. Donald Nelson, president of USCC -- he has forwarded my last letter (dated April 15, but sent in mid-May) to the VP of Operations for the Eastern region for detailed investigation. Maybe this nightmare will end. Stanley Cline (Roamer1 on IRC) ** GO BRAVES! GO VOLS! mailto:scline@usit.net ** http://www.usit.net/public/scline/ CompuServe 74212,44 ** MSN WSCline1 ** AOL SUCKS! All opinions are strictly my own! ------------------------------ From: scline@usit.net (Stanley Cline) Subject: Can't Call 500 Numbers! Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 00:06:09 GMT Organization: Catoosa Computing Services The subject line says it all ... I cannot call any 500 numbers (whether 1+ or 0+) from MY number (706-861-xxxx.) In every case, I get a fast busy! What's really strange is that 500 numbers work just fine from my OTHER line (706-866-xxxx) and from other 861-xxxx numbers. Trying to force-PIC 500 calls through AT&T (10288+1-500...) resulted in the same fast busy. (Having to force-PIC 500s is absurd, as they're routed as 800/888/900 calls are, by carrier handling the number being called, not the PIC of the caller.) I finally called BellSouth repair service; this afternoon I got a call from "Kathleen" in "Translations" at BellSouth (I called them back from looking at caller ID, they had CID and had the trouble ticket up when I called back!), informing me that they had no problems with 500 numbers (from Nashville), and that switch software here (we're on a DMS-100) looked correct. BellSouth gave me this TEST 500 # -- 1-500-288-9999 -- to call; it gave me a fast busy dialing direct. Calling it via 1-800-Call-ATT (using PIN 1234) works fine, as well as calling it from my other line. "Kathleen" told me they'd have a CO tech down here look at this. I have no toll restrictions (not even 900 Block) on this line; this line is nonpublished, but that should make no difference. Has anyone heard of this strange behavior before -- a SINGLE line unable to call 500 numbers, being blocked by the LEC? Stanley Cline (Roamer1 on IRC) ** GO BRAVES! GO VOLS! mailto:scline@usit.net ** http://www.usit.net/public/scline/ CompuServe 74212,44 ** MSN WSCline1 ** AOL SUCKS! All opinions are strictly my own! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 9 Jun 1996 13:39:07 -0700 From: Rishab Aiyer Ghosh Subject: Indian Cable Union Bans ESPN For Charging The Indian Techonomist: bulletin, June 9, 1996 Copyright (C) 1996 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh. All rights reserved June 9, 1996: Early this week the Maharashtra Cable Sena, a union of cable operators in western India announced its decision to ban the ESPN sports channel across the entire state of Maharashtra, including state capital Mumbai (Bombay). This was the result of what was called an emergency meeting on May 30, soon after ESPN decided to start charging its viewers. The Cable Sena stated that its action was intended to "discourage the practice of earning extra revenue" through a pay-TV channel. The Cable Sena is better known for its attacks on what it calls obscenity on television; it is loosely affiliated to the Shiv Sena, a militant right-wing political party that is particular about Maharashtrian values - and happens to run the state. In acting against ESPN - for the channel's crime of charging viewers to see cricket matches - the Sena has only done what most cable operators might wish. This is not of any great concern for viewers, who pay cable operators anyway, albeit only about $5 a month. (In India, small sums add up - cable subscribers paid some $600 million last year, and the revenues are growing at well over 30% annually.) Rather, cable operators are concerned that they may have to share their considerable income with the channels they carry. With some 30,000 to 40,000 cable operators in an extremely disorganised and unregulated business, cable TV in India is a bit like the Internet business in the US - small, decentralised providers offering low rates, contributing little to a strong, reliable infrastructure and returning nothing to the originators of content that make their services valuable in the first place. Instead of sharing subscriber revenue, the unfortunate channels have to rely on advertising - a comparatively low $300 million is expected in TV ad spend this year, most of it going to state-owned Doordarshan, which has an audience share exceeding 75% due to its terrestrial network. Private channels are not yet allowed to broadcast terrestrially (and are unlikely to want to invest in a huge network like Doordarshan, which covers the whole country). They are forced to rely on cable operators for building a mass audience, the only way to attract advertising. Cable operators have taken full advantage of this, refusing to pay to carry signals, and occasionally trying to extort carriage fees from the broadcasters. Consolidation within the industry, proceeding at a snail's pace, does not appear to help much - it was InCable, a largish network in Delhi and Mumbai owned by the Hindujas that was rumoured to ask for $2 million per channel in carriage fees. And not every broadcaster can match Zee TV (affiliated to News Corp's STAR network) which has built its own cable network, Siti Cable. Siti recently announced plans to spend $30 million over the next year improving service, providing cable-only movie and "film-based" channels, and connecting 15 more cities greatly increasing its (claimed) subscriber base of 2.2 million homes. Instead, the bright hope for satellite channels - particularly niche channels without tremendous advertising potential - is direct-to-home (DTH) broadcasting. If the many projects at various stages of planning (proponents include Doordarshan, Malaysia's MEASAT, STAR/Asiasat, Thailand's Shinawatra, and possibly Hughes, Loral and DirecTV) take off, and prices of receivers fall, then ESPN will finally be able to treat the Cable Sena with the indifference it deserves. On why television and radio is officially a state monopoly in India, and how this will change thanks to a Supreme Court verdict see http://dxm.org/techonomist/regu.html#IBA The Indian Techonomist: weekly summary. http://dxm.org/techonomist/news/ Copyright (C) 1996 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (rishab@techonomist.dxm.org) A4/204 Ekta Vihar 9 Indraprastha Extension New Delhi 110092 INDIA May be distributed electronically provided that this notice is attached ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: Pacific Bell Foundation Publishes Annual Report On WWW Date: Sun, 9 Jun 1996 16:54:53 PDT Forwarded to the Digest FYI: Date: Tue, 04 Jun 1996 06:18:38 -0700 Reply-To: NEWS-LIST@list.pactel.com From: sqlgate@list.pactel.com Subject: Pacific Bell Foundation Publishes Annual Report On The WWW FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 3, 1996 FOR MORE INFORMATION: John Abbott (415) 394-3638 Ben Voris (415 394-3685 Pacific Bell Foundation Publishes Annual Report On The WWW New Web site highlights grantmaking, application procedures SAN FRANCISCO -- Taking advantage of new technology, the Pacific Bell Foundation (formerly known as the Telesis Foundation) published its 1995 annual report on the World Wide Web (WWW). The electronic report highlights the Foundation's 1995 grantmaking, outlines its funding priorities, and even includes application procedures for potential grant applicants. The Foundation is one of the first regional philanthropic organizations to venture into cyberspace. "We believe that many of our clients will use this new technology to communicate, exchange information, and market their services," says Jere Jacobs, president of the Foundation. "Just as important, one of our priorities is to support organizations that use information-based technologies to improve their effectiveness. In this way, we hope to model the use of technology that we encourage our clients to adopt, and set an example for other corporate funders." The Foundation Web site has several main areas: * The President's Letter * Education * Community * Arts and Culture * Grants database * Application procedures Visitors to the site can search the database of grants from the past two years by category or recipient, review guidelines for funding, and send an e-mail message to the staff (grant proposals are not accepted by e-mail). They can also request a printed version of the annual report by filling out an electronic order form. "Our presence on the Internet will enable us to provide timely information to grant applicants," Jacobs says. "It will also connect us to community-based resources, and quicken our response to the needs of the communities we serve." The emphasis on technology was apparent in the Foundation's giving last year. It made two $100,000 "cluster" grants, which were divided among a number of different agencies in a specific area. The first was to support technology planning in two school districts in Nevada; the second was to increase the capacity of 10 Los Angeles-area nonprofit groups to better serve their clients through the acquisition of telecommunications equipment. The Foundation's largest technology grants, however, focused on efforts to improve student learning, teaching practice and school management. It made a $500,000 grant to the award-winning Education for the Future Initiative to implement its framework for school improvement in several California public schools. In addition, the Foundation developed a partnership with Pacific Bell's Education First technology initiative to integrate technology and organization improvement at 12 demonstration sites in selected schools, libraries and community colleges around California. Other agencies used Foundation grants to purchase and upgrade computer systems, to present a special conference that helps people with disabilities learn about computers and adaptive devices, and to conduct distance learning programs that link teachers and students by video conference. In total, the Foundation made $6.1 million in grants in 1995 in education, the community, arts and culture, and United Way. "Technology won't solve all our problems," Jacobs says. "But it is a tool that can give all of us the opportunity to enhance learning, leisure and work, no matter what our cultural or ethnic background might be." The Foundation site may be accessed directly at: http://www. pactel.com/found/home.html. It may also be reached through the Pacific Telesis Web site at http://www.pactel.com under the "In the Community" section. The Foundation was formed in 1984 by the Pacific Telesis Group, a diversified communications company based in San Francisco. ------------------ Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Gee, maybe someone with some savvy in this sort of thing would review that material and see if it could be possibly of value to this Digest. I can certainly tell you having our friends at Microsoft leaving at the end of this month has started to get me a little panicy. For all I may be good at, I am terrible when it comes to fund raising. :( PAT] ------------------------------ From: Determine@aol.com Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 10:49:24 -0400 Subject: Nevis-St. Kitts Telco Dear Pat, We're a small call-back provider (Section 214-licensed, no less!) SkanTel (the local Cable & Wireless Telco) in St. Kitts-Nevis (Windward Islands, Caribbean) is rather territorial. Some months ago, a client of mine in that country was being harrassed by SkanTel for having a callback connection, so my client and I agreed that it was best to deactivate his account. (Incidentally, the FCC does not list Nevis-St. Kitts as being a contry that US callback providers must not connect to.) This morning, my former client called me via his AT&T calling card from St. Kitts. (He can't call my customer service number directly, as SkanTel has blocked that.) He told me that he "was no longer being harrassed and that SkanTel seemed to have stopped blocking his current callback provider, a firm in Seattle, WA. He asked whether we could provide him a DID number which I did, giving it to him over the phone. The number, incidentally, is in a New York City exchange. Six minutes later, that particular DID came in but "rang out," (that is, if there are more than x rings, the call "connects" and plays back a reorder tone and no callback results. This is to prevent inadvertant callbacks by someone dialing a wrong number). Over the next five minutes, his DID number "rang out" three more times. Yet, I knew that my client was fully aware that he should only allow the DID number to ring once. I called him in St. Kitts and asked him whether he was having trouble and he said, "No, I haven't even tried to call in yet." Far be it from me to suggest that SkanTel is monitoring international calls place to or by their subscribers. However, if you intend to do business in that country and require a reasonable degree of privacy, you might be well advised to get an e-mail account and a copy of PGP (International Edition, of course). Juan ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 08:14:08 PDT From: Kris Nelson Reply-To: Kris Nelson Subject: Modems in Spain I am going to be spending next school year studying in Spain (at the University of Granada, if you care) and plan to bring my trusty little Powerbook with me to do email, etc. UG appears to have dial-in lines, so that's no problem. But I have two questions: (1) Can I actually use my U.S. modem (a Hayes Accura 288) on Spanish phone lines? (Legally?) (2) What kind of physical phone jacks are in use in Spain? Radio Shack only has adapters for the U.K., Germany, and France (all different, interestingly). If Spain differs from these three, where can I get an adapter? Thanks for your help. Cheers, Kris Nelson krisn@u.washington.edu http://weber.u.washington.edu/~krisn/ CHID/English Comparative History of Ideas Staff U of Wash, Seattle ------------------------------ From: cnordin@vni.net (Craig Nordin) Subject: Splitting Ends Of A T1? Date: 10 Jun 1996 02:06:44 -0400 Organization: Virtual Networks In this case, split-ends are good! I'm searching for the solution that *does NOT* have me building a small telco rack alter to the thing with many expensive pieces. I know that there are some splitting CSU/DSUs out there and so I'm trying to figure out how to do it cheap and right ... I'm running a long distance T1 and I want to use most of it for TCP/IP data and 4 x 64K channels for voice connections. How do I peel off the 4 channels efficiently and affordably? POP POP Local Svc POTS ---\ /--- POTS Local Fwd Local Svc POTS ---\-------------------/--- POTS Local Fwd Local Svc POTS ---- LD T1 Circuit ---- POTS Local Fwd Local Svc POTS ---/-------------------\--- POTS Local Fwd V.35 DATA ---/ \--- DATA V.35 Local Svc = Terminates at a local phone number; Local Fwd = Terminates in forwarding to another local location. I'll summarize any e-mail I recieve on the subject! http://www.vni.net/ cnordin@vni.net Fly VNI: Send E-Mail to info@vni.net ------------------------------ From: BGoodin@UNEX.UCLA.EDU (Goodin, Bill) Organization: UCLA Extension Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 07:00:01 -0700 Subject: 52nd UCLA Engineering and Management Program September 15-20, 1996 For more than 40 years, UCLA Extension's Engineering and Management Program has provided "how to" answers to the challenges that technical managers face daily. The program is designed for experienced first-level technical supervisors, mid-level technical managers, technical professionals with high advancement potential, and non-technical managers in technology-based organizations. A special feature is the opportunity for participants to personalize their own curriculum by selecting four courses, each one meeting two hours per day. Participants may choose from 24 course offerings to address these and other important management questions: o How can I develop products and services that will have a market? o How can I use technology as one of the drivers of organizational change? o How can I influence persons who do not report directly to me or to my boss? o How can I create a culture that nourishes creativity, customer service, risk taking, and accountability? o How can I communicate in-house with peers, subordinates, and superiors, and with global customers and suppliers? o How can I carry out my managerial role in the face of major change in the organization? o How can I prepare myself for emerging trends and an uncertain future? o How can I better use or change aspects of my style of leadership to get desired results? o How can I identify and eliminate costly, nonvalue-added activities? Instructors are drawn from the UCLA faculty, other universities, and the business community. All combine research and theory with practice and application. The program advisory committee, which includes technical managers from Hewlett Packard, Trillium Digital Systems, TRW, Sandia National Laboratories, Beckman Instruments, Amgen, Telegenics, Rockwell, and ARCO, actively participates in the selection and evaluation of the courses. The program fee of $1,995 includes all texts and materials for courses in which the participant is enrolled, five continental breakfasts, five luncheons, social events, parking at UCLA, and use of University facilities and equipment. For further information and a complete program booklet, please contact Beverly Croswhite at: (310) 825-3858 Fax (310) 206-2815, e-mail: bcroswhi@unex.ucla.edu ------------------------------ From: hillary@netaxs.com (Hillary Gorman) Subject: CallerID *Only* Line? Date: 9 Jun 1996 19:50:20 GMT Organization: Philadelphia's Complete Internet Provider I am very curious about what the hell was going on at my friends' house. They moved into a new apartment and ordered residential phone service with call waiting and caller ID from Bell Atlantic here in Pennsylvania. When they arrived at their apartment having been assured that their line was connected and ready to go, they were surprised to find that there was no dial tone on the line. They tried plugging several different telephones into the jack, but the line was obviously dead. They were even *more* surprised, however, when shortly after finding their line to be dead, the phone *rang*, and caller identification was displayed on the caller ID box. Picking up the phone yielded only silence. So, for a couple of weeks, my friend was returning calls made to his apartment by checking the caller ID box and calling back from his cellphone. How did Bell Atlantic manage to send caller ID data without even delivering dial tone? hillary gorman..........hillary@netaxs.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't know why this should have been allowed to continue 'for a couple of weeks' unless your friends did not report it or telco was very incompetent about correcting the problem. The problem as I see it was probably one of three conditions which were overlooked by telco when the line was installed. One, the line was configured as 'ground start' meaning the subscriber has to send the line to ground for a short period -- usually just a second or less -- to get dial tone. There are good reasons why some subscribers need this type of line, based on their own equipment attached to the line. It may well have been the line was was configured as 'ground start' for the previous subscriber and no one noticed it or got around to changing it before your friends were assigned that line. To a subscriber not knowledgeable of this configuration, the line would appear to be dead; i.e. dead silence when off hook; not even 'battery' or side tone of any sort or cross-talk in the background, etc. This does not usually prevent incoming calls, and it would not explain why they could not speak with persons who called them. If call forwarding was somehow turned on, that would explain why no matter how fast they lifted the receiver they would not be able to speak to the caller and lacking dial tone why they would have just gotten silence. The second configuration which may have occurred which I think was less likely is the line was configured for one-way, incoming calls only. This is also a desirable configuration for some subscribers based on their needs. In this configuration, usually lifting the receiver will produce at least battery or side tone of some sort, but dial tone will never be heard. Again it should not have prevented incoming calls unless call forwarding had somehow been turned on also. A third possibility is the line was configured to just send ANI to a former subscriber. A large phone room for example might have a large number of incoming 800 lines and a line used only by telco to transmit certain data about incoming calls to the subscriber. Years ago when I had some association with Amoco Credit Card for example, the phone room used for 'sales authorization' (dealers calling in to get approval to allow a credit card sale) got ten to twelve thousand incoming calls per 24 hours from various types of phone lines all over the USA via an 'automatic call distributor' which tossed the incoming calls to credit representatives on duty. In the supervisor's office, a control unit kept track of how many calls each rep received; how many calls in total were receieved' how many calls were 'lost' (that is, the caller abandoned the call before getting a live answer from a rep); and how many calls were turned away by telco because all incoming lines were busy, etc. Telco had a 'data control line' (is what I think they called it) which did nothing but constantly send little blips down the line to this control unit telling it what to record for the subscriber's review; i.e. 'here comes a call from area code 219' or 'you just now had a caller hang up because he did not get answered after five rings' or 'four callers have received a busy signal in the last thirty seconds'. This unit in the supervisor's office was watched closely around the clock and someone had the specific duty of 'reading' it once an hour so that management would know what was going on. To the employees in the phone room it was also a tool used to spy on them they thought: 'why did position seventeen spend three minutes on that call instead of the usual thirty seconds or less?' or 'why was position five not taking calls at all for twenty minutes?' ... so the line might have been configured in previous use for something like that and no one at telco ever noticed it. But why 'two weeks' before correction? Please ask your friends to answer these questions and then get back to us for a bit more advice. 1) Exactly WHAT did they hear when off hook attempting to make a call? Was it dead silence or mostly dead silence with an occassional click or 'pop' in their ear? Did they hear side-tone or noise like the line was alive but just not ever getting around to dial tone? 2) What did the *people who called them* during that two weeks get as a result? Did the connection ring once (or not at all) and then just 'wander off' and get lost in the network somewhere? If so, what happened if they reported to the operator there was 'no ring/no answer' and asked the operator to assist in dialing? Did they get a recording saying the number was not in service? If so, what did the recording *say*? Did it recite the number dialed and claim it was not in service, or in service for one type of call but not another? Did it sound like the number connected with something/somewhere but then the phone was never picked up on the other end? Most important, did telco ever say what was wrong or did one day the line just start working correctly, with or without a call to repair service to prompt them into getting it fixed? Let us know. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #277 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jun 10 14:20:00 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id OAA26732; Mon, 10 Jun 1996 14:20:00 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 14:20:00 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606101820.OAA26732@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #278 TELECOM Digest Mon, 10 Jun 96 14:20:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 278 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson BellSouth Signs Local Interconnection Agreement With Time Warner (M. King) FCC Grants Pacific Bell Delay On CID (Mike King) Mass. Area Code Proposals (Boston Globe via oldbear@arctos.com) Oki 900 Apple Macintosh Software - Anyone Interested? (Steve Bagdon) Dassault Tries Out CT2 in India (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Telco: Service or Business (Joel M. Hoffman) Telecom Technical Conference (Amy Dario) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike King Subject: BellSouth Signs Local Interconnection Agreement With Time Warner Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 06:44:53 PDT Forwarded to the Digest, FYI: Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 10:18:35 -0400 From: BellSouth Subject: BELLSOUTH SIGNS LOCAL INTERCONNECTION AGREEENT WITH TIME WARNER Reply-To: press@www.bellsouth.com BELLSOUTH SIGNS REGIONAL LOCAL INTERCONNECTION AGREEMENT WITH TIME WARNER ATLANTA, GA. - June 4, 1996--BellSouth (NYSE: BLS), and Time Warner Communications, two of the leading communications companies in the country, announced they've signed a two-year agreement which will enable Time Warner to begin providing local phone service in direct competition with BellSouth soon. This agreement is significant in that these two competitors have negotiated a pact that will enhance competition in the southeast and provide millions of customers a choice of who provides them local telephone service. This is the first regional interconnection agreement signed by BellSouth that complies with key requirements detailed in the national telecommunications legislation enacted earlier this year. It's also the second regional agreement BellSouth ha s signed with a major competitor since the legislation was passed. "This agreement builds on the pro-competitive position that we've consistently demonstrated in our negotiations with our competitors," stated Charlie Coe, Group President - Customer Operations for BellSouth. "It promises to bring more choices to businesses and consumers in the fastest growing part of the country," added Coe. While the agreement applies to the entire nine-state BellSouth region, Time Warner currently has plans to build networks in order to provide local phone service in Florida, North Carolina and Tennessee. BellSouth serves over 10 million phone lines in these three states which contain many of the top markets for the company. "Time Warner is pleased with this agreement with BellSouth because it will speed our efforts to bring competitive local telephone service to business and residential consumers in some of our most important operations in the southeastern U.S.," said Thomas J. Morrow, president of Time Warner Communications. The agreement establishes the groundrules under which the two telephone companies will interconnect their networks, including: non-discriminatory rates, terms and conditions for local interconnection and interim number portability; as well as an offer to Time Warner to resell BellSouth's telecommunications services and access to its unbundled network elements. As a result of this agreement, BellSouth has taken another step closer to being able to enter the long distance market place in its region. "This agreement contains all the checklist items required by the national legislation and is further proof that com petition in our local markets is imminent," stated Coe. "By meeting these checklist requirements, we move closer to being allowed to offer long distance to our customers in the southeast. Our customers have indicated this is a service they want from us an d it's a business we're actively positioning ourselves to be in as soon as we can," added Coe. This deal is announced as the Federal Communications Commission and various state commissions open proceedings on the terms of implementing local competition. This agreement meets the intent of the national legislation because these companies, with much at stake in the new environment, have negotiated the mutually agreed-upon set of terms by which they will compete against each other in the local telephone market. Various state commissions in the southeast must now approve the agreement so that competition in the local exchange can begin. "This agreement is an excellent first step in our effort to compete in BellSouth's region," said Morrow. "Now, we can move quickly forward with our preparations to offer a competitive local service. As the new telecommunications law stipulates, only when new providers are actually in the marketplace offering customers a real choice of service will true competition exist." Time Warner Cable is the nation's second largest cable television operator, currently serving, with affiliated companies, 11.7 million customers in 37 states. It is a unit of Time Warner Entertainment Company, L.P. BellSouth is a $17.9 billion communications services company. It provides telecommunications, wireless communications, directory advertising and publishing and other information services to more than 25 million customers in 17 countries worldwide. Its telephone operations provides service over one of the most modern telecommunications networks in the world for approximately 21 million telephone lines in a nine-state region that includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North C arolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. ### Summary - Time Warner Agreement 06/04/96 The Agreement covers nine states and specifically includes the Time Warner entities of Digital Media Partners, Time Warner AxS of Florida, Time Warner Communications of North Carolina, and Time Warner AxS of Tennessee. The other Time Warner entities may be added throughout the term of the Agreement. The term is two years. The Agreement states that the parties agree that the provisions of the Agreement are consistent with the checklist requirements of the Act. The charge for interconnection is a flat rate of $.01 applicable in any of the states. The charge is reciprocal. The rates are based on an average of the switched access rates, less the interconnection charge and the CCLC. There is a 105% cap on compensation to address out of balance traffic. Interconnection may be established at any technically feasible point and may be through physical collocation, virtual collocation, or through the purchase of transport facilities. The first six months of operation will be a testing period and as such, there will be no charges accrued or compensation paid. The parties will exchange billing information and usage data. There are three six month periods that follow, each of which hav e a threshold billing amount of $40,000, $30,000 and $20,000. The threshold amount is calculated prior to application of the cap. The threshold billing amount will be $0.00 for any period after the expiration of the Agreement but prior to the execution of a new agreement. The Agreement provides for interim number portability in all states at the following rates: Residential services --$1.15 for up to 6 paths, $.50 for each additional path; Business services -- $2.25 for up to 10 paths, $.50 for each additional path. BellSouth will provide Time Warner nondiscriminatory access to numbering resources and will provide access to 911/E911; will provide directory listings and directory distribution; will provide both remote call forwarding and DID interim number portability ; will provide access to poles, ducts, conduits, and rights of way; and BellSouth will offer Time Warner nondiscriminatory access to unbundled network elements, access to directory assistance and operator call completion services, unbundled loops, unbundled switching, and unbundled transport. The Agreement also authorizes Time Warner to resell BellSouth's telecommunications services. The Agreement includes a "More Favorable Provisions" clause. The clause allows the parties to substitute more favorable terms and conditions as a result of any proceeding before a court, commission, or FCC, voluntary agreement or arbitration proceeding pursuant to the Act. For Information Contact: Joe Chandler, BellSouth Telecommunications (404)529-6235 Mike Luftman, Time Warner Cable (203)328-0613 ------------------ Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: FCC Grants Pacific Bell Delay On Passage Of Calling Party Numbers Date: Sun, 9 Jun 1996 16:48:40 PDT Forwarded to the Digest, FYI: Date: Wed, 05 Jun 1996 16:50:51 -0700 Reply-To: NEWS-LIST@list.pactel.com From: sqlgate@list.pactel.com Subject: FCC Grants Pacific Bell Delay On Passage Of Calling Party Numbers FOR MORE INFORMATION: Susan Petoletti (415) 542-4541 SAN FRANCISCO -- The Federal Communications Commission granted Pacific Bell a waiver on the passage of calling party numbers (CPN) May 31, saying it has the option to begin passing on or before July 1, 1996. The waiver allows Pacific Bell to complete a customer notification requirement mandated by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) without being in violation of the federal rule requiring California phone companies to pass CPN on June 1, 1996. The FCC mandate to pass CPN will bring California into compliance with phone companies in 49 other states who are passing CPN and providing Caller ID service to their customers. California consumers had been anticipating the statewide launch of Caller ID on June 1, 1996, pending CPUC approval, but Pacific Bell recently received an extension from the CPUC. Pacific Bell needed time to complete its customer notification process and expects to launch in early June. Four California local exchange carriers -- Roseville, Happy Valley, Siskyou and Evans -- will comply with the FCC order and pass CPN. These companies will also make Caller ID service available June 1 so that customers who order the service and buy the display units will be able to see the numbers of incoming calls. The CPUC recently approved the launch of Caller ID by these four companies who serve an approximate aggregate of 103,000 customers in Northern California, the majority of whom are in the Sacramento area. Pacific Bell customers' numbers will be delivered (unless they choose to block) to phone customers served by Roseville in the Sacramento area, as well as Evans customers in the Patterson and Livingston areas, and Siskyou and Happy Valley customers in the Redding area. Pacific Bell customers can block their number from being passed by exercising blocking options. Pacific Bell is a subsidiary of Pacific Telesis Group, a diversified telecommunications company. ----------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 16:12:34 -0300 From: The Old Bear Subject: Mass. Area Code Proposals THE BOSTON GLOBE June 7, 1997 PHONE COMPANIES BATTLE OVER 2 NEW AREA CODES FOR MASSACHUSETTS By Bruce Mohl GLOBE STAFF The deck of area codes in eastern Massachusetts is about to be shuffled once again, as phone service competitors yesterday offered very different proposals for squeezing new area codes into eastern Massachusetts. The proposals, aimed at keeping up with the public's unchecked appetite for phone numbers, are expected to cause widespread consumer confusion. And some subscribers in the 508 area, who endured the wrenching process of changing their numbers when that code was created in 1988, may find it an unwelcome case of deja-vu. "There's no way around the fact that there's going to be some disruption here," said George Dean of the state attorney general's office. "People are going to have to change the way they dial." Nynex Corp. is asking the state Department of Public Utilities to "overlay" two new area codes - 781 and 978 - on the existing 617 and 508 areas. Current customers would keep their area codes, while new customers, though sharing the same geographic area, would receive the new codes. "We believe it's the least disruptive," said Thomas J. DeSisto, managing director for state regulatory planning at Nynex. Existing customers would keep their area codes and not have to reprint stationery, repaint trucks, revise advertising and adjust data- processing equipment. But some of Nynex's competitors, recent arrivals in the intrastate market, say the firm is trying to stack the deck against them. They say the Nynex proposal would mean all their customers would receive the new area codes and be forced to dial an 11-digit, number (1 plus the area code plus the phone number) every time they make a call to another code -- which could be a call next door. "Local competition is coming to Massachusetts" and Nynex is attempting to stop it," said Robert Lopardo, regional director for public policy at MCI. "No one agrees with the Nynex proposal because it is anticompetitive." MCI, AT&T, Continental Cablevision and a host of other would-be Nynex competitors favor a plan that would carve the new 781 and 978 area codes out of the existing 508 and 617 area codes, the way 508 was sliced from 617 in 1988. Under their proposal, the new 781 area code would include communities north of Boston that are now in the 617 area code. The group includes Arlington, Belmont, Lexington, Malden, Medford, Revere and Wellesley. The 978 area code would encompass communities in the northern half of the 508 area code, including Andover, Concord, Danvers, Fitchburg, Gloucester, Lawrence, Lowell, and Salem. In some communities there would be two area codes. Newton, Watertown, Somerville and Charlestown would mostly be in the 781 area code, but some residents would remain in 617. Framingham, Hudson, Marlborough, Northborough, Princeton, Sterling and Wayland would mostly be in 978, but portions would remain in 508. When the 508 area code was divided from 617 in 1988, the expectation was that it would last at least 20 years. But the proliferation of fax machines, modems, pagers and cellular phones has accelerated the timetable. The 617 area code needs relief by early 1998. and 508 will last only a bit longer. Robin Sayre, an AT&T spokeswoman, said the Nynex proposal would mean someone adding a second phone line could end up with two different codes in the same house. She also said someone living just around the corner could have a different area code. As a result, Sayre said, someone calling one of the new area codes would have no way of knowing whether it was a local or a toll call. Yet DeSisto said phone customers would over time become familiar with the new overlay environment, dialing a 7-digit number within their area code and a 11-digit number when the call is outside that area code. "People generally have a sense of what's local and toll based on distance," he said. DeSisto insisted customers who wanted to leave Nynex for another carrier could take their phone number with them, but officials from MCI and AT&T said that process would require them to pay a fee to Nynex and also would limit the number of services the customer could receive. Nynex's rivals expect that most of their customers would be issued numbers with the new area codes, putting them at a disadvantage relative to Nynex customers. While both sides said their proposals would serve the consumer best, neither plan offers a long-term solution to the growing scarcity of phone numbers. Indeed, some companies are expected to recommend to the DPU that the best approach would be to have every customer in eastern Massachusetts dial an 11-digit number every time he or she made a call within the area code. Nynex has asked the DPU to decide which area-code proposal to adopt by October, but the agency has set no timetable yet for hearings or a decision. "This is going to be a free-for-all " said Tim Shevlin, executive director of the DPU. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 09:04:45 -0500 From: bagdon@rust.net (S and K Bagdon) Subject: Oki 900 Apple Macintosh Software - Anyone Interested? I am thinking about *finally* starting my Oki 900 to Apple Macintosh software project. This would be along the lines of the Network Wizards CTEK (Cellular Telephone Experimentors Kit) for the PC. It is 'technically' possible to run the CTEK software on a Macintosh (by using something along the line of SoftAT, SoftWindows, etc) but I have always wanted to write this to run on the Mac as 'native'. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Has this already been tried and accomplished? Has this already been tried and written-off? Would anyone else out there like to be able to control their Oki 900 with a Mac (maintain the phone numbers from a Mac, etc), or is this the answer to the question that nobody asked? If all goes well, I might actually gain inertia, and write some software for the Newton -- that would be interesting, interfacing the Newton to the 900, true portability. Any comments (good, bad, indifferent) would be greatly appreciated. Steve B. bagdon@rust.net (h) USFMDDKT@ibmmail.com (w) http://www.rust.net/~bagdon Katharine aNd Steve (KNS) '91 MR2T (daily driver), '85 MR2 (parts car) Mitsubishi DiamondTel 22X, Motorola MicroTAC Lite, Oki 900 Pinnacle Micro RCD-1000 - Feel The Burn Delta Airlines Gold Medallion ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 14:58:50 -0700 From: Rishab Aiyer Ghosh Subject: Dassault Tries Out CT2 in India The Indian Techonomist: bulletin, June 6, 1996 Copyright (C) 1996 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh. All rights reserved Dassault tries out CT2 in India June 6, 1996: Dassault Automatisme et Telecommunications, the telecom wing of the French defence equipment manufacturer, has succeeded where many have failed - in selling new technology, in the form of a pilot project, to India's Department of Telecommunications (DoT). During the next few weeks, Dassault will install wireless-in-local-loop systems for 1,000 subscribers each in the cities of Calcutta and Vijayawada, based on its EASYNET CT2/CAI technology. The contract, valued at FFr 8.46 million (approx. US$ 1.5 million) includes equipment (72 base stations, eight base station concentrators), on-site network engineering and technical assistance, as well as the training (in France) of DoT staff. The trials will last for three months. For these two sites, Dassault will be paid regardless of the DoT's evaluation of the project's success or failure (technical and commercial) - being, after all, merely an equipment provider. Another experiment, on a much smaller scale - the expense will be borne by Dassault - is in the rural areas around the town of Ludhiana in north-west India. This will commence sometime next month, and involve only 10 subscriber terminals. It is meant to prove the technology's viability over larger distances, as the density of telephones - though not necessarily of the population - is low in rural areas. Sunil Aggarwal, consultant to Dassault's Indian operations, hopes this field trial will translate into orders for EASYNET systems in rural areas across the country. Such orders could be from the DoT - or from the various private basic telephony providers likely to have their licences confirmed by the new government after a confidence vote in Parliament next week. About 75% of India's 900 million population is found in villages; only a third of these (say 200,000) have even a single phone. This makes total telephone density still below 1 per hundred people, but the situation on the ground is much worse when 400 million people cannot access - leave alone own - a phone. The DoT bears some moral responsibility to increase the pathetic telephone density in rural India. Private telecom providers, on the other hand, have contractual obligations. Commitments to build "Village Public Telephones" - rural pay-phones which, thanks to low levels of telephone ownership, have very high usage rates - were given a weightage of 15% in the tender evaluations (against 72% for the bid licence fee). Most bidders gave high assurances of coverage, promising to reach all villages within the first year or so of operations. This is quite unrealistic, unless very heavy use is made of wireless technologies. The DoT, in the tender documents, has specified the uniform use of fibre, copper permitted only in the last 500 metres of the loop. Wireless technology is encouraged, but even in rural areas, analogue technology requires special permission. Normally, all rural wireless systems will be digital - like Dassault's EASYNET. EASYNET uses a CT2/CAI protocol defined by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, uses time- division duplexing for digitised (ADPCM) voice. It is designed to fit transparently between subscriber and exchange equipment intended for wireline use, and can also provide fax and modem connections. Despite its EASYNET projects, the DoT has not in general been very receptive towards new technologies, even for rural areas. Dassault itself took two years persuading the DoT to let it conduct the minimal rural field trials outside Ludhiana. But US West, which planned a pilot project involving broadband and wireless communications in rural districts of the southern state of Tamil Nadu, is not sure it will be able to go ahead at all. Unlike Dassault, US West invited publicity, and its project quickly became controversial. The DoT feared competing private providers arguing that the project violated basic telephony licences. It did not, though - the tenders specifically gave the DoT a right to commission pilot projects to test new technology, irrespective of the licences. But a lawsuit might have dragged on, and the verdict could have been unfavourable (see a forthcoming report on Indian courts and telecom) - so the DoT slept over it. Similar worries made the DoT reject mobile trials of EASYNET - cellular service licensees could object, so the trials are for fixed-wireless only. Besides, Dassault supplied equipment and services for a fee, with which the DoT felt comfortable. US West intended to manage its experimental service itself, with the possibility of earning profits however small, but also, and this was perhaps forgotten by both the DoT and private competitors, the risk. A report on India's courts and telecom will be available later next week at http://dxm.org/techonomist/news/ Information on cellular and basic telephony privatisation is at http://dxm.org/techonomist/news/bids.html The Indian Techonomist: weekly summary. http://dxm.org/techonomist/news/ Copyright (C) 1996 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (rishab@techonomist.dxm.org) A4/204 Ekta Vihar 9 Indraprastha Extension New Delhi 110092 INDIA May be distributed electronically provided that this notice is attached ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 96 12:55:00 EDT From: joel@exc.com (Joel M. Hoffman) Subject: Telco: Service or Business Organization: Excelsior Computer Services > The bottom line is that the phone network is not supposed to be a > money-making endeavor. It's supposed to be a service to citizens. > And America isn't providing that service. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Now wait a minute! *Who says* that > telecom is not supposed to be a money-making endeavor? Perhaps that > is the case in some countries, but here in the USA telephone companies > have stockholders and pay dividends to those stockholders. Do you > think the investors put money in just for the sake of being good guys > to the rest of the nation? PAT] It's all a matter of how you look at it. Certainly a company, with investors and so forth, wants to make money. But the question is this: if it comes down to telco's making money or people having better phone service, which is to be preferred? Universal residential service is a money-losing endeavor. Maybe we should just get rid of that, because no one's making money on it? Joel (joel@exc.com) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not think making money and providing good customer service are mutually exclusive goals. I think they go hand in hand. After all, when did telco make the vast majority of its billions of dollars in reserves? They did it back in the earlier years of this century when prompt installation/repair/customer service were paramount features. Granted, they were the only game in town, and you either got service from them or you did not get service at all, but there was a time not so long ago when telco employees were among the most dedicated people you would ever find anywhere. Where universal service is concerned, you need to remember that phone service is unlike any other utility in that it takes two to tango. What I mean by that is that in your electrical service the brand of lightbulb you purchase or how much you use it has no bearing at all or very little on my use of electrical service. How much gas you use to operate your furnace in the winter has no bearing on if I choose to sit here cold because I don't want to spend the money. But with phones on the other hand, if you and I were the only people to have phone service it is quite likely we would not have it either. I need your cooperation to use my phone and vice-versa. Phones are only of value when all of us have one or more of them. If you choose not to subscribe because either you don't want to or can't afford it, then the value of my service is lessened. Telephones are 'give and take' between subscribers cooperating in their use while gas, electricity and water distribution are strictly 'outbound' from the utility to the subscriber. None need be concerned about the others; an exception being perhaps that one subscriber could 'hog' the resources and make it difficult or impossible for the others to have any; but with phones if you choose not to participate, then where does that leave me? I suppose I could sit and dial ring-back numbers and such all day long. So we say universal service is an important goal since it unites all of us and makes the service of each of us much more valuable. I never would claim every last item or department at telco should be a profit center in and of itself, only that overall a profit to the shareholders is not a bad thing, and that good service often times means a bigger profit when properly administered. PAT] ------------------------------ From: a.dario@ieee.org (Amy Dario) Subject: Telecom Technical Conference Date: 10 Jun 1996 17:10:13 GMT Organization: ECM IEEE will hold a technical conference in Orlando, Florida June 25-27. Technical sessions on Telecommunications, Satellite, Wireless, DSP, Advance Digital Communications, et. al will be presented, organized by the industry leaders and universities in the Florida area. For a list of subjects covered and complimentary registration see http://www.southcon.com or in the U.S. call (800) 877-2668, ext. 250. Complimentary registration allows you into all technical sessions and exhibit Free-of-Charge (advance registration strongly advised). Amy Dario a.dario@ieee.org ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #278 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jun 11 11:53:34 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id LAA26740; Tue, 11 Jun 1996 11:53:34 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 11:53:34 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606111553.LAA26740@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #279 TELECOM Digest Tue, 11 Jun 96 11:53:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 279 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson BellSouth Signs Local Interconnection Agreement With Hart (Mike King) Book Review: "Computer Networks" by Tanenbaum (Rob Slade) Re: Roam Cell Calls on AT&T Wireless Dallas Not Possible? (Bob Goudreau) Pacific Bell & IBM Alliance Promise LAN-Desktop Integration (Mike King) FCC Finally Acts on Pay-Phone Ripoffs (John R. Levine) International 800 Numbers (Jorene Downs) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike King Subject: BellSouth Signs Local Interconnection Agreement With Hart Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 10:58:43 PDT Forwarded to the Digest, FYI: Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 08:30:43 -0400 From: BellSouth Subject: BellSouth Signs Local Interconnection Agreement with Hart Reply-To: press@www.bellsouth.com BELLSOUTH SIGNS LOCAL INTERCONNECTION AGREEMENT WITH HART COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION Agreement Addresses 14-point Checklist of National Law Birmingham, AL-June 6, 1996 BellSouth (NYSE: BLS) has announced it has signed a nine state agreement with Hart Communications Corporation that will allow competition for local phone service in Alabama and the other eight BellSouth states soon. This agreement is significant in that these two competitors have negotiated a pact that will enhance competition in Alabama and the southeast, helping provide millions of customers a choice of local telephone service providers. "This agreement builds on the procompetitive position that we've consistently demonstrated in our negotiations with our competitors," stated Neal Travis, President Alabama Operations for BellSouth. "It promises to bring more choices to businesses and consumers in the fastest growing part of the country," added Travis. The agreement establishes the groundrules under which the two telephone companies will interconnect their networks, including: nondiscriminatory rates, terms and conditions for local interconnection; interim number portability; and the resale and the unbundling of BellSouth's services and network capabilities. Robert A. Hart (Drew) IV, Chairman of the Board of Hart Communications Corporation and Chairman of the Board and CEO of 21st Century Telesis, stated, "We are pleased to be working closely with BellSouth and look forward to providing comprehensive services to subscribers in Alabama as we move toward the 21st century." As a result of this agreement, BellSouth has taken another step closer to being able to enter the long distance market place in Alabama. "This agreement contains all the checklist items required by the national legislation and is further proof that competition in our local markets is imminent," stated Travis. "By meeting these checklist requirements, we move closer to being allowed to offer long distance to our customers in the southeast. Our customers have indicated this is a service they want from us and it's a business we're actively positioning ourselves to be in as soon as we can," added Travis. Hart Communications is a newly formed corporation formed by people with experience in the telephone industry to take advantage of new legislation. The company plans to hire many local people to facilitate delivery of new services, according to Hart. In addition to this agreement, BellSouth has also signed regional agreements with two national telecommunications competitors including Time Warner. BellSouth is a $17.9 billion communications services company. It provides telecommunications, wireless communications, directory advertising and publishing and other information services to more than 25 million customers in 17 countries worldwide. Its telephone operations provides service over one of the most modern telecommunications networks in the world for approximately 21 million telephone lines in a ninestate region that includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. For Information Contact: Bill Todd, 205-972-2984 1-800-803-2236 Hart Engineers 504-927-6815 --------------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 15:25:38 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Computer Networks" by Tanenbaum BKCMPNWK.RVW 960513 "Computer Networks, Third Edition", Andrew S. Tanenbaum, 1996, 0-13-349945-6 %A Andrew S. Tanenbaum %C One Lake St., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 %D 1996 %G 0-13-349945-6 %I Prentice Hall %O 800-576-3800 +1-201-236-7139 fax: +1-201-236-7131 beth_hespe@prenhall.com %P 813 %T "Computer Networks, Third Edition" Tanenbaum's "Computer Networks" is well known as the standard data communications textbook, and with ample reason. Using the, by now fairly standard, layered model, this work gives thorough coverage to the concepts, and many technical details, of the whole field of communications. The author has not been resting on previous laurels. This edition examines examples from digital cellular, ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode), fast ethernet, IPv6, and HTML (HyperText Markup Language). There is even an insightful examination of the potential problems in Java applet security. There is an alphabetical bibliography, but also an annotated list of "further readings". I might argue with a few inclusions, but the bulk of the listings are good. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKCMPNWK.RVW 960513. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Ditest and associated publications. roberts@decus.ca rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@vanisl.decus.ca "Watch me disappear!" CLICK. - Ryan's version of the "Treasure" Cat Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 14:34:00 -0400 From: goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) Subject: Re: Roam Cell Calls on AT&T Wireless Dallas Not Possible? > This last week I drove from Austin back to my home Cellular One > district in Durham, NC. When I was in AT&T Wirless-Dallas I tried to > call a friend of mine in Dallas. I got the "You are not authorized > .. " recording and dialed 611 as suggested in the recording. The rep > that came one was helpful and we spent a good 15 mins while he tried > to figure out what was wrong. All he could find was some switching > problem with my home Cell carrier?? But why was it a problem for > Dallas and not elsewhere?? (I had no problems making phone calls from > AT&T Wireless-Austin). > Essentially, he ended up having to dial the phone number for me and > patching me through on his 611 line. > Is this where we are at in cellular technology?? I wonder if this wasn't due to the PIN program that GTE Cellular One is phasing in for its North Carolina customers. We also have an account with them, and just last week we got a notice from them saying that GTE Cellular One was "pleased" to introduce its new anti-fraud PIN protection program, available at no charge! (Wow, like we should feel grateful that calling is becoming more difficult). Under this program, which is being phased in during June, you won't be able to make calls while roaming out of state without first enabling your phone for that area. To do this, you dial *560 followed by your 4-digit PIN, and then hit the SEND key. You can then make outgoing calls in that area for the rest of the day; it's only necessary to re-authorize if you roam to a different area or if the clock strikes midnight. No PIN authorization is required to receive incoming calls, or to call 911 or 611, or to make calls while roaming within NC. The brochure also explains that if you have trouble placing a roaming call or if you forget your PIN, you should call 611 for help. It sounds like AT&T Wireless in Dallas is now requiring PIN authorization, even if AT&T Wireless in Austin isn't. Or perhaps your Dallas attempts took place on the first day that PIN authorization became mandatory for your account, and your Austin calls were just before that deadline. Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: Pacific Bell & IBM Alliance Promises LAN-Desktop Integration Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 15:41:30 PDT Forwarded to the Dgiest, FYI: Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 13:29:45 -0700 Reply-To: NEWS-LIST@list.pactel.com From: sqlgate@list.pactel.com Scott E. Smith, Pacific Bell (415) 542-0597 sesmith@legsf.pacbell.com Ken Neal, ISSC/IBM (914) 766-4494 kneal@vnet.ibm.com Pacific Bell and IBM Alliance Promises LAN-Desktop Network Integration Alliance to target skyrocketing LAN-Desktop market [Editor's note: An audio replay of the news conference can be heard through 6/11/96 at 1 800 221-7409] SAN FRANCISCO -- Pacific Bell and IBM have announced plans for a technology services alliance that will bring a new approach to managing networked desktop computer systems, a market that industry experts project will rise 290 percent in five years. Potential revenue for the alliance is estimated to be $1 billion over seven years. Under the alliance, Pacific Bell and IBM, through their subsidiaries, will jointly market desktop-to-desktop solutions by providing a single point of contact for desktop and local-area network (LAN) design, support services, monitoring and maintenance. IBM's wholly-owned services subsidiary, Integrated Systems Solutions Corporation (ISSC), will handle help-desk operations, and support services for desktop systems. Pacific Bell Network Integration will provide networking equipment, network professional services and LAN management. The companies will focus on businesses in California. "This alliance proposes to quell the demand among businesses for major players in the computer and data networking industries to join forces to offer customers one trusted source for any need that involves networked PCs," said Dave Dorman, president of Pacific Bell. Pacific Bell--First Alliance Customer In addition to the technology alliance, Pacific Bell will look to IBM to support its desktop infrastructure. Under the agreement, IBM will oversee the operation of more than 28,000 Pacific Bell desktop systems, including responsibility for asset management, application maintenance, help-desk and local computer support, and client-server infrastructure management. "Like our customers, Pacific Bell strives for true operating efficiencies and unparalleled service from suppliers," said Bob Lee, president of Pacific Bell business communications services. "As a testament to our own belief in the alliance, Pacific Bell has entrusted its business-critical desktop systems to IBM. The bottom line is that we have set the stage for cost effective migration to ever-advancing information systems. We see our agreement with IBM as a model for the very high caliber of reliability and trust that customers of the alliance can expect." Need To Reduce Costs The distributed desktop computing market includes networked desktop computers for such applications as exchanging electronic mail, sharing documents and accessing corporate records. The growth of the distributed desktop outsourcing market is being driven by the need for companies to have access to skills and technology, and reduce support costs. These costs can range up to $8,000 per year for each computer and can account for up to 75 percent of the total cost of a distributed desktop computing environment. Together, IBM and Pacific Bell will provide custom and packaged desktop networked solutions to meet these key business needs. Prepackaged products that combine IBM's strength in desktop computing and Pacific Bell's expertise in business communications will provide cost effective solutions to help customers focus on business productivity, instead of keeping up with LAN-Desktop technology. "One Trusted Source" "The job of managing computer and data communications systems internally has simply become too much of a burden for most businesses," said Jim Pflaging, president of Pacific Bell Network Integration. "Even large organizations are throwing up their hands. They can't keep trained staff. They can't manage the multitude of vendors. They can't keep up with the technology. And, they can't believe the cost. But, until now, there was no one with the reputation and resources that they could trust to do the job -- the whole job -- for them." "Our complementary strengths in information technology and telecommunications will enable IBM and Pacific Bell to drive the growth of the desktop services market," said Steve Mucchetti, IBM's general manager, telecommunications and media industry. "Together, we will businesses become more competitive by providing them with integrated communications and computing technologies." "We are very pleased to have several exciting opportunities with Pacific Bell, including the chance to provide technology services that will help the company operate more efficiently and be free to concentrate on its core business in the fast-changing telecommunications marketplace," said Doug Elix, president and CEO of ISSC. For more information, customers can call 1 888 333-1900. ISSC, part of IBM Global Services, provides business and information systems consulting, outsourcing, systems integration, client/server technology, application development and maintenance, distributed systems management, and business recovery services. ISSC is headquartered in Somers, N.Y. Visit the ISSC home page at www.issc.ibm.com Pacific Bell is a subsidiary of Pacific Telesis Group, a diversified telecommunications corporation based in San Francisco. Pacific Bell Network Integration, a new subsidiary of Pacific Bell, offers integrated solutions, that include Pacific Bell FASTRAKSM transport services, equipment from leading vendors, project coordination, and network management. Information about Pacific Bell can be found on its home page at www.pacbell.com and Pacific Network Integration at www.pbni.com. ----------------------------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 10:53:31 EDT From: John R Levine Subject: FCC Finally Acts on Pay-Phone Ripoffs The FCC has finally acted on the continuing problem of excessive charges for calls from payphones, hotels, and similar places. The proposed rule says that if the charge is more than 15% above the average of the big three IXCs, they have to notify you and give you a chance to hang up before completing the call. I learned about this while staying in an otherwise respectable hotel in Palm Springs where the card next to the phone proudly states that long distance calls are charged at the AT&T rate plus a surcharge, but neglected to mention that the surcharge is 100%. Yow. It's about time. At the same time in a separate rulemaking, they propose to change the rules for payphones so that in effect all payphones become COCOTs, but there's a consistent way for payphone owners to be compensated for calls, and for payphone owners to use CO based coin collection. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Trumansburg NY Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies" and Information Superhighwayman wanna-be ---FCC Press release follows--- NEWSReport No. DC 96-50 ACTION IN DOCKET CASE June 6, 1996 FCC PROPOSES PRICE DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENT FOR HIGHER-PRICED AWAY-FROM-HOME CALLS Callers Could "Hang Up On High Rates" (CC DOCKET NO. 92-77) As part of its continuing effort to address consumer complaints about high rates for away-from-home calls, the Commission has proposed to require that long distance carriers providing service at public payphones automatically disclose their rates to consumers at the time the call is made if those carriers charge rates significantly above the industry norm. The automatic price disclosure would give consumers the opportunity to hang up on high rates and to place the call using another service provider. In a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) released today, the Commission proposed to require those interexchange carriers (IXCs) offering operator services through payphones and other aggregator locations to disclose their rates to callers before the call is completed and any charges have been incurred. The Commission tentatively concluded that it should establish benchmarks for charges of operator service providers (OSPs), and for any associated aggregator surcharges. The Commission also tentatively concluded that it should require OSPs that charge, or allow, rates above that benchmark level to disclose orally those rates to callers before connecting the call. Alternatively, the Commission sought comment on requiring all OSPs to disclose their rates on all 0+ calls from payphones or other aggregator locations. "Consumers have a right to know what they will pay when they use a payphone," said Common Carrier Bureau Chief Regina Keeney. "Hundreds of carriers compete to offer this service. A caller should not unknowingly incur what that consumer considers an unreasonable charge for placing a long distance call. We want consumers to have the information they need to decide who should carry that call. This will have the added benefit of encouraging those high priced carriers to lower their rates -- or lose their potential customers." Interstate 0+ calls from payphones, hotels, motels, and other aggregator locations are routed to the OSP chosen by the premises or payphone owner. While some callers generally used access codes to "dial around" the presubscribed OSP to reach their preferred OSP carrier, some aggregators blocked the use of such access codes. Congress responded with the Telephone Operator Consumer Services Improvement Act of 1990, prohibiting blocking, but this did not fully resolve the problem for many callers. Between August 1, 1994, and August 31, 1995, the Commission received more than 4160 complaints about OSPs' interstate rates and more than 880 complaints about their intrastate rates. The Commission initially proposed a system of Billed Party Preference (BPP), whereby aggregators would be required to ensure that all 0+ calls are automatically routed to the carrier preferred by the party billed for the call, after consulting a database indicating the billed party's preferred OSP. After making a cost-benefit analysis of the data it initially received, the Commission sought corrections and confirmation of its data and analysis, as well as alternatives to BPP. Two parties proposed alternatives in early 1995. The National Association of Attorneys General proposed that OSPs charging rates above the level of the largest IXC be required to make a disclosure to callers. CompTel proposed a higher benchmark and that OSPs charging rates above that level be required to justify the rates with cost support. After seeking comment on those proposals, the Commission decided to propose the price disclosure mechanism included in the NPRM released today. The Commission also seeks comment on whether, under the recently-enacted Telecommunications Act of 1996, must forbear from applying informational tariff filing requirements and, if not, on proposed rules and a waiver policy with respect to the filing of such tariffs. Comments are also requested on whether the public interest would be better served by means other than BPP for calls from inmate-only telephones in prisons. Action by the Commission June 4, 1996, by Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FCC 96-253). Chairman Hundt, Commissioners Quello, Ness and Chong. -FCC- News Media contact: Mindy J. Ginsburg at (202) 418-1500. Common Carrier Bureau contact: Adrien R. Auger at (202) 418-0960 and Mark Nadel at (202) 418-1580. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 08:34:33 PDT From: Jorene Downs Subject: International 800 Numbers GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, 1996 JUN 7 (NB) -- The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a division of the United Nations, has announced plans to allow country-specific telecoms companies to support international toll-free numbers. Currently, the only way for, say, a US software house to allow, say, customers in France to call them toll-free, would be to rent a toll- free number in France, even though they may already have a toll-free number in the US. The French number, rented from France Telecom would route to the company's US headquarters, across France Telecom's circuits. Not only is this cumbersome, with international companies having to contract with multiple telcos around the world, it can be expensive, as telephone rates differ on a country by country basis. Under the ITU's rule change, telecoms companies would be obliged to honor international toll-free numbers and route them to their destination country without charge -- the destination company then pays their local telco the appropriate rate for an international toll-free call. According to the ITU, the rule change has been made to allow international mail order companies to set up a single toll-free number in their home country and elect to pay for all calls, even international ones, routed to that number. Toll-free numbers were first implemented in the US back in 1966, but it took until the early 1970s before European telcos introduced their own versions, usually at prohibitive prices. To make life easier for users of international toll-free numbers, the ITU has mandated a new numbering structure of 0800, followed by eight digits, rather than the five, six or seven digit structure that is seen on existing toll-free numbers around the world. The ITU has recommended that companies offering 0800-xxxx-xxxx numbers clearly indicate them as "international freephone service" numbers with a special logo. The ITU, the successor to the CCITT, is a division of the United Nations, is responsible, by common agreement, for international numbering schemes. As new countries arrive on the world's political scene, such as in the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), it is the ITU's function to allocate codes, and prevent any dialling confusion. Although the US has more than 90 percent of the world's toll-free numbers, using its 1-800 and newly introduced 1-888 area codes, the ITU says its expects to see more use of toll-free numbers as companies realize the benefits, especially on international calls. Plans call for the new 0800-xxxx-xxxx numbering system to start early next year. (Sylvia Dennis/19960606/Press & Reader Contact: ITU +42-22-730-5111) ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #279 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jun 11 14:22:14 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id OAA12535; Tue, 11 Jun 1996 14:22:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 14:22:14 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606111822.OAA12535@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #280 TELECOM Digest Tue, 11 Jun 96 14:22:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 280 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Dry Pairs Dry Up (Frank Rockenstein) PC Phone Board (David C. Meyer) Nynex ISDN Billing (Mark Foster) Re: FCC Crackdown on AOS Pricing (Dave Levenson) Re: Wireless Ethernet Transceivers (Leonid Shousterman) Re: Arrogant Internet Providers (Rich Greenberg) Re: Telco: Service or Business (Bill Halverson) Re: Telco: Service or Business (Jeremy Parsons) Re: Roam Cell Calls on AT&T Wireless Dallas Not Possible? (R. Maceyko) Re: More CID Frolics! (Lars Poulsen) Re: Third Wireless Carrier (A. E. Siegman) Re: USA 456 Area Code From the UK (Mark J. Cuccia) Last Laugh! The Dilbert Principle (Jorene Downs) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 11:33:15 -0800 From: Frank Rockenstein Reply-To: fdrpc@isrv.com Organization: BaudShop Subject: Dry Pairs Dry Up Gee how strange -- just when we find out that the HDSL/ADSL technology is going to allow us to turn a $10/mo "dry pair" into a 6 mbit trunk to anyone located within a three or four mile radius of our home, the dirt cheap "dry pair" has become unavailable. I was quoted an installation price of $57 plus $10/month to my ISP located about one mile away by Sprint/United. Two days later I was informed that the quote was no longer valid - "dry pairs" were no longer available. If you don't know about ADSL/HDSL, check out - http://www/alumni.caltec.edu/~dank/isdn/adsl/html Be sure to check out the "pairgain" link. It goes to www.pairgain.com I believe. The bottom line is that the LECS are sitting on a goldmine of copper. Perhaps -- the subscribers should get some of the divies from this technological windfall. Therefore I propose that the Utilities commissions should mandate the creation of SAPs (Subscriber Access Ports). These ports would be located at the CO end of the subscriber line, and would be switchable at the customers request to any other customers SAP -- the result being a 6 mbit " dry pair". This concept would truly break the monopoly of the LEC's control over subscriber access to services by providing competition at the local loop. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Sprint made the offer one day and then withdrew it the next day huh? ... really now, do you think the LEC's will promote anything which would break their monopoly over subscriber access? PAT] ------------------------------ From: David C. Meyer Subject: PC Phone Board Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 08:24:03 +0000 Organization: CTS Network Services Reply-To: dcmeyer@cts.com I wish to use a PC to handle four or more incoming voice phone lines and six standard phone instruments. Capabilities would include call routing, voice mail, call transfer and conference calling. Anyone heard of such a board for a PC? David (dcmeyer@cts.com) ------------------------------ From: mark_b_foster@ccmail.res.ray.com (Mark Foster) Subject: Nynex ISDN Billing Date: 10 Jun 1996 17:07:20 GMT Organization: EDL Hi, My BRI ISDN is configured with 1 B channel set to DFR (flat rate) and the other B channel set to DMR (measured service). Is this an accident or can NYNEX (mass) do split billing on the two B channels? -mark ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: FCC Crackdown on AOS Pricing Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 03:00:59 GMT Ed Ellers (edellers@delphi.com) writes: > The Associated Press is running a story (which I saw on CompuServe) > that the FCC is considering a regulation on long-distance calling from > coin phones to force any company whose rates are more than 15% more > than the average of the major carriers to play a recording announcing > the rate for the call before ringing the called party. Almost ... The details, as taken from the FCC's Internet mailing list, are that the carriers who charge more than 15% over the average of the major carriers must announce the price before the caller enters the card number. This will apply to 0+ calls from hotels, dormitories, and other aggregators, as well as coin phones. The proposal to is allow consumers to make an informed choice of carriers. It is being proposed as an alternative to price-cap regulation of 0+ carriers. