From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Sun Dec 8 01:53:03 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id BAA18519; Sun, 8 Dec 1996 01:53:03 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 01:53:03 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612080653.BAA18519@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #651 TELECOM Digest Sun, 8 Dec 96 01:53:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 651 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective (David Scott Lewis) WebTV: Problem With URLs; Remote Control Options (David Scott Lewis) Re: WebTV Sad Story (R. Van Valkenburgh) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Doug Sewell) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David Scott Lewis Subject: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective Date: Sat, 07 Dec 1996 00:24:10 -0800 Organization: Recommendations.net (http://fab.stanford.edu) Several days ago (last Tuesday and Wednesday, to be exact), I had the opportunity to demo WebTV at the San Diego (Central County) Computer City. Over the two days I gave their unit, which has a live 'Net connection, a helluva workout. My conclusion is that WebTV FINALLY got it right! Let me rephrase that: FINALLY somebody got it right ... and it is WebTV! WebTV is so simple that it's elegant. They've done a superb job with just above everything. Sure, it can't do some of the neat things that we've come to expect, like frames. But overall, it's what we've all been waiting for; I'll go so far as to say that it may be exactly what's needed to reach the mass audience of TV viewers that are not particularly 'Net- or PC-savvy (and don't want to be). I'm so jazzed by WebTV that I'm going to go and buy it, even though I have access through a PC to PBI. What I've done to make my surfing really easy is to add links on my personal Excite Live! page (http://live.excite.com). Hence, my WebTV home page will become a jump- station to numerous Internet marketing, advertising, and PR resources; Fab, the Stanford AI Lab spin-off technology that I've been working with for the past several months; over 200 international daily news- papers; several search engines, including the new ProFusion metasearcher, ZD Net, inquiry.com, et al; direct links to The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, et al; Sun Server (my favorite Sun Microsystems source); a couple of intranet pointers, since I'm doing some intranet consulting these days; NewsLinx, my favorite up-to-the- minute Web info source; Web Commerce; my personal BusinessWire profile; and numerous other Web-based information sources, such as AnchorDesk, DQi (courtesy of DataQuest), FaulknerWeb, The San Jose Mercury News "A.M." news source, my personal c/net edition, PC Week, InfoWorld, Computer Reseller News, Web Week, @Computerworld, AgentNews, mobilis, Telecom A.M., Hyperstand, ... Plus, I have instant access to my NewsTracker profiles on agents, Internet trends, servers, venture capital, mobile computing, Web design, animation, intranets, ... Although WebTV does have the capability to receive e-mail, I still plan to use my PC for e-mail correspondence. However, for those that can forward mail to other accounts (e.g., those in an Unix environment using the .forward command), why not just go ahead and send copies of your e-mail to your WebTV account? This would be especially nice for those of us that receive lots of publications by e-mail, or for those that are subscribed to a lot of mailing lists. (By last count, I receive at least a couple of dozen e-magazines. It would be great to have my YPN, NewsTips, Tipworlds, et al, forwarded to my WebTV account.) Better yet, use USA.NET to have your mail viewable through ANY Web browser located ANYwhere AND forwarded to a RadioMail/Wynd-type wireless access account AND a WebTV account. And don't worry, there are plenty of good, usable mail filters to help with routing. I believe that it's time to refine the prevailing views on mass access to the Web. WebTV creates a new paradigm ... a paradigm that reaches out to over two hundred million potential users -- just like broadcast TV itself! It will be fascinating to observe the adoption and diffusion patterns of this new Internet media outlet. ==================== ADDENDUM (POST-PURCHASE): I bought my Sony WebTV black box on Tuesday night. I got it up and running in eight minutes. Well, almost. If you use an S-Video input, you better make sure you know how to set your television to switch to it. Personally, I had never used this option before. Also, my television, which is a 29" ProScan (Thompson), has two remotes: a master remote and a small, sleek remote (which is the one we always use; it looks like Voyager). Of course, I soon discovered that the only way to access the S-Video input is through the master remote. And, as fate would have it, the batteries had died! Oh, well, this added about another 10 minutes (and some colorful language) to the sign-on process. I've already used it for over 20 hours; I've had very little sleep over the past few days. Here are some of my observations: 1) The best thing is the music while you wait to connect! I like the "Downtown" song, but a user can select from three other options. However, there doesn't seem to be a way to change your option once it's selected. Hence, you have been warned: Select your music choice very carefully; you might be stuck with it for a long, long time! Now to more substantive issues. 2) First, I'll address e-mail (no pun intended). Well, there's no blind carbon option. For me, that's an important feature that they're lacking. There's also no way to create lists. And, it's not really easy to send regular carbons; the set-up is far more conducive to sending all recipients in the "To" header. Fortunately, it is possible to add names to an address book. Unfortunately, it is NOT possible to add names to your address book from e-mail that you've received. It's also not possible to change your header. That's bad news. I am, for example, really sending this message from my Pacbell account, but most of you see this as coming from my IEEE address. Here's the problem: When I send a message from my WebTV account, message recipients that hit their "Reply" function will send their messages back to my WebTV account. That means that I'll get WebTV replies only when I use my WebTV account. That's definitely NOT cool. I'd like to be able to designate my own e-mail and reply-to address. I ALWAYS use a forwarding account, like my IEEE or ACM accounts, which is turn forward to my USA.NET account, which then explodes to my Pacbell and WebTV accounts. Since the only place that I can store (and, for now, print) messages is with my Pacbell connection (which really sucks, by the way), I use my Pacbell account as my so-called "master" account. But I can still view ALL of my messages through WebTV or through any browser anywhere in the world through my USA.NET account. If I get RadioMail (or Wynd) ... or the MP 2000, I'll add forwarding to those accounts as well. So here's the scoop: Replies to messages that I send from my Pacbell and old Presence accounts (yep, I actually have a couple of more Internet access accounts, plus a CompuServe account) AND from my USA.NET account get distributed to my PacBell account, my WebTV account, and my USA.NET account. That's very cool indeed. But, those WebTV-originated messages will receive replies only at my WebTV account. That's NOT cool; WebTV needs to fix this immediately! Good news: It seems that most of the problems with WebTV, not just their e-mail limitations, can be solved with a software solution that doesn't require any equipment modifications by the customer. Oh, I can see a need to replace the keyboard or remote every few years as new function keys are added. And we'll need to buy WebTV "Smart Card" peripherals as they become available. But, overall, it seems to be an EXTREMELY low maintenance piece of equipment. Conceptually, it's a good model to support the cause of NCs vs. PCs ... but I don't want to get on this topic; it's almost like a religious war between Unix and MS Windows. 3) More on e-mail. You can't reply to individual portions of a message. That can make things a bit awkward. And changing the "Subject" field is a bit cumbersome as well, but it's doable. BTW, the "Reply" function does NOT allow an option to include the original message; you have to do that through the "Forward" function. Hmmm. Web documents are easy to forward/transmit from WebTV, but they do NOT include the entire document, only the link. That's a real bummer. Since I use Navigator Mail (Go Netscape!), I'm spoiled by the fact that I can receive Web pages and view them in their full glory in my Navigator Mail account. (For the record, for those of you using primitive e-mail systems, you can view Web documents that are sent to you as e-mail in their full glory via a USA.NET account.) OTOH, Web pages sent as e-mail to a WebTV account CAN be viewed in their full glory via WebTV, although I find that it looks much better when I simply click on the link and thereby take advantage of a full screen, versus a smaller e-mail viewing screen. A big question for many might be about data input (or shall I be quaint and call it "typing"). The Sony keyboard is terrific. I'm not sure what kind of IR they're using; I didn't check the spec. I get the impression that it's a line-of-sight IR. I would have been happier with a diffuse IR link. But, overall, it seems to work fine. It's a very light keyboard and very well designed, IMHO. Data entry through the remote control is a snap. Well, maybe not a snap. But it's okay for enterings URLs and the like. Users have an option to choose between an ordered keyboard (i.e., "ABCDEFG ...") or a Qwerty keyboard for their onscreen keyboard. (Don't worry, the "real" keyboard is a Qwerty keyboard.) The onscreen keyboard needs to go through a few iterations. For example, they need to add the major hierarchies as one-click entries; it's silly for me to have to type the letters c-o-m or e-d-u all the time. Also, a one-click input for w-w-w would be nice, just to save a bit of time. They also need to add their "Continue" key and "." key to a couple of more locations on their onscreen keyboard. 4) Viewing. Viewing can be a bit annoying. The output tends to be rather bright. Sure, I might be able to adjust the contrast on my television set, but that would (or should) impact by regular television or videotape viewing quality. I'm not sure what WebTV can do about this. Hmmm. They can probably change the background to be slightly off-white ... versus the GLARING WHITE SCREEN that I get on most Web pages. 5) Bookmarks. Their bookmarks are called "Favorites". They're easy to access from the keyboard by hitting the "Favs" key. Hey, that's easy! On the remote, they can be accessed through a two key input process: "Home" and then moving over one space and clicking on "Favorites". Easy. Very easy. I don't know if they have a limit, but I wouldn't push it. Each "favorite" shows up as a first-screen icon; hence, they tend to be a bit large. It would be nice if WebTV allowed a text-only display option. To aid in my surfing journeys, I selected my extensive Excite Live! page as my first favorite. From there, I can go just about anywhere. (BTW, Excite Live! does have limitations. For example, only so many links can be added to each category. Hence, my categories don't have much resemblance to the links that they contain. That's a silly limitation on the part of Excite Live! After all, I'm getting the same number of links, but now I have to put them in separate categories that don't correspond to the links ... just so I can have all (or most) of the links that I want.) 6) More on "Favorites". My second and third favorites are AltaVista and InfoSeek Ultraseek. I've added the dailies that I MUST read to my "Favorites" page. Hey, here's something quirky. It is now NOT possible to name the "Favorites"; it's necessary to accept the default. That, too, is a bit silly. For example, my Ad Age Interactive Daily "Favorite" has the date of the first issue that I used as my "Favorite" input. Also, a couple of my favorites have titles that don't really suggest what they're about. I should be able to override the HTML "Title" defaults and use my own titles. Overall, though, their "Favorites" are efficient. BTW, you can't use a "Favorite" as your home page. The home page defaults to a page offering a menu for e-mail, favorites, explore (which is like Yahoo!, of sorts), and search. 7) Last item on "Favorites". Their system has a built-in list of bookmarks. I deleted all of them. Except one. Keep their "JumpCity" bookmark. "JumpCity" kind of works like VCR-Plus. The Sony unit comes with a 472 page book describing all sorts of Web sites. It reads a lot like a Wolff book, e.g., NetGuide/YPN. The book evidently shows the home page for each described item. That's good and bad. Sometimes it's a bit much visually. But, overall, it's a GREAT book, especially for newbies. Here's why. With a simple four-digit input, which is easy to do with the remote (although it's another example as to why the "Continue" function needs to be added to a couple of more places on their onscreen keyboard), it's possible to go to thousands of sites. Okay, for those of us that have lived on the Web for any reasonable length of time, it's simply a cute feature. But for newbies, it's a TERRIFIC idea. Good job! I haven't checked the printed guide for political correctness, but it seems to have a lot of key sites. 8) More on e-mail. When a user first gets on, the system lets them know how many new messages they have. And it does this for all accounts. (See the next paragraph.) The system also beeps when new mail is received. Those are nice, albeit standard features that many of us are already getting. 9) Multiple accounts. You can set-up multiple accounts, each with their own favorites. I've set up accounts for myself (thewebguy@webtv.net), my fiancee (thewebgal@webtv.net), and my daughter (thewebkid@webtv.net). My daughter, who is slightly over three, doesn't receive too much e-mail, so I haven't done to much with her settings. My fiancee is in Europe on business this week, so she can arrange her own "Favorites" when she returns. However, both of our USA.NET accounts forward to our WebTV account, so she's already getting mail at her WebTV account ... even though she hasn't been around since I purchased the Sony unit. 10) Last observation (also about e-mail). Deleting messages is a VERY SLOOOOOW process. WebTV should, at the very least, have a checkmark and delete function (and a trash function as a back-up, but with automatic trash disposal since they probably don't want to keep an overabundance of someone's e-mail on their server/s). This, too, is a standard feature on some e-mail systems. Even USA.NET has this. Oh, and WebTV e-mail does NOT have filtering capabilities, nor does it have sorting capabilities. 11) Image maps. Oh, boy! They're not easy to navigate with either the remote or keyboard. And without a hardware change, I don't see an easy solution. If you absolutely must deal with a torrent of image maps, then WebTV is not YET for you. Yet, for all practical purposes, I don't find the arrow-key based navigation too cumbersome. Bottom line: It's fine, at least for the next year or so. Overall, WebTV is GREAT! I love it! The WebTV folks still have a lot to do ... probably a lot of job opportunities for programmers. RealAudio is key, as is some sort of streaming video. The logical choice seems to be VDOlive, but they should see what they can do with VXtreme, Xing, Vivo, ... Speech synthesis would also be nice. (Speech recognition would be great, but that would require a significant change in their hardware.) When I mean speech synthesis, I'm really talking about TTS -- text-to-speech. (My fiancee is in this area; she can be reached at thewebgal@usa.net, which, as I stated earlier, will forward to her WebTV and her personal Earthlink accounts. But, she can review mail while in Europe via her USA.NET account ... accessible through over 1,000 cybercafes worldwide! The firm that she's with was touted by guru Amy Wohl during the recent COMDEX as providing _the_ view into our computing futures.) Happy Holidays! David Scott Lewis d.s.lewis@ieee.org For further discussion, see http://www.webtv.net/HTML/home.yankelovich.html P.S. -- I have a couple of more observations about WebTV. They both relate specifically to optimizing for WebTV. Assuming the WebTV phenomenon catches on (and it will, even if WebTV does NOT prevail as the lead player), it might be very wise to have so-called "Designed for WebTV" pages and sites. (Call it what you will; you get my point.) Let their servers handle the tough stuff, but take advantage of everything that can be optimized via their servers. Also, it might be important to rethink e-mail for WebTV. Hah, not so obvious of a problem, but a problem indeed! Hitting hard returns is generally a good practice, but it can really chop up WebTV e-mail. Yet, the WebTV screen leads to itty-bitty columns. I'd like to see WebTV come up with a solution from their end, but in the interim, if I were offering a text-based e-mail service, I'd be very careful about how things look on WebTV. That's especially important for consumer-oriented sites, like the portfolio companies with idealab! Are you listening, WebTV? FINAL COMMENT (NO KIDDING): In response to my "Are you listening, WebTV?" question, I received a timely reply from WebTV: "We are listening." Good for them! ------------------------------ From: David Scott Lewis Subject: WebTV: Problem with URLs; Remote Control Options Date: Sat, 07 Dec 1996 10:34:52 -0800 Organization: Recommendations.net (http://fab.stanford.edu) I ran into this problem when I first started using my Web TV unit last Tuesday night, but I forgot to comment about it in my postings. However, it just came back to light a few minutes ago. A feature they need to add is a way to view URLs and manipulate URLs. For example, if I find a bad URL, I'll usually try to truncate the URL and see what I can get. More often than not, that seems to work ... or at least help. But URLs are NOT displayed and can't be manipu- lated from the "Location" position. Matter of fact, the only time a user can directly manipulate a URL is during the "Go To" input. That's too little user control. Here's a real example of this limitation: A little while ago I wanted to add Seidman's newsletter to my Excite Live! home page. I used to get Seidman's, but it seemed like it fell off the face of the earth, just like my old e-newsletter/e-magazine! :-(... Anyway, I couldn't add Seidman's new URL to my Excite Live! through WebTV. There is simply no way to copy and paste the URL. Hence, I had to go to my highly unreliable PacBell account to do the appropriate manipulations. (BTW, I beat up on Pacbell, but I really have a soft spot for them. After all, it was old Web design firm, Presence Information Design, that was the lead contractor on their "AtHand" site. That's why I'm STILL sticking with them. I hope they solve their problems, although I'm starting to lose all hope.) So for me, it's a pain to have to go to my PacBell account to do some basic functions that I can't do with my WebTV account. However, for a lot of people that may get WebTV and NOT have any other accounts, it's an unacceptable limitation. Remember, I really love WebTV. In some ways, I view myself as their third-party/user evangelist. However, I don't want to pull my punches. Once again, this is a problem WebTV could fix from their side. And, it shouldn't be too difficult to fix. Another suggestion (but much less important): "Favs" should be an advanced option through the remote control "Options" command. Yep, it saves only one step, but in general, a lot of the keyboard one-function keys should be accessible as advanced options through the remote control "Options" command. That should be VERY SIMPLE to implement. Have a default settings/reset for newbies that get too crazy and too confused. But after a while, it should be very easy (and make sense) for most WebTV users (or are they "viewers"?) to add some additional options. David Scott Lewis Recommendations.net d.s.lewis@ieee.org For the record (and for the accolades), they're: John Lee, Corporate Evangelist, evangelist@corp.webtv.net or jlee@webtv.net Chris White, MTS, casper@webtv.net Good customer service, guys! ------------------------------ From: vanvalk@auburn.campus.MCI.net (R. Van Valkenburgh) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 01:49:05 GMT Organization: auburn.campus.MCI.net Reply-To: vanvalk@auburn.campus.MCI.net That's a very funny story, I think. I must say that I've gotten to where I prefer salesman who know nothing about their product, than salesmen who know just enough to be able to insert a few good lies. ------------------------------ From: doug@cc.ysu.edu (Doug Sewell) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 7 Dec 1996 12:46:23 -0500 Organization: Youngstown State University Thus spake Dave Sieg : > I had an interesting phone call from a guy who had bought one of the > "WebTV" boxes. It sits on the top of the TV and hooks to a phone > line, allowing "unlimited Internet Access" for only $19.95/month". I tried WebTV at Sears recently to bring up my home page. It was "painfully slow" - comparable to Netscape at 2400 baud. > But it would make sense for WebTV to allow a local ISP to be THE > provider in areas where they don't have POP's. Nope, can't be done. > Apparently, they use some proprietery encryption scheme, and are > making big plans for people to conduct all kinds of business solely > through their ISP. Another proprietary scheme. A pox upon them. Incidentally, my home page -- which is pretty ordinary -- had a .wav sound clip on it, and WebTV couldn't deal with that at all. I don't know if it supports any other type of sound files. It handled forms, however. I didn't bother to check my web server to see what the browser looked like to it. I'd suspect that many of the newer web browser features aren't supported, perhaps I'll have to head out to Sears again today and try it ... Doug Sewell (doug@cc.ysu.edu) (http://cc.ysu.edu/~doug/) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #651 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Sun Dec 8 04:22:02 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id EAA25087; Sun, 8 Dec 1996 04:22:02 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 04:22:02 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612080922.EAA25087@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #652 TELECOM Digest Sun, 8 Dec 96 04:22:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 652 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Supreme Court To Hear CDA Case (Monty Solomon) The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (Monty Solomon) Payphone Prices for 0+ and 800/888 Calls (Dave Levenson) Re: Area Code Splits - Why? (Dave Levenson) Re: Area Code Splits - Why? (Larry Lee) Re: Area Code Woes (Andy Finkenstadt) Re: Area Code Woes (Rey Hinckley) Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines (Gareth Babb) Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines (David Clayton) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 7 Dec 1996 03:16:54 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Supreme Court To Hear CDA Case Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Begin forwarded message: Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 13:10:22 -0700 From: --Todd Lappin-- Subject: FLASH: Supreme Court To Hear CDA Case Salutations! Great news today from Washington DC ... the Supreme Court has officially announced that they will hear the US government's appeal of the recent lawsuits blocking enforcement of the Communications Decency Act. The judges are expected to hear the case in April, with a decision following a few months later. As Jerry Berman, Executive Director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, says in the Trial Bulletin, "This case will determine the future of free expression in the information age, and is the most important first amendment case before the court in recent memory." (For background on why we're optimistic the Supreme Court will deliver a favorable runing on the CDA case, check out Mike Godwin's excellent analysis at: http://www.hotwired.com/wired/4.09/cyber.rights.html.) Stay tuned for further updates, and of course ... Work the network! --Todd Lappin--> Section Editor WIRED Magazine _______ _ _ ____ _ _ _ _ |__ __| (_) | | | _ \ | | | | | (_) | |_ __ _ __ _| | | |_) |_ _| | | ___| |_ _ _ __ | | '__| |/ _` | | | _ <| | | | | |/ _ \ __| | '_ \ | | | | | (_| | | | |_) | |_| | | | __/ |_| | | | | |_|_| |_|\__,_|_| |____/ \__,_|_|_|\___|\__|_|_| |_| Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition Update No. 16 December 6, 1996 ----------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.cdt.org/ciec/ ciec-info@cdt.org ----------------------------------------------------------------- CIEC UPDATES are intended for members of the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition. CIEC Updates are written and edited by the Center for Democracy and Technology (http://www.cdt.org). This document may be reposted as long as it remains in its entirety. ------------------------------------------------------------------ ** 55,000 Netizens Vs. U.S. Department of Justice. ** * The Fight To Save Free Speech Online * Contents: o Supreme Court Agrees to Hear CDA Challenge ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SUPREME COURT AGREES TO HEAR LANDMARK CASE TO DETERMINE FUTURE OF FREE SPEECH IN CYBERSAPCE The United States Supreme Court today agreed to hear the government's appeal of a landmark legal challenge to the Communications Decency Act. The case, which will determine the future of freedom of speech in cyberspace, is expected to be heard in March or April. A special panel of federal judges in Philadelphia ruled the CDA unconstitutional in June. The Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition (CIEC), which brought a successful challenge to the CDA earlier this year, applauded the courts decision to hear the case. "This case will determine the future of free expression in the information age, and is the most important first amendment case before the court in recent memory." said Jerry Berman, Executive Director of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and one of the organizers of the CIEC. "The lower court ruled unequivocally, based on a solid factual record, that the CDA was unconstitutional," Berman added, "and we believe the Supreme Court will agree with them upon review." The CIEC is a broad coalition of groups concerned about the future of the Internet, including on-line service and Internet service providers, libraries, book, magazine, newspaper and music publishers, software companies, public interest organizations, and more than 55,000 individual Internet users. The lead plaintiff in the case is the American Library Association. The Philadelphia court ruled the CDA unconstitutional in June, agreeing with the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition's arguments that: * The Internet is a unique communications medium that deserves free speech protection at least as broad as that enjoyed by print medium. * Individual users and parents -- not the government -- should decide what material is appropriate for their children, and; * Simple, inexpensive user empowerment technology is a very effective and constitutional way of limiting the access of minors to inappropriate material on the Internet. The CIEC challenge, also known as ALA v DOJ, was consolidated with a separate lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and 20 other plaintiffs, ACLU v. Reno. The cases were argued together before the three-judge federal panel in Philadelphia last spring, and the legal teams continue to work together as co-plaintiffs in the Supreme Court phase. The Communications Decency Act (CDA), passed by Congress in February 1996 for the first time imposed far reaching broadcast-style content regulations on the Internet. The full text of the Philadelphia ruling and other information on the case can be found on the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition Web Page (http://www.cdt.org/ciec/). Please also visit the CIEC web page for the latest news and information about the case. The 27 plaintiffs in the case include: American Library Association, Inc.; America Online, Inc.; American Booksellers Association, Inc.; American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; American Society of Newspaper Editors; Apple Computer, Inc.; Association of American Publishers, Inc.; Association of Publishers, Editors and Writers; Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition; Commercial Internet eXchange; CompuServe Incorporated.; Families Against Internet Censorship; Freedom to Read Foundation, Inc.; Health Sciences Libraries Consortium; HotWired Ventures LLC; Interactive Digital Software Association; Interactive Services Association; Magazine Publishers of America, Inc.; Microsoft Corporation; Microsoft Network; National Press Photographers Association; NETCOM On-Line Communication Services, Inc.; Newspaper Association of America; Opnet, Inc.; Prodigy Services Company; Wired Ventures, Ltd.; and, the Society of Professional Journalists Ltd. WHAT YOU CAN DO -- JOIN THE CITIZENS INTERNET EMPOWERMENT COALITION If you use the Internet to send email, post to usenet newsgroups, maintain your own world wide web page, or participate in online discussion forums, you could face serious prison time and huge fines under the CDA if someone, somewhere, considers the material you put online to be "indecent" or "patently offensive". Since February of 1996, more than 55,000 individual Internet Users have joined the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition. The large number of individual Internet users is intended to illustrate to the Court, the press, and the public that each and every Internet user is a publisher and cold be liable under the CDA. If you haven't done so already, please take a moment to become a part of this landmark case: Visit the CIEC web site for details -- http://www.cdt.org/ciec/ It's fast, it's free, and it will help us preserve the future of the Internet as a viable means of free expression, education, and commerce. For More Information For more information on the CIEC challenge, including the text of the original complaint filed in early '96 and other relevant materials: * World Wide Web -- http://www.cdt.org/ciec/ * General Information about CIEC -- ciec-info@cdt.org * Copy of the Original Complaint -- ciec-docs@cdt.org * Specific Questions Regarding the Coalition, including Press Inquiries -- ciec@cdt.org * General information about the Center for Democracy and Technology -- info@cdt.org end ciec-update.16 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. To unsubscribe, send email to with "unsubscribe cda-bulletin" in the message body. WARNING: This is not a test! WARNING: This is not a drill! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Dec 1996 03:18:51 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Begin forwarded message: Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 16:21:07 -0700 From: --Todd Lappin-- Subject: OPPOSITION: FRC on Supreme Court News We're not the only ones who are excited about the pending Supreme Court case on the constitutionality of the Communications Decency Act. Turns out, the CDA's proponents are also looking forward to having their day in court. The following press release from the Family Research Council gives their side of the story, complete with Cathy Cleaver's usual rantings about the dangers of online smut. Remember ... despite what the FRC says, "indecency" is NOT a synonym for pornography. Work the Network! --Todd Lappin--> Section Editor WIRED Magazine FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Dec. 6, 1996 CONTACT: Kristi S. Hamrick, (202) 393-2100 For Radio, Kristin Hansen SUPREME COURT TO REVIEW COMPUTER PORN RULING WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Supreme Court announced Friday that it will review the Reno v. ACLU decision to enjoin the Communications Decency Act made earlier this year by a three-judge panel in Philadelphia. Family Research Council Director of Legal Studies Cathy Cleaver said that the Department of Justice's appeal of the Philadelphia ruling is the right thing to do, and that now the Supreme Court has the opportunity to "reverse the radical ruling which gave Bob Guccione the right to give his Penthouse magazine to our children on the Internet." Cleaver continued, "Laws against selling porn magazines to kids are not unconstitutional. Why should we have to tolerate the same degrading images of women being given to those same kids on-line?" Family Research Council presented a "friend of the court" brief with the Philadelphia judges in ACLU v. Reno defending the cyberporn provisions of the Communications Decency Act. Cleaver said the Philadelphia decision contradicts previous Supreme Court decisions on the distribution of indecent material through the media. The Communications Decency Act: * Prohibits adults from using a computer to send indecent pornography directly to a known child; * Prohibits adults from knowingly displaying indecent pornography to children; * Defines "indecent material" as material, which in context, depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities or organs in a patently offensive manner; * Imposes fines, prison sentences (up to 2 years), or both on violators; * Exempts those who merely provide access to a network or system over which they have no control; * Provides limited defenses for employers and those who make a reasonable and effective effort to restrict children's access to pornography; * Expands telephone harassment prohibitions to include harassment by computer. Arguments will likely be heard in early spring. Family Research Council and other pro-family and anti-pornography groups will be filing briefs in support of the Justice Department's defense of the law. FOR MORE INFORMATION OR INTERVIEWS, CALL THE FRC MEDIA OFFICE. 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. To unsubscribe, send email to with "unsubscribe cda-bulletin" in the message body. WARNING: This is not a test! WARNING: This is not a drill! ------------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I in general support the CDA although I see some problems with the way it is written and wish that instead of having the Supreme Court get involved this 'coalition' of Internet users and the other named organizations would get off their high horses, quit their scare tactics (i.e. 'you will go to prison if ...') and work with organizations like FCR to develop reasonable guidelines to satisfy everyone or nearly everyone. There *are* technical solutions to the problems FRC sees with the net, and there are relatively easy ways to implement some changes which ought to appease FRC while at the same time posing little or no addi- tional burden on the net. We do have to co-exist with the rest of the world you know. Other people have a right to use the net also, you know. That may come as a complete surprise to the folks at the ACLU and all the librarians, but other users of the net actually have the right to enjoy the web and not have to worry about their kids getting into territories they should stay out of. To take the reasoning of the ACLU, the librarians and other opponents of CDA to its logical conclusion, we should never have any laws forbidding children to be served in taverns because parents should have to be totally responsible for where their children go. We should not have any laws against selling cigarettes to minors because it is too hard to enforce, there will always be kids getting around the law and anyway, the parents should be the only ones to decide. It would cause a burden on the merchants who sell beer and cigarettes. We should never have any laws governing the interaction of children and adults at all because after all, some kids and/or adults will always find a way around it; enforcement will be difficult and unfair at times, and parents should be the only ones to decide. What was really insulting in the earlier litigation regards CDA was how the ACLU instructed their witnesses to just get up in court and lie about the technical aspects of the net, making all those outlandish claims about the technical difficulties involved in affording some modicum of policing. I assume they figured the judges would not know any better. The point is they don't want any policing. They want to be free to shove a bunch of ignorant and crappy newsgroups and web pages down everyone else's throat. That, plus their scare tactics and distortions of what CDA is all about has really turned off a lot of people to their cause. I hope the Supreme Court will permit truly independent -- i.e. unbigoted, and without any agenda -- internet experts to advise it in this matter before ruling. No ACLU'ers, no Socially Responsible computerists, no one with an axe to grind. The ACLU of course will object strenuously to any independent experts getting involved, just as they did in Philadelphia. The Court will hear all this malarkey about how impossible it is to control anything that anyone does here and how some poor innocent old-maid librarian in a children's library will wind up in prison for life because some web page or search engine lookup somewhere had a cuss word in it, etc. I hope this does not turn out to be a situation where 'a battle is won but the war was lost'. I see some real problems with CDA as it is written, but I can sympathize with the views expressed by its proponents as well, and frankly, the intellectual dishonesty (and I will suggest) fraud perpetrated on the Court by the opponents of CDA in Philadelphia almost has me to the point I hope CDA is ruled to be constitutional. Honestly, I wish Monty Solomon and others would quit sending me this junk-email ... and that is what it is. All it does is make me more angry each time I read it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Payphone Prices for 0+ and 800/888 Calls Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Sat, 7 Dec 1996 20:49:34 GMT In recent discussions on this subject, at least one writer has complained of the inconvenience of requiring a coin deposit to make a toll-free call from a payphone. This is not what is happening. Under the FCC's Payphone Report and Order, it is the long distance carrier who is paid for the toll-free call by the recipient who is required to pay the payphone owner. The calling party is not required to deposit coins into the phone. Other writers have pointed at the differences between customer-owned and utility-owned payphones. That difference is going away, for all practical purposes, in April of 1997. The local exchange carriers will be required to operate their public telephones through unregulated, unsubsidized entities. With this change, virtually all payphones will be required to pay their own way, without subsidies from regulated ratepayers. The arguments which apply to COCOTs will also apply to LEC-owned phones when this happens. Today, when a caller at a utility-owned payphone calls an 800 number, the IXC who carries the call pays termination charges and CCL (carrier common line) charges to the LEC at the originating end. Part of this charge subsidizes the payphone. When the same caller uses a privately-owned payohone, the IXC still pays the LEC, but none of that payment subsidizes the payphone. After April, the same will be true for the call using a utility-owned payphone, if no other changes were being made. COCOT's today sell local calls at nearly break-even prices. This is because the local sent-paid rate is usually set by local regulations which are based upon subsidies to payphones from other services offered by exchange carriers. A typical outdoor payphone on a city street carries about 60% local calls which produce a minimal profit for the payphone owner. Another 20-25% of calls are to toll-free numbers, and these produce no revenue at all. Another 15-20% or so are long-distance sent-paid calls. These are the calls that cover the fixed costs of operating the payphone (local access, insurance, maintenance, etc). So where does the payphone operator obtain any real profit? From the 2-3% of the traffic which is dialed as 0+. This traffic is often routed to an AOS who imposes a surcharge. The problem is that 98% of the traffic is operating at a loss or at break-even revenue, and 2% of the traffic must generate all of the return on the payphone owner's investment. That leads to unreasonably high prices for the 0+ traffic. The recent FCC action will eventually lead to deregulated sent-paid rates, and to compensation for the toll-free traffic. Pending action at the FCC and in many states may limit the prices charged for 0+ traffic at payphones. The eventual result is that some of the traffic which was not paying its way will. Another result is that the justification for unreasonably high 0+ rates will go away. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: uunet!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: Area Code Splits - Why? Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Sat, 7 Dec 1996 19:57:28 GMT Eric Bohlman (ebohlman@netcom.com) writes: > Assuming that the customer just needs several separate *numbers* > (rather than the ability to handle several *calls* at the same time), > $100-$200 would be less than the yearly cost of 5 or more lines. But the original subject of this thread was somebody's objection to splitting area codes. Additional numbers, whether or not they involve additional lines, is what evenually leads to number space exhaustion, and area-code splits, no? > Another thing that could relieve number congestion: a lot of > residential customers get a line solely for modem use, and it's almost > always used purely for outgoing calls. Why should such a line need a > number at all? Why can't the LECs offer an "anonymous" outgoing-only > line? That would save space in the area code. But what would such a line deliver for Caller*ID? Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: uunet!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Dec 1996 18:34:23 MST From: lclee@primenet.com (Larry Lee) Subject: Re: Area Code Splits - Why? At 12:47 PM 12/1/96 -0800, rlm@helen.surfcty.com wrote: > On 28 Nov 1996 10:51:01 PDT, lclee@primenet.com (Larry Lee) said: >> If the phone company would extend DID into standard analog voice >> lines, then we could go to Radio Shack and buy an extremely stupid >> telehone switch ($100-$200 range) which would accept an additional >> digit and route the call to 1 of 9 extensions (leaving extension 0 as >> a default). This would allow homes/small businesses to have 10 >> separate phone numbers with little to no phone company participation >> in digits. I'm sure that popular conventions would arise such as 9 is >> a fax, 8 is the answering machine, etc. >> What's wrong with this scheme? Why are things being done this way? > Do you mean to force people to buy $100-200 worth of hardware if they > want additional phone lines? How would the lines be delivered? Doesn't > analog DID require a trunk bundle to be hauled to the customer? Who > and in what manner is this to be paid for? Well let's say that basic phone service costs $20/mo and the phone company would charge an additional $5/mo to have the extra digit delivered to your house. You certainly have the right to have two separate phone lines at $40/mo or you can pay $25/mo plus a one time cost of $200 and every person in the house will get their own phone number. I just thought it was a service that would be a natural sell, but no I don't want to 'force' anybody to do anything. Larry ------------------------------ From: genie@panix.com (Andy Finkenstadt) Subject: Re: Area Code Woes Date: 7 Dec 1996 22:59:31 -0500 Organization: Dueling Modems http://www.dm.net/ Reply-To: genie@panix.com In Joel Upchurch writes: > I suspect that there may be real world financial consequences, such > as loan elgibility or insurance rates that could be effected by > living in an 'undesirable' zip code. Insurance companies and underwriters use the ZIP+4 and TIGER Census data, along with their own claims experience, and the Equifax insurance claims clearinghouse database, to segment their insurance to a quite detailed level. A person who lives in 32308 (my zip code) might have significantly higher comprehensive insurance rates because the theft and damage claims experience in their neighborhood, as defined by their ZIP+4, is much higher than in mine. Andrew Finkenstadt, The Printing House Ltd, Also a GEnie Sysop "If A equals success, then the formula is A = X + Y + Z. X is work, Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut. -- Albert Einstein" ------------------------------ From: Rey Hinckley Subject: Re: Area Code Woes Date: 7 Dec 1996 06:08:20 GMT Organization: Premier One The problem with area codes versus Zip codes is that using alphanumeric addresses is not as limited as numeric only numbers. Every area code can theatrically support from 200 to 999 (800) Central office codes with 10,000 xxxx numbers. Unless we start putting more unique digits on the phone, we have to split or overlay and area with duplicate phone numbers requiring another area code. Zip Codes are not as limited. The postal service came out with the Zip + 4 digits which makes zip codes almost as long as the telephone number, but with the exception of Post Office boxes, you can't be sure that there is one household to a zip+4 number. ------------------------------ From: hick@pobox.co.uk (gARetH baBB) Subject: Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines Reply-To: hick@pobox.co.uk Date: Sat, 07 Dec 1996 16:39:38 GMT Organization: Gink In article , 0006540276@mcimail. com (Tim Dillman) wrote: > and he brought up the wildest idea I have heard yet. It seems that > the public utilities are using power lines as the transmission media > for internal ethernet transmissions (or so he said). I was very > skeptical about this notion but managed a smile and nod when my > customer told me of this, but sill I wonder ... Alot of my calls go via Energis, which is a company in the UK owned by the National Grid. They have fibre wrapped round the earth cable of power lines going all over the place. Energis also provide the transmission network (though not the transmitters themselves) for the BBC in the UK and other data applications for other companies etc. Demon Internet (mentioned here occassionally) also use Energis lines. It's a good way of using an existing network to create another one, though some customer service aspects of Energis as a company have been noted as being particulary, erm, nasty. www.energis.co.uk has more information. ------------------------------ From: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) Subject: Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines Date: Sat, 07 Dec 1996 04:17:33 GMT Organization: Customer of Access One Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia Tim Dillman <0006540276@mcimail.com> contributed the following: > I recently visited one of my customers to discuss future technologies > and he brought up the wildest idea I have heard yet. It seems that > the public utilities are using power lines as the transmission media > for internal ethernet transmissions (or so he said). I was very > skeptical about this notion but managed a smile and nod when my > customer told me of this, but sill I wonder ... I have heard of a power utility in New Zealand using their lines to communicate with "smart" meters for remote billing data collection, but they didn't mention ethernet connections. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #652 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Sun Dec 8 23:10:34 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id XAA03600; Sun, 8 Dec 1996 23:10:34 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 23:10:34 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612090410.XAA03600@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #653 TELECOM Digest Sun, 8 Dec 96 23:10:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 653 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson The Problem With the Chat Feature (TELECOM Digest Editor) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Alan Bishop) Re: WebTV Sad Story (John Nagle) Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective (David Scott Lewis) Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective (Brian Elfert) WebTV: Pricing and Access Issues (David Scott Lewis) WebTV: Excite Live! Page Creation; E-Mail Miscellany (David Scott Lewis) Compcon 97 (Joy Shetler) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 22:04:48 EST From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: The Problem With the Chat Feature After observing it for a few days now, the one thing I've noticed is that two or more people rarely seem to be there at the same time. In most cases, someone goes to that web page, hangs around a few minutes and after seeing no response from anyone else then leaves. Time and again, five minutes or less later, some new person shows up. :( It might be a good idea to have some times given for chat by a general consensus; that is, people showing up there could usually expect to find others there at that time also. So how is this for a starting schedule ... and feel free to make your own arrangments with others to meet there at certain times. How about 10-11 AM Eastern; 4-5 PM Eastern; 9-10 PM Eastern .... At least for Monday and Tuesday .... to give those of you who are interested in using this feature a chance to meet others who like doing the same thing. If you wish, leave a message there at any time indicating the time you will be returning or would like to have others meet you there, etc. I have this feature set currently for only one 'room' or chat area, but I can set it for as many areas as I like; I was thinking of possibly setting it for about six 'rooms', meaning that many separate conversations could be going on. Also, some people have been leaving questions there looking for answers from others 'passing through'. You might want to make sure that if no one is there to answer your question you include an email address where you can be contacted with an answer, etc. The Telecom Chat URL is http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/chat PAT ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 14:51:38 PST From: Alan Bishop Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Howdy. I'm a software engineer at WebTV Networks. I certainly don't speak for the company, but I can clear up some misunderstandings. dr@ripco.com (David Richards) writes: > It's apparent that "WebTV" uses a proprietary interface that is > totally incompatible with the PPP standard, so it can only be used to > connect to their service. Nope. It uses PPP. However, it does connect to our servers over the internet via TCP/IP. See below for more information. doug@cc.ysu.edu (Doug Sewell) writes: > I tried WebTV at Sears recently to bring up my home page. It was > "painfully slow" - comparable to Netscape at 2400 baud. [...] > Incidentally, my home page -- which is pretty ordinary -- had a .wav > sound clip on it, and WebTV couldn't deal with that at all. I don't > know if it supports any other type of sound files. It handled forms, > however. That's unusual. Perhaps that Sears had a noisy phone line? It's got a 33.6k modem built in. Plus, data is compressed further by our proxy server when possible. Some reviewers of our box have been perplexed when they get pages *faster* than their $3k computer. Version 1.0 of the client only supported MIDI. Version 1.1, due out shortly, supports Real Audio, .wav, .au, .aiff, mod, and others. All users will receive the upgrade free of charge. The important software in the box is all stored in flash ROM, and we can do upgrades over the net. The only thing the user needs to do is select 'upgrade now' when we announce the new release. The box takes care of the rest. Technical specs on the box are at: http://webtv.net/HTML/home.specs.html (.net, not .com) JP White writes: > In defense of WebTV they do provide a service where you give them your > area code and first three digits of your local number and they will > inform you if the call is local or not. However there is catch 22, > this service is available on their Web page, so if you havn't got Web > access your stuck. That's at: http://webtv.net/HTML/home.retail.html (.net, not .com) However, you can also call our customer service department at 1-800-GOWEBTV, and they can tell you as well. Dave Sieg writes: > But it would make sense for WebTV to allow a local ISP to be THE > provider in areas where they don't have POP's. Nope, can't be done. > Apparently, they use some proprietery encryption scheme, and are > making big plans for people to conduct all kinds of business solely > through their ISP. [...] > In our part of the world, business lines cost nearly $70/month, and we > have had our bad experience with the abuse of "unlimited" accounts. > It simply doesn't make sense for any local ISP to permit somebody to > have unlimited use of his dialin lines, modems, routers, etc for a few > bucks/month. Dave Sieg has some legitimate concerns. However, his article may confuse some people. We *are* contacting local ISPs and arranging for more coverage. Communications are via standard PPP and TCP/IP, so this is pretty easy. What he's upset about is that (a) we want to still be involved (i.e. we only allow customers to connect to ISPs that we have a business relationship with), and that (b) he's in a region of the US where (according to him) the economics don't work out for a $19.95 unlimited access plan. Hopefully, a description of our service will bring a little more light to the discussion. The key to understanding the decisions we've made is "user experience". Our goal is a system usable by anyone, not just those who know how to use a computer. If you've never touched a keyboard before, you've never heard of an ISP, or you're not quite sure what the internet is, you can still successfully use our system to browse the Web and send email. This is a consumer product, not a computer system. The user interface has been radically redesigned. There are no scrollbars. There is no horizontal scrolling. The primary interface is through a remote control, similar to the ones used for DSS. After you buy it at the store (either the Sony or Philips / Magnavox brand), you plug it into power, your TV, and your phone line, and you press the power button. You don't need to select an ISP and you don't need to fiddle with connection scripts, modem configuration, or phone numbers. It just works. Many areas have multiple ISPs serving them, and if the first one your box dials fails to connect properly, it just rolls over to the next one in the list without the consumer needing to intervene (or know). For one fee the customer gets the redundant services of multiple ISPs. Customer service and billing is all through us. Obviously, to pull this kind of transparency off, we need to have some sort of relationship with the ISPs involved, since we need to know who to call, what their connection procedures are like, and who to pay. Our systems have only been online since September, and it's not surprising that we started with the largest ISPs with the best coverage before working our way down. The box talks to our proxy server over an encrypted channel (using TCP/IP). This allows us to provide a better service to the user in several ways: - privacy for the user. The number of places that someone could snoop on a user's session are greatly reduced. We should be publishing a statement on user privacy in the near future describing what we will and won't do with information in our possession. I believe it's designed to answer the same questions as those posed in http://www.cdt.org/privacy/online_services/chart.html. We use strong encryption, and as some of you are already aware, we've been declared a munition by the US government, and the boxes have a "do not export" stamp on them somewhere. - response time for common sites is more consistent. The time to connect to a common site is the time between a user's box and the proxy server, not N different sites on the internet. - we transcode images and other media types. For example, image creators often make their images too detailed or store them in a format that doesn't compress as well as it should. We fix that in the proxy before transmitting them over the slow link to the user. It also means that if we want to support a media type, we don't need a new client release: we just add it in the server and convert it to an existing one. Mail is stored on our server. This means that even if one of your ISPs is down, you can still get your mail. We run a 24x7 operation with generator backup. Some ISPs do this too, but not all. So, it is true that users must connect to our service once they're hooked to the internet. It is true that you do not select your own ISP. In exchange, you get a system that anyone can use, redundancy, improved reliability, and performance in many cases, and a single point of contact for billing and customer service. alan a@corp.webtv.net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for responding Alan. Please continue to follow this thread and perhaps in a day or two take a few minutes to summarize it for us with some followup comments of your own. PAT] ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 18:53:03 GMT doug@cc.ysu.edu (Doug Sewell) writes: > I tried WebTV at Sears recently to bring up my home page. It was > "painfully slow" - comparable to Netscape at 2400 baud. > Incidentally, my home page -- which is pretty ordinary -- had a .wav > sound clip on it, and WebTV couldn't deal with that at all. I don't > know if it supports any other type of sound files. It handled forms, > however. It does forms. It does E-mail. It's actually rather clever about dealing with the width limitations of the TV screen. It didn't do QuickTime or .avi movies when I tried one. I was suprised; given the name, I though it would be oriented towards audio and video, not text. John Nagle ------------------------------ From: David Scott Lewis Subject: Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 12:47:32 -0800 Organization: Strategies & Technologies Rich Greenberg wrote: > Does the limited resolution of the typical TV distort the images/photos > on the web sites? Is it as good as 640x480? Nope! David Scott Lewis thewebguy@acm.org [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Was that 'nope' a response to the first question or the second question? PAT] ------------------------------ From: belfert@citilink.com (Brian Elfert) Subject: Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective Date: 8 Dec 96 21:55:36 GMT David Scott Lewis writes: > When I send a message from my WebTV account, message recipients that hit > their "Reply" function will send their messages back to my WebTV account. > That means that I'll get WebTV replies only when I use my WebTV account. > That's definitely NOT cool. I'd like to be able to designate my own > e-mail and reply-to address. I ALWAYS use a forwarding account, like my > IEEE or ACM accounts, which is turn forward to my USA.NET account, which > then explodes to my Pacbell and WebTV accounts. Since the only place > that I can store (and, for now, print) messages is with my Pacbell > connection (which really sucks, by the way), I use my Pacbell account as > my so-called "master" account. But I can still view ALL of my messages > through WebTV or through any browser anywhere in the world through my > USA.NET account. If I get RadioMail (or Wynd) ... or the MP 2000, I'll > add forwarding to those accounts as well. WebTV is really designed for the person who doesn't have Internet now, and probably doesn't have a computer. Do you think the average person really has a half dozen Internet email addresses, and wants their WebTV mail to be returned to a different email account? Chances are, this will be the only email account for most users. Brian ------------------------------ From: David Scott Lewis Subject: WebTV: Pricing and Access Issues Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 13:54:22 -0800 Organization: Strategies & Technologies Original message asked me about who's the ISP with WebTV, are their access points toll-free, and how much does it cost. There's a bit of marketing perspective/philosophy later in this message. WebTV IS the ISP. To determine if it's a local call, you can go to their home page and navigate until you find their local access indicator input selection. In other words, it's a form where you put in your phone number. WebTV then determines if you have a toll-free local access number. However, I'd check your White Pages just to be sure. In my case, both numbers they gave me were local. But I'm in Los Angeles and in the Marina; EVERYONE seems to have a toll-free access number from the