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: uunet!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ From: Leonid Shousterman Subject: Re: Wireless Ethernet Transceivers Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 08:14:17 -0400 Organization: BreezeCOM Ltd. Thaddeus Cox wrote: > What we are looking for is a (pair of) devices which could be > connected to one of these local networks and serve as a wireless > connection between it and the campus-wide, internet-connected ethernet > which appears in another part of the building, approximately 300-400' > through concrete and steel construction. I don't know what kind of > throughput these sort of devices offer, but I was thinking somewhere > in the 1 to 2 megabit range. > I'm interested in information on new or used equipment which would > meet the requirements as I've laid them out, and any ideas about > alternative solutions would also be gladly accepted. Email replies > and I will forward them in condensed form to the digest if anyone is > interested. BreezeCOM (Breeze Wireless Communications Inc.) develops various wireless communication devices including wireless LANs and wireless point-to-point T1/E1 links. BreezeCOM's products operate at raw data rate up to 3Mbit/s in 2.4 GHz frequency range (licence free spread spectrum) For more information contact the URL: http://www.breezecom.com Leon ------------------------------ From: richgr@netcom.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: Re: Arrogant Internet Providers Organization: Organized? Me? Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 20:26:22 GMT In article , Tad Cook wrote: > Arrogant Internet providers tell customers to get lost > By Peter H. Lewis > {New York Times} Pat, this was discussed extensively on the (internal only) newsgroup netcom.general recently, including postings from a netcom person who was present when his officemate was taking some of the calls from Mr. Lewis. Mr. Lewis has (had?) a slip account with netcom, which is specifically sold with NO phone support, email only. A shell account comes with the slip (aka PNC) account. (Netcom no longer offers these PNC accounts which have a fixed IP address, only "Netcruiser" accounts which are similar but with dynamic IP addresses.) In spite of having agreed to the email support only, Mr. Lewis made many calls to netcom support, demanding help. and getting very abusive when told to send email for assistance. Thats the purpose of the shell account, to be able to get email when the slip account isn't working. He was never told that shell accounts were being discontinued. Netcom has about 30,000 active shell accounts (including mine) and while it seems to us that the squeeky wheel on the 100k netcruiser accounts get more support, netcom has never said they were going away. One additional note here. One of the netcom people sent a letter to the {NY Times} refuting Mr. Lewis' article, but they declined to print it. The same article also ran in the {San Jose Mercury} recently. Rich Greenberg N6LRT TinselTown, USA Play: richgr@netcom.com 310-649-0238 Pacific time. I speak for myself & my dogs only. VM'er since CP-67 Canines: Val(Chinook,CGC), Red(Husky,(RIP)), Shasta(Husky) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One thing you seem to be overlooking here (and perhaps the netcom person who offered the correction was not even aware of it) is that sending articles like that to NYT is usually a waste of time. NYT *never* prints anything refuting or 'correcting' whatever it is they have said earlier. The netcom person who wrote to them probably assumed that the pages of that newspaper were like most of the electronic journals on the net or many of the newsgroups, i.e. a wide variety of opinion, a 'give-and-take' between one writer and another expressing different points of view, etc. NYT does not operate that way. Their agenda is their agenda. Peter Lewis is like a sacred cow to the publishers there. You simply do not contradict whatever it is he says, but of course that holds true for most of what appears in NYT from day to day. Oh, they allow a certain amount of token opposition in minor matters (should some administrative thing in city government be done one way or another) but nothing of any substance which does not coincide with their own bigoted points of view is ever going to see the light of day there -- particularly when Peter Lewis or a couple other staff writers have vented their spleen or discharged their venom -- and most people know that by now, so they simply do not bother wasting the paper or their energy at a keyboard. It is pretty much the same way with the {Washington Post} and its companion publi- cation News Weak magazine. Either you agree with the bigoted and biased stuff they print or else you are just too dumb and stupid to know any better. I can see where the person at netcom thought NYT might be interested in factual corrections to something Lewis had written. Lord knows there are enough corrections possible in his portfolio. Coming from an Internet/Usenet tradition, he probably thought you write something decent and coherent and send it in to the editor, like you would to a newsgroup moderator. Uh, uh ... not at NYT you don't. In my own opinion, netcom should cancel his account if they have not done so already, refund all of his money paid since he first started with them, and tell him to get lost. He would rage and flame about it in NYT for awhile and then eventually find something new to sputter about. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Bill Halverson Subject: Re: Telco: Service or Business Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 06:56:05 GMT Organization: Network Associates Joel M. Hoffman wrote: >> The bottom line is that the phone network is not supposed to be a >> money-making endeavor. It's supposed to be a service to citizens. >> And America isn't providing that service. >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Now wait a minute! *Who says* that >> telecom is not supposed to be a money-making endeavor? Perhaps that >> is the case in some countries, but here in the USA telephone companies >> have stockholders and pay dividends to those stockholders. Do you >> think the investors put money in just for the sake of being good guys >> to the rest of the nation? PAT] > It's all a matter of how you look at it. Certainly a company, with > investors and so forth, wants to make money. But the question is > this: if it comes down to telco's making money or people having better > phone service, which is to be preferred? > Universal residential service is a money-losing endeavor. Maybe we > should just get rid of that, because no one's making money on it? >SNIP< It's interesting to note that most things considered to be 'a utility' are run by some form of government ... police, fire protection services, and municipal power and water and sewage ... So if we added up all the employees in "the utility" business I would not be surprised to see most of them were civil service. Telecom went that route in most of the world, too. You might say that the USA is/was an exception to the rule on this. Anyway, I see a very contentious period coming for telecom. On one hand, citizens and politicians still want universal service, even an expanded one [note the FCC reform act requires rural areas have access to telecom services for healthcare at comprable rates to rates in urban areas] whereas the telcos and CATV companies want freedom to set prices on a pure economic basis. We are at a crossroads, just like we were in the '50s when the decision was taken to build the interstate highway system. If you believe that highway decision accelerated the collapse of our cities, imagine what universal immdeiate access to highbandwidth networks will do. Bill Halverson William@Netpros.net ------------------------------ From: Jeremy Parsons Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 17:00:49 -0400 Subject: Re: Telco: Service or Business Joel M. Hoffman wrote: > It's all a matter of how you look at it. Certainly a company, with > investors and so forth, wants to make money. But the question is > this: if it comes down to telco's making money or people having better > phone service, which is to be preferred? > Universal residential service is a money-losing endeavor. Maybe we > should just get rid of that, because no one's making money on it? It all depends on whether you want to fossilise it! Residential service (I guess you're talking USA) is not loss-making, but some customers are. The protect-it-in-a-glass-case approach says subsidize! Guarantee! Enforce! But what's the end result? A museum-piece service, instead of creative enterprise applied to the problem. What's the incentive to drive down the cost? What's the incentive to look at new ways to share cost? Nothing. Let's get a little less telephonic. Is water less or more essential? How is it paid for and why? How about electricity? How about postal services? How about foodstuffs? In truth, most services contain 'cross-subsidy' (in flattening out price structures), but few are offered in ways which institutionalise loss-making, and for very sound reasons. The counter-argument is that telephone services are like roads -- it's a government job to decide what to provide, where, how funded and so on. That was pretty much the approach around the world fifteen and more years ago, and its results have been astounding. But times change, and now the sophisticated communications networks behind telephone service are capable of delivering far more -- stuff that is already demanded and stuff that's still a twinkle in an entrepreneur's eye. Different roads are possible, and different vehicles. Governments aren't expert in that sort of thing, and increasingly want to farm it out to companies whose competence it is. The government role should by and large be confined to regulating simply, transparently and fairly, and to creating or supporting such subsidy mechanisms as it may deem appropriate. The present US system is a mess, but doesn't need to be so. After all, there are only four topics to consider: 1. Under what (if any) circumstances should a geographic area be subsidized? 2. Under what (if any) circumstances should an individual be subsidized? 3. Where are subsidy monies collected? 4. Who can (compete to) provide subsidized service? What this creates is in essence a modification to cost allocation, leaving businesses the task of providing service profitably -- as is the case in other industries. One thing is left -- efficiency. In a competitive market that is (given sufficiently light regulation) a non-issue. However, not every market is viable for competition. In such cases there needs to be some reliance on traditional methods (price caps or profit caps, for instance). Not-for-profit telephony sounds great, but in the days of the knowledge revolution it won't mean much if Microsoft, IBM et al decide not to convert to charitable status. Jeremy Parsons ------------------------------ From: rm55+@pitt.edu (Rudolph Todd Maceyko) Subject: Re: Roam Cell Calls on AT&T Wireless Dallas Not Possible? Date: 11 Jun 1996 10:43:13 GMT Organization: University of Pittsburgh In article , Alexandre POLOZOFF wrote: > When I was in AT&T Wirless-Dallas I tried to > call a friend of mine in Dallas. I got the "You are not authorized > .. " recording and dialed 611 as suggested in the recording. The rep > that came one was helpful and we spent a good 15 mins while he tried > to figure out what was wrong. All he could find was some switching > problem with my home Cell carrier?? But why was it a problem for > Dallas and not elsewhere?? (I had no problems making phone calls from > AT&T Wireless-Austin). The past few weekends I had difficulties roaming between Pittsburgh PA and Harrisburg PA and between Pittsburgh PA and Frederick MD. Roaming in the Washington DC area worked just fine. After many calls to AT&T Wireless-Pittsburgh, it was determined that some "internal" address ranges had been changed, and that all 10,000 numbers in my cellular NPA-NXX were affected. The "fix" was for AT&T Wireless to re-contact the affected cellular systems to change the "addresses". Rudy Maceyko ------------------------------ From: lars@anchor.rns.com (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: More CID Frolics! Date: 11 Jun 1996 10:49:23 -0700 Organization: RNS / Meret Communications In article , Stan Schwartz wrote: > For the last few weeks, I've been puzzled by a number that had been > appearing on my all of my CID devices (I'm up to 5 in the house). It > wasn't any valid NPA or NNX and the name showed up as "--------------". > Last night, it clicked. The number displayed is the first ten digits > of an account number that I have with a bank in the northeast. This > doesn't seem like mere coincidence to me. My guess is that you are using a "home banking" software to speak to the bank's computer, and that the connection runs at a rather slow bit rate ... using the same modem modulation technique that the caller-ID data uses. And during a call to the bank, the caller-ID devices trigger on the online data. > Today, I received another "interesting" call. There was no message on > the machine, but all of my CID devices have the name "WASHINGTON" (for > the state, I assume), and a number 206-959-0525. This number is not > only not dialable, but 959 does not exist in either the 206, 360, or 509 > NPA's. Probably a call leaving a large PBX on a one-way dial-out trunk. Maybe originating on a cellular phone in service with a non-wireline carrier. Lars Poulsen Internet E-mail: lars@RNS.COM RNS / Meret Communications Phone: +1-805-562-3158 7402 Hollister Avenue Telefax: +1-805-968-8256 Santa Barbara, CA 93117 Internets: designed and built while you wait ------------------------------ From: siegman@ee.stanford.edu (A. E. Siegman) Subject: Re: Third Wireless Carrier Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 18:02:38 -0700 Organization: Stanford University A side note on the A and B channels in the 800 MHz band, as I understand them (warning: this is based on just one technical talk I heard some months ago) ... The actual frequency bands assigned to the A and B channels in any given area are not just two separate but adjacent bands of frequencies (e.g., 800 to 810 MHz for A and 810 to 820 for B), as you might guess would be simplest. Rather they're a series of narrower "frequency bandlets" interleaved among each other in the overall frequency band assigned to A+B. As a result, the task of filtering the rf signals received off the air into channels A or B is substantially more challenging than it might be. In fact, the only easy way of achieving sufficiently narrow passbands to do this with simple passive filters is to use superconducting coils to achieve the necessary high Q values in the resonant circuits. As a result -- and this was the point of the technical talk I heard -- this may be at the minute the _only_ practical engineering application (as distinguished from research applications) where high-temperature superconductivity will find a commercial market. Again, this is second-hand info. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 19:34:16 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Re: USA 456 Area Code From the UK James E. Bellaire wrote: > I found the following in uk.telecom and was wondering if you > could shed some light on it: >> From: Traci Shanahan >> Newsgroups: uk.telecom >> Subject: USA 456 area code from the UK >> Date: 4 Jun 1996 07:03:10 GMT >> Organization: Cloud 9 Internet, White Plains, NY, USA >> Is anyone famillar with the US 456 area code that can only be >> called from the UK. Apparently UK companies can earn money with it. >> I have some info, if anyone else has any more please email me. > I thought 456 was 'for 56k data'. I wonder if the sleaze carriers are > using it for International Inbound to porn? Special Area Code 456 within the NANP (Country Code +1) was reserved or assigned by Bellcore NANPA back in Summer 1993 for "International Inbound" functions. I was informed back in March (by one of the participants at the INC meeting here when it was held here in New Orleans, who is with one of the major US long distance carriers, and who incidently reads this Digest) that the primary intended use of 456 was for "Switched 56k Data" originating from overseas and destined for locations in the NANP. From the Bellcore NANPA and INC mailings on 456 that I received two years ago, there was still the question about whether it could be used for routings between two different countries within the NANP. The 456-NXX codes are to be assigned to specific carriers by Bellcore's NANPA (similar to the way Bellcore NANPA assigns the codes and numbering of 500-NXX, 900-NXX, 555-xxxx, 10-XXX/101-XXXX/950-XXXX, and prior to full portability the 800-NXX codes back in the 1986-92 time period, and the way Industry Canada assigns 600-NXX codes). But since six-digit translation is still used on outbound international calls from many foreign countries (I understand that seven-digit translation *is* going to be the ITU recommendation at "Time-T" at the end of this year), 456-NXX codes are going to be assigned in 'blocks-of-ten' as 456-NX(x) to a particular carrier. (Six digit translate from overseas the +1-456-NX to a particular carrier). I haven't purchased any Bellcore TRA materials (Local Exchange Routing Guide) since December 1994. At that time, there were no 456-NX(x) assignments indicated in the LERG. At this point in time, there aren't any 456-NX(x) codes assigned for Canadian purposes, but if/when there are, the assignments would be indicated in the (free) Canadian National Numbering Index. This listing is prepared by the Canadian Numbering Administrator of the Canadian Government's "Industry Canada" department. As for the sleazy telesex possibly using +1-456, even though this special area code is intended for International Inbound Switched 56 Kbps Data, I think that it is possible that some of these sleaze teleporn companies might be misrepresenting themselves to get yet another special dialing code which hasn't become 'stigmatized'. Remember that about a year ago there were sleazy teleporn operations using 500-NXX numbers, and although 700 is for "Carrier defined services", back in the 1980's, some carriers were using it for expensive (pay-pay-pay-per-call) "chat" services or "party" lines. And remember that some years back, some foreign telephone administrations and overpriced sleaze services arranged +1-610 numbers, since 610 was strictly for Canadian TWX, and there wouldn't be any need for a telephone in another part of the world to be dialing TWX numbers +1-N10-NXX-XXXX. In Fall 1993, what was left of Canadian TWX and the growing Canadian Datalink and ISDN services on Area Code 610 were 'splash cut' to 600, so as to make 610 available for the split of southeastern PA's 215 area code in January 1994. There were some foreign locations which had pay-pay-per-call telesleaze numbers using +1-600, again as no foreign telephone would be dialing a Canadian Datalink +1-600-NXX-XXXX number. Unfortunately, in today's competitive situation, it is quite difficult to police such abuses. There was the 1990 FCC inquiry and Consumer Protection law regarding private payphones and AOSlime, as to 'branding' 0+ calls, unblocking 950-xxxx and 800- access numbers, and 10-XXX access codes. Many AOSlime *STILL* don't properly 'brand' themselves. And there are many a COCOT which don't properly allow the end-user access to/thru the carrier of *their* choice! Only the other day did we hear that the FCC intends on special regulation regarding AOSlime prices on calls placed via COCOTS and "hospitality" PBX systems. I hate to sound cynical, but ... good luck! MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 09:30:49 PDT From: Jorene Downs Subject: Last Laugh! The Dilbert Principle I can't believe nobody spotted this one and passed it along! I love it! :))))))) ----------------------------------------------- "Normal people ... believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet." ----- S. Adams, The Dilbert Principle [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I love that comic strip which appears in the Sunday paper here. Entire issues of the Digest could easily be devoted to discussing the events which go on at his place of employment each week. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #280 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jun 12 12:10:37 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id MAA21813; Wed, 12 Jun 1996 12:10:37 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 12:10:37 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606121610.MAA21813@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #281 TELECOM Digest Wed, 12 Jun 96 12:09:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 281 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson BellSouth 911 Enhancement for Private Systems (Mike King) Pac Bell Delays CLID Two Weeks (Tad Cook) The Central Office (Tara D. Mahon) Employment Opportunity: Jobs For DSP (Henry Hallinan) Talking to PBXs (bookworm@execpc.com) Looking for Fiber Optic Solution (John A. Leonowich) VisualJava in the Limelight (R. Jagannathan) Customer Care in Telecom (lmoran@planet.net) Re: 800 Numbers Now Customer Dialable Only (Mark J. Cuccia) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike King Subject: BellSouth 911 Enhancement for Private Systems Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 23:01:14 PDT Forwarded to the Digest, FYI: Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 16:07:30 -0400 From: BellSouth Subject: BELLSOUTH OFFERS 9-1-1 ENHANCEMENT FOR PRIVATE SYSTEMS Reply-To: press@www.bellsouth.com BELLSOUTH OFFERS 9-1-1 ENHANCEMENT FOR PRIVATE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS ATLANTA, GA. -- Some of the most sophisticated telecommunications users -- large businesses with private communications systems -- have never enjoyed the full benefits of Enhanced 9-1-1 service -- until now. Businesses, universities, malls and other institutions with Private Branch Exchange (PBX) communications systems can now make their premises safer for employees, clients and visitors with BellSouth's 9-1-1 PinPointSM service. When someone calls 9-1-1 from a phone on a PBX system, 9-1-1 PinPoint service automatically furnishes emergency personnel with the exact telephone number and location of the caller. Without the service, only the main PBX telephone number and company address are delivered to emergency personnel, which could result in a loss of valuable time in a life-or-death situation. This becomes especially critical to businesses, shopping malls, apartment complexes and universities with large buildings or multiple locations where it may be difficult to find the exact location of an emergency without the detailed information that BellSouth's PinPoint service provides. "BellSouth is the first telecommunications company in the Southeast and one of the first in the nation to offer this enhancement to 9-1-1 for PBX customers," according to Neil Hediger, vice president of Marketing for BellSouth Business Systems. "Many people work for, do business with or visit businesses or institutions that have PBX systems. PBX users across BellSouth's nine-state region can make their environments safer for these people with BellSouth's 9-1-1 PinPoint service." Disney's Vero Beach Resort, The Walt Disney Company's first resort beyond its theme park locations, was the first 9-1-1 PinPoint service customer. As the largest resort in Indian River County, Fla., Disney needed to pinpoint the exact location of a 9-1-1 call coming from one of the 208 guest rooms and 11 buildings on the resort. "We are very satisfied with this new BellSouth product and have been especially pleased with the resulting exceptional response from the county Emergency Medical Service," said Sonya Deese, general manager of Disney's Vero Beach Resort. "Our PinPoint service is another example of BellSouth's commitment to the local communities and customers we serve. We are using our advanced technology to make our communities safer places to live and work," said Hediger. PBX users interested in BellSouth's 9-1-1 PinPoint service should call their BellSouth Business Systems' representative. BellSouth provides telecommunications services in Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. With headquarters in Atlanta, BellSouth serves more than 21 million local telephone lines over one of the most modern networks in the world. For more information on BellSouth, visit our site on the World Wide Web at http://www.bellsouth.com. For Information Contact: Ted Creech, BellSouth (404)330-0550
Pager: (800)946-4646
PIN: 1130604 BELLSOUTH ENTERS INTO CO-MARKETING AGREEMENTS WITH PROCTOR AND TELIDENT FOR 9-1-1 PBX SERVICE ATLANTA, GA -- BellSouth announced today that it has entered into co-marketing agreements with Proctor & Associates, Inc. and Telident, Inc. for equipment and technology related to BellSouth's new 9-1-1 PinPointSM service for PBX users. Under BellSouth's Network Complementary Applications Program (NCAP) agreements, BellSouth, Proctor and Telident will market, service and support PBX station identification equipment and technology for 9-1-1 PinPoint service, a new application BellSouth is now offering throughout its nine-state southeast region. BellSouth will provide 9-1-1 PinPoint service transport and database services, and Proctor and Telident will supply the interface equipment that enables the new service to work with a PBX. PBX systems that use Primary Rate ISDN (PRI) service do not need this interface equipment. 9-1-1 PinPoint service enables a PBX system to send to 9-1-1 operators the exact extension number and location of a 9-1-1 caller. Without the service, only the main PBX telephone number and company address are delivered to emergency personnel, which could result in slower response times for emergency personnel. Immediate identification of an individual's exact location becomes especially critical for businesses with large, multi-building, multi-floor environments served by PBXs. "BellSouth will work closely with Proctor and Telident to ensure that 9-1-1 PinPoint service and our customers' PBXs are properly integrated with the larger public 9-1-1 systems," according to Neil Hediger, vice president of marketing for BellSouth Business Systems. Ray Dellecker, Proctor's national marketing and sales manager, said, "The new service will dramatically improve the response time and effectiveness of the emergency services. This is particularly important in responding to 9-1-1 calls from school campuses, branch offices, institutions and apartment complexes with shared tenant services. The system's local notification capabilities simultaneously alert on-site officials, such as security personnel, of any 9-1-1 activity." Michael J. Miller, Telident president and CEO of Telident said, "Our products provide advanced safety and security features, and without the Telident interface, the system can only identify the main trunk numbers and billing locations, not the actual location from which people are calling. We are pleased that BellSouth has chosen to co-market these products to its customer base." BellSouth provides telecommunications services in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. With headquarters in Atlanta, BellSouth serves 21 million local telephone lines and provides local exchange and intraLATA long distance service over one of the most modern telecommunications networks in the world. For information on BellSouth, visit the site on the World Wide Web at http://www.bellsouth.com. Proctor is a leading manufacturer of telecommunications equipment, including all segments of the 9-1-1 network, from call control and processing, to network backup and PBX and wireless caller ID. Telident is a leading designer of systems which enable precise identification of the location of caller to emergency 9-1-1 systems from within a PBX, and state-of-the-art hardware and software for the public safety (9-1-1 call answering) market. For Information Contact: Ted Creech, BellSouth (404)330-0550 Pager: (800)946-4646 PIN: 1130604 Ray Dellecker, Proctor (206)881-7000 Michael Miller, Telident (612)623-0911 ---------------------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: Pac Bell Delays CLID Two Weeks Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 23:01:47 PDT Pacific Bell Delays Caller ID Service Two Weeks By Mario C. Aguilera, {North County Times}, Escondido, Calif. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Jun. 4--A flood of last-minute responses has pushed the start of Pacific Bell's Caller ID service back two weeks to June 15, and possibly later, the telephone company announced Tuesday. Caller ID is a program that makes the number of callers available to those on the receiving end through devices built into or attached to a phone. California is the last state to offer the service. While the initial deadline was May 1 for consumers to choose which level of blocking they desired --- selective or complete blocking --- millions of responses have come in well past the deadline. The California Public Utilities Commission requires Pacific Bell to issue a letter in confirmation of the consumer's request. "At one point in mid-May we had two million requests come through in 72 hours and at another point we were backed up with four million letters to send out," said John Britton, a Pacific Bell spokesman in San Diego. Britton said the late rush could be the result of Caller ID advertising, which may have confused consumers into thinking June 1, the day the service was initially scheduled to start, was the deadline for responding to the blocking options, instead of May 1. Pacific Bell is now hoping to catch up with its letters backlog and initiate Caller ID by June 15, but admits that date is also tentative. More than 18 million inserts outlining options were sent to Pacific Bell customers in their March and April phone bills. Under the selective blocking option, users press 67 before each call they don't want showing up on the receiver's end. Through the complete blocking option, consumers' numbers are automatically blocked, unless they press 82 before each call they want released to the receiver. In either case, blocking doesn't work when dialing 800, 900 or 911 calls. Consumers who don't make a selection will be assigned selective blocking. They can change their blocking option for no charge until the end of the year, after which Pacific Bell will charge $5 for a switch. On the receiving end, those who choose to pay for the service --- $6.50 a month for residential and $7.50 monthly for businesses --- will see an area code and number, and in some cases the name of unblocked callers, when their phone rings. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jun 96 15:16:02 +0000 From: Tara D. Mahon Subject: The Central Office Contact: Tara D. Mahon, Director of Marketing (201) 605-1400 For Immediate Release TELCO LEVELING LAWS CAN'T CRUMBLE CENTRAL OFFICE, SAYS INSIGHT RESEARCH LIVINGSTON, NJ. The telephone company central office, the center of telecom deregulation efforts, remains local telephone services' unique asset despite attempts at legislative leveling, says a new report from Insight Research. Even after the FCC announces its new rules for hooking into local phone networks, removing the artificial distinction between local and long-distance phone services, the CO will continue as the preeminent center of all telecommunications traffic. Moreover, a technology overhaul now under way ensures its longevity. According to "Telecommunications in the 21st Century: Change and the Central Office," the unassailable value of the CO lies in its function--as an access line concentration point. The overriding design consideration behind the CO was to physically locate it near the geographic center of a cluster of subscribers. With only modest changes in population demographics over the last twenty years, the number and locations of COs has changed little, so it remains the tangible point of contact to nearly all telecom users. "Right now we've got a new law on the books that is going to try to level the playing field for competing local and long-distance carriers," explains Insight's president Robert Rosenberg. "And it may well work from the pricing point of view, but the central office remains a unique asset that can't be duplicated overnight by AT&T, MCI, or Sprint." Indeed, with the size of investment they represent, COs won't be duplicated at all; in the densest urban areas, they concentrate as many as 300,000 access lines under one roof and across multiple switches. Even in small towns, COs serve business areas where density is 5,000 access lines per square mile. To get to their customers, the long-distance providers all have to pass through those offices. Their pass-through rights are now legislated. As part of the technology overhaul, the switching function traditionally taking place within the walls of the central office is being pushed closer to the end user, in the form of small, remote switches and digital loop carrier systems that increase the carrying capacity of subscriber lines. The net effect of this trend paradoxically increases the importance of the CO's concentration function, since increasingly larger circuit groups terminate there. Further projections and analyses are published in Telecommunications in the 21st Century: Change and the Central Office, now available from Insight Research for $3,495. Insight Research, based in Livingston, NJ, is a leading provider of telecommunications market research and analysis. Insight can be reached via the World Wide Web at http://www.wcom.com/Insight/insight.html. For more information on this study, please contact: Tara D. Mahon tara@insight-corp.com The Insight Research Corporation www.wcom.com/Insight/insight.html 354 Eisenhower Parkway (201) 605-1400 phone Livingston, NJ 07039-1023 USA (201) 605-1440 fax Comparative Market Research, Competitive Analysis for Telecom Industry ------------------------------ From: Henry Hallinan Subject: Employment Opportunity: Jobs For DSP Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 11:07:23 -0700 Organization: Internet Online Services We currently have jobs for DSP programmers with data communications systems, algorithms for audio/voice processing and in enabling applications for computer telephony integration (CTI). If interested in hearing more on this opportunity call 1-800-243-4495. Thank you for your time. Ask for Henry. ------------------------------ From: bookworm@execpc.com Subject: Talking to PBXs Date: 12 Jun 1996 11:59:59 GMT Organization: Exec-PC BBS - Milwaukee, WI I have never seen an FAQ for this group and hope that means there is no such thing as a stupid question. I am just getting my ears wet (mixed metaphor intended) in this domain after agreeing to design a synthetic speech product for my employer that can dial up a number on the PSTN, annunciate a message, and hang up. Originally I understood I would only be dealing with the PSTN and have been gathering data on it, but yesterday another engineer claimed we also had to be able to dial out of a PBX. In all the years I have worked with modems I have never seen one that didn't require you to have a dedicated line to answer or originate calls, and I figure there has to be a good reason for this. Anybody know why? bookworm@execpc.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is an FAQ for this group and from time to time I send it out, however to get a copy all you have to do is pick one up in the Archives or write and ask me for a copy. And no, there is no such thing as a stupid question in this group. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 08:10:22 -0400 From: johnl@universal.dca.net (John A. Leonowich) Subject: Looking for Fiber Optic Solution Can anyone recommend a manufacturer of a fiber optic interface that takes a 110 punchdown block, extends it over fiber optics, and provides another 110 punchdown block on the remote end? We have an area in our manufacturing facility that has available fiber, but not the copper that we need to accomodate a minimal 50 pair for voice and data requirements. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Jun 96 1:52:31 PDT From: R. Jagannathan Subject: VisualJava in the Limelight Reply-To: R. Jagannathan A very impressive feat: Tony Faustini's visualJava system was used as the main Java demo at Scott McNealy's (Sun's CEO) keynote address at JavaOne. Visit http://www.javasoft.com/java.sun.com/javaone/McNealy.html for detailed transcript of the keynote where visualJava and Tony get due attention. ------------------------------ From: lmoran@planet.net Subject: Customer Care in Telecom Date: 11 Jun 1996 19:23:43 GMT Organization: Planet Access Networks - Stanhope, NJ Customer Care in Telecom July 31 & August 1, 1996 Washington, DC Increase brand image and potential profit; Effective customer satisfaction, support and retention measurers. Hear from the following companies: Pacific Bell Bell Atlantic Int'l Wireless AT & T Wireless Nynex AT & T Bell Atlantic Cabledata Price Waterhouse and many more!!! For more information call: 800-882-8684 or e-mail info@iqpc.com Visit our homepage for a complete conference agenda: http://www.iqpc.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 11:18:25 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Re: 800 Numbers Now Customer Dialable Only I called the BellSouth (intra-LATA 'only') operator on a single-0 today and requested an 800 number which I can call from my 'service area'. From here, BellSouth still will connect to an 800 number. However, the ANI of the calling line is not realtime transmitted. When I could dial 800-MY-ANI-IS, (LEC) operator dialed calls to that number would result in "Your ANI is: 800-000-5555" or something similar. When a BellSouth operator dials 800-CALL-ATT or 800-321-0ATT for me, I get a computer generated "AT&T, What is the number you are calling from" followed by a live human AT&T operator on the line. Realtime ANI is necessary for proper operation of those 800 numbers, as they are used for access to AT&T in Card or AT&T Operator assisted calls. Back in the 1980's (I don't remember if it was pre-divestiture or after), I could dial 0+800- from here and it would act as if I dialed 1+800-. When the LEC's (South Central Bell, now BellSouth in my case) began their intra-LATA 'only' TOPS operators around 1986 (known as "BOC operator takeback"), I was forwarded by them to an AT&T TSPS operator when requesting an 800 number connection, even if I knew that the 800 number was in my own LATA. When "other common carriers" began providing 800 services around 1987, using their own dedicated 800-NXX codes (assigned by Bellcore), an AT&T TSPS operator *could* at that time connect me with those 800 numbers. The LEC intra-LATA single-0 operator *still* would always forward me on to an AT&T operator if I requested connection to an 800 number. Around 1990 (when AT&T began replacing TSPS with OSPS, and LEC payphones could 'default' inter-LATA 0+ calls to 'other-than-AT&T' according to the location provider), AT&T operators would still *attempt* to connect me with a requested 800 number, but the call would only go through if the 800 number was one handled via the AT&T network. i.e., the 800-NXX was one used by AT&T or maybe Telecom-Canada. Shortly thereafter, Bell (LEC) operators would start connecting me with *any* 800 number on request. Of course, all of this depends on whether the holder of the 800 number 'purchased' my service area for originating the call. As for intercept type recordings, MCI, Sprint and others have their own variety of recordings. AT&T would always let me know that I had reached an 800 number that was 'out of my service area' if the 800 number was a US one. If the 800 number was located in Canada, and the holder didn't purchase the US at all, I would get an AT&T 'call cannot be completed as dialed', as if there was no such number. It seems that those types of Canadian 800 numbers weren't in AT&T's 800 database at all. If a Canadian 800 number was available from certain parts of the US but not *my* location, I would get 'dialed a number not available from your service area', as the Canadian 800 number was included in AT&T's 800 Database, although flagged as not available from my location. BTW, I asked a BellSouth operator to dial 800-CALL-ATT for me. There was no 'realtime' ANI transmitted, so I got an AT&T OSPS operator doing an ONI (Operator Number Identification) on me. I asked her if I would be able to enter in the number I wanted and my card number. She said no, that she could do it. I asked her about the *rate*. Would I be billed the most expensive Operator Handled, the 'middle' Operator Assisted, or the cheaper Customer dialed Card rate? She told me that I would be billed the Customer card rate, as there were 'a problem' when I attempted to place the call. *If* that's really true, I'm glad to see that AT&T has gone back to giving the customer a cheaper dial or customer card rate when there are problems and the customer has the AT&T operator assist them. About three or so years ago, they seemed to have ceased giving customers the cheaper customer dialed or customer card rates, even if the customer reported a problem when they had attempted to dial it themself! MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #281 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jun 12 13:15:14 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id NAA28606; Wed, 12 Jun 1996 13:15:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 13:15:14 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606121715.NAA28606@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #282 TELECOM Digest Wed, 12 Jun 96 13:15:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 282 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: More CID Frolics! (Jay R. Ashworth) Re: Home Phone Switch Needed (Tom Thiel) Re: Home Phone Switch Needed (William Randolph) Re: FCC Crackdown on AOS Pricing (John Cropper) Re: AT&T Calling Card and Caller ID (John Cropper) Re: AT&T Wireless Tells Cellular Roamers: Don't Call NJ Police (M. Smith) Re: Pac Bell *69 (Return Call) (Robert F. Holloman, Jr.) Re: What Does A/B Carrier Mean? (Stanley Cline) Re: What Does A/B Carrier Mean? (John R. Levine) Re: What Does A/B Carrier Mean? (Wes Leatherock) Wanted LGE Modules for Newbridge 3624 Channel Bank (Ron Johnson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) Subject: Re: More CID Frolics! Date: 11 Jun 1996 23:49:51 GMT Organization: University of South Florida Lars Poulsen (lars@anchor.rns.com) wrote: > In article , Stan Schwartz > wrote: >> For the last few weeks, I've been puzzled by a number that had been >> appearing on my all of my CID devices (I'm up to 5 in the house). It >> wasn't any valid NPA or NNX and the name showed up as "--------------". >> Last night, it clicked. The number displayed is the first ten digits >> of an account number that I have with a bank in the northeast. This >> doesn't seem like mere coincidence to me. > My guess is that you are using a "home banking" software to speak to > the bank's computer, and that the connection runs at a rather slow bit > rate ... using the same modem modulation technique that the caller-ID > data uses. And during a call to the bank, the caller-ID devices > trigger on the online data. The line modulation protocol used for CNID delivery is a (possibly very slightly modified) version of the old Bell 202J half-duplex 1200bps protocol. According to my copy of McNamara's _Technical_Aspects_Of_Data_Communications_ (Digital Press, 1978) 202 used 1200Hz as a space, and 2200Hz as a mark, in only one direction (making it pretty well suited for this sort of work. Since I didn't have references handy for any of the modems in the house, I went and took a look at http://www.zyxel.com, and the specs for the Elite 2864 (the analog modem) list Bell 212A and 103 (the old 1200 and 300bps full-duplex protocols, respectively), but not 202. Given the wide differences in design between the 202 and {anything in use today}, I'm forced to say that I'd find it difficult to believe that this could be the case. _My_ question for the original poster is: do you use a bank-by-touch-tone service? It's just possible, as an outside idea, that maybe the bank has an ADSI arrangement set up with your LEC, and that's how the information is getting there. _I_, in turn, am not completely certain what protocol ADSI uses, but I'd be willing to bet some small amount of money that it is also 202. Cheers, Jay R. Ashworth jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us Member of the Technical Staff The Suncoast Freenet Tampa Bay, Florida +1 813 790 7592 ------------------------------ From: tomthiel@aol.com (Tom Thiel) Subject: Re: Home Phone Switch Needed Date: 11 Jun 1996 19:47:49 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) If you could do without the intercom part, a Mitel SmarT-1 Dialer could handle your requirements. It is installed on an RJ-31 series jack ahead of all of your telephone sets, and can be programmed to require a valid account code before completing a call. Its normal purpose is to reroute long distance calls to an ALD carrier by transparently dialing the local access number, waiting for second dial tone, dialing a PIN number, waiting for third dial tone, and then dialing out the long distance number that you input. You would need to customize the route tables, so that it simply looked for a valid account code, then redialed the number out on the line. It also has an RS-232 port which you could either run to a serial printer for "print-on-the-fly" logs, or into a cheep pc running some type of call accounting software. They are availble in 1, 2, and 4 port versions, from most any interconnect supply house. Also, at least in my area, if you sign up with some ALD carriers, they will install and maintain it for free or low monthly cost (this is also how they get your intra-LATA/local-long distance traffic, which can save you some $) ------------------------------ From: randolph@coax.net (William Randolph) Subject: Re: Home Phone Switch Needed Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 21:10:35 -0400 n8mdy wrote: > I have a problem with telephone lines, long distance and abusive > children. We recently received a $280 phone bill, all local long > distance calls. My teenage son thinks it ok to talk to the next > exchange for hours at a time. Well, I cut off long distance service on > the family telephone; I have a separate line in my office for my own > use. > Is there a phone switch, which would cost $500 or less, available? > I would like to assign access codes, call accounting and possibly an > intercom or paging system. A company named Hello Direct has a catalog with a device that will fix your problem. Their number is 800-444-3556 or on the web http://www.hello-direct.com Hope this helps. This catalog is a phone lovers xmas wish list. 73, Bill Randolph w8vft ------------------------------ From: psyber@usa.pipeline.com (John Cropper) Subject: Re: FCC Crackdown on AOS Pricing Date: 12 Jun 1996 14:34:21 GMT Organization: Pipeline USA On Jun 06, 1996 21.09.07 in article , 'Ed Ellers ' wrote: > The Associated Press is running a story (which I saw on CompuServe) > that the FCC is considering a regulation on long-distance calling from > coin phones to force any company whose rates are more than 15% more > than the average of the major carriers to play a recording announcing > the rate for the call before ringing the called party. I can see it now ... You deposit the quarter, dial, and hear, "The surgeon general has determined that the announcement of the rate you are about to pay could cause coronary side-effects. Please have at least five dollars in change and cardiac medication handy. Thank You." :-) John Cropper, President NiS Telecom Division POB 277, Pennington, NJ USA 08534-0277 voice: (800) 247-8675 fax: (609) 637-9430 psyber@usa.pipeline.com ------------------------------ From: psyber@usa.pipeline.com (John Cropper) Subject: Re: AT&T Calling Card and Caller ID Date: 12 Jun 1996 14:45:26 GMT Organization: Pipeline USA On Jun 05, 1996 19.17.38 in article , 'Derek ' wrote: > Today, 6/5, I used a payphone at a local deli during my lunch break to > check messages at home, using my AT&T universal card. When I get home, > looking at the caller ID, the name and number actually showed up from > where I called. Normally, all I would get is "out-of-area." New > feature? If it is, will using *67 still render 'private'? > Thought this would be of interest to many of you. Passing of CID information was supposed to be mandatory for every carrier June 1, 1996. Only a small handful of carriers are _not_ in compliance at this point (two known are GTE and Pac*Bell, both in CA). Most everybody else *is* in complaiance and passing every single call (that is not blocked); many are also sending name info (to their customers) as well. John Cropper, President NiS Telecom Division POB 277, Pennington, NJ USA 08534-0277 voice: (800) 247-8675 fax: (609) 637-9430 psyber@usa.pipeline.com ------------------------------ From: Mark Smith Subject: Re: AT&T Wireless Tells Cellular Roamers: Don't call NJ Police Date: Wed, 12 Jun 96 10:25:03 EDT Organization: New Jersey Computer Connection, Lawrenceville, NJ In article , write: > - All gasoline sold in New Jersey is both mandatory Full Service, it > is at least 15 to 40c per gallon cheaper than any gas, even self > service, in New York City, Delaware or Washington, DC. Been that way a long time -- it was a safety issue when it became law and every time they try to repeal the safety question stops it. I work in PA and always buy gas at home. > - If you go into New Jersey, the signs tell you to dial #95 to report > such things to the state police. > - The state radio system (1610 AM) reports such calls are toll and > airtime free from MOST major cellular services. > - Along part of the New Jersey Turnpike - near exit 10, for example - > calls *do go through* using #95. > - When attempting to use the service past the airport at Newark, New > Jersey, (exit 14A/B/C, Jersey City and the Holland Tunnel) to report a > car abandoned on the road, dialing #95 produces an error message > similar to the following: I had a problem where these calls were being billed by Bell Atlantic Mobile on my phone (Philadelphia supersystem - Trenton, NJ number) only when used north of exit 11 or so. They were billed as "800 service" in what is a roaming area for me at the cost of 95 cents per minute (back then). I had to complain by phone and e-mail to Bell Atlantic. Now, those calls are toll and airtime free for me the entire length of the Turnpike. I'd contact AT&T Wireless and ask them to get on the stick and fix the problem. By the way, calling #95 on the NJ Turnpike really helps out the stranded motorist -- somebody will get there in five or ten minutes versus waiting up to an hour for a turnpike police or repair vehicle to pass by. Use 911 for emergencies, though (fire, accident, etc). Mark ------------------------------ From: Robert F. Holloman, Jr. Subject: Re: Pac Bell *69 (Return Call) Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 13:34:15 GMT Organization: Concentric Internet Services zev wrote: > Does anyone know what other LECs do regarding these services? Are > there others that charge for attempts that are not possible? I plan to > write to the California PUC about this - anyone have a useful name to > write to? Here in NC there was a story on a local TV newscast about BellSouth's new pay-per-use Call Return, Repeat Dialing, and Three-Way Calling. BS did explain them in the customer-information area (in fairly small print I understand) in phone bills just prior to activation. Children soon discovered these new features and spread a rumor around area schools saying it was a result of thunderstorms or some such. Parents, many of whom overlooked the bill notices, were shocked to get bills with dozens of these 75 cent charges. BS decided to drop the charges for the first month and to block the services for those who request it. Plus they'll include a large, colorful insert in the next bill to explain the services. Children weren't the only ones fooled. Someone misinformed person told my boss that the features would be free for one month. He was using them quite a bit until I broke the news to him. And even I was tricked by my LEC - Sprint/Carolina Telephone (CT). A couple weeks ago I discovered that Call Return and Repeat Dialing worked on my modem line (I already subscribe to them on my voice line). I assumed CT activated them on the modem line by mistake, which wouldn't be surprising considering they accidentally disconnected my voice line after I placed an order for CID! Anyway, I recently heard a CT radio commercial advertising these "no subscription necessary"-75-cent-per- use features. That really makes me hot because they haven't mentioned this in any bill. I suspect BS and CT also charge for attempts to use these features on "out of area" numbers. ------------------------------ From: scline@usit.net (Stanley Cline) Subject: Re: What Does A/B Carrier Mean? Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 00:05:58 GMT Organization: Catoosa Computing Services On Mon, 03 Jun 96 09:34:33 +0900, Pat wrote: > The ruling was that the traditional telephone company of > record in the community would be granted one of the two cellular > radio licenses if they wanted it -- of course, they all did -- and Note that the carrier that got the B license did not necessarily have to be the DOMINANT LEC in the area. Take Knoxville, TN (ugh!) for instance. BellSouth is the LEC in much of the Knoxville MSA and adjoining RSAs, but the B license went to United States Cellular, owned mostly by TDS Telecom. The reason: TDS Telecom owns a small telco (Concord Telephone Exchange) in western Knox County. In other areas, small telephone *cooperatives* have been granted licenses for B-side service, even in areas dominated by BellSouth or other companies. Examples: Fort Payne, AL (Farmers Tel Co-Op), Dyersburg, TN (Yorkville [TN] Tel Co-Op), etc. The B license always went to *SOME* telco in the MSA/RSA, but not necessarily the BIGGEST telco. (Areas served by CommNet -- i.e. most of South Dakota -- may be an exception; I know of no connection between them and any LEC. However, CommNet may have acquired licenses from USWest or other LECs.) > the 'B' license. The assumption was further made that the various > 'B' carriers (or existing telephone companies) would probably band > together and work in each other's best interest through roaming > agreements, etc. The new competition in each community (the 'A' Most large B carriers (with the glaring exception of US Cellular) have "banded together", in the MobiLink consortium. Roaming agreements among MobiLink carriers are fairly standardized, although a few carriers (360, SNET) have been reluctant to lower rates. > local telephone company having the 'B' license as planned, but a > phone company in some other distant community operating under some > other name holding the 'A' license. For example, here in the Chicago This is *very* common in this area also. The first major example of this was Atlanta, where Pac*Tel (now AirTouch) is the A-side carrier. In most of Tennessee, GTE (Contel before that) owns the A-side licenses. In Georgia RSA 1 (Dalton), USCC/TDS is now (but soon won't be!) the A-side carrier; TDS owns the telco in Blue Ridge, GA. In some areas, particularly the Carolinas, carriers (on both the A and B bands) have changed hands (Charlotte and Columbia going from BellSouth to ALLTEL, 360 buying parts of BellSouth and USCC areas, etc.), so the rule that "B=LEC and A=someone else" does not necessarily hold now. (It still does in most areas.) However, there are A-side cellular companies (Palmer Wireless, Vanguard Cellular, GenCell, etc.) that have NOTHING to do with local telephone service. These were the "competition" the FCC expected; in some documents I have seen, the A-side carrier is referred to as a "common radio carrier" or something similar, rather than another telco (as many A-side carriers are!) These are also the carriers most likely to use the "Cellular One" name. (It turns out that telco-owned A-side carriers are slowly moving away from the CellOne name, especially with the increasing competition from PCS. AT&T Wireless dumped the name completely; CellOne here now refers to itself as "a GTE service" -- I expect them to just call themselves GTE Mobilnet before long.) > has the 'A' license. In St. Louis the exact opposite is the case > where Southwestern Bell is the 'telco of record' and they operate the > 'B' side as Southwestern Bell Mobility and Ameritech is the 'A' carrier Mobile, Alabama is _very_ unusual: The major LEC is BellSouth. Other LECs in the area include Frontier/Alabama, GTE/Contel, Gulf Telephone, and perhaps Sprint. The A-side cellular carrier is -- BellSouth. The B-side cellular carrier is Contel/GTE (note: it's Frontier/Alabama in Monroeville and other areas to the north.) This is REALLY bad -- a Mobile cellular customer going to Birmingham, Chattanooga, Nashville, etc. must switch their phone from A to B, or from B to A, to get lower roaming rates! (In all other nearby cities that they service, BellSouth is B and Contel/GTE A. Richmond, VA and Bakersfield, CA are the same way -- although the LEC isn't BellSouth. This makes for some interesting bills and mad roamers!) US Cellular and 360 also tend to "flip" from A to B, especially in North Carolina. In Greenville, NC 360 is the A carrier (while being B in the rest of the state); USCC is the B carrier (they're A further south along the coast.) > never considered at all back in 1983. According to Lynn Gregg, some > of the newcomers with their own infrastructure won't be A or B ... > they will be on their own radio frequencies with a totally different > thing altogether. PAT] The PCS carriers are being referred to as "A" and "B" too, at least in the spectrum auctions. For Chattanooga, this leaves us as follows: CELLULAR A = GTE Mobilnet dba CellOne CELLULAR B = BellSouth PCS A = InterCel (PowerTel) PCS B = AT&T Wireless PCS C = To be announced PCS D = To be announced ... (I may have flipped the PCS carriers ... anyone?) Stanley Cline (Roamer1 on IRC) ** GO BRAVES! GO VOLS! mailto:scline@usit.net ** http://www.usit.net/public/scline/ CompuServe 74212,44 ** MSN WSCline1 ** AOL SUCKS! All opinions are strictly my own! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jun 96 23:16:00 EDT From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: What Does A/B Carrier Mean? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > I'm not aware that the FCC ever reserved the wireline licenses for the > local wireline carrier of record; in fact I can name three cities > right off where a different LEC's cellular subsidiary got the license. There was quite a lot of horse trading after the original round of license awards. In many cases carriers swapped licenses around to get larger contiguous areas that'd be easier to serve. Also, the boundaries of the cellular RSAs and MSAs are along county lines which need bear no relationship to exchange boundaries, so there were often multiple LECs in a particular cellular area, in which case there'd be a lottery among the LECs. In my area, for example (Ithaca NY) most of the territory is served by NYNEX, with a couple of small independents such as Empire Telephone and the Trumansburg Home Telephone Company. There was a cellular lottery and Trumansburg won. Then (after a long and not particularly relevant challenge from a local Indian tribe who claimed preference for the license) Trumansburg made a deal with NYNEX who in turn made a deal with Frontier, who actually built and operates the system. This makes sense because the territory is adjacent to other Frontier territories in the Rochester area. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - Stanford econ prof ------------------------------ From: wes.leatherock@hotelcal.com (Wes Leatherock) Subject: Re: What Does A/B Carrier Mean? Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1996 03:27:18 GMT Ed Ellers wrote: > TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to nec.co.jp>: >> The ruling was that the traditional telephone company of >> record in the community would be granted one of the two cellular >> radio licenses if they wanted it -- of course, they all did -- and >> the second license would be granted to a competitor. > I'm not aware that the FCC ever reserved the wireline licenses for the > local wireline carrier of record; in fact I can name three cities > right off where a different LEC's cellular subsidiary got the license. > (Indianapolis, in Ameritech territory, has GTE; Cincinnati, served by > Cincinnati Bell, has Ameritech cellular service; and Lexington, a GTE > city, has BellSouth Mobility cellular service, with GTE now owning the > *other* cellular carrier there!) But many communities have more than one "traditional telephone company of record." GTE has quite substantial operations in the Houston metropolitan area, and there are (or were) several other smaller companies operating in the area. GTE has its headquarters in the middle of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, in some of the substantial amount of territory it serves there. (Texas Stadium, too, is in GTE territory.) And there are other GTE operations, and smaller company operations, in other Southwestern Bell areas. So at one time, and maybe still, Southwestern Bell and GTE agreed that GTE would get the Houston system and Southwestern Bell would get the others. But actually, as I recall, each company (including some or all of the smaller companies) owned discrete percentages of each system, but the `B' carrier was run by GTE under their name in Houston. I don't know if this is still the case, but that's how it started out. The same thing may be true in some other areas of the USA. Wes Leatherock wes.leatherock@hotelcal.com wes.leatherock@origins.bbs.uoknor.edu ------------------------------ From: Ron Johnson Subject: Wanted LGE Modules for Newbridge 3624 Channel Bank Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 00:44:08 -0700 Organization: National SUPPORT Center Wanted LGE modules for Newbridge 3624 Channel Bank We are looking for 10 LGE modules for the Newbridge 3624. Will buy lesser amounts if price is right! Ron Johnson rjohnson@scsn.net 800-672-3683 ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #282 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jun 12 15:37:59 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id PAA15467; Wed, 12 Jun 1996 15:37:59 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 15:37:59 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606121937.PAA15467@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #283 TELECOM Digest Wed, 12 Jun 96 15:37:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 283 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Yellowstone Park Begins Cellular Service (Billings Gazette via D. Herrick) Book Review: "Doing Big Business on the Internet" (Rob Slade) Need Help Canceling Service Plan (Leo J. Irakliotis) Questions About Ringing (Apollo Shyong) Re: PC Phone Board (Jay R. Ashworth) Re: PC Phone Board (Bruce A. Pennypacker) Re: PC Phone Board (Scot E. Wilcoxon) Re: Third Wireless Carrier (Eric Kammerer) Re: Modems in Spain (Angel Barrio Ruiz) Re: Modems in Spain (Marcos Garcia) Need Copy of FCC Tariff #9 (Jed De Rose) Pagers - 149 MHz vs. 800 MHz (Rick Catterson) Re: What Does A/B Carrier Mean? (Greg Monti) Re: 800 Numbers Now Customer Dialable Only (Babu Mengelepouti) Last Laugh! If Microsoft HQ in South Georgia (John W. Shaver) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 12:28:16 -0400 From: daniel lance herrick Organization: Allen-Bradley Company Subject: Yellowstone Park Begins Cellular Service YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (AP) - Cellular service is the latest visitor to one of the nation's most popular parks. Yellowstone National Park officials have worked out a deal with Cody, Wyo.-based Metacomm Communications to install three cellular transmitters inside park boundaries. Park officials say cellular phones can help rangers respond in emergency situations. Not everyone is pleased. "What's next, cable?" Chad Snopek of Los Angeles asked after returning from a few nights in the park. "It takes away from what you come here to get away from." Snopek said he has no plans to put a cellular phone in his backpack the next time he visits the 2.2 million-acre park. Assistant park superintendent Marv Jensen said benefits of the service outweigh the negatives. "It's (a hiker's) choice whether they decide to take a cellular phone, and therefore intrude on their wilderness experience," said Jensen. "It's not going to affect anyone else." Under the phone service, which won't be ready until later this summer, the park receives $500 a year plus 70 phones and 5,000 free minutes a month. Unlimited free service would be provided if there was a disaster like the fires of 1988. Jensen added that a new law requires federal land managers to allow commercial cellular facilities unless there is a compelling reason to deny the request. Others noted that phones in Yellowstone are nothing new, as a land-line phone system was first installed in 1886. Gary Begaman of Metacomm declined to say how much his company was investing in the deal. But he was confident plenty of the 3 million annual visitors would use the system, whether on the backcountry fishing trip or driving through the park. Complete backcountry coverage would not be possible, however, because of the limited number of transmitters. Jensen said no environmental damage will occur because the transmitters will be installed on existing antennae at Old Faithful, Grant Village and on top of Mt. Washburn, one of the park's tallest peaks. Park ranger Tom Tankersley said that despite the lack of a resource impact, he had mixed feelings about going wireless. "But it does lend itself to a wonderful philosophical discussion," he said. "If you can't escape from the telephone in places like Yellowstone, where can you?" ---------------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The point is you *can* escape from phones anytime you wish; just don't have one with you. On the other hand, I think this is going to be a marvelous improvement in security in the nation's largest wilderness area. You don't have to turn the phone on; you can leave it turned off in your backpack. No one needs to have your cellular number. You need not ever touch the phone. But then when the time comes -- and invariably it will and does come for some people -- that there is an accident or a breakdown of your car, think how great it will be -- if you choose to do so -- to be able to call for help. Do *you* want to be out there having fallen down and broken your leg or having been hurt by an animal or just plain getting sick or getting lost and have to stumble around for a couple days looking for help? I regard cellular phones in the same way I regard computers, television sets and other modern things in our time: they are tools for my use as I see fit. I do not rely on the computer; it relies on me to give it a task to accomplish. Perhaps in your backpack you should not carry any aspirin or first aid supplies either if you like the wilderness so much and want to leave civilization behind. I can think of far worse 'commercial enterprises' to have in a wilderness area like Yellowstone than cellular phone service. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 13:15:31 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Doing Big Business on the Internet" by Hurley/Birkwood BKBGBSIN.RVW 960501 "Doing Big Business on the Internet", Brian Hurley/Peter Birkwood, 1996, 1-55180-029-2, $14.95 %A Brian Hurley bhurley@magmacom.com %A Peter Birkwood birkwood@magmacom.com %C 1481 Charlotte Road, North Vancouver, BC V7J 1H1 %D 1996 %G 1-55180-029-2 %I Self-Counsel Press %O $14.95 +1-604-986-3366 fax: +1-604-986-3947 selfcoun@pinc.com %P 174 %S Small Business Guide" %T "Doing Big Business on the Internet" This is the usual Internet for business guide, with, unfortunately, the usual lack of technical information and rigour and the usual lack of feel for Internet culture. This shortcoming is particularly odd for a pair of electrical engineers who we are told have been on the Internet for "over a decade". The authors have, however, distinguished themselves by providing a series of pointers to business related resources on the Internet. The layout and design of the book makes this even more useful: the URLs are contained in marginal notes, quickly identifiable when browsing and quickly accessed while reading the text. The size of the book means that it has to be fairly limited, but those resources that have been included are not always of the best quality. The bibliography, for example, highly recommends some very mediocre works. The usual myths of the advertising effectiveness of a Web page is reiterated with little mention of the need to advertise your Web page itself. For those who already know about the Internet, this book does provide a quick "checklist" guide for starting an online business venture. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKBGBSIN.RVW 960501. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. Rob Slade's book reviews are a regular feature in the Digest. Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca | "A ship in port is safe, Institute for rslade@vanisl.decus.ca| but that is not what Research into Rob.Slade@f733.n153/ | ships are for." User .z1.fidonet.org | Adm. Grace Murray Hopper Security Canada V7K 2G6 | after John Parks ------------------------------ From: irakliot@lance.colostate.edu (Leo J. Irakliotis) Subject: Help Needed Canceling Service Plan Date: 11 Jun 1996 21:33:20 GMT Organization: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 Within two days after I got a new service plan for cellular telephone, and a new handheld unit, I realized that I was not satifisfied with the service. The retailer says he cannot take the phone back and refund. What can I do? Is there some regulation to protect me? I only had the phone and the service for two days, and I only have ten minutes of off-peak airtime on it. Surely common sense should prevail somehow. I heard something about a cooling period during which I can return the unit and cancel the plan at no penalty. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Leo irakliot@lance.colostate.edu ------------------------------ From: apollo_shyong@acer.com.tw Date: Wed, 12 Jun 96 13:25:23 PST Subject: Questions About Ringing I am confused about some terminology about RINGing in subscriber loop. Can you give me any advice? [1] RINGDOWN [2] RING CADENCE Best regards, Y.L.Shyong [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: 'Ringdown' generally refers to a type of phone line where the ringing occurs either automatically when a phone at one end of a circuit goes off hook (the other end then begins ringing) or when the ringing is done manually by pressing a button at one end or the other. In any event, it is when a ringing signal is given that was not generated in the usual way by a telephone switching device. If I dial your phone and the central office starts ringing your line, that is not a ringdown situation. If you and I have between us a 'private line' or 'dedicated circuit' that just the two of us use and it is necessary for one or the other of us to go off hook and/or press a button/turn a crank/pull a switch to one position or another to cause an audible signal and get the other one's attention that *is* considered a 'ringdown' type phone line. 'Ring(ing) Cadence' refers to *how* the signal is given out. It is intended to transmit a message in and of itself. For example, you and I mutually agree in advance that in the process of signalling to your end if I make a short ring followed by a long ring or two short rings and then a period of silence followed by two more short rings I am telling you in advance that a certain person is calling or a certain subject is to be discussed. Many years ago when 'party line' phone service was common and several people shared the same circuit, the cadence (or manner and method of ringing) imposed on the line told the various end-users *which one of them* was expected to respond and which ones were expected to not respond. Now in more modern times with 'multi-number' service from telco (more than one number assigned to the same single phone line) a certain cadence or rythym in the ring tells the subscriber which actual phone number was dialed. Examples of cadence might include a long ring followed by two short rings, or two shorts and a long, etc. 'Long' and 'short' are of course relative terms, meaning one lasts for a longer or shorter period than the other. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) Subject: Re: PC Phone Board Date: 12 Jun 1996 14:27:03 GMT Organization: University of South Florida David C. Meyer (dcmeyer@cts.com) wrote: > I wish to use a PC to handle four or more incoming voice phone lines > and six standard phone instruments. Capabilities would include call > routing, voice mail, call transfer and conference calling. Anyone > heard of such a board for a PC? Most of the major CT manufacturers produce products that will allow you to build such a server. You _really_ should be reading {Computer Telephony} magazine, if you want to get into this stuff. The most difficult part will be finding a board that can generate ring current to ring your internal sets; I seem to remember there's only one or two companies producing those, right now. You want a small PBX, right? Have you seen the Siemens OfficePoint 3-BRI ISDN PBX? Here are a few URLs to look at: http://www.comdial.com/ http://www.dialogic.com/ http://www.dianatel.com/ http://www.mvip.org/ http://www.pika.ca/ http://www.rhetorex.com/ http://www.siemensrolm.com/ http://www.versit.com/ Um ... have fun(?) Cheers, Jay R. Ashworth jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us Member of the Technical Staff The Suncoast Freenet Tampa Bay, Florida +1 813 790 7592 ------------------------------ From: Bruce A. Pennypacker Subject: Re: PC Phone Board Date: 11 Jun 1996 21:21:33 GMT Organization: Stylus Products Group, Artisoft Inc. In article telecom16.280.2@massis.lcs.mit.edu, David C. Meyer said: > I wish to use a PC to handle four or more incoming voice phone lines > and six standard phone instruments. Capabilities would include call > routing, voice mail, call transfer and conference calling. Anyone > heard of such a board for a PC? Contact Dialogic at 800-755-4444 (or http://www.dialogic.com). Their various telephony cards can be combined to handle what you need. If you explain to them exactly what you want in detail they should be able to set you up with the hardware and a list of software products that can do what you need. Bruce Pennypacker | Stylus Products Group | Phone: +1 617 621 9545 Software Engineer | Artisoft, Inc. | Fax: +1 617 621 7862 Resident TAPI guru | 201 Broadway | http://www.stylus.com brucep@stylus.com | Cambridge, MA 02139 | sales: sales@stylus.com ------------------------------ From: sewilco@fieldday.mn.org (Scot E. Wilcoxon) Subject: Re: PC Phone Board Date: 11 Jun 1996 19:00:23 -0500 Hmm. I sent him email with some info, and in the process learned something new. {Computer Telephony} magazine has a Web site with quite a few links for the field. As that's of interest to this group: Linkname: Computer Telephony Home Page URL: http://www.computertelephony.com/ct_home.html Scot E. Wilcoxon sewilco@fieldday.mn.org ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Jun 96 09:15:45 PDT From: erick@sac.AirTouch.COM (Eric Kammerer at Sac Net) Subject: Re: Third Wireless Carrier > The actual frequency bands assigned to the A and B channels in any > given area are not just two separate but adjacent bands of frequencies > (e.g., 800 to 810 MHz for A and 810 to 820 for B), as you might guess > would be simplest. Rather they're a series of narrower "frequency > bandlets" interleaved among each other in the overall frequency band > assigned to A+B. Some details on the A/B split: In 1983, the FCC allocated 40MHz of spectrum, containing 666 channels, for AMPS. Channels are spaced 30Khz apart. The transmit and receive channels are spaced 45 Mhz apart. The mobile transmits in the range of 825.030 - 844.980 MHz. The cell site transmits in the range of 870.030 - 889.980 MHZ. Of the 666 channels, 42 are used for signalling, leaving 624 for voice. The 666 channel pairs were divided into two equal bands to allow for competition within the same coverage area. Thus, each band has 312 voice channels, and 21 signalling channels. The Radio Common Carriers were assigned the first band (Band A) and the wireline common carriers (telcos) were assigned the second band (Band B). The highest 21 channels of Band A and the lowest 21 channels of Band B are signalling channels, the remaining channels are voice channels. In 1986, an additional 5 MHz was allocated for cellular, and called E-AMPS for Extended-AMPS. This increased the total number of channels to 832. Only voice channels were added, no signalling channels. The mobile transmit range was increased to 824.040 - 848.970 MHz. The cell site transmit range was increased to 869.040 - 893.970 MHz. A total of 790 voice channels and 42 signalling channels became available (395 voice and 21 signalling channels per band). When the 5 Mhz was allocated, the FCC could not find a contiguous block in the 800 MHz range. Therefore, they found 1 MHZ prior to the AMPS band, and 4 MHz after the AMPS band. Since 1 MHz is not sufficiently large to handle the additional 83 channels assigned to Band A, the new channels were split across both parts of the new allocation. Since this would require extra filtering in Band A systems (an expensive competitive disadvantage), the FCC placed the extra Band A channels between the original Band B channels, and the extended Band B channels -- forcing the Band B carriers to install additional filters also. The actual layout looks like this: Channel Range Description -------------------------------------------- 991 - 1023 Band A E-AMPS Voice 1 - 312 Band A AMPS Voice 313 - 333 Band A Signalling 334 - 354 Band B Signalling 355 - 666 Band B AMPS Voice 667 - 716 Band A E-AMPS Voice (continued) 717 - 799 Band B E-AMPS Voice Eric Kammerer erick@sac.AirTouch.