Marina, so it's not surprising that I had TWO local access numbers for WebTV. (The ISI think tank is about a stone's throw away from my residence; they have the fastest pipes in L.A., and through their MFS connection everyone seems to be hooked-in locally.) The charge for UNLIMITED access is $20.00. It might really be $19.95 or $19.99, but you get the idea. Oh, that's per month, of course. The real question for the WebTV folks is what are the reservation prices? My complete unit ran about $440, including the IR keyboard. My hunch (and it's just a hunch) is that WebTV needs to price the hardware at less than $300; actually, that might be more of a call for Sony and Philips, since they're the two current hardware suppliers. (I don't know if WebTV has exclusives with Sony and Philips.) For monthly access, I believe they need to be in the $12 per month range for unlimited access. However, I'm going to urge them to offer an automatically tiered pricing. In other words, $3.95 per month for 3 hours; $9.95 per month for 20 hours; and, $12.95 per month for unlimited access. Like my PacBell account, it should kick-in automatically; unlike AOL's new pricing scheme, user's should NOT have to predetermine how much access they want. AOL is being a bit ridiculous and it got them in legal hot water. With this kind of pricing, WebTV's biggest problem will be meeting demand! Within a year, they would be the largest Internet-only ISP. Within two years, they would surpass AOL. Besides, within the next 18 months, I expect them to have integrated a lot of new, cool technologies, especially streaming video ... or, at the very least, Shockwave and QuickTimeVR. Plus, PDF must not be too far behind. Macromedia and Adobe must see the value of WebTV as the platform of choice for the public at large. Like I've hinted in the past, it's a switch to a market potential of over a hundred million new "viewers," versus the old, tired paradigm of "users." However, I expect this new generation of "viewers" (or at least a good fraction of new "viewers") to want interactivity. I wouldn't be surprised if WebTV is working with someone (hey, NetObjects would be cool) to develop an authoring toolkit so "viewers" could put up a very basic home page. There have got to be some interesting ways of taking advantage of the VCR/WebTV/television triad ... and why not add input from digital cameras, et al. VCRs, cameras, and other traditional consumer electronics products are what the public at large is used to; WebTV will simply be their seamless access platform to the Internet. And that's the real beauty of WebTV. Consumers will come to think of WebTV as another one of their appliances: "Yeah, I've got a microwave, a frig, a dishwasher, and WebTV." Word of caution: WebTV does NOT currently allow access to the Internet with the exception of the Web and e-mail. For most of the world that's more than adequate. (Even I can't recall when I last used Gopher or talk, although I do miss my Unix compression-related tools, especially since I read a lot of ftp accessible research papers, many using .z or .gz compression.) However, through DejaNews and other types of archives, such as the archives for Online-News, it's possible for those without access to a direct Usenet feed to read postings and directly post to Usenet groups. (I hope DejaNews is prepared to handle the traffic. Matter of fact, DejaNews should be a courtesy "Favorite" for WebTV. In other words, WebTV shouldn't charge DejaNews for the "Favorite" link/icon; DejaNews is, in essence, doing WebTV a big favor.) Once WebTV provides EASY Usenet access, perhaps through a relationship with DejaNews, then it will be really tough to argue against WebTV. With e-mail, access to the Web, and participatory access to Usenet, WebTV will provide (practically speaking) EVERYTHING that viewers would want ... at least until THE NEXT BIG THING, whatever that will be. Final observation for this message: I'm already finding that WebTV is my PRIMARY means of 'Net access. My PC is collecting a bit of dust! :-) Hey, I still use my PC access at least a few times a day, especially when I'm composing long (e-mail) letters, but I'm using WebTV to read most of the key Web publications that I regularly view AND to read many (actually, most) of my e-mail newsletters. Yes, WebTV needs Netscape InBox-Direct capabilities, but it's fine for 95+% of the e-mail newsletters and 'zines that I receive. Guess what: This lengthy message was originally composed on WebTV ... and it's pretty long. So go get your WebTV ... before they're all sold out! :-) For a peek at the most interesting threads I've seen about WebTV, go to: http://www.social.com/social/hypermail/news/index.html (As you know, yours truly has numerous WebTV-related postings in their archives.) Also, be sure to check out the copied newsgroups for the latest perspectives on WebTV. If you're on WebTV or don't receive a Usenet feed, go to: http://www.dejanews.com David Scott Lewis thewebguy@acm.org ------------------------------ From: David Scott Lewis Subject: WebTV: Excite Live! Page Creation; E-mail Miscellany Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 15:18:46 -0800 Organization: Pacific Bell Internet Services A while ago I talked about the difficulties of setting up an Excite Live! page through WebTV. Some further explanation is required. Actually, it is possible to set up an Excite Live! page through WebTV; it's just cumbersome (or can be). Since it's not possible to "Copy" and "Paste", each URL for Excite Live! had to be inputted manually. Now that's okay for The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com), but not too cool for Technology Review (http://web.mit.edu:80/afs/athena/org/t/techreview/www/). But it's doable. Some other features that need to be added: 1) Ordering of "Favorites". Right now a "viewer" will get stuck with a listing of "Favorites" ordered by data, FIFO style. That's a pit of a pain, especially if a "viewer" has a lot of "Favorites". 2) Currently there is no "Reply to All" feature in their e-mail system. That, too, needs to be added. It's been noted before, but I'd like to restate it, that a red light message indicator signals when new mail has been received. The unit also beeps. Both are nice features. David Scott Lewis thewebguy@acm.org ------------------------------ From: jshetler@ohm.elee.calpoly.edu (Joy Shetler) Subject: Compcon 97 Date: 8 Dec 1996 21:36:21 GMT Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo IEEE's COMPCON 97 Set for Feb. 23-27 in San Jose Visit the COMPCON 97 World Wide Web page for more information and/or to register: URL: http://www.compcon.org or read the following :) SAN JOSE, Calif., -- One of the country's pre-eminent computer technology conferences -- Compcon 97 -- will be held February 23-26, 1997 here in the heart of the Silicon Valley. This continues a tradition of more than 40 successful years in the San Francisco Bay Area for this non-profit technical conference. "Hot Systems/Cool Software" is the theme of COMPCON 97, underscoring the importance of new computing technologies and applications in both the computer industry and society. "Computer technologies ranging from world-record 600MHz processors to eye-catching Java applets and VRML virtual worlds will all be featured at COMPCON 97," said Darrell Long, the conference chair and computer science professor at University of California-Santa Cruz. "COMPCON has the reputation as a one-stop, no-hype overview of the important developments in our industry. If you could only attend one technical conference a year to learn about the overall state of the industry, COMPCON would be your choice." Adds Dr. Joel Birnbaum, Vice President, R&D and Director of HP Labs: "COMPCON has been consistently a valuable conference presenting a broad technical program on state-of-the-art computing technologies." IEEE COMPCON 97 will be held at the San Jose Hilton and Towers Hotel (300 Almaden Blvd.) in downtown San Jose, Calif. COMPCON is sponsored by the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a non-profit professional association, and has been held in the Bay Area annually since 1955. Its 27 technical sessions and six in-depth tutorial topics run the gamut from the design of advanced central processing units and networks to computer systems, advanced programming and world wide web technologies. In addition, five well-known industry luminaries will give plenary talks. COMPCON has no marketing presentations or product exhibitions. COMPCON 97 program overview: INTERNET/INTRANET TECHNOLOGY: Trends, Environments, Applications SYSTEMS: Superservers, Mobility, Software Architecture MICROPROCESSORS: High-Performance, Low-Power INTERCONNECTS: Parallel Computers, LAN and WAN, Wireless VIDEO: Advanced Displays, Digital MULTIMEDIA: Technologies, Software Environments, Applications PARALLEL/DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS: Applications, Hardware, Compilers OPERATING SYSTEMS: Object-Oriented, Microkernels PERIPHERALS: Mass Storage, DVDs, Display Technologies EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES: GigaHertz Devices, Advanced Hardware, Java Tutorial topics include: 3-D graphics, virtual reality, web site design and security, advances in computer architecture. Plenary speakers include: Federico Faggin (Synaptics) -- "The Microprocessor: Its History and Future" Hector Garcia-Molina (Stanford) -- "Meta-Searching Across the Internet" David K. Gifford (MIT and OpenMarket) -- "The Future of Electronic Commerce" Ted Laliotis (Laliotis and Associates) -- "To Tax or Not to Tax Internet Transactions" Dave Nagel, AT&T Advance reservations to Compcon 97 can be made through the web site or by contacting: Dave Hunt, COMPCON 97 Registrar Lawrence Livermore National Lab PO Box 808 MS L-130, Livermore, CA 94551-0808 E-mail: hunt-dn@llnl.gov Updated information will be placed on the Compcon 97 home page on the World Wide Web at URL: http://www.compcon.org Additional contacts include: Dr. Darrell D. E. Long, General Chair University of California-Santa Cruz Baskin Center, Computer Engr./Info. Sciences Applied Science Bldg. Santa Cruz, CA 95064 Phone: 408-459-2616 Fax: 408-459-4829 E-mail: darrell@cse.ucsc.edu Dr. Michael Harrisson, Program Chair University of California, Berkeley Computer Science Division 775 Soda Hall Berkeley, CA 94720-1776 harrison@cs.berkeley.edu Michael Ross, Publicity/Media Relations IBM Corp., Almaden Research Center 650 Harry Road, K03-802 San Jose, CA 95120-6099 Phone: 408-927-1283 Fax: 408-927-3011 E-mail: mikeross@almaden.ibm.com For more information about this posting contact: Dr. Joy Shetler Cal Poly Computer Engineering Program San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 Phone: 805-756-2309 Fax:805-756-1458 E-mail: jshetler@calpoly.edu http://www.elee.calpoly.edu/~jshetler ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #653 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Dec 9 01:02:03 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id BAA11269; Mon, 9 Dec 1996 01:02:03 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 01:02:03 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612090602.BAA11269@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #654 TELECOM Digest Mon, 9 Dec 96 01:02:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 654 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Payphone Prices for 0+ and 800/888 (Michael Mantel) Re: Area Code Woes (Hillary Gorman) Re: Connecting Non-PBX Line Powered Equipment PBX Line (Barton F. Bruce) Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges (Barry F. Margolius) Re: COCOTs and 800 Numbers (edongp@aol.com) N11 Codes (Marty Tennant) Replacing a Cell Phone (Yigal Arens) Competing Local Telecom Providers: How's it Work? (Shawn Barnhart) Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines (Joe Jensen) Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines (Henry J. Becker) Wanted: AUDIOVox/Spectrum Cellular Interface (Jeffrey Race) Calling a Spammer Collect? (Lisa Hancock) Win95 and Areacode Overlays (Christopher Wolf) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 13:25:00 -0800 From: Michael Mantel Reply-To: mantel@hypersurf.com Subject: Re: Payphone Prices for 0+ and 800/888 dave@westmark.com wrote: > ...The local exchange carriers will be required to operate their > public telephones through unregulated, unsubsidized entities. With > this change, virtually all payphones will be required to pay their > own way, without subsidies from regulated ratepayers. I question how common it was for LECs to claim that their payphones (taken as a whole) were operated at a loss. Even if they did, it would be pretty much an accounting fiction, because so much of the costs of operating a telephone network are fixed costs... so the amount charged per line, per call, or per minute is pretty arbitrary. On the contrary, it seems likely that prior to the introduction of "competition" into the payphone business, payphones would have been helping to keep local phone rates down. I would like to know who has benefited from COCOTs. The LECs have lost revenue and the public pays more for poorer service. The people who benefit are the COCOT marketers and operators, and perhaps the businesses that get a commission for having COCOTs on their premises. The premise behind deregulating things is that the customers of the service will have an opportunity to choose the best provider of the service, but this doesn't work with pay phones. When you are at a mall or an airport, your only choices are to use the single service provider available or not to make the call. I =thought= the FCC was supposed to operate in the public interest, but I notice that the public interest doesn't get much representation when the FCC holds hearings. Instead, you have the LECs and the IXCs and the COCOT operators battling it out, and they are not worried about the public interest. The ridiculous thing is that the FCC expresses concern in its opinions that some companies may be adverse- ly impacted by rule changes or by other changes ... so what? Nobody promised the cable companies they would have a permanent monopoly (though it looked like they would), and nobody has promised the COCOT operators that things will stay the same forever. Here's my hypothetical question ... when I go to the airport today, AT&T already has their own phones there. Now AT&T will have a reason to encourage their customers to use the AT&T phones, thereby avoiding the surcharges on 800 calls. Can we expect more carriers to begin offering their own phones, and at more places? Unless the FCC is requiring the IXCs to do separate accounting for payphone services, my guess is that they are going to begin more seriously competing with the existing COCOT operators for this business, and lots of COCOT operators will be out of business in five years as a result of these new rules. Good riddance! Eli Mantel ------------------------------ From: hillary@netaxs.com (Hillary Gorman) Subject: Re: Area Code Woes Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 17:27:36 -0500 Organization: Packet Shredders Anonymous In article , genie@panix.com wrote: > In Joel Upchurch bellsouth.net> writes: >> I suspect that there may be real world financial consequences, such >> as loan elgibility or insurance rates that could be effected by >> living in an 'undesirable' zip code. > Insurance companies and underwriters use the ZIP+4 and TIGER Census > data, along with their own claims experience, and the Equifax > insurance claims clearinghouse database, to segment their insurance to Recently near Philadelphia, one of the suburbs (I think Elkins Park, maybe Melrose Park, not sure) fought and won to have their zip code changed from one that was shared with part of the City of Philadelphia to a "suburban" zip code. When the zip code changed, my friend's car insurance payments were reduced. It truly boggles the mind. The car didn't move, the neighborhood didn't change -- yet the insurance company said "you are now eligible to recieve a "good neighborhood discount" -- what a bunch of malarkey. hillary gorman http://www.hillary.net info@hillary.net "to err is human; to moo, bovine." ------------------------------ From: bruce@eisner.decus.org (Barton F. Bruce) Subject: Re: Connecting Non-PBX Line Powered Equipment to 24v Analog PBX Line Organization: CentNet, Inc. Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 01:14:21 GMT In article , Steven G. Bradley writes: > I have a model 706 AT&T line powered speakerphone that works poor to > not at all at times due to lack of a full 48v. The analog PBX line > supplies 24v I am told. Is there an interface I can buy that would > let the PBX think 24v was ok and in use and yet increase it to a full > 48v on the phone side of the equation? I'd love to use my > speakerphone for it's full purpose and replacing it with one that is > on AC or batteries really is not the solution I was thinking of. There are the traditional DLL (Dial Long Line) units that can take 96VDC or whatever for talk battery, but getting and installing one will cost more than a better speaker phone would. The reason 24 volts is ok on PBXes is taht the loops are generally short. The POTS 2500 set needs nominally 23MA for the tone dial to work. There is but a few volts across the set when off hook. most of the -48 is lost elsewhere. Just for the heck of it, take a small 12VDC GelCell (burglar alarm size is fine) and wire it in **SERIES** with the phone such that it boosts rather than bucks the available voltage. I am assuming your PBX isn't capable of reversing station battery for some signaling purpose. You don't need a capacitor across the battery -- it will pass voice and ringing just fine. If this helps, look at voltage across the phone and current through it off hook and compare to using no battery. I doubt you need a second 12 bat that would bring your onhook voltage to 48 but might even put the line circuit at risk (though I doubt it). You would need a very small trickle charge to keep the battery charged. Find a slightly higher voltage wall-wart and use a suitable resistor (and diode if it was an AC one) to give you a couple of MA trickle charge. Wire the charger right TO the battery rather than to other wiring common to the phone connection to it or you *will* suffer HUM problems. ------------------------------ From: bfm@pobox.com (Barry F Margolius) Subject: Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 06:09:02 GMT Organization: INTERNET AMERICA nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) wrote: > In article , dstott@juno.com (Dave J > Stott) writes: >> That's real world. We're not poor, we're not COCOT dependent, we're >> not interested in market-based pricing vs government regulation. All >> we care about is that my teenager can call home from where ever she >> is, even if she forgets her quarter. > I will blow off this ONCE more about this issue, and then I will shut > up, I promise. > The previous poster makes a good argument that "free 800" is not just > an issue of money but of convenience/assessibility, as you do not > always carry the right coins. This is true, granted. I pretty much agree with your position, but I did want to amplify it by pointing out that it is conceivable that an 800 call from a payphone might not be free, but would still require no "quarter". The COCOT could charge the 800 provider the $0.35 (or whatever), and the 800 provider could pass it on to the customer. Barry F Margolius, NYC bfm@pobox.com For PGP Key, finger bfm@panix.com ------------------------------ From: edongp@aol.com Subject: Re: COCOTs and 800 Numbers Date: 7 Dec 1996 06:26:24 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com This time there is a way to call through a payphone without being charged an arm and a leg if you do some advance planning. For the first time, you could get your own call back switch, install it in your home, and call from payphones, hotel phones, dormitory phones and charge everything to your home phone (which is the lowest rate you could get anywhere). Visit http://www.woodtel.com/DIALMATE1.html for complete information. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 08:59:48 -0800 From: Marty Tennant Reply-To: marty@sccoast.net Organization: Low Tech Designs, Inc. Subject: N11 Codes Mark J. Cuccia recently said: > "IMO, The N11 codes should have NEVER been used in the way some areas > are now using them. Since the only real three-digit N11 code that has > any REAL universal assignment or reservation is 911(altho' some > locations don't yet offer 911 service), the codes 211 through 811 > should be used as 'POTS' central office codes." Esteemed readers, This issue has been discussed in a still open docket at the FCC for some time now. Many people feel that N11 codes are "national treasures" and should not be used for commercial purposes as BellSouth has regretably done. In Canada and in Hawaii (GTE), N11 codes have been used for Telephone Relay Service for TDD users. They argue for a uniform number to make access for hearing impaired telephone users consistent across state lines, rather than a mishmash of toll free numbers. Also, the General Services Administration would like one of the codes as a generic means of calling the U.S. Government! Not sure that would work. Many independent telcos use the codes for their business office number. In Texas, a proposal was floated awhile back to auction off one of the N11 codes on a county-wide basis to ISPs for the provisioning of local access to state and local Internet based information services. The government access part would be free, but the winning bidder would be able to charge for other information sources. Don't think this concept went anywhere. I think President Clinton recently supported the use of another N11 code as a non-emergency alternative to overloaded 911 centers. Evidently, we have trained the public to call 911 when it really isn't necessary. In this proposal, an N11 code would ring at the local police office that handles regular non-emergency calls. I don't think all the public assistance folks out there agree with this position, as there would be confusion and an incredible public education effort. I do not support the use of N11 codes as central office prefixes, just as I don't support their use in BellSouth territory as pay-per-use information service numbers. I agree that they should be considered "national treasures" and should be used for appropriate non-commercial purposes. These purposes may not be evident at this time. Marty Tennant Low Tech Designs, Inc. New Neighborhood Networks(tm) ------------------------------ From: arens@ISI.EDU (Yigal Arens) Subject: Replacing a Cell Phone Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 14:48:42 -0800 Organization: USC/Information Sciences Institute In the US -- I don't know about the situation elsewhere -- it is customary for cellular service providers to subsidize the cost of a new phone in return for the customer signing an extended service contract. Typically, a 12 or 24 month contract is required for a subsidy on the order of US$300. Which makes me wonder, how do people typically go about getting a new cell phone to replace an old one? Do they wait until the expiration of the contract on the first phone, and then junk it and buy the new one, so as to receive the subsidy again? In this case, is there any way to convince the service provider to allow the subscriber to keep the old phone number? Or, in order to keep the same phone number, do people just bite the bullet and pay full price for the new phone? Or is there some other possibility? I'd be curious to hear from folks who have had personal experiences with such matters. Yigal Arens I believe in luck: how else can you explain USC/ISI the success of those you dislike? arens@isi.edu -- Jean Cocteau http://www.isi.edu/sims/arens [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Most carriers will allow you to extend your contract another period of time to commence when the current contract expires. For example, you have six months to go on your two year contract with the cellular carrier. You need to get a new phone. Ask the carrier to allow you to commit to another two year contract in addition to the six months remaining on the present one. The carrier will refer you to a dealer who will match the ESN in your new phone with your existing number and deactivate the ESN in the old phone. It won't take but a few minutes most of the time. When my former cell phone 'walked away' one day, I notified the dealer as well as Frontier. Actually I called Ameritech (which is resold by Frontier) since it was after hours -- about midnight -- when I discovered the phone was gone. I called Ameritech and asked them to kill the ESN but hold the two numbers pending a new ESN. I had the dealer send me a new phone which was delivered the next day with the same phone numbers as the old phone. Before the dealer sent me the new phone he called Frontier and had them fax Ameritech with the new ESN. The only kink in my case which held it up was that the phone has two numbers served off the same switch assigned to the same ESN -- a no no -- requiring supervisory override to get the switch to accept both numbers on the same ESN assignment. That took another day to clear up, but had it not been for that, I was back in business with the same number a couple days after the original phone decided to lose me somewhere. You should have no problems. The carrier will be glad to have you around for another two or three year term. PAT] ------------------------------ From: swb@mercury.campbell-mithun.com (Shawn Barnhart) Subject: Competing Local Telecom Providers: How's it Work? Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 18:16:34 -0600 Organization: Chaos I was having a discussion with someone the other day about what's involved in forming one of the new, competing local telephone companies that the Telecom bill was supposed to have made legal. I'm not an expert on telecommunications, and I was kind of curious how it was actually supposed to work. I can understand some of the infrastructure needs, but what about the circuits that terminate in a residence or place of business? Will they be granted access to the existing phone company exchanges and only have to deal with trunking? Or will they have to run wire to each and every customer in addition to the necessary trunking lines? Shawn Barnhart swb@mercury.campbell-mithun.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If they were actually competing, they would run wire to each premise, install instruments, etc. But as a matter of fact the 'competitors' have whined so much about it and claimed Bell had such an unfair advantage that regulatory agencies have required Bell to allow the 'competitors' to co-locate in the same central office. In some instances, they do not even bother with that formality; they just force Bell to sell to them wholesale at a deep discount so they can resell to the public cheaper than what Bell does while telling the public what a ripoff Bell is for charging customers as much as they do. They cannot accept assignment of a group of phone numbers which in their opinion 'look funny' because this would also in their opinion be unfair, so Bell has to open up all sorts of new area codes so the 'competitors' can grab thousand upon thousands of phone numbers they will never manage to assign to anyone in the next twenty years. They even want to force Bell to include all their listings in the existing Bell directory because ... well, you guessed it, it would be unfair to force them to go to the expense and effort of compiling their own. The only thing they have not demanded and been granted thus far is that Bell be forced to revert to nineteenth century telephone technology while the 'competitors' spend the next hundred years or so trying to catch up. So no, you won't see new wires brought to your premises in most instances. If it does happen, they will be Bell wires leased by the competitor to serve you. You won't even see trunking and co-location all that often either. Most of the time it will amount to nothing more than accounting entries on the books of telco and the competitor. A lot of the 'competitors' will be little more than reincarnations of our good friends, the Alternate Operator Services. The AOS' are essentially bottom-feeders; they serve no useful function except to charge a lot more than the 'real operators' for their services. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joe Jensen Subject: Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 16:59:38 -0500 At a recent trade show, Novell was showing a new technology that they claimed to be able to provide as high as 1.5 Mbps over typical small business or residential power distribution lines (inside the house). This was proposed as a cheap way to provide LAN connectivity for various copiers, printers, faxes, and PCs in a residential or small business environment. The protocol was based on an emerging standard but the transport layer was proprietary. I believe they still have some information on their web site. At the show, they were handing out CDROMs with information on the product. Joe Jensen Buckeye Cablevision Toledo, Ohio ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 18:23:54 -0500 From: Henry J. Becker Reply-To: hbecker@ix.netcom.com Organization: The QB Group / MIS Training Institute Subject: Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines Tim Dillman wrote: > I recently visited one of my customers to discuss future technologies > and he brought up the wildest idea I have heard yet. It seems that > the public utilities are using power lines as the transmission media > for internal ethernet transmissions (or so he said). I was very > skeptical about this notion but managed a smile and nod when my > customer told me of this, but sill I wonder ... > ... Can anyone confirm or dispel this idea? It is not a *wild idea* -- it is quite practical when you think about it; since the power company's own their right-of-way. From the little I know, power company control systems are called SCADA. This is the system that controls substations and grid switches from a central point. The signalling system is part of SCADA. Other systems that poll remote power readers, or control load-shed are not part of SCADA -- but work similarly. From all of the wireless communication information I have read, I think the protocol used is a variant of Token Ring. Because of the large amount of noise on the power lines, it is important to receive acknowledgement that a packet was successfully received. I agree that an Ethernet protocol could accomplish the same abjective. I was also surprised to read of references of signalling speeds of 100K and higher. I know that is presently available from one vendor - under extremely limited distances and high quality lines. I am aware of typical systems in the hertz-to-kilohertz range. Hope this helps. ------------------------------ From: Jeffrey Race Subject: Wanted: AudioVox/Spectrum Cellular Interface Date: Sun, 8 DEC 96 11:22:55 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) I desire to buy one or more analog interfaces for Audiovox 3200 bagphone, sold by Audiovox with p/n STI-85, and also by Spectrum (before they abandoned the product line) under a different p/n. Please reply to jrace@ibm.net. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Calling a Spammer Collect? Date: 8 Dec 1996 17:59:30 GMT Organization: Philadelphia City Paper's City Net I'm getting more and more unwanted email in my box everyday. A few messages list regular phone numbers (not 800) to call for more information. Is there any law saying I can't call the person COLLECT to complain about their spamming. I realize someone has to actually answer and accept the call, it can't be to a machine. But, frankly, I want to give them an earful for their spam. Along those lines, is there still a "COLLECT PERSON" tariff? That is, I'll call COLLECT, PERSON TO PERSON, (asking to speak to a "manager"), so the call will be billed at person-to-person rates. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, there is still collect person-to- person, and it is quite expensive. By the time they get a few of those calls -- if they choose to accept the charges -- they'll wish they had given out their 800 number instead. There is no law against calling anyone collect if that person is willing to pay for it. The only exception is collection agencies; they may not call collect. Would you believe though that some have tried calling collect to discuss your past due bills, etc? One well-known collection agency here in Skokie which has been around for fifty years is known as Van Ru. The people at Van Ru tend to collect debts on the low end of the scale like Columbia Record Club (now I guess they call it Columbia House and they specialize in CDs) and for used car dealers and furniture/ carpet wholesale houses, etc. They tend to work with not terribly intelligent debtors. For about five years, Van Ru would call collect disguising the true purpose of their call until after the debtor accepted the charges for the call. Talk about adding a little insult to injury ... finally the Federal Trade Commission cracked down on Van Ru (and one of the other major agencies which had started doing the same thing called 'Gulf Coast' [now GC Services] in Houston, Texas), and told them no more collect calls to debtors. That was back in the early 1970's. But yeah, you can call collect if you can get them to accept the charges. If a couple hundred people in one day all tried to get through on a collect basis to the same spammer the response should be interesting, to say the least. Better ask for the order department however; make it sound at first like you want to buy whatever they are selling and need to know where to send your check. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 12:27:36 CST From: Christopher Wolf Subject: Win95 and Areacode Overlays Pat, Do you or any of your readers know how Win95 users in cities with new areacode overlays (like 713/281 in Houston) can get their systems to recognize when and when not to dial a 1 when using the dialing features built into Win95? There must be numerous people that have found and addressed this problem -- what's the fix? Wolf ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #654 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Dec 9 10:08:34 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id KAA06601; Mon, 9 Dec 1996 10:08:34 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 10:08:34 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612091508.KAA06601@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #655 TELECOM Digest Mon, 9 Dec 96 10:08:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 655 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson In a Power Station During a Blackout (Darryl Smith) Re: Modems in Countries Other Than North America (Dennis Wong) Re: Tormenting Telemarketers! (Geoffrey Welsh) Re: Competing Local Telecom Providers: How's it Work? (Art Kamlet) Re: Competing Local Telecom Providers: How's it Work? (Wes Leatherock) Re: Dialing Software and Areacode Overlays (Linc Madison) Re: Replacing a Cell Phone (Linc Madison) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 18:30:52 +1000 From: Darryl Smith Subject: In a Power Station During a Blackout Pat, Below is a message I got and a reply on the ethernet, powerstations etc. darryl smith > Dan Foster wrote: > In article you write: > >problems. (You should be in a power station during a blackout :-) > :-) > Fascinating article you wrote. > But to ask about more mundane things - out of sheer curiosity, what *is* > it like to be in one during a blackout? :) What kind of activity goes on > to restore power, if you know? > -Dan Foster > Internet: dsf@frontiernet.net OK well ... In February this year I was up at Bayswater (In the Hunter Valley in NSW Australia) and I was in the electrical section - OK - I was the electrical section - almost - I was straight out of uni. I had an electrical engineering boss who came with the power station and will leave if it ever gets shut down; but not before; and a technical officer who was an expert in power systems protection. And we had a uni student on a semester's work (Known as a cadetship). Power Stations are a place which can be very expensive to repair if things go wrong. Think about 200 tonnes of metal spinning at 3000 RPM and then put a turbine on the end. That is the size of thing I am talking of. And the generator is filled with Hydrogen gas to improve its efficiency in cooling (650 MWatts capaity becomes 200 MWatts in air). To keep the hydrogen high pressure oil is pumped onto the spinning shaft at each end to keep the air out, and then the oil it put in a vaccuum to remove the water and oxygen from the oil. Oil is also used to cool the bearings; which get quite hot given the weight of the generator rotor - and the bearing at one end is insulated. IF the bearings get to hot, they melt, causing a short circuit between the rotor and the shaft; and you have a spinning metal in a magnetic field and get the case magnetised (The case is iron and weighs over 100,000 Kg). Demineralised water is used to cool the hydrogen in the generator, and insode the copper conductors in the stator (After all a generator is only 99 % efficient that means that 6.5 MWatts of heat is produced !!!!!!) In addition there is a boiler which is about 11 stories tall with various cameras inside at US$500,000 each which need constant cooling or else they will burn ... All the important stuff like oil pumps, cooling pumps etc are all DC motors. And we have two of any important motors, fed from different switchboards, and usually different batteries. By usually I mean that is the normal case. Sometimes we need to take a battery bank out - and have both switchboards supplied from the same battery. But each battery is constantly on charge from a battery charger/ DC supply. These chargers have an automatic changeover if they lose supply from their primary AC switchboard. So for the 11kV system there are: Unit A and B switchboards (with incoming supplies from one of two locations) and able to be connected in the center. Station A and B switchboards in a similar configuration. In terms of DC we have the same sort of thing running on 24, 50, 110 and 240 Volt DC batteries. Back to February this year - my supervisor was off for the day (we have a 9 day fortnight) and had just rung up to make sure nothing had gone wrong. Of course not. That would happen when he hung up. The Technical officer had just left the building too. And I was plant owner for switchboards - The expert. (I was also plant owneer for motors and DC Systems - My boss had Transformers (He has blown up more 400 MVa transformers than anyone else in the country and the generator circuit breaker.)) The lights in the admin building went dark. Once they didnt return after a few seconds I grabbed a torch and the cadet along with the hard hat and raced to the admin switchboard. When I got there one of the management was there looking what went wrong - He told me the incoming supply had died; and told me where the switchboard was that supplied it as I didnt know ... I was the second person to get to the room - And the room was dark except for two tiny 12 volt 6 watt fluro lights for a room over 10meters by 25 meters - The emergency lighting inverters were on the sections work list - but they were not a real high priority as some other work. One of the assistant power plant opperators (APPO's) tried to determine what had happened. Luckilly the protection technicican cam in soon and we were able to work it out. By this stage I told the CADET to get the logs for the power system (they show up any disturbansecs to the power system including timing diagrams and waveforms). We worked out that the new ash disposal system had caused the switchboard to trip. - But why? Everyone decided to go to the control room at this stage - which was packed. The manager was there as were a lot of extras hoping that their training on the power plant simulator was affected by the blackout they would play with the real thing. The auxillary computer was out of action due to the power failure - The main computer was running but not all information went to it. The computer was down cause the UPS had failed (40 kWatt UPS running off 240Volt DC). At this stage the station is still running at full load (650 MWatts). we then worked out what had happened. The ash disposal system was very new and placed onto above ground cable trays to get the wiring to it. And these are 3 * 2 inch 11KV cables for about a mile. It was supplied from the 1/2 and 3/4 end of the power station by seperate cables. The 1/2 end was supplying the current to the switchboard the people at the other end were wanting to work on. So they opened the circuit breaker to the switchboard - leaving the breaker from the 3/4 end able to be remotely closed at ANY time. Then they short circuited the incoming supply on the LIVE side. This caused the switchboard to trip itself to protect itself. Then they started work. They didn't hear the big bang which was produced when they closed the short. Back in the control room people mentioned hearding a bang, and us experts though the circuit board might have been damaged. To protect anyone doing work - all woork must be isolated including outgoing supplies with a visible break that much be impossible to electronically bypass - and all this work must be verified by someone before any work can be done, and each person going into the area needs to be signed in and out; with everyone out of the area before power can be applied. There were problems opening up this switchboard since we needed to isolate the circuit which had been short circuited as no one wanted to rely on them to correctly do anything.And then an alarm went off. One of the large motors (8 MWatt 47,000 KGram) tripped for an unknown reason. The reason would have appeared on the computer which was out of power. No this motor was very important (Known as an ID fan it sucked air out of the boiler so that power production went down to 400 MWatts meaning a large decrease in income (US$30 / MWatt hour means that about $10,000 is lost each hour that we are not operating). So there were now two problems we had to face. A) Could the motor be put back into service (it's cost was about $10 million and the spare was off site anyway) b) Could the switchboard be put back into service. The technician and I decided to get into the back of the 11 KV switchboard - against our safety rules - leaving the cadet in the control room incase any one decided to do anything stupid, and so our lack of presence would not be known so much. On opening the switchboard we found no problems which was very good - and we stayed away from the high voltage conductors all the same. Still we needed to officially test the switchboard - And it took 18 hours to get the board isolated so it could be tested and looked at (Finding nothing). The decision having seen inside the switchboard was to test it and put it back into service as soon as we could. With the motor we decided that the computer should be brought back on line first. When it came back we found that what had caused the problem with the motor was an oxygen sensor that had last power when it should not have. It told the computer that there was not enough oxygen in the boiler, so it told the fan to change the angle of the blades on it's fan so that it was not extracting the oxygen. This caused the motor to overheat and the protection took it out. We decided that since the motor was probably un-damaged, and that no more damage would be done re-starting it we may as well re-start it - which we did. That was ok. By this time it was 4:00 in the afternoon and time to go home. On the next day (Tuesday) after getting the switchboard back in service after testing (except for the circuit to the ash system) it was found that the cable to the ash system has shifted. The each of the 3 conductors were held together by clamps every 3 feet; and each cable was 2 inches in diameter. Between clamps the cables had pushed away from each other so that in the middle they were about 2 inches apart. This for the mile of the tranmission line. During the short, the cable moved, hitting the cable trays causing a big BANG. And you might think the story finished there - on the Thursday whilst I was in the weekly team leaders meeting telling the manager that things were back to normal there was another blackout - although this was less serious. In this casse a link on a current transformer was not closed correctly, causing the same switchboard on the 3/4 end of the station to trip. ------------------ Ok - To finish off - What goes into restoring power in a power station ... well power stations are an amasing place - and consume a lot of power. For instance the starting current required for the ID fan which failed in the above story is 80 MVa (80 MWatts) which is more than is used by many small cities. And it pulls this for 5 minutes. So if the entire eastern Australia looses power we start a Gas turbin from battery power; We then start an ID fan motor; then the smaller motors that are needed and then start up the boiler etc etc etc. Once the power station is operating there is a constant load of 40 MWatts for various equipment. The Gas turbine can only just supply one 650 MWatt unit. Once it is started other units can be started from it. But power stations take a long time to heat up. It might take 2-3 days if the water has got cold in the boiler. it is not uncommon to take hours to come on line. Once things are synchronised, you can only increase generation in 3-5 mwatts per minute; which takes a while to get to full power - and then when you get over 100 MWatts it is slower as you then turn off the oil and run on coal. And for a black start many switchboards need to be set up so that they are providing power to exactly the right place. This would take more than a day to design before you could even attempt to start any part of the station. These stations have 60,000 drawings and many more manuals; and are over 600 meters from one end to the other without cooling towers (In other words the building only). ----------------------- And finally the DC systems - 200,000 KGrams of lead-acid batteries are used. They are on the top floor of the electrcical services centre above the technichians area and computer room - and the floors leak ... Darryl Smith ------------------------------ From: Dennis Wong Subject: Re: Modems in Countries Other Than North America (US & Canada) Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 22:21:51 -0800 Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada Reply-To: a15283@mindlink.net Nils Andersson wrote: > In article , bkron@netcom.com (W > Halverson) writes: >> Fortunately, DTMF tones are universal. > At least they did something right. Just about everything else varies, for > example: > 1) Dial tones. Ever heard a british "humming" dial tone The dial tone in some PBXs (the Cheap ones) are even more bizarre, they sound like the Sprint calling card tone (call 1-800-877-8000 and you will see what I mean). Also, the dial tone in China (Mainland) also sounds like the sprint calling card tone. > 2) Ring tones. The ring every six seconds is the international standard, > but with many variations. The British "burr-burr" every 3.3 seconds or so > is the most bizarre example. (Singapore and maybe other ex-British > colonies [NOT US or Canada] use the the same burr-burr). Some Mitel PBXs also have the "burr-burr" tone. In Hong Kong the ringing tone has a frequency much like the North American ringing tone,EXCEPT it has a "burr-burr" pattern much like in the U.K. The ringing tones in Singapour, Australia, and India also ahve a "burr-burr" pattern, except it has a higher frequency than the tone in the U.K. In most European countries (except U.K.), Asia, South America, and Africa (except South Africa), the ringing tone sounds like a single 400Hz tone that goes 2 second on, and 4 second off. > 3) Busy tones. Fairly standard, I think. Comments anybody? The busy tones in Hong Kong are the same as in North America. In China, the busy tone sounds like the inturrupted Sprint Calling Card tone (0.5 seconds on, 0.5 seconds off etc.) ------------------------------ From: crs0794@inforamp.net (Geoffrey Welsh) Subject: Re: Tormenting Telemarketers! Date: 9 Dec 1996 07:13:03 GMT Organization: Izot's Swamp On 27 Oct 1996 11:14:01 -0500, in comp.dcom.telecom, glnfoote@freenet. columbus.oh.us (Glenn Foote) wrote: > The supply of replacement telemarketers will always exceed the demand. ... as will the supply of criminals and diseases. I refuse to condone any of the above, no matter how inevitable. > Telemarketers come from _all_ backgrounds ... including some which are > outright criminal in nature. Some (note: _some_ , not all, or even many!) > are capable of violence. Few, if any telemarketing companies do even a > routine background check. ... which is just one more reason why we should do everything we can to make telemarketing an unprofitable business. > The gathering (and selling) of lists containing your phone number will > increase. These lists include many things _in addition_ to your phone > number. Like your address(s)! ... which is just one more reason why we should do everything we can to make telemarketing an unprofitable business. > Telemarketing _is_ legal. If you don't like it you should work to change > that fact, but for the time being you will have to live with the issue. Drugs and many other things are illegal, yet they continue because they're profitable. Where in the crime-fighting priority list do you think telemarketing would fit, even if it were banned outright?!? There is only one way to make telemarketing go away: make it unprofitable. The 'nicest' way to do this is for everyone to stop buying anything pitched over the telephone, but there will always be some poor sucker. I think of myself as the balance to that person. Keep in mind that the caller always has the option of hanging up if/when they realize that I'm wasting their time; I'm not exactly keeping them prisoner and, more importantly, I intend to continue conducting myself as if calling the telephone in my house were like knocking on my door. > The people who are calling you _are_ within the law (usually). They may > not like the work they do (but it _is_ honest and legal work), no matter > what you think of it. They have an excuse, and a legitimate reason, for > their behavior. Unh-hunh. And my neighbour has an excuse and a legitimate reason for spreading strongly scented manure on his lawn weekly, but that doesn't mean I have to be nice to him in return. Geoffrey Welsh, MIS Co-ordinator, InSystems Technologies (gwelsh@insystems.com) At home: xenitec.on.ca!zswamp!geoff; Temporary: crs0794@inforamp.net ------------------------------ From: kamlet@infinet.com (Art Kamlet) Subject: Re: Competing Local Telecom Providers: How's it Work? Date: 9 Dec 1996 02:33:25 -0500 Organization: InfiNet Reply-To: kamlet@infinet.com In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If they were actually competing, they > would run wire to each premise, install instruments, etc. But as a > matter of fact the 'competitors' have whined so much about it and > claimed Bell had such an unfair advantage that regulatory agencies > have required Bell to allow the 'competitors' to co-locate in the > same central office. In some instances, they do not even bother > with that formality; they just force Bell to sell to them wholesale > at a deep discount so they can resell to the public cheaper than > what Bell does ... In fairness, the Bell companies have pretty much written off large portions of their outside plant including local loops and much of their central office equipment. Pat, are you suggesting that new competitive access providers purchase lots of new equipoment while the RBOCs have written that off (which makes it a no-expense item to them)? Sure, in years past the RBOCs did buy all that, but they also collected tariffs based on that cost. Now they have pretty much agreed with their utility commissions in many jurisdictions that they become basically untied to equipment cost (recovered and unrecovered) and char ge "lower than historic" tariffs. But as depreciation costs and capital costs for that equipment don't show up for the RBOCs, they would for the CAPs. The solutions necessarily are political, and no one should be much surprised when politcal commissions make political decisions. > They cannot accept assignment > of a group of phone numbers which in their opinion 'look funny' > because this would also in their opinion be unfair, so Bell has to > open up all sorts of new area codes so the 'competitors' can grab > thousand upon thousands of phone numbers they will never manage > to assign to anyone in the next twenty years. That's a real issue and since the NANP doesn't seem like anyone will be expanding it anytime soon, (Hey, it did go from N0/1X-NNX to N0/1X-NXX to N0/1X-NXX, but what have they done lately?) maybe some method of charging CAPs and RBOCs for "their" reserved NXX-NXX bandwidth (who charges? who collects?) should be considered. Costs are a good way to control inventory. > They even want to force Bell to include all their listings in the > existing Bell directory because ... well, you guessed it.... Can't help wondering Donneley's wonder CEO, now AT&T's CEO-elect, might have some other ideas about that direction? > technology while the 'competitors' spend the next hundred years or so > trying to catch up. So no, you won't see new wires brought to your > premises in most instances. If it does happen, they will be Bell wires > leased by the competitor to serve you. Wire or coax or fiber would combine well with large data services, movies by phone, etc. But if just voice/data is wanted, wireless solutions would be more cost effficient and also avoid lots of easement costs. Art Kamlet Columbus, Ohio kamlet@infinet.com ------------------------------ From: wes.leatherock@hotelcal.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: Mon, 09 Dec 1996 14:13:22 GMT Organization: Hotel California BBS Subject: Re: Competing Local Telecom Providers: How's it Work? In his response to swb@mercury.campbell-mithun.com (Shawn Barnhart)'s posting on how competing local telecom providers work, Pat wrote: > The only thing they have not demanded and been granted thus far is > that Bell be forced to revert to nineteenth century telephone > technology while the 'competitors' spend the next hundred years or so > trying to catch up. So no, you won't see new wires brought to your > premises in most instances. If it does happen, they will be Bell wires > leased by the competitor to serve you. You won't even see trunking and > co-location all that often either. Most of the time it will amount to > nothing more than accounting entries on the books of telco and the > competitor. A lot of the 'competitors' will be little more than > reincarnations of our good friends, the Alternate Operator Services. > The AOS' are essentially bottom-feeders; they serve no useful function > except to charge a lot more than the 'real operators' for their > services. PAT] I saw a story in {The Daily Oklahoman} (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) the other day that I didn't have time to read fully, but it appeared that AT&T (which is arguing with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the regulatory agency) on terms for being a reseller of Southwestern Bell Telephone services as a "competitor" is asking: That when SWBT sends out its employees to do work on their plant serving AT&T customers that they be required to eliminate all Southwestern Bell identification from vehicles, ID cars, uniforms (if worn) or anything else that has SWBT identification on it, because that might confuse customers (my understanding is that the "confusion" would consist of customers realizing their "AT&T" service was still provided by Southwestern Bell). Wes Leatherock wes.leatherock@hotelcal.com wes.leatherock@origins.bbs.uoknor.edu ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: Dialing Software and Areacode Overlays Date: Mon, 09 Dec 1996 00:10:36 -0800 Organization: No unsolicited commercial e-mail! In article , Christopher Wolf wrote: > Do you or any of your readers know how Win95 users in cities with new > areacode overlays (like 713/281 in Houston) can get their systems to > recognize when and when not to dial a 1 when using the dialing > features built into Win95? There must be numerous people that have > found and addressed this problem -- what's the fix? Well, actually, first of all, 713/281 was re-done as a split instead of an overlay. The boundary roughly approximates the Loop 8 Beltway (Sam Houston Parkway/Tollway), if you're familiar with the Houston area. There are not yet any "general services" overlays in effect, although there are two in Maryland (301/240 and 410/443) next year, and one in Pennsylvania (412/724) in 1997. Area code 917 overlays 212 and 718 in New York City, but it is only for pagers and cellular, at least for the time being. As for how various software products handle the situation, that's a mixed bag. There are a number of complications to consider, based on various local dialing schemes. Take, as an example, a user located in Fort Worth, Texas (without considering yet the split planned for next spring). Some numbers in 817 are local and must be dialed as exactly the 7-digit local number. Other numbers in 817 are long distance (Waco, Wichita Falls, etc.) and must be dialed as 1-817-NXX-XXXX. Some numbers in 972 are local ("metro" numbers, and also other numbers if the Fort Worth user has "metro" service), but others are long distance. The local numbers must be dialed as 972-NXX-XXXX, but the long distance numbers must be dialed with the leading 1. If the Fort Worth user has metro service, then all numbers in 214 are local and must be dialed WITHOUT a leading 1; if she doesn't have metro service, all numbers in 214 are long distance and must be dialed WITH the leading 1. In each case, there is one and only one method of dialing a given number. The way that most software packages account for this is by requiring the user to adopt certain convenient fictions: (1) I have no "home" area code, but I dial "1" as a long distance prefix. (2) Local numbers in my area code are entered as only the 7-digit number. (3) Local numbers in other area codes are entered with the area code field blank, and the full ten-digit number as the local number; e.g., ( ) 972-NXX-XXXX (4) All long distance numbers are entered with area code and number; e.g., (972) NXX-XXXX. Another possibility, based on the example user above, is: (1) Define my "home" area code as 817, with a null "long distance prefix" (2) Define any long distance numbers in 817 as being in area code "1817" (3) Define any local numbers as being in 817, 972, 214, etc. (4) Define any long distance numbers in other area codes as being in area code 1972, 1214, 1202, 1770, 1619, etc. Of course, this all wreaks havoc if the user moves to a location with a different local calling area. The second scheme also causes problems if you are ever dialing 0+; however, it more easily accommodates 10-digit dialing in overlay situations -- just undefine the "home" area code. I do my best to remain completely ignorant of Windows 95 :-) but I'd guess that it takes the approaches above. The only alternative is to keep an up-to-date database of local prefixes in your dialing software, and I doubt anyone does that for a basic application such as you describe. (Of course, the REAL solution is for the telcos in backwards states like Texas to follow the standard, which requires that any call be *permitted* to be dialed as 1-NPA-NXX-XXXX, irrespective of area code or toll status. There is no cogent counterargument against this standard. It does not in any way dilute the protection of "1+ required on toll" in toll-alerting areas.) Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: Replacing a Cell Phone Date: Mon, 09 Dec 1996 00:27:46 -0800 Organization: No unsolicited commercial e-mail! In article , arens@ISI.EDU (Yigal Arens) wrote: > [question about upgrading or replacing a cellphone and trying to get the > ~ $300 subsidy again] I was for a while employed by British Rail's Railfreight Distribution** division (which I believe is by now fully privatised), in the office that dealt with mobile phones. In general, as a large corporate buyer rather than an individual, what we had to do was: - buy the phone at a modest discount from retail (reflecting our volume purchasing, but not any subsidy); - commit to a minimum one-year contract for service; - pay off the full value of the unused monthly service fees if the phone was disconnected for any reason, including theft, even if we immediately gave notice and replaced it with another cellphone from the same vendor; I found the third item particularly galling -- the vendor was not losing any revenue from our premature termination of the contract, so there was no justification for the penalty, which often exceeded 200 pounds. All the major vendors gave the same line, though. ** also known as Brutish Rail's Realfright Disturbition Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #655 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Dec 10 23:50:15 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id XAA18496; Tue, 10 Dec 1996 23:50:15 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 23:50:15 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612110450.XAA18496@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #656 TELECOM Digest Tue, 10 Dec 96 23:50:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 656 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: WebTV: Pricing and Access Issues (Stanley Cline) Re: WebTV: Pricing and Access Issues (Dave Harrison) Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective (Barry Margolius) Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges (Gordon Hlavenka) Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges (Jay R. Ashworth) Canadian Use Of N11 Codes (Michael S. Craig) Re: Competing Local Telecom Providers: How's it Work? (Rob Levandowski) Wanted: French Speaking Telecom Experts (Mark T. Smith) Blue Alarm on Fractional T1 (Yakov Simkin) Eastern Europe PSN Infrastructure, Equipment? (Douglas Merrill) Last Laugh! Virus Alert (Dr. R. Canaday) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: roamer1@RemoveThis.pobox.com (Stanley Cline) Subject: Re: WebTV: Pricing and Access Issues Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 02:00:31 GMT Organization: Catoosa Computing Services Reply-To: roamer1@pobox.com On Sun, 08 Dec 1996 13:54:22 -0800, you wrote: > WebTV IS the ISP. To determine if it's a local call, you can go to > their home page and navigate until you find their local access > indicator input selection. In other words, it's a form where you put > in your phone number. WebTV then determines if you have a toll-free > local access number. However, I'd check your White Pages just to be > sure. In my case, both numbers they gave me were local. But I'm in It appears that WebTV is leasing POP space from other "wholesale" ISPs (such as UUNet, BBN Planet, PSINet, etc.) I visited the WebTV web page after reading the discussion here; for *Chattanooga* I was given two prefixes: (423) 756-xxxx (423) 624-xxxx Judging from the prefixes, I figure the 756 prefix is either UUNet or BBN Planet (AOLNet, actually), and the 624 prefix is Concentric. (I don't know of ANY ISPs other than Concentric that have POPs in the MCcallie CO.) This jibes with the mention of IDT (who uses other ISPs' POPs) and Concentric as "partners" with WebTV. > For monthly access, I believe they need to be in the $12 per month > range for unlimited access. However, I'm going to urge them to offer > an automatically tiered pricing. In other words, $3.95 per month for IMHO, $12 is horribly low for an ISP's price now; with that price the POPs would fill up and be PERPETUALLY busy! (AOL with its new unlimited pricing is already reporting logjams. If WebTV is in fact using the same POP as AOL, it would be a nightmare!) What I foresee coming with WebTV and similar technology: integration of *cable* internet access with the set-top box -- if WebTV grows in popularity, phone networks will *really* gum up and cable access will [or at least SHOULD] be the standard. Besides, hooking a box that connects to the TV to the phone line too is clunky. (Yeah, DSS does it for the PPV ordering, but...) (I can see it now -- Comcast [the cable company here] renting a cable-modem-equipped WebTV[-type device] just as they rent converter boxes for HBO, etc.) Stanley Cline (Roamer1 on IRC) ** GO BRAVES! GO VOLS! mailto:roamer1@pobox.com ** http://pobox.com/~roamer1/ CompuServe 74212,44 ** MSN WSCline1 ------------------------------ From: Davew@cris.com (Dave Harrison) Subject: Re: WebTV: Pricing and Access Issues Date: 10 Dec 1996 10:18:09 GMT Organization: Concentric Internet Services David Scott Lewis (thewebguy@acm.org) wrote: [snip] > local access numbers for WebTV. (The ISI think tank is about a > stone's throw away from my residence; they have the fastest pipes in > L.A., and through their MFS connection everyone seems to be hooked-in > locally.) [snip] Just a note about ISI, or "Los Nettos". They have a T3 to MCI, and a pipe to Mae-West, but, as of a month ago, weren't peering with anyone at the Mae. Los Nettos sells T3s, T1s, 56k, etc. and shared and dedicated ethernet connections to ISP's and anyone else who wants a connection. There are a LOT of ISP's in the same building as ISI ... they save on the leased line and they get cheap service from ISI ... while other access providers sell T3's for up to 27 grand a month, you can get one from ISI for $8,250/month. ISI's T1's are $920 a month, while elsewhere, they range from 1000 to almost 3 grand. We had a point-to-point esf T1 from a company that has a T3 to Los Nettos. Ciscos on each end. Basically, performance and throughput left a lot to be desired. In addition, there were frequent outages and routing problems that we were able to trace to the main router at Los Nettos. You get what ya pay for! ------------------------------ From: bfm@pobox.com (Barry Margolius) Subject: Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 16:02:03 GMT Organization: INTERNET AMERICA Because things seem to change so quickly in the Internet world, I would advise, even for a beginner, that they use an email redirection service like usa.net or pobox.com as their email address. Many beginners are getting help from more advanced friends. It's a shame that WebTV doesn't support this addressing option. Barry F Margolius, New York City bfm@pobox.com For PGP Key, finger bfm@panix.com ------------------------------ From: cgordon@worldnet.att.net Subject: Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges Date: 10 Dec 1996 06:31:09 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services On Sun, 08 Dec 1996 bfm@pobox.com said: > ... it is conceivable that an 800 call from a > payphone might not be free, but would still require no "quarter". > The COCOT could charge the 800 provider the $0.35 (or whatever), > and the 800 provider could pass it on to the customer. I don't have a problem with this. But I _do_ have a problem with payphones charging the _caller_ for 800 calls. The whole idea of 800 (and now 888) service is that the caller doesn't need to pay! There are several reasons for this: One, already mentioned, is convenience. If I want my daughter to be able to call home from the swimming pool, a personal 800 number means she doesn't need to carry a dime (excuse me -- a quarter (wait, it's 35 cents (no, it's 50 cents))) to call home. How about, let's say, a spousal abuse hotline? The old man just threw her out on the street (literally) and she has no money at all. Yeah, you could go with collect in this situation but 800 would be a lot easier for the clients, and in this case that's important. How about other hotlines; suicide prevention, for instance? Crimebusters? 800 has, since its inception, been sold to the general public as a "free call". Now the rules are being changed. As I said, I don't mind (much) having to pay extra for calls made to my 800 number from a payphone. But it's not right (whatever _that_ means) to make the caller pay for an 800 call. Ever. Gordon S. Hlavenka cgordon@worldnet.att.net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you are going to pass along the COCOT 'surcharge' to the owner of the 800 number, what do you do in cases where an 800 subscriber has a deal with his carrier to pay just X cents per minute? He says if the carrier is going to surcharge him for calls coming from COCOTS, *then do not pass those calls on to him*. I assume on my 800 number I am going to pay sixteen cents per minute. If you call me from a COCOT and I am not aware of this (origin of your call) should I then get a bill for an additional 35 cents or whatever the COCOT owner wants? What then prevents the COCOT owner from raising the 'surcharge' to a dollar or two dollars, as long as he no longer has to fight with his customer to get the money? Are 800 subscribers to now be at the mercy of COCOTS just as people who accept collect calls are at the mercy of the Alternate Operator Services and whatever outrageous charges per minute they demand? PAT] ------------------------------ From: jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) Subject: Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges Date: 10 Dec 1996 20:20:37 GMT Organization: University of South Florida Nils Andersson (nilsphone@aol.com) wrote: > In article , >> dstott@juno.com (Dave J Stott) writes: >> That's real world. We're not poor, we're not COCOT dependent, we're >> not interested in market-based pricing vs government regulation. All >> we care about is that my teenager can call home from where ever she >> is, even if she forgets her quarter. > The previous poster makes a good argument that "free 800" is not just > an issue of money but of convenience/assessibility, as you do not > always carry the right coins. This is true, granted. > This does not, however, solve the underlying problems. I firmly > believe that payphone operators have a right to be reimbursed for any > service they provide (just like the rest of us). There are various > ways of doing this, having them being reimbusred by the owners of the > 800 numbers, collectively or selectively or any which way is fine with > me, on an owner-of-800 selects reimburesement or whatever. > What irks me is the entitlement philosophy of the various posters, > that they have a "right" to use somebody else's equipment without any > payment. The fact that the marginal cost is close to zero does not > matter. This is going to get messy; bear with me, folks. The problem, Nils, is that the COCOT operators voluntarily decided to get into the business, and now want to change the "rules" that that business has operated under for decades. Ok, admittedly, they may have a financially sound motivation for this desire, although I'd be _really_ surprised if there was a good justification for their not noticing for _13_ years ... The "rule" I'm discussing is the implied contract that Dave feels that he, and his daughter at swim practice, have with "the telephone company". For many, _many_ years, it has been possible to place a call to a "so-called" toll-free number, without needing to carry any money, and many, _many_ customers have taken advantage of this capability. COCOT operators got into that business knowing the "rules" -- and yes, I quote it because I strongly suspect that it's not written down anywhere, except possibly as a "standard" in some Bellcore document like "BOC Notes" -- and what we're all complaining about, though most of us hadn't examined it, is that those "rules" were for _our_ benefit. Also, this proposed change reduces the value of an 800 number to a fairly large class of potential INWATS customer, reducing potential revenue from those customers ... I'd be surprised if the big three don't come out against this for more than just the obvious reasons. Cheers, Jay R. Ashworth jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us Member of the Technical Staff Junk Mail Will Be Billed For. The Suncoast Freenet *FLASH: Craig Shergold aw'better; call 800-215-1333* Tampa Bay, Florida http://members.aol.com/kyop/rhps.html +1 813 790 7592 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Dec 96 09:57:47 -0400 From: Craig, Michael S. Organization: Maritime Tel & Tel Subject: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes FYI, in Canada, there has been a consistent, albeit far from universal, use of N11 codes for a variety of deemed-to-be *public* services: 211 Not used 311 Not used 411 Directory Assistance (mirrors 1-NXX-555-12-12 ... used to be local-only, now covers NPA) 511 Not used* *has been used for separation of TDD and TTY Relay Services 611 Telco Repair Service 711 Relay Service (primary number: see 511 above) 811 Telco Business Office (customer service) 911 Emergency This is far from universal in terms of everybody actually using the codes, but at least the various provincial telcos have not put contrary services in place at the end of these codes. In general, Cdn telcos have taken a cooperative / consensus approach to N11 usage and have not supported the commercialization of N11 services. This position does acknowledge the existing / reasonable use of 611 and 811 as *telco* access numbers. From the perspective of a smaller telco (1/2 million NAS), there has been a pretty consistent concern for the calling habits of CFAs (come from aways) who may have used a particular code in a previous service area: for example, ... 911 (and to a lesser extent the European 999 equivalent) was routed to the operator to ensure the customer got *an answer* in the absence of true 911-Emergency service. Michael Craig ------------------------------ From: macwhiz@phoebe.rochester.ican.net (Rob Levandowski) Subject: Re: Competing Local Telecom Providers: How's it Work? Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 22:46:54 -0500 Organization: MacWhiz Technologies In article , swb@mercury.campbell- mithun.com (Shawn Barnhart) wrote: > I was having a discussion with someone the other day about what's > involved in forming one of the new, competing local telephone companies > that the Telecom bill was supposed to have made legal. I'm not an > expert on telecommunications, and I was kind of curious how it was > actually supposed to work. > I can understand some of the infrastructure needs, but what about the > circuits that terminate in a residence or place of business? Will they > be granted access to the existing phone company exchanges and only have > to deal with trunking? Or will they have to run wire to each and every > customer in addition to the necessary trunking lines? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If they were actually competing, they > would run wire to each premise, install instruments, etc. But as a > matter of fact the 'competitors' have whined so much about it and > claimed Bell had such an unfair advantage that regulatory agencies > have required Bell to allow the 'competitors' to co-locate in the > same central office. ...] As I've mentioned in previous Digest postings :) I happen to live in Rochester, New York, which was (to my knowledge) the first city in the U.S. to have true local telephone competition. Rochester's infrastructure created a unique situation. The existing LEC, Rochester Telephone (the precursor to Frontier), is not a RBOC. RochTel successfully fought off Bell's advances into its territory over the years. Thus, RochTel was not subject to the same degree of restriction as the RBOCs. Seeing profit, RochTel approached the state about their idea for an "Open Market Plan": RochTel would create a new holding company, Frontier Corp., that would own Rochester Telephone (the existing regulated dialtone provider), another Rochester Telephone company (the owner of the physical plant), and various Frontier companies (competitive unregulated dialtone, cellular, etc.). Once divested in this manner, the phys-plant company could resell the use of the wires to other competitive telephone companies, as well as Frontier. The state approved the plan. AT&T quickly showed interest in this idea. Meanwhile, Greater Rochester Cablevision (a Time Warner company) was still recovering from a massive ice storm during the winter of 1991 (?). That storm had damaged over 60% of the company's coax cable plant. The company had already decided to turn tragedy into opportunity, and rewire the entire system as a hybrid coax-fiber system, making it one of the first such HFC cable systems in the nation. The system would offer a massive increase in the number of channels, and would enable two-way communications. GRC was able to interpret the Open Market Plan in a new way. The OMP required Rochester Telephone to provide transparent cross-connection to competitive cable companies' switches, and it required other important features such as number portability between providers. The expensive part of the OMP for any competitor was, of course, the use of RochTel's wiring -- and RochTel gave very little discount. As I recall, AT&T stopped marketing their competitive service because the "wholesale" rate they were given by RochTel amounted to about a 5% discount -- insufficient to be profitable. However, GRC now had its own cable plant that passed nearly every house in the Rochester metro area, and which would support two-way communications. They had already begun using the network to provide live remote newsfeeds -- they have a 24-hour local news channel, and they can plug into the fiber network at a remote site, and feed broadcast quality audio and video back to the headend studio. The idea was born: use the HFC cable network to provide telephone service. With the introduction of this service, GRC changed its local name to Time Warner Communications of Rochester. When one changes from RochTel to TWC telephone service, the Rochester Tel feed is disconnected at your demarc. TWC installs a box on the side of your house, next to the demarc. The standard RG-6 coax cable drop from their cable network attaches to this box. If you subscribe to TWC cable television, another RG-6 cable continues into the house. A standard RJ11 jack connects to the demarc. To all customer premises equipment, the change is transparent: standard POTS signalling is used. Because the OMP included number portability, your phone number does not change. Initially, this was achieved by RochTel programming their switches to forward changed lines to a new number on Time Warner's switch (which you would not actually use directly). Supposedly, a citywide database is now used to direct calls to the appropriate LEC. I would expect that other markets will begin to emulate the Rochester model. It's clear that HFC cable systems are the wave of the future, and they offer the best chance of making competitive telephony affordable to the corporations that will provide it. Time Warner announced today that they will be implementing digital cable television over HFC networks in 1997, using digital set-top boxes that receive upwards of 150 channels and provide Dolby AC-3 6-channel digital sound (as seen in Dolby Digital movie theaters), as well as something close to the WebTV units now available. Time Warner has also announced plans to provide Internet service over their HFC network, using cable-to-Ethernet routers with 10Mbps download speeds. I suspect that we may see the "traditional" phone companies investing in HFC networks as well. The HFC infrastructure is far more conducive to Internet service, because you can provide massive bandwidth that is shared, not switched, and is therefore used very efficiently. Only one television channel's bandwidth is needed for 10Mbps shared download/768Kbps upload. In Rochester, that bandwidth would be shared by no more than 400 households (per node). The limitations of the xDSL technologies make it clear that they are stopgap measures at best, as in a great many areas, they'll never work "well enough" due to old copper, long runs, etc. Robert Levandowski Internet Systems Analyst, ACC Long Distance Corp. macwhiz@phoebe.rochester.ican.net ------------------------------ From: Mark Smith Subject: Wanted: French Speaking Telecom Experts Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 13:43:39 -0800 Organization: The Walter Group Reply-To: msmith@waltergroup.com I would like to know if any TELECOM Digest readers have an interest in positions in an offshore network operation. Could you help me locate potentially interested parties? I have a "soon to be urgent" need for French speaking telecom professionals who might be interested in locating to Dakar, Senegal for a time. Pay and benefits are negotiable. Senegal's PSTN is a modern network with cellular, paging, and satellite communications infrastructure. Positions that will becoming open include: 1. Associate General Manager 2. Director of Marketing 3. Director of Sales 4. Director of Customer Service 5. A senior cellular person that would fit the role of product manager, someone with engineering and marketing experience in cellular. I would greatly appreciate any help you can give me in locating or suggesting where I may locate any interested parties. Mark T. Smith msmith@waltergroup.com Project Manager The Walter Group ------------------------------ From: simkin@eis.mot.com (Yakov Simkin) Subject: Blue Alarm on Fractional T1 Reply-To: simkin@eis.mot.com Organization: Motorola Inc. Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 01:08:11 GMT I am looking for standard that regulates Blue Alarm transfer on Fractional T1 connection. Some sources say that FT1 is served as a regular DS1 (DS1 rate) so Blue Alarm would appear as unframed all 1s. But I heard that some providers supply just selected DS0 with reduced rate. How do they signal Blue Alarm and what document describes it? What is the background of particular Tarif (15?) in this case? If two of my boxes are connected with FT1 over PSTN and provider's multiplexer lost signal from another client sharing T1 with me while my portion is OK will I get Blue alarm on another end? I would appreciate your advice. Regards, Yakov Simkin MOTOROLA, INC IL02 Rm. 4100A 1307 East Algonquin Rd. Schaumburg IL 60196 phone: 847-538-6959 FAX: 847-576-6150 pager:800-skypage, pin 5658605 simkin@ssd.comm.mot.com ------------------------------ From: Doug_Merrill@rand.org (Douglas Merrill) Subject: Eastern Europe PSN Infrastructure, Equipment? Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 00:57:47 GMT Organization: RAND Reply-To: Doug_Merrill@rand.org Hi to all, I've been asked to "get smart" about the telecommunications infrastructure in Eastern Europe. I'm assuming that means I should know the kinds of lines, etc., available; services; switch types; etc. Does anybody have a good source for data, descriptions, etc., of Eastern European telecommunications? Cheers, DCM ------------------------------ From: Dr. R. Canaday Subject: Last Laugh! Virus Alert Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 13:19:51 -0500 Pat, I received this from a friend. Ron From: Tony Tarinelli[SMTP:ttarinelli@reedref.com] Sent: Friday, December 06, 1996 10:30 To: (then follows a humongous list with hundreds of names; none of these fools have ever learned how to use the bcc when sending out their dire warnings. PAT) Cc: selsheri@reedref.com Subject: Virus Alert TO: All Internet Users 12/4/96 FROM: Network Services RE: INTERNET E-MAIL VIRUS SUBJECT "FREE MONEY" The National Computer Security Assoc. has issued the following warning to all Internet users: There is a computer virus that is being sent across the Internet. If you receive an e-mail message with the subject line "Free Money", DO NOT read the message. DELETE it immediately. ----------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Oh wow! Hey virus or not, most people I know automatically delete 'Free Money' and 'Make Money Fast' messages unread anyway. Wouldn't it be a hoot if this 'virus warning' was just intended to cloud the issue a little with the continuing problem of email spam ... so the next bunch of Free/Easy/Fast Money spammers with their chain letters, etc find them all deleted by a millions of frightened netters thinking a virus has infested their computer. I must say attacking the junk emailers by claiming their mail has a virus embedded in it is a new twist; and sort of funny also! PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #656 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Dec 12 00:26:48 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id AAA10815; Thu, 12 Dec 1996 00:26:48 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 00:26:48 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612120526.AAA10815@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #657 TELECOM Digest Thu, 12 Dec 96 00:26:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 657 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (H. Gorman) Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (John Levine) Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (Randy Miller) Re: The Opposition Point of View: My Response (TELECOM Digest Editor) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: hillary@netaxs.com (Hillary Gorman) Subject: Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 17:20:36 -0500 Organization: Packet Shredders Anonymous In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to article forwarded by monty@roscom.COM: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I in general support the CDA although > I see some problems with the way it is written and wish that instead [snip] > I hope this does not turn out to be a situation where 'a battle is > won but the war was lost'. I see some real problems with CDA as it > is written, but I can sympathize with the views expressed by its > proponents as well, and frankly, the intellectual dishonesty (and > I will suggest) fraud perpetrated on the Court by the opponents of > CDA in Philadelphia almost has me to the point I hope CDA is ruled > to be constitutional. Honestly, I wish Monty Solomon and others > would quit sending me this junk-email ... and that is what it is. > All it does is make me more angry each time I read it. PAT] Wow. I'm shocked. I echo your final comment -- but about what YOU have to say! It makes me more angry each time I read it! In all seriousness, no flames, I'm a civil type of person, I try to be friendly - could you please advise me as to how *exactly* you believe the ACLU demonstrated "intellectual dishonesty" or "fraud"? And exactly what technical solution you have to offer, with regard to how we [we=ISP admins] are supposed to monitor everything flowing through our network for content? I would absolutely *love* to hear of a software solution which would allow monitoring for content which would a) work, b) not require us to hire 10 new people c) not require us to dedicate several entire machines simply to do the work of checking through the MASSIVE amounts of traffic that flow through our several T3s on a daily basis. We're not a huge company - 3000 or so dialup users - but we have something like 20 or so downstream ISPs who buy T1s from us ... we'd have to check everything THEIR users came up with also ... insanity, in my mind. Please. Enlighten me. I'm dying to hear how this could work. So far, I haven't heard one solution that sounded feasible for a small company with only about ten employees, or that would actually WORK even 90% of the time without also blocking traffic related to medical or psychological/psychosocial issues. Thanks!!! hillary gorman http://www.hillary.net info@hillary.net "to err is human; to moo, bovine." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: See my response at the end of this thread in this current issue. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Dec 96 19:21:00 EST From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > What was really insulting in the earlier litigation regards CDA was > how the ACLU instructed their witnesses to just get up in court and > lie about the technical aspects of the net, making all those outlandish > claims about the technical difficulties involved in affording some > modicum of policing. Uh, could you refresh our memory about those lies? I recall an ill-prepared government witness with an impractical proposal to tag each packet with a "decency bit". I have a small daughter, and I certainly have no interest subjecting her to pictures of people copulating with farm animals or whatever this week's scary example is, but the CDA is the wrong answer to the wrong question. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - MIT econ prof [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I'll also respond to you shortly. PAT] ------------------------------ From: miller@compex.com (Randy Miller) Subject: Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1996 17:31:12 GMT Organization: Erol's Internet Services On Sat, 7 Dec 1996 03:18:51 -0500, our esteemed Moderator wrote: > There *are* technical solutions to the problems FRC sees with the net, > and there are relatively easy ways to implement some changes which > ought to appease FRC while at the same time posing little or no addi- > tional burden on the net. We do have to co-exist with the rest of the > world you know. Other people have a right to use the net also, you > know. That may come as a complete surprise to the folks at the ACLU > and all the librarians, but other users of the net actually have the > right to enjoy the web and not have to worry about their kids getting > into territories they should stay out of. This is one time I, as a librarian, have to disagree with you, Pat. Granted, I'd rather not put something like Madonna's Sex or Lady Chatterly's Lover on the shelf (After working as a DoD contractor for almost 4 years, CYA and CYOFA are my motto.) However, from my experience (since I normally don't agree with the femiNazis (to borrow from Rush Limbaugh, who I also loathe)), I make two conclusions: 1. We in the library profession have always had the attitude of "we're doing this because it's for your own good!" Most of the furor that gets created is because the librarians do not take into consideration the clientele they are serving. For example, I lived in Marengo, IL for almost four years. After being around Marge Smith at the district library for that period of time, I've come to the conclusion that what they teach us in graduate school (which is another farce in itself), is mostly irrelevant when it comes to serving the needs of the community. The biggest mistake we make, as a profession, is NOT doing any kind of (perish the thought, a big business concept) market research. What passes for normal in New York City, doesn't necesssarily pass for normal in Paradise, PA. Too many of us library professionals (myself included) have gotten into the habit lumping obscene and controversial together. As my old clarinet teacher said, "what's music to one person, is noise to another." 