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I always have wondered why there were no cellular channels numbered 800 through 990 (the numbering stops at 799 and resumes again at 991 as you show above.) Maybe they wanted to remain consistent with the gap in the frequency range with the 191 unavailable 'channels' (800-990). Any ideas on how the channel numbering was decided upon? I know in CB radio the channel numbers are out of sequence with the frequency at times also, with channels 24-25 actually appearing frequency-wise between channel 22-23 of the original layout, i.e. channel 21, 22, 24, 25, 23, even though where the users are concerned the numbers appear in the proper order on the radio tuning dial. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 17:10:39 +0200 From: abarrio@tid.es (Angel Barrio Ruiz) Subject: Re: Modems in Spain > I am going to be spending next school year studying in Spain (at the > University of Granada, if you care) and plan to bring my trusty little Beautiful place, you will love it. > But I have two questions: > (1) Can I actually use my U.S. modem (a Hayes Accura 288) on Spanish > phone lines? (Legally?) Yes, you certainly can. There use to be restrictions about non-standarized modems but that was over a couple of years ago. > (2) What kind of physical phone jacks are in use in Spain? Radio Shack > only has adapters for the U.K., Germany, and France (all different, > interestingly). If Spain differs from these three, where can I get an > adapter? The standard jack is JP-7. I believe it is exactly the same the US has. Anyhow, the PTT (which incidentally I work for) will be eager to change any real old phone plug for an standard one. The PTT charges pretty expensive fares for this service, though (around $50 for a simple plug). Have a nice stay in Spain. ------------------------------ From: marcos.garcia@t-online.de (Marcos Garc\ma) Subject: Re: Modems in Spain Organization: SAP-AG Walldorf Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 22:02:59 GMT In article , Kris Nelson says: > I am going to be spending next school year studying in Spain (at the > University of Granada, if you care) and plan to bring my trusty little > Powerbook with me to do email, etc. UG appears to have dial-in lines, > so that's no problem. > But I have two questions: > (1) Can I actually use my U.S. modem (a Hayes Accura 288) on Spanish > phone lines? (Legally?) > (2) What kind of physical phone jacks are in use in Spain? Radio Shack > only has adapters for the U.K., Germany, and France (all different, > interestingly). If Spain differs from these three, where can I get an > adapter? The modem should be no problem; as far as I know the standards are the same. The jack may differ from line to line. Definitely it is not the German jack. I do not know how the French and British look like. In private homes you still sometimes see no jack at all. The cables are just screwed to the outlet. In modern homes and offices you see jacks that look like the ones used in the US and other countries. So maybe you need no adapter at all. Good luck, Marcos ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 16:53:12 -0400 From: ged@netaxs.com (Jed De Rose) Subject: Need Copy of FCC Tariff #9 Do you have, or know where I can get, a copy of the FCC Tariff #9, specifically concerning the cap on ABM T1 charges? Any help would be great. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 19:44:09 -0400 From: Rick Catterson Subject: Pagers - 149 MHz vs. 800 MHz I went to about five outlets last weekend, looking for a basic numeric pager. Bell Mobility (a large paging and celular operation in Toronto) offers virtually identical paging services (at the same price) on both the 149 MHz and the 800 MHz bands. I was wondering if anybody could explain the pros and cons of the two frequency bands. While the sales people seemed to knew their paging features quite well, they clearly didn't understand the differences between the two frequency bands. Rick Catterson rickc@newbridge.com Newbridge Networks Corporation (613)591-3600 x6470 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Personally I think 800 tends to penetrate a little better into steel buildings, basements and other hard to reach places while 149 tends to cover a larger geographical distance but falls short when it comes to rooting its way into computer rooms, for example. Each type of radio wave has different characteristics than other radio waves and the frequency selected for use is very much an applications thing. Also, the type of antenna needed for various frequencies is a consideration. The lower the frequency, the larger the antenna has to be, and this could be cumbersome at very low frequencies. The difference in size of antenna between 149 and 800 is not that much (as compared to say, 27 megs or 'ten meter' and 'eleven meter' stuff) so that would not be a concern with pagers, but the propogation of the wave or the way the signal gets around would matter a lot for many people. I remember many years ago when police officers and firemen used to have radios at 27 megs and they drove around with those great big antennas on their vehicles. Then they all moved to the 150-155 megs area and had much better transmission, etc. Now many large urban police forces have ditched that frequency and use 450-470 for all their transmissions with very good results. Generally, the higher the frequency, the better the overall results in transmission although I am not sure what all the technical reasons are. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 17:50:07 GMT From: cc004056@interramp.com (Greg Monti) Subject: Re: What Does A/B Carrier Mean? On 5 Jun 96, Ed Ellers wrote: > TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to nec.co.jp>: >> The ruling was that the traditional telephone company of >> record in the community would be granted one of the two cellular >> radio licenses if they wanted it -- of course, they all did -- and >> the second license would be granted to a competitor. > I'm not aware that the FCC ever reserved the wireline licenses for the > local wireline carrier of record; in fact I can name three cities > right off where a different LEC's cellular subsidiary got the license. [snip] David Crowe wrote: > When cellular licenses were first granted, they were given to two > companies in each area. The "B" license was given to the local > telephone company ... [snip] I think there's more to it than that. Most of the posters so far have assumed that there is always only ONE local landline phone carrier per cellular service area and that it was therefore destined to be the B carrier. Allow me to postulate (corrections welcomed): Cellular franchise boundaries for B carriers do NOT conform to franchise boundaries of landline telephone companies and were sometimes purposely designed to cover a larger area than that of the existing landline franchisees. Since each cellular service area could cover multiple landline company franchises, the only requirement was that the B carrier be ONE of the landline franchisees who seves *any portion* of the cellular area. Case 1: Baltimore-Washington: The cellular franchise area is served by at least three phone companies (Bell Atlantic, GTE and Armstrong Communications). Only one of those companies, Bell Atlantic, got the B franchise. Bell Atlantic serves a larger portion of the landline customers than the other two, but that's not always the case. Case 2: San Francisco: Cellular area served by at least two landline companies (GTE and Pacific Bell). Pacific Bell serves more people. GTE got the B franchise. Case 3: Indianapolis: Cellular area served by landline companies Ameritech and GTE. I don't know which company serves more customers in that area. GTE got the B franchise. Case 4: Los Angeles: Cellular area served by landline companies GTE and Pacific Bell. Pacific Bell bigger? Pacific Bell (now Airtouch) got the B franchise. Case 5: New York: A special case, and a rarity. Cellular area served by (what was then) New Jersey Bell and New York Telephone. They *jointly* (received and?) operated the B franchise, branded under different names in different states. Eventually merged their cellular ventures into a single company. Now the two parent companies are merging and the division is becoming moot. The above discussion applies to B carriers only. As noted by other posters, the A carriers can be an even more complex situation. Greg Monti Jersey City, New Jersey, USA gmonti@interramp.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 23:20:41 PDT From: Babu Mengelepouti Subject: Re: 800 Numbers Now Customer Dialable Only > That's right, as of June 4th in the 914 area code in Nynex territory, > the 800 ac is customer dialable only. The operators say this is > because of FCC regulations, but there are still many other ac's in > which 800 numbers are not customer dialable only. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is news to me. Perhaps other > readers will be able to report not only their experiences but whatever > guidelines their local telco is using. PAT] Bell Atlantic will also no longer dial 800 numbers. If 1-800-CALL-ATT is dialled through a LEC operator, when the operator drops off the line the call is now dropped. The reason for both of these problems is probably that most LEC operators do not pass ANI -- the ANI appears as NPA/000-5555. This has been used by phreaks for various nefarious purposes (as well as people who just like privacy when calling persons such as Jeff Slaton, who incidentally now routes all calls where no ANI is received to a recording saying "This program is not available at this time" on his 800 number). That is one theory. The other theory is that operators are instructed not to dial 800 numbers because, being toll-free, the LECs cannot charge anything to dial them, and dialing an 800 number takes as much time as dialing a "revenue producing" call. I think that the real reason is a combination of both. Fraud can result from calls placed to long distance operators with no ANI, and that's a ready excuse to use to stop dialing toll-free numbers. On the other hand, it's an awfully good excuse to save operator time, which may mean that they can lay off a couple more operators. In either case, the big losers are disabled people and others who are not able to dial the phone themselves, since such people no longer are able to reach 800 or 888 numbers. If YOU are in a state served by Nynex or Bell Atlantic, contact your state public utility or public service commission and request that operators be required to dial toll-free numbers on request. As for the situation elsewhere, I personally have had operators dial 800 numbers in the Southwestern Bell, BellSouth, USWest, and GTE areas with no difficulty. ------------------------------ From: Shaver, John W. Subject: Last Laugh! If Microsoft HQ in South Georgia Date: Wed, 12 Jun 96 08:18:00 PDT Pat, I couldn't resist this one. Vic Wallace of this station added the line about the DoubleWide on concrete blocks. John [[ MICROSOF.GEO : 2083 in MICROSOF.GEO ]] Subject: [53L]: FW: MONDAY BLUES: If Microsoft was HQed in South Georgia Ways things would be different if Microsoft was headquartered in South Georgia 1. Their #1 product would be Microsoft Winders; 2. Instead of an hourglass icon you'd get an empty beer bottle; 3. Occasionally you'd bring up a window that was covered with a Hefty bag; 4. Dialog boxes would give you the choice of "Ahh-ight" or "Naw"; 5. Instead of "Ta-Da!", the opening sound would be Dueling Banjos; 6. The "Recycle Bin" in Winders '95 would be an outhouse; 7. Whenever you pulled up the Sound Player you'd hear a digitized drunk redneck yelling "Freebird!"; 8. Instead of "Start Me Up", the Winders '95 theme song would be Achy-Breaky Heart; 9. PowerPoint would be named "ParPawnt"; 10. Microsoft's programming tools would be "Vishul Basic" and "Vishul C++"; 11. Winders 95 logo would incorporate Confederate Flag; 12. Microsoft Word would be just that: one word; 13. Instead of WWW servers, Microsoft would have KKK servers; 14. New Shutdown WAV: "Y'all come back now!"; 15. Instead of VP, Microsoft big shots would be called "Cuz"; 16. Hardware could be repaired using parts from an old Trans Am; 17. Microsoft Office replaced with Micr'sawft Henhouse; 18. Four words: Daisy Dukes Screen Saver; 19. Well, the first thing you know, old Bill's a billionaire; 20. Speadsheet software would include examples to inventory dead cars in your front yard; 21. Flight Simulator replaced by Tractor pull Simulator; 22. Microsoft CEO: Bubba Gates; 23. Redman plug'n'play interface; 24. They could still use Ky-row as code name for next upgrade, but Albenny would be the one after that; 25. Screen saver would be a kudzu vine which would consume your program manager; 26. Instructions for use would include "mash the control key."; 27. The HQ building will be a double wide on cinder blocks, because MICROSOFT is hyear to stay. ---------------------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Smile: That's all very cute, and if anyone in Georgia has their feelings hurt, please accept my apologies. I only wish someone who had Bubba Gates by the ear would convey to him the desparate straits things are getting into around here with the loss of Microsoft's very generous support for the year ahead. Corporate financial support for the Digest is urgently needed: would you like to see your company's name in the boilerplate of in each issue of the Digest where Microsoft's now appears as of July 1? Please do something ASAP. And I am not smiling when I add this final note. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #283 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jun 12 17:03:14 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id RAA24797; Wed, 12 Jun 1996 17:03:14 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 17:03:14 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606122103.RAA24797@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #284 TELECOM Digest Wed, 12 Jun 96 17:03:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 284 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Late Bulletin: Communications Decency Act Overturned! (Van Heffner) Real Time Fax Compressed 16 to 1 (Bob Stone) Re: Call Waiting and Caller ID Together (Brent Ellacott) Re: Call Waiting and Caller ID Together (Sean E. Williams) Re: Call Waiting and Caller ID Together (Peter Bartnik) Re: Help With Draconian Contract (Damon Kelly) Re: Caller-ID *Only* Line (Hillary Gorman) Re: Old Phone Bills (James Jacobs) Re: Cellular Message Waiting Indicator (Sean E. Williams) Re: BRI Butt Set - Cheap ? (Lars Poulsen) Re: Help Needed Building Step-by-Step Switches (Dave Levenson) Re: Local Exchange Information Wanted (Dave Levenson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 11:28:27 -0700 From: vantek@northcoast.com (VANTEK COMMUNICATIONS) Subject: Late Bulletin! Communications Decency Act Overturned Philadelphia, PA, June 12, 1996 (DLD DIGEST) -- Thanks in large part to testimony concerning the effectiveness of SurfWatch Software Inc.'s Internet filtering and parental control software, a federal court in Philadelphia today ruled that the Communications Decency Act, signed into law on February 8, is an unconstitutional infringement of freedom of speech over the Internet. Specifically, the ruling upheld a challenge of the act by the Citizens' Internet Empowerment Coalition (CIEC), who based their case largely on the availability of effective Internet filtering software such as SurfWatch. The intent of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) was to prevent minors from inadvertently stumbling upon `indecent' or `patently offensive' material in the normal course of using the Internet and World Wide Web. The CIEC, however, claimed that government control over the Internet constituted censorship that violated the freedom of speech of all users of the Internet, and that the CDA was an unnecessary intrusion because filtering software, such as SurfWatch, already provides effective control over what minors can access. `We are extremely gratified that the voices of reason have prevailed in this case,' said Ann Duvall, president of SurfWatch Software, Inc., and one of the expert witnesses called to testify at the trial. `There's a delicate balancing act between protection of minors and the widespread use of the Internet for communication, education and commerce. I'm glad that we were able to convince the court that Internet filtering software such as SurfWatch is a far more viable and less restrictive solution than government censorship.' In particularly dramatic testimony, a Department of Justice expert witness, Howard Schmidt, who originally testified that he had been able to search for and find sexually explicit Internet sites that SurfWatch did not block, revealed under cross examination by CIEC attorney Ann Kappler that he had conducted his initial searches without SurfWatch running. In response to further questioning by Kappler, Schmidt admitted: `SurfWatch would not have allowed the (initial) search.' SurfWatch Software Provides an Alternative to Censorship. SurfWatch lets parents, teachers and employers block unwanted sexually explicit and other material from their computers' Internet access-without restricting the access rights of other Internet users. The SurfWatch software removes no material from the Internet or any server, but simply blocks it at any computer or local network where it is installed. SurfWatch screens Internet newsgroups, World Wide Web, FTP, Gopher, Chat and other services. SurfWatch's unique Dynamic Filtering Technology not only blocks sexually explicit Internet content, but it also keeps users from initially searching for material in many of the popular Internet search engines. This powerful feature has helped to make SurfWatch the market leader in Internet filtering and parental control software. SurfWatch Software, Inc., based in Los Altos, California, is pioneering the development of new technologies for the Internet. SurfWatch was acquired in April 1996 by Spyglass, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPYG), a leading licensor of World-Wide Web client and server technology. SurfWatch Software, Inc. was the first company to ship Internet software for blocking access to inappropriate material and has licensed Internet filtering technology to the on-line services industry. SurfWatch Software can be reached at 415/948-9500, info(at)surfwatch.com, or via the World Wide Web at http://www.surfwatch.com. Van Hefner - Editor Discount Long Distance Digest On The Web: http://www.webcom.com/longdist/ ------------------------------ From: bobstone@fairfield.com (Bob Stone) Subject: Real Time Fax Compressed 16 to 1 Date: Wed, 12 Jun 96 18:42:33 GMT Organization: LISCO, an Iowa Internet Provider Our company, Voice & Data Systems has a technology which can help carriers by sending real time fax, compressed 16 to 1, as packets of X.25 data. No callback is involved. For more information, see our web page at http://www.fairfield.com/terra_globe ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 15:54:41 +0000 From: Brent_Ellacott@nt.com Subject: Re: Call Waiting and Caller ID Together kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) wrote: > Today I received a brochure from Ameritech (Ohio) offering call > waiting service with Caller ID. Using an Ameritech Display Phone they > offer to provide the CID of the call waiting caller "at no extra > charge." > The catch is you have to purchase an Ameritech display phone. > Has anyone heard of this before? I assume the line has to be somehow > set to provide something like "CID on busy/cw" -- is that a new CLASS > feature? I assume it does not require anything as exotic as DDSN or > else they'd be charging quite a bit more? > I currently have both call waiting and CID/ they claim there is no > additional charge to get CID on busy/cw, as long as I get the phone -- > either purchase it or rent it at $7/month. > Any insights? Am I right in assuming I don't need the phone but they > won't provision my line with CID on busy unless I get it? Do I really > have to buy the phone in order to get the feature? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No, I think you *do* need the phone. > It has some electronics in it to make the process work. Caller-ID > is not normally transmittable when your phone line is in use. Others > here may be able to give you a more technical explanation. You may > not need to buy *their* phone, but you do need a special phone. PAT] Yes you do need the phone. Your caller ID phone today recieves a Class signal to display the Name & Number. The set they are probably renting or selling to you is Nortel's Poertouch 350 (Vista 350 in Canada). You can view this in Nortel's Hompage www.nortel.com/english/phones/power350.html It is an ADSI set. You can refer to earlier diologue on this newsgroup that defines ADSI better than I. Simply put, in a CLASS call, the Name and number is sent after the first ring, and displayed on your set (that is why if you pick your phone up too quickly, the caller is not displayed). To see a "call waiting" callers name & number, the beep you hear is slightly diferent than what you hear today, and it is called a CAS tone. During that micro second (I could look up the exact length of time - but I don't have the time) the set is muted and the data is sent to the ADSI capable set and displayed for you. They probably call this Visual Call Waiting - we call it SCWID (Sequential Call Waiting ID). It might a be free service, but you need to subscribe to Call Waiting and Call Display. This set can also do DSCWID (Sequential Call Waiting with DISPOSITION). The telco might call this Visual Call Waiting Deluxe. Your RBOC may not have this feature. This is a powefull service. Here is how it works. Your on the call with your mom. Your boss calls. You see his name and number, but you know your mom gets mad when you ask her to hold while you check the other call. Options pop up on the six soft keys on the Powertouch 350. You can press a soft key to tell your boss "the caller knows you are there and will be with you shortly. Please hold". You can send him to voice mail. Switch calls like you would normally do, or have him join in on the original call. This Call Waiting Deluxe might not be offered yet in your area, and might not be a free service. If they do offer a rental option on the set, try it. The most it will cost is $7. Disclaimer - I work for Nortel - I might have a one sided view. Brent Ellacott Account Manager Nortel ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 17:51:08 -0400 From: Sean E. Williams Subject: Re: Call Waiting and Caller ID Together > Any insights? Am I right in assuming I don't need the phone but they > won't provision my line with CID on busy unless I get it? Do I really > have to buy the phone in order to get the feature? Rochester Telephone began offering this service last month in my exchange (716 461) and in many area exchanges as well. Along with the Caller ID/Call waiting service, my "message waiting" lamp now works with the telco voicemail. Apparently, anyone who has telco voicemail and Caller ID now gets the CW/Caller ID for no additional charge. My call waiting tone has changed. It's now a higher-pitched tone followed by a very brief burst of modem data. My phone doesn't understand this data, maybe a phone that did would know to mute the earpiece when the modem data came across. RochesterTel is offering phones and display units for use with this service. Hope this helps, Sean ------------------------------ From: peter@galileo.net (Peter Bartnik) Subject: Re: Call Waiting and Caller ID Together Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 04:21:38 GMT Organization: Galileo.NET The phone you have to purchase is a new type of screen phone that uses a Bellcore spec called ADSI, Analog Display Subscriber Interface, and the service is called Call Waiting with Disposition. The phone is probably a Nortel Powertouch 350, a neat little gem "Hello Direct" sells for $299. Right now there is not a lot of choice with ADSI phones. Colonial Data has one called the Telesmart 4000 which also has a card swipe, and Philips have one based on a 386 chip with a keyboard and all. Ameritech has an ADSI server in their network that downloads little scripts to the phone so you can use it for other services like paying bills, shopping and looking up phone numbers. Peter Bartnik, Dallas, TX ------------------------------ From: damon@umbc.edu (Mr. Damon Kelly) Subject: Re: Help With Draconian Contract Date: 12 Jun 1996 01:55:17 -0400 Organization: University of Maryland, Baltimore County In article , wrote: > I am interested in providing voice /data communications, > Internet and payphone services throughout the country. How can I > provide these services without getting into legal battles with the new > owners. Well, you can convince Company X to subcontract the services you want to offer to your company; that's the best way to avoid legal entanglements. A second suggestion would involve running your telecom system through the radio (or microwave?) spectrum. I don't know how feasible that is, since I'm a practiced layman who reads very carefully. > Is there some different interpretation of the proposed services > so that it doesnt breach the agreement? If there is, a lawyer/solicitor/law agent/whatever from the country you want to serve could provide the answer. > What about providing these services for members of a cooperative > society, or company providing services to private customers? I think that Paragraph (a) limits you to businesses/groups that want to build internal networks for themselves. You'd *still* have to buy telecom equipment from Company X **unless** the internal network is radio-based. If the organization is internationally-based, you *may* be able to build a independent, private right-of-way out of the country depending on how the country defines private property. If the path out of the country isn't radio-based, you'd probably have to buy some equipment from Company X. Interconnecting those private, non-radio-based internal networks could be dangerous. > Your help will be greatly appreciated. Disclaimer: Free advice from *this* non-lawyer is worth every cent! Good luck. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 16:01:32 EDT From: Hillary Gorman Subject: Re: Caller-ID *Only* Line > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't know why this should have been > allowed to continue 'for a couple of weeks' unless your friends did > not report it or telco was very incompetent about correcting the problem. Ok, let me clarify a bit. The friend in question is Avi Freedman, president of a regional ISP in Philadelphia. Bell Atlantic seems to enjoy giving him a hard time. They were in fact difficult about giving him a line at all - when he placed the order, they said "Avi Freedman? *the* Avi Freedman? You can't have a residential line, you are an ISP!" Of course, he informed them that since a) he was ordering service to his residence, and b) he does not do business out of his residence, they were damn well going to give him a residential line. Then, the line turned out to be as I originally described it. I am certain that he reported it about four days after noticing it. I am also certain that it took at least three days after reporting it for it to be fixed. Beyond that I am sketchy on dates, sorry. > 1) Exactly WHAT did they hear when off hook attempting to make a call? > Was it dead silence or mostly dead silence with an occassional click > or 'pop' in their ear? Did they hear side-tone or noise like the line > was alive but just not ever getting around to dial tone? Well, I heard it myself. It was a live line with no dial tone, I think. It made that hissing sound. > 2) What did the *people who called them* during that two weeks get as > a result? It would ring four times and then go to voicemail. Even if you picked up the phone on the first ring, you would simply hear silent hissing, while the caller would get four rings, and then the voicemail. > Most important, did telco ever say what was wrong or did one day the > line just start working correctly, with or without a call to repair > service to prompt them into getting it fixed? Let us know. PAT] They never offered an explanation, and I know that Avi asked them several times. They simply finally fixed it. Now, bear in mind, again, that in MY opinion, Bell Atlantic just doesn't like Avi. I mean, when I got my residential line installed in MY new apartment, the tech said to me, "so, what do you do for a living?" and I said "I work for Net Access" and he said "oh. Avi Freedman, huh? hmmm." But, anyway, I was just looking for opinions on the technical implications of what happened to Avi's phone line. I would be pretty surprised if there were any kind of call forwarding in place on the line. It was a new line put into an old apartment. I know that the already in place copper was rotten and had to be replaced at the initial install. hrg -hillary http://www.hillary.net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Okay, my thinking is it was probably a one-way incoming-only line installed in error. You say after four rings it went to voicemail. There may have been 'immediate call forwarding' installed on the line which (I guess) would have sent him the Caller-ID but forced the call itself to a (apparently very slow answering) voicemail. Was it *his* voicemail that it went to? Do you know if he ordered a voicemail option on that line? I would say that your mention of 'after four rings it went to voicemail' seems to imply there was a 'transfer on busy/no answer' option installed on the line however this would not account for him never being able to speak with the caller even when he answered immediatly. Anyone else have any ideas on this? PAT] ------------------------------ From: James Jacobs Subject: Re: Old Phone Bills Date: 12 Jun 1996 13:07:36 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for your followup. I know nothing > at all, or very little about Boston, so I am glad someone who does > know the area was able to contribute to this. What about the address > of 881 Commonwealth Avenue, which is the return address on the envelopes > during 1932 and much of 1933? 881 Commonwealth Ave. is a six story office building, located west of Kenmore Square, about four miles from downtown. The building was occupied by New England Telephone until the mid-1960's. It is surrounded by the campus of Boston University. 881 Commonwealth was sold to B.U. in the late 1960's and fully renovated. The last time that I ran across the address (many years ago), it housed B.U.'s Metropolitan College -- a two year Junior College within the University. JIM JACOBS e-mail jjacobs@worldfax.com Tampa, Florida, USA Voice Mail +1 813 330 2500 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for this additional information. I still have some of those old telephone bills from 1932-36 available here for anyone who wants one and sends a large self addressed stamped envelope. If you will include your subsription donation for this year to the Digest at the time you request one, it will be very much apprec- iated. Write to TELECOM Digest, PO Box 4621, Skokie, IL 60077. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 17:59:54 -0400 From: Sean E. Williams Subject: Re: Cellular Message Waiting Indicator > So I was just wondering: what other carriers in the US are offering > this service? (I know AT&T in Seattle is offering it.) Sprint Cellular offers the service in the Harrisburg, PA market, where they are the B-side carrier. It has been available for about two years, now. > If you have the service, how well does it work for you? Do you find > that it significantly enhances the value of your cellular/voicemail > service? For you, does the message waiting indicator negate the need > for carrying pager notification service and a separate pager? Does > your carrier charge you a premium over the standard cellular and > voicemail service charges? I found the message waiting indicator to be extremely useful. When in a class or meeting, I could turn the phone off. Callers would be greeted by my voicemail. Then, at the end of the class or meeting, I could power up the phone. Within a few seconds, I'd know if I had received a message by looking at the indicator. The fact that the light would work even if the phone had been off (or had been out of the service area for a period of time and then returned to the home system) was helpful. Good luck, Sean ------------------------------ From: lars@anchor.rns.com (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: BRI Butt Set - Cheap ? Date: 12 Jun 1996 15:26:54 -0700 Organization: RNS / Meret Communications In article John Schmerold writes: > Anyone know a source for BRI Butt set? Our local GTE installers use a set made by Tektronix, and I am buying one. It isn't cheap, I think I'll be paying USD 3750 (give or take a couple hundred). The reason it gets to be so expensive, it that it is includes a data line protocol analyzer for the D channel. The reason I want one, is that I am sick of our lines apparently frequently losing or changing provisioning parameters causing "interesting" malfunctions. When this happens, GTE invariably blame the problems on CPE configuration or implementation. We have 50 lines of BRI from a 5ESS, provisioned (per our request) in a mixture of: - NI-1 multipoint - 5ESS custom multipoint - 5ESS custom point-to-point All lines are configured for two voice and two data, and a few lines form hunt groups (pilot number, UCD). All under a CENTREX group, with two lines going OPX to an adjoining central office. The reason for this elaborate configuration is that we are a manufacturer of ISDN CPE: Routers for remote dana network access, and we need to ensure that our equipment is compatible with the major variations of service. If GTE had a DMS-100 in our LATA, we would also have brought in several versions of DMS BRI ! (But they don't.) Just last week, we were unable to get the OPX to work. After four hours of GTE's data desk telling us that we were mistaken, everything was really working, but the CPE must be misprogrammed, we managed to talk to the switch technician at the local CO, who observed that the CO-to-CO wire pairs used for our OPX happened to coincide with the wire pairs referenced on a work order he was currently working on (unrelated to us). Shortly thereafter, our problem magically went away. When WE get screwed like that, you can imagine the amount of trouble seen by innocent people trying to use ISDN to get to their ISP, and maybe you will share my admiration for our help desk staff, who patiently help customer after customer talk their local telco through troubleshooting !! If Steven Lichter is still around, I want to thank him for staying with his customers, although I suspect that trying to maintain some level of technical standards in GTE may be a losing battle. Lars Poulsen Internet E-mail: lars@RNS.COM RNS / Meret Communications Phone: +1-805-562-3158 7402 Hollister Avenue Telefax: +1-805-968-8256 Santa Barbara, CA 93117 Internets: designed and built while you wait ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: Help Needed Building Step-by-Step Switches Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 16:00:00 EDT Mike G. Zaiontz (mgzaiont@nol.mobil.com) writes: > Someone in this group may be able to assist me. I am attempting to > assemble a very small step-by-step switch. Mike, that sounds like a really fun project! About 20 years ago, when a company once known as New Jersey Bell was tearing down a bunch of step-by-step PBX equipment, a lot of it ended up at Frank Goldiere's Sons, a scrap metal dealer in Morristown, NJ. I used to rumage through the scrap heap, and managed to salvage a connector and a linefinder. I never tried to get any frames or shelves, because the stuff wouldn't fit in my car! (I did drag home a 10 x 20 crossbar relay, and it's still sitting here in my basement study!) (I later traded the stepper switches for some other telecom stuff, but I saved the crossbar.) Perhaps the telco in your area can direct you to their salvage operations. Alternatively, there may still be some stepper switches in service, somewhere in the world, and there may be somebody providing refurbished spare parts for them. I think that equipment was manufactured by Weco, Stromberg-Carlson, and Automatic Electric. Those companies still exist and may be able to direct you to a source for their discontinued products. Good luck, and please keep the rest of us advised on your progress! Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: uunet!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 [The Man in the Mooney] ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: Local Exchange Information Wanted Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 03:15:22 GMT cannet.com@cannet.cannet.com writes: > In which publication is it identified which Local exchanges an call > other local exchanges? This seems like some very simple information > that is very hard to get. I am always pointed to the front of the > phone books. Does there exist a entire list of local calling areas by > Area-code exchange? Does the FCC require the Local telephone to > identify this information? How does one get it? Several companies are in the business of compiling and distributing tariffs and other public information. For a price, they'll deliver the V&H co-ordinates, local calling definitions, rates, equipment type, and other facts for every central office in the North American Numbering Plan. They'll deliver it on line, on diskettes, CD-ROM, or magnetic tape, and they'll update it weekly, monthly, quarterly, or once-only, depending upon what it's worth to you. CCMI/McGraw Hill is one such company. Teletech is another. If I were at the office, rather than at home, I'd have telephone numbers for these firms. The information is available, but not inexpensive. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: uunet!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 [The Man in the Mooney] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0570 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V16 #284 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jun 13 14:04:19 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id OAA27795; Thu, 13 Jun 1996 14:04:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 14:04:19 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606131804.OAA27795@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #285 TELECOM Digest Thu, 13 Jun 96 14:04:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 285 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson TBTF Bulletin: Communications Decency Act Overturned (Monty Solomon) Opposition: FRC on CDA Decision (Monty Solomon) Re: Late Bulletin! Communications Decency Act Overturned (Mike P. Storke) Re: Late Bulletin! Communications Decency Act Overturned (Chas McGuinness) Sneaky Surfwatch Advertisement in News Bulletin (Eric Florack) LATA Boundaries will be Replaced by PSAs (tmitariffs@aol.com) Access All Areas II Conference Update (Simon Gardner) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 22:04:52 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: TBTF Bulletin: Communications Decency Act Overturned Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Forwarded to the Digest FYI: Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 14:26:02 -0500 From: dawson@atria.com (Keith Dawson) Subject: TBTF Bulletin: Communications Decency Act overturned I received this note on David Bennahum's Community Memory mailing list. It's history in the making. -- KDawson - - - - - - - Wednesday morning at 9:00 a.m. EST a three-judge panel in Philadelphia ruled that the Communications Decency Act violates the principles of the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, and overturned the law. A full text of the decision is available at: http://www.vtw.org/speech/decision.html It is a remarkable document [~250K] which describes the origins of the Internet, and the technology which makes the Internet possible, in plain, clear English. The word cyberspace is used extensively. The decision then goes on to conclude that the CDA is unconstitutional in the United States. What follows is an excerpt of the conclusion, written by Judge Dalzell: "Cutting through the acronyms and argot that littered the hearing testimony, the Internet may fairly be regarded as a never-ending worldwide conversation. The Government may not, through the CDA, interrupt that conversation. As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest protection from governmental intrusion. True it is that many find some of the speech on the Internet to be offensive, and amid the din of cyberspace many hear discordant voices that they regard as indecent. The absence of governmental regulation of Internet content has unquestionably produced a kind of chaos, but as one of plaintiffs' experts put it with such resonance at the hearing: What achieved success was the very chaos that the Internet is. The strength of the Internet is that chaos. Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our liberty depends upon the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered speech the First Amendment protects. For these reasons, I without hesitation hold that the CDA is unconstitutional on its face. IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA" ______________________________________________________ Keith Dawson dawson@world.std.com dawson@atria.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 22:06:27 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Opposition: FRC on CDA Decision Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Forwarded to the Digest FYI: Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 13:11:45 -0700 From: telstar@wired.com (--Todd Lappin-->) Subject: OPPOSITION: FRC on CDA Decision CDA DISASTER NETWORK June 12, 1996 What do the censors at the Family Research Council have to say about today's CDA decision? They think it's "It is an arrogant decision which flies in the face of the Supreme Court and our society." Read on for all the whining details! Work the network! --Todd Lappin--> Section Editor WIRED Magazine =========================================== Date: Wed, 12 Jun 96 15:29 EDT Sender: www-user@townhall.com To: telstar@wired.com From: frc@townhall.com Reply-to: frc@sojourn.com This Press Release was sent out minutes ago. For additional information about The Family Research Council please visit our Web Site at: http://www.frc.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 12, 1996 CONTACT: Kristin Hansen, (202) 393-2100 ARROGANT DECISION CONTRADICTS PRIOR CASES ON PORNOGRAPHY DISTRIBUTION TO MINORS, FRC SAYS FRC Director of Legal Studies Cathy Cleaver says decision on the Communications Decency Act not a pro-family defeat WASHINGTON, D.C. -- "What else should we expect from an ACLU-hand-picked judge than a sweeping, radical decision allowing adults to knowingly send and display pornography to minors on the Internet?" Director of Legal Studies Cathy Cleaver said Wednesday. "Nevertheless, this is not an ultimate defeat for American families and children. No matter where this case goes next - either to the full Eastern District Court or the Supreme Court - the Department of Justice will have a better opportunity to defend the constitutionality of this statute." Cleaver made her remarks as the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania released their decision Wednesday on the ACLU v. Reno case involving the regulation of pornography distribution to minors on the Internet. Family Research Council presented a "friend of the court" brief defending the cyberporn provisions of the Communications Decency Act. The decision, written by Dolores K. Sloviter, Chief Judge of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals and Carter appointee, contradicts previous Supreme Court decisions on the distribution of indecent material through the media. "It is an arrogant decision which flies in the face of the Supreme Court and our society," Cleaver said. "We have long embraced the principle that those who peddle harmful material have the obligation to keep the material from children. Outside cyberspace, laws restrain people from displaying sexually explicit images in public places and from selling porn magazines to children. So, on the Internet, the burden of protecting children from exploitation should not rest solely on the parents." In her decision, Judge Sloviter maintains that it is "either technologically impossible or economically prohibitive" for pornographers to comply with the regulations. However, Cleaver said that "this decision reflects the Court's unwillingness to consider proposed regulations by dismissing them as 'burdensome.' There are constitutional ways to protect children from cyberporn but not restrict the freedom of speech of the pornographers or the adults." Cleaver continued, "Cyberspace is a work in progress. We should not squander the opportunity to examine and appreciate a world where pornography knows no bounds. Failure to enact strong laws is a concession that the information superhighway should belong to pornographers. It would be like leaving a loaded gun in a playground." FOR INFORMATION OR INTERVIEWS, CONTACT THE FRC MEDIA OFFICE. - END - +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ This transmission was brought to you by.... THE CDA DISASTER NETWORK The CDA Disaster Network is a moderated distribution list providing up-to-the-minute bulletins and background on efforts to overturn the Communications Decency Act. To subscribe, send email to with "subscribe cda-bulletin" in the message body. WARNING: This is not a test! WARNING: This is not a drill! +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ ---------------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One thing which has left me very cynical about the federal judiciary in the United States has been how, as the FRC phrases it, the 'ACLU hand-picked judges' rule on cases involving the ACLU. A large number of federal judges are members of the ACLU, yet it has never occured to them they should recuse themselves -- or step away from a case -- when it involves the ACLU. If you were involved in a trial, would you want the judge to be a member of the plaintiff group or a member of the defendant group? I suspect you would want the judge to be independent of either group. How can you in fairness belong to a group and support the agenda and beliefs of that group and then rule *fairly* in a court case which involves that group? I should imagine the Supreme Court will overturn this decision when it reaches that level as it surely will. Unfortunatly, the American Civil Liberties Union is an extremely weathly, extremely powerful organization with a lot of unwarranted influence which allows them to pretty much ride roughshod where the federal courts are concerned. Most organizations coming up against them have the same chance of winning as a snowflake has of surviving in July. I think I may have said here a couple months ago that when the judicial panel was announced it was pretty clear which way it would go the rest would just be formalities to make things look fair. PAT] ------------------------------ From: storkus@heather.greatbasin.com (Mike P. Storke) Subject: Re: Late Bulletin! Communications Decency Act Overturned Date: 13 Jun 1996 09:05:27 GMT Organization: Great Basin Public Access UNIX, Reno, NV In article , VANTEK COMMUNICATIONS wrote: > Philadelphia, PA, June 12, 1996 (DLD DIGEST) -- Thanks in large part > to testimony concerning the effectiveness of SurfWatch Software Inc.'s > Internet filtering and parental control software, a federal court in > Philadelphia today ruled that the Communications Decency Act, signed > into law on February 8, is an unconstitutional infringement of freedom > of speech over the Internet. Finally!! Its nice to see the good guys winning for a change! Now, if they could just do the same with the ECPA (Electronic Communications Privacy Act -- the law that made 800 MHz scanners without cellular blocking illegal, among other things) ... Mike P. Storke N7MSD Snailmail: 2308 Paradise Dr. #134 *Windoze: NEVER!! Inet: storkus@heather.greatbasin.com Reno, NV 89512 *Linux FOREVER!!! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But of course! Why shouldn't we have the unfettered right to spy on our neighbors and snoop on their phone calls if we want to? You don't mind it when people unkown to you listen in on your calls do you? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 09:55:39 -0400 From: Charles McGuinness Subject: Re: Late Bulletin! Communications Decency Act Overturned > Philadelphia, PA, June 12, 1996 (DLD DIGEST) -- Thanks in large part > to testimony concerning the effectiveness of SurfWatch Software Inc.'s > Internet filtering and parental control software, a federal court in > Philadelphia today ruled that the Communications Decency Act, signed > into law on February 8, is an unconstitutional infringement of freedom > of speech over the Internet. Odd, I don't remember any of the press coverate mentioning SurfWatch. I did read things like the law being "profoundly repugnant" and "the Internet deserves the highest protection from governmental intrusion"; perhaps I missed the part where they said they were overturning the law and granting an injunction based upon their giving Surfwatch a good review. ;-) (By the way, if the Communications Decency Act is profoundly repugnant, does that make it illegal under itself?) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 08:09:30 PDT From: Eric_Florack@mc.xerox.com (Florack,Eric) Subject: Sneaky Surfwatch Advertisement in News Bulletin On Wed, 12 Jun 1996 11:28:27 -0700 vantek@northcoast.com posted: > Philadelphia, PA, June 12, 1996 (DLD DIGEST) -- Thanks in large part > to testimony concerning the effectiveness of SurfWatch Software Inc.'s > Internet filtering and parental control software, a federal court in > Philadelphia today ruled that the Communications Decency Act, signed > into law on February 8, is an unconstitutional infringement of freedom > of speech over the Internet. > Specifically, the ruling upheld a challenge of the act by the > Citizens' Internet Empowerment Coalition (CIEC), who based their case > largely on the availability of effective Internet filtering software > such as SurfWatch. And here, we clearly see the results of judges making rulings on technology they have no hope whatsoever of understanding. If the judges in question did in fact understand the technology, they would know full well that SurfWatch is incapable of 'filtering' a goodly amount of the items that people who buy it are concerned about. > The intent of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) was to prevent > minors from inadvertently stumbling upon `indecent' or `patently > offensive' material in the normal course of using the Internet and > World Wide Web. Patently incorrect. 'Inadvertently stumbling' was not the issue! Their ability to access it AT ALL, was the issue. Are we concerned about minors inadvertently stumbling across' Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, etc.? Or are we concerned that they might have ANY access to it, by their intent /or/ by accident? Same thing should apply to porn. Funny thing, though, how that concern disappears when SurfWatch income is at stake, huh? > `We are extremely gratified that the voices of reason have prevailed > in this case,' said Ann Duvall, president of SurfWatch Software, Inc., > and one of the expert witnesses called to testify at the trial. Ah. No commercial influence here, huh? Consider what happens to SurfWatch, if the Judges knew what we all know: That the product is insufficient for the task. SurfWatch ceases to exist. Could this be their motivation, as opposed to the 'freedom of speech' issue? Nah, that'd be just too cynical of me, huh? If it's just me being cynical, why is the rest of their release taken up with what amounts to an unpaid advertisement for SurfWatch? Pat: We've corresponded for a long time, so you understand the respect I have for you and for this NG. At the same time, in this case, you'll pardon me if I'm totally non-plussed. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I thought it was pretty clever of them myself. Picture future advertising from the company: a statement on the box saying 'this software has been approved by the United States Federal Courts for use by parents who don't want their children getting molested or kidnapped by 'new friends' they meet online or correspond with in those newsgroups we all know are very naughty.' Yes, thanks to SurfWatch our children are safe once again. And God bless the ACLU and the federal judges for saving the rest of us from ourselves while I am thinking about it. And you say you are non-plussed? I admit, it was sort of a cruel way to bring the Good News to the net, and if I had not been feeling sort of impish I would have tossed the item in the bit bucket and used some other article in its place. But instead like Mr. Pulitzer, I said to myself the TD readers will believe what I tell them to believe, so I'll run this press release and let them meditate on that for a day or so. Oh ... you don't share my sick sense of humor? PAT] ------------------------------ From: tmitariffs@aol.com (TMITARIFFS) Subject: LATA Boundaries Will be Replaced by PSAs Date: 13 Jun 1996 01:07:20 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: tmitariffs@aol.com (TMITARIFFS) Will LATA Boundaries become an anachronism with the new Telecom Act? I think so. Within a year, the competive forces brought about by Bell/s crossing of the Rubicon (LATAs), will create initial havoc for the IXCs in the DS0/DSI marketplace, AT&T and the others are pricing INTERLATA service from POP to POP. Bell will enter this marketplace as as Exchange to Exchange, as a mere extension of what they have always provided. The most plausible marketing response by the IXCs will be be either to mabve backe to a rate center to rate center environemnt, (of course, that won't work ... they moved out of that structure because of high access leg costs). More likely they will move to "POP Serving Areas" or PSAs. PSAs will overtake LATA Boundaries and render them relics of a bygone era. Now a bolder prediction: Three years hence: Once the Local Dial Tone Wars have subsided, bundling of Internet, Local, LD, Cellular and cable will be demanded by consumers. In such an environement, one has to believe that that PSAs will ultimately be synonomous with Local Calling Areas. He who has the most POPs wins. Any thoughts would be appreciated. I will summarize in a week or so. ------------------------------ From: Simon Gardner Subject: Access All Areas II Conference Update Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 03:07:01 +0100 Organization: Access All Areas Reply-To: info@access.org.uk ACCESS ALL AREAS II Computer Security & Hacking Conference 6th - 7th July, 1996 (Saturday & Sunday) London, UK Conference Update v1.04 (12/06/96) -----------------------WHAT-IT-IS----------------------------- Following the success of last years event, Access All Areas II - Computer Security and Hacking Conference, is to be held in London later this year. It is aimed at computer hackers, phone phreaks, computer security professionals, cyberpunks, law enforcement officials, net surfers, programmers, and the computer underground. This will be a conference for people that are interested in various aspects of computer culture. Respected industry professionals, legal experts and computer hackers will be presenting talks about such subjects as illegitimate computer access, telephone fraud, legal aspects and much, much more. It will be a chance for all sides of the computer world to get together, discuss major issues, learn new tricks, educate others and meet "The Enemy". ----------------------WHERE-IT-IS-------------------------- Access All Areas II is to be held during the first weekend of July 1996 at a venue in central London. Due to circumstances beyond our control we have had to change the location of the conference. The new venue will be announced closer to date of the event on the Access All Areas web page, mailing lists, and as a pre-recorded message on the information hotline. -----------------------WHAT-WILL-HAPPEN---------------------- A large lecture theatre will be used for talks by computer security professionals, legal experts and hackers alike. The topics under discussion will include computer hacking, phone phreaking, computer fraud, telephone fraud, encryption technology, privacy, big brother and the secret services, biometrics, cellular telephones, pagers, magstrips, smart card technology, UNIX security risks, legal aspects and much, much more. Technical workshops on several of the topics listed above, will also be running throughout the conference. An Internet link, being provided for the duration of the conference by Easynet, will be connected to a Local Area Network allowing World Wide Web access, Internet Relay Chat sessions, and Cu-See-Me video conferences to take place. A limited number of connections will also be provided so that conference delegates can connect laptop computers to the LAN. A video projector will be showing various films, documentaries and other unique hacker related footage. A full range of refreshments will be available at the event. -------------------------SPEAKERS------------------------- This is a provisional list of speakers for Access All Areas II. Additional guests will be announced as they are confirmed. o Bryan Clough is the author of Approaching Zero: Data Crime and the Computer Underworld. Approaching Zero included two incidents of credit card fraud which excited a disproportionate amount of interest and led to his second book Cheating at Cards - Plastic Fraud: Sharp Practices and Naive systems. He will be speaking about Plastic Fraud and More Secure Payment Systems. o Peter Cox is the Managing Director of the European operation of Border Network Technologies, an industry leader in Firewall technology. Peter is an experienced TCP/IP developer and consultant who has spent the last two years focused on all aspects of Internet Firewalls from the emergence of the first commercial products to recent developments, including IPsec based encryption mechanisms. o Simon Davies is one of the world's leading experts on privacy and technology. In 1990 he founded the international watchdog organization Privacy International, and since then has led campaigns across the world on a vast range of surveillance issues. He is a Visiting Law Fellow in the University of Essex and the University of Greenwich, and is Senior Research Associate in Chicago's John Marshall Law School. He now lives in London with his computer. o Stephen Kapp is a former virus writer and member of the British virus group ARCV. He is now a student and computer programmer interested in the virus exchange world, cryptography and general computer security related topics. Stephen is the author of RSAEuro - a cryptographic toolkit. o Michael McCormack is a freelance journalist who began covering hacking and Internet issues while working for the Edinburgh Evening News. His stories have included Russian Mafia money laundering in Edinburgh, FBI investigation of Scottish university computers and the exposure of two large software piracy rings. He is now a contributing editor to .Net magazine and Computer Fraud and Security Bulletin and covers technology issues for most of the British national papers. o Alec Muffett is the European Internet Services Manager for a large American UNIX/Internet company. He writes and lectures about Internet security and is the author of several popular freeware network security auditing tools. He will be describing, analysing and discussing "ITOD" (Internet Tool Of Doom), a new network breaking tool. o Dan O'Brien hacks the media. His work includes a one man show about his 80's hacking experiences which transferred to the West End, writing for Wired, and appearences on TV and Radio as "some sort of expert". He also presents "Guerrilla TV", the BBC 2 show about camcorder activism. He currently edits Need To Know, the British geekzine. He will talk a lot of theory, but promises to include code listings! o Robert Schifreen was arrested in 1984 and charged with a number of hacking offences. His famous Prestel hack resulted in him and his colleague Steve Gold gaining system-manager access to the entire Prestel network and to accounts including that of Prince Philip. Robert is now the editor and publisher of The Computer Security Encyclopaedia, and runs a free BBS for professional IT security personnel. o Dr Alan Solomon is a virus technology expert and founder of S&S International. o The Dark Tangent is the organiser of Def Con, the US hacker convention that is held annually in the unreal world of Las Vegas, Nevada. He also operates the Def Con voice bridge which is frequented by phreaks and Feds alike! o Vamprella hales from sunny California and will be speaking extensively about the recent Tower Records hack in her talk entitled "Guilty on Both Counts". -------------------------SPECIAL-EVENTS------------------------ A number of special events are planned for the duration of the conference. o HACK THE BORDERWARE FIREWALL SERVER COMPETITION The BorderWare Firewall Server(tm) is the complete Internet gateway and security system in one. It prevents access by unauthorized users to a trusted internal network while giving internal users the benefits of full access to the Internet. Border Network Technologies Europe will be bringing along their BorderWare Firewall Server and challenge anyone to try and break through during the conference. A generous prize will be on offer for any successful attack. The Firewall will be connected to the local network, protecting a second network and UNIX system running SMTP and the usual network services (FTP, Telnet, etc). An attack will be judged successful if the Firewall can be penetrated and a file can be retrieved from the internal UNIX system. Full rules will be available at the conference. ---------------------------COST-------------------------- The price of admission will be 25.00 UKP cash only per person at the door and will include a door pass and conference programme. -------------------------REGISTRATION--------------------- Registration will take place at the door on the morning of Saturday 6th July from 11:00am. The Conference will commence at 12:00 noon. Lectures and workshops will run until late Saturday night and will continue on Sunday 7th July from 12:00 noon until 6:00pm. Pre-registration is not available. -------------------------ACCOMMODATION--------------------- A limited amount of accommodation is available for the duration of the conference in University Halls of Residence. All prices quoted are per person, per night and include a Continental breakfast. Finsbury Hall : 19.50 UKP Walter Sickert Hall : 30.00 UKP All bookings must be made directly with the University. They accept payment by cash, cheque and credit card. To make a booking call the relevant number... Finsbury Hall : +44 (0)171 477 8811 Walter Sickert Hall : +44 (0)171 477 8822 -------------------------MORE-INFORMATION------------------------ More detailed information about the event, including a map of the area, is available on the Access All Areas web page... http://www.access.org.uk Two mailing lists have also been set up for conference announcements and general discussion about Access All Areas II. To join either of the lists visit the Access All Areas web page and use the automated form, or send an email to majordomo@access.org.uk with the following in the body of the message... subscribe aaa-announce your.name@your.domain.com or... subscribe aaa-list your.name@your.domain.com If you have any further questions about Access All Areas II, please contact one of the following... Email : info@access.org.uk Web : http://www.access.org.uk Tel : +44 (0)973 500 202 Fax : +44 (0)1428 727 100 ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #285 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jun 13 16:07:29 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id QAA11698; Thu, 13 Jun 1996 16:07:29 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 16:07:29 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606132007.QAA11698@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #286 TELECOM Digest Thu, 13 Jun 96 16:07:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 286 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson BellSouth Foundation Funds Creative Uses of Technology (Mike King) Law Enforcement RF Channels (John W. Shaver) France Telecom Introduces Voice Mail For Residential Users (Eric Tholome) Power Lines For Telecommunication (Annette Gronqvist) Re: Questions About Ringing (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: Arrogant Internet Providers (Ross Oliver) Re: Arrogant Internet Providers (Wm. Randolph U. Franklin) Cellular vs. PCS Mix-up (John Stahl) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike King Subject: BellSouth Foundation Funds Creative Uses of Technology Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 18:53:54 PDT Forwarded to the Digest FYI: Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 15:14:27 -0400 From: BellSouth Subject: BELLSOUTH FOUNDATION FUNDS CREATIVE USES OF TECHNOLOGY Reply-To: press@www.bellsouth.com BELLSOUTH FOUNDATION FUNDS CREATIVE USES OF TECHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE LEARNING IN SOUTHEAST REGION'S SCHOOLS ATLANTA-The BellSouth Foundation has awarded $2 million to 21 community organizations, school districts, colleges, universities and other organizations throughout the Southeast. The grants are the first by the Foundation that place a greater emphasis on school reform, local autonomy, accountability and creative uses of technology in the schools of the region. "The new awards clearly reflect that commitment, with nearly a third of the grants designed to have a technology connections impact," said BellSouth Foundation Executive Director Leslie Graitcer. "Others will impact on community involvement in schools, K-12 system reform, school readiness and family involvement, and teacher and administrator skill building." Among the nation's 25 largest corporate foundations, the BellSouth Foundation devotes nearly all of its grants to educational improvement in BellSouth's nine-state southeast region. The grants cover a range of innovative educational initiatives, including linking Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama middle schools to the vast resources of the Smithsonian and using new music technologies and the Internet as a powerful touchstone to enhance learning in basic disciplines in Memphis. After contributing nearly a quarter billion dollars to meet the needs of schools in the nation's most educationally challenged region over the past five years, BellSouth and its foundation in March announced that their educational contributions would become more focused, innovative, technological, and results-oriented. The new emphasis on results and accountability were major themes last March at the Education Summit. BellSouth Chairman John Clendenin served on the planning committee of the Summit, which was convened by the nation's governors and top corporate CEOs in Palisades, NY, in March to focus on the need for high academic standards for schools along with productive uses of technology to enhance learning. Graitcer cited a sampling of other new BellSouth Foundation grants which use technology to: * Train a cadre of teacher leaders in 13 South Carolina school districts on the effectiveness of technology to reach students with diverse learning needs. * Link Owensboro, Kentucky, schools and social service agencies through a computer network and provide computer training to participants. * Create a model for technology training and implementation in rural school districts through Florida's Kennedy Space Center's Astronauts Memorial Foundation. * Improve managerial and leadership skills of administrators through statewide seminars using the North Carolina Information Highway. Other grants aim to create school and community environments which improve learning and professionally develop educators and family members: * Expanding the Families and Schools Together (FAST) program, which promotes great parent involvement in inner city education, to two additional Knoxville, Tennessee, schools. * Train Florida business and community leaders to be champions of world class education in their communities by expanding the Florida Chamber of Commerce's campaign. * Create a Parent Resource Library and Child Development Center to promote new linkages for family involvement in education through Strong Families, Inc., a new organization in Hattiesburg, Mississippi -- the product of an earlier BellSouth Foundation grant. * Involve southeast students on the adequacy and relevancy of their education through a national project by the Public Agenda Foundation. * Improve pre-school tutoring and enrichment programs in Long Beach, NC, to prepare students and their parents for schools success. Restructure the school day, curriculum, and school calendar in three Selma, Alabama, high schools and provide related staff development. * Support the Southeast Teacher Advancement Project which encourages rigorous performance standards and a certification process for teachers akin to medicine and law. BellSouth is a $17.9 million communications services company. It provides telecommunications, wireless communications, directory advertising and publishing, and information services to more than 25 million customers in 17 countries worldwide. Internet users: For more information about BellSouth Corp. visit the BellSouth Webpage http://www.bellsouth.com For Information Contact: Leslie Graitcer, BellSouth Foundation (404)249-2429 John Schneidawind, BellSouth Corp. (202)463-4183 ------------ Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: Shaver, John W. Subject: Law Enforcement RF Channels Date: Thu, 13 Jun 96 08:03:00 PDT Pat, You sounded as though you might be interested in some additional data on the law enforcement activities. Mobile communications are about to take a couple of leaps which will enhance capability and provide more security in the transmissions. Currently some departments use cellular phones to avoid presenting critical information over the existing communications nets. Currently there are three bands in use, VHF, UHF, and 800MHZ. The VHF (approximately 150 Mhz) provides the best geographic coverage in our part of the world. Unfortunately most of those channels are in use. VHF has some ability to be difracted and can cover areas which are not quite line-of-sight. The UHF and 800 MHZ get progressively more line-of-sight and their ability to go over mountains etc is diminished. Actually there were 4 bands. The early systems used the range from about 35 MHZ to just under Channel 2. Many of those systems still are used. Those frequencies are more given to the sunrise and sunset phenomina of "skip" which permitted departments to talk across the country, but not to their own locality. Skip occurs in the shortwave bands and in the Citizens Radio Band. Hams delight in using the skip to go distances which are several thousand miles to around the world. Citizens Band operators are prohibited from using "skip" although I can't imagine anyone policing that currently. Those of you who enjoy scanning the law enforcement bands will be happy to learn that departments are gradually converting to trunked systems where individual channels are not assigned, but the next frequency availble in a pool is chosen for you when you push-to-talk. At that same time many departments are buying systems which are digital rather than analog in nature. Even if one should buy a receiver with digital capability the departments are also going to scrambing techniques which require advance knowledge of the decription data. ------------------------------ From: tholome@francenet.fr (Eric Tholome) Subject: France Telecom Introduces Voice Mail For Residential Users Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 22:18:02 +0200 France Telecom has just (3rd of June, I believe) introduced voice mail for residential users under the name "Top message". I don't have all the details yet, but here is what the saleswoman told me on the phone: For 22FF (US$4.40) per month, you get a voicemail box which will take your calls on busy and no answer (after five rings). Retrieving messages is free from home, standard call rate from anywhere else. For an additional 5FF (US$1.00) per month, the voice mail system will call you at predefined times to notify you of new messages. No real notification system is available (what do BT and American Telcos offer for notification? Modified dial tone? Message waiting light?) Voice mail can be turned on and off. I don't know how well it interacts with other features such as Call Waiting (cf Call Minder and Call Minder 2 in the UK). Minimum subscription time: two months (as opposed to the usual six months for other FT features). This is supposed to encourage you to subscribe to it when you leave for summer vacation for instance. But no free trial, as far as I know. I was quite surprised to hear that they were introducing voice mail. So far, all we've got here is call waiting, call forwarding (basic) and three way calling (and we've had them for years). Voice mail almost seems like a quantum leap. FT is also introducing quite a few plans similar to MCI's Friends and Family. Maybe they are indeed getting ready for competition. Or maybe they've realised that Voice mail is a killer service. Well, kinda. It is a killer for mobile users, who do not have the option to hook up an answering machine to their mobile phone, but I'm not too sure how popular voice mail can be for residential users. Anybody has some figures for this? Anyway, the idea of having a voice mail system taking my calls while I'm on the phone sounds nice to me, but I don't think I'll give up my answering machine so easily, at least not until they offer a decent notification system and cut down the monthly fee. Eric Tholome private account 23, avenue du Centre tholome@francenet.fr 78180 Montigny le Bretonneux phone: +33 1 30 48 06 47 France fax: same number, call first! ------------------------------ From: gronqan1@tkk.tele.fi (Annette Gronqvist) Subject: Power Lines For Telecommunication Date: 13 Jun 1996 12:46:46 GMT Organization: Telecom Finland News Service I'm interested in getting information on the possiblity to provide telecommunication services through electric power lines. Does anyone know more about this? Annette.Gronqvist@tkk.tele.fi [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For a ling time -- many years -- the Chicago Transit Authority operated a communications system between personnel operating the subway trains and the 'controllers' at various locations using the electrical current on the 'third rail', the power supply which moves the trains. I think the transmission sounded terrible. There were also trackside telephones at intervals of every half mile or so for use by maintainence employees which were linked to each other and the central switchboard at CTA offices via the third rail. The phones at the fare collection booths were extensions from the main switchboard downtown also but they were connected using regular pairs. Every time I had occassion to hear a transmission eitehr on the overhead speaker in the train or on a speaker on the platform while waiting for a train I noticed how noisy and crude it sounded. I guess technology has improved somewhat but the CTA no longer uses this method. Everything they do now is on UHF radio at 470 megs. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 17:43:35 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Re: Questions About Ringing Reading Pat's comments to Apollo Shyong's post brought to mind a few things: For the most part in the US and Canada, ringing is done in a six-second cycle. The most common ringing pattern used has been two-seconds on and four-seconds off. Some PBX systems use a different cycle, and the actual power ringing over the loop of the called party is *not* synchronized with the 'indication' signal the calling party hears. Also, many PBX systems (and many public telco switch-based 'multi-line variety packages' and Centrex systems use two different patterns of power ringing to differentiate an 'outside call' (single 'long' rings) from an 'inside' or 'group' call (double short rings). Ringing patterns within a single six-second cycle used over the years on party lines, and now today on CLASS or distinctive ringing multi-number services are: (single 'long' rings) 2.0 sec ON, 4.0 sec off (double 'short' rings) 1.0 sec ON, 1.0 sec off, 1.0 sec ON, 3.0 sec off (two 'short' rings, one 'long' ring) 0.5 sec ON, 0.5 sec off, 0.5 sec ON, 0.5 sec off, 1.5 sec ON, 2.5 sec off (one 'long' ring, two 'short' rings) 1.5 sec ON, 0.5 sec off, 0.5 sec ON, 0.5 sec off, 0.5 sec ON, 2.5 sec off ('long-short-long' rings) 1.5 sec ON, 0.5 sec off, 0.5 sec ON, 0.5 sec off, 1,5 sec ON, 1.5 sec off The above is *not* intended to be a complete list of possible ringing patterns used in North America. There have been other 'coded' ringing patterns used over the decades. Different manufacturers of central office power equipment, or different operating companies have all done things in various ways. Ringing is an Alternating Current (AC), usually in the range of 90 to 110 Volts. "Bell System" areas (WECO manufactured switches) used 20 Hz (cps) AC for power ringing. Many 'independent' areas (non-WECO equipment, such as AE, Kellogg, Stromberg, etc) have used 'tuned' ringing, with various frequencies for selecting the proper called party on a multi-party line. Their various frequencies have been in the range of 16 Hz to 66 Hz. The individual ringers were 'tuned' to their particular frequency and didn't clang the bell if an incoming call was for another party on the line. Bell and the independents did 'divide' a party-line in two, with half of the parties on the 'tip-to-ground' side and the other half on the 'ring-to-ground' side. All phones on a particular side of the party line had to be wired a certain way so that their phone would respond to ringing if any party on their side of the line were being called, but would be silent if a call was for a party on the 'other' side of the line. Another way that Bell companies used to 'divide' a party line was to 'bias' the ringer to either positive or negative. This wasn't used everywhere, but it could give full selective ringing on a four-party line, where *only* the called party's phone would ring. 'Biased' ringing (and tip/ring differentiation) on an eight-party line would give a more distinct selectivity of the particular called party. At any incoming call, only *two* of the parties' phones would ring -- only the two on the same tip/ring side *and* having the same *ringer bias*. Any pair would know which party was being called by needing only *two* of the above 'coded' ringing patterns, instead of four. One thing that *IRKS* me is how "Hollywood" handles ringing the called phone and ringing indication to the calling party, when a telephone call is used in fiction (TV, Radio, Motion Pictures). They are *not* always consistant with the above patterns. Sometimes, they have used North American ringing patterns when the TV/Radio program or movie takes place in Europe, which has its own distinct ringing patterns. But for movies and TV/Radio programs which take place in North America, "Hollywood" has at times used *extra-long* rings with a *very short* pause between the ringing. And they don't necessarily allow the 'bell' to have 'resonance' after the clapper has finished striking. I saw a movie on TV the other night where the ringing of the phone stopped *abruptly* with *NO* reasonance, just before the person picked up their phone. Sometimes, "Hollywood" uses the *wrong* type of bell when a phone is shown ringing. Bell sounds used on Western Electric (North American) telephones have been used on telephones in a program or movie which takes place in Europe! Sometimes, a WECO 500 set is shown (brass gongs 54-A and 54-B), but the ringing heard is that of a WECO 302 phone (brass gongs labelled 41-A and 41-B), and vice-versa, as well as the sound of the bells might be that of the brass gongs used in old steel or bakelite ringer boxes, while the telephone shown *has* its *own* type of ringer. In the movie I saw the other night, a Trimline phone was shown (with its own type of bell pitch), but the ringing heard was that of a WECO 500. This is just as disturbing as a single-slot payphone shown in a movie or TV program, but you hear the distinct old style three-slot 'ding-ding' of a dime or 'dong' of a quarter! In some movies, two telephone calls come in at different times on the same telephone shown. Each time the phone is shown to be ringing, a different type ringer gong has been used. I remember this in a scene of "Vertigo" (James Stewart and Kim Novak) and in a scene of "Imitation of Life" (Lana Turner and Juanita Moore). In both movies (circa late 1950's), the same telephone rings like a WECO 302 in one scene, but like an old bakelite ringer box in another scene! "Hollywood" has also been inconsistant with regard to "ringing indication" and other "call progress" tones. "City Ring" has been used in Step-by-Step offices, Panel offices, and #1 Crossbar offices. "Rural Ring" has been used in small "CDO" Step offices. But back in the 1930's through earlier 1960's, radio/TV programs and movies have *frequently* used "rural ring" when "city ring" was actually used in real-life in that location. Sometimes "Hollywood" has used "city ring" or "#5 Crossbar" or "ESS" call-progress tones, and for the most part today, "ESS" or "precise frequency" call progress tones are being used in movies and TV programs, and most movies and TV programs made today which also take place today are using contemporary electronic tone ringer style phones instead of real brass bell ringers. Somewhere, I have a list of the frequencies of the sounds for the various brass bells used in WECO phones and ringer boxes, as well as the frequencies of various 'call-progress' tones used over the years. If I find it, I'll try to prepare an article on them. MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Even though on the old party lines the bells were fixed so they would only ring when a call was specifically intended for that subscriber, the other phones on the party line had a bad habit: their bells would make a very slight, barely audible (you had to be standing right next to the phone to hear it) 'tick tick' sound as the coil would energize and move the gong back and forth slightly a couple times. If you were a nosy old woman with nothing better in your life to do -- if you had a life at all -- you knew to set your metal-case phone on top of a *galvanized wash tub* when you were sitting out on your front porch on a summer evening. Then when your neighbor down the street got a phone call and thier phone actually rang, your phone and that of others on the party line would make that 'tick' sound amplified several times due to the galvanized metal. One person would go into her house to *legitimatly* answer a phone call; up and down the block you would see other old biddies get up from their rocking chair and after glancing around to see if anyone was watching go into their house where they would first uscrew the mouthpiece from their phone then quickly lift the receiver and listen silently to what the other one was talking about. If the click when they went off hook was heard and they were angrily challeged by the person on the other phone they would pretend to hang up by noisily dropping the receiver back on the hook but immediatly -- at the same instant -- put the receiver back to their ear again, as often as not to hear the legitimate user saying something like, "did you hear that old biddy trying to spy on us? I made her get off the line!" ... smile ... of course you did. The frustrating part for the old women was they never could confront the person whose secrets they had heard. All they could do was chatter among themselves, and even then none would ever admit to the others they had spied on the party line. It was always they heard the news via some third person whose name 'I promised not to give out'. When I was about twelve years old my best friend was a kid named Dennis Hill who was my age. We had a private line at our house but Dennis' parents were on a party line. We were talking one day, in the manner of speaking and selection of topics that twelve year old boys are likely to prefer. I heard a click on the line and right away told Dennis he better shut up because 'it sounds like someone is listening ...' Dennis' very blaise response was, "oh, that's just Mrs. Jones. She has been our party line neighbor for years, and if she does not know everything about our family and our private life by now then she never will learn." In my mind I visualized this woman hearing that and her face getting red but Dennis concluded, "she is way beyond getting mortified or emabrassed by the things we do here at our house." About that time there was another click which was either Mrs. Jones hanging up the receiver or pretending to hang up while she actually continued listening. PAT] ------------------------------ From: reo@crl.com (Ross Oliver) Subject: Re: Arrogant Internet Providers Date: 12 Jun 1996 13:53:21 -0700 Organization: The Air Affair: http://www.airaffair.com/ I have had a Netcom shell account on and off for about four years. In that time, I have come to view their service as "you pays your money and you takes your chances" meaning if it works, great, if not, forget about getting any help. As far as I know, no direct telephone support is available at all. Netcom currently quotes a three-week response time to email support requests. It has been my experience that email support is limited to the parrotting of pre-composed responses to common problems. Since requests are not assigned any sort of trouble ticket or tracking number, and responses come from a generic "support" address rather than an actual person, email requests are one-shot items. If you don't get the information you need, you have to start all over again (complete with another three-week delay). Requests to assign the problem to senior staff or a manager are ignored. Although I have never tried this myself, I have heard from others that for those customers who are angry and persistent enough to reach someone in authurity, they are thrown a bone of a month or two of free service, whether or not their problem is actually fixed. I have dealt with quite a few ISPs, both for my own personal use, and on behalf of clients. I have yet to find one that offers what I consider an acceptable level of reliability and customer service. Competition among ISPs has forced prices into the basement, which doesn't leave much money left over for a quality tech support staff. I would be willing to pay a premium for quality service, but I have yet to find an ISP willing to offer it. You may have noticed that I am not posting this message from Netcom. The reason for this is that I am troubleshooting a network performance problem with another ISP. I am forced to lead them by the nose like a naughty puppy and rub their nose in the problem before they will take action, or even admit that there is a problem. Ross Oliver, reo@taos.com ------------------------------ From: wrf@ecse.rpi.edu (Wm. Randolph U Franklin) Subject: Re: Arrogant Internet Providers Date: 12 Jun 1996 22:56:42 GMT Organization: ECSE Dept, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 12180 USA Reply-To: wrf@ecse.rpi.edu (Wm. Randolph U Franklin) In article on Mon, 10 Jun 1996 20:26:22 GMT, richgr@netcom.com (Rich Greenberg) writes: > In spite of having agreed to the email support only, Mr. Lewis made > many calls to netcom support, demanding help. and getting very > abusive when told to send email for assistance. If he had sent email, would Netcom have replied? A Netcom user once broke into one of my systems. Since I knew exactly when the cracker had telnetted in, I emailed Netcom for help. I emailed to root, and to two people that CERT told me were relevant. They all ignored me until I posted a complaint to comp.security.unix about Netcom's not caring that their users attacked other systems. Then one of the ignorers finally replied to me. Unfortunately, conveniently, by then the logfiles had been deleted. wrf@ecse.rpi.edu (Wm. Randolph U Franklin) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 20:07:50 GMT From: John Stahl Subject: Cellular vs. PCS Mix-up In article Pat writes: > Does anyone know of any plans to open the market to a third or > fourth (a 'C' or 'D' or whatever you would call them) carrier? I do > not mean just as a reseller of A/B as happens now, I mean genuine > infrastructure for a third or fourth cellular company in some markets? Russell E. Sorber responded to the above: > Yes. New infrastructure is being installed by the PCS operators in > many US cellular markets. The FCC auctioned off these PCS frequencies > several months ago. However, what he is indicating is not an answer to your question. There are two different and distinct syatems here being mixed together by Russell. Cellular which is separate and totally different from PCS. Firstly, Cellular frequencies are in the 800 to 900 Mhz. range and have specific usage as originated by (The) Bell System back in the early 1970's and licensed by the FCC in the 1980's. PCS (Personal Communication System) was devised many years later for use in homes and business' to be operated similar to 'wireless phones' but with system supplier owned (as opposed to user owned) miniature transponders (transceivers) maintaining the communications path to the hard-wire service. PCS was given frequency spectrum by the FCC in the 1500 Mhz. range (as an aside there is a frequency usage problem created by this new frequency allocation that the FCC has addressed by requiring the PCS to make the necessary arrangements with any local microwave communications supplier on the same -- shared -- frequency to give them dollars to purchase the necessary equipment to change their frequency from the new PCS carriers frequencies -- and this has slowed the turn-up of this service). The Cellular carriers must make equipment available for customers that will run on all frequencies (the B and A frequencies for Wireline and non-Wireline service providers, respectively - one each in each MSA area) for anywhere in the US. The PCS frequencies will probably all be different in each area and since the service is intended for LOCAL usage; the units will presumably be programmed for the particular service provider's coverage area only. Cellular is national and PCS is local. Also, there are no additional frequencies available in the frequency band allocated for cellular usage by the FCC for any other groups of frequencies (the C & D Pat mentioned) NOR is the portable cellular radio (telephone) equipment able to use any additional frequencies. John Stahl Aljon Enterprises Telecom/Data Consultants - Telecommunications/data systems design email: aljon@worldnet.att.net ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0570 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. End of TELECOM Digest V16 #286 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Jun 14 10:44:27 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id KAA29200; Fri, 14 Jun 1996 10:44:27 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 10:44:27 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606141444.KAA29200@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #287 TELECOM Digest Fri, 14 Jun 96 10:44:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 287 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson French Police Raid Leading ISPs (Jean-Bernard Condat) Re: Late Bulletin! Communications Decency Act Overturned (D. Hultberg) Re: Late Bulletin! Communications Decency Act Overturned (Steve Bagdon) Re: Late Bulletin! Communications Decency Act Overturned (B Frankenberger) Re: Late Bulletin! Communications Decency Act Overturned (Jon M. Taylor) Re: Sneaky Surfwatch Advertisement in News Bulletin (John Lull) Re: Sneaky Surfwatch Advertisement in News Bulletin (lr@access.digex.net) Re: Sneaky Surfwatch Advertisement in News Bulletin (Peter Bell) Re: Sneaky Surfwatch Advertisement in News Bulletin (Van Heffner) CDA Fallout: Internet Rating System Waits in The Wings (David Richards) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 14:06:43 +0100 From: Jean-Bernard Condat Subject: French Police Raid Leading ISPs Paris, June 14th, 1996 -- As I have so far seen no reports in the obvious Usenet newsgroups of the recent police raids on leading French Internet service-providers, and I can no longer post contributions to them myself, I send you the following English translations from the French newspaper "Liberation", which may inspire you to report them there. Note that Mr. Francois Fillon have propose one Conseil Superieur de la Telematique depending of the Bourges' CSA (Conseil Superieur de l' Audiovisuel) that will rapidly act like a high telematics authority like the new French Internet Society (ISOC). From the "Cahier Multimedia" of "Liberation", 3 May 1996: "Netiquette according to Mr Fillon" (La Netiquette de Fillon): Lacking the power to police the Internet, France will invite its G7 partners (at Lyons in June) to consider the co-ordinated introduction of a "code of good conduct". A sort of "modus vivendi" which, as Francois Fillon explained to his colleagues at their recent meeting in Bologna, would guarantee a mimimum degree of protection to network users. For, as the French Telecoms Minister pointed out, "if the Internet constitues an extraordinary valuable collective resource (...), nevertheless it conceals as many risks for its users." To attempt to keep it locked up on the basis of national regulations alone would be pointless with such an inherently transnational network. Hence, according to Mr Fillon, the need to establish coordination at a European (OECD) level, with the aim of drafting an agreement [une convention]. Its signatories would establish the principles for legal collaboration, and a certain number of rules on ethics and on the legal responsibility common to on-line publishers and ISPs. And, in the event of a breach, the Minister also proposes to establish, once and for all,that "by default, the principle that the rules of the originating country, so far as the signatories are concerned, and [those] of the receiving country are applicable. " But in "Liberation" of 8 May 1996: "Police raid on the Internet" (Descente des gendarmes sur l'Internet): Two Information Service Providers (ISPs) arrested for distibuting pornographic pictures of children, by Franck Johannes The police are very proud of themselves, and say prudently that "as far as they are aware" this is a world permiere: the first time that the police have intervened in the Internet. Without perhaps realising what a storm they have produced, if not in legal circles then on the Network. The chief executives of two ISPs have been detained for questioning on allegations that they have been distributing pornogra- phic pictures of children. "We keep hearing that there is a legal vacuum", explained Lieutenant-Colonel Gerard Browne. "But that's not in fact the case; distributing such picures is prohibited by Art. 227-23 of the Penal Code, that's all". The gendarmes, who are apparently unwilling to provide background details, were tipped-off at the end of January 1996. It seems that a regular Net-user came across the pictures in question via FranceNet and World-Net, both of which claim to be the leading providers of access to the Internet. (...) The Parisian research service immediately began exploring the services with the support of the informatics branch of the criminal research institute of the national gendarmerie (IRCGN). They took copies of the various newsgroups, in other words the thousands of messages giving information on all sorts of themes, from fly-fishing to vegetable gardening, untimately arriving at that with the children. This could scarcely be by accident; it is necessary to look, for example, in a list which has the advantage of being clear, for "alt.binary.pictures.erotic.pedophilia", to find a prohibited picture. According to the police, some 5 to 10% of the contents of the thousands of newsgroups accessible in this way every day are illegal. The dossier was transferred to the Parisian prosecuting authorities, which in March opened an investigation entrusted to Christine Berkani, the principal investigating magistrate in cases involving minors. On Monday [6 May] the police siezed piles of floppy disks in the offices of the two ISPs, and then the manager of WorldNet, Sebastian Sochard, and his counterpart from FranceNet, Raffi Haladjian, were arrested and held in custody on charges of "having distributed, fixed, recorded or transmitted a pornographic picture of a minor", contrary to the provisions of Art. 227-23 of the Penal Code. They risk being sentenced to up to three years in prison and fined up to half a million francs, because childern under 15 years old are involved. At WorldNet, this came as "a bolt from the blue" and his colleagues were astonished that Sebastian Socchard, 27, had been detained in custody on Monday. Last year, the young man had set up the SCT Sarl company (for Security, Concept and Technology) before becoming active as an ISP at his clients' request. Today, WorldNet has some 30 employees and claims 9000 clients, each of whom pay FF 99.00 monthly for access to the Internet. "This affair merely illustrates the legal vacuum", protested Isabelle Perichon of WorldNet. "We don't produce any pictures, we just store them. Every day, we receive between 50,000 and 100,000 news-messages from the University at Jussieu: Jussieu sends them to France Telecom, which forwards them to us automatically." Jussieu was slightly upset by this. "France-Telecom doesn't normally get its data from us", explained an engineer from the University. "We get our news from the United States, they must be doing the same. In any case, there has never been anything like that on our server. A lot of people are anxious to prevent the network from degenerating, and if any of them found it they would let us know within a couple of hours." The Gendarmes have plenty to keep them busy; the investigators now have to identify the source of the pictures, which "come from just about everywhere", sighed Lieutenant-Colonel Browne. Then from Liberation, 9 May 1996: "Net: si on avait su, on aurait filtre" ("If we had known, we would have filtered the Internet") - the director of WorldNet [Mr. Sebastien Socchard, an old student of the well knowned EPITA computer school in paris] under investigation, denies all responsibility. (report by Laurent Mauriac) In their desire to comply with French law, the ISPs are cutting off their noses in order to spite their faces. In reaction to the arrest of the managers of WorldNet and FranceNet "for simply doing their job", the four members of the French Association of Internet Professionals (AFPI) - Calvacom, FranceNet, Imaginet and Internet-way - have announced that they have cut off their subscribers' access to *all* Usenet newsgroups. "That is the only way to apply the law", according to the director of Imaginet, Patrick Robin, who claims it would be impossible to monitor everything that is routed via his hard disks. Most ISPs carry more than 120 thousand messages every day, and any of them potentially contain pictures among which a few might be prohibited by French law. No doubt fewer than 5% of them, according to AFPI; the whole problem is that of identifying this 5% within the great flow of continually-renewed data. That is why Patrick Robin is calling for the creation of a committee "similar to the Press's Committee for the protection of youth" and having the resources it would need to be able to inspect newsgroups regularly. The AFPI is also calling for the status of ISPs to be defined clearly: as carriers, not distributors. Making the same distinction, World-Net's director, Sebastian Socchard, commented as follows on his dealings with the law-enforcement authorities: You could have filtered out the "outlawed" newsgroups - why didn't you do so? [SS]: We could have removed certain newsgroups, but we didn't know which ones, or how to filter their contents. If we had know that that kind of thing was present, we would have acted. Weren't you responsible for the distribution of the contents of everything stored on your servers? [SS]: No, and I'm not happy with the expression "stored"; it doesn't correspond to the situation. Our equipment merely passes on pictures, it doesn't really store them. They do indeed transit via our hard disks, but that is merely part of our job of carrying them, a means to enable the users to access them more quickly. We would be equally responsible if our users obtained the pictures directly from other servers on the Web (whereas the contents of newsgroups are stored temporarily on every ISP's server, Web pages are generally stored only on one server, and accessed directly from it when required by a user). I am not legally responsible for publishing the contents of our server. All the same, don't you have a duty to keep an eye on the data that can be accessed through your servers? Is WorldNet responsible for everything that can be found on the Internet? [SS]: There are 6300 newsgroups, and it would take about an hour to inspect the contents of one of them. So to check all of them in 24 hours you would need 270 people. And if we had to do that for the newsgroups, why not do it for the Web and e-mail too? What do you think the solution is? [SS]: I fully agree that whatever is forbidden in France ought to be filtered out, things like racism and child-pornography, for example. But it's not an easy thing to do. If one newsgroup is excluded, it can change its name or put its contents into another one. We want the government to define precisely what must be censored, as has been done for the Minitel and audiovisual services. A lot of legal experts are saying that there is no legal vacuum; all that's needed is to apply the existing law...? [SS]: They are assuming that the Internet is no different from other transmission systems. In that case, we are a carrier like the rest of them, and we should be treated as such. Do you think that you are the victim of injustice? [SS]: If we are deemed to be responsible, then so should France Telecom or Transpac [its specialised network-operating subsidiary]. The pictures are carried through France Telecom's lines, and it is Transpac that supplies them to us automatically from its server. As the head of the Gendarmerie admitted: by attacking the two main French ISPs, they hope that the other 98 will also stop whatever they are doing wrong. What happened when you were taken in for investigation? [SS]: The gendarmes arrived without warning. They were well-behaved; they knew that we weren't gangsters. They said that they were simply carrying out routine procedures. It was obvious that they knew nothing about the Internet. I didn't see any experts. I suspect that the Gendarmerie wanted a high-profile operation to catch the media's attention, possibly to launch the debate. They could easily have sent us registered letters, but in that case nobody would have heard about it. Even if all this is out of all proportion for five miserable pictures, as operators we are quite happy that the debate has now begun. Jean-bernard Condat, Senior Consultant, Smart Card Business Unit Informix, La Grande Arche, 92044 La Defense Cedex, France Phone: +33 1 46963770, fax: +33 1 46963765, portable: +33 07238628 Private: +33 1 41238807, e-mail: jeanbc@informix.com ------------------------------ From: news@news.fmso.navy.mil Subject: Re: Late Bulletin! Communications Decency Act Overturned Date: Fri, 14 Jun 96 13:45:57 GMT Organization: C&D Railroad In article , storkus@heather. greatbasin.com (Mike P. Storke) wrote: > Now, if they could just do the same with the ECPA (Electronic > Communications Privacy Act -- the law that made 800 MHz scanners without > cellular blocking illegal, among other things) ... and our Esteemed Moderator responded: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But of course! Why shouldn't we have > the unfettered right to spy on our neighbors and snoop on their phone > calls if we want to? You don't mind it when people unkown to you > listen in on your calls do you? PAT] The problem with the ECPA is that it is a fraud. The cellular phone salesman use it to dupe the technically ignorant public into believing that their telephone conversations are private, even when broadcast by a radio transmitter. Anyone who talks about anything sensitive when either party is using a cordless or cellular phone is deluding themselves if they think they can't be overheard. ECPA is bad legislation that can't possibly solve what is actually a technical problem. I've spent a lot of time in the military communications field, including working with our friends at o uch gency and it taught me that any conversation over an unencrypted radio circuit may be monitored. Remember the story a few years ago of the US monitoring Soviet leaders "private" carphone traffic from a spy satellite? The DOD has a program in place right now that will eventually make all DOD email, even unclassified/non-sensitive email, encrypted from the senders desktop to recipient's desktop. Also remember there are large numbers of pre ECPA scanners out there capable of monitoring your cellular and cordless phone conversations. Law enforcement is powerless to stop this monitoring done in the privacy of one's home, unless someone is stupid and brags about what they heard. Bottom line, if we want our cellular communications to really be private, we need to encrypt them. David B. Hultberg, Director david_b_hultberg@nslc.fmso.navy.mil Information Resources Management dave.hultberg@paonline.com Naval Sea Logistics Center http://www.nslc.fmso.navy.mil P.O. Box 2060 (717) 790-4507 or DSN 430-4507 Mechanicsburg, PA 17055-0795 (717) 790-2915 or DSN 430-2915(FAX) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 07:28:02 -0500 From: bagdon@rust.net (S and K Bagdon) Subject: Re: Late Bulletin! Communications Decency Act Overturned > Finally!! Its nice to see the good guys winning for a change! > Now, if they could just do the same with the ECPA (Electronic > Communications Privacy Act -- the law that made 800 MHz scanners without > cellular blocking illegal, among other things) ... > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But of course! Why shouldn't we have > the unfettered right to spy on our neighbors and snoop on their phone > calls if we want to? You don't mind it when people unkown to you > listen in on your calls do you? PAT] There could be a lot of other info in that freq range besides cellular - trunked, police band, etc. If newspapers can monitor 100mhz and 400mhz ranges for police calls, then why should 800mhz be any different? This is going to start an entirely new debate about electronic privacy. But here's my standpoint from a *user* -- if its over an open freq, it's like printing it on the front page. Besides, who needs an 800mhz capable scanner -- cellular phone 'test mode' give audio listenting capability, and more (if I wanted to do this, of course). Steve B. bagdon@rust.net (h) USFMDDKT@ibmmail.com (w) http://www.rust.net/~bagdon ------------------------------ From: brettf@netcom.com (Brett Frankenberger) Subject: Re: Late Bulletin! Communications Decency Act Overturned Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 20:51:35 GMT In article , > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But of course! Why shouldn't we have > the unfettered right to spy on our neighbors and snoop on their phone > calls if we want to? You don't mind it when people unkown to you > listen in on your calls do you? PAT] I think a better question is: "Why should people have the right to transmit electromagnetic radiation into my residence or vehicle without me having the right to demodulate such radiation?" As a matter of fact, I do mind when people listen on my private conversations. Which is why I don't place them on electromagnetic carriers and propogate them in all directions, or, if I do, I first encrypt them. Your argument seems to be "the ECPA is good because Privacy is good." I don't dispute that privacy is good. Which I do dispute is the assertion that the ECPA is the only way (or even a good way) to acheive privacy. Brett (brettf@netcom.com) ------------------------------ From: taylorj@ecs.ecs.csus.edu (Jon M. Taylor) Subject: Re: Late Bulletin! Communications Decency Act Overturned Date: 13 Jun 1996 20:34:33 GMT Organization: California State University, Sacramento Of course we all want as much privacy as we can get in our telephone conversations, but crippling associated technologies like scanners in order to get it is a really lousy solution. A better way would be to implement strong cryptographic scrambling, so that it wouldn't *matter* if people could hear your transmission. The same is true for all communications media -- forget about making things tap-proof, just encrypt everything! Jon Taylor = | ------------------------------ From: lull@acm.org (John Lull) Subject: Re: Sneaky Surfwatch Advertisement in News Bulletin Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 02:22:17 GMT Organization: Windsmith In the waning years of the 20th century, Eric_Florack@mc.xerox.com (Florack,Eric) wrote (with deletions): > And here, we clearly see the results of judges making rulings on > technology they have no hope whatsoever of understanding. If the > judges in question did in fact understand the technology, they would > know full well that SurfWatch is incapable of 'filtering' a goodly > amount of the items that people who buy it are concerned about. If you read the decision you'll find that the judges knew quite clearly what they were doing, and understood the technology well enough (far better than I had expected). They specifically recognize that SurfWatch and its ilk are not now and never will be perfect. But they also recognize that the CDA would be even more ineffective in accomplishing its stated goals. The publishers of SurfWatch, however, either have not read the decision, or totally ignored what it said in writing their press release. Their press release is WILDLY inacurate in its reporting, and I think does a serious injustice to their allies in this effort. ------------------------------ From: lr@access1.digex.net (Sir Topham Hatt) Subject: Re: Sneaky Surfwatch Advertisement in News Bulletin Date: 13 Jun 1996 19:58:27 GMT Organization: Intentionally Left Blank Florack,Eric (Eric_Florack@mc.xerox.com) wrote: > And here, we clearly see the results of judges making rulings on > technology they have no hope whatsoever of understanding. If the > judges in question did in fact understand the technology, they would > know full well that SurfWatch is incapable of 'filtering' a goodly > amount of the items that people who buy it are concerned about. Well, not the way I read the decision. While surfwatch and other industry measures to provide filtering are mentioned, they are in not in the body of the opinion. It was overturned because it too broadly provides prior restraint on speech. The opinion specically states that it is near impossible to provide the filtering required by an ideal implementation of the act. >> The intent of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) was to prevent >> minors from inadvertently stumbling upon `indecent' or `patently >> offensive' material in the normal course of using the Internet and >> World Wide Web. > Patently incorrect. 'Inadvertently stumbling' was not the issue! Their > ability to access it AT ALL, was the issue. Are we concerned about > minors inadvertently stumbling across' Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, > etc.? Or are we concerned that they might have ANY access to it, by > their intent /or/ by accident? Same thing should apply to porn. Funny > thing, though, how that concern disappears when SurfWatch income is at > stake, huh? Despite the "intent", the judges have found that the act infringes on constitutional speech, and while it may be legal to restrict minors from such material, the CDA goes too far. You should really read the decision or at least an objective review of it rather than relying on some hoopla press release fromm a software vendor. The truth of the decision is summed up in one judge's words ... that the "provisions are so vague as to violate the First and Fifth Amendments." Ron ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 16:59:52 -0400 From: Peter Bell Subject: Re: Sneaky Surfwatch Advertisement in News Bulletin Organization: Yale University In article TELECOM Diest Editor noted: > ... 'this software has been approved by the United States > Federal Courts for use by parents who don't want their children getting > molested or kidnapped by 'new friends' they meet online or correspond > with in those newsgroups we all know are very naughty.' Let's see, Pat: molestation *is* already a crime, no? Kidnapping? Corrupting the morals of a minor? Statutory rape? I guess not, as you seem to be maintaining that the sting operations we've already seen covered on The Nooz involving feds pretending to be kids and luring pedophiles in for their arrests were all just faked. That we *needed* the CDA to cover any crime in which a computer, however briefly, might play a role? No? I'm not characterizing that right? > ... And God bless the ACLU and the federal judges for saving the > rest of us from ourselves while I am thinking about it. Excuse me? Pat? Reread that last sentence again, por favor? It was *Congress* and *Ralph Reed* and *people such as yourself* who were hell bent on saving us from ourselves. The judges told you to stay outta my newsfeed, and I thank them for it. But that is the slickest reality inversion I've seen on this yet. The backers of Amendment 2 in Colorado are making much the same argument: that they've been deprived of the right to snoop in and judge their neighbors lives, and that it's that Bad Federal Court System Saving Them From Their Snoopiness. Many read it as something Quite Different, Pat. Cheers, peter bell@minerva.cis.yale.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 06:30:43 -0700 From: vantek@northcoast.com (VANTEK COMMUNICATIONS) Subject: Re: Sneaky Surfwatch Advertisement in News Bulletin > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One thing which has left me very > cynical about the federal judiciary in the United States has been > how, as the FRC phrases it, the 'ACLU hand-picked judges' rule on > cases involving the ACLU. A large number of federal judges are members > of the ACLU, yet it has never occured to them they should recuse > themselves -- or step away from a case -- when it involves the ACLU. > If you were involved in a trial, would you want the judge to be a > member of the plaintiff group or a member of the defendant group? > I suspect you would want the judge to be independent of either group. > How can you in fairness belong to a group and support the agenda and > beliefs of that group and then rule *fairly* in a court case which > involves that group? I should imagine the Supreme Court will overturn > this decision when it reaches that level as it surely will. Though I really have little interest in the ACLU, I don't believe that a membership in an organization necessarily makes one biased to the point of not being able to (legally) make a decision that may involve that organization. For example ... if a judge was a Republican, would that automatically disqualify him from making a decision about any case that may involve Republicans, or even the Republican Party? Can any judge (or human being) really be expected to have absolutely no personal bias for or against any given subject? The fact that someone happens to belong to a political organization (or religion, race, many other groups ...) does not necessarily mean that they subscribe to all of that group's beliefs. I believe that anyone who has taken an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution should be able to set-aside his personal beliefs when making critical interpretations of law. Our present jury system is entirely dependant upon such a principle. In any case, I HIGHLY doubt that any judge, or other member of the ACLU, agrees with EVERY stance they have ever taken. As a Democrat (don't laugh!), I don't believe in every official party position, but that doesn't mean that I'm not a Democrat. BTW, in regards to the press release I forwarded to TELECOM Digest from SurfWatch, it was asolutely self-serving of the company to put-out, but was factual. It was not only the very first source of information on the outcome of the case that flowed to me via the internet (scooped all other "hard news" sources at my disposal), but was also the only article I had that was non-copyrighted. Press releases are a vital (if not slightly slanted) source of information to those looking for news on the internet. Without them, I would be hard-pressed to find free information on many telecom subjects. Van Hefner - Editor Discount Long Distance Digest On The Web: http://www.webcom.com/longdist/ ------------------------------ From: dr@ripco.com (David Richards) Subject: CDA Fallout: Internet Rating System Waits in the Wings Organization: Ripco Internet BBS, Chicago Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 03:49:24 GMT In article , Mike P. Storke wrote: > In article , VANTEK COMMUNICATIONS > wrote: >> Philadelphia, PA, June 12, 1996 (DLD DIGEST) -- Thanks in large part >> to testimony concerning the effectiveness of SurfWatch Software Inc.'s >> Internet filtering and parental control software, a federal court in >> Philadelphia today ruled that the Communications Decency Act, signed >> into law on February 8, is an unconstitutional infringement of freedom >> of speech over the Internet. > Finally!! Its nice to see the good guys winning for a change! Due to the CDA and related factors, there has been much discussion on the possibility of enacting some sort of mandatory or (if we're lucky) voluntary internet rating system. The discussion has mostly focussed on rating web site and similar MIME encoded content, and with the general opinion of proponents of ratings being that the burden of censorship should be on the content provider, rather than the consumer. Logistics aside, Ripco's (and I suspect many other provider's) position is that if we are required to rate content originating on our system we will gladly do so ... But since we can't possibly review every message and page, Ripco will apply a blanket rating of 'X (under 21 forbidden)' across the board. X-CDA-RATING: X/21-over X-CDA-OFFENSIVENESS: sex,violence,libertarianism,angst,... If (when) every site that turned their pages black, sets their rating to X (just as 'blackpage' scripts were widely distributed, so can 'rate-X' programs make it possible for the most technically illiterate to set their ratings), the censors won't have to worry about children getting to smut, but neither will children get to any of the other educational and instructive resources that the backers of censorship cite as reasons to 'make the internet safe for children'. David Richards Ripco Communications Inc. My opinions are my own, Public Access in Chicago But they are available for rental FREE Usenet and Email dr@ripco.com (312) 665-0065 ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #287 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Jun 14 11:25:01 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id LAA04044; Fri, 14 Jun 1996 11:25:01 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 11:25:01 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606141525.LAA04044@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #288 TELECOM Digest Fri, 14 Jun 96 11:25:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 288 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson IEEE J-SAC Call For Papers: Very Low Bit-rate Video Coding (Argi Krikelis) What You See Is Who You Get (Mike King) Call For Papers - CYBER://CON.97 (David E. Sorkin) FCC Adopts Rules On Cellular 911 (Jorene Downs) Tax on Cellphones in Maryland (Joseph Bergstein) Excel to Provide Discount Pager Service (Tom Zinn) Re: Pagers - 149 MHz vs. 800 MHz (Ed Ellers) Re: Pagers - 149 MHz vs. 800 MHz (Gary Sanders) Re: Pagers - 149 Mhz vs. 800 Mhz (Steve Bagdon) Re: Pagers - 149 MHz vs. 800 MHz (Tony Pelliccio) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Argi Krikelis Subject: IEEE J-SAC Call For Paper: Very Low Bit-rate Video Coding Date: 14 Jun 1996 13:05:05 GMT Organization: Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications Call for Papers Very Low Bit-rate Video Coding Technology advances and application demands lead to the inevitable merging of telecommunications and computing areas. Future user requirements are anticipated to be dominated by video-driven applications, with demands for a very high degree of flexibility and extensibility. Applications will include real-time, high quality interactivity using natural and/or synthetic video data over limited bandwidth communication lines and access of limited capacity storage media, providing ability to achieve scalability with fine granularity in spatial and temporal resolution and complexity. Such demands will require robust and efficient very low bit-rate video coding approaches, able to support resilient transmission/accessing of very high quality video pictures. Current video processing technologies and international standards will not be able to cope with such requirements because of well known limitations, e.g., block and mosquito artifacts. The development and evolution of alternative video coding techniques and video processing systems is necessary. The nature of the required research poses a number of challenges in algorithm development and specification and development of coding tools which will allow a very high degree of application-specific functionality, evolution of processing (especially highly parallel) architectures to efficiently support the required operations, etc. The IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications is developing an issue with the broad theme of very low bit-rate video coding. This issue will include, but is not limited to, papers on the following topics: Very low bit-rate video coding techniques for video transmission and storage content-based model-based vector quantisation wavelets fractals Scalability issues in very low bit-rate coding Very low bit-rate coding of hybrid (video and synthetic) data Very low bit-rate video coding for multimedia (e.g. stereoscopic images and 3D views) Robustness of very low bit-rate video coding in error-prone environments Processing architectures for very low bit-rate video coding. Prospective authors of original work should submit six (6) copies of their manuscripts to one the Guest Editors listed below, according to the following schedule: six (6) copies of the full manuscript September 1, 1996 notification of decisions December 1, 1996 final version of the manuscript Feburary 1, 1997 publication date Fourth quarter 1997 Guest Editors Dr. Kazumasa Enami Dr. Anargyros (Argy) Krikelis Science and Technical Research Labs Aspex Microsystems Ltd. Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) Brunel University 1-10-11 Kinuta, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 157 Uxbridge, UB8 3PH JAPAN United Kingdom Tel: +81 3 54942300 Tel: +44 1895 274000 ext 2763 Fax: +81 3 54942309 Fax: + 44 1895 258728 E-mail: enami@strl.nhk.or.jp E-mail:Argy.Krikelis@aspex.co.uk Argy.Krikelis@brunel.ac.uk Prof. Todd R. Reed Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering University of California Davis, CA 95616 USA Tel:+1 (916) 7524720 Fax:+1 (916) 7528428 E-mail:trreed@ucdavis.edu ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: What You See Is Who You Get Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 17:24:15 PDT Forwarded to the Digest FYI: Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 08:35:24 -0700 Reply-To: NEWS-LIST@list.pactel.com From: sqlgate@list.pactel.com Subject: NEWS: What You See . . . Is Who You Get FOR MORE INFORMATION: Beverly Butler (415) 542-9468 What You See . . . Is Who You Get Pacific Bell Gives Sneak Preview of Caller ID SAN FRANCISCO -- At a sneak preview June 13, Pacific Bell and Caller ID display equipment vendors showcased various Caller ID devices, including adjunct boxes that attach to a phone, telephone equipment with built-in displays and a product specially designed for the sight and mobility impaired that has a voice announce feature that can be customized by the user. Pacific Bell has requested approval from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to offer Caller ID service to customers on June 15. Caller ID functions enables people to see the number of the person calling before they answer the call. In order to see the caller's number, consumers need to subscribe to the Caller ID service and purchase either a telephone with a built-in display device or an electronic display device designed to connect to an existing phone. "Most Californians will find Caller ID a useful tool. If there is an emergency and you need to know who's calling, you can receive that number in advance with Caller ID," said Joan Mataraci, Caller ID product manager, Pacific Bell. Caller ID may also be used to ensure when home alone, children or baby-sitters only answer calls from family members; traveling family members' calls are answered no matter which time zone they are calling from; and long distance calls are recognized as they come in -- so the conversation is on someone else's dime instead of your own. Additionally, business customers will be able to manage their time more productively and prepare for calls by referring to customer records prior to answering the phone. Caller ID service from Pacific Bell is $6.50 per month for residential customers and $7.50 per month for business customers. There is a $5.00 installation fee for residential customers and $6.00 installation fee for business customers. Prices vary greatly, beginning at $40 for a basic adjunct box to $270 for a telephone-answering machine with built-in display and voice announce feature that can be customized by the user. Pacific Bell has developed agreements with the leading Caller ID equipment manufacturers, including CIDCO, Inc., Colonial Data Technologies Corp., Nortel and AASTRA TELECOM, to distribute Pacific Bell-branded equipment. Pacific Bell Caller ID equipment is available directly from Pacific Bell through two different fulfillment centers. Once service is available, customers can call Pacific Bell at 1-800 983-9050 to order Caller ID service and be transferred to an equipment representative. Representatives for second-language customers will be available. Customers will be able to charge equipment to their Pacific Bell phone bill, and interest-free installment billing will be available. Residence customers also will be able to rent a basic adjunct box for $4.00 per month. Pacific Bell Caller ID equipment will be available at several retail outlets throughout the state, including Albertson's California, Dow Stereo, Fry's Electronics, Longs Drugs, Sam's Clubs and The Good Guys. Pacific Bell has plans to distribute Pacific Bell-branded equipment to more than 1,500 retail locations, including major department stores, better discount stores, electronic specialty outlets, warehouse clubs and drug store chains. Retail stores carrying the Pacific Bell brand will have displays available to explain and demonstrate the features and operation of Caller ID. Telephone companies in the other 49 states already offering Caller ID have received overwhelmingly positive responses to the service. Pacific Bell is a subsidiary of Pacific Telesis Group, a diversified communications corporation based in San Francisco. ------------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: David E. Sorkin <7SORKIN@jmls.edu> Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 14:53:53 CST Subject: Call For Papers -- CYBER://CON.97 TELECOM Digest readers may be interested in submitting papers for the following conference. CALL FOR PAPERS CYBER://CON.97 Rules for Cyberspace?: Governance, Standards and Control June 4-7, 1997 Chicago, Illinois The Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law of The John Marshall Law School is pleased to issue a Call for Papers for CYBER://CON.97, the first in a series of biennial conferences on Cyberspace. The '97 program will consider "Rules for Cyberspace?: Governance, Standards and Control," to be held in Chicago, Illinois, June 4-7, 1997. Papers within the CYBER://CON.97 focus will be considered for presentation as a major theme or as contributing dialogue in a relevant conference session. Whether, and how, to regulate national and international electronic networks is a principal topic in current discussions regarding the realm of Cyberspace. Disputes regarding rights and responsibilities in connection with Internet communications arise frequently, with little consensus as to what rules or procedures should govern communications or conduct in Cyberspace. The conference focus will be on proposals for standards and protocols defining the propriety of Internet communications, and suggestions for national and international mechanisms or forums to make and enforce rules, monitor compliance and resolve disputes. General topic areas contemplated for CYBER://CON.97 include the following: - The Roles of Governments and the Private Sector in National/International Internet Administration - Regulation in Cyberspace: Models for Standards and Compliance in Transborder Electronic Communications - First Amendment Limitations on Cyberspace Regulation - Dispute Resolution Models for Transborder Data Flow - Jurisdiction and Choice-of-Law in a Borderless Electronic Environment - Financing National and International Electronic Information Infrastructures and Access - Protecting Human Rights and Privacy in Cyberspace - Controlling Crime and Terrorism in Cyberspace - Encryption Technology and Cyberspace Communication - Status and Protection of Intellectual Property in Electronic Communications - Electronic Commerce: Rules of Contract, Signature, Payment, Authenticity - Protecting Children in Cyberspace Written proposals of 600 words or less, describing the paper's topic, presenters, and presentation format, must be submitted by July 15, 1996. Acceptance or rejection of proposals will be communicated by August 15, 1996. Papers for accepted topics must be submitted in final draft by December 15, 1996. All communications should be directed to: CYBER://CON.97 Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law The John Marshall Law School 315 South Plymouth Court Chicago, Illinois 60604 Fax: (312) 427-9974 E-mail: cyber97@jmls.edu All proposals and papers will become the property of The John Marshall Law School. Papers may be selected for publication subsequent to the Conference in the John Marshall Journal of Computer and Information Law. The preliminary announcement of CYBER://CON.97 program, site, and registration information, will be released during September, 1996. Inquiries may be addressed as above or by telephone to the Center, (312) 987-1419. David E. Sorkin 7sorkin@jmls.edu http://www.mcs.net/~sorkin/ Ass't Prof. of Law & Assoc. Dir., Ctr. for Information Technology & Privacy Law, The John Marshall Law School - (312) 987-2387 ------------------------------ From: jcdowns@strategic-vision.com (Jorene Downs) Subject: FCC Adopts Rules On Cellular 911 Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 19:17:13 GMT Organization: Strategic Vision Reply-To: jcdowns@strategic-vision.com WASHINGTON (Reuter) - Regulators adopted rules to allow cellular phone users to make 911 emergency calls from anywhere in the United States, without a cellular company blocking a call if a person isn't a subscriber to the system. The Federal Communications Commission also took steps Wednesday to make it easier for 911 and other emergency operators to locate people -- such as a stranded driver -- who call for help over a wireless phone but can't provide their exact location. "This will really enhance public safety and it will save lives," said FCC Commissioner Susan Ness during a public meeting at which the agency adopted the new rules. Nearly 50,000 calls a day are made from wireless phones to 911 and other emergency numbers, according to the Cellular Telephone Industry Association (CTIA). Calls include people reporting a carjacking or wanting help in a traffic accident. Currently, however, cellular phone companies can block calls made by people away from home. Areas where this can happen include Chicago, Miami, and Nashville, Tenn. The new rules bar a cellular company from blocking a 911 emergency call if the caller is outside their usual calling area. But there are conditions. The caller's cellular phone must have an activated phone number -- or Mobile Identification Number (MIN) -- to get immediate access to 911 services. For phones without MINs, police and other public-safety authorities can ask the cellular company to deliver the call. The FCC is seeking comment on a requirement that phones without MINs also have guaranteed access to 911. In December 1994, a cellular company blocked the 911 call of a California woman who was shot and seriously wounded. After the incident, most of California's cellular companies ended the practice of blocking calls. "The FCC has made the right call on cellular access to 911 services," said Rep. Anna Eschoo, a California Democrat who introduced legislation calling for such rules. The FCC also outlined a plan to allow emergency operators and other public safety officials to locate a cellular caller who can't give their location because the call is disconnected or they don't know exactly where they are. The plan -- proposed by the CTIA and the nation's public safety agencies -- calls for the phase in of increasingly sophisticated technology. The choice about whether to adopt it rests with local governments operating 911 services. Within a year, authorities would be able to locate the calling area, or cell site, from which a person is phoning. In five years, the specific location -- within about a 125-meter (yard) area -- would be provided in at least 67 percent of all cases. Estimates vary on the cost of implementing such "enhanced" 911 features, ranging from $550 million to $7 billion over a five-year period. The FCC left it up to state and local officials to determine how to pay for the program. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 14:56:08 EDT From: Joseph Bergstein Subject: Tax on Cellphones in Maryland Montgomery County MD county council approved a new tax on cellular phone users whose billing address is within the county. They become one of many areas looking for new ways to raise revenue, and clearly the business community which has bulk of cellphones is very unhappy because of added costs. The tax rate indicated is 92.5 cents per month per phone or roughly an additional $11 a year, expected to raise in this county nearly $2 million. Tax is supposed to begin on July 1. How can Bell Atlantic/NYNEX, Cellular One, and Sprint Spectrum be expected to get their billing programs modified in such a short amount of time? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: They won't get it ready in time but once they do have it ready they will backdate the taxes to when it should have started in a retroactive way. That is, two or three months from now when the software is in place they will charge all the tax which was due from July 1 onward to that date, then go monthly from that point forward. Thinking about the earlier message in this issue in which there will be new 911 procedures in place for cell phones and the local governments are 'to find ways to pay for it' I wonder if a tax on cellular phone service will be the answer? In the Chicago area there has been a tax on phone bills to pay for 911 service for a few years now. They may decide a tax on cellular service is the way to pay for whatever 911 enhancements are needed in this new plan. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 96 17:24:35 EST From: Tom Zinn Subject: Excel to Provide Discount Pager Service Excel Telecommunications Inc. of Dallas, TX has announced that it has signed a deal with PageMart, Inc. to sell discount pager services to its approximately two million customers and seeks to expand its customer base. Details are to be announced on or around August 1st. For more information contact Tom Zinn at ExcelTZ@aol.com. ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Pagers - 149 MHz vs. 800 MHz Date: Thu, 13 Jun 96 00:29:56 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Rick Catterson : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Personally I think 800 tends to > penetrate a little better into steel buildings, basements and other > hard to reach places while 149 tends to cover a larger geographical > distance but falls short when it comes to rooting its way into > computer rooms, for example. Each type of radio wave has different > characteristics than other radio waves and the frequency selected for > use is very much an applications thing. Also, the type of antenna This may be both a matter of shorter wavelengths vs. the "apertures" in an otherwise RF-resistant structure, and also that there is less stray RF likely to be around in the higher band from computers and such. > I remember many years ago when police officers and firemen used to > have radios at 27 megs and they drove around with those great big > antennas on their vehicles. Then they all moved to the 150-155 megs > area and had much better transmission, etc. Now many large urban > police forces have ditched that frequency and use 450-470 for all > their transmissions with very good results. Generally, the higher > the frequency, the better the overall results in transmission although > I am not sure what all the technical reasons are. PAT] They were really at somewhat higher frequencies, above 30 MHz. The move to higher bands was more a matter of finding space for more channels than of getting better coverage, and some state police departments still use the low band to better cover the large areas around police posts since the lower frequencies seem to follow terrain to a greater extent. (Much to the cops' sorrow in some cases, since that band is also prone to sporadic-E skip propagation. A Tennessee state trooper told me in the 1970s, when they shared the same frequency as the Indiana State Police, that he often heard Indiana police communications on his radio, making life that much more difficult for both departments.) Another factor is that because of the shortage of channels, "repeater" systems are almost unknown on the low band, so agencies on that band often have to have the dispatcher repeat a message from an officer so it can be heard by other officers; on the higher bands repeater systems allow any transmission to be heard directly by the other units (and by scanner listeners too). Some state police departments even have repeaters in the patrol cars, so that when the trooper talks on his UHF handie-talkie he can contact the post through the more powerful VHF radio in the car. ------------------------------ From: gws@cadcs.cb.att.com (Gary Sanders) Subject: Re: Pagers - 149 MHz vs. 800 MHz Date: 13 Jun 1996 13:06:55 GMT Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Columbus Ohio. Reply-To: gary.w.sanders@att.com I dont know of any public service band in the 27mhz band. Its been an international broadcast band, 11 meter hamband and later CB in the US. Police have been in the 30-50mhz VHF low band and still have pretty big antennas. Gary W. Sanders (N8EMR) gary.w.sanders@att.com AT&T Columbus,Ohio 614-860-5965 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 13:33:13 EDT From: Steve Bagdon Subject: Re: Pagers - 149 Mhz vs. 800 Mhz You mean you actually expected the sales staff to *understand* the technical aspects of the products that they were selling? :) Speaking from personal experience only, 145mhz has longer range, but not the 'penetration' of 800mhz. 800 gets into buildings better, but 145 works better in 'fringe area'. Steve B. ------------------------------ From: kd1nr@anomaly.ideamation.com (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Re: Pagers - 149 MHz vs. 800 MHz Date: 13 Jun 1996 15:51:22 -0400 Organization: Ideamation, Inc. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Personally I think 800 tends to > penetrate a little better into steel buildings, basements and other > hard to reach places while 149 tends to cover a larger geographical > distance but falls short when it comes to rooting its way into > computer rooms, for example. Each type of radio wave has different > characteristics than other radio waves and the frequency selected for > use is very much an applications thing. Also, the type of antenna > needed for various frequencies is a consideration. The lower the > frequency, the larger the antenna has to be, and this could be > cumbersome at very low frequencies. The difference in size of antenna > between 149 and 800 is not that much (as compared to say, 27 megs or > 'ten meter' and 'eleven meter' stuff) so that would not be a concern > with pagers, but the propogation of the wave or the way the signal > gets around would matter a lot for many people. Actually I much prefer the 149MHz units. Why? I currently have a page on 931MHz and it stinks. Propagation is god awful! When I had my 149MHz unit I got the page wherever I was, computer room or not. It has to do with the wavelength of the signal. 800MHz and higher frequencies tend to reflect more so than penetrate. Tony Pelliccio, KD1NR kd1nr@anomaly.ideamation.com ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #288 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jun 18 13:13:10 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id NAA26833; Tue, 18 Jun 1996 13:13:10 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 13:13:10 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606181713.NAA26833@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #289 TELECOM Digest Tue, 18 Jun 96 13:13:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 289 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson BellSouth Donates Children's Education Materials (Mike King) Pac Bell Caller ID SNAFU (Tad Cook) Pac*Bell Delays Caller-ID Yet Again (Nancy Gold) Positive Aspects of CallerID (Rubens Rahim) Book Review: "The Internet Kids Yellow Pages" by Polly (Rob Slade) Florida Callers Protest High Rates (Tad Cook) Sub-Contractors Needed For Telecom Information (Terje Myhre) 911 Locator for Cellular Users (John Stahl) Nationwide PRI Shortage (Stephen Balbach) Time Warner Cable Modem Trial (spider@aol.com) Bell Canada will Charge for 555-1212 (Stan Salter) New Twist For 800 Number and Spammers (David F. Reynolds) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike King Subject: BellSouth Donates Children's Education Materials Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 16:56:39 PDT ----- Forwarded Message ----- Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 09:52:35 -0400 From: BellSouth Subject: BellSouth Donates Children's Education Materials Reply-To: press@www.bellsouth.com BellSouth Donates Children's Education Materials to National Emergency Number Association DENVER-"Buzzy," the colorful mascot created by BellSouth as an aid in educating children on 911 services, is taking his act nationwide. With an interest in promoting proper use of 911 emergency services among young children across the country, BellSouth has donated the use of Buzzy and 8,500 copies of a learning book, "911: How It's Done," to the National Emergency Number Association (NENA). The donation was formalized this week at NENA's annual conference in Denver. Based in Columbus, Ohio, NENA is an association whose mission is to foster the technological advancement, availability and implementation of a universal emergency telephone system. In carrying out that mission, NENA promotes research, planning training and education. Developed by BellSouth on behalf of its ninestate region, Buzzy and "911: How It's Done" are designed to help educators teach proper use of the 911 emergency number to young, schoolaged children. Used as a teacher's discussion guide, the booklet leads children from kindergarten to thirdgrade in discussions on appropriate use of the 911 number in emergency situations, as well as suggestions on when it's appropriate not to call. The guide also includes a narrative cassette tape and provides instructions on basic 911 dialing techniques with a practice telephone keypad. The Buzzy cartoon character is featured throughout the discussion guide in illustrations that appeal to young children. Buzzy is also brought to life in two colorful, lifesized costumes developed by BellSouth as an official mascot of its 911 program. The costumes are part of the overall donation made by the company to the NENA organization. "BellSouth has enjoyed a longstanding commitment to 911, having provided the nation's first Basic 911 system in our region in 1976," said Mike Lassiter, product manager for 911 services at BellSouth Business Systems. "We're hopeful the Buzzy character and learning books will be effective on a much broader scale in teaching children the proper use of the 911 emergency number." Bob Cobb, education and training coordinator for NENA, said his organization is developing a marketing program to make the book available to schools, preschools, 911 centers and other institutions. In addition, NENA will incorporate Buzzy into books, publications and other training materials as appropriate. "We're very excited about the opportunities BellSouth's Buzzy character is providing, both to NENA and to the children who one day may critically use 911 knowledge gained from Buzzy materials," Cobb said. BellSouth provides telecommunications services in nine Southeastern states, including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. With its headquarters in Atlanta, BellSouth serves more than 21 million local telephone lines and provides local exchange and intraLATA long distance service over one of the most modern telecommunications networks in the world. For Information Contact: David A. Storey BellSouth (205) 977-5001 Bob Cobb NENA (614) 459-7707 ------------------------------ Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: Pac Bell Caller ID SNAFU Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 00:39:05 PDT Pacific Bell Delays Start of Caller ID By Julie Appleby, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Jun. 15--Pacific Bell abruptly halted the launch of its controversial Caller ID program Friday after discovering a snafu that left some customers who requested telephone number privacy unprotected. The program had been set to start today, allowing customers who buy the service to see the numbers of incoming phone calls before answering. The utility admitted it had failed to block the telephone numbers of some customers who had requested privacy and sent letters to other customers indicating their lines were not blocked when, in fact, they were. "We're sorry about the confusion," said PacBell spokeswoman Beverly Butler. "We've voluntarily pulled it back because we want to fix the problem. This is a product we're not going to offer until it's right." She said the utility does not know how the mistakes were made, how many customers were affected or how it will resolve the problem. It also won't make a guess on when the service will be launched. "We just don't know," Butler said. At least three million Californians requested blocking during an extensive $33 million public education program that Pacific Bell was required to offer, Mark Pitchford, a vice president with the phone company, said last month. The utility services about 12 million residential lines in California. The utility is under pressure to get the program started before a July 1 deadline set by the Federal Communications Commission. California is the last state to begin Caller ID. The utility has already asked for delays in starting the program, the most recent last month when it told the California Public Utilities Commission it needed more time to process requests from customers who sought to block their numbers. Customers had been asked to notify the utility by mail or telephone if they wanted either "complete" or "selective" blocking. Complete blocking stops transmission of all calls, except those placed to 800, 880 and 900 area codes. Selective blocking allows the customer to decide which calls to block by hitting 67 before dialing. The 800, 880 and 900 lines are also exempt from selective blocking. Although Caller ID at Pacific Bell won't go into effect today, other local telephone companies in California, including GTE, will launch the program, Butler said. "If you want to be sure your number isn't passed, be sure to use 67 when dialing," Butler said. Some consumer groups and the PUC had wanted customers to be automatically protected from telephone number transmission, arguing in court that Pacific Bell should be allowed to release only those numbers where customers had specifically requested transmission. The Supreme Court last month rejected that argument. Once the program does begin, Pacific Bell plans to charge $6.50 a month for residential customers and $7.50 for businesses who want the service that will allow them access to the numbers of incoming calls. ------------------------------ From: Nancy Gold Subject: Pac*Bell Delays Caller-ID Yet Again Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 08:41:36 -0700 Organization: Bureau of Emulated Processors In spite of press releases as late as Thursday stating that Caller-ID service would be available today (June 15th), it's not. There is yet another delay till an unknown date, supposedly due to the continuing blocking/non-blocking issue. I wish I had more details. The first delay was June 1st -> June 15th. My Caller-ID box sits in wait, as it has since May 20th. Nancy Evelyn Gold - Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA Byker, Comic, Engineer, Actress - K1100LT (Chloe), DoD #1184 http://reality.sgi.com/nancyg - (nancyg@sgi.com) http://www.e-zines.com/people/nancy_gold - (nancyg@e-zines.com) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 00:50:48 EDT From: Rubens Rahim Subject: Positive Aspects of CallerID The following is from Telecom Update #39 (Angus Telemanagement). CallerID is having a positive effect, contrary to what people claim. Per-line blocking is not available to anyone except law enforcement, domestic shelters, etc. BC Tel serves most of the province of British Columbia Canada, pop 3.2 million. =============== NUISANCE CALLS CUT 56%: BC Tel reports that the introduction of Call Display and *69 Return reduced reported nuisance calls last year by 56% compared with 1991, when these services were introduced. Obscene calls dropped almost 75% over this period. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 10:19:40 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "The Internet Kids Yellow Pages" by Polly BKINKDYP.RVW 960428 "The Internet Kids Yellow Pages/Golden Directory", Jean Armour Polly, 1996, 0-07-882217-3, C$28.95/UK#13.95/A$39.95/NZ$49.95 %A Jean Armour Polly feedback@pollywood.com %C 300 Water Street, Whitby, Ontario L1N 9B6 %D 1996 %G 0-07-882217-3 %I McGraw-Hill Ryerson/Osborne %O C$28.95/UK#13.95/A$39.95/NZ$49.95 905-430-5000 fax: 905-430-5020 %P 355 %T "The Internet Kids Yellow Pages/Golden Directory" A great many of the child or educationally oriented books on the Internet have lists of resources, but this compendium is a very welcome addition. As with others in the "yellow pages" ("Golden Directory" outside of the US) series, the collection is a massive one, even though it couldn't be exhaustive. For kids, with incessant demands for information on every topic under the sun, massive is what you want. (It even has a listing for Alta Vista, Digital's "mother of all" search engines.) The sites are well chosen. There is a wide range of both topics and levels. (A helpful feature for a future edition might be the inclusion of indicators for grade and age suitability.) Occasionally the descriptions contain erroneous or misleading "facts": this is possibly due to taking the claims listed in those sites at face value without checking. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKINKDYP.RVW 960428. Distribution permitted in nTELECOM Digest and associated publications. Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca | "Power users think Institute for rslade@vcn.bc.ca | 'Your PC is now Research into rslade@vanisl.decus.ca | Stoned' is part of User Rob_Slade@mindlink.bc.ca | the DOS copyright Security Canada V7K 2G6 | line." R. Murnane ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: Florida Callers Protest High Rates Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 03:53:40 PDT Four Corners, Fla., Callers Protest High Telephone Rates By Robert Sargent Jr., The Orlando Sentinel, Fla. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Jun. 15--Susan Reininghaus used to think that the cellular phone in her car was a luxury because the calls she made on it were so expensive. That was before she started working in Loughman -- one of the small communities that make up the Four Corners area. The employee of the Bridgewater Crossing residential development pays 78 cents for three minutes from her car. But at the office, close to where Orange, Osceola, Polk and Lake counties meet, she said such a call costs as much as $1.50. "This is disgusting," she said. "If it was a movie, I would probably laugh about it." Reininghaus was among hundreds who showed up Friday for two Florida Public Service Commission public hearings at the Polo Park East residential community. Residents complained about high phone bills caused by the area's unusual setup. Four Corners is divided among three different area codes and is served by several phone companies including GTE Florida Inc., BellSouth and Sprint. Anyone calling between the area codes -- even if it's just across the street -- is charged long-distance rates. Even the communities they can call locally, within their area codes, are limited. Commission members said they will use the information they collected Friday to resolve the problems. A decision should be made by Sept. 3. "Even if they give the green flag to any change, it could be a six- to eight-month process before we get it set up," said GTE product manager Dave Robinson. The commission can mandate several options for rate relief such as an extended local calling area in Four Corners. That would require the residents to pay a bigger flat fee on their monthly phone bills. Another option is to charge a 25-cent rate on any calls made outside of the residents' calling exchange -- similar to plans adopted between a couple of south Lake cities and Orlando. Yet another is for a phone company to come into Four Corners and offer its own local calling service. Whatever is decided, it's not going to resolve the multitude of other challenges facing the area's 5,000 residents including dealing with four county governments, four law enforcement agencies and other unusual problems. "The circumstances for the residents living here are pretty bizarre," said PSC Commissioner Julia Johnson. "It's becoming more and more common, though -- especially around Orlando -- to have the growth of these pocket communities about 20 miles out." -------- FOR ONLINE SERVICES: Visit The Orlando Sentinel Online on America Online. Keyword: SENTINEL. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is a situation something like that on the far northwest side of Chicago where two independent villages set next to each other mostly surrounded on all sides by the city of Chicago and with a small area nearby which is not part of any town and is an 'unincorporated' part of Cook County, Illinois. Driving a matter of a few blocks causes you to leave the city of Chicago, go through these towns and come back into Chicago for only a short distance until you leave Chicago again and go into still another suburb. To complicate things a bit more, there are two telephone companies and two area codes, with each telco having exchanges in both area codes, but where phones are concerned, calls between everyone in that area are all considered local calls no matter which telco or area code is involved. All you have to rememeber basically is which area code you are calling, and the area code tends to change every block or two or three as you bounce back and forth between city and suburb. I guess the inner city of Los Angeles has a similar situation with GTE/Bell and various area codes. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 11:53:07 +0100 From: Terje Myhre Reply-To: Terje Myhre Subject: Sub-Contractors Needed For Telecom Information Organization: Manasus Consulting AB Hello, Im working as an independent consultant for marketing departments of telecom service providers. Sometimes, the projects involve literature and field research, a task which is heavy to undertake for a single consultant juggling with two or three projects simultaneously. As a result, I'm looking for one or more sub-contractors in the following fields: Public information gathering: The activities would consist telecom information gathering from general business and industry magazines, from the public Web-space and calling into specific operators and get public service information. The results would be delivered in raw form. Private information gathering: The activities would consist of calling into functional managers of telecom operators and go through short questionnaires. The names of the companies would be provided, and the function of the person to interview, but the sub-contractor would need to track the name and phone number of the person. The results would be delivered in Word or Excel format, dependent upon the type of questions. Simple information tabulation: The activities would consist of taking public and private information and pull together simple overviews, tables, and matrixes of results based on information and data provided to the sub-contractor. The parameters and the format and paging of the information to be presented would be specified on beforehand. I would be interested in information about the potential sub-contractors, potential references, the price models and levels on which you operate, average delivery times from order, and if there are other conditions of the business relationship which should be highlighted. As I for a while am working abroad with a client, and are not tapping the newsgroups regularly, I would appreciate if the responses could be copied or sent me directly (see e-mail address below). Regards, Terje Myhre Manasus Consulting AB London N1, UK Priv. / evening +44 171 833 2826 Mob. +46 70 512 7573 Fax / answ.mach. +44 171 713 5499 E-mail: myhre@manasus.demon.co.uk WWW: http://www.netlink.co.uk/users/manasus ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 16:01:52 GMT From: John Stahl Subject: 911 Locator for Cellular Users In TELECOM Digest, V16, #288, the announcement of the FCC's decision for cellular systems to identify 911 calls and to require: > "...Within a year, authorities would be able to locate the calling area, or > cell site, from which a person is phoning. In five years, the specific > location -- within about a 125-meter (yard) area -- would be provided in at > least 67 percent of all cases. > Estimates vary on the cost of implementing such "enhanced" 911 features, > ranging from $550 million to $7 billion over a five-year period. The FCC > left it up to state and local officials to determine how to pay for the > program..."; I'm not sure if this isn't another of those wonderful 'dreams' from our friendly government or this is actually something that can be done. Right now, I pay something like 98 cents each month to my LEC for enhanced 911 service on each line. I wonder what that amount will be in five years (considering that most estimates made before actual engineering is done are usually DRASTICALLY understated!) when this new system is supposed to be operational? Does anyone know what sort of system modification can be made to allow this to happen? I would assume that the handsets (portable phones/radios) can not be modified -- think how the circuitry is packed into a flip-phone right now! -- due to the large numbers in use. This would be tantamount to the change over from analog to digital -- have a third system operational? I can think of at least two scenarios: The tight cell packing of hundreds of meters in diameter in a major metropolitan MSA (like NYC, Chicago or LA) and the rural MSA's where a cell might be as much as 10 miles in diameter. In the former, there might be some way to triangulate the signal from at least two antennas to achieve the 125 meter resolution but in the latter, there is sure to be MAJOR technical difficulties! Am I wrong? Input from someone? John Stahl Aljon Enterprises Telecom/Data Consultants - Telecommunications/data systems design email: aljon@worldnet.att.net ------------------------------ From: stephen@clark.net (Stephen Balbach) Subject: Nationwide PRI Shortage Date: 17 Jun 1996 18:05:55 GMT Organization: Clark Internet Services, Balt/DC, mail all-info@clark.net As an ISP in the MD/DC/VA areas we are expanding to offer dialup service over PRI's (%100 digital V.34 and ISDN on same line). After placeing orders with Bell Atlantic it is becoming clear there is a serious shortage of PRI equipment in Bell Atlantic. Orders take 2 months, then get knocked back another month. Some sites have no PRI access for the foreseable future. Orders are so backloged that Bell Atlantic has opened a special division just to handle the queue of customers. The reason for this apprently is the equipment manufactures (Nortel, AT&T) have been caught with thier pants down and there is simply no central switching equipment to provide the PRI's. We have been told by Bell Atlantic there is a nationwide shortage of PRI's. CO's set for upgrades get knocked back in favour of higher demand CO's with the result being some CO's wont get upgrades for 6 months to a year or possibly more. This has potentially dire consequences for the online industry which is moving POTS lines over to PRI based solutions. Is this true? Are PRI's really that hard to get in other parts of the country? I look forward to hearing of others experiences, thanks. Stephen Balbach "Driving the Internet To Work" VP, ClarkNet due to the high volume of mail I receive please quote info@clark.net the full original message in your reply. ------------------------------ From: spider@aol.com (Spider) Subject: Time Warner Cable Modem Trial Date: 17 Jun 1996 19:11:41 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: spider@aol.com (Spider) Can anyone tell me more about the Time Warner Cable Modem Trial in Round Rock, Texas near Austin, TX? ------------------------------ From: ab885@torfree.net (Stan Salter) Subject: Bell Canada Will Charge for 555-1212 Organization: Toronto Free-Net Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 09:36:57 GMT As of July 01, 1996 Bell Canada (Ontario, Quebec) will charge $0.85 for any 1-XXX-555-1212 call from a payphone. This will include 1-800 and 1-888 calls. stan.salter@ablelink.org or ab885@torfree.net ------------------------------ From: daver@teleport.com (David F. Reynolds) Subject: New Twist For 800 Number and Spammers Date: 18 Jun 1996 06:48:55 GMT Organization: Teleport - Portland's Public Access (503) 220-1016 Thought you'all might get a kick out of this one -- this slimeball is threatening to charge back (with surcharges yet!) nuisance calls to his 800 number; I'm saving this number right next to Jeff's. Received: from flood.xnet.com by relay2.UU.NET with ESMTP (peer crosschecked as: flood.xnet.com [198.147.221.35]) id QQaqpw07203; Tue, 21 May 1996 03:04:13 -0400 (EDT) NNTP-Posting-Host: monsoon.xnet.com Message-ID: <4nrpod$32g@flood.xnet.com> Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 07:01:33 GMT From: Abram Rutman Organization: XNet - A Full Service Internet Provider - (708) 983-6064 ... NEW YORK TIMES. DOCTOR recommended. For FREE information, please call 1.800.555.8655 *PLEASE NOTE THAT ANY CALLS NOT PERTAINING TO INFORMATION REQUESTS WILL BE AUTO-BILLED TO ORIGINATING NUMBER UTILIZING LONG DISTANCE SURCHARGES. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is a threat we are now seeing on a regular basis from spammers on the net. Thanks to the vigorous and challenging responses from netters to these fools, they have long since lost -- as a practical matter -- any way of doing business via email. No matter where their email account is located, the floods of mail to them and the postmasters, etc has caused them to lose their account or otherwise be unable to effectively sort through all the responses and do business. And that is what spam is all about: doing business on the net and making a profit at it. They have to be able to reach their customers and so with email no longer being a viable option they have turned to the phone. Now if they were to give a regular number and ask for people to call them, the results would be very poor. They have to make it easy and inexpensive for inquiries and orders to get through, thus the use of 800 numbers. But here is the rub: now they are stuck with the charges for *all* calls to their 800 number, whether or not it generates any business for them, and most of them are finding out the hard way that it is not making money. So where do they go from here? Remember, no customer contact means no sales. No sales means the whole thing falls apart. These guys are starting now to find out the wrath of a postmaster who has received thousands of hate letters in 24 hours about them is just child's play compared to the crisp and effecient processing of their account by a telco which does not get paid for *thousands* of dollars in charges via their 800 number. . They wish they only had a postmaster and thousands of angry netters they could scorn while ignoring their hate mail! Telco will not be scorned! Thus the threat to charge back all the worthless calls they are getting now from netters who have adapted to the new situation and changed with the circumstances by trashing their 800 numbers the same way just months ago was being done with their email accounts. **And I feel certain it is just a bluff -- just an idle threat.** You who have been in this business for years with many sophisticated contacts in the industry would have to spend some time looking for a way to get your billing tapes over to an agency for conversion to chargeback to the caller. I've been around for years and I right now could not put my finger on the exact process for getting this accomplished although we all know it *can* be done, illegally of course. Therefore I would not get too worried about the threat of having those calls charged back; as a worst case scenario you know your own telco would probably remove them anyway. Still, if it matters, make sure the ANI delivered is basically worthless to these idiots by using payphones, cell phones and looparounds, etc to make your calls of inquiry about their products and services. Just as with the help of the net things got to the point where these birds no longer can get internet service from anyone -- or very few places -- we need to fix things now so they get such a bad reputation with write offs and administrative grief for the telcos that none of telcos will extend them credit either. Reports are reaching me from various quarters that netters have 'made their pledge' to Jeff Boy for this month and loaded him with calls. Remember, the community goal is a hundred thousand dollars in worthless 800 charges to Jeff's long distance carrier during June. We want them to drop him like a hot potato when he can't pay the bill. That goal only requires that all netters make two or three calls each to inquire about his products. Those who make the largest pledges will probably get an award and recognition from Jeff . Now it appears that 800.555.8655 also needs to be worked over. It is another Internet Business Man who is going to have to learn the hard way. If you can devote some time to it in the next few days, I'm sure the community will appreciate your sacrifice. Show them that even though advertising on the net is cheap (can you say free?) the final results can be horribly expensive and put them out of business entirely, at least in this mode of operation. Don't worry about their bluffs to charge you for the calls. It is unlikely. At the same time, ** do not harass them via phone **. That is illegal. Simple calls of inquiry to discuss their service will be fine. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0570 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #289 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jun 18 17:54:11 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id RAA26538; Tue, 18 Jun 1996 17:54:11 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 17:54:11 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606182154.RAA26538@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #290 TELECOM Digest Tue, 18 Jun 96 17:54:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 290 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FTC's Online Watchdog (Tad Cook) Controversy Surrounds Video-Telephone Venture (Tad Cook) Pacific Bell Delays Caller ID Launch (Mike King) Modem For Use in Greenland (Ian Leonard) LATA Sorting Application (Scott De Toffol) New GTE Long Distance Rates (Van Heffner) Ameritech Restarts 'Callpack' Plans (TELECOM Digest Editor) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Cook Subject: FTC's Online Watchdog Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 00:45:58 PDT INTERVIEW: FTC's Online Watchdog Wants Long Leash on Rules By Rory J. O'Connor, San Jose Mercury News, Calif. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News SAN JOSE, Calif.--Jun. 17--A onetime grand marshal of the St. Patrick's Day parade in her childhood home of Syracuse, N.Y., Christine Varney now wants to be another sort of marshal: this time, in cyberspace. Varney, 40, is the youngest of the nation's five members of the Federal Trade Commission, perhaps a fitting distinction for her chosen role as the consumer's on-line watchdog. She hopes the government can figure out how to deal with consumer fraud, rip-offs and individual privacy on the Internet, without regulating the medium to death. A lawyer by training, Varney served as chief counsel to the 1992 Clinton election campaign and, later, as secretary to the Cabinet. That job gave her an inkling of how much the government had to learn about cyberspace when she attempted to install what her colleagues said would be impossible: an interagency e-mail system between Cabinet officials and the White House. Varney, whose term expires later this year, discussed the FTC's role on the Internet in her Pennsylvania Avenue office with Mercury News Washington Correspondent Rory J. O'Connor. This is an excerpt from that interview: Q: Why your strong interest in the Internet? It's not long associated with the FTC. ( http://www.ftc.gov/ ) A: When I came here I thought one of the first things I wanted to do was explore the intersection between what the Federal Trade Commission does and what the Internet is. There were several issues that came to our attention. One is fraud, fraud on the Net, and our jurisdiction is to police the Net for fraud, which we've been doing. A second one was on-line commerce and the security of financial data. We administer the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which led to a more general discussion of privacy. It became clear to me that privacy was a very important issue on the Net ... and that there really are no rules of the road here. And, it would be useful, helpful and appropriate for government to assist in the process of creating some rules of the road without really resorting to the heavy hand of regulation. Q: Give me an idea of the current level of fraud and crime on the Internet. A: We see the garden variety scams that we see in every other medium. We see the get-rich-quick schemes, that are variations on Ponzi schemes and others. There's fraudulent sweepstakes, there is fraudulent business opportunity stuff. There's fraudulent credit repairs. I mean all the fraud you see on the telephone or sometimes on late-night television or in the newspaper, you see it on-line. We prosecute it. We've brought dozens of cases, and we're able to move very quickly. As a matter of fact we just did one, Fortuna (Alliance), a company that was running a pyramid scheme. As part of our court order ... we got permission from the court to put a big message on the Fortuna Web site http://www.pacificrim.net/fortuna/ saying the FTC has recently gotten a preliminary injunction. So when you go to the site, there's this big, flashing FTC red warning, and you can click on it and then it takes you to our Web page http://www.ftc.gov/ro/fortuna.htm. Q: What are the worst sort of offenses that are going on? You called some of this garden variety. Is there anything particular to the Net that may not be happening in other media? A: I have this whole concept that government has a responsibility to protect vulnerable populations: children, the elderly, maybe non-English speakers in some circumstances. And, there's a particular vulnerable population of terminally ill people, or people who have loved ones terminally ill. What you see a lot of is these chat rooms where people are talking about all these cures that mainstream medicine would find rather outlandish. Some of them I'm sure are perfectly legitimate, heartfelt people getting on the Net and sharing their experiences. But what's out there also is ... chat room discussion going on about (miracle cures abroad), and the person (on-line) is happy to share with you the arrangements of how to get there and where to stay and what the doctor's name is and all that. But you never know that in fact this person ... is the one who's running the whole travel operation and ... charging for the tree bark. I think that is incredibly fraudulent. And my suspicion, as yet unproven, is that there's a fair amount of that kind of fraud going on. The way you stop it, or the way you make a dent in it, is you take two or three blockbuster cases and you bust them up. Q: You talked earlier about wanting the industry to develop some self-policing. To what degree do you think we eventually ought to rely on that vs. putting some kinds of regulations in place? A: I think you start with industry self-regulation, backed up by strong law enforcement, so we're going after people who are deceptive or abusive on-line. And my guess is that after two years, you'll have industry back at the table saying, here are the holes, here's where we do need to regulate. We've seen what works, from self-regulation and we now know what doesn't work. So I think in the long run, we will need some regulation, we may need some legislation, it's just too early right now. We're on the front end of this. Q: Are you pleased with the way that industries have self-regulated in the past when it comes to things like fraud or privacy? A: I think that self-regulation works for responsible industry players. When 900-number technology emerged, people thought it was the most fabulous marketing tool since the invention of the telephone. Well, that technology went south in about 20 seconds flat because it got taken over by fraudsters. And it still hasn't rehabilitated itself. People in the Web world see so clearly what happened in the 900-number business that they are anxious to make sure that this medium doesn't get taken over by the bad actors. Q: The Electronic Privacy Information Center -- http://www/epic.org/ -- (a pro-privacy consumer group) has been critical of the FTC, saying you're moving too slowly and have adopted a "see-no-evil, hear-no-evil" approach to on-line privacy. Is that fair criticism? A: I do a lot with (EPIC executive director) Marc (Rotenberg). I think Marc serves an incredibly important function to make us aware of the problem and to keep pushing us to do something about it. I think the "something" is where we differ in degree. I am not ready to concede that the market will fail and that we must regulate out of the box. I think the industry is too embryonic. I think anything we impose at this point could be more cumbersome than helpful, could impede solutions rather than provide them. The government is not extremely well-known for its ability to solve problems in emerging industries. Q: What are the rules now for privacy on the Net? And what do you think they ought to be? A: A consumer currently has rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, they currently have rights for the protection of medical data. There are a couple of statutes that give consumers rights and access to their information. My view is those laws apply in cyberspace as well as anywhere else. But absent those few, narrow statutes governing specific industry sector activity, I don't think consumers have any rights about what information is collected on them and what use it's put to. It just doesn't exist. What we need to do is encourage a regime to develop where it turns on individual consent, where the companies willingly seek affirmatively to attain the consent of individuals to gather and use information about them, and individuals willingly give or withhold consent for their information to be used. Q: There is legislation on the Hill that would ban the (collection and sale) of information collected from children. What do you think of that and should that apply in cyberspace as well? A: I think there is a difference when it comes to kids. I think that there is no such thing as meaningful consent from a 6-year-old. If a reputable company is running a (game) site, and if (a child) can get to the game without going through any survey, if (the survey) is totally voluntary, and if they strip all personally identifiable information and they're truly doing product development, maybe that's OK. But if they're taking information that's personally identifiable, like: "Does your mommy work? Does your daddy work? Where do your brothers and sisters go to school? How often do you go to church?" I mean, they're taking all that kind of information, they're then selling it, target marketing households off that -- that's a problem. That's a serious problem, in my opinion, if they're doing this without parental consent. Q: What do you do yourself with relation to your kids and on-line? A: My kids do not have Internet access at their home computers. They have Internet access on my portable computer and my husband's portable computer. Our boxes at home in the kids' rooms don't have hard drives. So they can't go to the Net unless we're there. But my kids are 6 and 9, and I'm still able to exert a tremendous amount of control over where they go on the Net. Q: What do you worry about with respect to your kids on-line? A: Nothing very much with my 6-year-old. He can get on the Net, and he can fool around, but he cannot read very well. He couldn't get into much trouble. My 9-year-old, he's very sensible, he's just started walking home from school by himself, which is a big privilege, we're building up his responsibility. But kids can get tricked on the Net pretty easily. And I want my kids not to be in places that they don't need to be in. I want to be careful about where they're going and who's tracking them. I'm not worried about pornography. My kids think naked women are disgusting. -------------- FOR ONLINE SERVICES: Visit Mercury Center on America Online (keyword: MERCURY) or Mercury Center Web, the World Wide Web site of the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News. Point your browser to http://www.sjmercury.com ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: Controversy Surrounds Video-Telephone Venture Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 08:11:07 PDT Controversy Surrounds Video-Telephone Venture Home Link Corp. By James McNair, The Miami Herald Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Jun. 17--Marlan "Matt" Matson put one company in bankruptcy in Los Angeles, shut down another under a barrage of complaints and moved to Las Vegas to start a computer gambling venture that went nowhere. Now, he's in Fort Lauderdale, looking for 180 people to fork over $25 million apiece to help him create a nationwide video-telephone network. "We are the new platform in telecommunications and information services, coming available to mass domestic America," Matson crowed. So far, no one has seized the chance to buy into Matson's Home Link Corp., but bargain-hunters are hopping all over the company's stock. What was an 85 cent stock on May 22 soared to $23 on June 6. Not even Netscape, the Internet wonder that went public last year, shot into the stratosphere so fast. If you're looking for the latest quote, forget it. Last week the Securities and Exchange Commission suspended the trading of Home Link shares for 10 days. Why? The SEC said there is a "lack of current and accurate information" put out by Home Link, including the number of shares outstanding, the company's capitalization and its future business prospects. "Any dealer who makes a market in that stock should be on an enhanced watch," said Charles Senatore, the SEC's regional director in Miami. He wouldn't say what else might come of the SEC's attention. Instead of ranting about government interference, Matson, 58, is actually reveling in the publicity generated by the SEC action. One West Palm Beach TV station has already done an on-air piece on Home Link. Matson is clanging the bell for other stations and magazines to drop in and poke around his 20-employee computer center. "You can see we're real," said Matson, who splits his time between Vegas and Lauderdale. "The system's running. The shop is under construction. We're not just off the turnip truck." So what truck did Matson coming riding in on? People at the center of telecommunications industry circles have never heard of him. Newspaper clippings from California and Nevada depict Matson as an entrepreneur at best and, at worst, a scam artist. There's one thing for sure: Matson doesn't stay in one place very long. In and around L.A. during the '70s and '80s, Matson went from selling snacks to providing a nursing employment verification service before entering the computer industry with Unique Integrated Applications. Unique went bankrupt in 1988. Matson blamed it on an embezzling employee, but an investigation by Costa Mesa police and the Drug Enforcement Administration concluded his claims were "all fabrication," according to a 1990 article in Communications Daily. Matson's next -- and most ambitious -- venture in California, though, was Data-Tel Video Text. Data-Tel was to be a worldwide computer network where information would be exchanged between "providers" and subscribers, much like America Online and the Internet do today. To finance its growth, Matson charged six-figure sums for territorial rights. Those "master" dealers then sold rights, for five-figure sums, to markets within the territory. Finally, those licensees put providers on the network for four-figure amounts. Although the system did achieve some degree of content and access, licensees and providers accused Matson of delivering outdated equipment, exaggerating the size and prospects of the subscriber base and committing fraud. Lawsuits and consumer complaints were filed. Kevin Hammond, who owned the Data-Tel rights in San Diego, filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against Data-Tel in 1991. Matson didn't fight the suit. Hammond was awarded $500,000, but never collected a dime. "The company ceased operation when Matson humped out of here for Las Vegas," said Hammond's lawyer, William Bowen. Even former employees said Matson overstated Data-Tel's ability to deliver. "His promises were great, but when it came to materialize, none of them ever came close," Steve Kohlenberger, Data-Tel's program developer, told {The Orange County Business Journal} in 1990. Matson dismissed the Data-Tel affair as "way, way, way, way back." He said Data-Tel closed its doors because of licensees' financial shortcomings and the legal pressures they applied. "The cost of the lawsuits and the problems and the price of maintaining the system evaporated the revenue stream," he said. Matson has managed to keep a lower profile in Las Vegas, but a gambling venture proposed by his Sports Link Inc. -- a system to let people buy lottery tickets across state lines -- did draw a red flag from Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth last year. Butterworth obtained a restraining order. Matson let it die. In his leased office on Cypress Creek Road, Matson places a video telephone call to his office in Las Vegas. He and a woman named Phyllis, whose live image appears on Matson's 17-inch PC screen, engage in a short conversation. "You can do a conference call with seven different family members and you can have a complete family image going," Matson beams. Matson likens his company to MCI, the long-distance carrier, before anyone heard of MCI. He said he is talking to regional telephone companies about modifying their central switches to accommodate Home Link's high-bandwidth video signals. He said he has ordered 10,000 computers from Digital Equipment to rent to subscribers. Ultimately, Matson said, subscribers will be able to place long-distance video calls for 25 cents, regardless of their duration. People who already have a PC will pay $50 a month for the privilege, $125 a month if they rent one of Home Link's DECs. All customers would be able to access -- for a fee -- any of 10 content areas proposed by the company, like job listings and personals. "We're totally up and operational," Matson said. "I would guess we have a dozen subscribers and 3,500 applications or requests to install. The interest has gone up dramatically since the SEC has made the public aware of who we are." Yet people in his own industry remain unaware of Home Link. Jeffrey Kagan, an industry consultant in Atlanta, wonders how Home Link can deliver what most established telephone companies still don't. "It seems like an awfully tall order for a company that size," Kagan said. "Even the big guys take shots in the dark and miss, but it looks like someone's trying to take advantage of the hype and the opportunities in the marketplace." Mark Rockwell, who writes about wide-area networks for Communications Week, also expressed skepticism. "This sounds very similar to what happened after the FCC opened up the pay-telephone market: A lot of entrepreneurs getting into it without a lot of capital and making a big splash." --------------- ON THE INTERNET: Visit Herald Link, the World Wide Web site of The Miami Herald. Point your browser to http://www.herald.com ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: Pacific Bell Delays Caller ID Launch Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 16:57:21 PDT Forwarded to the Digest, FYI: Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 08:16:55 -0700 Reply-To: NEWS-LIST@list.pactel.com From: sqlgate@list.pactel.com Subject: NEWS: Pacific Bell Delays Caller ID Launch FOR MORE INFORMATION: Rebecca Perata 415 394-3701 Pacific Bell Delays Caller ID Launch SAN FRANCISCO -- Pacific Bell is delaying launch of its Caller ID service, which had been scheduled for Saturday, June 15. The company has discovered internal problems with the process used to take blocking orders and said it will not launch the service until the problems are fixed. "We do not intend to launch Caller ID service until we are certain our customers' blocking requests have been correctly registered," said Mark Pitchford, vice president - consumer marketing. "We have received calls from customers who are concerned, and that concerns us. Our customers come first." "Pacific Bell is working to determine the cause and extent of the problem and is committed to a solution," said Pitchford. Caller ID enables people to see the number of the person calling before they answer the phone. In California, phone customers are able to chose between two blocking options - Complete Blocking and Selective Blocking. Complete Blocking -- Automatically blocks a caller's number from being passed on all calls except those to 800, 888 and 900 numbers. A caller with Complete Blocking can dial *82 (1182 on rotary phones) before placing the call, to deliver the number on that specific call. Selective Blocking -- The caller's number is passed on all calls, unless the caller dials *67 (1167 on rotary phones) to block their number from being delivered on that specific call. Since some California local telephone companies will be offering Caller ID service before Pacific Bell, Pacific Bell customers who do not want their numbers passed on calls to those areas should dial *67, unless they have verification from Pacific Bell that they have Complete Blocking. Customers who selected Complete Blocking and are concerned whether Pacific Bell has registered their designation, should call: 1 800 386-0000 Pre-recorded message that will confirm if Complete Blocking has been assigned to the telephone number the person is calling from. 1 800 298-5000 24-hour live operator to take requests for Complete Blocking (Customers who prefer Selective Blocking need not call since Selective Blocking is the automatic blocking option given to those who have not actively made a selection.) Pacific Bell is a subsidiary of Pacific Telesis Group, a diversified telecommunications corporation based in San Francisco. ------------------ Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: Ian Leonard Subject: Modem For Use in Greenland Organization: EON Software, Oxford, UK Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 07:33:45 GMT Greetings, I am looking for a modem suitable for use in Greenland. I understand that this is the same spec as in Greenland and is V27. The real problem is that it must go in a rack (it cannot be a PC internal) and there is only 48 volts available. Recommendations appreciated. Ian Leonard eMail: ian@eonsw.demon.co.uk EON Software Phone and Fax: +44 (0)1865 741452 ------------------------------ From: Scott De Toffol Subject: LATA Sorting Application Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 10:07:04 -0500 Organization: Comdisco Network Services I'm looking for an applic ation to sort sites by LATA using NPA/NXX, Zips or other. I'm also looking for any other telecom (data) applications to help sort and map frame relay/private line/ISDN based WANs. Any response is appreciated. You can reply to this posting or email me at detoffols@comdisconet.com. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 10:33:54 -0700 From: vantek@northcoast.com (VANTEK COMMUNICATIONS) Subject: New GTE Long Distance Rates Dallas, TX, June 14, 1996 (DLD DIGEST) -- According to recent news reports, and confirmed by customer service representatives at GTE, the company is now offering a 50% discount off their base rates to new GTE long distance customers for the first six months. But 50% off of WHAT, you might ask? GTE's tariffed rates in most states (they serve) are currently $.20 per minute for primetime calls, and $.10 per minute for calls placed between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. local time (interstate). With a 50% discount, this would bring a GTE long distance customer's effective rate down to $.10 per minute peak, and $.05 per minute off- peak on all interstate calls. This would be the lowest rate for residential service of any major telecommunications carrier. The 50% discount will apply to customers spending more than $25 each month on their long distance usage. Lower volume users receive a lesser discount, but will not pay more than the standard tariffed rates mentioned above. Billing is likely in full-minute increments. After the introductory six month discount period, GTE Long Distance customers will receive 25% off of their standard rates if their usage is $25 or greater, and 10% off if their usage is $10 or greater. There are no monthly minimums, and no monthly service charges were mentioned. The offer is only available where GTE is currently tariffed to sell long distance. These states currently include Florida, Texas and Virginia. Other states are being added this month. GTE is a local exchange carrier that operates in over 20 U.S. states. Long distance services for GTE are actually provided by the LDDS/WorldCom long distance network, which recently signed a multi-million dollar resale deal with GTE. For more info on GTE long distance services you may contact them at 1-800-PICK-GTE. Van Hefner - Editor Discount Long Distance Digest On The Web: http://www.webcom.com/longdist/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 14:11:37 EDT From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Subject: Ameritech Restarts 'Callpack' Plans After a hiatus of several years in which Illinois Bell/Ameritech offered no type of calling plan other than 'pay as you use it', last week they announced a new group of calling plans which allow calls of unlimited length over their entire LATA for a single monthly rate. Years ago and up until the middle 1980's we could 'pay as we used it' but there were also 'call-pack' plans which allowed for the pre-purchase of a given number of 'units' each month at a discounted rate. These could be used for calling all over northern Illinois. There were also three unlimited call-pack plans at fixed monthly rates. One was for an 'inner-met' area, one was for 'outer-met' and a third was for extended service anywhere Illinois Bell went at a flat monthly rate. One day it all disappeared and Illinois Bell said it was due to the need to get ready for competition ... way back in the middle 1980's, about the time of divestiture. Now all of a sudden out of the blue, this past week the call packs are back, but in a new and improved format. This appears to be Illinois Bell/Ameritech's response to AT&T's plan for 'local-toll' service; that is, calls more than fifteen miles away but still within the LATA. Under the old plan where we were charged 'units' for calls at various prices depending on how many units we agreed to purchase in advance, the new plan only deals with entire calls. This new plan only applies to residence customers as well, so business customers are not able to use it. Without purchasing one of the new callpack plans from Ameritech, resi- dential customers get billed like this: Calls within 8 miles (A Band) are five cents or less each, and are untimed. In quantity the cost goes down to 3.5 cents each. There are also discounts based on time of day/day of week. Calls 8-15 miles away (B Band), calls 15-22 miles away (C Band) and calls more than 22 miles away (D Band) are billed at a certain price per minute. Discounts based on volume, time of day and day of week still apply. Under the new callpack plans starting this month, which are optional and set up with no charge, residential subscribers can have the following: 100 calls to anywhere in the northern Illinois LATA, of any length of time, $10 per month. 250 calls to anywhere in the LATA of any length of time, $20 per month. 400 calls to anywhere in the LATA of any length of time, $30 per month. Calls may not be spread over various lines on the same billing account. You need a callpack plan on each line on which you wish to use it. Any lines in your home not under a callpack plan will continue to be billed by the ABCD band arrangement. Whether or not you wish to use the new plan or the old and on which lines you wish to install it will depend on your ratio of A Band (untimed) calls to BCD Band (timed by minute) calls. On my modem line for example, I have less than a hundred calls per month but usually thousands of minutes, all to A points. The total cost is a few dollars. On my other line, I have ten to fifteen dollars in calls to more distant points billed by the minute, but typically fewer than a hundred such calls per month. Any lines which are put on the new callpack plan which have calls in excess of the number pre-purchased then pay ten cents *per call regardless of length* on the excess over the number purchased. There is no reversion back to ABCD on the excess calls. Obviously if your calls are all or mostly A points then this plan is not a good one, however if you tend to make few calls to distant (but still within LATA) points and talk a long time on each, then the plan is very good. Readers served by Ameritech in northern Illinois may wish to inquire about this new callpack plan. Telco will do a free analysis of your usage ov er the past three months to help detirmine which of the available volume purchase arrangements would suit you best, and which of your lines -- if you have more than one in your home -- should be equipped and which should not. AT&T's plan to 'compete' with Ameritech for 'local-toll' in the LATA apparently is to continue charging by the minute and although under some circumstances their per-minute rate is less than Ameritech's on CD band calls (other times, the Ameritech discounts kick in and make Ameritech a little cheaper) it would appear they are going to come nowhere close to the pricing Ameritech is giving on the new callpack arrangment provided overall the subscriber makes enough BCD Band calls to warrant paying $10-30 per month for up to 400 such calls of unlimited length. PAT ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #290 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jun 18 18:39:51 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id SAA01110; Tue, 18 Jun 1996 18:39:51 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 18:39:51 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606182239.SAA01110@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #291 TELECOM Digest Tue, 18 Jun 96 18:39:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 291 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Wireless Word 6/17/96 (Tara Tai Pierson-Dunning) Book Review: "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Electronic Highway" (Rob Slade) Technology Takes Writer Walter Mosley On Virtual Book Tour (Mike King) Buyer's Guide to Frame Relay Services (Adam Gaffin) Norstar System Available (Rich Tatum) Norstar For Sale (Michael Muderick) 911 Call From my Phone Number (Ed Kleinhample) CDPD in Scottsdale, AZ (Blair Shellenberg) Free Callback Software (Al Niven) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 16:45:42 -0400 From: taratai@knight-hub.com (Tara Tai Pierson-Dunning) Subject: Wireless Word 6/17/96 NOTE TO TELECOM DIGEST READERS: Following is the 6/17/96 release of the Wireless Word, the free e-zine published by Advanced Radio Telecom, also available at the ART web site . Please remember that, despite its name, the Wireless Word does not cover developments affecting mobile services such as cellular, specialized mobile radio, personal communications or paging services. The Wireless Word is limited to fixed local distribution services. We encourage you to contact ART with your comments, constructive criticisms as well as requests for further information. If there is something we have failed to address or characterized in a way with which you disagree, we want to know. You may email us at , or call our Seattle headquarters at 206-688-8700 or our Eastern region headquarters in Washington, DC at 202-466-5ART. We hope you find the Wireless Word informative. If you would like to subscribe to the Wireless Word, please do so by requesting "subscribe " to . Thank you. *********************************************************************** WIRELESS WORD 6/17/96 EDITION. Copywright Advanced Radio Telecom, 1996. Previous installments of the Wireless Word focused on key sections of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (the Act), and how the law's changes would affect the provision of wireless telecommunications services and competition within local exchange markets. We will now shift the column's perspective to examine the efforts made by state utility commissions nationwide to revise their regulations to foster greater competition in local exchange markets. This edition of the Wireless Word will focus on the body of regulations issued by the Colorado Public Utility Commission (CPUC or Commission) that strive to achieve the above-mentioned goal. Specifically, it will look at changes in interconnection and unbundling, local service resale, number portability, and the collection and disclosure of personal information obtained by public utilities. The Colorado Public Utility Commission recently became the first state utility agency to adopt an extensive set of regulations that incorporate elements of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Deriving authority from the Colorado state legislature's House Bill 1335, the Commission's responsibility was: (1) to establish standards for basic telephone service; (2) to establish mechanisms to advance the goal of universal service (the provision of basic telephone service to all at just and reasonable rates); (3) to consider the necessity for specific mechanisms related to universal access to advanced telecommunications services; and, (4) to resolve other issues related to the implementation of competition in Colorado's local exchange market. To accomplish its task, the Commission established several working groups in the Fall of 1995 to preside over the revision of the new laws, which are now being finalized. PRIVACY RULES: Docket number 95R-610, adopted on March 29, 1996, is referred to as the Collection and Disclosure of Personal Information Obtained by Public Utilities, or the "Privacy Rules." The docket addresses issues concerning the disclosure of information related to per line and per call blocking. These services enable a customer to control the disclosure of his or her name and telephone number to a subscriber of Caller Identification by temporarily changing the public or private status indicator of the telephone number. Per line and per call blocking must be offered free of charge for the first request of each customer, while domestic violence programs and law enforcement agencies shall be offered per line blocking at no charge. In offering per line and per call blocking services, the CPUC listed Caller Identification, last call return, call trace, and Automatic Number Identification (ANI) as standard services that must be provided by local exchange service providers. Local telecommunications service providers are required to educate their customers on privacy issues, the functions of those services and their importance to the customer. Moreover, services will be offered at no charge to the calling party. Tariffs must be filed with the CPUC for it to verify that all telephone service providers comply with the above-noted rules. NUMBER PORTABILITY: The CPUC's goal with regard to number portability, as addressed in Docket 95R-554T, was to establish cost-effective number portability and a level playing field for its application. The CPUC recognized the unwillingness of end-users to switch telephone service providers, even if the changes would result in better services and lower prices, once the end users learn that their original telephone numbers would not be retained in the change. This possibility threatens the intent of the new laws whose purpose it is to foster a competitive local exchange telecommunications market. The lack of effective technology to implement number portability limits its application. Nonetheless, the new regulation mandates the future development of a network database to accomplish the goal of this service. Until such a system is established, however, local exchange providers must file tariffs with the Commission that provide for interim local portability through the use of Remote Call Forwarding (RCF) and/or Direct Inward Dialing (DID). Once the database becomes operable, the Commission plans to designate a neutral third party to administer telephone numbering plans and their assignment, and the architecture of the database. Due to the lack of a number portability administrator, as well as a database, the new law purposely does not establish a system for recovering costs from local telecommunication service providers for the CPUC sponsored services. Lastly, the Commission established regulations which state that local exchange providers may not directly charge each other for changes to switch routing software required by the creation, assignment, or reassignment of central office NX codes. COLORADO HIGH COST FUND: According to House Bill 1335 and Docket 95R-558T, a universal service fund similar in function to the one established by the Act, will be established under the name Colorado High Cost Fund (CHCF, or the Fund). The CHCF is charged with ensuring that basic local exchange services be made available and affordable throughout the State. The Fund shall be equitable, competitively neutral and non-discriminating in its funding, distribution and administration. Providers will be reimbursed for reasonable costs incurred in providing basic telecommunications services to customers within a rural or high-cost geographic support area. Telecommunications service providers will subsidize the CHCF through an assessment fee equal to an undecided percentage of the total CHCF. This amount will be equal to the providers' percentage of total intrastate retail revenue, which is based on an audited accounting of the retail revenues from the previous calendar year. The CHCF will be administered either by the CPUC or some other designee. The CHCF's administrator will determine through a proxy cost model which geographic areas will be serviced by the Fund. This proxy cost model may be updated to alter the number and location of areas to be serviced, as necessary. Similarly, specific services and features supported by the Fund will be updated to account for advances in telecommunications, technology, and services. Eligible providers will receive monthly support from the CHCF based on an equation derived from the number of access lines that a provider services in high cost geographic support areas, multiplied by the difference between the per line proxy cost and the price received for providing basic local exchange service. However, the Commission reserves the right to determine whether a separate benchmark price should be substituted. In the spirit of universal service, eligible providers are prohibited from gaining a competitive advantage from the support obtained from the Fund. A provider may not receive support from the CHCF for serving customers through resale services; rather, only facilities-based providers are eligible to receive financial support from the Fund. In order to foster competition for the provision of CHCF services, Fund-provided financial support will be portable between any provider chosen by the end-user. INTERCONNECTION: The Rules on Interconnection and Unbundling, contained in Docket 95R-556T, demonstrate the CPUC's intent to coordinate its policies with those in the Act, specifically Section 251. Decision No. C96-448 mandates that all telecommunications providers provide: interconnection with the facilities and equipment of any requesting telecommunications provider; interconnection at any technically viable point in a provider's network; and, services that are at least equal in quality to those furnished by the provider. The CPUC also requires physical collocation in all possible cases, and virtual collocation whenever the former is not feasible. Interconnection shall be provided at "just, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory" rates, terms, and conditions, in accord with the prices established by the provider's contract, tariff or arbitration. A local service provider that terminates a call originating in another network exchange is permitted to charge the originating provider a termination fee. Moreover, the rules allow both parties to establish mutual bill and keep agreements. Like the Act, the CPUC's regulations state that all telecommunications providers shall provide access to poles, ducts, conduits and rights-of-way when feasible and deemed necessary for another provider to offer its services. The CPUC will evaluate situations where a provider refuses to provide such access, and will issue a determination taking into account issues of valuation, space and capacity constraints, and compensation of access. Other interconnection agreements between service providers deal with: (1) the protection of each others' Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI); (2) implementing repair service referrals; (3) operational support so that a provider's services are equal to those of the interconnector; (4) signaling protocols used to route local and interexchange traffic; and, (5) interoperability of non-optional operator services between networks. Each telecommunications service provider certified prior to February 8, 1996 (the date the Act was signed) must provide the necessary information for the publishing of a "White Pages" telephone directory. Moreover, each "White Pages" provider shall furnish space in the directory to competitors so that end-users may contact them for services and repairs. UNBUNDLING: An incumbent telecommunications provider must provide essential facilities or functions on an unbundled basis, so that the requesting party may combine them to furnish its own services. The CPUC believes that loop, local switching, common transport links, dedicated transport links, local and toll tandem switching, operator systems, signaling links, signal transfer points, and access to service control points via signal transfer points are all essential. However, an incumbent telecommunications provider is not required to unbundle an element that it does not offer to its customers as part of a bundled service, nor is it required to offer a particular element through its purchase and resale from another provider. The CPUC, in an effort to maintain vigilance and control over the deregulation of its local telecommunications industry, requires both incumbent and recently certified telecommunications providers to file tariffs with the Commission listing the prices for all of the above-listed services. The Commission will review tariffs on a case-by-case basis for the following characteristics: cost; just and reasonable prices that include a reasonable profit; nondiscriminatory and competitively neutral services. RESALE: The CPUC's decision in Docket 95R-557T is geared toward fostering a competitive, open market for resold services. Resale, like interconnection and unbundling, is directly influenced by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In this case, however, the CPUC decision actually quotes the federal law; specifically, Section 251 (b) (1), which prohibits all LECs from placing discriminatory conditions on resale services, and Section 251 (d) (3), which permits state commissions to enforce regulations, orders, or policies including the resale of local exchange carriers' services. A facilities-based telecommunications provider (FBTP) is not required by the CPUC to modify its Commission-established calling areas to accommodate a reseller. But a FBTP must provide, through a contract or a Commission-approved tariff, the operational support required for the reseller to provide the same quality of services as the FBTP. In this manner, the reseller is considered a customer of a FBTP, and as such may be required to provide a deposit for the services acquired. Consistent with the Act's prohibition of RBOCs joint marketing of local and interexchange services for three years after the law's signing, the CPUC prohibits telecommunications providers that serve more than 5% of the nation's presubscribed access lines, from jointly marketing their services until either US WEST is authorized to provide interLATA services in Colorado, or February 8, 1999, whichever comes first. Nothing in the CPUC regulations prevents two parties from reaching a negotiated, mediated or arbitrated agreement, provided that such service is consistent with the rates, terms, and conditions, of the providing-party's effective tariff. CONCLUSION: Four months after the signing of the Act, we are beginning to see how states will comply with the federal law. In the case of Texas, a contest of wills continues between potential out-of region competitors and the State Utility Commission. In Colorado, the regulations established by the Colorado Public Utility Commission stand out as the first post-Act regulatory regime that establishes a competitive local exchange. Regulations regarding customers' proprietary information are intended to protect end-users from misuse of such information by public utilities, and also to provide end-users with the capacity to utilize services such as ANI, Caller ID, last call return and trace. This step demonstrates the CPUC's efforts to shield its constituents from being subjected to wrongful business practices, and situations where they may be targeted by malicious persons and entities, as in the case of domestic violence. The CPUC demonstrates its compliance with the Act by establishing the Colorado High Cost Fund, a universal service fund whose mission is to ensure that basic telephone service is provided to all at just and reasonable rates. The CHCF will provide financial reimbursement to telephone service providers serving high-cost geographic areas. The process of implementing the CHCF will be arduous as so many diverse interest groups will be affected by its presence. While the Fund proposes competition in high-cost areas, there is little proof that such an atmosphere will attract service providers. The development of cost-effective and efficient number portability via a central, network database is a long-term project. In the interim, the CPUC has established mechanisms for the portability to become a reality. Unfortunately for consumers and competition, RCF and DID do not compare with the promise of a technologically advanced computer database. The CPUC's rules on interconnection, unbundling and resale demonstrate the importance of the Act in developing effective local competition. In order for Colorado to foster a competitive local exchange, all three elements must work in tandem. All service providers must provide interconnection so that competitors may fully develop their capacity to provide competitive services. Upon interconnection, a competitor must have access to unbundled elements that can be combined, marketed and provided to the public. Finally, given the high costs involved in rolling out physical infrastructure necessary to become a CAP or CLEC, many entrants into Colorado's exchange market will choose to become either facilities-based or switchless resellers. For this to occur, resellers must be provided with the same quality of services as the underlying carrier provides its end-users. ************************************************* Tara Tai Pierson-Dunning New Vision Marketing Communications Voice: 202-686-5968 Fax: 202-237-8599 Email: taratai@knight-hub.com or taratai@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 15:22:19 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Electronic Highway" BKHHGTEH.RVW 960501 "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Electronic Highway", Pamela Kane, 1994, 1-55828-352-8, U$21.95/C$28.95 %A Pamela Kane rkxv82a@prodigy.com panda81898@aol.com author@well.sf.ca.us %A pskane@dockmaster.ncsc.mil 74010.1312@compuserve.com lingling@delphi.com %A p.kane2@genie.geis.com 3607284@mcimail.com panda@ssenet.com %C 115 West 18th Street, New York, NY 10011-4195 %D 1994 %G 1-55828-352-8 %I MIS Press %O U$21.95/C$28.95 +1-212-886-9378 fax: +1-212-633-0748, +1-212-807-6654 %O 76712.2644@compuserve.com http://www.mispress.com fburke@fsb.superlink.net %P 366 %T "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Electronic Highway" Nope, not the Internet (at least, not *much* Internet), but an overview of the major commercial online services. There are relatively few books done in a similar vein, but most of those are either ads for the services or extremely limited bit of documentation. ("In order to send mail, select "Mail" from the menu!") Kane's book takes a broader look at the available services. Her instructions for use are much more helpful, and the comparative format is much more effective in providing a clear understanding of the options. The reader has a much better idea of the functionality of different systems. The book is starting to show some signs of dating, particularly with the recent drive, by *all* online services, to Internet access and the use of Internet tools to access "subscriber only" information and services. Still the job is well done, so there are a few signs of life yet. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKHHGTEH.RVW 960501. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters roberts@decus.ca slade@freenet.victoria.bc.ca Rob_Slade@mindlink.bc.ca Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER) ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: Technology Takes Writer Walter Mosley On Virtual Book Tour Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 16:58:25 PDT Forwareded to the Digest FYI: Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 08:33:49 -0700 Reply-To: NEWS-LIST@list.pactel.com From: sqlgate@list.pactel.com To: NEWS-LIST@list.pactel.com Subject: NEWS: Technology Takes Writer Walter Mosley On Virtual Book Tour FOR MORE INFORMATION: Rebecca Weill (415) 542-4640 Technology Takes Writer Walter Mosley On Virtual Book Tour Author of Devil in a Blue Dress to Use Videoconferencing in Libraries to Promote New Book [Note to Editors: Mosley will be available via videoconferencing for interviews by local media in Sacramento and Compton/Long Beach from 6:30 - 7:15 p.m. June 19.] PASADENA, Calif. -- Authors with new books to promote could soon be touring the nation via the information superhighway if a videoconference scheduled for June 19 is successful in luring book fans. The event, the first of its kind, will originate from the Pasadena Public Library from 7:30-9 p.m. Walter Mosley, an acclaimed African American mystery writer, will read selections from his new novel, A Little Yellow Dog , and answer questions from the audience. The presentation will be videocast live to the Sacramento Public Library, the Malcolm X Public Library in San Diego, and the Blue Line TeleVillage in Compton, a public telecommunications center open to members of the community. Through the interactive videoconferencing connection, the attendees at the remote sites will share the same experience with Mosley as the audience in Pasadena. They'll see and hear the author's presentation and engage in the question-and-answer session. There also will be autographed copies of Mosley's books at the remote sites for sale. The event is a cooperative venture among the participating viewing sites, local book retailers, and Pacific Bell, which has equipped the libraries and the TeleVillage with high-speed telecommunications lines as part of its Education First initiative. Mosley, who is currently on a national tour, is the first author to add sites to a promotional itinerary through the use of videoconferencing. He has written four popular mystery novels starring the character Easy Rawlins, the first of which, Devil in a Blue Dress , was made into a Tri-Star film with Denzel Washington and Jennifer Beals in 1995. His latest novel, published by W.W. Norton & Co., brings back his street-smart hero to solve a mystery set in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1963. Mosley is past president of the Mystery Writers of America and a member of the executive board of the National Book Awards. A native of Los Angeles, Mosley now lives in New York City. Traditionally, publishers send authors on national tours to drum up sales for new books, just like a musical group that goes on tour to support a new album. Along the way, authors incur hefty travel expenses for airfare, meals, and transportation, not to mention the disruption of their work schedules. "Videoconferencing gives book publishers, book sellers and the authors themselves a much more efficient way to do book tours," said Dan Theobald, Community Applications Manager, Pacific Bell. "By using technology, publishers can eliminate the travel expenses associated with a tour. Authors also can visit more cities, 'meet' more people, and sell more books." Videoconferencing not only could open up vast new audiences for authors who find it too costly to travel to more than a handful of major cities, but also might appeal to reclusive writers, those who dislike travel, or controversial figures like Salman Rushdie, whose The Satanic Verses caused Islamic religious leaders to issue him a death sentence and forced him into hiding. Eventually book tours may become obsolete. An author might simply go to a local videoconference site and do the entire tour via telecommunications, using multipoint bridging technology such as Pacific Bell Group Video to connect with up to 30 sites at one time. If this application of videoconferencing is successful, publishers and book sellers could collaborate with libraries to develop videoconferencing sites where video author tours and other public programs could take place. Ultimately, it might prove cost-effective for the book industry to help fund the placement of videoconferencing equipment in libraries by contributing to the capital expense of the equipment or by paying a rental fee for use of the library facilities. All four viewing sites for the June 19 event are participants in Pacific Bell's Education First program, a $100-million program to help provide every school and library in California with a digital on-ramp to the information superhighway by 2000. The program offers free installation and one year of free service of Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) for Internet access and videoconferencing, along with technology workshops for teachers and librarians, assistance with applications development and discounts on equipment. To date, Education First has wired more than 1,200 schools and libraries with high-speed digital lines. That number will reach 3,000 by the end of 1996. Pacific Bell is a subsidiary of Pacific Telesis Group, a diversified communications company based in San Francisco. -------------------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: agaffin@nww.com (Adam Gaffin) Subject: Buyer's Guide to Frame Relay Services Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 21:21:19 GMT Organization: Network World Fusion {Network World} this week has a buyer's guide to frame relay services. Our experts, Liza Henderson and Tom Jenkins of TeleChoice, take an in-depth look at everything from what the different carriers offer to what to ask for. You can get their complete article, along with downloadable charts comparing the offerings, on Network World Fusion (http://www.nwfusion.com). From the main menu, select NetRef, Buyer's Guides and Reviews then Frame Relay Services. If you haven't used the site before, you'll have to register first, but it's free. Adam Gaffin Online Editor, Network World agaffin@nww.com / (508) 820-7433 "So, in 1996, CD-ROMs through Federal Express will emerge as the information superhighway." - Bob Metcalfe ------------------------------ From: rtatum@psyber.com (Rich Tatum) Subject: Norstar System Available Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 21:58:24 GMT Organization: Miller-SQA Inc My company just closed a small off campus office and has decided that the phone system is no longer needed. I am not the phone guy (but I have the Net account), so please excuse any misused terms. The system includes the following: Qty Model Description 1 NT7B53FA9 Modular ICS KSU /power supply 1 NTB83AA93 Modular ICS Ris 1/T1 Software 1 006-193 Line Conditioner 1 NT8B80AB Remote Access Device 1 NT8B60CA Station Aux Power Supply 1 NT8B56AA Power Bar 1 NT8B14AB0 M7100 1-Button Basic Phone (blk) 10 NT8B30AD0 M7208 8-Button Speakerphone w/ 1 Line Display 4 NT8B20AE0 M7310 10-Button Speakerphone w/2 Line Display 1 NT8B40AB0 M7324 24-Button Speakerphone 2/2 Line Display 1 NT8B41FA0 Key Lamp Module for M7324 Reception Phone 9 NT7B75GA9 LS/DS Analog Trunk Cartridge 1 NTBB06GA9 Modular ICS 6-port Fiber Expansion Cartridge 1 NTBB20FB9 Modular ICS Fiber Trunk Module 1 NT8B70DN StarTalk Model "B" Voicemail System 1 006-172 ONEAC Line Conditioner for Voicemail 1 CT-PR200 Prelude ACD for Norstar 1 Norlink The system was purchased new early 1995 and is located in the Sacramento Ca area. We would prefer to sell as a unit. For more information reply by e-mail to the address below. Thanks, Rich Tatum rtatum@psyber.com Miller-SQA Inc 333 Sunset Blvd Rocklin Ca 95765 ------------------------------ From: am004d@netaxs.com (Michael Muderick) Subject: Norstar For Sale Date: 18 Jun 1996 13:32:54 GMT Organization: Philadelphia's Complete Internet Provider 8-7208's 1-7310 Best offer over $800. Respond via e-mail or 610-449-6970-late nite. Thanks. ------------------------------ From: edhample@sprynet.com Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 11:49:26 -0700 Subject: 911 Call From my Phone Number Tuesday afternoon when I returned to my home from work, my voice mail contained a number of 'blank' messages (10 seconds of silence) all about 5 minutes apart, followed by a message from the Pasco County 911 operator stating that they had received a call from *my* telephone number. He continued to state that the call was completely silent, and that if no one picked up the phone, he would be forced to dispatch a Sheriff to investigate. My neighbor confirmed that a Sheriff's deputy had been wandering around the house looking around, and knocked on her door to inquire if anyone was home at my house during the day. I called the Sheriff's Office, and the 911 office's non-emergency number (I was surprised that they have one) to collect more information about this, and was only able to confirm the time against the time stamp on my voice mail. The point is: No one was at my house during the day on tuesday to have made the call. Can anyone shed some light on what may have happened? Both and 911 operator and the GTE customer service would love to place the blame on my cordless phone (a Tropez 900DL), but I am skeptical of this -- the phone is several years old, and has never given any trouble in the past. Ed Kleinhample Consultant - Land O' Lakes, FL. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think I will place the blame on your cordless phone also, and suggest that you get rid of it or at the very least see about new batteries and an overhaul for it. We had something on this once before, a few years ago. It seems the cordless phone was malfunctioning; its batteries were bad or the phone was off frequency and responding to spurious radio signals in the area or something like that and as a result the base unit was from time to time going off hook and 'dialing' things. Sometimes it would just go off hook and flash a few seconds and hang back up, etc. I seem to remember having a cordless phone like this myself back about 1969-70 when cordless phones were still a new deal and the phone itself looked like a 500 type set except for the big antenna sticking out of the back of it. One day the thing got in really miserable condition (I think some fool had opened it up and had been screwing [around/with/on] some of the trim-pots in the phone itself trying to increase the range. You know how *some people* are when they get thier hands on a screwdriver!). I refuse to say who that fool was because my foolish answer may tend to incriminate me. :) Anyway, for a couple hours my phone was off- hook unbenownst to me because the base unit kept going off hook when the phone would tell it to. The guy down the street would key up his CB radio and drive the cordless phone into conniptions with the base relay chattering constantly. I am sure now-days that sort of problem could result in 'dialing' 9-1-1. Then one time, did not we have an article here about someone who came home to find that water had dripped on the base unit and caused it to start making random calls? Personally Ed, yeah I would say look long and hard at that old cordless phone as the culprit. PAT] ------------------------------ From: blair@instep.bc.ca Subject: CDPD in Scottsdale, AZ Reply-To: blair@instep.bc.ca Organization: InStep Mobile Communications Inc. Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 18:44:33 GMT Hi there, I previously saw that there was coverage in Scottsdale, AZ. Can anyone tell me who the service provider is? Sincerely, InStep Mobile Communications Inc. Blair Shellenberg ------------------------------ From: Al Niven Subject: Free Callback Software Date: 18 Jun 1996 17:41:34 GMT Organization: Video, Voice, and Data, Inc. We will provide software for TRANSPARENT CALLBACK and DEBIT CARD FREE if you provide the hardware for the node. The hardware must be equipped to support our other IVR program and there is a nominal cost for this other software. We don't care which callback provider you use as long as we are cut in for a piece; likewise we have one or two providers we can recommend. Al Niven Video, Voice, and Data, Inc. 292 Fifth Avenue, #201 NY NY 10001 212-714-3531 voice 212-714-3510 fax ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #291 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jun 18 19:11:04 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id TAA04443; Tue, 18 Jun 1996 19:11:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 19:11:04 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606182311.TAA04443@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #292 TELECOM Digest Tue, 18 Jun 96 17:11:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 292 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Call For Participation: Smart Card Conference CARDIS 1996 (Pieter Hartel) Pacific Bell Internet, LA Times Offer Customized Internet (Mike King) Summary of New Telco Video Rules (d3smith@aol.com) AT&T Callback Service in Europe (Earle Robinson) Telecom Archives CD-ROM Ordering Details (TELECOM Digest Editor) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: pieter@fwi.uva.nl (Pieter Hartel) Subject: Call For Participation: Smart Card Conference CARDIS 1996 Date: 18 Jun 1996 11:44:25 +0200 Organization: FWI, University of Amsterdam Preliminary Call for Participation: SECOND SMART CARD RESEARCH AND ADVANCED APPLICATION CONFERENCE SEPTEMBER 18-20, 1996 CWI, AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS Aims and Goals Smart cards, or IC cards, offer a huge potential for information processing purposes. The portability and processing power of IC cards allow for highly secure conditional access and reliable distributed information systems. There are IC cards available that can perform highly sophisticated cryptographic computations. The applicability of IC cards is currently limited mainly by our imagination; the information processing power that can be gained by using IC cards remains as yet mostly untapped and is not well understood. Here lies a vast uncovered research area which we are only beginning to assess, and which will have a great impact on the eventual success of the technology. The research challenges range from electrical engineering on the hardware side to tailor-made cryptographic applications on the software side, and their synergies. Many currently existing events are mainly devoted to commercial and application aspects of IC cards. In contrast, the CARDIS conferences aim to bring together researchers who are active in all aspects of the design of IC cards and related devices and environments, such as to stimulate synergy between different research communities and to offer a platform for presenting the latest research advances. CARDIS 1994, sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and held in November 1994 in Lille, France, successfully brought together representatives from leading IC research centers from all over the world. CARDIS 1996 will be the second occasion for the IC card community in this permanent activity. CARDIS 1996 will be organized jointly by the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science at Amsterdam (CWI) and the Department of Logic and Computer Science of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). The conference is being organised in cooperation with the IFIP Special Group 16, the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) and the Association Francaise des Sciences et Technologies de l'Information et des Systemes (AFCET). Organization General Chair o Pieter Hartel (Southampton, UK and Amsterdam, The Netherlands) Program Chair o Pierre Paradinas (Rd2p/Gemplus, France) o Jean-Jacques Quisquater (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) Program Committee o Stefan Brands (CWI, Amsterdam) o Andre Gamache (Quebec, Canada) o Louis Guillou (CCETT, France) o Josep Domingo-Ferrer (Univ. Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain) o Pieter Hartel (Southampton, UK and Amsterdam, The Netherlands) o Hans-Joachim Knobloch (Karlsruhe, Germany) o Pierre Paradinas (Rd2p/Gemplus, France) o Reinhard Posch (Graz, Austria) o Jean-Jacques Quisquater (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) o Matt Robshaw (RSA Laboratories, USA) o Bruno Struif (GMD, Germany) o Doug Tygar (Carnegie-Mellon, USA) Steering Committee Chair o Vincent Cordonnier (Rd2p, Lille, France) Local Organization o Pieter Hartel (Southampton, UK and Amsterdam, The Netherlands) o Stefan Brands (CWI, The Netherlands) o Eduard de Jong (QC Technology, The Netherlands) Programme Wednesday September 18, 1996, CWI Z011 12:30-13:30 Lunch and registration 13:30-13:45 Introduction to CARDIS 1996 Pieter Hartel, Jean-Jacques Quisquater 13:45-15:15 Session 1: Authentication -- On the Design of a Stream Cipher and a Hash Function Suitable to Smart Card Applications, Yongdae Kim, Sangjin Lee, Choonsik Park, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Taejon, Korea -- Authenticating Outputs of Computer Software Using a Cryptographic Coprocessor, Bruce Schneier, John Kelsey, Counterpane Systems, Minneapolis, USA -- Biometrics on Smartcards: An Approach to Keyboard Behavioral Signature, Thomas J. Alexandre Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, USA 15:15-15:45 Coffee 15:45-16:30 Session 2: Invited speaker To be announced 16:30-17:30 Session 3: Panel Electronic commerce, panelists to be announced 17:30-19:00 Borrel Thursday September 19, 1996, CWI Z011 08:45-09:15 Coffee 09:15-10:45 Session 3: Architecture -- Arithmetic co-processors for public-key cryptography: The state of the art, David Naccache, David M'Raihi, Gemplus PSI, Sarcelles, France -- FAME: A 3rd Generation Coprocessor for Optimising Public Key Cryptosystems in Smart Card Applications, Ronald Ferreira, Ralf Malzahn, Peter Marissen, Jean Jacques Quisquater, Thomas Wille, Philips Smart Cards and Systems, Paris, France; Philips Semiconductors, Hamburg, Germany; Math RiZK, Rhode-Saint-Genese, Belgium -- Efficient Compression Algorithms for Smart Cards, Renaud Lecat, Jean-Jacques Quisquater, Univ. Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium 10:45-11:15 Coffee 11:15-12:00 Session 4: Invited speaker To be announced 12:00-13:00 Lunch 13:00-14:30 Session 5: Methods -- Structuring and Visualising an IC-card Security Standard, Hugh Glaser, Pieter H. Hartel, Eduard K. de Jong Frz, Univ. of Southampton, England; QC Technology, Zaandam, The Netherlands -- Using formal methods to cultivate trust in Smart Card Operating Systems, Marjan I. Alberda, Pieter H. Hartel, Eduard K. de Jong Frz Univ. of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Integrity Arts Inc, San Mateo, USA -- Protection of Software Algorithms Executed on Secure Microprocessors, H.D.L. Hollmann, J.P.M.G. Linnartz, J.H. v. Lint, C.P.M.J. Baggen, Philips Research Laboratories, Eindhoven, The Netherlands. 14:30-15:00 Coffee 15:00-16:00 Session 6: Panel Tampering and resistance, panelists to be announced 16:00-late Excursion and conference dinner Friday September 20, 1996, CWI Z011 08:45-09:15 Coffee 09:15-10:45 Session 7: Distributed computing -- Multi-Application Smart Cards and Encrypted Data Processing, Josep Domingo-Ferrer, Univ. Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain -- Agent and Smart Card based System for User's Mobility, David Carlier, Sylvain Lecomte, Patrick Trane, RD2P, Univ. de Lille, France; Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan -- How Smart Cards Can Take Benefits from Object-Oriented Technologies? Patrick Biget, Patrick George, Jean-Jacques Vandewalle, RD2P, Univ. de Lille, France 10:45-11:15 Coffee 11:15-12:15 Session 8: Panel Architecture, panelists to be announced 12:15-12:30 Final remarks and close 12:30-13:30 Lunch Excursion and Dinner To be announced. Venue, transport Amsterdam is a historic city of outstanding beauty. It is the capital of the Netherlands and home to over 700,000 people. The Netherlands has a temperate climate. The average rainfall in September is 74mm, and the average day temperature is 14.3 degrees centigrade. The Amsterdam Schiphol airport serves hundreds of destinations daily from all over the world. From the airport it is a short train journey to the centre of the city, with trains running day and night. The railway and road networks in the Netherlands provide for easy routes from neighbouring countries (Germany and Belgium) as well as the rest of continental Europe. There are daily ferry services to the United Kingdom. Public transport in Amsterdam is frequent and reliable. The host institutes are located in the Amsterdam Science Park, which is the largest concentration of research institutes in science and mathematics in the Netherlands. The Science Park offers excellent libraries in many of the exact sciences. Remote login access via the Internet is open to visitors. The conference will be held in the main auditorium of the Science Park (capacity of 150). All conferencing facilities are provided. Host institutes The center for mathematics and computer science (CWI) is a part of the Mathematical Centre Foundation, aiming to foster mathematics and computer science research in the Netherlands. Special attention is paid to the applicability of the results of fundamental research; part of CWI's mission is to transfer new knowledge to society in general and trade and industry in particular. The Cryptology group of CWI is a separate division, and was founded in its present format in 1984. It has since established itself as the main cryptology research center in the Netherlands, and is probably best known for its research activities in electronic cash. More generally, the research activities of the Cryptology group are focused on public-key cryptographic protocols. Particular areas of interest, besides electronic cash, are special-purpose digital signatures, zero-knowledge proofs, and correctness verification of cryptographic protocols by means of formal methods. The Department of Computer Systems of the University of Amsterdam performs research in advanced computer systems. The department has a leading national role in the areas of high performance computing and image processing. The department has a strong architecture group, with interests ranging from VLSI design to high level formal specification of complex systems. The work on IC card operating systems design is an important part of the department's research portfolio. Registration All participants, including speakers, should register. Early registration is recommended. Fees are to be paid in advance. A reduction applies to registration forms and payments made prior to August 1, 1996. All registrations will be confirmed. Use more forms or photocopies if you want to register more than one person. The information/registration desk at the conference center will be open on: Wednesday 18 September 12:00 - 17:00 Thursday 19 September 08:30 - 12:00 Registration Fee All prices are quoted in Dutch Guilders (NLG). Early Registration (before August 1, 1996) fee 500 NLG Late Registration (after August 1, 1996) fee 600 NLG Conference Registration fee covers: * Admission to all conference sessions * A copy of the conference proceedings * Refreshments and lunches during breaks * Reception on Wednesday, September 18 * Conference dinner on Thursday, September 19 Payments Payments are to be made in advance in Dutch Guilders (NLG), without charges to the organisers by: * Bank transfer to account number 31.35.57.977 of "Stichting Wiskunde en Informatica Conferenties" at the RABO-Bank, Middenweg 88, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (postal giro of bank is 187744). * A certified bank cheque, to be enclosed with your completed registration form. Note that personal cheques will not be accepted. * Credit card payment. Please fill out the appropriate section on the registration form. Whichever method of payment is used, make sure you mention the name of the participant. Cancellation Refund of the registration fee, less a 25% administrative charge, may be applied for in writing until September 1, 1996. For cancellations received after this date, no refund can be made. Refunds are settled after the conference. Special requirements For participants who have special requirements with respect to diet or other matters, arrangements can be made, provided that applications have been received by the secretary before September 1, 1996. Hotel reservations Hotel accommodation can be reserved in the conference hotel, Tulip Inn Oosterpark. All rooms have en suite facilities. A special conference roomrate of NLG 125 (single room)/NLG 150 (double room) incl. breakfast, is offered to CARDIS delegates. To book a room, complete the hotel reservations section on the registration form. Please note that room availability cannot be guaranteed after the early registration date of August 1, 1996. If the hotel is fully booked we will try to book a room in a hotel in the same price range. CARDIS 1996 REGISTRATION AND HOTEL RESERVATION FORM [] Mr [] Ms First name : Surname : Company/Organisation : Address : : City : Postal Code : Country : Telephone : Fax : Email address : [] Accompanying person : [] Mr [] Ms Surname : First name : [] 500 Early Registration [] 600 Late Registration [] 150 Dinner for accompanying person Total to be paid: [] HOTEL RESERVATION: (Not guaranteed after 1 Aug.) : Arrival date : Departure date : Number of nights : [] Single Room [] Double Room PAYMENT Payment of conference fee effected by: [] Bank transfer to account #31.35.57.977 of "Stichting Wiskunde en Informatica Conferenties" at the RABO-Bank, Middenweg 88, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (postal giro of bank is 187744) [] A certified cheque, enclosed with this form. Note that personal cheques will not be accepted. [] Credit card payment [] American Express [] Visa [] Eurocard/Mastercard In the name of : Company name : Card number : Expire date : Address of card holder : Authorization: I authorize Stichting Wiskunde en Informatica Conferenties to charge my creditcard the above amount. Date : Signature : Please mention participants name with payment. Payments are to be made without charges to the organisers. Note that for credit card payments we need the original signature, so always send a copy by post after faxing or emailing this form. Any cancellation of registration and hotel reservation must be made in writing to the conference secretary. Forward this form to: CARDIS II Ms. Simone Panka CWI P.O. Box 94079 1090 GB Amsterdam Netherlands Fax: +31.20.5924199 Email: simone@cwi.nl For further information please direct your web browser at: http://www.cwi.nl/~brands/ ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: Pacific Bell Internet, LA Times Offer Customized Internet Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 16:54:21 PDT Forwarded to the Digest FYI: Date: Tue, 04 Jun 1996 11:47:42 -0700 Reply-To: NEWS-LIST@list.pactel.com From: sqlgate@list.pactel.com Subject: NEWS: Pacific Bell Internet, Los Angeles Times Join Forces to Offer First-Ever Customized Internet Access Service for Southern California RELATED DOCUMENTS: * Related news story from the Los Angeles Times * More information about the service on the Pacific Bell Internet Site FOR MORE INFORMATION: Dave Miller, Pacific Bell Internet Services 916-972-2811 dnmille@legal.pactel.com Laura Morgan, Los Angeles Times 213-237-4715 laura.morgan@latimes.com Pacific Bell Internet, Los Angeles Times Join Forces to Offer First-Ever Customized Internet Access Service for Southern California New Dial Up Internet Access Service Provides Fast, Easy Access to The Times' Web Site and Other Southern California Content LOS ANGELES -- In the first alliance of its kind between a major telecommunications firm and one of the nation's leading newspapers, Pacific Bell Internet Services and the Los Angeles Times today announced the availability of a customized dial up Internet access service featuring the newspaper's extensive site on the World Wide Web. The San Francisco-based Internet services company and the nation's second-largest newspaper have created a Los Angeles Times version of its new Pacific Bell Internet dial up Internet access service that the two companies are jointly marketing and distributing in Southern California. The Times and Pacific Bell Internet Services formed the joint marketing and distribution alliance to attract new Internet users and drive traffic to the newspaper's World Wide Web site -- the most comprehensive source of online information for and about Southern California available on the Internet. The co-branded service, which is available immediately, includes a customized version of the industry-leading Netscape Navigator (tm) Personal Edition 2.0 client software created especially for a Southern California audience. Browser buttons link users to The Times' Web site, Pacific Bell Internet's site and SoCal Excite, the regional Internet search engine jointly developed by The Times and Architext Software, Inc. The service will enable users to quickly locate Southern California-related information on the Internet. Pacific Bell Internet's customized service for the Los Angeles Times offers local dial up access at speeds up to 28.8 Kbps (Kilobits per second) from every point in the network. Prices range from $9.95 a month for 10 hours of access time up to $19.95 a month for unlimited access. All connection fees, including those for the interconnected Global Service Providers, are included in the aforementioned pricing options. Unlike other Internet service providers, Pacific Bell Internet users are not required to purchase telephone service from Pacific Bell. High speed digital ISDN access -- up to six times fast than most dial up analog modems -- will be available in early July. Features of the Los Angeles Times version of Pacific Bell Internet access service: * Built-in bookmarks featuring Web sites of particular use and interest to Southern California, including sections of the Times Web site. * Easy, one-button access to The Times' Web site, home of its free custom news service, Hunter, which automatically retrieves news and features from both The Times and AP Online and presents them in a personalized online newspaper format. * Direct Internet access to SoCal Excite, a first-of-its-kind regional Internet directory that allows users to search the entire Internet to find services, Web sites and news groups with a special focus on Southern California. * Internet access throughout California. * Special customer service phone number. * Billing options - by credit card or Pacific Bell monthly bill. Times' Web Site Already One Of Most Popular Web Sites; Features Extensive Content Since its April 8 launch, the Times Web site has averaged over 500,000 hits a day. More than 1,000 people a day have registered for Hunter, the site's free custom news service. The site includes content from the daily newspaper, archives of articles published since 1990, information from other content providers and links to other sites such as Hollywood Online. Access to more of the site's content is free to users. Registration is required to access AP Online and Hunter, which are also free services. Access to The Times' archives is currently free; in the future, users will be charged $1.50 per story to view or download articles. "We're combining the strengths of both companies -- fast, reliable and affordable high performance Internet access with superior regional and national content -- to create the premiere online experience for Southern Californians," said Rick Hronicek, president of Pacific Bell Internet Services. "Both companies are committed to making access to value added regional and local content easy and convenient for California consumers." "This alliance with Pacific Bell Internet fits perfectly into our overall Internet strategy," said Bob Brisco, The Times senior vice president of marketing and new business development. "Our Web site is a centerpiece of this strategy, but we are also in the business of building the Internet audience by making it more accessible to consumers. This alliance, with a company known for making technology easy, enables us to give people the tools they need to access the rapidly expanding online world." Prospective customers can download the customized Los Angeles Times Web client software directly from the Web at http://www.pacbell.net/latimes or by calling toll-free 1-800-213-9999. With the announcement, both companies are aiming to tap into the explosive growth of the Internet market in Southern California, which features the nation's top market for computer hardware and software sales (over $1 billion a year); over 4.4 million computer users and one of the fastest-growing areas in personal computer use with 1.2 million new PCs purchased in 1995. Pacific Bell Internet Services is a full service Internet service provider serving business and residential customers in California. The company offers a broad range of Internet access services that feature simple, affordable ways for reaching the estimated 30 million users on the world's largest and most powerful computer network. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Pacific Bell, the largest unit of parent company Pacific Telesis Group, a San Francisco-based diversified telecommunications corporation. The Los Angeles Times is the second-largest metropolitan daily newspaper in the country. The winner of 20 Pulitzer Prizes, The Times publishes four daily regional editions covering the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the San Fernando Valley, Orange and Ventura counties. The Times Web site can be found on the Internet at http://www.latimes.com . The Times is owned by Times Mirror, a Los Angeles-based news and information company that, in addition to The Times, also publishes Newsday, the Baltimore Sun and other newspapers, a wide array of books, information and educational products for professional markets and national and trade magazines. -------------------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: d3smith@aol.com (D3SMITH) Subject: Summary of New Telco Video Rules Date: 18 Jun 1996 16:53:40 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: d3smith@aol.com (D3SMITH) A free three-page summary of the FCC's recent Open Video Systems report is available (along with a link to the full 250+ page FCC report) on the Information Provider Newsletter website: "www.vipconsult.com." Open Video Systems (OVS) is the set of regulations designed to replace Video Dialtone and allow US telcos an alternative route into the video market. ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jun 96 08:19:06 EDT From: earle robinson <76004.1762@compuserve.com> Subject: AT&T Callback Service in Europe Interesting to note that AT&T is now widely advertising a new calling card here in Europe which is effectively a callback scheme. A little more expensive than others, 44 cents per minute from Europe to the states, this seems to give full legitimacy to the callback concept. There is even a toll free option for calls, more expensive at 61 cents a minute, but obviously useful for people calling from hotels. There is a $10 per month fee. One uses a standard credit card, Amex, Visa or Mastercard. It is also interesting to note that Americans with their AT&T calling cards will not get these lower rates. er ------------------------------ Subject: Telecom Archives CDROM Ordering Details Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 18:42:16 -0700 From: TELECOM Digest Editor People have been asking how to order the Telecom Archives CDROM by mail order. Not everyone has been able to find it in a store as of yet. If you can find it in a store, you will save on the shipping charges, however it might simply be easier for you to order it direct from the publisher, so details are given below. The Telecom Archives is a fifteen year collection of the stuff which has appeared in TELECOM Digest since 1981 along with a few hundred other files of telecom related material. There are a lot of technical files, historical files, etc. Everything that was there through the end of 1995 is included. The cost is $39.95. Please buy a copy, as the royalties will help me a lot. Also, if sales are good, there will be an update with the 1996 material on it at some future point. ============================================================================ shipping information: ============================================================================ Shipping is $5 in the USA, Canada, and Mexico for First Class. Overseas is $9 PER ORDER. There is an additional $3 COD charge (USA Only). UPS Blue Label (2nd day) [USA Only] is $10 PER ORDER, UPS Red Label (next day) [USA Only] is $15 PER ORDER. Federal Express (next day) [USA Only] is $20 PER ORDER. For overseas courier rates, please email us. Ordering Information: You can order by sending a check or money order to Walnut Creek CDROM Suite E 4041 Pike Lane Concord CA 94520 USA 1 800 786-9907 (Toll Free Sales) [open 24HRS] +1 510 674-0783 (Sales-International) +1 510 603-1234 (tech support) [M-F 9AM - 5PM, PST] +1 510 674-0821 (FAX) orders@cdrom.com (For placing an order) info@cdrom.com (For requesting more information or for customer service questions) support@cdrom.com (For technical questions and technical support) majordomo@cdrom.com (Info Robot-automated product information and support) We accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, and Diner's Club. ALL credit card orders MUST include a phone or fax number. COD shipping is available for $8.00 in the US only, NO COD shipping to P O Boxes. Checks and Money Orders payable in US funds, can be sent along with ordering information to our normal business address. California residents please add sales tax. Shipping and handling is $5 (per ORDER, not per disc) for US, Canada, and Mexico, and $9 for overseas (AIRMAIL) shipping. Please allow 14 working days ( 3 weeks ) for overseas orders to arrive. Most orders arrive in 1-2 weeks. -------------------- Therefore, unless you want next day delivery by FedEx which would make it quite expensive you would send $39.95 plus $5 to Walnut Creek at thier address above, or authorize them to charge your credit card, etc. As noted also, customers outside the USA need to pay additional shipping costs. Write to Walnut Creek at the addresses above. If you can find it in a retail outlet then you save shipping and handling charges. In any event, please buy one today! PAT -------------------- The Telecom Archives remains a free resource for the Internet and is available using anonymous ftp massis.lcs.mit.edu. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #292 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jun 18 20:31:35 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id UAA11519; Tue, 18 Jun 1996 20:31:35 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 20:31:35 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606190031.UAA11519@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #293 TELECOM Digest Tue, 18 Jun 96 20:31:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 293 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson LD Companies Vie for Customers (Tad Cook) Re: Sprint Fridays Were Free (Brett Frankenberger) Re: Sprint Fridays Were Free (Ed Ellers) Sprint is Still Offering "Fridays Free"! (Linc Madison) Re: New Area Codes in California, etc. (Linc Madison) Re: Wireless Ethernet Transceivers (Thaddeus Cox) Re: Yellowstone Park Begins Cellular Service (Steve Bagdon) Re: Caller-ID *Only* Line (John Fricks) Re: Caller-ID *Only* Line (Hillary Gorman) Re: International 800 Numbers (John R. Levine) Re: International 800 Numbers (Linc Madison) Re: International 800 Numbers (Bob Goudreau) Re: International 800 Numbers (Mark Brader) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Cook Subject: LD Companies Vie for Customers Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 00:41:38 PDT Long Distance Phone Companies Vie for Customers; It Pays to Review the Plans By John Finotti, The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Stop. Don't pick up that phone -- not just yet anyway. Before you take another call at home and run the risk of being ambushed with yet another offer to switch long-distance phone service, do yourself a favor: review your present long-distance plan to make sure you've got what you want. Even you dyed-in-the-wool AT&T customers-for-life may be able to save money by reviewing your phone usage and matching it with the AT&T plan that best suits your calling needs. Thanks to increased competition among phone companies, there now is a wide variety of long-distance rates and plans available. And there is certainly a switching frenzy going on. In 1994, some 19 million Americans changed long-distance plans, according to the Federal Communications Commission. In response to the switching craze that has been sweeping the country over the past few years, Sprint offered the first "commitment plan." Under the plan, called "Sprint Sense with Cash Back," customers who've been with Sprint for 12 months get a cash rebate of 10 percent of their long-distance bills. The first thing you need to know is that a calling plan -- any calling plan -- will save you money. Customers not currently in a plan are paying basic rates, and wasting money, said Jill Straus, a spokeswoman for the Telecommunications Research & Action Center, a non-profit group based in Washington, D.C. "It's the same as walking into a car dealer and paying the sticker price for a car," Straus said. Moreover, basic rates are continuing to rise. They're up about 17 percent over the past two years, according to Consumer Reports. Still, an estimated 60 percent of all residential long-distance customers continue to pay the basic rate. Selecting a plan but selecting the right calling plan isn't easy, since the plans do vary widely. "Things are changing so fast we recommend heavy users review their calling plans every three months," Straus said. Calling plans offer discounts of 10 percent to 30 percent off a phone company's basic rates. Flat rate plans, for example, are lower than basic rates because they are calculated at a flat rate per minute, regardless of the distance of the call. Rates also may vary based on the time of day you call. For example, most carriers offer two times to call -- peak and off-peak. Some plans offer discounts based on how often you make long-distance calls. With these plans, customers receive discounts from a phone company's basic rate based on the volume of calls. If you make most of your calls to the same people or area, there are calling plans designed just for you. You can get discounts on calls made to the certain area codes you have selected. There are plans based on what time of the day or what day of the week you call. Most companies offer lower per-minute rates on calls made during designated times. Additionally, the so-called Big Three -- AT&T, MCI and Sprint -- each offer a programs that provide extra discounts to customers in the form of reward "points" based on the amount of usage. The programs are called AT&T True Rewards, MCI Friends and Family Extras and Sprint Rewards. The Big Three control about 83 percent of the long-distance market, according to the FCC. The balance is made up of hundreds of smaller carriers who buy phone time from the Big Three at deep discounts and resell it to consumers. Competition among long-distance providers is mostly on price, said Judy Reed Smith, chief executive officer of Atlantic-ACM Inc., a telecommunications strategy and research firm in Boston. Consumer Reports notes there is no significant difference in sound quality when it comes to long-distance service. There are about 375 long-distance companies certified to do business in Florida. However, not all of the companies may serve your area. LCI is one of the many small long-distance companies trying to make selection simple by offering only one calling plan. LCI offers flat rates according to the time of day you call and uses 6-second billing, which measures the time of a call in 6-second increments rather than rounding up to the next minute. Industry analysts say 6-second billing can reduce the number of minutes consumers are billed each month by up to 10 percent. LCI also gives customers 30 minutes of interstate calling for 1 cent per minute on eight holidays per year. Long Distance Wholesale Club doesn't require customers to switch to it as an exclusive carrier. Instead, you dial a five-digit access code before dialing 1 and then the long-distance phone number. While this service offers lower rates, some consumers may not want to be bothered with having to dial the extra access code. There are other resellers, known as "affinity" phone companies, that give some of their phone revenue to various charities. Working Assets, for example, gives 1 percent of its customers' phone charges to non-profit causes such as the environment, human rights and peace. Working Assets' 240,000 customers decide where the money will go. The group's rates are competitive with the Big Three. Because long-distance companies are constantly changing their calling plans, it pays to review your calling patterns. "You should examine at least three typical bills to help you compare phone companies every three months," Straus said. Look at when you make most of your calls and how long they last. Look for any patterns. If you're like most people, most of your long-distance calls are to a handful of friends and relatives who most likely live in the same area and share the same area code. You also can save money by paying closer attention to how you use the phone. Most phone companies offer different rates, depending on what time of day you call. Before switching long-distance service, particularly to a company that isn't a household name, you should call your state public service commission to make sure the company is certified and see if there have been any complaints filed against it, said Melinda Pace, a spokeswoman at the Florida Public Service Commission. The Florida PSC's toll-free number is (800) 342-3552. The Georgia Public Service Commission's in-state toll-free number is (800) 282-5813. The Telecommunications Research & Action Center compares many calling plans in its biannual newsletter, Tele-Tips, and evaluates them according to different calling patterns. (For a copy of the most recent issue, send $3 and a self-addressed, stamped envelope to TRAC, P.O. Box 27279, Washington, D.C. 20005.) If you do switch long-distance companies, consumer advocates say you should be sure to ask what incentives the company is offering. For example, some companies have been offering as much as $75 to customers who switch, Straus said. Also, make sure that by signing up for any bonuses, you are not precluded from joining the calling plan of your choice. One thing you can count on: your phone probably will be ringing off the hook as long-distance companies try to get your business. Particularly as more and more people hook into services that include pagers, voice mail, cellular phones and Internet services. "The competition in long-distance will heat up within the next year," Atlantic-ACM's Smith said. ----- ON THE INTERNET: Visit ConnecT-U, the World Wide Web site of The Florida Times-Union. Point your browser to http://www.times-union.com ------------------------------ From: brettf@netcom.com (Brett Frankenberger) Subject: Re: Sprint Fridays Were Free Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 23:25:40 GMT In article , Poll Dubh wrote: > What amazes me is that you didn't see this coming, i.e. that you > thought Sprint's offer worthy of credit in the first place. After all, > giving out free calls in the US only costs Sprint extra load on its > network. The extra load was almost certainly insignifigant. > but free overseas calls mean actual payments to the phone > companies at the other end and so have a direct impact on cash flow. > Do you also buy into pyramid schemes? Yes, Sprint would lose money on the international calls. No doubt. So what. Suppose I owned a business that did a lot of LD calling, and AT&T was my carrier. Suppose the Sprint Rep came out and took me out to lunch to talk to me about why I should switch to Sprint. Should I immediately assume that Sprint is completely full of sh*t, because they are losing money at that particular moment (i.e. they have to make a direct cash payment to the resturant for my lunch, and I'm not giving them anything right them,)? Certainly not. What Sprint would be doing is losing money (buy buying me lunch) in hopes of making money later (if I decide to switch to Sprint). This is extremely common. Grocery stores will place some items on sale at less than they pay for them (i.e. a "loss leader"), knowing that the money they lose on that will (at least hopefully) be offset by the profits they make on other things when people are lured in by the loss leader. That's what Free Fridays were. A gamble by Sprint that the money lost on Fridays would be more than offset by the Money gained on other days. They may have made a bad bet, considering the fact that they backed out of the deal. I fully expected them to honor their agreement. (And am also a little disappointed that there hasn't been a class action lawsuit for specific performance (is there such a thing?) yet). > And when you go on vacation, do > you always look for the absolute cheapest fares, on chartered flights > by obscure airlines, the kind that goes bankrupt before your return > trip? Not without first assessing the risks, I hope. That's an invalid comparison. No one was looking for the cheapest rates on obscure Long Distance carriers. They were assuming that the third largest LD carrier in the nation would honor it's contract. That seemed like a pretty safe bet (although in retrospect it turned out to be a losing bet). If a major airline offered a really cheap price to wherever I wanted to go on vacation, yes, I'd take them up on the offer. > I can readily believe that the unexpected change is making you lose > money. I'm less convinced that Sprint is "getting money" in this > affair; it's more likely that they are trying to cut their own losses. They are almost certainly "getting money", in the sense that some people almost certainly switched to sprint for this offer and then didn't switch back when Sprint decided not to honor their agreement. Brett (brettf@netcom.com) ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Sprint Fridays Were Free Date: Tue, 11 Jun 96 13:30:20 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Poll Dubh writes: > Do you also buy into pyramid schemes? And when you go on vacation, do > you always look for the absolute cheapest fares, on chartered flights > by obscure airlines, the kind that goes bankrupt before your return > trip? Not without first assessing the risks, I hope. Last time I looked, Sprint was a well-known, established company. They're hardly in the same class with pyramid promoters and crooked charter operators. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Being 'well known and established' does automatically preclude devising fraudulent and/or 'bait and switch' schemes. Does anyone remember that major insurance company several years ago that went down when it was discovered that about half the policy holders listed on its computer were non-existent? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 01:16:02 -0700 From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Sprint is Still Offering "Fridays Free"! I was using one of the search engines on the Web to look for some info that was telecom-related, and the ad at the top of the page was for Sprint "Fridays are Free," so I followed the link. They're trying a little harder to tighten the restrictions -- you are now required to give the business name, and they talk about a term contract and penalties and other things designed to scare people off, but it still is the same basic offer. So much for the theory that they learned their lesson and went home! They still have the same $1000 maximum free calls per month with $50 minimum billing. You can find out all about it at I should also mention that the web page has a space for comments about their offerings. Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well of course they are going to continue to offer it as long as they are permitted to do so. It is a great money making scam for them. Sign the customer up for free calls on Friday; let the customer do it for a month and then send the customer a letter saying the terms have changed and that they (Sprint) have the right to dishonor their contracts or change the terms any time they want. To add a little further insult to it, then charge the customer at some later time for all the 'free' calls you originally said they could have, claiming it was all a mistake and they were not really entitled to those free calls. Blame it all on customer service representatives who were 'not correctly trained'. Let the poor reps take all the heat; as it is they buffer the huge number of phone calls coming in each day so that people like Robin Loyed don't have to have their virgin ears offended or be forced to think about the consequences of their actions. By the way, has anyone ever gotten through to him on the phone? I have to wonder if he gets any personal calls at the office from his wife or kids or other friends; if so they must have to go through a lot of screening to make sure it is not just some customer calling that he would get stuck talking to instead. Just because a company is 'large and well established' does not mean they cannot craft some schemes which verge on fraud if in fact it is not legally fraud. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 00:26:01 -0700 From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: New Area Codes in California, etc. At 2:17 PM 6/10/96, Carl Moore wrote: > Where is this 1-561-xxx-x being dialed? If in San Francisco, I do not > remember reading about it ever having PUBLISHED 1 + seven digits dialing > instructions. 415 used to have 7D for calls anywhere within it, with > NPA+7D for calls to other area codes; when it had to prepare for N0X/N1X > prefixes, the NPA+7D had a 1 put in front of it. > What date do you have for area code 757 kicking in in southeastern Virginia? I was dialing from San Francisco. (For a while, dialing 1-561 resulted in an immediate intercept. Then, I started getting an intercept at the point of 1-561-xxx-x, as if I had tried to dial a HNPA toll call. The call now completes correctly.) You are correct that San Francisco never published 1 + 7D for HNPA toll calls, although it was permitted in most of the area (excepting some CO's where the [ir]responsible technician decided that the locally published instructions should *exclude* the nationally published instructions) up until interchangeable CO codes came into use. Area code 415 still has 7D dialing for all calls within it, with optional 1+415+7D; 1+NPA+7D is mandatory for all FNPA calls, including local, and, of course, 1+7D is prohibited for all calls. As for 757 in Virginia, it goes permissive 7/1/96 and mandatory 2/1/97. The test number is 1-757-627-1615. The Norfolk LATA will move to 757, with the Lynchburg, Richmond, and Charlottesville service areas retaining 804. As of 6/10/96, dialing "1-757" from San Francisco routes to immediate intercept. Hopefully that will change on or before 7/1/96. Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ From: Thaddeus Cox Subject: Re: Wireless Ethernet Transceivers Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 21:07:32 -0700 Organization: Oregon State System of Higher Education On Sat, 8 Jun 1996, John R Levine wrote: > One thought: how's the building heated? If it's forced air of any sort, > you might be able to run plenum-rated ethernet cable in the heating ducts. Nope, hot-water heated, and we are already using the (very small) holes which the pipes go through to route thinnet ethernet cable. Finger for standard disclaimer Thaddeus Cox - coxt@mail.oit.osshe.edu Oregon Institute of Technology (541)885-0212 voice (503)497-7050 pgr/vm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 13:31:04 EDT From: Steve Bagdon Subject: Re: Yellowstone Park Begins Cellular Service > "What's next, cable?" Chad Snopek of Los Angeles asked after > returning from a few nights in the park. "It takes away from what you > come here to get away from." Can't this guy tell the difference between wire service and wireless service. Does he have a problem with people in RVs having DSS dishes on their RVs? Or how about people coming in with InMarsat M 'briefcases'? > Under the phone service, which won't be ready until later this > summer, the park receives $500 a year plus 70 phones and 5,000 free > minutes a month. Unlimited free service would be provided if there was > a disaster like the fires of 1988. Sounds like a good plan for the park service. A little money, lots of phones, and plenty of free service. But I wonder if a better deal could have been struck -- such as a percentage of the total revenue from local and toll use. Government *is* a business, and if you want to use a phone in a park, shouldn't the usage *pay* for the park? > Jensen said no environmental damage will occur because the > transmitters will be installed on existing antennae at Old Faithful, > Grant Village and on top of Mt. Washburn, one of the park's tallest > peaks. Sounds like a good plan to me -- no envirnmental impact, and cellular service for natural disasters and personal emergencies. What took so long? Regards, Steve Bagdon ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 22:35:07 GMT From: John_Fricks@nt.com Subject: Re: Caller-ID *Only* Line Organization: Nortel Pat wrote: >> 1) Exactly WHAT did they hear when off hook attempting to make a call? >> Was it dead silence or mostly dead silence with an occassional click >> or 'pop' in their ear? Did they hear side-tone or noise like the line >> was alive but just not ever getting around to dial tone? And Hillary answered: > Well, I heard it myself. It was a live line with no dial tone, I think. It > made that hissing sound. Pat asked: >> 2) What did the *people who called them* during that two weeks get as >> a result? Hillary answered: > It would ring four times and then go to voicemail. Even if you picked > up the phone on the first ring, you would simply hear silent hissing, > while the caller would get four rings, and then the voicemail. Pat asked: > Anyone else have any ideas on this? PAT] Yea! The telco's subscriber line equipment failed to detect (or report) loop current whenever the subscriber went off hook. On call origination, no off-hook detection, hence no dial tone. On in-coming calls, no off-hook detection, hence continued ringing (until rollover to voice mail). Telco could have done a metallic line test at the central office to isolate this problem. Sounds like the metallic line test equipment was out of order or the trouble ticket didn't get through the system. John Fricks Email: John_Fricks@nt.com Nortel Inc. ------------------------------ From: hillary@netaxs.com (Hillary Gorman) Subject: Re: Caller-ID *Only* Line Date: 18 Jun 1996 21:24:46 GMT Organization: Philadelphia's Complete Internet Provider Pat wrote: > rings it went to voicemail. There may have been 'immediate call > forwarding' installed on the line which (I guess) would have sent him > the Caller-ID but forced the call itself to a (apparently very slow > answering) voicemail. Was it *his* voicemail that it went to? Do you > know if he ordered a voicemail option on that line? I would say that Yes, he had ordered "answer call" which is Bell Atlantic's voicemail system. It is supposed to answer on four rings if nobody picks up, and to answer immediately if the line is busy. Callers would get the voicemail after the fourth ring, so it was being treated as if no one was answering -- even though someone WOULD in fact pick up the phone. hillary gorman hillary@netaxs.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 96 12:32 EDT From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: International 800 Numbers Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > To make life easier for users of international toll-free numbers, the > ITU has mandated a new numbering structure of 0800, followed by eight > digits, rather than the five, six or seven digit structure that is > seen on existing toll-free numbers around the world. Hmmn. I wonder how they'll be dialed in North America. In fact, 0-800 isn't used*, since 800 calls can't be charged to a calling card or the like. But 0-800 plus 8 digits would be an extremely ugly wart on the side of the increasingly unbeautiful NANP and would require reprogramming every CO switch in the continent, so I expect 011-800- xxxx-xxxx. I guess it's time to call Judith Oppenheimer and find out how to reserve my favorite hundred or so digit combinations, just in case. * - Well, I've seen a few non-RBOC payphones that require that you dial 0-800-NXX-XXXX, but they'll have to get with the program sooner or later anyway. Regards, John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: International 800 Numbers Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 09:13:38 -0700 Organization: Best Internet Communications There's one nit to pick here -- a small one, but important. In article , Jorene Downs wrote: > GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, 1996 JUN 7 (NB) -- The International > Telecommunications Union (ITU), a division of the United Nations, has > announced plans to allow country-specific telecoms companies to > support international toll-free numbers. > To make life easier for users of international toll-free numbers, the > ITU has mandated a new numbering structure of 0800, followed by eight > digits, rather than the five, six or seven digit structure that is > seen on existing toll-free numbers around the world. It isn't 0800, it's +800. The 0800 numbering structure is used for national toll-free numbers within some countries. From most countries, the new numbers will be reached as 00-800-xxxx-xxxx. From the U.S. and Canada, they will be reached as 011-800-xxxx-xxxx. The confusion promulgated by referring to the new numbers as 0800 is precisely what the ITU is trying to avoid by emphasizing the point that these are international toll-free numbers. The other question is, what will happen in some other countries (e.g., Greece) that have used +800 as a local hack for such calls -- for example, the numbers for AT&T USADirect and MCI and Sprint's similar services from Greece are all 00-800-xxx-xxx, at least when last I was there. Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 17:52:49 -0400 From: goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) Subject: Re: International 800 Numbers Jorene Downs quotes a news release about international free-phone numbers: > To make life easier for users of international toll-free numbers, the > ITU has mandated a new numbering structure of 0800, followed by eight > digits, rather than the five, six or seven digit structure that is > seen on existing toll-free numbers around the world. The ITU has > recommended that companies offering 0800-xxxx-xxxx numbers clearly > indicate them as "international freephone service" numbers with a > special logo. Gee, I thought that the "new numbering structure" for international free-phone numbers was going to be +800-xxxx-xxxx, not 0800-xxxx-xxxx. For most countries, "+" (the international escape code) is "00", not "0" (and in the NANP, "+" is "011). It's a shame to see this sort of confusing misinformation disseminated, since it's going to be hard enough as it is to explain to most end-users how to dial +800 numbers. Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ From: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) Subject: Re: International 800 Numbers Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 22:59:14 GMT > To make life easier for users of international toll-free numbers, the > ITU has mandated a new numbering structure of 0800, followed by eight > digits, rather than the five, six or seven digit structure that is > seen on existing toll-free numbers around the world. The ITU has > recommended that companies offering 0800-xxxx-xxxx numbers clearly > indicate them as "international freephone service" numbers with a > special logo. It's quite possible that I've missed something here, but all prior discussion that I remember seeing has discussed international toll-free numbers as being +800 numbers -- that is, using 800 as a pseudo country code. So from North America we would dial 011-800 plus the number. Should we assume that 0800 above is a mistake for 00-800, the way the calls would be dialed in countries using 00 for the international access code, or is it actually intended to use 0800 as the psuedo country code, or are both of these interpretations wrong? The second thing I find surprising in the article is that, although North America alone has already exhausted a 7-digit number space of toll-free numbers, they think that an 8-digit space will suffice worldwide for a reasonable length of time. Mark Brader, msb@sq.com, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, the 800 number space in the USA lasted for about thirty years without exhaustion didn't it? The first 800 numbers I remember came in about 1965-66 and now in 1996 the 888 space had to be opened. Of course I am not saying 888 will last nearly as long before it runs out and things are moving at a faster clip than ever in the past ... ah! if we could only have imagined in the 1960's the state of telephony thirty years hence! ... Still though, I don't really anticipate the world squandering their number supply at nearly the same pace has become common here in North America. Who among us does not have multiple 800 numbers when one or none would serve just as well? I cannot see for example a big grab of international toll- free numbers from most parts of the world, meaning most of the 0800 or +800 or whatever will be consumed right here in the USA like everything else phone-related. I think they'll get a decade or more at least with this new block of numbers. PAT] ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #293 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jun 19 09:51:07 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id JAA01329; Wed, 19 Jun 1996 09:51:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 09:51:07 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606191351.JAA01329@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #294 TELECOM Digest Wed, 19 Jun 96 09:51:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 294 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson New NPA For Pittsburgh (Tad Cook) Cell-Fraud Detection Products (Tad Cook) The 800-555 Plague (Chris J. Cartwright) $250 Deposit for LD Service! (Stanley Cline) Has Lucent Lost It? (Tony Pelliccio) Excel and Frontier Restructure Long Distance Agreement (Ken Leonard) Screen Phone Sessions at ISA's Annual Meeting (isa@isa.net) Future of X.25 Networks vs Internet (Jean-Francois Mezei) Re: Stentor, Bell Canada, Independents (Mark J. Cuccia) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Cook Subject: New NPA For Pittsburgh Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 00:19:58 PDT Pittsburgh to Get New Telephone Area Codes; Panel to Announce Specifics By Steve Creedy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Jun. 19--The state Public Utility Commission is expected tomorrow to settle the sticky question of how to provide southwestern Pennsylvania with millions of badly needed new telephone numbers. At issue is whether to create an overlay, or separate area code number, for all new phones in the 412 area or to break the region in two, leaving part with the familiar 412 area code and part with a new area code. Bell Atlantic likes the overlay option, which would require customers to use 10 digits for every call, but smaller independent phone companies like the second option. Substantial costs and confusion accompany each, and it's not clear which way the PUC will go. The Murphy administration has thrown its support behind the overlay option. A letter from the mayor to the PUC earlier this month said an overlay would "minimize the fragmentation in existing communities as well as eliminate the disruptions associated with changes to area codes." "An overlay is preferable to a geographic split and represents the best interests of all telephone customers presently served by the 412 area code," the letter said. Opponents of overlay counter by pointing to the inconvenience of dialing 10 digits. Local telephone companies and long distance carriers also claim that overlay leaves them at a competitive disadvantage. The difficult choice is being forced upon metropolitan communities because new technology and the demand for faxes, modems and other equipment have fueled an explosive growth in the demand for new phone lines and depleted the supply of local numbers. Demand for phone numbers in the 412 area had been running at about 140,000 requests a year, but last year it soared to 820,000. At that rate, 412 numbers will run out in the middle of next year. The PUC says changes in dialing codes as part of a geographic split would begin in January and become mandatory by next May. Mandatory dialing for the overlay option would take effect in June. The experience in other states has been mixed. Maryland opted for an overlay, adding two new area codes -- 443 and 240 -- to its existing 410 and 301 area codes. New telephone customers are being issued the new area codes, and everyone in the state will have to start dialing 10 digits for in-state calls in May 1997. Maryland's Public Service Commission voted 4-1 for the overlay proposal, noting that no existing subscribers would be forced to change their numbers and that the decision would have no effect on what constitutes a local call and a toll call. Maryland PSC spokeswoman Chris Wilson said the commission considered a number of factors in its decision, including the higher implementation costs of a geographic split, the costs for end users and competitive factors. So far, Wilson said, the decision hasn't generated an avalanche of complaints. But it's a different story in Texas, where the state Public Utility Commission appears to be under siege no matter which way it goes. A public outcry in Houston about having to dial 10 digits prompted the Texas PUC to reject a Southwestern Bell plan to introduce an overlay system and instead to split the city into two area codes. The opposite is happening in Dallas, where the Texas PUC is being sued by the city to keep from being partitioned into two area codes. Opponents in Dallas claim a geographic split would be burdensome to small businesses and would hinder efforts to unify parts of the city. Still, the geographic split seems the more common of the two options. Opponents of overlay note that regulators in California, Florida, Georgia, Missouri and Illinois recently favored the split, saying it favors competition and is better for consumers. ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: Cell-Fraud Detection Products Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 19:18:45 PDT Lightbridge introduces the first complete subscription fraud package WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 17, 1996--Lightbridge Inc. Monday announced the availability of a complete subscription fraud management line of products titled Fraud Sentinel, which is composed of three sentries: Postalpro, Fraud Detect and ProFile. This new product line will arm wireless carriers with an effective tool to curb the increasing problem of subscription fraud. `Subscription fraud is the oldest form of cellular fraud, and the most persistent as other types of fraud become too technically difficult to execute,' said Phillip Redman, an analyst with the Yankee Group, a Boston-based consultancy. `In 1995, subscription fraud generated losses to the industry of over 1 percent, or approximately $180 million,' said Redman, `and could grow to $500 million by the year 2000 if left unchecked. These tools developed by Lightbridge are an effective method for stopping cellular fraud today.' The first line of defense, Postalpro, applies U.S. Postal Service standards at the point of sale to identify potentially fraudulent addresses. Postalpro provides the point of sale with the ability to verify the validity of an address prior to completing the application process. Studies with Postalpro have shown that an average of 10 percent of returned mail had addresses unknown to the U.S. Postal Service. This tool not only identifies potentially fraudulent subscribers, but also provides significant savings in mailing costs by identifying incorrect and unknown addresses. Lightbridge has partnered with TRANS UNION to provide Fraud Detect, the second level of defense. Fraud Detect, a fraudulent data detection tool, utilizes algorithms to determine the legitimacy of the personal data provided by an applicant. The social security number is checked against the death master file and matched with the date of birth. Fraud Detect will then identify those issued within the last seven years and will flag numbers issued for pocket book use only. Fraud Detect will also analyze the phone number to automatically verify the area code and exchange, and will alert if a pager or cellular number is given in place of a land line. The zip code check will flag if the zip code provided is from a prison or military base. The distance between the phone number and the zip code is also calculated to ensure the phone number can exist in that zip code range. Finally, Fraud Detect will verify driver's license format, cross check with date of birth, perform last name soundex match, and report eye color and gender. ProFile, the final line of defense for subscription fraud, is an on-line intercarrier negative file database that uses unique matching logic to identify individuals who have a negative history with carriers, either from a write-off or shut-off. ProFile has been established as the largest intercarrier negative file database over the last three years and currently houses substantial amounts of data from various carriers. This tool acts as a risk management and collection tool for carriers by acting as a pre-activation screening for high-risk subscribers and by flagging subscribers that may have had a write-off from another previous carrier. When a subscriber is identified that has been written off, a notice goes to the originating write-off carrier. This carrier may then choose to pursue collection of the debt. The full line of Fraud Sentinel products provides a complete line of defense and offers real-time business solutions that will allow carriers to be proactive in fighting the war on subscription fraud. Lightbridge, an entrepreneurial company located in Waltham, specializes in innovative solutions for customer acquisition and retention in the wireless industry. Solutions offered by Lightbridge include fully automated and integrated qualification and activation services; channel-specific distribution systems; billing system interfaces; and Fraud Sentinel, a line of subscription fraud products. The company also provides a wide range of decision support and data warehouse services, as well as business process consulting. NOTE: Postalpro is a trademark of Lightbridge Inc. ProFile is a registered trademark of Lightbridge Inc. Fraud Detect is a trademark of TRANS UNION. CONTACT: Lightbridge Inc. Kate Strong, 617/672-4852 or Miller/Shandwick Technologies Kris Hoover, 214/233-0876 khoover@millerwest.com http://www.businesswire.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 23:15:06 EDT From: Chris J. Cartwright Subject: The 800-555 Plague Pat, It seems that there is some "magic" to the 800-555-XXXX numbers. After reading one or two posts over the last few days about "charging you for the 800 call if you call and don't give me money", I ran across this classified ad. This is from the June 1996 edition of the {Washington Senior Beacon}, a free paper, targeted at retiree's. PG 47 Classifieds (all typo's are mine) ----------------------------------- YES! THERE REALLY IS A MONEY TREE -- Let me show you how to receive a 1500% net return on your money. That's right! 1500%. It's legal. It's moral. It's ethical. And it's sweeping the nation. Don't be left out. NAC has the vehicle to transport you to financial security. Let us put you in the drivers seat. For an appointment to find out all about the NAC story, call (800) 555-9205 and enter box #1635. ----------------------------------- Now I don't want to be left out so first thing in the morning I'm going to my local payphone and give this thing a try! Of course I'll be very careful not to dial another box number . I have no real reason to be suspicious other than the amount of the return, the fact that it's sweeping the nation, and I have to use some "box number" to use this "companies" 800 number. Anyone out there have any idea why 800-555 seems to now attract the telesleaze? Christopher Cartwright, Tech. Engineer Voice 301.295.0809 N3XRV Mail dsc3cjc@imc220.med.navy.mil ccart@erols.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't think there is anything special about 800-555 except that it was about the last of the prefixes still available on 800 to be assigned. If you are really scraping to find a new 800 number these days instead of an 888 number, it is possible you might be able to get one on 555. The other thing I have noticed is that there seems to be a lot of voicemail on that prefix so it would not surprise me if some company specializing in voicemail and providing outgoing announcement services had a large number of lines there. If you are asking can it do anything that other 800 numbers cannot (usually) do, my answer would be no. Any other suggestions? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 20:44:49 EDT From: Stanley Cline Subject: $250 Deposit for LD Service! My parents, foolish as they are, have had AT&T for quite a while (after having LCI, then cashing one of those AT&T rebate checks.) Anyway, after some discussion, I steered them toward DeltaCom, a regional LD carrier (based in Alabama.) Their rates were somewhat competitive (similar to LCI, lower in-state rates) -- in addition, they offer an 800 number (no PIN necessary, which is what they WANTED) for $3/month. They sent some paperwork for them to fill out (which I thought a bit unusual, since most telcos do all "paperwork" by PHONE) and I completed it and sent it back (with Dad signing the form, of course.) They advised us to call BellSouth and have them PICed to DeltaCom. That was Friday ... Come today, a DeltaCom rep calls and says they will not "activate" the account (Note: my parents HAVE been able to place calls since the PIC change) without -- get this -- a *$250* deposit! When I heard this, I was stunned -- I have never heard of any LD carrier requiring a deposit, much less one this large. Even CellularOne doesn't require deposits THAT large (they offer prepaid cellular); I have heard of BellSouth Mobility requiring $500 and up deposits, but that's cellular, NOT LD. *I* called DeltaCom back in wonder; another rep said that they had run a *credit check* (the TRW/Equifax/Trans Union type) on them, and that since their "credit score" was rejected (they are in Chapter 13 bankruptcy, no fault of their own) they would require this deposit. To me, this sounded sleazy (wanting so much money up front) and bizarre; Mom came on the phone and requested they cancel the service order. She pressured for more details, but the rep simply said that "MR. Cline" would have to call -- he is OUT OF TOWN. They wouldn't talk to MRS. Cline (or me, either. I have a very high voice ...) Never mind they have an "excellent" credit record with BellSouth and LCI, etc. Needless to say, they went back to LCI (where they should have gone in the first place) ... they welcomed them back with open arms (reinstating their old calling card and 800 number PINs, offering MORE free calls, and more.) I should have known something like this would have happened -- DeltaCom is owned by the same company that owns InterCel, the cellular company that gouges Atlanta BellSouth Mobility customers -- in their LOCAL CALLING AREA. (The MindSpring ISP is also owned by these people. Guess why I don't have MindSpring?! ) The ITC companies (DeltaCom, InterCel, MindSpring, etc.) are nearly as bad as US Cellular. Maybe MindSpring is OK, but the rest of the company is arrogant as hell. Stanley Cline ** Roamer1 on IRC (see why?) mailto:scline@usit.net http://www.usit.net/public/scline/ CIS 74212,44 ** MSN WSCline1 ------------------------------ From: kd1nr@anomaly.ideamation.com (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Has Lucent Lost It? Date: 18 Jun 1996 22:32:07 -0400 Organization: Ideamation, Inc. Ok -- so we ordered nearly $20,000 worth of gear from Lucent Technol- ogies. You know, stuff like Digital Line cards, 7406, 7410 etc sets, speakerphones and displays for the 7405's we have. The stuff comes in, minus the displays and the speakers. I get voicemail today from someone at Lucent saying that that speakers are on backorder until sometime in September or October. Of course the one hand doesn't know what the other is doing since we've already told Lucent to take all of it back and we'll order it through STL or some such. So is there anyone out here from Lucent that might want to comment? If there isn't, I don't expect a very bright future for Lucent, at least not as far as I'm concerned. Tony Pelliccio, KD1NR kd1nr@anomaly.ideamation.com ------------------------------ From: ken@kaiwan009.kaiwan.com (Ken Leonard) Subject: Excel and Frontier Restructure Long Distance Agreement Date: 18 Jun 1996 18:24:08 -0700 Organization: KAIWAN Internet (310-527-4279,818-756-0180,909-785-9712) DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 18, 1996--Excel Communications, Inc., and Frontier Corporation announced today a restructuring of their agreement for the provisioning of EXCEL long distance services on the Frontier network. EXCEL has previously announced an interest in developing alternative carriers for its 1+ traffic which has grown more than 300 percent in the past year. The restructured agreement provides EXCEL the ability to diversify its 1+ service providers to accommodate its growth, in return for an expanded commitment to Frontier for the provision of enhanced services to EXCEL customers. Under the new contract, Frontier will eliminate the existing minimum monthly commitment for 1+ service, in exchange for an extension of the exclusivity for Frontier to carry enhanced services, which include calling card services and 800/PIN services. The current exclusivity covering enhanced services expiring April 30, 1998 will be extended until April 30, 1999 for existing customers as of the April 30, 1998 date. EXCEL will be free after April 30, 1998 to put new enhanced service customers on its own network or to use the networks of other carriers. The announcement was made in a joint press release by EXCEL Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer John J. McLaine and Frontier Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Louis L. Massaro. McLaine said, "This agreement gives EXCEL the flexibility it needs to diversify its network carriers and to expand on the positive relationship we have enjoyed with Frontier." McLaine indicated that EXCEL intended to migrate 1+ traffic beginning within 60 days and to be completed by November of 1996. Massaro also praised the new agreement as "a good business decision for both companies." The new agreement, Massaro said, "gives EXCEL the flexibility it needs to meet its sensational growth and will continue to position Frontier as the provider of choice for their enhanced services." Excel Communications, Inc., (NYSE: ECI) is one of the fastest growing providers of long distance telecommunications services in the United States. The company offers its subscribers a variety of long distance telecommunications services and products under the EXCEL branded name, which include residential service, commercial service, 800 service, international service, and calling cards. The company's services are marketed nationwide exclusively through a network of independent representatives. Frontier Corporation (NYSE: FRO) is the parent company whose long distance, local telephone and wireless communications subsidiaries provide a range of integrated services to customers. It was chartered in 1920 as Rochester Telephone Corporation. Frontier employs approximately 8,500 people and maintains offices in nearly 150 cities in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. With 2.1 billion in annual revenues, the corporation provided a total return to shareowners of 46 percent in 1995. The combined long distance revenues of Frontier's subsidiaries rank them fifth among long distance companies. CONTACT: Excel Communications, Inc. Mary Bell, 214/863-8730 (investor relations) John J. McLaine, 214/863-8749 (CFO) ------------------------------ From: Interactive Services Association Subject: Screen Phone Sessions at ISA's Annual Conference Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 13:15:23 +0100 Organization: Capital Area Internet Service info@cais.com 703-448-4470 Attention Screen Phone Developer, Marketers and other Interested Parties: The Interactive Services Association's Screen Telephone Council has worked hard to bring you excellent screen phone content and material at the 11th Annual Conference and Alliance Exposition to be held in San Diego this July. Two sessions in particular, "1996: The Year of the Screen Phone" and "Platform Shift-From Audiotex to Screen Phone to Online, and Back Again," have speakers like Gerrit Schipper, president & CEO of Philips Home Services, Scott Corzine, vice president of US Order and Ronnie Potter, vice president og Global ADSI Solutions. These speakers and more combined with the exhibitors, screen phone industry awards and the largest meeting of the ISA's Screen Telephone Council, open for the first time to non-members, could make this event the most important screen phone event of the year. To find out more about the conference or to register, visit the ISA's web site at http://www.isa.net/conference/annual.html. See you there! Interactive Services Association 8403 Colesville Road, Suite 865 Silver Spring, MD 20910 Phone: 301-495-4955 Fax: 301-495-4959 E-mail: ISA@isa.net URL: http://www.isa.net ------------------------------ From: Jean-Francois Mezei Subject: Future of X.25 Networks vs Internet Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 23:52:27 +0000 Organization: Vaxination Informatique Reply-To: jfmezei@istar.ca I would like opinions on what will happen to worldwide X.25 networks such as TYMNET, SPRINTNET and national X.25 nets connected via X.75 with the Internet becoming so popular. Will X.25 nets be reduced to carrying bank transactions? (ATMs, EFTpos etc.) Will these private providers use their infrastructure to provide private TCP networks? (I know that most are planning it, but I am unsure if they would provide public dial-up ports (PPP/SLIP)). Or will corporations simply go with the actual Internet and concentrate on encryption of the data? (I am concerned about world-wide network applications). ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 15:22:36 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Re: Stentor, Bell Canada, Independents I have a few corrections and clarifications to my recent report for this Digest regarding the history of the Canadian telecom entities. I had referred to Saskatchewan Telecommunications as "Saskatel". ^ Its actual name is "Sasktel", without the /a/. While preparing the report, I was "thinking out loud", and I kept saying to myself 'SASK-a-tel', which to me seems *easier* to pronounce than does 'SASK-tel'. IMO, that extra vowel sound syllable seems like it 'should' be there, following a syllable ending in the consonants /s/ and /k/ and before a syllable starting with the consonant /t/. Also, Sasktel is still owned by the Saskatchewan provincial government, while Alberta's government has privatized AGT (Alberta Government Telephones) a few years ago into the holding company Telus, and Manitoba's government still holds MTS (Manitoba Telephone System) but they are currently considering privatization. I also mentioned that the Federal CRTC has assumed regulatory jurisdiction over *all* of Canada's telcos, many of which had been provincially regulated. The CRTC has regulated Bell Canada, (GTE's) BC Tel in British Columbia, and CN (CNCP now Unitel) for decades. The CRTC and Industry Canada also have regulatory jurisdiction or oversight over many of the more recent competitive telecom entities (MicroCell, fONOROLA, Sprint Canada, ACC, etc). And while the CRTC has assumed regulatory jurisdiction over virtually all of the various traditional telcos (independent as well as Stentor local/toll provincially based telcos), for the present time the Saskatchewan provincial government *still* has regulatory jurisdiction over Sasktel, as well as holding it. Telesat Canada, the domestic satellite carrier incorporated in 1969, is held by Alouette Telecommunications, and does maintain an association with Stentor. Alouette Telecommunications is owned by: - most of the individual Stentor member companies or their holding companies [approx. 86.9%] - SPAR Aerospace Ltd. [approx. 10%] - others [remaining approx. 3.1%] BCE (Bell Canada's holding company) holds 58.5% of Alouette, which includes amounts held directly by BCE and by the four Atlantic area province telcos in which BCE has an interest, however BCE itself only votes about 25% of Alouette. As a carrier, Telesat Canada provides domestic satellite services to the Stentor member telcos, and also other customers, such as radio and TV broadcasting networks and cable services, as well as the more recent alternative and competitive telecom carriers. Telesat Canada also holds Telesat Mobile Inc. (TMI), which provides mobile satellite telephone services and terminals (MSAT's). I understand that the Canada-only Special Area Code 600 (prior to October 1993, the old 610 SAC for TWX in Canada, which began to be used in the 1980's for Datalink and ISDN services by Stentor and now others) will also be used by TMI for MSAT's, and even "caller-pays" cellular services by Mobility Canada and its member cellular companies, the "B-side" cellular carriers, which are subsidiaries of the regular wireline telcos. Other companies which are or will be using NXX codes in Canada's Special Area Code 600 include MicroCell 1-2-1, Telezone, Teleglobe, Unitel, Rogers Cantel. As for Teleglobe Canada, the international carrier once government owned (a Crown Corporation), changed its original 1950 name from the Canadian Overseas Telecommunications Corporation to Teleglobe in 1975. The Canadian government privatized Teleglobe in 1987, and gave it a five-year period of exclusivety. This legal exclusivety was reviewed and renewed for another five-years, in 1992. I understand that Teleglobe will lose this legal monopoly status in 1997, and there will most likely be competition for Canada's international carrier services. Teleglobe Inc. holds: - Teleglobe Canada Inc. (the international and overseas carrier) - Teleglobe International Inc. (has operating units Teleglobe USA and Teleglobe UK; based in Washington DC and has offices in major cities around the world) - Teleglobe Insurance Systems (software) - Teleglobe World Mobility (satellite PCS, data, etc). - Teleglobe Enterprises, which holds: Teleglobe Cable Systems (undersea cables) Teleglobe Marine Inc. (cable laying ships) Teleglobe Media Enterprises (multimedia services) Teleglobe Canada provides international carrier services to the Stentor member telcos as well as the more recent telecom competitors, although Stentor remains by far the largest customer. Teleglobe Inc. is held by: - BCE [21.9%] - Telesysteme National Ltee., a private company of Charles Sirois, Teleglobe's President and CEO [19.9%] - La Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec, a pension fund [16.3%] - Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement Board [18.3%] - and the remainder is widely held by the general public at-large [33.6%] Rogers Communications used to hold approximately 4% of Teleglobe Inc, but that was sold last year and is now part of the 'widely held by the public' portion. Finally, I wish to thank those who emailed me with these additional details, corrections and clarifications. MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #294 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jun 19 11:17:23 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id LAA10206; Wed, 19 Jun 1996 11:17:23 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 11:17:23 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606191517.LAA10206@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #295 TELECOM Digest Wed, 19 Jun 96 11:17:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 295 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Nationwide PRI Shortage (David G. Lewis) Re: Nationwide PRI Shortage (Paul J. Zawada) Re: 911 Locator for Cellular Users (Bruce A. Pennypacker) Re: 911 Locator for Cellular Users (Ben Levitan) Re: What You See Is Who You Get (Ralph Doncaster) Re: New Twist For 800 Number and Spammers (Matthew B. Landry) Re: New Twist For 800 Number and Spammers (Clarence Dold) Re: Telco: Service or Business (Jock Mackirdy) Re: Telco: Service or Business (Joel M. Hoffman) Privacy Isn't Free (A. Padgett Peterson) Re: Questions About Ringing (Ray Hazel) Re: Tax on Cellphones in Maryland (tmitariffs@aol.com) Re: Tax on Cellphones in Maryland (Richard Harris) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: dlewis@hogpc.ho.att.com (David G. Lewis) Subject: Re: Nationwide PRI Shortage Date: 19 Jun 1996 12:59:18 GMT Organization: AT&T In article , Stephen Balbach wrote: > As an ISP in the MD/DC/VA areas we are expanding to offer dialup > service over PRI's (%100 digital V.34 and ISDN on same line). After > placing orders with Bell Atlantic it is becoming clear there is a > serious shortage of PRI equipment in Bell Atlantic. Orders take 2 > months, then get knocked back another month. Some sites have no PRI > access for the foreseable future. Orders are so backlogged that Bell > Atlantic has opened a special division just to handle the queue of > customers. > The reason for this apprently is the equipment manufactures (Nortel, > AT&T) have been caught with thier pants down and there is simply no > central switching equipment to provide the PRI's. Of course, it's always easier to blame the vendor than to admit to problems of your own. Let's look closely at the claim that there is "no central switching equipment to provide the PRIs". (Disclaimer 1: I know a little bit about 5ESS(R) switch architecture, but nothing about DMS-100(TM) switch architecture, so I'll limit discussion to the 5ESS.) (Disclaimer 2: I really do work for AT&T, not Lucent, so aside from the few shares of Lucent stock I'm going to get this fall, I really don't have any vested interest in making Lucent look good ... ) To provide a PRI on a 5ESS switch, you need: 1. A Digital Facility Interface (DFI), which is a DS1 interface; 2. in a Loaded (ISDN-capable) switch module; 3. with sufficient Protocol Handler capacity to handle the signaling load. For there to be "no central switching equipment to provide the PRIs", one of these three things would have to be unavailable from the manufacturer. Well, if there were no DFIs available for installation, then there would be no new trunks being built on any end office switches nationwide. Highly unlikely. A Loaded SM is defined by the software installed, so there can't be a shortage of that. Protocol Handlers are required for every ISDN SM, and the same PH is used for handling BRI and PRI, so if there was a shortage of them, then you wouldn't be able to install any ISDN. Given that I haven't heard of any nationwide crisis in installing trunks or BRI, ISTM that the more likely scenario is one of the following: a. Bell Atlantic got caught with *their* pants down, didn't engineer things to meet the demand, doesn't have sufficient DFIs or PHs in *their* switches, and is looking to shift the blame; or b. BAtl just doesn't want to install PRIs. David G Lewis AT&T Network & Computing Services david.g.lewis@att.com or Network Services Planning deej@taz.att.com Call Processing Systems Engineering The Future: It's a long distance from long distance. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 13:03:15 -0500 From: Paul J. Zawada Organization: Nat'l Center for Supercomputing Applications Subject: Re: Nationwide PRI Shortage Stephen Balbach wrote: > {Stephen relates his expirence with the lack of PRI availabilty in > Bell Atlantic Territory } > The reason for this apprently is the equipment manufactures (Nortel, > AT&T) have been caught with thier pants down and there is simply no > central switching equipment to provide the PRI's. We have been told by > Bell Atlantic there is a nationwide shortage of PRI's. CO's set for > upgrades get knocked back in favour of higher demand CO's with the > result being some CO's wont get upgrades for 6 months to a year or > possibly more. This has potentially dire consequences for the online > industry which is moving POTS lines over to PRI based solutions. > Is this true? Are PRI's really that hard to get in other parts of the > country? I look forward to hearing of others experiences, thanks. I had a related experience with Ameritech. When they went to turn up a PRI I had installed just short of a year ago, the port they connected my DS1 to appeared to be bad. It took them days to locate a spare board. (This was on a DMS-100) I don't know what their equipment situation is like these days, but I keep my fingers crossed and hope I don't have a PRI failure. I would expect that this situation would be "temporary". (Don't ask me how long temporary lasts. :-) After all, Lucent and Nortel are in the business to make money and they'll go where the money is. If they see a high demand in a particular area of their business, you can be sure they'll adjust their manufacturing to address that demand. It may take months for them to make the adjustment (which doesn't help you if you're waiting for a PRI installation _today_) but in the long run I don't see the situation particularly devistating to the on-line industry as a whole. Paul J. Zawada | Senior Network Engineer zawada@ncsa.uiuc.edu | National Center for Supercomputing Applications +1 217 244 4728 | http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/People/zawada ------------------------------ From: Bruce A. Pennypacker Subject: Re: 911 Locator for Cellular Users Date: 19 Jun 1996 12:30:22 GMT Organization: Stylus Products Group, Artisoft Inc. In article telecom16.289.8@massis.lcs.mit.edu, John Stahl said: > I'm not sure if this isn't another of those wonderful 'dreams' from > our friendly government or this is actually something that can be > done. Right now, I pay something like 98 cents each month to my LEC > for enhanced 911 service on each line. I wonder what that amount > will be in five years (considering that most estimates made before actual > engineering is done are usually DRASTICALLY understated!) when this > new system is supposed to be operational? > Does anyone know what sort of system modification can be made to allow > this to happen? I would assume that the handsets (portable > phones/radios) can not be modified -- think how the circuitry is > packed into a flip-phone right now! -- due to the large numbers in > use. This would be tantamount to the change over from analog to > digital -- have a third system operational? > I can think of at least two scenarios: The tight cell packing of > hundreds of meters in diameter in a major metropolitan MSA (like > NYC, Chicago or LA) and the rural MSA's where a cell might be as > much as ten miles in diameter. In the former, there might be some > way to triangulate the signal from at least two antennas to achieve > the 125 meter resolution but in the latter, there is sure to be MAJOR > technical difficulties! Am I wrong? I can't offer any specifics, but I do know that in the northeast the FCC has been working closely with the US Coast Guard in setting up and testing a system that will allow the Coast Guard to locate boaters who are in trouble and called for help via cellular phones. In the past most boaters used VHF or CB radios, which the Coast Guard could easily triangulate on. But now that more and more boaters are using cellular phones (including Coast Guard boats) and you can dial *CG in many coastal areas to contact the Coast Guard, they're getting more and more interested in tracking down distressed cellular callers. The last I heard on the testing up here they said they expect to have the system in place and fully operational in another year or two. So it sounds like the ability to triangulate on a cellular phone is pretty near (and won't require any modifications to the phones themselves). Bruce Pennypacker | Stylus Products Group | Phone: +1 617 621 9545 Software Engineer | Artisoft, Inc. | Fax: +1 617 621 7862 Resident TAPI guru | 201 Broadway | http://www.stylus.com brucep@stylus.com | Cambridge, MA 02139 | sales: sales@stylus.com ------------------------------ From: benlev@aol.com (BenLev) Subject: Re: 911 Locator for Cellular Users Date: 19 Jun 1996 09:36:09 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: benlev@aol.com (BenLev) It is difficult but not as bad as it seems. Cellular already does measurement prior to handoff and compares the signal of your connection with available connections around you and then depending on the availability of circuits it makes a decision when to hand you off. (This is called RSSI measurement). Given those measurements put into a simple program it would be fairly easy (but it will take work) to locate someone. The key is that measurements are already being done. Ben Levitan ALCATEL Cellular ------------------------------ From: Ralph Doncaster Subject: Re: What You See Is Who You Get Organization: Doncaster Consulting Inc Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 17:36:34 GMT Mike King wrote: > Caller ID service from Pacific Bell is $6.50 per month for residential > customers and $7.50 per month for business customers. There is a $5.00 > installation fee for residential customers and $6.00 installation fee > for business customers. I guess we aren't getting ripped off so bad here in Ontario, Canada: Bell Call Answer service $5 per month or less (residential) Extension Call Answer option $2 per month for the option Voice Mail option $2 per month for the option They also have a pager notification (which I use ) for $3 extra/month. Current exchange rate is about US73c = $1CDN Does anyone know if PacBell is using Octel's voicemail? That's what Bell Canada uses here. Ralph ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 15:43:48 -0400 (EDT) From: Matthew B Landry Subject: Re: New Twist For 800 Number and Spammers Organization: Flunkies for the Mike Conspiracy In article you wrote: > ** do not harass them via phone **. That is illegal. So is billing 800 callers through the telco billing system. (It was stuck into the telecom act to thwart sleaze-vendors who sell 900-type services through 800 numbers and surprise people with a bill for them at the end of the month. But it'll work just as well here.) So even in the (highly unlikely, I agree) circumstance that one of these losers got hold of the necessary data from the telco, they couldn't use it for the purpose they're claiming. Matthew Landry Well, yeah. Actually I do sometimes speak for Msen. But not from THIS account. O- ------------------------------ From: Clarence Dold Subject: Re: New Twist For 800 Number and Spammers Date: 19 Jun 1996 00:46:51 GMT Organization: a2i network David F. Reynolds (daver@teleport.com) wrote: > Thought you'all might get a kick out of this one -- this slimeball is > threatening to charge back (with surcharges yet!) nuisance calls to > his 800 number; I'm saving this number right next to Jeff's. > *PLEASE NOTE THAT ANY CALLS NOT PERTAINING TO INFORMATION REQUESTS > WILL BE AUTO-BILLED TO ORIGINATING NUMBER UTILIZING LONG DISTANCE > SURCHARGES. Hmmm. I don't believe that I, as an IXC, would be interested in helping charge back those calls. On the other hand, I have heard of spam being sent with forged return headers, or from an idle terminal, causing grief for the legitimate, and unwitting owner of the email address. Here we could have some poor guy with nothing whatsoever to do with this spam having his 800 bill racked up. I think PAT should call the number, and relate the truth of its application in this spam. I am all for convincing spammists that I don't enjoy their methods, but I am not one of the Freemen, filing false liens against someone's 800 number ;-) Clarence A Dold - dold@rahul.net - Pope Valley & Napa CA. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If it makes you feel better, you do get the spam in question at the phone number given. To me it is a stretch of the imagination to think of some person trying to sell his product on the internet not only providing false mail headers but a deliberatly wrong phone number as well. What would be the point? The false mail headers would be a way to keep the Internet posse from locating the fool of an ISP who gave him an account to spam with, but a false phone number would render the entire thing futile. How would customers reach him? Now on the other hand suppose someone was *not* selling the product in question. Suppose they just wanted to keep the Internet in an uproar all the time the way it is now so as a 'joke' they found some piece of totally worthless advertising for some completely junk product -- something so transparently bogus anyone with an IQ above 80 could see through it and they fed it to the news stream with bogus mail headers and bogus phone numbers, etc. Then they sat back and watched the fire- works as the netters found and examined this junk and clucked their tongues about it for days on end and on the other end of the line some legitimate and innocent third party 800 subscriber was caught in the crossfire as netters everywhere gave him a piece of their mind. ("When you call my 800 number be sure and mention that you saw my advertisement on the internet, and what news group you saw it in.") I don't think though, Clarence, that there is much of this. The header information can usually be expected to be wrong; the phone number will very seldom if ever be wrong unless the spammer got a typographical error in it and did not even both to proofread his masterpiece before releasing it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jock Mackirdy Subject: Re: Telco: Service or Business Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 21:46:19 GMT joel@exc.com (Joel M. Hoffman) wrote: >> The bottom line is that the phone network is not supposed to be a >> money-making endeavor. It's supposed to be a service to citizens. >> And America isn't providing that service. >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Now wait a minute! *Who says* that >> telecom is not supposed to be a money-making endeavor? Perhaps that >> is the case in some countries, but here in the USA telephone companies >> have stockholders and pay dividends to those stockholders. Do you >> think the investors put money in just for the sake of being good guys >> to the rest of the nation? PAT] > It's all a matter of how you look at it. Certainly a company, with > investors and so forth, wants to make money. But the question is > this: if it comes down to telco's making money or people having better > phone service, which is to be preferred? > Universal residential service is a money-losing endeavor. Maybe we > should just get rid of that, because no one's making money on it? Look at the UK situation. The most heavily regulated telecom environment in the world. BT has a universal service obligation and has a price list which is totally independent of the location of the customer. Yet is still makes a good profit for its stock-holders despite having the lowest prices (overall) in the world. It is in direct competition with 150 other licensed operators (none of these has a universal service obligation and most are chrry-picking market niches). Jock Mackirdy Business Advisory Services, Luton (UK) E-mail: jockm@basluton.demon.co.uk Tel/fax: +44 (0)1582 597878 Independent telecomms. and business advice ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 96 22:46:00 EDT From: joel@exc.com (Joel M. Hoffman) Subject: Re: Telco: Service or Business Organization: Excelsior Computer Services > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not think making money and providing > good customer service are mutually exclusive goals. I think they go hand > in hand. After all, when did telco make the vast majority of its billions > of dollars in reserves? They did it back in the earlier years of this > century when prompt installation/repair/customer service were paramount > features. Granted, they were the only game in town, and you either got Agreed. And, in fact, most successful companies are successful because they offer good service. But when a company has to demonstrate quarter by quarter profits, the first thing to go is good service. People, even investers, tend to be very short-sighted. Almost all of the steps that made the old AT&T great are impossible in today's business climate. Their guaranteed monopoly gave them the freedom to take a long-term approach to running the phone business, and it helped us all. We all paid slightly more, but also got more for our money. The way things are going now, we're never going to have good service in telcos again. > We are at a crossroads, just like we were in the '50s when the > decision was taken to build the interstate highway system. If you > believe that highway decision accelerated the collapse of our cities, > imagine what universal immdeiate access to highbandwidth networks will > do. Ease the congested highways? :-) Actually, it's a good point. I don't think the problem will be collapsing cities, but more along the lines of a nation of hermits. (Look at how many people already are dying to chat with strangers on AOL -- why do they want to do this?) Joel (joel@exc.com) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There could be (and perhaps have been) several lengthy treatises on the subject 'Why do people use computer chat services?' I've thought about writing a paper on it myself and in fact have commented on the phenomenon here from time to time. The commonly accepted belief is that the people who patronize the chats are the people who in real life are unable to get 'any'. I'll leave it to your imagination to decide what the 'any' is that they are unable to get. If chats were operated like newsgroups then there would be a 'chat room' for a meta-discussion on the topic 'why do people use chat to discuss such personal things about themselves?' So far no one has started such a room or channel. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 09:49:57 EDT From: A. Padgett Peterson Subject: Privacy Isn't Free > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But of course! Why shouldn't we have > the unfettered right to spy on our neighbors and snoop on their phone > calls if we want to? You don't mind it when people unkown to you > listen in on your calls do you? PAT] Pat: I rarely disagree with you but this is one place we differ. Privacy is not a right, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure is. Privacy is something that we are each and individually responsible for and if we want some, we have to perform an overt act to guarentee it. To me, unencrypted E-Mail has no more protection than a postcard because nothing has been done to show that privacy is expected. (Am not talking about in a court of law - all that is done there is to determine how much you will lose and does nothing to prevent the loss). For that matter the strength of the encryption is irrelvant to the expectation. LOASDR is sufficient to demonstrate intent though PGP is much more effective. My point is that anyone who speaks into a phone, sends E-Mail, or shouts from the rooftops has done the same thing effectively - anyone who wants to listen, can. Has nothing to do with laws or ethics, just capability. Thus it is not a "right" (am somewhat pessimistic on that subject), just individual responsibility. Warmly, Padgett ------------------------------ From: razel@net.com (Ray Hazel) Subject: Re: Questions About Ringing Date: 19 Jun 1996 02:52:15 GMT Organization: N. E. T., Inc. In article Mark J. Cuccia writes: > Reading Pat's comments to Apollo Shyong's post brought to mind a few > things: [Some text deleted] > One thing that *IRKS* me is how "Hollywood" handles ringing the called > phone and ringing indication to the calling party, when a telephone > call is used in fiction (TV, Radio, Motion Pictures). They are *not* > always consistant with the above patterns. Sometimes, they have used > North American ringing patterns when the TV/Radio program or movie > takes place in Europe, which has its own distinct ringing patterns. > But for movies and TV/Radio programs which take place in North > America, "Hollywood" has at times used *extra-long* rings with a *very > short* pause between the ringing. I'm amazed just how badly "Hollywood" was with communications ... I'm also intrigued at how someone could tell the difference in the gongs of various telephones and how they resonated. That was an interesting detail on the different phones and bells, Mr. Cuccia. What I've noticed is that dialtone is returned immediately when the far end disconnects, which may be Hollywood's way of speeding up the dialog but has always irked me. Also, when a pager goes off, it's almost always the alert tone when the pager is powered up, not one of the various "paging" alerts pagers give when actually paged. Next, they'll use a modem (probably 1200 baud) tone for an incoming fax to a fax machine. (What does a "technical" director do, then?) Ray razel@net.com ------------------------------ From: tmitariffs@aol.com (TMITARIFFS) Subject: Re: Tax on Cellphones in Maryland Date: 18 Jun 1996 22:42:48 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: tmitariffs@aol.com (TMITARIFFS) Is this tax based on usage? Given that a large number of cell calls would cross county boundaries, a high percentage of call dollars would be untaxable by Montgomery County. Beyond that, what if the transmitting cell is in another county? I'm still in a major battle with a large RBOC in a state where they have a great bit of municipal taxation on phone service. My problem concerns private line services which cross these boundaries. The RBOC taxes bills according to The A Term for the whole mileage portion. If the A Term has a 6 % tax rate and the Z does not, guess which one the RBOC bills? The other problem is consistency. One man' s Z is another man' A. Two identical services wind up being billed different amounts. The tax is actually a use of streets tax, billed directly by the municipality to the RBOC. The "tax" appearing on the bill, is more correctly, a reimbusement fee. The scheme is highly problematic since a circuit will traverse the city streets of several municipalities as it makes its way to the terminating end. The municipalites in between get no percentage of the tases. And, as everybody is aware ... PL service is rarely provisioned the way it is billed. The Circuit could go through Timbuktu on its way to the Z term. The point is that the Montgomery Co. tax could be invalidated by a variety of differnt tariffing problems. Comments would be appreciated. ------------------------------ From: NMKL79A@prodigy.com (Richard Harris) Subject: Re: Tax on Cellphones in Maryland Date: 18 Jun 1996 15:57:51 GMT Organization: Prodigy Services Company 1-800-PRODIGY I would add that many service bureaus are already capable of adding taxes on federal, state and local levels on a transaction by transaction basis. When a similar tax was enacted in Phioladelphia, the service bureau was able to implement the tax within a month for the non wireline carrier. In addition, there is usually some amount of lead time in the enactment of a tax. Rich Harris Harris & Associates ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #295 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jun 19 18:21:08 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id SAA23801; Wed, 19 Jun 1996 18:21:08 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 18:21:08 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606192221.SAA23801@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #296 TELECOM Digest Wed, 19 Jun 96 18:21:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 296 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: "The NetWare 3.12 Administrator's Handbook" (Rob Slade) Question Concerning Protocols (Naima Benmansour) VMUIF Specification - Where to Find it? (Larry D. Weiner) Seeking Telecommunications Consultant/Expert (rolo@webspan.net) Caller ID With Pre-Paid Calling Card (eert@aol.com) Phone History Question (Jon Parro) Studies on Internet Reliability (Fred Atkinson) The Green Brain (Where to Get a Copy?) (James D. Murray) New Twist on Old Scam (Matt Simpson) Phone/Internet Service To/From Bosnia (Robert M. Anderson) Sprint's Automatic Call-Return Service (Jeff Blum) Re: 911 Call From my Phone Number (Jean-Francois Mezei) Re: Arrogant Internet Providers (Brian Mulvaney) Re: Cellular vs. PCS Mix-up (Thomas Peters) Re: International 800 Numbers (Ben Levitan) Re: International 800 Numbers (John R. Levine) Re: France Telecom Introduces Voice Mail For Residential Users (R. Irvine) Re: Customer Care in Telecom (Tim Zickus) Re: AT&T Wireless Tells Cellular Roamers: Don't Call NJ Police (R Schwartz) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 11:50:48 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "The NetWare 3.12 Administrator's Handbook" BKNWADHB.RVW 960523 "The NetWare 3.12 Administrator's Handbook", Kelly J. P. Lindberg, 1996, 0- 7821-1905-0, U$24.99 %A Kelly J. P. Lindberg %C 2021 Challenger Drive, Alameda, CA 94501 %D 1996 %G 0-7821-1905-0 %I Sybex Computer Books %O U$24.99 510-523-8233 800-227-2346 Fax: 510-523-2373 jjigarjian@sybex.com %P 326 %S Network Press %T "The NetWare 3.12 Administrator's Handbook" For basic administration of a small network, this book brings together the normal operations you need. The organization is good, and it's a lot faster than rifling through multiple volumes of NetWare documentation to find a dimly remembered command or a function which "must be there". However, once you go beyond the basics, you will want something else. The section on login scripts does not warn you of some of the common vagaries, the chapter on security lists rights but not combinations, and the troubleshooting of printer problems seems to assume that you haven't plugged it in. For the part time manager of a school or small business LAN this will likely be *the* reference. Those with more responsibility will likely use it as a first stop before going on to the full documentation. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKNWADHB.RVW 960523. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. Vancouver roberts@decus.ca | "If a train station Institute for rslade@vanisl.decus.ca | is where a train Research into rslade@vcn.bc.ca | stops, what happens User Rob_Slade@mindlink.bc.ca | at a workstation?" Security Canada V7K 2G6 | Frederick Wheeler ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 12:50:00 BST From: Naima Benmansour Subject: Question Concerning Protocols I would be very grateful if you could tell me what is the difference between X.21 and V.35 telecommunication interfaces. Does the V.35 protocol offer more transmission security than X.21? Thank you very much for your collaboration. N.Benmansour University of York England. ------------------------------ From: lweiner@gte.net (Larry D. Weiner) Subject: VMUIF Specification - Where to Find it? Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 02:43:51 GMT Organization: GTE Intelligent Network Services, GTE INS Can someone give me a pointer on where to find the VMUIF specification? ------------------------------ From: rolo@webspan.net Subject: Seeking Telecommunications Consultant/Expert Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 05:59:47 GMT Organization: Three Bubbas InnaNet. New company in New Jersey, dealing in International Telecommunications, is seeking a Telecommunications consultant for: A - Consultation on project design and development. B - Physical implementation. Experience needed in: System/ Network/ Product architecture design Switching equipment Voice compression equipment Software planning and development Vendor/Tool selection, and prototype environment System and network administration Product testing Please fax resume to 908-886-6419. ------------------------------ From: eert@aol.com (Eert) Subject: Caller ID with Pre-Paid Calling Card? Date: 19 Jun 1996 16:04:32 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: eert@aol.com (Eert) If you call a 800 number for one of the companies that offer a Pre-Paid Calling Card what number displays on a Caller ID box once your call is put through? Does it matter who the company is that carries the call? Thanks, Eert ------------------------------ From: Jon Parro Subject: Phone History Question Date: 17 Jun 1996 19:35:35 GMT Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Does anyone know when they stopped hardwiring phones and started installing phone jacks (in Southern California, particularly)? Jon Parro jparro@hsc.usc.edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The first two phones I had in my own name (1961 through 1965 I think) were hardwired. The first one was 'installed in place' having been there from a previous subscriber. My parents phones were hardwired. I honestly cannot remember but I think my third phone in 1967 was modular. I know the ones I had in the early 1970's were modular. It was quite common to see older installations that were hardwired around the same time, but it was also common to see 302 type phones from the 1940's still around also in older installations. My best guess would be the change in standards probably was about 1965-68. Other ideas or facts on this? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Fred_Atkinson/SkyTel_at_SkyTelNotesPO@mtel.com Date: Wed, 19 Jun 96 09:53:00 CST Subject: Studies on Internet Reliability I am presently taking a graduate course towards my masters in telecommunications management'. I am looking for any studies that have been done regarding the reliability of Internet email or other measures of Internet reliability. One of the types of data might be if a thousand messages were sent, what per cent arrived within one minute, within ten minutes, within an hour, within a day, were not received, etc. Any other measures of reliability would be helpful as well. If anyone knows of any data like this, I'd be grateful if they could email me at: 'fatkinson@mtel.com'. Thanks in advance for your assistance. Fred [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can tell you from my own experience with the Digest mailing list which has about five thousand names at any given time I get back 150-200 mail daemons from each issue (if I do five issues that day that means about a thousand daemons) which indicate trouble was encountered in delivery. Deducting the 'user unknown' daemons which are the only ones I can do anything about (I remove those names from the list after two or three such returns on any given name, and there are usually two or three such removals daily), I still get a good number of daemons which complain about delivery problems. Typically the problem will be 'host unknown' or 'host not receiving mail, will keep trying' or 'cannot resolve host name'. Sometimes the name resolvers are hosed; that is they got a bit scrambled up and for the time being don't know where to go to find (or seek resolution for) a given domain or site, etc. A dozen or so daemons each time say 'timed out during user open with site.name' and this generally means when the delivering site went calling on the receiving site it got there and 'knocked on the window' (connected to the appropriate socket) and the receiving site 'opened the window' alright, but got impatient and slammed the window shut before delivery was completed. Or so the sending site thought ... or maybe the delivering site stood there for the longest time waiting for the receiving site to accept the mail and finally gave up and went away leaving the recieving site still waiting for more mail, etc. Maybe the item of mail did not terminate to the satisfaction of the receiving site, etc. In all probability the mail did get delivered just as it gets delivered eventually to places where initially the report was 'host unknown'. Typically an issue of this Digest takes about 18 hours for complete delivery to all names on the list, and I have the list sorted from the '@' sign to the right so that all users at a given site get serviced at the same time, which sendmail would do anyway but by sorting it in advance sendmail does not have to 'work so hard' to find everything going to the same place; that sorting seems to cut a couple hours off the total time. At any given time around the clock usually I have four or five instantiations of sendmail running; if I start them sooner than about an hour apart (like say two within thirty minutes of each other) they will 'race each other' as they each benefit from the hostname lookups the other one is doing and this causes some people to get a later issue of the Digest a few minutes before they get an earlier issue (i.e. one does a lookup and has it in the place where those things are stored; another sendmail comes along looking and finds the information the first one had squirreled away and uses it also). Typically the mailqueue has ten to twelve thousand names waiting for delivery when I am working on several issues in a day's time. I just now did a check on it with the command 'mailq | wc' (meaning just count the lines, don't send me the whole %$$#* stdout) and the response was 8708 deliveries pending. Sometimes I forget the '| wc' part of that request then I sit here and cuss while screen after screen is dumped at me. I encourage everyone to learn about sendmail and how it works. The documentation is only about two thousand pages long or the size of an Ayn Rand novel and good for reading before bedtime. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jdm@netcom.com (James D. Murray) Subject: The Green Brain (where to get a copy?) Organization: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 16:59:53 GMT Does anybody know where I can get a copy or reprint of "The Green Brain"? It's a telco telephony manual dating from the late 30's or early 40's. The actual title was something like "Manual of Basic Telephony". James D. Murray POB 70 Tel: +1.714.288.0141 jdm@netcom.com Orange, CA 92856 USA Fax: +1.714.832.9924 Maintainer of the Graphics File Formats FAQ on comp.graphics.misc and coauthor of the O'Reilly book "Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats". ------------------------------ From: msimpson@service1.uky.edu (Matt Simpson) Subject: New Twist on Old Scam Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 12:21:51 -0400 Organization: University of Kentucky Computing Center The local (Lexington KY) newspaper had an article about a scam that was recently run here. The scammer called someone and said he was the local chief of police, investigating bank fraud. He asked the person to withdraw a large sum of money from his bank account. This kind of thing is pretty old, but this one had a new twist. To verify his identity, the "chief" told the victim to hang up, then call 911. According to the article, the scammer had "tapped the phone" and intercepted the 911 call. He then set up a phony "conference call" with a bank officer. I was wondering about the technique used to "tap" the phone, and I thought it might be very simple. It might have been as simple as the scammer staying on the line, to keep the connection from being broken when the victim hung up. He could then play back a recorded dial tone for the victim to hear when he tried to call 911. When the scammer heard the 911 tones, he could turn off the dial tone and "answer" the call. Does this make sense? Matt Simpson --- Lead Systems Programmer, MVS University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY msimpson@pop.uky.edu http://rivendell.cc.uky.edu A programmer is a machine for turning beer into code [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That makes very good sense and I would say it is quite likely what happened. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Jun 96 11:10:47 PDT From: robert@manta.nosc.mil (Robert M. Anderson) Subject: Phone/Internet Service To/From Bosnia Pat, Sorry to bother you but don't know who can answer these questions. If you cannot, perhaps you can point me somewhere else. Trying to help my daughter find a cheap way to communicate from TX with her husband now in Bosnia. What is cheapest phone service from US to Bosnia (MCI quotes introductory rate of less than .60 per minute but only to numbers that are pre-registered with MCI, and I don't know if that is going to be feasible). Is there an Internet provider that service Sarajevo or anywhere else in Bosnia (if so, they can talk by email). Thanks for any help, Bob Anderson robert@nosc.mil [TELECOM Dgiest Editor's Note: It is not a bother at all. Let's see what the incoming mail brings. Readers, please respond direct to the writer if you wish, so he will get a faster answer. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jeff Blum Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 10:31:03 -0700 Subject: Sprint's Automatic Call-Return Service Has this happened to anyone else ? Jeff jeff.blum@mci.com By Fred A. Schneyer, Tallahassee Democrat, Fla. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Jun. 19--The extra $20 to $25 on Peter Piper's office phone bill earlier this year got his attention. Quickly. Piper, Tallahassee representative for Olsten Staffing Services, a temporary-employee firm, was hot when he discovered what the charges were for Sprint's automatic call-return service, billed at 75 cents per call. He didn't order the service, which identifies the most recent caller. He didn't even remember reading about it. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Too bad you did not send us the complete story instead of just the first paragraph. Maybe he does not remember reading about it -- as if what he remembers or does not remember reading should have any relevance to anything; imagine how nice it would be if we could all get out our obligations to pay our bills by not being able to remember what we read -- but obviously one or more of his employees remembers reading about it and maxed it out for him. All the telcos have been talking about it for some time now, so I don't know what pile of sand he had his head buried in. One does not order the service, any more than if one wants to make a phone call one puts in a special 'order' for it with telco. One simply dials the phone and pays for whatever service one uses as a result. Automatic call-return has been tariffed for awhile now by all telcos and 75 cents per use is the typical rate. If he cannot trust his employees not to run his phone bill up then he should fire them all and get new help; or very possibly he himself used this service and somehow thought it was a gift from Sprint although he claims he had never heard of the service. Don't they all? If we had seen the rest of the newspaper article, the paper most likely treated it as a 'poor consumer cheated by unresponsive large corporation' situation with Sprint falling down and slobbering all over themselves apologizing for the terrible inconvenience he had gone through in getting it straightened out. Don't they all? Don't you get as tired as I do some days of reading stories in the papers like this? I found some 75 cent automatic callback charges on my phone bill a couple months ago. Instead of whining to the {Skokie Review} and Ameritech about it however, I went upstairs and gathered my deadbeat family members around and told them the next time Uncle Pat (I pay all the bills here anyway) found such a thing on his phone bill he would physically maim whoever did it and then move the whole bunch of them to a welfare shelter for poor families somewhere. Maybe Mr. Piper should put all his employees on the unemployment line. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Jean-Francois Mezei Subject: Re: 911 Call From my Phone Number Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 23:44:44 +0000 Organization: Vaxination Informatique Reply-To: jfmezei@istar.ca edhample@sprynet.com wrote: > Tuesday afternoon when I returned to my home from work, my voice mail > contained a number of 'blank' messages (10 seconds of silence) all > about 5 minutes apart, followed by a message from the Pasco County 911 > operator stating that they had received a call from *my* telephone > number. He continued to state that the call was completely silent, and > that if no one picked up the phone, he would be forced to dispatch a > Sheriff to investigate. I had the same happen to me last summer. I was in the alone in the house and the call was supposedly made from a phone line upstairs. The police searched the house completely to ensure that I wasn't a rapist hiding the victim :-) :-) They were doing their job I guess. They also said that the remote phone might be the culprit. I do wonder how often these incidents do happen. I do find it VERY odd that a deffective phone would generate the actual tones for 911 and not some other tones. If it generates these random tones often enough to eventually hit that 911, I would tend to think that owner would notice it. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It is not making tones, it is making pulses. Remember, touch tone lines work just fine with pulse dialing also. If the base unit is defective, the relay which opens and closes the phone line could be doing so rapidly enough to simulate pulse dialing and randomly enough to occassionally produce nine pulses followed by two single pulses a second or so apart. That gets you your 9-1-1. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 10:14:42 -0700 From: Brian Mulvaney Subject: Re: Arrogant Internet Providers I think it still quite possible to get competent service from an ISP. Perhaps the key is to find a local ISP that is more focused on network reliability than on boundless subscriber growth. I've had tremendous success over the past few years with RAINet, a regional wholesale/retail IP provider in Oregon and Washington. You can tell a lot about their orientation by browsing the home page . From the "Job Openings" section, for example: > We have the following positions available at this time: > Support Engineer > net problem diagnosis > telco diagnosis > immunity to telco blamecasting > abhorrence of downtime > customer orientation Clearly, this is a "run the trains on schedule" kind of outfit. In contrast to the three week turnaround email support time at Netcom related by Ross Oliver, I've never waited more than a few hours for a response to a support request. If anything, the service seems to be getting better. This past week I emailed a request to convert my dial up service from SLIP to PPP. I sent the request about 10:00PM. Within ten minutes I received a response indicating that a new account had been created for me to test. I tested the new connection and was up and running with the reconfigured service within thirty minutes of the initial request. The only downside that I can see to dealing with a reliable local provider (versus a disfunctional national one) is that I have to dial long distance to retrieve email while travelling. It is very easy to rationalize the long distance charges as a "quality of service premium" for dealing with a dependable internet provider. Brian Mulvaney brianm@rain.com ------------------------------ From: tpeters@hns.com (Thomas Peters) Subject: Re: Cellular vs. PCS Mix-up Date: 19 Jun 1996 17:17:23 GMT Organization: Hughes Network Systems Inc. > There are two different and distinct syatems here being mixed together > by Russell. Cellular which is separate and totally different from PCS. > Firstly, Cellular frequencies are in the 800 to 900 Mhz. range and > have specific usage as originated by (The) Bell System back in the > early 1970's and licensed by the FCC in the 1980's. By that logic most non-North American system such as GSM aren't cellular either. Frequencies don't determine whether a system is cellular. Common sense says you can't build two cellular systems in the same part of the spectrum, so it is hardly surprising the new systems are someplace else. While many people seem to think the existing A & B carriers use the same spectrum, they actually use adjacent regions of spectrum. > PCS (Personal Communication System) was devised many years later for > use in homes and business' to be operated similar to 'wireless phones' > but with system supplier owned (as opposed to user owned) miniature > transponders (transceivers) maintaining the communications path to the I don't believe many people would agree that the definition of "cellular" has anything to do with who owns the phones. > usage; the units will presumably be programmed for the particular > service provider's coverage area only. Cellular is national and PCS is > local. The PCS providers are already engaged in a giant game of Monopoly(TM), maneuvering to create nationwide roaming networks for their customers. When PCS is up and running it will be just as national as the existing cellular bands. The key attributes of cellular telephone systems are: 1. They provide wireless mobile telephone service, including mobility during calls. 2. They subdivide the geographic coverage area into smaller zones called cells with a base station in each cell serving the mobiles while they are in that cell. 3. Geographic reuse of frequencies in multiple cells accomplished by limiting the power of base stations and mobiles so that neighboring cells don't interfere with each other. Tom Peters ------------------------------ From: benlev@aol.com (BenLev) Subject: Re: International 800 Numbers Date: 19 Jun 1996 09:32:53 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: benlev@aol.com (BenLev) In either case you all see how confusing this is. What is remarkable is that 800 service has expanded from regional to statewide to national to North American but when it was finally going international, all of a sudden AT&T and MCI do nothing to help people who currently have 800 numbers keep those numbers. You now run the risk that someone else will get your 800 number for international use. For some reason they would rather have a whole new numbering plan for interna- tional 800. ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com Date: Wed, 19 Jun 96 10:30 EDT Subject: Re: International 800 Numbers Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > The second thing I find surprising in the article is that, although North > America alone has already exhausted a 7-digit number space of toll-free > numbers, they think that an 8-digit space will suffice worldwide for a > reasonable length of time. Remember, this is for international 800 numbers, in addition to whatever national toll-free plan exists. There's certainly a market for international 800 numbers, but it's unlikely to be anywhere as big as that for national 800 numbers, because the calls will cost a lot more. I have three 800 numbers (all of which I actually use, by the way), but I'm not planning to get any international 800 numbers unless they're a lot cheaper than I expect them to be. On the other hand, the 800 number I use the most is the one that rings on my home line (it spells my wife's name) which I use to call home when travelling. If I travel outside the U.S. much, it might be worth getting an international 800 number to avoid the complicated and pricey "home direct" and other services. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - Stanford econ prof ------------------------------ From: robert.irvine@gecm.com (Robbie Irvine) Subject: Re: France Telecom Introduces Voice Mail For Residential Users Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 09:14:09 GMT Organization: Gec Marconi Sensors Ltd Reply-To: robert.irvine@gecm.com, robbie@arakeen.demon.co.uk tholome@francenet.fr (Eric Tholome) wrote: > Retrieving messages is free from home, standard call rate from anywhere > else. Same with BT, also it's pin numbered from elsewhere. > For an additional 5FF (US$1.00) per month, the voice mail system will > call you at predefined times to notify you of new messages. No real > notification system is available (what do BT and American Telcos offer > for notification? Modified dial tone? Message waiting light?) This is free with BT, they pulse the carrier if it has answered while the phone was unattended, and dials you back to say it has received a message while you were on the line. The fee's for BT Call Minder/II are 5ukp per quarter so they work out a lot cheaper than a decent answer machine. > Anyway, the idea of having a voice mail system taking my calls while > I'm on the phone sounds nice to me, but I don't think I'll give up my > answering machine so easily, at least not until they offer a decent > notification system and cut down the monthly fee. It's very handy especially for the heavy modem user with only one line. Robert Irvine, GEC MARCONI Sensors Ltd, (44)1268 887486 at work - robert.irvine@gecm.com at home - robbie@arakeen.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ From: zickus@ssnet.com (Tim Zickus) Subject: Re: Customer Care in Telecom Date: 19 Jun 1996 14:28:44 -0400 Organization: SSNet, Inc. Public Internet Access in DE (302) 378-1386 In article , wrote: > Customer Care in Telecom > July 31 & August 1, 1996 > Washington, DC > Increase brand image and potential profit; > Effective customer satisfaction, support and retention measurers. > [etc.] > For more information call: 800-882-8684 or e-mail info@iqpc.com > Visit our homepage for a complete conference agenda: http://www.iqpc.com I attended one of these IQPC sessions not too long ago, and was extremely dissapointed with the quality of the speakers and the amount of useful information presented. Two solid days of rehashing the same ground ... over and over and over. Then they had the gall to try and recruit me to talk at a future IQPC conference! Tim Zickus "Heaven and Earth and I came into zickus@ssnet.com / tez@infosponge.com existence together, and all things http://www.ssnet.com/~zickus with me are one." - Chuang-Tzu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well if the other speakers were of such poor quality and so boring maybe you *should* have taken their offer and been a speaker. I am sure you would have given a more interesting, timely and factual presentation. PAT] ------------------------------ From: merlyn@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) Subject: Re: AT&T Wireless Tells Cellular Roamers: Don't call NJ Police Date: 19 Jun 1996 10:13:31 -0700 Organization: Stonehenge Consulting Services; Portland, Oregon, USA Reply-To: merlyn@stonehenge.com Mark" == Mark Smith writes: > In article , write: >> - All gasoline sold in New Jersey is both mandatory Full Service, it >> is at least 15 to 40c per gallon cheaper than any gas, even self >> service, in New York City, Delaware or Washington, DC. > Been that way a long time -- it was a safety issue when it became law > and every time they try to repeal the safety question stops it. I > work in PA and always buy gas at home. Yup. Same thing in Oregon. How I wish Oregon didn't share something unique with New Jersey, but that's life. :-) Just another Oregon Native, Name: Randal L. Schwartz / Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 Keywords: Perl training, UNIX[tm] consulting, video production, skiing, flying Email: Snail: (Call) PGP-Key: (finger merlyn@ora.com) Web: My Home Page! Quote: "I'm telling you, if I could have five lines in my .sig, I would!" -- me ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #296 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jun 19 19:54:00 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id TAA02851; Wed, 19 Jun 1996 19:54:00 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 19:54:00 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606192354.TAA02851@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #297 TELECOM Digest Wed, 19 Jun 96 19:53:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 297 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Future of X.25 Networks vs Internet (lr@access2.digex.net) Re: Future of X.25 Networks vs Internet (Albert Pang) Re: Nationwide PRI Shortage (Holly King) Re: Nationwide PRI Shortage (Kevin Paul Herbert) Re: Sprint Fridays Were Free (Alan Lange) Re: Sprint is Still Offering "Fridays Free"! (Ron Schnell) Re: CDA Fallout: Internet Rating System Waits in the Wings (Wolf Paul) Re: Modems in Spain (Charly Epley) Re: Talking to PBXs (Lars Poulsen) Re: Talking to PBXs (Ed Kleinhample) Re: Arrogant Internet Providers (Robert McMillin) Re: Tax on Cellphones in Maryland (Steven Lichter) Re: Questions About Ringing (Andrew C. Green) Re: 911 Locator for Cellular Users (Bradley J. Bittorf) For Sale: DID to POTS Interface For Voice Boards (Robert Schwartz) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: lr@access2.digex.net (Sir Topham Hatt) Subject: Re: Future of X.25 Networks vs Internet Date: 19 Jun 1996 15:58:53 GMT Jean-Francois Mezei (jfmezei@istar.ca) wrote: > I would like opinions on what will happen to worldwide X.25 networks > such as TYMNET, SPRINTNET and national X.25 nets connected via X.75 > with the Internet becoming so popular. > Will X.25 nets be reduced to carrying bank transactions? (ATMs, EFTpos > etc.) If they're lucky to retain even that. Frankly they were never really well defined in the US. Having to use TYMNET and TELENET pads to get into several services back in the old NCP networking days, I can tell you it was really the last choice. We replaced these hookups with an 800 number and just connected directly and increased the service level and decreased the cost. More recently, we were wooed and signed up by NJ Bell (Bell Atlantic) to make heavy use of their X.25 PDN. We also used to bring down the entire NNJ PDN on a regular basis trying to run UUCP through it. Ron ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 19:51:13 +0000 From: albert pang Subject: Re: Future of X.25 Networks vs Internet Organization: Magellan Networks, Nortel, Ottawa, Canada. In article , Jean-Francois Mezei wrote: > I would like opinions on what will happen to worldwide X.25 networks > such as TYMNET, SPRINTNET and national X.25 nets connected via X.75 > with the Internet becoming so popular. One of the advantages of X.25 over TCP/IP is the inherent capability for accounting since each X.25 connection (call setup and call clear) is tracked. These events are recorded by most switches and can be reported for billing purpose. Included in the billing record is the number of packets (or segments as it is called in the X.25 world) transmitted and received. As a result, X.25 carriers can bill subscribers by usage. Another advantage of X.25 is its security and reliability. You have more options (eg. CUG, call options, facilities, NUI) in implementing access control in an X.25 network. Therefore, I don't think the Internet will be replacing public X.25 network entirely (although, some corporation will migrate some of their data traffic to the Internet). However, what will happen is that you will see applications who used X.25 networks are migrating to public Frame Relay or eventually to ATM networks. > Will X.25 nets be reduced to carrying bank transactions? (ATMs, EFTpos > etc.) > Will these private providers use their infrastructure to provide > private TCP networks? (I know that most are planning it, but I am > unsure if they would provide public dial-up ports (PPP/SLIP)). From a carrier's point of view, eventually, it really doesn't make any different if a subscriber access their network using the X.25 protocol or Frame Relay on ATM. Internally within these private networks, traffic is likely to be transported in proprietary protocols. Or, better yet, individual switches are connected via ATM NNI. > Or will corporations simply go with the actual Internet and concentrate > on encryption of the data? It really depend the size of the corporation and how critical the network applications are. > (I am concerned about world-wide network applications). You can contact me directly if you have other product/network specific questions. Albert Pang | Global Support Processes | Voice +1 613 723 4204 albertp@nortel.ca | Magellan Networks | Fax +1 613 723 4508 | Northern Telecom | ESN 364 4204 ------------------------------ From: h-king@nwu.edu (Holly King) Subject: Re: Nationwide PRI Shortage Date: 19 Jun 1996 14:33:47 GMT Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. USA I believe this is more a question of Bell Atlantic incorrectly forecasting the future growth rate of PRIs and therefore, not budgeting for such growth ... we have had Nortel's PRI equipment (DTCIs) installed and working for four years ... they are interfacing with both DMS100's and a 5ESS in the Ameritech cloud. Holly King h-king@nwu.edu Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. USA ------------------------------ From: kph@cisco.com (Kevin Paul Herbert) Subject: Re: Nationwide PRI Shortage Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 12:35:22 -0700 Organization: cisco Systems, Inc., Ashland, OR, USA In article , stephen@clark.net (Stephen Balbach) wrote: > Is this true? Are PRI's really that hard to get in other parts of the > country? I look forward to hearing of others experiences, thanks. My Sprint salesrep told me that there is an industry-wide shortage of PRI interfaces for the DMS250. I have no information on other switches, however. Kevin ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 22:02:57 EDT From: Alan Lange Subject: Re: Sprint Fridays Were Free > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Being 'well known and established' does > automatically preclude devising fraudulent and/or 'bait and switch' > schemes. Does anyone remember that major insurance company several > years ago that went down when it was discovered that about half the > policy holders listed on its computer were non-existent? PAT] Equity Funding Corporation of America filed Chapter X Bankruptcy in 1973 after that discovery. The company that emerged from the bankruptcy reorganization in 1976 has been very successful in its 20 years. Orion Captial Corporation (NYSE symbol OC) is engaged in the specialty property and casualty insurance business through wholly owned subsidiaries which include EBI Companies, DPIC Companies, Connecticut Specialty Insurance Group, SecurityRe Companies and Wm. E. McGee & Co. Inc., as well as through its 49.5% ownership interest in Guaranty National Corporation. Now, if they could only get the PBX in the home office to recognize SAC 888, and handle the area code split here in CT ... Alan Lange PGP keyID: bea6e65d Finger Print: 9edb0db4 d9acf05d b2067981 20b42201 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Was it limited to a bqankruptcy filing for Equity? I seem to remember that a couple of the corporate officers also went to prison for their part in the scam. The deal was Equity needed to show what a prosperous and rich company it was so it made up a few million customers who did not exist and gave them accounts on its computer with all sorts of ficticious balances due, etc. The shareholders all thought the company was in wonderful condition. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ronnie@twitch.mit.edu (Ron Schnell) Subject: Re: Sprint is Still Offering "Fridays Free"! Date: 19 Jun 1996 14:32:29 GMT Organization: MIT In article Telecom@Eureka.vip.best. com (Linc Madison) writes: > I was using one of the search engines on the Web to look for some info > that was telecom-related, and the ad at the top of the page was for > Sprint "Fridays are Free," so I followed the link. They're trying a > little harder to tighten the restrictions -- you are now required to > give the business name, and they talk about a term contract and > penalties and other things designed to scare people off, but it still > is the same basic offer. Yes, when I noticed this web page still there, I tried to post an article to this Digest, but it never got printed. I wanted to ask if anyone thought it was a bad idea for me to sign up, considering: 1. I do have a business. 2. I rarely make overseas calls. 3. I have a spare line I can use to become my "Free Fridays-Only Line" In any case, I decided to sign up for it about five weeks ago, knowing what could conceivably happen (Sprint could dishonor their contract at any time). My experience so far has been good. I like the fact that they made me commit to a year. By doing so, I have something in writing that I can take to court should it become necessary. I made them put the entire plan in writing. It took several levels of supervisor to get it, but I eventually got it. The only thing that was not in writing was the fact that their calling card (including surcharge!) is included in the plan. I expect that any day it will stop working, even though the sales rep promised me it will not. I got my first bill. It was for $1.88, with only around $100 in free calls. My free call volume was low because I didn't believe the calling card would really be free, since it wasn't in writing. Now that I know it might actually work, I will be making free Friday calls from everywhere. The moral of the story is, if one is careful, and expects the worst, one might still be able to take advantage of this deal. Ron ronnie@space.mit.edu ------------------------------ From: wolf.paul@aut.alcatel.at (Wolf Paul) Subject: Re: CDA Fallout: Internet Rating System Waits in the Wings Date: 19 Jun 1996 09:01:26 GMT Organization: Alcatel Austria AG In article , dr@ripco.com (David Richards) writes: > Logistics aside, Ripco's (and I suspect many other provider's) > position is that if we are required to rate content originating on our > system we will gladly do so ... > But since we can't possibly review every message and page, Ripco will > apply a blanket rating of 'X (under 21 forbidden)' across the board. > X-CDA-RATING: X/21-over > X-CDA-OFFENSIVENESS: sex,violence,libertarianism,angst,... > If (when) every site that turned their pages black, sets their rating > to X (just as 'blackpage' scripts were widely distributed, so can > 'rate-X' programs make it possible for the most technically illiterate > to set their ratings), the censors won't have to worry about children > getting to smut, but neither will children get to any of the other > educational and instructive resources that the backers of censorship > cite as reasons to 'make the internet safe for children'. I suspect that this would be highly counter-productive because it gives at least some semblance of justification to the claim which I am sure will be made: Hypocrisy exposed: The opponents of the CDA are not at all concerned with the free flow of information: what they really want is the free flow of smut, and if they can't have that they'll block genuine information also. And then there will be more calls for more regulation, the rating will be turned over to a government agency, and ISP's will simply be taxed to pay for it, etc. In fact, in the wake of recent raids on French ISPs, some of them are already calling for a government agency to be set up to do the rating; but in times of budget consolidation the only way of funding this would be a new tax to be paid by ISPs and their customers. Is that really what we want? W. N. Paul/KSRU * Alcatel Austria AG * Scheydgasse 41 * A-1210 Vienna, Austria wnp@aut.alcatel.at * +43-1-277-22 x2523 (voice)/x118 (fax) * +43-1-774-1947 (h) ------------------------------ From: Charly Epley Subject: Re: Modems in Spain Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1996 11:12:54 -0500 Organization: etiGATE Kris Nelson wrote: > (1) Can I actually use my U.S. modem (a Hayes Accura 288) on Spanish > phone lines? (Legally?) > (2) What kind of physical phone jacks are in use in Spain? Radio Shack > only has adapters for the U.K., Germany, and France (all different, > interestingly). If Spain differs from these three, where can I get an > adapter? Send Email to 'info@scsinet.es' and ask them. They are an ISP in Spain and should be willing to tell you what bring over or purchase in Granada. Charly Epley - etiGATE Tel/Fax: +1 405 752 1497 / 752 9894 Email: charly@ionet.net ULR: http://www.ionet.net/~bob/ Personal ULR: http://www.ionet.net/~charly/ PO Box 20126 Oklahoma City, OK 73156-0126 ------------------------------ From: lars@anchor.RNS.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: Talking to PBXs Date: 19 Jun 1996 23:38:57 -0700 Organization: RNS / Meret Communications In article bookworm@execpc.com writes: > after agreeing to design a synthetic speech product for my employer > that can dial up a number on the PSTN, annunciate a message, and hang up. > Originally I understood I would only be dealing with the PSTN and have > been gathering data on it, but yesterday another engineer claimed we > also had to be able to dial out of a PBX. In all the years I have > worked with modems I have never seen one that didn't require you to > have a dedicated line to answer or originate calls, and I figure there > has to be a good reason for this. In all the years I have worked with modems, I have never seen one that required a dedicated line to answer or originate calls. Of course there are many types of PBXs, but most of them have the ability to support a standard telephone, and on such lines, a normal modem will work as well. In fact, it should be a lot less expensive to build a device that attaches behind a PBX, because you won't need to have the device certified for compliance with FCC part 68. Lars Poulsen Internet E-mail: lars@RNS.COM RNS / Meret Communications Phone: +1-805-562-3158 7402 Hollister Avenue Telefax: +1-805-968-8256 Santa Barbara, CA 93117 Internets: designed and built while you wait ------------------------------ From: edhample@sprynet.com Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 05:35:05 -0700 Subject: Re: Talking to PBXs In V16, #281, bookworm@execpc.com writes: > Originally I understood I would only be dealing with the PSTN and have > been gathering data on it, but yesterday another engineer claimed we > also had to be able to dial out of a PBX. In all the years I have > worked with modems I have never seen one that didn't require you to > have a dedicated line to answer or originate calls, and I figure there > has to be a good reason for this. Using a modem on a PBX is not really all that difficult. The problem is that very few (if any) off-the-shelf modems are capable of interfacing to the propriatary digital protocols used by PBX systems to communicate with their terminal equipment (phones). The bright side is that most all PBX systems are capable of providing a standard analog (500, 2500, or B1-grade) circuit. This type of a circuit is still an extension of the PBX switch, but looks and acts identical to an analog subscriber line provided by telco. Most PBXs allow this type of circuit to access many of the PBX features via hookflashes amd combinations of touch-tone codes, rather than through the multiple control buttons of the more typical digital phones. This type of circuit can often be associated with a DID (Direct Inward Dialing) trunk in order to appear to have a direct outside dialable number (i.e. if your analog line is ext 1234, then someone from the outside can dial it as npa-nxx-1234). Ed Kleinhample edhample@sprynet.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 07:34:14 -0700 From: rlm@netcom.com (Robert McMillin) Subject: Re: Arrogant Internet Providers On 12 Jun 1996 13:53:21 PDT, reo@crl.com (Ross Oliver) said: > I have had a Netcom shell account on and off for about four years. In > that time, I have come to view their service as "you pays your money > and you takes your chances" meaning if it works, great, if not, forget > about getting any help. As far as I know, no direct telephone support > is available at all. This is just plain wrong. There *is* direct telephone support available; but it's got a tremendous wait time (20 minutes is by no means unusual). > I have dealt with quite a few ISPs, both for my own personal use, and > on behalf of clients. I have yet to find one that offers what I > consider an acceptable level of reliability and customer service. > Competition among ISPs has forced prices into the basement, which > doesn't leave much money left over for a quality tech support staff. > I would be willing to pay a premium for quality service, but I have > yet to find an ISP willing to offer it. Don't worry -- it's coming. The brighter of the ISPs have figured out that the $19.95/mo deal is a deathtrap, and are now focusing their efforts on providing more reliable service for business. While it may be the case that the Internet is made valuable by the number of surfers out there, the problems with the complexity of the Internet make it expensive to support for the vast numbers of the technically unwashed. Robert L. McMillin | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Netcom: rlm@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: slichte@cello.gina.calstate.edu (Steven Lichter) Subject: Re: Tax on Cellphones in Maryland Date: 19 Jun 1996 09:06:23 -0700 Organization: GINA and CORE+ Services of The California State University Joseph Bergstein writes: > Montgomery County MD county council approved a new tax on cellular > phone users whose billing address is within the county. They become > one of many areas looking for new ways to raise revenue, and clearly > the business community which has bulk of cellphones is very unhappy > because of added costs. The tax rate indicated is 92.5 cents per month > per phone or roughly an additional $11 a year, expected to raise in > this county nearly $2 million. Tax is supposed to begin on July 1. The City of Riverside, Calif was thinking about it a couple of months ago, when it was pointed out that many people have mailing address within the city don't use their phone in the city they took the matter off. The idea was to tax the monthly charge plus calls made in the city. That would be a little hard to do since it would require a lot of changes be made by the companies in the area. It seems they still have not realized that they work for the people not us for them. The City of Moreno Valley had its utility tax voted out after they wanted to increase it. The government had better learn of to live on lower tax since many people are tired of paying for the fat government plans that have no place other then to make the pockets of the government fat. SysOp Apple Elite II and OggNet Hub (909)359-5338 2400/14.4 24 hours, Home of GBBS/LLUCE Support for the Apple II and Macintoch computers. slichte@cello.gina.calstate.