2. I do agree with you that there are others that use the net. However, I do believe that the parents should control what their children see. The big problem is that most parents either 1) have massive technophobia (like my mother, who even refuses to have a touch tone phone in the house, even though GTE no longer has rotary service in her area. I still get the major bitchout job about having a PC in the house, for better or worse. I won't even bother trying to show her the web, since she has completely bought the mass media line of porno on the web. Besides, to her, anything she doesn't understand is stupidity, and is to be trashed on sight.), or 2) they don't give a damn what the kids are up to. Many are the times I told the stories here of the private music studio I used to run. Most of the students I considered of "not being worthy of learning an instrument" tended to come from homes where the prevailing attitude was "gimme my beer, my TV, and screw everything else." In short, the net should be free from this garbage they call the CDA. Unfortunately, very few parents want to take responsibility for their children, from my experience. Remember, as the old saying goes, with freedom, comes responsibility, which I find very few people taking on nowadays. Randy miller@compex.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for a great reply. What you say makes a great deal of sense. I'll comment more in the next message to follow. PAT] ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subjedt: The Opposition Point of View: My Response Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 00:15:00 EST Thanks to one and all who wrote rebuttals on this topic. The three above are typical of them all. To start my response, I think I should make a few of my beliefs clear: 1) Indeed, the first and primary responsibility falls on parents. The parents should take control. Many do, some do not. Therefore, in our society we pass certain laws pertaining to the protection of children, not leaving any option available to parents. We insist that children go to school. Some school, any school, but they have to attend until a certain age. We assume most parents would feel the same way, but nonetheless we have it as a law. The fact that some will be absent quite often ('play hookey') and the fact that some will be disruptive or learn little or nothing in the process does not deter us from formally stating the public policy of our society by codifying our requirements that children be in school. We hope that they become educated as a result. A good policy I think. We have laws against minors having the ability to purchase or be served alcoholic beverages. Again, we assume most parents would feel the same way, but nonetheless, we have it as a law. The fact that some minors will (1) acquire false identification to use in deceiving a merchant; (2) visit merchants willing to violate the law; (3) engage the services of an older adult willing to make the purchase for them; (4) have parents who do not care and allow their children to drink does not deter us from stating the public policy of our society by passing a law saying 'minors may not purchase or drink alcoholic beverages.' Now, do teenage boys like to drink beer they convinced their older buddies to buy for them? Do they get drunk, and as a result get into automobile accidents, etc? Of course. But we still have the law; we assume most parents help enforce the law by supervising their children as best they can, etc. I think it is a good policy that we as a society make the statement we do about minors and alcohol. Ditto with cigarettes ... we have parental disapproval (in many cases but certainly not all) ... we have laws against it which were passed as a reflection of our beliefs as a society. Do kids smoke? Do they buy cigarettes with the help and connivance of merchants who wink at the law about checking identification for age? Do they go home and hide their cigarettes from their mother? But we still put a law out there which we say is our goal and desire as a society. We do not allow minors to patronize 'adult' places of business such as 'adult' book stores. For the uninitiated, those are places where one seldom buys books (although you can) but rather one usually gives the cashier a few dollars in exchange for tokens to use for admission to little private stalls where one can sit and view sex movies at the rate of a minute or so per token. Whatever else occurs in the privacy of the little stall is, I suppose, the business of the occupant, although some communities like Chicago even have a few ordinances on the books governing one's behavior while seated therein, and the ordinances are plainly posted inside each stall: "You will not engage in X, Y or Z while in this booth. Offenders subject to fine." Do teenage guys get 'dirty books' to look at? Of course. Do they hide them from their mother? Of course. We assume parents are doing what they can (perhaps a broad assumption) but we still express our society's goals by codifying them, or making them into laws. No amount of laws or parental guidance has ever prevented a child from getting into trouble. No one has ever claimed that a law will do it all, or that parents are doing nothing to help. 2) Second belief of mine: in the current context, no single act by any ISP or network is going to cure the problems with the net as seen by groups like FRC. No group of actions or concerted effort by ISPs and networks is ever going to catch every single instance of malfeasance. All that will ever happen -- assuming a community effort by netters to work along with the rest of the world -- is that a large number of stumbling blocks will make it **much more difficult** for minors to be *routinely exposed* to those things on the net which FRC, some (perhaps most) parents, and society in general believes are not good for children to see/read. Will teenagers who want to flaunt the rules find ways to do so? Of course they will. I am assuming however just as there are a large number of kids who do not drink/smoke because it is against the law for them to do so, there will be a large number who obey a law about what they are and are not permitted to access on the net. Parents who do try to govern their children will be encouraged by the support given by society and parents who are marginal in this way may become somewhat more concerned and active also. 3) My third belief: Yes, CDA was not well written. They should have never touched on 'indecency' and instead used the term 'obscenity' since the latter is already defined and has no constitutional protection. As many have pointed out, 'indecent' leaves things pretty wide open. I'll grant you that the Supreme Court has no business writing the laws; their job is merely to interpret the laws already written and rule on them. ------------------- Now with that in mind, let us continue. Remember, none of these things *by themselves* will cure anything. All of them put together will not totally eliminate the problems the FRC wants to cure. All of them put together will however be of much help. Hillary wants to know what is a poor sysadmin to do? She suggests hiring ten additional people to 'read everything' in the news every day. No, not at all ... instead, try the appproach suggested by mcs.net here in Chicago, which they are publicizing widely in their advertising: they do not carry newsgroups which *on their face* are intended as ways to exploit children; ie the newsgroups which by their title suggest advocacy of pedophilia. The recent advertisement by mcs.net lists about a dozen newsgroups. I suppose it would take Hillary thirty seconds to call up an editor and cut a few lines out of the system-wide .newsrc file. What you are saying is your site does not receive those groups and does not pass them along. There is no censorship involved; the computer is private property, and if your downstream wants those groups they are always free to go get them somewhere else. And don't worry, they'll still be around; there will always be sites willing to carry them. As mcs.net pointed out in its advertisement, a survey of a few dozen ISPs found that about half said they never 'censor' newsgroups in any way, shape or form. But you say, not at this site. Go elsewhere. That is the stance mcs.net has adopted. Common rebuttal: if deprived of mass circulation of their newsgroup, 'those people' will start posting in other groups. Okay, so what? That's not your problem. Let them deal with the flame war sure to result when they post in some totally unrelated group. Kids don't have to go in taverns -- where they are forbidden by law to be -- in order to find some beer to drink. They don't have to go to an adult bookstore in order to find a 'friendly' adult willing to explain the facts of life to them. But that is not the problem of the tavern owner or the bookstore manager who work to keep those situations from occuring *on their own premises, in situations under their direct control*. Another rebuttal: new groups will start all the time. We will have to examine every new newsgroup that is started. As 'newgroup' control messages come along, either they would appear to be acceptable or they would appear to not be acceptable. Either you honor the 'newgroup' message or you do not honor it. Again, not a major undertaking. You do not literally read every single message in every single group any more than you need to go into a tavern to see if they sell ginger ale or potato chips as well as booze. We just say on its face, we do not want to distribute this to an unregulated, uncontrolled subscriber base which includes children. -------------------- Am I the only person who knows the purpose of, and how to use .http-access files in connection with a web page? The presence of such a file in a directory causes various things to happen: depending on what you put in the file, you can deny access to a given user and/or site; you can deny access to all but a select few users/sites, etc. So Hillary and other sysadmins, why not teach your web customers how to install and use .http-access files as a way to control who gets to see their page? For instance, suppose you denied access to '@u18.' wildcard ... meaning any site that had '.u18' as part of its name was denied viewing. Now suppose on the flip side of the coin, you (if you even have the possibility of underage subscribers) take one of your machines and give it -- in addition to its regular name -- an *alias* of 'u18', and anytime that machine makes any outbound connection anywhere on the net it introduces itself as 'u18.the.rest.of.its.name' ... actually I think you would name the machine 'u18' and its 'alias' would be the regular name it has had all along, so that your users need not know anything at all about the 'u18' part ... Now, starting with your next billing cycle, and continuing over a period of several months with *existing users* and from the start with *new users* you require your user to certify to the following: "I am of legal majority age in the state in which I reside". In other words, the person is 18 years of age or older. With new users, you might decide to have them submit a photocopy of a driver's license or birth certificate. With existing users, do something; do not inconvenience your admins and do not unduly annoy your users. Just phase them in over a period of time. Those who do not certify or offer proof, etc get placed on the 'u18' machine. Those who do get placed elsewhere. Now we no longer have to worry about 'decency bits' or whatever they called them. You decide which of the web pages on your site should be restricted in the same way you decide which newsgroups will not be carried: a cursory glance through the page at the time it is installed. If it appears *on its face* to have adult content and appeal to an adult audience you require that user to implement an .http-access file. Or maybe you default all web pages at your site in that way and only back them out into a general category on specific request of the web page owner. I hear the objections rolling in already: (1) the web page owners will cheat and not deny access to u18. Of course some will. There are merchants who sell cigarettes to minors knowing good and well the kid is not old enough. There are bartenders who do not bother to check identification. Sometimes they get caught, sometimes not. That's not your problem. You have set the rules for your site; you reserve the right to audit your users and drop those who by their activities jeopardize your site. Hey ... many a sysadmin has dropped a user for spamming and junk-emailing; many times the admin found out about it when a million netters wrote to tell him. It was not called 'censorship' by anyone except the offensive user. Why not try dropping those users who refuse to categorize themselves as 'adult' when such is the case? ***Note I did not say drop those who operate adult web pages; I said drop those who refuse to lock out minors from viewing adult material or who lie to you (the admin) and claim they are not when you find out they are, etc***. Is the goodwill of one user worth having the authorities come down on you and possibly hassle your entire site? I think not. (2) not only will the web page owners cheat, the kids will cheat. See, says Hillary, (and don't take it personally, I am using her as a generic example), I told you there was nothing we could do about it! ... Well gosh then let's drop all the liquor licensing laws and the laws about being of a certain age to smoke or drive a car or drop out of school ... after all, clever, mischevious children will always find work arounds ... a) they'll sign up with false identification ... sure, and kids never use false id to buy beer do they? b) they are too clever! They'll find ways to hack right into the stuff they want to see. Yep, that's right, and its not your problem as long as you took reasonable efforts to prevent it. Some assumptions are being made by me here. One is that *most kids* obey the law. Another is that *most parents* want to see their kids obey the law and will aprreciate having the law to 'back them up' in their own governance of their children. A few parents won't care, and a few kids will cheat. But parents who don't care has never stopped dedicated school teachers from trying to do their best to educate kids, and it should not stop a dedicated sysadmin who generally accepts the community's policy that children should not be exposed to certain things before a certain age, etc. You cannot help what parents do, and you cannot help what kids may do. All you can be responsible for is having your own technical safeguards in place in cooperation with other sites and doing what you can to police the conduct of your own users and visitors to your site. And you see, I've a feeling that *good faith* will go a long way toward creating some good will between the net and groups like FRC. -------------------- Speaking of good faith and good will among people I believe very strongly that none whatsoever has been shown by netters in this matter. At least not by those who have self-appointed themselves as our leaders. Remember Senator Exxon? Way back then ... more than two years ago or so, when all this hullabaloo was first coming up ... the net's response was to protest, to demonstrate, to throw tantrums, to mail bomb everyone involved. We were told to turn our web pages black, all sorts of responses and schemes were devised to 'get even' ... not once did anyone say let's go over and talk to the man and see what it is exactly he wants and try to find some way to appease those people. Why did no one go to Exxon (again, I am using him as a generic example) and say something like this ... "Look, technically what you are asking is very difficult; almost impossible to do while still keeping some semblance of the net as it has always operated. But senator, a lot of us do agree with your basic premise that young kids are getting exposed to a lot of stuff on the net which isn't that wholesome or good for them. None of us who have been around for years on the net ever really concieved of the way it would grow and the kinds of things that would get transmitted over it. None of the protections you are talking about now were ever built into the Internet, and to try and retrofit it now would be very difficult. As you may have heard senator, originally we on the net all operated with trust and a lot of good will; sadly that's been gone from the net for a long time now. "What we can do senator is this: we can pretty easily phase in some of the protections you are looking for. Over a period of two to three years, we should be able to identify parts of the net which are adult in nature and pretty well segregate it from view by young children. There are ways to restrict sites on the net from contacting other sites on the net and instead of trying to identify the adult sites -- because we get into a lot of First Amendment hassles -- we will probably begin moving the kids onto machines which are restricted in the contacts they can establish. We'll ask the adult sites to deny access to machines used by kids, and there will be a lot of peer pressure from within the net commmunity to obtain cooperation. Senator, suppose we use the term 'obscenity' instead of 'indecency' as the cut-off point. It has already been defined, it has no First Amendment protection and it will make this job easier for all of us. You are really trying to mostly target child pornography, aren't you senator? A lot of the people on the net would strongly agree with you on that point. If we could take aim at specific areas that you feel need review instead of just using the broad and poorly-defined term 'indecency' it will wind up saving us a lot of litigation and debate and red-herrings being tossed into the pot as we go along. Now senator, the Unix gurus on the net and the software experts with Netscape and things like that would probably take this seriously and start putting together something that would have the effect of eliminating about 85-90 percent of the problems you perceive *as long as everyone played by the rules*, but there are some things the net can never control. We need the parents to take an active part in this. Computers need to be located in family rooms where the entire family can participate rather than in a child's bedroom where he can sneak into places on the net where he should not be after everyone else in the family is asleep. Parents need to know about the friends their children are making on the net the same as they need to know about adults who have allowed their children to visit their homes. You see senator, the net is getting pretty realistic these days. Some call it a virtual reality. Some say the net is getting to be as dangerous as the rest of the world is in realtime, but a lot of us think the net is just as good and honest and decent as the majority of the population. Some long time, very well respected netters would probably begin promoting a system of 'virtual licensing' for web pages and news groups similar to the sale of alcohol and cigarettes and dirty books in the real world -- where kids are not allowed to be part of it -- as long as they had your word that you would work on the parents. There has to be voluntary cooperation by the kids you know; the best software in the world can put up obstacle courses the same way the police in real life can deter crime to a point; but the citizens have to agree to voluntarily obey. And one other thing senator. A lot of the 'cogs in the wheel' of the net, people like the ISPs, the sysadmins at various sites, the people who assist users at the local level; it will be a lot easier to get their cooperation in this reform of the net -- which many of them agree is needed -- provided they know for sure that enforcement of any laws passed is directed to the end users on both sides; that is the kids at their computer who violate a law pertaining to what they can and cannot access as well as the users who wilfully allow the kids to access the sort of information so many of your constituents have found objectionable. You don't go after the phone company because two users on either end of the wire talk dirty to each other. Well senator, it is a lot the same with ISPs. No, they are not legally common carriers, but for all intents and purposes they are. It really is hard for them to police everything passing through in a day's time. A lot of them will be glad to work along with the rest of the net community on what we are proposing here as long as they are assured they personally are immune to prosecution on stuff passing through their site. They are very defensive right now senator, because they think you are going to 'get personal' with them. So senator, if we put up some obstacle courses making it harder for kids to see stuff that's obscene, can we depend on you to help us publicize it? Can we depend on you to write the law so the ISPs and system admins don't get stuck in the middle everytime some kid figures out a loophole or some crafty pedophile manages to hurt some child? And senator, we will even let you take the the credit for it all. ... everyone will realize that it was through your expert leadership that America's children are a lot safer than they were before. Allow two to three years for the project to be finished senator. There is some software to be written and installed, and a re-alignment of users from one machine to another. In the meantime, maybe your staff could get started on the parents and the kids; get them primed and prepped and understanding how important it is that they follow the new law, etc. " ============================= So instead of the net taking control of this situation from the very beginning when the handwriting was seen on the wall, instead we blew it. Some would say that we catch more flies with honey than we do with vinegar. Others would say that you do not 'fight fire with fire', you fight fire with a fire extinquisher ... And *we* (yes I mean we, the net) could have participated in drafting a law which would have been very favorable to us, or indeed maybe no law would have been written at all. Now instead we have to hope for the best with the developments at hand. If they win, we lose; if we win, we still lose. Because if we win, then they start on the next issue, which I believe will be copyright. This is what I mean by the intellectual dishonesty of the people who led this from the beginning. They knew all they were doing was just screwing up the net ... with their bogus arguments and theories. Very few of you have any business talking about censorship for the same reason I have little business talking about it; I do not own the computer upon which this is published and very few of you have any property rights where the network or your local site is concerned. You are there with the blessings of your corporate employer who will let you talk smart and sassy until he finally gets tired of it and then fires you. Same here ... let's not kid around with censorship. It is true the government witness was just terrible. Very poorly informed, etc. But then instead of presenting an *honest* picture of the net, *our side* (well they did not represent me!) presents this total fabrication of how things work with the end result being that a semi-retired prissy old-maid librarian who helps some child log on to the net only to have the child do a search on Alta Vista and turn up some string with a four letter combination in the middle somewhere considered 'indecent' gets sentenced to life in prison. All the librarians are now frantic. So the soloists of the American Civil Liberties Union assisted by the choir of the American Library Association and others perform this tragic opera for the court. What the judges know about computers could be written on the head of a pin. Being respectful of the First Amendment, they go out of their way to avoid violating it. To John Levine, I agree the way it is written is not very good. So damned if the court approves it and damned if they don't. You are so good at teaching things to Dummies (your book was great by the way), how come you did not get Exxon and his buddies straightened out a couple years ago? Why didn't you counter him; shall we say match his bid and raise it? To Hillary, all I can say is we went through this before, you and I. Get in your system .newsrc file today and go snip-snip here and snip-snip there. Then forget about it. Just do that little bit to help, okay? Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #657 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Dec 12 01:45:12 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id BAA16110; Thu, 12 Dec 1996 01:45:12 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 01:45:12 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612120645.BAA16110@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #658 TELECOM Digest Thu, 12 Dec 96 01:45:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 658 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Win95 and Areacode Overlays (trumanjs@primenet.com) Re: Win95 and Areacode Overlays (Nils Andersson) Re: Win95 and Areacode Overlays (Toby Nixon) Re: Win95 and Areacode Overlays (Christopher W. Boone) Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call (was Re: Further Notes on 555) (Clive Feather) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Jeff Becklehimer) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Jack Decker) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Craig Macbride) WebTV vs. Client and Display Technology (Lauren Weinstein) 900 Psychic lines (Frederick Woodruff) Job Opportunity - HP OpenView Specialist (Virginia) (Zon Hsieh) Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines (Greg Stahl) Telecom-Related Chuckles (Stan Schwartz) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: trumanjs@primenet.com Subject: Re: Win95 and Areacode Overlays Date: 10 Dec 1996 08:36:03 -0700 Organization: Primenet Services for the Internet When programming the Win 95 dialer leave the area code field blank and under telephone number enter 281-XXX-XXXX. As far as I know Atlanta, Dallas and Houston have to use this scheme if they are in one area code and the ISP dialup is in another. ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: Win95 and Areacode Overlays Date: 9 Dec 1996 20:26:16 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , Christopher Wolf writes: > Do you or any of your readers know how Win95 users in cities with new > areacode overlays (like 713/281 in Houston) can get their systems to > recognize when and when not to dial a 1 when using the dialing > features built into Win95? There must be numerous people that have > found and addressed this problem -- what's the fix? I do not know how the dialler in Win95 works, but there are several generic solutions. 1) Program all numbers with area codes, including local. Tell your dialler to always add the one. (You will have problems with international) 2) Program all numbers with 1+ac+number. Tell your dialler never to include a one. (It probably won't anyway, the number will not look as if it started with an area code). NOTE: Since Jan 95, all areas are "supposed to" accept 1+own area code + number, but this is not universally implemented. Example: Carson City to Reno, same ac will not accept 1-702-xxx-xxxx. By the way, with the advent of comm equipment being carried around the world, there is an immediate need for allowing "same country country code" also. GSM already allows this, you can program your phone with e.g. +1-818-555 1212 and it will dial that number from any country. (The GSM switch edits this string as necessary before pumping it out to the landline network.) Obviously, some of the smarts can be put in the dialler software, but wouldn't it be nice to merely edit in the international access code for the country you are in (should be standardized to 00 BTW, but until that is done, it is relatively painless to reprogram your dialler to "current international prefix"). Then you enter all your numbers as cc+ac+number in your database. Thus, in the NANP, 011-1-ac-number should be made to work!). I obviosly realize that the software can be jimmied, e.g. by entering a null international prefix, the cc =1 will be taken as initial 1, and the call will actually work! HInts to programmers of diallers etc. To summarize: To Bellcore and telcos: Make 011-1-ac-number work. To dialler software programmers: Consider the international case, and that the caller may move from one country to the next! Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: Toby Nixon Subject: Re: Win95 and Areacode Overlays Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 12:45:44 -0800 In TELECOM Digest V16 #654, Christopher Wolf asked: > Do you or any of your readers know how Win95 users in cities with new > areacode overlays (like 713/281 in Houston) can get their systems to > recognize when and when not to dial a 1 when using the dialing > features built into Win95? There must be numerous people that have > found and addressed this problem -- what's the fix? Microsoft is working on a fix for this that will ship in future upgrades to Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0. In the meantime, the best workaround is to enter your area code in the Area Code field, and the entire 10-digit local number into the "Phone Number" field of your application, such as Dial-up Networking, like this (assuming you're in 713 and dialing 281-555-1234 as a local call): Country Code: United States of America Area Code: 713 Phone Number: 2815551234 The Telephony part of Windows 95 (and Windows NT 4.0) will match the area code to the area code you entered in Dialing Properties, and treat the call as a local call, omitting the "1" prefix for long distance calls. the length of the local number is not checked, so the result will be that all ten digits get dialed. The main disadvantage of this workaround is that it defeats the "location independence" that Dialing Properties is intended to provide. If this was a notebook PC, you took it to New York, and set you dialing properties so the area code was 212, it would dial "1-713-2815551234", which obviously wouldn't work. You would need to have TWO connection settings, one for use in 713, and one for use everywhere else (including 281!). Like I said, it's a workaround, not a solution. It doesn't hurt you on desktop systems, though. The solution we're working on will allow you to specify, on a location-by-location basis, how to dial calls to particular NPA-NXX pairs (as 7 digits [the default if the NPA is the same as the current location], 10 digits, or 11 digits [the default if the NPA is different]). It won't be easy to configure, but, unfortunately, that's the penalty we pay for the LECs and PUCs being unable to agree on a permissive 11-digit dialing plan (which 11 states already have). Toby Nixon, Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation ------------------------------ From: Christopher W. Boone Subject: Re: Win95 and Areacode Overlays Date: Mon, 09 Dec 1996 07:17:13 -0800 Organization: ABC Radio Network Engineering - Dallas Christopher Wolf wrote: > Do you or any of your readers know how Win95 users in cities with new > areacode overlays (like 713/281 in Houston) can get their systems to > recognize when and when not to dial a 1 when using the dialing > features built into Win95? There must be numerous people that have > found and addressed this problem -- what's the fix? Houston is NOT an overlay ... it became a split as of November 2, 1996. The 713 NPA is completely inside the Beltway and the 281 NPA is outside and covers the subburbs of Metro Houston But in an overlay, you must dial ten digits ... and have ALL the local prefixes to your exchange entered if you dont wish to dial a 1+. Chris ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Dec 1996 22:08:59 +0000 From: Clive D.W. Feather Reply-To: clive@demon.net Subject: Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call (was Re: Further Notes on Use of 555) Organization: Clive's laptop (part of Demon Internet Ltd.) In article , "Mark J. Cuccia" writes: ... an awful lot, most of which I agree with. However, he also writes: > Over the past few years, we've seen International PAY-per-call scams, some > in the NANP Caribbean, and some to numbers (but not necessarily locations) > outside of the NANP. I don't see how you can class these as scams. With the +1 809 and non- NANP numbers, you pay *exactly* the same as a call to a "genuine" number in that area. Provided it's clearly presented as an international call the way a genuine call would be presented, what's the problem? Clive D.W. Feather | Associate Director | Director Tel: +44 181 371 1138 | Demon Internet Ltd. | CityScape Internet Services Ltd. Fax: +44 181 371 1150 | | Written on my laptop - please reply to the Reply-To address ------------------------------ From: beck@slidell.com (Jeff Becklehimer) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 9 Dec 1996 05:26:22 GMT Organization: slidell.com inc, Slidell Louisiana Alan Bishop (a@corp.webtv.net) wrote: > - we transcode images and other media types. For example, image > creators often make their images too detailed or store them in > a format that doesn't compress as well as it should. We fix that > in the proxy before transmitting them over the slow link to the user. > It also means that if we want to support a media type, we don't > need a new client release: we just add it in the server and convert > it to an existing one. Just curious, does this violate copyright laws? Also, when you say an image is "too detailed" does this mean you also resize or reduce the number of colors of the images to make them fit on the screen? Jeff Becklehimer slidell.com, inc. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Dec 1996 12:21:59 -0500 From: Jack Decker Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Dave Sieg wrote: > I had an interesting phone call from a guy who had bought one of the > "WebTV" boxes. It sits on the top of the TV and hooks to a phone > line, allowing "unlimited Internet Access" for only $19.95/month". > This guy had MS and was bedridden, so this seemed perfect for him. He > paid $450 for the box and wireless keyboard, hooked it up, and started > surfing the web. Now he has discovered that the box is making long > distance calls at 10-15 cents/minute! He had already run up a > sizeable phone bill! After reading Dave's article, I went to WebTV's "WebTV Service Phone Book" page at http://www.webtv.net/HTML/home.retail.html At this site you supposedly can find out if a local access number is available for a given exchange. But they are pretty ambiguous about whether you will actually be making a local or toll call. For example, I typed in 616-842-0000 as a number to check, and it came back with this: "Calling from 616-842-0000, WebTV has one local and one toll number. "Because you live in an area with both local and toll numbers, WebTV may sometimes be a toll call. However, the WebTV box will make an effort to always call the local number, minimizing your phone bill!" BUT - this page seems to tell you what you want to hear. If you type in 616-842-xxxx, it tells you it has a local number in the 842 exchange. If you use 616-846 instead, it says the local number is in 616-846! Substitute the 847 prefix, and it says the access number's in 847, and using 844 says the local number's in 844. Unless they have local access lines in all four of the Grand Haven, Michigan exchanges (which I would think is rather unlikely), something is seriously wrong here. What's even more fun is that if I put in an exchange in the Muskegon, Michigan local calling area, it tells me that there is a local number (in 616-727, which probably really is a local access number) but there is also a toll number in the 414-449 exchange -- so Web TV users in Muskegon might unwittingly be making calls across Lake Michigan to Wisconsin (I do have to give WebTV credit for figuring out that a call to Wisconsin would be less expensive than a call to Grand Rapids, which appears to be the next closest in-state access point, but they aren't always that smart -- callers from the Holland, Michigan area are sent to the Grand Rapids number as the toll access point, even though Wisconsin would in most cases be a less expensive call for folks in that area)! What appears to be happening (judging from some very limited testing) is that in some areas you are always told that there is a local access number and a toll access number. This is not universally true (for example, upon entering 218-448-xxxx it admits that there is no local access number and offers no alternatives), but in some cases where it does claim that local access is available the claim seems suspicious because the "local access number" always has the same exchange prefix as the caller's number (and they don't give you the last four digits so you can call and see if there's really a modem there). Further, even where a local access number is claimed, in many areas the second number (which is used if the first is unreachable) is a toll call, and the Web page does not indicate that there is any way to forbid toll calls (toll restrictors for your WebTV box, anyone?). Bottom line is, it's possible that a lot of WebTV users are going to be VERY surprised when they get their phone bills. Unless the folks at WebTV really are putting access numbers in all the exchanges where their Web page claims that access is available, I would not be at all surprised to hear that they are the target of a class action lawsuit filed by disgruntled purchasers (wanting to recover toll charges plus the purchase price of their units) somewhere down the line. I also suspect that many of the WebTV buyers of this year will be lining up to get a REAL computer and Internet connection next year -- if they aren't totally turned off to the Internet by the whole WebTV experience, that is! Jack [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I tried it with the exchanges here in Skokie (847-673/674/675 and 847-329) and it consistently came back saying I had two local numbers, one in 312-509 which is correct and one in 847-480 which is also correct. PAT] ------------------------------ From: craig@rmit.EDU.AU (Craig Macbride) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 9 Dec 1996 21:39:28 GMT Organization: Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. Dave Sieg writes: > I had an interesting phone call from a guy who had bought one of the > "WebTV" boxes. It sits on the top of the TV and hooks to a phone > line, allowing "unlimited Internet Access" for only $19.95/month". > This guy had MS and was bedridden, so this seemed perfect for him. He > paid $450 for the box and wireless keyboard, hooked it up, and started > surfing the web. Now he has discovered that the box is making long > distance calls at 10-15 cents/minute! He had already run up a > sizeable phone bill! It already connects to a TV set and many people already have cable TV, so it would make sense to make the $450 box include a cable modem and just run over the cable TV lines to a net connection. No phone line costs; no long-distance charges; no having the phone line in use when trying to make or receive phone calls; _much_ faster connection. Of course, it wouldn't help if someone is outside the areas serviced by cable TV, but that may still mean a lot more people would be covered than they are by the WebTV ISP's local phone call areas at present. Craig Macbride URL: http://www.bf.rmit.edu.au/~craigm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Dec 96 12:16 PST From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: WebTV vs. Client and Display Technology Greetings. WebTV appears to have a great deal of potential as a means for introducing segments of the population without PCs (a rapidly declining but still very significant number) to basic web services. They have developed an interface and methodology that appear to make the best posssible use of a limited display platform (that is, conventional televisions). For all of this they are to be congratulated. However, there are some fundamental limitations to that very platform that would seem to position WebTV as primarily a "transitional" technology -- that is, something from which many users will wish to quickly advance to conventional PC-based net access. One issue is the inability that users will have to make use of most of the wide variety of downloadable client applications upon which most advanced web applications are based. No doubt WebTV will work to make some versions available within their system, but it seems likely that many users will find themselves frustrated over and over again by not being able to hit that download button staring at them on the screen to get a new update for Adobe Acrobat, or a particular graphics or audio system, or whatever. Without a doubt, some users will be satisfied by the mix that WebTV provides within their architecture -- but others would seem likely to want to move on. Given the size of many standard client applications, it seems unlikely that more than a small percentage could be supported within the WebTV platform given the current relatively limited amount of non-volatile memory onboard the units. It's certainly true that later versions of the product could include more memory, disk drives, maybe even a VGA video output and so on -- but at some point we're just looking at basically a single or limited purpose PC -- and the economics of that kind of purchase become unclear against the discount pricing of conventional multipurpose PCs. I mentioned VGA output above, and that brings up another important limitation of the current WebTV unit. No matter how many tricks you play with direct video out and S-video interfaces, the bandwidth of conventional North American NTSC (or PAL/SECAM for that matter) televisions makes them generally unsuitable for displaying significant amounts of text. Those of us who built our own terminals 20 years ago remember all too well the "fun" of staring at flickering TV screens trying to read 80 columns of text. Sets have improved considerably since then, but the fundamental limitations are much the same. When is the last time you saw someone buy a computer with a 60Hz, interlaced display? -- that's what standard NTSC televisions provide. There's a good reason why 72Hz and faster non-interlaced displays have become standard (and why this very issue is such a battleground in the digital TV standards arena). The flicker and resolution limitations of conventional televisions just aren't well suited as computer displays. Sure, you can look at the graphics, and by resizing HTML text to larger fonts (i.e. shorter lines) you can definitely help the situation. But there are significant limits. Again, none of this is to diminish WebTV's accomplishment in creating a mass-market web product. But I think it is important to keep the technical realities in perspective. There may well ultimately be a melding of consumer products and conventional PCs, especially if reasonable digital TV systems become available at affordable prices. But existing televisions represent a very limited technical platform for such applications. --Lauren-- www.vortex.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When I used to do that sort of thing in the late 1970's -- make terminals out of old black and white television sets -- I found I could improve the display by changing the horizonal synch quite a bit. This essentially made it unusable as a television in the future (without restoring the horizonal to where it had been) but it worked for its new purpose. A couple other tricks which helped with the display was to adjust the yoke somewhat, and -- but you had to be most careful! -- wrapping some tin foil (for example, Reynolds Wrap) around the picture tube near the base where it connected to the yoke. This tin foil seemed to trap the ions or something. A word now to those of you who read this and decide to get in the back of your television set and experiment: *** discharge that bugger before you go sticking your hands in there *** ! Old television sets tend to retain a charge for a long time; a very long time in fact. I've seen sets that were turned off and unplugged for a week or more still be loaded with juice. Those capacitors take forever to leak it out. It makes quite a frightful but fun display for all the neighborhood kids. Invite them in to watch, then take a *very big* screwdriver with a plastic handle you can hold -- do not touch the metal part! Probe in there with the metal part of the screwdriver, touching it to those big caps you see in there one at a time and simultaneously to ground. Each time you do that, there will be a loud bang! and sparks will fly out of the back of the television at you. Don't worry; it won't hurt you, it just looks scary and mean. Do that three or four times or until the television set quits backfiring at you. Now it is okay to stick your hands in there wherever you want with no concern. Now should you forget that first and foremost safety precaution as I did one day when I was trying to work on a linear amplifier for a CB radio for someone, it'll knock you on your keister and you will spend the rest of the day with a sort of crazed look on your face, and some confusion in your thinking, just like old fashioned electro-shock therapy the state-run mental hospitals used to administer. That will teach you to keep your hands to yourself and not go sticking them places they do not belong. ... remember: unplug it completely; totally discharge those capacitors (you will know you are finished when the television/radio quits 'arguing' and backfiring at you) and then -- and only then -- put your hands in there to work on it. There are some who would claim that I still have not recovered to this day from taking that load twenty years ago. Maybe not. Maybe I still am crazed and confused. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Frederick Woodruff Subject: 900 Psychic lines Date: Mon, 09 Dec 1996 16:50:20 +0000 Organization: Seanet Online Services, Seattle WA Hi: I'm a journalist in Seattle trying to research the history of the 900 line, pay per call industry; particularly the 900 psychic lines that have proliferated over the past decade. If anyone can help me or point me in the right direction for my research I would really appreciate it. You can reach me directly at my e mail address: pal@seanet.com Thank you in advance, FW ------------------------------ From: zhsieh@telenet.com (Zon Hsieh) Subject: Job Opportunity - HP OpenView Specialist (Virginia) Date: 10 Dec 96 17:54:48 GMT Organization: Alcatel Data Networks JUST SOME OF THEM. Alcatel Data Networks Inc., one of the world's largest producers of advanced telecommunications equipment, is seeking a senior level Netork Management HP OpenView expert to join our Software Development team in Ashburn, Virginia. (near Washington D.C.) HP OPENVIEW SPECIALIST The incumbent will design, implement, and debug software in different network fault management functions and provide technical guidance to the team members. The incumbent must have extensive background in the following areas: o HP OpenView DM4.21 and/or NNM4.1, XMP API, and GDMO o C, C++, programming in a UNIX environment o CMIS, SNMP, MIB, and TCP/IP A BS, MS in Computer Science or Computer Engineer, or an equivalent amount of work experience in NMS is required. Successful candidates will also have seven plus years of experience in telecommunications with minimum of four years development experience with HP OpenView DM/NNM. Alcatel Data Networks Inc. offers an excellent compensation and benefits package. For confidential consideration, mail your resume to Mailstop 1F01 (indicating HP OpenView) at the address listed below or fax to HR (703)724-2348. One may send resume through e-mail to Zon.Hsieh@adn.alcatel.com. Alcatel Data Networks An Alcatel-Sprint Join Venture 44983 Knoll Square, Ashburn, Va 20147 EEO/AA Employer M/F/D/V, Smoke-free/Drug-free workplace ------------------------------ From: Greg Stahl Organization: Saint Lawrence University Park St. Canton, NY 13617 Subject: Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines Date: 12 Dec 96 05:21:09 GMT DataComm over power lines is used in alot of different places. One that I am aware is the mass transit subway system in Washington, D.C. called Metro. Although I cannot describe the details, the trains are powered by a "third rail" that carries 380 volts (I could be wrong about the voltage). The trains are computer controlled (speed, accelaration, decelaration, stopping) from the Metro network control center using sensors on the tracks and the operators. Basically, the computer slows the train down as it enters a station, then stops the train, the operator opens the doors, then closes the doors and starts the train on its way. All the datacomm to run the train is sent through the third rail. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For a number of years a long time ago the Chicago Transit Authority operated its telephone system in the subway via the third rail. The connections sounded awful, but it did work. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Stan Schwartz Subject: Telecom-Related Chuckles Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 00:14:25 -0500 (These are all from the Dilbert newsletter) Don't Ever Change I needed to make a phone call while at the library. When I asked for change at the counter, I was told that they didn't give change for the phone, only for the copy machine. So I asked for change for the copy machine and she gave it to me. Wrong Number: An Induhvidual went to the hospital emergency room. After seeing the doctor and taking medication, he went to the nurse's station to call home for a ride. He asked a nurse how to get an outside line to which she responded, "Pound nine." Thinking the nine button must be sticking, the Induhvidual pushed nine hard and dialed the number. He then got a recording that the call couldn't be completed. He asked again, received the same answer, dialed the same number and got the same recording. Frustrated, he asked the nurse a third time how to get an outside line. Clearly irritated, she answered through her teeth, "I told you, POUND NINE!" to which he replied, "OKAY!", balled up his fist and smashed the phone. [Editor's Note: Some readers might think this story is an urban legend and that's probably true. But it doesn't mean that Induhviduals aren't having this exact confusion everyday. This is why I never serve pound cake at my house.] Just the Fax, Ma'am: This conversation actually happened. Induhvidual: "Do you know anything about this fax-machine"? DNRC member: "A little. What's wrong?" Induhvidual: "Well, I sent a fax, and the recipient called back to say all she received was a cover-sheet and a blank page. I tried it again, and the same thing happened." DNRC member: How did you load the sheet?" Induhvidual: "It's a pretty sensitive memo, and I didn't want anyone else to read it by accident, so I folded it so only the recipient would open it and read it." Group Fax: A paralegal was given her duties the Monday she was hired. Among other things, she was responsible for sending out frequent faxes. She was fired on Wednesday when they discovered that because she didn't like using the fax machine, she was saving the faxes to send out all at the same time -- once a week, on Friday. She was indignant because she couldn't see what they were so upset about. ___________________ copyright notice: Reprinting This Newsletter -------------------------- Feel free to copy, post and distribute this newsletter within the bounds of good netiquette. Scott Adams ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #658 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Dec 12 02:23:21 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id CAA17885; Thu, 12 Dec 1996 02:23:21 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 02:23:21 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612120723.CAA17885@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #659 TELECOM Digest Thu, 12 Dec 96 02:23:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 659 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Operator Toll Dialing and a 1945 Area Code Proposal (Mark J. Cuccia) UCLA Short Course: "HBT IC Technology for Comm Applications" (W. Goodin) Book Review: "The Web Server Handbook" by Palmer/Schneider (Rob Slade) GTE Long Distance in Oklahoma (Tad Cook) New Utah Area Code (Tad Cook) Interconnection in the Internet (Jesus Redondo) MFS to Offer Digital Subscriber Line Service (oldbear@arctos.com) Southwestern Bell Gets Out of Visa Card Business (B.J. Guillot) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 19:16:33 -0800 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Operator Toll Dialing and a 1945 Area Code Proposal Early this year, I posted to the Digest an article regarding a proposed but never adopted area code plan from 1946/47. The proposed plan was similar to the actual 'finalized' plan of eighty-six original area codes from October 1947, in that states with *one* area code were given codes of the N0X format, while states with *multiple* area codes were given N1X area codes. In the 1946/47 proposal, the entire country of Canada was 'treated' as a 'single state' with multiple area codes. The never adopted proposal would have used codes of the 91X form for Canada's provinces: 912 and 913 for Ontario; 914 and 915 for Quebec; 916 for the Maritime Provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island; and maybe Newfoundland and Labrador which wasn't actually a part of Canada, politically at that time); 917 for Manitoba; 918 for Saskatchewan; 919 for Alberta; 910 for British Columbia. Also, the 1946/47 proposal (but never actually adopted) had 'consecutive blocks' of area codes for each state with multiple codes: New York State would have had 212, 213, 214, 215, 216 Michigan would have had 217, 218, 219 Illinois would have had 312, 313, 314, 315 Ohio would have had 316, 317, 318, 319 Pennsylvania would have had 412, 413, 414, 415 Wisconsin would have had 416, 417 Minnesota would have had 418, 419 California would have had 512, 513, 514 Massachusetts would have had 515, 516 Iowa would have had 517, 518, 519 Missouri would have had 612, 613 Indiana would have had 615, 616 Kansas would have had 617, 618 Texas would have had 712, 713, 714, 715 I do wonder about Kansas having been assigned (on paper, only) the codes 617 and 618. I would have thought that it would have been assigned 618 and 619. Notice that 614 has no assignment, and comes after Missouri's two codes. If 617 were to be 'skipped' over, it would be after Indiana's two codes. In the *ACTUAL* assignments of October 1947, MO and IN had two area codes each; 1948/49 saw Indiana get a third NPA (219) and 1950/51 saw Missouri get a third NPA (417). Within most (but not all) of these multi-NPA states, the block of consecutive codes were to be adjacent to one another, or 'linear' as a code set 'increased' from east to west, or from north to south, across that state. Every *other* state (as well as DC) would have had an N0X style area code, as each of these states would have had one area code. However, except for the larger cities in multi-NPA states, or more populated states using a single (N0X) NPA, the numerical assignments were *not* kept when the finalized version took effect in October 1947. (The complete chart of 'proposed' assignments with some brief description of specific intra-state geographies is included in my original submission, earlier this year). However, close to the end of World War II, in 1945 the Bell System was seriously looking into a nationwide numbering plan and developing an *automated* (operator) toll dialing/switching network. In August 1943, Philadelphia was the *very first place* to ever have a crossbar *toll* switching machine, the #4XB Toll switcher. And only a few years earlier, the first XBTandem switches were installed in the US: Detroit's "Trinity" (DTRTMIMD01T) in 10/1941; Manhattan's "Interzone" (CLLI code not known) in 10/1941; San Francisco's "Bush-0" (SNFCCA0300T) in 12/1941; Oakland #1-Cal. (OKLDCA0100T) in 1/1942. (all of these XBTandems have been replaced by now -- some began to be replaced with more modern/recent technology beginning in the late 1970's.) I also have reference to a XBTandem installed in El Monte CA (ELMNCA0116T) in 3/1940, however the reference source, the Distance Dialing Co-Ordinating Handbook, AT&T's annual 'toll/tandem switching inventory', has this in error for the annual editions through 1975. The 1976 through 1981 editions indicate this XBTandem having been installed in 2/1960. Anyhow, El Monte is in *southern* California, and in the 1940's and 50's, the Los Angeles and southern California metropolitan area was a *step-by-step* switching area, and the other areas having XBTandem in the early 1940's were *panel and #1XB* local switching areas. Multifrequency Keypulsing (MFKP) address signalling was being developed in 1940, to replace revertive pulsing in #1XB local switches, and was also applied to XBTandem and #4XBToll. Baltimore was one of the first areas to have an experiment with MFKP between its #1XB local switches in 1940. While several operator toll dialing networks had existed on a regional basis since as far back as the 'teens', they were *regional*, and were based on Step-by-Step (SxS) switching technology. Dialpulses lose their effect over longer and longer lines, and have to be 'retransmitted'. It was decided to have the main backbone of a nationwide automated network to be based on XB and MFKP technology, which could store and forward digits, as well as translate digits received. The ultimate result was to be a standardized numbering plan for operators (and later customers) to dial/key toll calls. The digits dialed would be registered, forwarded, and if needed, translated to localized 0XX/1XX routing prefixes used in any regional SxS toll dialing networks. 0XX/1XX routing codes have continued to be used for network routing/control, trunk/equipment testing, and also for operator-to-operator purposes, even in a "common control" switching (XB and later ESS/Digital) and MFKP (later CCIS#6 or SS7) signalling network environment. Some of the regional SxS (opearator) toll dialing networks which had been in existance for several decades before WW-II originated from the *non* connecting competitive independent telephone companies in many cities and metro areas in the earliest decades of this century. At that time, Bell was still providing only manual operator handled connections for local service, while many independents (particularly the competitive non-connecting ones) had been introducing local dial services based on Strowger Automatic Electric SxS technology. Around the time of WW-I, Bell began to study local Panel switching for the largest metropolitan areas, but it was to have been a *semi-automatic* service, where the calling party would still have given (quoted to) the operator the called number, and if the call was in a different local exchange, the originating operator would dial (or more pecisely, key-in) the requested number. By the early 1920's, Panel switching was being adopted by Bell for local *customer* (and operator) dialing, mostly in the larger metro areas in the USA only; Bell Canada never did have Panel switching in Quebec or Ontario). Bell did adopt SxS switching for local dialing (by both customers and operators), mostly for medium cities, smaller towns and more rural areas, throughout the USA *and* Canada. When the non-connecting competitive independents were still quite much in existance, many began to interconnect their local (Strowger) SxS dialing networks togather, over a larger region, creating regional SxS operator toll dialing networks. When the various Bells and competitive independents began to 'buy-out' each other to create a single non-competitive connected network in the 'late-teens' and early 1920's, these regional SxS operator toll networks continued, and Bell began to introduce such networks on its own, or it expanded on what had already existed from the (previously competitive and non-connecting) independents. Some of the larger regions served by SxS (operator) toll dialing networks prior to the introduction of XBTandem, #4-type XBToll, MFKP technology: Southern California (a rather large area of independent telcos); Connecticut (the "semi" BOC of Southern New England Telephone); Ohio (another "semi" BOC of Cincinnati Bell Telephone; also several independents now held by United/Sprint). Michigan; The Pacific Northwest - WA/OR/ID/BC/AB (another region where GTE has been quite dominant, including in Canada; and while Alberta's telco had been owned by the provincial government and Edmonton's telco had been owned by the city government, both AGT and Edmonton Telephones had been purchasing AE Strowger SxS equipment beginning in 'the teens'.) {Bell Telephone Magazine} and {Bell Laboratories Record} both had articles on Operator Toll Dialing in 1945: "Operator Toll Dialing -- a New Long Distance Method", {Bell Telephone Magazine} v.22 (1945) #2, pages 101-115 of v.22 (1945) authors: James J. Pilliod and Harold L. Ryan "Nationwide Dialing", {Bell Laboratories Record} v.23 (1945) October issue, pages 368-372 of v.23 (1945) authored by: F. F. Shipley (of the Switching Engineering Department) In the {Bell Telephone Magazine} arrticle, there is discussion about a uniform nationwide numbering plan, with the (continental) US being divided into sixty to seventy-five areas. Each area would be assigned a three-digit code, of the N0X and N1X format, as since there are no letters on the '0' or '1' on the dial, there are no central office names/letters corresponding to such N0X/N1X codes, but rather NNX. Thus N0X/N1X area codes would not be in conflict. In the {Bell Laboratories Record} article, the discussion mentions the (continental) US being divided into sixty numbering areas, and that N1X codes would be *tentatively* used, although there are no central office names/letters corresponding to N0X as well. Incidently, a sample of a dial is shown in the article, *with* the letter 'Z' on the '0' (zero), although the article mentions that only eight digits '2' through '9' are lettered out of the possible ten digits. The {Bell Labs Record} article did mention that two-digit area codes 'could' be possible if there would be only sixty codes - i.e. less than one-hundered (or actually eighty) possible numbering areas, but 'NX' codes would make translations between central office codes and area codes rather difficult until all digits had been received and a 'time-out' in the switching equipment. So, N1X codes would be used. Both articles include an identical map of the (continental) USA, divided into numbering areas. Canada is *NOT* indicated on this map, nor is it even mentioned in the articles. Also, there are *NO* area code *numericals* shown in each numbering region -- only boundaries. What *IS* interesting is that there were some area code regions which would have contained *more* than one state. The caption beneath the map in the {Bell Telephone Magazine} article states, "How the country might look when divided into approximately 60 areas for the nation-wide numbering plan". The following is a list of each region, as proposed in 1945, using the two-letter abbreviation for each state. The numbers preceeding the state(s) is used *ONLY* as a count, and *NOT* any 'proposal' of digits for each area or region. 