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 08:00:02 -0500 From: Andrew C. Green Subject: Re: Questions About Ringing Mark J. Cuccia writes: > One thing that *IRKS* me is how "Hollywood" handles ringing the called > phone and ringing indication to the calling party, when a telephone > call is used in fiction (TV, Radio, Motion Pictures). You can probably blame a lazy sound-effects editor for that, since it's a pain in the neck to wire up a phone to ring on cue, mike it, etc., during the filming of the scene, when all you really need to do is have the sound editor select the proper ringing sound from the library. My favorites cliches are the instant dial tone from the handset to let you know that the other party has hung up on our hero in a fit of pique, followed by the offended party diddling the switchhook repeatedly and barking, "Hello? Hello! Operator! I've been cut off!" I suppose the latter has some basis in fact on older systems? Repeated switchhook signalling would either get the operator's attention or even dial him/her directly via the on/offhook pulses? PAT? Andrew C. Green Datalogics, Inc. 441 W. Huron Internet: acg@frame.com Chicago, IL 60610-3498 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: On the older manual phone systems what we now refer to as call supervision was done by operators who with their own eyes supervised the connections. Persons going off hook (or back on hook after a call was completed) caused a small light signal to illuminate on the switchboard. Rapid flashing of the hook would cause the light signal to flash rapidly also which was intended to tell the operator the call was very urgent. PAT] ------------------------------ From: bjb@petrel.cle.ab.com (Bradley J. Bittorf) Subject: Re: 911 Locator for Cellular Users Date: 19 Jun 1996 17:30:33 GMT Organization: Allen-Bradley Company, Inc. In article benlev@aol.com (Ben Levitan) writes: > It is difficult but not as bad as it seems. Cellular already does > measurement prior to handoff and compares the signal of your > connection with available connections around you and then depending on > the availability of circuits it makes a decision when to hand you off. > (This is called RSSI measurement). Given those measurements put into > a simple program it would be fairly easy (but it will take work) to > locate someone. The key is that measurements are already being done. RSSI is the acronym for Received Signal Strength Indication, BTW. Another possible locating mechanism may exist. The AMPS phones included a provision for sending back a carrier tone/signal with a wavelength adjustment so that it would be matched to peak positive amplitude. In other words, the cell sends you a tone, but you get it with the wave shifted with respect to some synchronizing event, based on your distance from the cell (and the wavelength of the tone). You adjust it ("fix it") and send it back -- the cell should now get it with the same "amplitude displacement" as you did, since the distance is the same (more or less) going back. If the cell knows the wavelength, something about your distance, and maybe a little about Doppler effect, it could theoretically use the wave shift to refine your distance, if not position. This was a over a decade ago; the newer phones may have abandoned this. Plus, the accuracy would be subject to the precision of the phone and its synchronizing and shifting hardware -- and the understanding of the concept by your software person ;-). I would hate to have to rely on the RF-control software I wrote to find me in a fog or on a lake. I am a former cellular phone call processing software engineer. Bradley J. Bittorf O- Phone: 216.646.4629 Allen-Bradley Company/Rockwell Automation FAX: 216.646.3124 1 Allen-Bradley Drive, Mayfield Heights, OH 44124 bradley.bittorf@ab.com ------------------------------ From: Robert Subject: For Sale: DID to POTS Interface For Voice Boards Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 16:18:32 -0400 Organization: Magma Communications Ltd., Ottawa, Ont., Canada Hark SS-650 DID to Voice Processing Interface is used to interface DID trunks with Voice Processing input (POTS) lines, through conventional telephone line interconnect equipment. Great for small voice mail service provider applications. This unit allows you to hook in one DID trunk and one POTS line to a VP board port. Allow for both inbound and outbound calls on the same port. The unit is rack mountable and can be expanded to accomodate four trunks. (The rack is populated with cards for one port currently. Additional cards can be purchased from Hark Systems.) Price $600.00 or best offer. Please email me if interested. Thanks, Robert Schwartz cor3@magmacom.com ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #297 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jun 20 12:08:06 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id MAA11528; Thu, 20 Jun 1996 12:08:06 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 12:08:06 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606201608.MAA11528@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #298 TELECOM Digest Thu, 20 Jun 96 12:08:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 298 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson New Nevada Area Code (Tad Cook) Routing on ISDN With Windows NT (Gill Ruidant) Employment Opportunity: San Francisco Site Editor Wanted (Judy Chin) Re: Phone History Question (turner7@pacsibm.org) Re: Phone History Question (Travis Russell) Re: Phone History Question (Guy J. Sherr) Re: 911 Call From my Phone Number (Bruce A. Pennypacker) Re: 911 Call From my Phone Number (Danny Burstein) Re: Future of X.25 Networks vs Internet (Craig Morton) Re: Future of X.25 Networks vs Internet (Jean-Francois Mezei) Re: Nationwide PRI Shortage (Fred R. Goldstein) Re: Talking to PBXs (Mike Luckham) How "Mini" Are PCS Sites? (John Hall) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Cook Subject: New Nevada Area Code Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 01:22:13 PDT Nevada Expected to Have New Area Code Within Five Years RENO, Nev. (AP) -- People who are just getting used to dialing 702 to make in-state long distance calls will have to start thinking about three new numbers. Nevada will have a second area code within the next five years. The state can handle about eight million telephone lines, but the growing use of cellular telephones, fax machines and computers using modems will require the new area code by the year 2001, according to Nick Facque, a senior engineer at Nevada Bell. Nevada Bell will oversee the split because it was part of the former AT&T empire before divestiture, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported on Wednesday. The division is likely to be along geographic lines, possibly dividing the north and the south and almost certainly will trigger a pitched battle over who retains the 702 area code. The losers will be throwing away outdated business cards, stationery and advertisements. In addition, Facque said automated dialers for computers and business telephone systems will have to be reprogrammed. In some cases, they will need to be replaced. "A lot of the older equipment is not adaptable," said Kris Richards, manager of major accounts at Pacific States Communications in Reno. Until a few years ago, the second digit of all area codes was "0" or "1." But when all the possible combinations were used up and phone companies began using other digits and some systems built more than a decade ago don't recognize an area code with a middle number other than 0 or 1. This would be particularly worrisome to hotels, at which an outdated system could thwart guests calling to one of the newer area codes. Because of the potential impact on people in the new area and because Nevada Bell does not serve all of Nevada, public hearings on the change likely will be overseen by somebody from outside the state, the Gazette-Journal reported. They are expected to begin some time next year. ------------------------------ From: Gill.Ruidant@gate71.be Subject: Routing on ISDN With Windows NT Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 11:24:42 GMT Organization: Interpac Belgium SA/NV I'm searching a solution to replace an access router (CISCO 2511 for example) by a software solution on Windows NT. It is possible with a com port card with eight ports, a terminal adapter and a software ... but wich software? Can somebody give me more informations on this subject? Thanks, Gill ------------------------------ From: Judy Chin Subject: Employment Opportunity: San Francisco Site Editor Wanted Date: 19 Jun 1996 22:59:48 GMT Organization: Turner New Media Site Editor Major entertainment company seeks Online Site Editor. Work with Producer and Business Development to develop and maintain kids online sites. Responsibilities include: project coordination, site updates and original content development. Position requires college degree, 2 years of commercial online and internet experience and the ability to handle multiple projects. Knowledge of HTML, multimedia applications, pop culture and cartoons necessary. Creativity a must as well as a willingness to work with all kinds of "colorful" personalities. Please FAX RESUME to "Online Site Editor Position" at 415.283.3335. PLEASE NO EMAIL. ------------------------------ From: turner7@pacsibm.org (TUrner-7) Subject: Re: Phone History Question Date: 19 Jun 1996 23:22:04 GMT Organization: PACS IBM SIG BBS In the Philadelphia metropolitan area ... In 1972, we moved to a new house and the phones were hard wired, except in one location where we requested a "portable" phone and jacks. The jacks were the old style four prong type. In 1976 I added a second line which was installed hard wired. In 1979 I changed jobs. All phones at my new employer were modular. Around that time you could buy your phone in place, and they had phone center stores. My guess is around 1977-78. Probably phased in in different parts of the country. BTW, in the utility closet at work, in a new office building, there is a bank of the old style four prong jacks. I assume they are for some sort of test equipment use, not regular service. CAn't find anyone who knows what they are. Also, on that second line installed at home in 1976: because it gets very little use (mostly as a guest phone and backup now), I converted it to party line last year. Although I had to explain what a party line was to the service rep, it was granted since it was existing service. No physical modifications were made in the house to the phone (still a plain hard wired 500 set.) I doubt anyone else shares the party line. I save a few bucks each month. ------------------------------ From: trussell@interpath.com (Travis Russell) Subject: Re: Phone History Question Date: 20 Jun 1996 02:49:19 GMT Organization: Telecom Consultants Group In article , Jon Parro wrote: > Does anyone know when they stopped hardwiring phones and started > installing phone jacks (in Southern California, particularly)? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The first two phones I had in my own > name (1961 through 1965 I think) were hardwired. The first one was > 'installed in place' having been there from a previous subscriber. > My parents phones were hardwired. I honestly cannot remember but I > think my third phone in 1967 was modular. I know the ones I had in > the early 1970's were modular. It was quite common to see older > installations that were hardwired around the same time, but it was > also common to see 302 type phones from the 1940's still around also > in older installations. My best guess would be the change in standards > probably was about 1965-68. Other ideas or facts on this? PAT] The Careterfone decision was the driver for modularization, requiring a standard interface for all manufacturers devices. I believe (working from memory here) that was in 1968. The registered jack program was mandated by the FCC, and requires all manufacturers of telephony devices to register their equipment with the FCC, who determines the RJ type to be used. If I am not mistaken (and again I am relying on memory) the FCC got involved because the telephone company was charging huge fees for "interconnection" equipment, which they claimed was necessary to protect the network. In reality, it was just another way for the telephone company to reap profits for nothing. Travis Russell Author, "Signaling System #7" Co-Author, "Cellular Digital Packet Data" ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jun 96 09:26 EST From: Guy J. Sherr <0004322955@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: Phone History Question I used to live in an apartment building in Washington, DC where the internal wiring was considered to be on the Bell side of the demarc. In fact, a second line I had installed there was FREE because the NIB was inside my apartment. The NIB was a wooden buss with screws. The screws had markings of course, the only one of which I recognized was GND. There was a 2500 type deskset attached to direct wires on four buss terminals (two for the phone line, and two for the intercom); this phone had in the upper left corner of the dial pad a two position switch so that the intercom or the line would be used when offhook. Inside the phone, that switch was a throw type, and boy did it make contact (nice and tight, I think it would have worked even if the phone was under water and badly corroded). The only trouble this phone had was the bell clapper. The travel period was wrong, so the clapper could not back far enough way to let it ring. But you could hear it anyway. No melody, but definitely there was function. The receiver was a real live WECO job. You know the kind, it doubles as a personal defensive weapon. Or a dumbell. Anyway, that phone was still in place about eight months ago. The PBX in the lobby is still operating, and it still provides talk battery to the intercom. In case you wondered, the second phone line was hooked up not quite correctly. The line he installed turned out to be a PBX lobby extension too. The tech told me that the house wiring was installed in 1956, I think. Regards, guy ------------------------------ From: Bruce A. Pennypacker Subject: Re: 911 Call From my Phone Number Date: 20 Jun 1996 13:20:40 GMT Organization: Stylus Products Group, Artisoft Inc. With older phones I suppose it could also be pranksters with a similar handset wandering around the neighborhood trying to see if they can get a dialtone through somebody elses base station. Newer phones have codes that prevent this sort of thing, but older ones didn't. Bruce Pennypacker | Stylus Products Group | Phone: +1 617 621 9545 Software Engineer | Artisoft, Inc. | Fax: +1 617 621 7862 Resident TAPI guru | 201 Broadway | http://www.stylus.com brucep@stylus.com | Cambridge, MA 02139 | sales: sales@stylus.com ------------------------------ From: dannyb@panix.com (danny burstein) Subject: Re: 911 Call From my Phone Number Date: 19 Jun 1996 21:22:09 -0400 Organization: mostly unorganized In Jean-Francois Mezei writes: > They also said that the remote phone might be the culprit. I do wonder > how often these incidents do happen. > I do find it VERY odd that a deffective phone would generate the actual > tones for 911 and not some other tones. If it generates these random > tones often enough to eventually hit that 911, I would tend to think > that owner would notice it. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It is not making tones, it is making > pulses. Remember, touch tone lines work just fine with pulse dialing > also. If the base unit is defective, the relay which opens and closes > the phone line could be doing so rapidly enough to simulate pulse > dialing and randomly enough to occassionally produce nine pulses > followed by two single pulses a second or so apart. That gets you > your 9-1-1. PAT] Or even more likely: Many (most?) phones these days, including cordless, have an 'emergency' setting which is pre-programmed to dial out to, you guessed it, 911. So all that is needed is for something to activate that 'button'. It can be a cat walking over it, a wierd electrical thing, or even a coke bottle hanging from a windowshade(*) and bumping into it. (* two brownie points to whoever first catches the literary reference ...) dannyb@panix.com ------------------------------ From: Craig Morton Subject: Re: Future of X.25 Networks vs Internet Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 21:12:07 -0700 Organization: Communications Engineer / Consultant Reply-To: cmorton@ozemail.com.au Jean-Francois Mezei wrote: > I would like opinions on what will happen to worldwide X.25 networks > such as TYMNET, SPRINTNET and national X.25 nets connected via X.75 > with the Internet becoming so popular. > Will X.25 nets be reduced to carrying bank transactions? (ATMs, EFTpos > etc.) > Will these private providers use their infrastructure to provide > private TCP networks? (I know that most are planning it, but I am > unsure if they would provide public dial-up ports (PPP/SLIP)). > Or will corporations simply go with the actual Internet and concentrate > on encryption of the data? > (I am concerned about world-wide network applications). I think there is a danger with corporations using tcp/ip networks (internet or private) as a shared service as the service is outside of the corporate control and non-deterministic. Urgent (production as distinct from non-urgent e.g e-mail) data is more likely to be carried by a frame-relay service where levels of service can be guaranteed. Craig Morton Communications Engineer Australia ------------------------------ From: Jean-Francois Mezei Subject: Re: Future of X.25 Networks vs Internet Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 00:08:21 GMT Organization: Vaxination Informatique Reply-To: jfmezei@istar.ca albert pang wrote: > One of the advantages of X.25 over TCP/IP is the inherent capability > for accounting since each X.25 connection (call setup and call clear) > is tracked. Yes, X.25 may be cost effective for ABM type (banking machine) of applications where a single transaction may cost you a couple of packets/segments. But for today's office applications where the transfer of megabytes is not uncommon, this "billing" ability is quite a hindrance and makes FAX more cost effective than e-mail over such x.25 nets. (However, at least TYMNET and perhasp others do have usage costs option solely on connect time and not volume). > subscribers by usage. Another advantage of X.25 is its security and > reliability. You have more options (eg. CUG, call options, > facilities, NUI) in implementing access control in an X.25 network. Could this not be implemented in a TCP environment? Isn't the NUI not comparable to an authorisation from ASYNC to PPP to TCP phases? While X.25 may have these goodies now, most of the new software is really based on TCP and stuff like netscape with some authentication and security is making me wonder if the Internet may not come to be viewed as a secure public network (well, as secure as a public net can get :-). Will X.25 remain the only option for world-wide dial-up networks with reliable throughput? Or will there me other options on the way? Right now I am running a project with direct dial from overseas and from north america wthout problems and at very low minimum cost. But I do have to wonder what the future will bring as an option or if direct dial will become the "de-facto" standard for business applications that need good throughput and some security. ------------------------------ From: fgoldstein@bbn.com (Fred R. Goldstein) Subject: Re: Nationwide PRI Shortage Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 11:24:55 EST Organization: BBN Corp. In article stephen@clark.net (Stephen Balbach) writes: > As an ISP in the MD/DC/VA areas we are expanding to offer dialup > service over PRI's (%100 digital V.34 and ISDN on same line). After > placeing orders with Bell Atlantic it is becoming clear there is a > serious shortage of PRI equipment in Bell Atlantic. ... > The reason for this apprently is the equipment manufactures (Nortel, > AT&T) have been caught with thier pants down and there is simply no > central switching equipment to provide the PRI's. We have been told by > Bell Atlantic there is a nationwide shortage of PRI's. > Is this true? Are PRI's really that hard to get in other parts of the > country? I look forward to hearing of others experiences, thanks. From what I've seen, there really is a shortage. While my instinct, based on experience, is to discount anything BA says, I've had trustworthy people at other RBOCs tell me the same story. Lucent and NorTel went for years with very few orders for PRI. After all, the RBOCs wouldn't provide it -- they tend to view PRI (rightly) as a very good PBX trunk, and they'd rather make PBXs work badly and be a maintenance headache, since they can then turn around and try to sell Centrex. So the manufacturers probably had one part-time assembler on a prototype line doing all their PRI, in between other tasks. (On the DMS, it needs a standard T1 trunk interface plus a channel on a packet handler, but BRI multiplexes that channel a lot of ways. On 5E, it takes the right kind of T1 trunk port plus some packet handler resources.) But come 1994 or so, and the ISPs started ordering PRI big time. Now telcos tend to do their forecasting on a 5-10 year basis, and Lucent and Nortel are plugged into that model, so when demand skyrocketed in a year's time, they were caught with their pants down. The past two year's Internet boom is unprecedented. And even if the CO vendors were able to ramp up quickly (doubtful, given the culture), the telcos ordering processes are very slow. PacBell's done some amazing improvements to reduce the CO upgrade interval to around six months, but that is dependent on getting the hardware. The other Bells appear to be even slower. Remember, the RBOCs (especially BA) do not WANT the ISP business. Fred R. Goldstein k1io fgoldstein@bbn.com BBN Corp., Cambridge MA USA +1 617 873 3850 Opinions are mine alone; sharing requires permission. ------------------------------ From: Mike Luckham Subject: Re: Talking to PBXs Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 20:51:11 -1700 Organization: Michael Luckham System Design bookworm@execpc.com wrote: > I am just getting my ears wet (mixed metaphor intended) in this domain > after agreeing to design a synthetic speech product for my employer > that can dial up a number on the PSTN, annunciate a message, and hang > up. > Originally I understood I would only be dealing with the PSTN and have > been gathering data on it, but yesterday another engineer claimed we > also had to be able to dial out of a PBX. In all the years I have > worked with modems I have never seen one that didn't require you to > have a dedicated line to answer or originate calls, and I figure there > has to be a good reason for this. If you mean that your equipment must be connected to a PABX for dialing out, then you just dial "9" first (usually), wait a second or three for the outside dial tone, then dial the outside number. Some PABX's also let you dial directly...check with the building's PABX operator. If you want to call INTO a PABX, then it depends on the destination PABX whether it supports "Direct Inward Dial (DID)" or some other signalling type that lets you call directly to an extension. That isn't in your (as the caller) control. As far as your question about modems goes, many (not all) PABXs use four wires and something called E&M (Ear and Mouth) signalling to connect to the phone sets, so that all the fancy buttons (call hold, transfer, etc) will work. Your standard household phone uses two wires and does not use E&M signalling. You might try looking at http://www.analysys.co.uk/vlib_all.htm which is a good source of information. You can probably find a four-wire E&M to two-wire adaptor, or request a special "data line" be installed between the PABX in your building to your modem. I don't think there is such a thing as a four-wire E&M modem, but might be wrong. A second reason that modems might not work behind a PABX is that (rather than E&M signalling) DIGITAL signalling is used rather than the standard ANALOG (voltage) signalling used for your house phone. Digital telephone sets are usually provided by the vendor of the PABX. Again, in such a case, ask for a special analog line to be run from the PABX to your modem. Now that I've said all that ... WHY ARE YOU ASKING ABOUT MODEMS ANYWAY? If you are just sending voice, use something like a Dialogic voice card (you can get a version that connects to E&M). Mike Software Contractor's Guild website http://www.scguild.com/usr/1165I.html ------------------------------ From: John Hall Subject: How "Mini" Are PCS Sites? Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 11:15:01 -0400 Organization: Eastman Kodak Company Here in the Rochester NY area, there have been recent cases where suburban and rural residents have opposed the building of tall, "unsightly" cellular antenna towers in their neighborhoods. Now PCS is often described as having "mini-cells", compared to existing cellular services. That would mean more antennas would need to be built, but they would each cover a smaller area and so might not be so intrusive. Could someone who has seen a PCS site describe it? Does it have a "mini" antenna? Would you want one in your back yard? John Hall john@kodak.com ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #298 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jun 20 16:30:09 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id QAA07693; Thu, 20 Jun 1996 16:30:09 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 16:30:09 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606202030.QAA07693@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #299 TELECOM Digest Thu, 20 Jun 96 16:30:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 299 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson "It Ain't Like it Used to Be" (Mark J. Cuccia) Book Review: "CGI Programming on the World Wide Web" (Rob Slade) Informal PRE - RFD comp.dcom.gsm or alt.cellular.gsm (Vittorio Gorrini) Spam Takes a Nasty Turn (Christopher Ambler) Sending Faxes as Attachment to E-Mail (Marone Giuseppe) Full Text of Story on Peter Piper (Steve Samler) Re: Phone History Question (Michael N. Marcus) Two Line Voice/Fax Monitoring (sbsmith@megahits.com) Please Explain 'iky pic' (Tom Graham) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 12:17:33 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: "It Ain't Like it Used to Be" While competition in the telecom industry over the past fifteen to twenty years has brought us many benefits, the former "Bell System" did supply us with IMO the *best* customer service and attempts at resolving problems in competing a call over the telephone network. I recently mentioned in this Digest that an AT&T operator told me that I would get the customer card rate, rather than the more expensive operator assisted or operator handled rate when I came in to an AT&T OSPS operator directly when I had the LEC (BellSouth) Intra-LATA 'only' operator dial 800-CALL-ATT (800-225-5288) for me, as there was no ANI passed through the LEC operator connecting me with the 800 number. The AT&T part of the network had '504-000-5555' or something like that for the ANI, and an AT&T operator had to intercept in to get the calling number I was at. It turns out that AT&T operator assisted calls *still* are *NOT* giving the customer the cheaper 1+ rate, nor even the customer card rate when an AT&T Operator is called upon to assist in completing the call in a problem situation. If you come into the AT&T OSPS Operator on a "0-" which includes 00 from presubscribed lines, 10-288/101-0288+0(0/#) or the 800 access numbers (800-CALL-ATT, 800-3210-ATT) and ask the operator to *dial* the called number, you are billed operator handled rate, even if you explain that you have a *real problem* in completing the call when you've tried to dial it yourself. The only time you can get an operator assisted rate is if you've dialed (10-288/101-0288)+0/01+number (full domestic or full international) for collect or third party, or used the 800 access numbers and then DTMF in the destination number yourself, and then 'timing-out' to an operator. You can only get the cheaper customer card rates the same way. You *must* enter in the destination number in one way or another. The operator can still 'key-in' the card number which you quote to her, such as when calling from a rotary phone, and I think you still get customer card rate, but the customer has to enter in the full destination number. This has been the situation for about three years now! Last night, I was trying to call someone in northern New Jersey, 201 area code. It is a local Bell Atlantic (formerly New Jersey Bell) number, served by a digital switch. I don't know if the 201-NNX is a WECO#5ESS or a Nortern DMS, however. I was trying to bill it to a card. I dialed 0-201-NNX-XXXX from a presubscribed line to AT&T, heard the bong & jingle for AT&T, entered in my card number, heard the AT&T 'thank you', and then crackling and screeching. I entered the '#' button to do a sequence call. I was prompted okay, and re-entered the 201-NNX-XXXX number. Again I heard the AT&T 'thank you' message, and then *ONE* ring, followed by silence. When I tried asking 'Hello', it echoed back to me. I tried to enter the '#' button to disconnect and do a sequence call, but all I heard was the frequency of the '#' echoing back. I don't know if the far-end 'supervised' or not, as I couldn't 'disconnect' a far-end with the '#' button. I hung up, and dialed an AT&T Operator, 00. I explained the situation to get credit, just in case the far-end did supervise. I tried calling back to the 201 NJ number, via my AT&T Calling Card, and still got either 'screeching' and 'scratching' and 'crackling' tones (it was *NOT* a modem or a fax machine, but really a 'bad connection'), or a single ring followed by silence (with echo) on subsequent attempts. Sometimes I could '#' a disconnect, sometimes I couldn't. I called up AT&T Long Distance Repair (800-222-3000), ran through a touchtone menu prompt, and waited on hold for ten minutes. Finally I hung up and called back to the Operator (00) and asked for a supervisor. She told me that unless she had a formal report from AT&T higher-ups in network management, she couldn't give me the cheaper rates (customer card in my case) for her to dial the 201 number. Just my complaint that I had problems wouldn't get me the cheaper customer card rates. If the call were intraLATA or local, BellSouth LEC operators still give you the cheapest rates *if you indicate* to her that you've tried it yourself and had a trouble condition, if they dial the destination number on their TOPS or OSPS board. I called back to AT&T Long Distance Repair, waited fifteen minutes on hold, and finally spoke with a rep. She was polite, but you could tell that she did NOT like the present situations at AT&T. She put me on hold and tried to dial the 201-NNX-XXXX number. She came back and asked me if I was trying "a good number", as she couldn't get through properly. I said that I've called that number many times before, and everything usually worked okay. I also told her that I had no way of knowing if the problem was AT&T, Bell Atlantic or the wiring or CPE of the party I was trying to reach. The AT&T Repair rep asked me if I knew who the number was listed under. I told her and she said that she would put me on hold and check with "Jersey Bell"! (note that she referred to the far-end LEC as "Jersey Bell" rather than Bell Atlantic). She came back and told me that "Jersey Bell" repair service told her that there was a trouble condition on the line which the customer had reported. They were going to try to correct the problem on Thursday. Now ... why didn't Bell Atlantic (or "Jersey Bell") put an intercept on the line, such as "The number you have reached, 201-NNX-XXXX, is being checked for trouble". I know I get recordings like that from my LEC, BellSouth, when I've dialed a local or intraLATA toll call via the BellSouth network where there has been trouble on the line. Could it be that calls from outside of that Bell Atlantic northern NJ LATA won't connect to those intercept type recordings? Why couldn't "Jersey Bell" just return a busy or re-order signal? And why in the HECK can't AT&T still give the customer the cheaper rate bracket when the customer HAS INDICATED to the AT&T OSPS operator that they've attempted dialing everything themself, but they are encountering a trouble condition. The funny thing about it ... the party in New Jersey whom I was attempting to reach is a Bell System retiree, who was with Bell Labs for *DECADES* and involved in the development of DDD and many aspects of computer technology. Prior to about three years ago, if I would have told the AT&T operator that I was having a 'bad connection' in trying the call myself, she would have dialed it and given me the cheaper rate for the type of billing I requested. If she also heard a 'bad connection', she would have tried to get an AT&T or New Jersey Bell inward (Kp+201+121+St) operator in the New Jersey area, who might have had some details on why the call didn't go through properly, and would have been able to make a 'local' type call to that number for me and the originating AT&T operator I had reached. And why didn't I get a 'busy' or 'reorder', or better yet an 'intercept' recording indicating that the desired number was experiencing a 'trouble condition'?! BTW, I did ask the AT&T Repair rep why couldn't the AT&T 00 Operator attempt placing the call for me or getting an inward operator in New Jersey to assist and still give me the cheaper customer card rate, since there *WAS INDEED* a trouble condition which I indicated, just like they *used* to do it up until a few years ago. The repair rep told me that this is 1996 and not 1976 nor even 1986. It ain't like it used to be! :-( MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I'll tell you another interesting development with AT&T. Everyone by now knows they are trying to get into local service all over the United States. Here in the Chicago area they have been putting large ads in newspapers recruting customers for their 'local-toll' thing, where calls to points more than 15 miles distant but still within the LATA can be carried by AT&T instead of Illinois Bell/Ameritech if desired. Their rates for those calls are not that competitive at all with Ameritech and as you might suspect there are tricky ways of phrasing things and billing things which make them seem cheap to start with when actually they are quite expensive in the long term. Ameritech's advertising has been quick to point out the flaws in AT&T's method of billing for those calls and how Ameritech still remains less expensive. Recently AT&T has been running ads saying they will give the first three months of 'local-toll' calls absolutely free if you sign up. Use it as much as you want. Today in their ad all of a sudden, the terms changed slightly, but you would not know it unless you read the very small print at the bottom of the full page ad. Now, calls must begin and terminate in Ameritech or Centel service areas (GTE has a couple of small service area within this LATA apparently no longer eligible because they are quite far away) and furthermore, and in my opinion the real kicker: ** Calls between computers are not included in this offer. ** The exact wording went like this: Applies to calls in Ameritech and Centel areas only. For customers subscribed to AT&T only. Reach Out Illinois customers and calls to online network services are excluded. ** ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Ameritech retaliated this past week by starting up their callpack plans again that they used to have back in the old days but now far more liberal that they ever were before. We can switch our lines from the ABCD zone plan (A calls are five cents or less each untimed, and BCD calls are timed at about three to five cents per minute) to the new plan where ten dollars per month gets you a hundred calls per month untimed, talk as long as you want to anywhere in the LATA. Twenty dollars gets you 250 calls I think. No exclusions on any type of call. If you make mostly A calls it is no big deal, but if you do a lot of BCD zone calling and tend to talk long periods of time it is a great deal. I left my modem line on zones (since all I make are A calls to the local dialup for hours and days at a time) and I put my voice line on the new plan. Each line requires its own plan; no more getting one plan and spreading it over all your lines as in the past. I do not think AT&T is going to do very well in the local market here if they are going to start it off as they are doing with this current effort. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 13:18:04 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "CGI Programming on the World Wide Web" BKCGIPW3.RVW 960523 "CGI Programming on the World Wide Web", Shishir Gundavaram, 1996, 1-56592-168- 2, U$29.95/C$42.95 %A Shishir Gundavaram shishir@bu.edu %C 103 Morris Street, Suite A, Sebastopol, CA 95472 %D 1996 %G 1-56592-168-2 %I O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. %O U$29.95/C$42.95 800-998-9938 707-829-0515 fax: 707-829-0104 nuts@ora.com %P 433 %S Nutshell Handbook %T "CGI Programming on the World Wide Web" The author has put together very comprehensive coverage of CGI (Common Gateway Interface) programming, touching on basic forms, server and CGI includes, graphics and multimedia, advanced and multiple forms, gateways, and database queries. In addition, while the bulk of the examples are in Perl, there are comparative samples of C, Visual Basic, and Applescript sources. Unfortunately, Gundavaram does not handle the basics as well as the fancy stuff. He relies too heavily on the code itself, while his explanations and comments are unclear and unhelpful. The "how" seems to be left behind in the hurry to do something interesting. The Perl wizard will likely find it easy enough to follow the code, but the beginning CGI programmer, however experienced in other areas, is going to find the book very difficult. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKCGIPW3.RVW 960523. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. roberts@decus.ca rslade@vcn.bc.ca slade@freenet.victoria.bc.ca "We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough." -- Niels Bohr Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 18:53:20 +0200 From: Vittorio Gorrini Organization: IRIDIA ULB Subject: Informal PRE - RFD comp.dcom.gsm or alt.cellular.gsm Hi all, Sometimes there are threads proposing a new GSM group; people seems interested, but the thread dies before any decision (maybe there are no enough people really interested, that's the purpose of this Informal PRE - RFD). Before posting an official RFD in related groups or a proposal in alt.config I would like to have some feedback about: 1) The real interest for such group, 2) Should be in alt.* or in comp.* ? Please note that the *real* discussion about the purpose of the group will be done (maybe) in news.announce.newgroups or alt.config. This Informal PRE - RFD should be limited to the feasibility and the name. If someone more competent in the field that me (and with better English ...), is interested in being proponent (and helping in writing RFD) I'll bw glad to cooperate with him. Waiting for your feedback ..... Vittorio Gorrini IRIDIA - Universite Libre de Bruxelles [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not mean this to sound self-serving and I certainly do not need the additional messages here in this newsgroup but I think it is often times better for the telecom area to be a little less splintered in categories, especially where some of the more 'minor' areas of interest are concerned. Usenet does not still more newsgroups and I believe readers do not need the hassle of an additional newsgroup where one will find occassional messages if the topic is not all that popular. I think you would be better off staying in the existing categories until/unless you can show there are at least a few hundred people interested in reading/participating on a daily basis. PAT] ------------------------------ From: chris@kosh.punk.net (Christopher Ambler) Subject: Spam Takes a Nasty Turn Date: 20 Jun 1996 05:41:12 GMT Organization: Punknet Secret Headquarters and Day Care Centre First off, I'll preface this by saying I did a stupid thing. With that said ... You all saw the "buy stocks low" spam that went around a couple of weeks ago. One of them showed up in the box where I moderate a regional for-sale newsgroup. I rejected it, and got the expected bounce from the invalid email address. Since I was bored (here comes the stupid thing), I called the 800 number and gave them a false name and my fax number to get more information. They faxed it, so I now know the business who spammed. My workload got heavy about that point and I put it aside. Real work comes first. After receiving additional faxes from these guys, I called them and told them that I did not request additional faxes, just the one informational one, and please remove me from their fax list. They compiled, grumpilly. Today, I got an unsolicited fax from an unrelated company. I called them and asked them why it was sent, and they told me that someone at my fax number had requested to be put on their list. I assured them that nothing of the sort had been done. The gentleman on the other end insisted that I was wrong, and offered to fax me a copy of the request. Upon receiving the request, I immediatley understood the situation. The request said, "Please send me more information on your offerings, and add me to your regular fax list," and was signed with the false name that I had given the original spamming firm. The identifier on the sending machine had been taken off and my fax number hand-written on the request. I have never used this false name in the past. I called back the second company and explained the situation. The person at their end wasn't amused. The spamming firm is in Canada, so I doubt there's anything I can do here. I'm even unsure if I'm going to call them and tell them that I know it was they who sent out the forged request, since I have no desire to elevate this any farther than it is. Should it happen in the future, perhaps. So, to summarize: 1. I did a stupid thing in giving them my fax number; 2. They did a dirty thing in spamming in the first place, and sending a forged request in the second place; and finally, 3. Watch out. Someone really wants to make your life miserable, they can give your fax number to fax spammers, and since there was a request, USC 47 probably doesn't apply (due diligence and all that, IANAL). (C) Copyright, 1996 Christopher Ambler, Director, Punknet Internet Cooperative chris@punk.net <- Preferred Email Address http://www.punk.net/~chris <- Home Page (everyone's got one) http://www.rhps.org <- Zen Room Presents the RHPS.ORG web site! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 09:18:00 GMT From: Marone Giuseppe Subject: Sending Faxes as Attachment to E-Mail Hello, I wonder if there is any products (hardware /software) to use a standard fax machine as a scanner connected to a PC; the application would be to get files in proper formats (.TIF, .GIF, .JMP or whatever) to be sent as e-mail attachment out of plain paper documents; the fax machine, anyway, should also be connected to PSTN to be able to send and receive standard faxes. Does anybody know of some trick to do that? Thanks a lot, Giuseppe ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 10:19:49 EDT From: Steve Samler Subject: Full Text of Story on Peter Piper [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is the complete text of the story which started out here yesterday about the amazing saga of Peter Piper, the poor innocent and put-upon consumer whose life was made hell when he got charged 75 cents each for several automatic call-returns charged to his phone bill by a faceless, nameless, uncaring, unresponsive giant corporation and how much of a hassle it caused him since he knew right from the beginning it was the fault of the big corporation entirely because they had never told him that when you dial things on the phone which involve special services you have to pay extra. Oooooh was he angry when he found out how they had deliberatly left him -- and no doubt thousands or even millions of other subscribers -- in blissful ignorance while they ran up his phone bill twenty dollars. This summarizes where we left off yesterday; now let us continue with the story. PAT] Too Much Return Call Service Puts Shock in Phone Bill for Sprint Customer Tallahassee Democrat via Knight-Ridder/Tribune: By Fred A. Schneyer Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Jun. 19--The extra $20 to $25 on Peter Piper's office phone bill earlier this year got his attention. Quickly. Piper, Tallahassee representative for Olsten Staffing Services, a temporary-employee firm, was hot when he discovered what the charges were for Sprint's automatic call-return service, billed at 75 cents per call. He didn't order the service, which identifies the most recent caller. He didn't even remember reading about it. "All of a sudden it was just there," said Piper, who had the charges on two consecutive bills. "I don't like that coming from any vendor. Let me pick and choose. Don't just slap something on there and say 'Seventy-five cents per call.'" Sprint officials say they alerted customers, in inserts in their monthly statements, that the return-call feature was available to all customers unless they called and canceled it. They also noted that the charges -- 75 cents per use or a flat rate of $3 a month -- only get tacked on when you use the service by dialing 69. When you dial 69, the service tells you the phone number of the last person to call your line. The service, however, does not identify calls made from cellular phones and only sometimes identifies calls from long-distance numbers. Phone-company officials say they thought they were doing customers a favor when they got permission in December from the state Public Service Commission to offer the service to everyone on a call-by-call basis. That way, the phone company said, customers could try it or only use it occasionally. It turns out that children are often using the service without the knowledge of their parents, who often did not read the inserts. Some Leon County parents have complained that it gets pricey for home accounts when their youngsters use return-call to keep up with their friends at 75 cents a pop. In Piper's case, a customer-service representative was the culprit, using the service when she was tied up on one line and missed callers on another. Piper was surprised by the extra $20 to $25 added to his bill and told the employee not to use the service except in an emergency. But Sprint officials caution customers not to get too upset if they notice their bill has suddenly skyrocketed with a long list of 75-cent add-ons. The phone company will cancel one month's worth of return-call charges on request, said Sprint spokesman Tom Flanigan. In exchange, customers must agree either to cancel the service or accept the monthly rate. Flanigan declined to say how many customers already have sought refunds and how many have opted for the service to be cut off. "Most telephone companies, including ours, have said: 'Look, we understand. We'll take it off your bill,'" Flanigan said. "Because not everyone got the word, they adopted this policy. This is a way to make them aware of it and to give them options about how to deal with the problem." ON THE INTERNET: Visit Tallahassee Democrat Online, the World Wide Web site for the Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat. Point your browser to http://www.tdo.com ---------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I never could understand why people do not take a few seconds -- literally, that is all it takes -- to read the little 'newsletter' which comes with all their utility bills each month. For instance, despite Ameritech talking about the new areacode 847 for several months -- maybe even more than a year -- on a month by month basis in their bills and inserts, a large number of people were taken by surprise when 847's transition period ended it and you dialed it or did not reach it. In fairness to Sprint I would suggest they should not have refunded anything to anyone in this case. Obviously Peter Piper's employees knew about it as did lot's of other people. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jun 96 22:23:39 EDT From: michael n. marcus <74774.2166@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: Phone History Question > Does anyone know when they stopped hardwiring phones and started > installing phone jacks (in Southern California, particularly)? Phone jacks -- of the four-hole type -- go back to the 1950s or earlier, maybe much earlier. I first saw miniature _modular_ jacks in use with temporary phones in McCormick Place in Chicago during a visit to the Consumer Electronic Show in Chicago, probably in 1971. They were not in use in NY at that time, and I seem to recall that Illinois Bell was the test telco for the Bell System, before nationwide conversion, as later happened with cell phones. In approximately 1972, I wrote an instruction manual for an early answering machine, the BSR "Phone Butler," that was designed for four-hole jacks. I can remember adapters that replaced the cover of a 42A block and converted them into four-hole jacks. I have a small paperback book, "How to Buy, Install and Maintain Your Own Telephone Equipment," printed in 10/78, that shows 42A blocks and four-prong connectors, and ignores modularization. Another book, "Kiss Ma Bell Goodbye -- How to Install your Own Telephones, Extensions & Accessories," is copyright 1983, and shows mod connections. An AT&T paperback from 1986, called "The Telephone Book," implies that the change to modular was in 1974. Michael N. Marcus Able Communications Scarsdale NY Contributing Editor, Teleconnect mag. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/mnmarcus [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: My first answering machine was the kind that was not allowed to be wired directly into the phone line. It was a sort of large box with metal 'fingers' you placed under the switch hook which would literally lift the receiver a quarter inch or so off hook. You attached one of those little induction coil suction cups to the part of the handset by the earpiece and a speaker embedded in sort of a rubber cup like thing was slid up onto the mouthpiece end of the receiver. The phone sat on top of this box with the little metal piece which slid underneath the receiver when it was on hook. The loud ringing noise from the phone bell -- actually, any loud nearby noise such as a vacuum cleaner running next to it -- would cause this box to go into action. The springs would release and the little metal thing under the receiver would push up and lift the receiver enough off hook to allow the phone to be 'answered'. The mobious loop tape inside the machine would start moving and the outgoing message would be played through the speaker which was held up against the phone's mouthpiece with that little rubber sleeve. It literally talked into the phone via the mouthpiece since direct connections were not yet allowed. After the outgoing message played, the person talking to the phone was 'heard' through the earpiece by the little induction coil in the suction cup on that end. That was in turn plugged into any cassette player you wanted which had a remote control plug on it since the larger answering machine unit would turn on or off the littel cassette player by remote control. Once the loud noise acti- vated the box (that is cause the fingers to jump and lift the receiver off hook and start the little tape inside running) it went for one minute until the sensor foil on the tape came past and shut it off by grounding the head when the foil touched it and ground at the same time. You had to hope the loud noise was the phone bell and not some other nearby sounds because the machine would start going anyway. You had one minute and could make it all an outgoing message or you could stop talking at some point after 15-20 seconds and the other end could talk. Your cassette player recorded the whole thing including your outgoing message each time and whatever the caller had to say. After a minute the little metal thing would drop back into its normal position and the receiver would drop back on the hook. I had that in 1967-68, and sometime around 1970 got an answering machine which was actually authorized to be plugged into the Bell phone network itself, no longer requiring an induction coil suction cup to be attached to the earpiece and a mechanical thing to lift the receiver off hook. It had a 'four-prong' type jack. PAT] ------------------------------ From: sbsmith@megahits.com Subject: Two Line Voice/Fax Monitoring Date: 19 Jun 1996 19:47:36 -0700 Organization: Zippo I'm struggling with trying to setup two internal modems to monitor two separate phone lines both with voice/fax incomming. I can't seem to differentiate the IRQ for COM1 and 3 or COM2 and 4. Someone has suggested a DIGI board with external modems but I'm looking for the cheapest functional soultion. I have a Robotics 28.8 voice/fax internal and a Motorola 14.4 voice/fax internal and I'm running Windows 95. After I solve the hardware problems, then I have the software issues. I thought of running two different fax/voice monitoring packages (Quicklink and WinFAX Pro) -- one for each modem. Any other working ideas out there? Thanks for your time. ------------------------------ From: Tom Graham Subject: Please Explain 'iky pic' Date: 20 Jun 1996 05:39:01 GMT Organization: InternetMCI Hi -- I am trying to remember what "iky pic" is cable slang for. "Pic" is "plastic insulated cable"? And, "iky" is the jelly that water proofs the cable? Been too long since I worked for WE at the Hawthorne Works; any of you Pioneers out there give me the real story here? Thanks, Tom Graham tgraham@internetmci.com ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #299 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jun 20 18:57:07 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id SAA21673; Thu, 20 Jun 1996 18:57:07 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 18:57:07 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199606202257.SAA21673@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #300 TELECOM Digest Thu, 20 Jun 96 18:57:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 300 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Pacific Bell Conducts Extensive Call-ID Blocking Verification (Mike King) International Dialing 1960's Style (Mark J. Cuccia) BellSouth Executive Urges Consideration of Telemedicine Costs (Mike King) Calcutta Telephones (Ratnadeep R. Damle) Wanted: Information on SMDI (jstory@ibm.net) Ring No Answer - What's to Blame? (Bob Baxter) Nynex <-> Sprint Cross Usage Agreement (Danny Burstein) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike King Subject: Pacific Bell Conducts Extensive Call-ID Blocking Verification Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 13:16:37 PDT Forwarded to the Digest FYI: Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 08:15:09 -0700 Reply-To: NEWS-LIST@list.pactel.com From: sqlgate@list.pactel.com Subject: Pacific Bell Conducts Extensive Caller Id Blocking Verification FOR MORE INFORMATION: Rebecca Perata (415) 394-3701 Pacific Bell Conducts Extensive Caller Id Blocking Verification Tests SAN FRANCISCO -- Pacific Bell today announced it is undergoing intensive efforts to verify customers' Caller ID blocking requests. The verification process began last week after the company received calls from customers who had received the wrong blocking confirmation letters, and announced a delay in offering Caller ID service until the correct orders are processed and verified. "We are in the process of conducting verification checks," explained Mark Pitchford, vice president of consumer marketing for Pacific Bell. "The process includes matching every customer order placed either through our 1-800-298-5000 blocking request number, or through ballots included in the March and April telephone bills, with our records of their blocking choice." Pacific Bell is also checking a sample of more than 1 million customer telephone lines to ensure that in addition to being registered correctly, blocking choices are being implemented correctly. With millions of customers actively having made a blocking choice, Pacific Bell expects the verification process to take several days. Consumers had the option of requesting one of two blocking options. Selective Blocking delivers the number of the caller unless the caller dials *67 before placing the call. The second option, Complete Blocking, blocks a caller's number from being delivered on all calls (except 911, 800, 888 and 900 calls) unless the caller dials *82 before placing that call. "We know some customers received letters confirming Selective Blocking when they had ordered complete blocking," said Pitchford. "We are trying to get to the bottom of that issue. Our first priority, however, is to ensure that customer requests are processed, registered and provisioned accurately. We will not launch Caller ID service until we are confident that customers have received the blocking option they requested." "When you are processing millions of blocking requests -- many of which were received by the company on, or after the May 20 cutoff date for the preparation of the letters -- it is possible for the orders to get delayed in the system, or for requests to be entered incorrectly. We apologize to our customers for any confusion this may have caused," said Pitchford. Pacific Bell says other reasons a customer may have received a letter confirming Selective Blocking include: * The customer has more than one telephone line or an additional fax line or computer line. Unless the customer chose Complete Blocking on all lines, a Selective Blocking letter would have been sent to reflect the blocking status of the line or lines not designated as Complete Blocking. * Someone else in the household may have requested Selective Blocking. Pacific Bell has received multiple (either repeat or contradicting) blocking requests from about one million customers. The company registers the last request it receives. * Customers whose blocking requests were received after May 20, 1996, would not have had their current blocking status reflected in the letter. Pacific Bell continues to advise customers who selected Complete Blocking and are concerned whether Pacific Bell has received their designation, to call: 1 800 386-0000 A pre-recorded message will confirm if Complete Blocking has been assigned to the telephone number the person is calling from 1 800 298-5000 24-hour live operators will take requests for Complete Blocking (Customers who prefer Selective Blocking need not call since Selective Blocking is the automatic blocking option given to those who have not actively made a selection.) Pacific Bell is a subsidiary of Pacific Telesis Group a diversified communications corporation based in San Francisco. ---------------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have never seen any telco go to such extremes with this as PacBell is doing. Has anyone else? When Caller-ID started in ths part of the country Ameritech announced it on several occassions and told people to use *67 to block it if they did not want to be identified. Period, end of discussion. What other telco has gone over and over its records so many times and made such elaborate plans? How come GTE and the other telcos in California did in fact start passing Caller-ID last week and instead of passing the ID it seems all PacBell is doing is passing the buck. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 13:59:52 -0700 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: International Dialing 1960's Style Many historical telco references I have mention that in 1967, about eighty customers in Manhattan, all heavy users of overseas telephone service, were allowed a four-month period of experimental international dialing to London and Paris. In the May 1970 issue of {Bell Laboratoris Record} magazine, there is an article on international dialing which mentions the 1967 Manhattan experiment. And also, "Switching Technology, 1925-1975" (edited by Amos E. Joel of Bell Labs) a volume in AT&T's book series "A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System" also mentions this 1967 experiment, and has a footnote to the article on international dialing in the May 1970 issue of {Bell Labs Record} magazine. It is said that "special area codes" were used for this experiment. And it is mentioned that during 1970, several #5XB offices in New York City would be arranged for customer international dialing to serveral popular countries or cities overseas, using 011+ and 01+ as the access codes, followed by the national number (city code and local number) in the destination country, i.e. the present North American international outbound dialing standard. I have always been curious as to what these "special area codes" were for the 1967 experiment, as there was a demonstation of international or overseas dialing at an IEEE meeting in Philadelphia in June 1966. In AT&T's historical chronology "Events in Telecommunications History", it is mentioned that on 15 June 1966, Lowell Wingert of AT&T Long Lines in Philadelphia dialed up a CCITT representative in Geneva Switzerland by dialing the ten digit number, 200-223-3011. I would assume that the originating local central office in Philadelphia at that time was a #5XB which couldn't (yet) handle 011/01+ type codes, and '200' was a special 'patch' code, which indeed it was. I also wondered what the "special area codes" were, mentioned about the 1967 Manhattan international dialing experiment. Could those special area codes have been other N00 format codes? Toll-Free Inward WATS 800 was also coming into use around 1966/67, but why did AT&T choose '800' and not '300' or '200'. The only TWX special area codes in use at that time were 510, 610, 710, 810, 910. I wondered if *temporarily* (until 011/01+ country code was available) the Bell System intended on limited availability of International outbound DDD using a special area code (N00, N10, N11) plus seven digits. Many other N0X and N1X area codes weren't assigned in the 1966/67 period, such as 718, 818, 804, 90-5 (temporarily assigned for Mexico City access around 1969/70), 70-6 (replaced 903 for temporary access to northwestern Mexico around 1980), 619, 409, etc. Could those have been used for limited international dialing? Well, I did some digging through microfilm back issues of the {New York Times} and the {Wall Street Journal} of 1966 and 1967, and here is what I came up with: In March 1967, for four months, about eighty heavy users of international telephone service in Manhattan were permitted international dialing on an experimental basis. Some of these customers included Time-Life, Newsweek, CBS, NBC, ABC, Mutual, AP, UPI, several airlines, several tourism bureaus, and the like. They were permitted dialing to London and Paris initially. I think that they had one or two other specific cities added later on. I am also unclear what happened at the end of the four month trial period. Did AT&T/NYTelephone cut off dialing and force these customers back to calling the operator? or did these eighty customers continue to have dial access? The dialing instructions were indicated in the newspaper article. For station to station (sent-paid) calls, use special *access* code 011+ For alternate billing (person, card, etc), use special access code 01+ Then dial the "special *area* code" for the city: London, use 441+ Paris, use 331+ and then the seven digit number in the city is dialed. These are the 'standard' North American international outbound dialing procedures, even though they didn't refer to 'country code' and 'city code' as such, but referred to those codes as mentioned above. At that time, London's city code was simply '1'. In 1990 (or so), London split '1' into '71' for inner London and '81' for outer London. And then there was 'phONEday' which went into permissive dialing in August 1994 and mandatory in April 1995, where most UK STD codes had a '1' tacked onto the front. Inner London's city code became '171' and outer London became '181'. Also, Paris had seven digit numbers. I think it was in the late 1980's when Paris added an eighth digit to their existing seven-digit numbers. Their French city code still is '1', and I think it will remain '1' under the new revisions to the French numbering plan. I also checked microfilms of the newspaper for the June 1966 demonstration of international dialing. It was mentioned that Lowell Wingert of AT&T Long Lines tapped out just ten digits for the destination number, those mentioned above, using a white touchtone telephone set. A loudspeaker was hooked up to the phone line so observers could hear how the call was being placed, and 'call-progress' tones. The newspaper articles mentioned that Mr.Wingert of AT&T first joked that he was happy that he didn't reach a wrong number! He also said that "All Number Calling" should be adopted as soon as possible, as there are many inconsistancies on arrangement of letters on the dial in different countries, if there are even letters at all! and that some countries use a different alphabet for their dial's letters. The articles also mention that later during the day, others placed calls to Brussels and London just by dialing away. No additional numbers or codes were mentioned in the newspaper articles. The Phialdelphia exchange which gave dialtone to this phone was the LOcust exchange, and the calls were routed via the Bell System international switch in New York. The LOcust exchange in Philadelphia was specially wired to handle these demo international calls earlier that day or on the day before, and it would be removed later that day or on the next day. The question was asked if anyone (everyone) in that neighberhood with the LOcust exchange could have also directly dialed international themselves. Yes they could, if they knew the codes (or accidently dialed them), but they would have been charged $12.00 for the first three minutes! The ten-digit number dialed by Lowell Wingert for the CCITT representative in Geneva was indicated in the newspaper articles as: 200-2-23-30-11. '200' was called an 'international access code'. '2' was called the digit for Geneva Switzerland. '23-30-11' was the six-digit Geneva number for the CCITT representative. Geneva presently has seven-digit local numbers. I knew that they had six-digit numbers back in the 1970's and 80's, and I've been told that they had six-digit numbers going back into the 1950's! Switzerland's city code for Geneva has been '22' for quite some time. I don't know if it was '2' back in the 1960's. The country code '41' isn't mentioned at all in the articles on this 1966 demo. I don't know about Brussels local number length in the 1960's, and nothing was mentioned in the newspaper articles as to which number (or codes) was dialed for Brussels or London. Of course, since London has been local seven-digits for decades, I would guess that a different 'N00' code would have been used for dialing those calls to London in the 1966 Philadelphia demo. Does anyone have any further numbering details on Brussels or Geneva as it was in 1966? Is there anyone reading this who might now be retired from Bell or AT&T, who participated in this 1966 international dialing demonstration in Philadelphia some thirty years ago, or who might know what some of the additional *temporary* international dialing codes were? By the way, articles in old Bell publications, magazines and journals mention that Bell System international gateway operators were dialing directly onto the international switch or trunk to call Paris, London and other major European cities back in the early 1960's. These operators were specially trained to dial those countries' numbering plans at that time, and I would guess that the operator plugged into a direct "London" trunk or "Paris" trunk and simply just dialed (keyed) the local seven (or six) digit number at that time for that European city. Thanks in advance for any additional input! MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: BellSouth Executive Urges Consideration of Telemedicine Costs Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 13:15:19 (PDT) Forwarded to the Digest FYI: Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 16:15:31 -0400 From: BellSouth Subject: BellSouth Executive Urges Consideration of Telemedicine Costs Reply-To: press@www.bellsouth.com BellSouth Executive Urges Careful Consideration of Telemedicine Costs for Rural Health Care BellSouth .......................................June 19, 1996 WASHINGTON-The benefits of telemedicine-the ability to use telecommunications to link doctors and patients across long distances-should not be overlooked as we enter a more competitive environment, a BellSouth executive told a federal-state panel today. William L. Smith, BellSouth vice president - advanced networking division, told the panel of regulators that "Any viable competitor will pursue locations where actual costs are below average costs, leaving only high-cost sites for the carriers of last resort." Under current pricing rules, BellSouth averages costs associated with urban and rural health facilities. The Federal State Joint Board of federal and state telecommunications regulators heard testimony on preserving universal service in the face of blossoming competition in the telecommunications business. Smith told the commissioners that BellSouth believes that the basic platform for rural health care access to the benefits of telemedicine should support transmission of basic data and images, as well as other video applications. In the telephone industry, this sort of access is provided by a circuit designated as a T-1 which transmits at 1.544 Megabits per second, a speed that can transmit full-motion video like that seen on a home TV set. "As we move into a much more competitive environment, the ability to average costs associated with urban and rural facilities will no longer exist," Smith explained. BellSouth believes that every rural hospital, clinic and physicians office would need to have access to a T-1 circuit for all residents to be able to benefit from the efficiencies of telemedicine. Timely and accurate provision of vital health care information to the appropriate care giver is becoming more and more important in the delivery of cost-effective medical treatment. With telemedicine, facilitated by advanced telecommunications technologies, doctors can have virtually instantaneous access to their most qualified colleagues to share diagnostic and consultative information on a patient, no matter where the patient or the medical specialist is located. BellSouth helped develop a more timely and cost effective way for Trident Regional Health System in Charleston, S.C., to transfer radiology images between its Trident and Summerville sites. Radiologists at one location and physicians at the other can jointly study the images. And the images -- which used to take up to an hour to reach their destination -- now arrive in seconds. The Medical College of Georgia in Augusta has implemented an interactive video system that will allow specialists to examine patients at rural Dodge County Hospital in Eastman, Ga. The specialist can see the patient and hear what the physician in Eastman hears through a stethoscope, and can also study patient X-rays. The Medical College is also linked to seven correctional facilities so examinations can be conducted without the inmates having to leave the penal facility. In North Carolina, BellSouth has been a sponsor of the VISTAnet project since 1991 using advanced switching on a broadband network. The project is being used to develop improved treatment plans for cancer. The network provides high resolution images (of malignant tumors) and radiation dose patterns that enable specialists to optimize radiation treatment plans (by exploring thousands of possibilities) in real time, a process that otherwise takes several days. Also, BellSouth has partnered with the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) to develop a new pathology image system that uses high-speed telephone lines to visually connect tissue samples of patients at outlying hospitals with pathologists at UAB Medical Center. With the UAB-BellSouth Anatomic TelePathology Applications Research Project, remote robotics and medicine are combined to allow personnel at outlying hospitals to examine suspect tissue on a slide that can be concurrently viewed by pathologists at UAB. BellSouth is a $17.9 billion communications services company. It provides telecommunications, wireless communications, directory advertising and publishing, and information services to more than 25 million customers in 17 countries worldwide. ### Internet users: For more information about BellSouth Corporation visit the BellSouth Webpage http://www.bellsouth.com For Information Contact: Bill McCloskey (202)463-4129 Debbie Jordan (404)330-0187 ---------------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 17:28:14 EDT From: Ratnadeep R. Damle Subject: Calcutta Telephones Thought the following article may be of interest to some of your readers. By Suman Ghosh - Calcutta - The Asian Age - 19th June 1996 There was a time when a Calcuttan would pull an exasperated face whenever telephones became were the subject of conversation. "Wrong number and inflated bills, that's what telephones are all about here", he would say and probably throw his hands up in disgust (despair?) Times have changed. Remarkable improvements have been registered over the last two years by Calcutta Telephones, the largest telephone district in India barring the Delhi and Bombay districts, which come under the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) under the department of telecommunications. The district covers an area of 2200 sq km, with a substantial 68 exchanges and a staggering 381231 direct exchange lines. The queue of aspiring telephone owners has come down from 70281 to 52328 in 1995, a fact that is sure to set smiles alight in a large number of faces. The maintenance and set up of Calcutta telephones is decentralised into six key areas: Central, City, South, North, Howrah and long distance. The Director System Strowager Exchanges that had been installed in the fifties were replaced by electronic exchanges since March 31, 1995. A few outdated Penta Conta Crossbar (PC X Bar) exchanges have also been replaced by modern electronic ones. Out of the 68 exchanges, only 16 are X Bar exchanges while the remaining 52 are electronic. The main problem that the telephone industry like many other industries, has to face in this city is a space crunch. Cables have to be laid under narrow footpaths and in places, as many as six cables lie on top of each other because of the increasing number of connections. A total of 18,877 km of cable with 30, 98, 231 cable pairs lie underground in the city. As a result, any digging by any other organisation often causes damage to telephone cables. In addition, waterlogging during the monsoon severely damages the condition of cables, and, in addition, impedes repair work. There are 200 incidents of cable damage reported every month, it is learnt. Sources in the telephone department said that theft of cables and cable termination bones are rampant. It is learnt that the telephone authorities are taking measures to curb these malpractices. Authorities are also of the opinion that owing to the increasing space crunch, the best way out would be to start a network without cables, specifically a wireless radio network. There are two ways to the wireless net. One, the direct wireless which does not allow enough mobility as the movement must be restricted to a certain range. The other, somewhat costlier option, is the `mobile wireless system' which gives the consumer total control over his instrument. Tenders for the fixed wireless scheme have been floated already. Also, considering the time lag between the switchover from one system to another, fibre cables are being installed in place of copper and coaxial cables, to improve the present state of affirs. The additional advantage of using optical fibre cables is that their resale value being quite low, they are unlikely to be stolen. The common complaint against Calcutta Telephones is that the list of applicants is always too long to allow any changes of quick delivery. Calcutta Telephones reserves 60 per cent of all applications for the OYT (Own Your Telephone) category while 30 per cent are reserved for the general category. As a result, applications to the general category mount very fast; in fact, in 1994 - 95, only 842 out of a total 52328 `waiting' applications were under the OYT. Calcutta Telephones has also started projects to help rehabilitate the physically handicapped and public call booths operated by them have been set up in different parts of the city. The Asian Age had, a few weeks ago, carried a profile of Pritwish Gupta, a blind young man who had fought against all odds in his pursuit of education, and now operates a booth named Telelink is Shyambazar. After what was arguably a period of recession, Calcutta Telephones is back into business with a bang. The new installations are obviously bearing fruit. The organisations cash registers are ringing once again as the revenue from telephones alone has leaped a fantastic 146 per cent in the last five years. The performance of the organisation, in comparison with the national scenario, is also looking up. Calcutta Telephones is looking forward to rosier days ahead; and not without reason. ------------------------------ From: jstory@ibm.net Subject: Wanted: Information on SMDI Date: 20 Jun 1996 21:28:21 GMT Reply-To: jstory@ibm.net We are beginning a project that will involve SMDI, but so far are getting very little information about how to use it. We would like to know where we can get more information on this protocol. Is there an online source or a book we can order? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 12:36:45 EDT From: Bob Baxter Subject: Ring No Answer - What's to Blame? The following scenario is occuring at my job: There are two incoming lines to a Data General computer. On each line is a Multitech modem. Starting last week, the modem on line one was not picking up calls. The TD and RD lights would flicker, but the modem would not pick up. We placed the second modem on line one, and we were able to dial in once. Subsequent retries resulted in a ring/no answer. I had NYNEX in to check the quality of both lines, which passed with flying colors. The modem from line one was pulled off again, and reprogrammed to pick up on the third ring. Calls to the first line were still not being picked up. At this point, I'm not sure where the problem is. A phone attached to the modem line rings. A third modem hooked up to line one does not pick up. Are there any conditions where a telephone line would test okay, and sound fine, but still be incompatible with the modems? Thanks, Bob Baxter (bobbles@panix.com) ------------------------------ From: danny burstein Subject: Nynex <-> Sprint Cross Usage Agreement Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 14:42:36 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC Per the Nynex internal telephone newswire of 19-June, Nynex has now made arrangements to have its calling cards intertwined with Sprint. Calls made with a Nynex card, if inside a Nynex LATA, will be handled by Nynex. If crossing a LATA, _or_ if in a non-Nynex area (i.e. if you're using the card in Denver) will be handled via Sprint (which will, I'm guessing, pay up something to the LEC). These will also be usable for international calls at "competitive rates". Fascinating news, especially as it comes only a few weeks after the big AT&T cancellation of its arrangements with LECs. (Hmm, to bring in another thread, will CNID show your home number or where you're calling from? Ooops. let's not start that again) dannyb@panix.com ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #300 ******************************