01) ME 02) NH *and* VT 03) MA (all) *and* RI 04) CT 05) NY (New York City *as well as* Westchester area *and* Long Island 06) NY State (eastern) 07) NY State (central) 08) NY State (western) 09) NJ 10) PA (eastern) *and* DE 11) PA (central) 12) PA (western) 13) MD *including* DC 14) VA 15) WV 16) OH (eastern) 17) OH (southern) 18) OH (northwestern) 19) MI (southern) 20) MI (northern; panhandle) 21) IN (northern) 22) IN (southern) 23) IL (Chicago area) 24) IL (northern) 25) IL (central) 26) IL (southern) 27) WI (southeastern) 28) WI (remainder) 29) NC *and* SC 30) GA 31) FL 32) KY 33) TN 34) AL 35) MS *and* LA 36) MO (eastern) 37) MO (western) 38) KS (eastern) 39) KS (western) 40) OK 41) AR 42) TX (northeastern) 43) TX (southern) 44) TX (western) 45) MN (southeastern) 46) MN (remainder) 47) IA (eastern) 48) IA (central) 49) IA (western) 50) NE 51) SD 52) ND 53) NM *and* CO 54) AZ, UT, *and* NV 55) WY, MT, *and* ID 56) WA 57) OR 58) CA (northern) 59) CA (central) 60) CA (southern) One final note -- in the text of the {Bell Telephone Magazine} article, mention is made that some numbering areas would contain more than one state, 'such as North and South Dakota'. However, the map indicates separate area codes for North Dakota and South Dakota, while according to the map example, North Carolina and South Carolina would have 'shared' a single area code. There are also various other articles in {Bell Telephone Magazine} as well as {Bell System Technical Journal} and {Bell Laboratories Record} from the late 1940's through the early 1960's regarding Operator Toll Dialing and how it was evolving into DDD, area codes, local numbering (i.e. EXchange names and initially how 'standardized' names would be better for customer quoting and remembering in a nationwide/continentwide DDD situation, but later how ANC - All Numbering Calling was better), Crossbar switching, multifrequency keypulsing signalling, etc. Of course, much of the actual 1945 and 1946/47 area code proposal was just planning, although eventually was reformatted into the original 'finalized' 1947 assignment scheme of eighty-six area codes, which has been added on to over the decades, although these current three years (1995 through 1997), I have identified *at least fifty-eight* "POTS" (geographic - non-SAC) area codes being assigned and active! Not counting the SAC's for TWX (N10), the N00's (800 for Toll-Free and 900 for 'mass-calling'), nor the 'patch' codes for access to Mexico, only thirty-five area codes were assigned (after the original eighty-six were finalized in 1947) between 1948 and 1965. This remained relatively stable until the early 1980's. And while a handful of codes were assigned between 1982 and 1989, even the 1980's was still a relatively stable period! MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE: 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: BGOODIN@UNEX.UCLA.EDU (William R. Goodin) Subject: UCLA Short Course: "HBT IC Technology For Comm Applications" Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 13:57:40 Organization: UCLA Extension On February 12-14, 1997, UCLA Extension will present the short course, "HBT IC Technology for Communications Applications", on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. The instructors are Bahram Jalali, PhD, Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering Department, UCLA, and Madjid Hafizi, PhD, Senior Research Staff, Hughes Research Laboratories. This course presents an in-depth treatment of GaAs, InP, and GeSi-based Heterojunction Bipolar Transistor (HBT) technologies and their application in today's growing communication markets. HBT has emerged as a key enabling technology for wireless communications, data conversion, mixed-signal/mixed-mode applications, and high data rate fiber-optic communications. The course begins with a concise review of the physics of HBT devices and a comparison with MESFET and HEMT technologies. This comparison provides a foundation for selecting the right technology for a particular application. Technology performance characteristics such as DC, RF, noise, power amplification, linearity, intermodulation distortion, manufacturability, reliability, yield and cost issues are compared. Modeling of HBT devices for circuit simulation is presented including linear and nonlinear models and thermal modeling. Material issues are covered including epitaxial crystal growth, MBE and MOCVD materials, followed by a look at commercial vendors of epitaxial material and material qualification. Fundamentals of HBT processing including device and IC fabrication, passive components, planarization, heat sink approaches (particularly for power devices), lithography, dry etching, and yield limitations are explored, as are state-of-the-art HBT device performance and reliability issues. The important role of HBT in meeting the requirements of current wireless systems is discussed. Power amplifiers are covered in-depth including such relevant issues as efficiency, linearity, intermodulation distortion, and thermal stability. The course reviews commercially available HBT IC's for wireless markets, and covers Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADC) ranging from ultra-fast flash-type converters to high-resolution delta-sigma modulators and the architectures in between. This involves a review of ADC characteristics such as SNR, SFDR, NPR, differential and integral nonlinearity, effective number of bit, and aperture jitter, in relation to HBT device characteristics. Mixed-mode/mixed-signal applications of the technology such as multiple device integration including HBT/HEMT, HBT/RTD, HBT/PIN-PD, and HBT/MESFET mixed-device techniques are examined. The course shows how these new technologies are applied to mixed/mode systems such as digital receivers (including HEMT orMESFET low-noise amplifier, HBT downconverter and HBT ADC) or tointegrated optical receivers (including PIN photodetector, transimpedanceand AGC amplifiers). Finally, the course presents ultra-high speed applications of the technology in the emerging market of 40 Gbit/s optical communications, including high-speed digital circuits such as dividers, MUX/DEMUX, and clock/data recovery circuits. The course fee is $1195, which includes extensive course materials. These materials are for participants only, and are not for sale. For a more information and a complete course description, please contact Marcus Hennessy at: (310) 825-1047 (310) 206-2815 fax mhenness@unex.ucla.edu http://www.unex.ucla.edu/shortcourses This course may also be presented on-site at company locations. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 16:54:04 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "The Web Server Handbook" by Palmer/Schneider/Chenette BKWBSRHB.RVW 960910 "The Web Server Handbook", Pete Palmer/Adam Schneider/Anne Chenette, 1996, 0-13-239930-X, U$39.95/C$51.00 %A Pete Palmer %A Adam Schneider %A Anne Chenette %C One Lake St., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 %D 1996 %G 0-13-239930-X %I Prentice Hall %O U$39.95/C$51.00 +1-201-236-7139 fax: 201-236-7131 beth_hespe@prenhall.com %P 460 %T "The Web Server Handbook" There *are* three chapters in the book which give you details on how to set up a Web server for UNIX, Windows, and the Mac. These chapters are reasonably detailed and helpful. However, they only occupy about a quarter of the book, by weight. The rest of the book talks about browsing, HTML, publicity, Perl and other such topics. There are other resources which handle these areas better. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKWBSRHB.RVW 960910 Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. Vancouver roberts@decus.ca | "Metabolically Institute for rslade@vcn.bc.ca | challenged" Research into slade@freenet.victoria.bc.ca | User rslade@vanisl.decus.ca | politically correct Security Canada V7K 2G6 | term for "dead" ------------------------------ Subject: GTE Long Distance in Oklahoma Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 11:14:08 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) GTE Begins Long-Distance Telephone Service in Oklahoma By Ray Tuttle, Tulsa World, Okla. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Dec. 11--GTE on Tuesday began offering long-distance service to Oklahomans, marketing it under the name GTE Easy Savings Plan. The Federal Telecommunications Act makes it easier for companies like GTE to deliver expanded services to customers, said Barb Bellinghausen, director of GTE long distance. "AT GTE, we promised we would be quick to market once the telecommunications bill became law. Today, we are making good on that promise." GTE, which services Broken Arrow and 26 other communities in Oklahoma, offers local telephone service to about 95,000 customers in the state. GTE is partnering with WorldCom to provide the long-distance service. "We are offering the service but it is WorldCom's pipes," Bellinghausen said. Jackson, Miss.-based WorldCom, which also operates offices in Tulsa, also offers long-distance service in Oklahoma, said spokesman Gil Broyles. "We have agreements with Ameritech, GTE and Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems. But our market emphasis is on business long distance. GTE long-distance service is available to any consumer in the state, regardless of which company provides their local telephone service. Price discounts are available once a customer has spent as little as $10, Bellinghausen said. For example, a residential customer spending a total of $10 a month on all GTE long distance services will save ten percent. GTE, which is also was offering Internet access through UUNet, is marketing its services in 26 other states where GTE offers local telephone service, with plans to offer service by the end of the month in all 50 states. Prior to the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, GTE offered local service calls within the 918 area code. Once the telephone company gained approval from the federal government, it started seeking regulatory approval from the 27 states where it has operations. ------------------------------ Subject: New Utah Area Code Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 11:39:16 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) The Salt Lake Tribune Business Briefs Column The Salt Lake Tribune Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Dec. 10--HEARINGS TONIGHT ON AREA CODE: The Utah Public Service Commission (PSC) holds a statewide video tele-hearing tonight on plans to add a telephone area code. The PSC estimates the available three-digit local prefixes within the 801 area code will be used up by early 1998 -- largely the result of increased use of cellular phones and pagers, and phone lines for fax machines and computer modems. Under a recommended proposal, exchanges in Davis, Weber, Salt Lake and Utah counties -- the most populated region of the state -- would retain the 801 area code, while all other areas of Utah would be assigned a new area code. Once approved, the area code could take effect next summer, and several months would be allowed to phase in use of the new area code for long distance callers. Utah residents wishing to discuss the issue with the three-member PSC can show up at one of about 20 educational sites across the state that are linked to the Utah Educational Network. Those include the College of Eastern Utah in Price, Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah State University in Logan and Instructional Media Services on the University of Utah campus. Several high schools and technical schools, from Brigham City to Kanab, also will have facilities for the public to respond live to the PSC. For details on the sites, call the PSC at (801) 530-6716. ------------------------------ From: Jesus Redondo Organization: DIT-UPM Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 21:11:13 +0000 Subject: Interconnection in the Internet I am wondering about how the interconnection among ISPs is provided. Telecom operators set interconnection rates that reflect the cost of the local loop (i.e. a Bell Network) used by a long distance provider to complete a call, this interconnection rates usually are expressed in terms of cents/minute of usage. The international traffic is regulated by the accounting rate regime, which many times is not related to the real cost The Internet is composed by many ISPs that interconnect their networks, each one must allow the use of his network to the others to let them reach a third party. Is there any kind of 'interconnection rates' for this service or is it only a negotiation between the parts? I would appreciate any information around this or references about forums, papers or any place where I could find it. Jesus Redondo e-mail: jr@dit.upm.es DIT-UPM ETSI Telecomunicacion Ciudad Universitaria s/n 28040 Madrid, Spain e-mail: jrv@dit.upm.es DIT-UPM phone: +341 5495700 x.366 ETSI Telecomunicaciones fax: +341 5432077 Ciudad Universitaria s/n 28040 Madrid Spain ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 10:03:39 -0500 From: The Old Bear Subject: MFS to Offer Digital Subscriber Line Service MFS TO OFFER SPEEDY INTERNET SERVICE OVER PHONE LINES MFS Communications plans to offer Digital Subscriber Line service to customers early next year, providing high-speed Internet connections over existing telephone lines. Initially, MFS's connect speeds will be equivalent to ISDN links -- about four times faster than a typical 28.8 modem -- but ultimately it plans to offer data transmission at rates 20 times faster than conventional modems. source: Wall Street Journal December 10, 1996 -----------end included text----------- Even if the RBOCs have not figured out that those subscriber loops are a treasured resource, the new entrant LECs (like MFS) seem to have a clue -- and a big one at that. By offering these enhanced services over existing local loop facilities (probably leased at cost from the RBOCs), the new entrants are going to be able to offer all kinds of attractive and creative service bundles while the RBOCs continue to dither about ISDN and nailed-up switched circuits. This is good for the consumer, but really unfortunate for the RBOCs which, knowing that local competition was on its way, have focused on how they are going to enter the "lucrative" long distance market (now being challenged by services like internet phone), rather than focus on how to exploit their existing postion in their local market. For years, Intel has prospered by offering new and innovative products and -- as soon as competitors could produce a 'me too' copy -- coming out with something new and dropping the price the existing product, thus squeezing those "me too" competitors who then have to recoup their R&D cost in a lower-margin market. Here was an example of where the RBOCs could have gotten out ahead of the curve and built a market position which would be hard to follow. Instead, ignoring the fact that the game has changed, most of the RBOCs have attempted to keep rates high for existing services and to price new services still higher. This, of course, has produced a delightful "price umbrella" which invites new competitors into a market where margins are so high as to allow lots of room for error while learning the business. I sympathize with some of the comments made by Pat concerning how some of the new entrant LECs will just buy services from the RBOC at mandated wholesale prices and resell to the consumer at a low enough mark-up to undercut existing tariffs. But the new entrants can only play that game because the RBOCs made it possible by not exploiting the potential of their own existing plant to build value-driven barriers in anticipation of the impending competition. Having spoken informally to a few people down in the ranks of my local RBOC about this, the story I have heard is that the technical people, and the lower-level marketing folks who are close to the customers, have recoginized this for years but have been unable to get any interest from senior management -- which has preferred pricing local exchange services to maximize current margins, treating traditional local loop wireline as an eventual lost cause, and seeking opportunities in all manner of information and entertainment products beyond the ken of their traditional lines of business. Cheers, The Old Bear ------------------------------ From: bjg90783@rosie.uh.edu (B.J. Guillot) Subject: Southwestern Bell Gets Out of Visa Card Business Date: 10 Dec 1996 23:21:00 CST Organization: University of Houston Got this letter in the mail from Southwestern Bell Visa Card ... Starting January 2, 1997, your account will be handled solely by Mercantile Bank of Illinois National Assocation. Because of recent events in the credit card industry, Southwestern Bell will no longer be assoicated with your current Southwestern Bell Visa card. ... you will receive a new MercRewards Visa card by March, 1997. Your account number, interest rate and most other terms of your account will remain the same and you will continue to receive up to 2% cash back on purchases. ... you will no longer be able to bill your residential and/or cellular phone bills to your Southwestern Bell account, nor will you earn the 5% phone reward on these bills. ... Please pay [your phone bill] directly. In February 1997, you will receive a check for your phone rewards accumulated on your account through the end of December, 1996. ... Southwestern Bell will give you a one-time SPECIAL PAYMENT of $20. This SPECIAL PAYMENT is in appreciation for your participation in the Southwestern Bell Visa phone rewards program. ... You may continue to use your current Southwestern Bell Visa card until your MercRewards Visa card arrives. When you receive your new card, please destroy your old Southwestern Bell Visa card. ---------------------------------------- Other comments. About two or three months ago, I got an insert in my phone bill saying I was "pre-approved" for a SWB Visa card. I called, and they took my information, gave me a $15 credit, and told me I had a $1500 credit limit. A few weeks later, I received my card, and noticed the paperwork it came with claimed the credit limit was $200 (yes, a $200 limit on a credit card!) They would not raise that limit. Anyway, it was interesting to see this letter saying that SWB is no longer in the credit card business after just two months that I've had my card. Does anyone know what "recent events in the credit card industry" refer to? Could this have anything to do with the merger of SWBT (aka SBC) and that other Bell company? Oh, and there was an additional insert in the letter that included instructions on how to set your savings or checking account for deductions. Other thing ... If the credit card account number is staying the same, what need is there to send a new card and destroy the old card? Oh, three out of four of my credit cards are from telephone companies (Southwestern Bell, AT&T, and GTE). I'm planning to get rid of the GTE card soon since they charge over 20% interest! Regards, Command line driven fax software http://www.blkbox.com/~bgfax/ B.J. Guillot ... Houston, Texas USA I don't believe in coffee ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #659 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Dec 12 03:05:20 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id DAA20824; Thu, 12 Dec 1996 03:05:20 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 03:05:20 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612120805.DAA20824@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #660 TELECOM Digest Thu, 12 Dec 96 03:05:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 660 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges (Nils Andersson) Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges (Brett Frankenberger) Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges (Joel M. Hoffman) Re: N11 Codes (Brian Purcell) Re: N11 Codes (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes (Nils Andersson) Re: Area Code Splits - Why? (hirschd1@ix.netcom.com) Telecom History in Sweden (Sam Spens Clason) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges Date: 11 Dec 1996 21:36:08 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to cgordon@worldnet.att.net: > [...he no longer has to fight with his customer to get the money? Are > 800 subscribers to now be at the mercy of COCOTS just as people who > accept collect calls are at the mercy of the Alternate Operator Services > and whatever outrageous charges per minute they demand? PAT] I will stick to my self-imposed gag rule on arguing _whether_ cocots should have the right to collect money for 800. I will note that this development, regardless of what I or anybody else in this ngewsgroup thinks, is fairly likely, due to two underlying shifts: 1) Regulatory: The local telcos will be spinning off their own payphones to be accounted for separately, even if owned by the telco, so cross-subsidization will end. ALL PAYPHONES WILL BE COCOTS! This will increase the pressure for payment, as well increase the impact on society of "getting charged for 800". There is no longer a concept of "THE PHONE COMPANY", and this is precisely the point; you cannot rely on cross-subsidies. 2) Industry trends: More and more calls are becoming 800 calls, even if to CALL ATT. ON THE ASSUMPTION THAT 800 _WILL_BE_REIMBURSED, how should this be done? There are several NOT mutually exclusive possibilitie, here are three of them: 1) Caller pays with coin. This is easy and clean technically, and I hear that we are already seeing it in spots . (BTW, lots of countries with toll-free numbers have this system, you pay as for a local call but it is usually untimed.) The main problem is that this is often inconvenient if you do not have the right coins, and there are many semi-emergencies (e.g. car breakdown) that do not warrant calling 911, but you REALLY NEED A PHONE, you do not typically mind paying for it, but you may not have the coin. 2) Bill to 800 owner. Clearly, we have had enough scams, and having a COCOT owner being able to bill any amount is not reasonable, and would kill most 800, hardly an improvement, any more than killing most payphones. The best but technically trickiest fix would be to have each 800 owner allow or disallow charges (it could even be "charges up to x cents/min or x cents/call", but the likely solution is a fixed amount per call, say 35 cents). I do not know how hard this would be without segregating numbers per prefix or per area code (800 or 888 or whatever). Technology to the rescue! 3) Bill third party, credit card, home phone, whatever. The COCOT owner could post a special number (could be "0") where you negotiate this stuff with an operator or a computer. The owner could also allow you to use a telco credit card (or a bank/Amex credit card) to charge the 35 cents (or any other charges for that matter). To cover handling charges, the actual charge may have to be a little higher, even a dollar, but would you really mind if you need AAA and your car has broken down? Remeber, without reimbursement the alternative might well be that there was no payphone! Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: brettf@netcom.com (Brett Frankenberger) Subject: Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 03:13:36 GMT > I don't have a problem with this. But I _do_ have a problem with > payphones charging the _caller_ for 800 calls. The whole idea of 800 > (and now 888) service is that the caller doesn't need to pay! There > are several reasons for this: You have to pay for calls to 800 numbers made with your cellphone. Do you object to this also? > One, already mentioned, is convenience. If I want my daughter to be > able to call home from the swimming pool, a personal 800 number means > she doesn't need to carry a dime (excuse me -- a quarter (wait, it's > 35 cents (no, it's 50 cents))) to call home. Suppose your daughter is somewhere where there is no nearby pay phone? Certainly it would increase convenience for her, if, say, there were payphones within, say, 500 feet of every location. Should we pass a law requring pay phones be located every 500 feet, simply to increase convenience? > How about, let's say, a spousal abuse hotline? The old man just threw > her out on the street (literally) and she has no money at all. Yeah, > you could go with collect in this situation but 800 would be a lot > easier for the clients, and in this case that's important. How about > other hotlines; suicide prevention, for instance? Crimebusters? I agree that banning fees for 800 calls would be beneficial to victims of spousal abuse. But requiring pay phones every 500 feet would also be beneficial to victims of spousal abuse. Where do you draw the line? Is the convienience of the public always paramount to the ability of a business to make a profit? And even if you feel that it is: What if several COCOTS owners go out of business because of lack of revenue because they cannot charge for 800 service. That would certainly decrease convienience for people who can no longer make calls because the phone is going. Is it possible that result of banning fees for 800 numbers would cause a net decrease in convenience. (Or, if you prefer, the argument can be reversed -- isn't it possible that the increased proliferation of payphones as a result of allowing fees for calls to 800 numbers would provide a net increase in convienience?) > 800 has, since its inception, been sold to the general public as a > "free call". Now the rules are being changed. The rules changed when cellular came out. That was a long time ago. > As I said, I don't mind (much) having to pay extra for calls made to > my 800 number from a payphone. But it's not right (whatever _that_ > means) to make the caller pay for an 800 call. Ever. Including cell phones? Including overseas calls? Brett (brettf@netcom.com) Brett Frankenberger ------------------------------ From: joel@exc.com (Joel M. Hoffman) Subject: Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges Date: 11 Dec 1996 15:19:39 GMT Organization: Excelsior Computer Services >> This does not, however, solve the underlying problems. I firmly >> believe that payphone operators have a right to be reimbursed for any >> service they provide (just like the rest of us). There are various > [...] > of us hadn't examined it, is that those "rules" were for _our_ benefit. This is the crux of the issue: is the US telephone network in place to help businesses make money or to help citizens communicate? If the former, then COCOT's have the right to charge what the market will bear. If the latter, then people have the right to 800 numbers. It's really as simple as that. My position (stated before in this forum) is that we are making a tremendous mistake in categorizing telephone service with, say, stereos. The country and its citizens have a right to, and a need for, communication. Joel (joel@exc.com) ------------------------------ From: bpurcell@centuryinter.net (Brian Purcell) Subject: Re: N11 Codes Date: Wed, 11 Dec 96 15:18:09 GMT Organization: Wide-Lite Mark J. Cuccia recently said: > Since the only real three-digit N11 code that has any REAL universal > assignment or reservation is 911(altho' some locations don't yet offer > 911 service), the codes 211 through 811 should be used as 'POTS' > central office codes." What about 411? On 12/8/96, Marty Tennant wrote: > Many people feel that N11 codes are "national treasures" and should > not be used for commercial purposes as BellSouth has regretably done. Couldn't agree more. The whole concept behind N11 codes was to provide a short, easy to remember number for special services (emergency, DA, repair, etc.). The idea of selling these off like BellSouth has done completely defeats the whole purpose of having the codes in the first place and should be banned. > Also, the General Services Administration would like one of the codes > as a generic means of calling the U.S. Government! Not sure that > would work. Many independent telcos use the codes for their business > office number. I thought that was what the toll-free number for the Federal Information Center was for. > In Texas, a proposal was floated awhile back to auction off one of the > N11 codes on a county-wide basis to ISPs for the provisioning of local > access to state and local Internet based information services. The > government access part would be free, but the winning bidder would be > able to charge for other information sources. Don't think this > concept went anywhere. You know, I live in Texas and I heard about the debate, but I never heard the outcome. I'll check with the PUC and see what happened. > I think President Clinton recently supported the use of another N11 > code as a non-emergency alternative to overloaded 911 centers. > Evidently, we have trained the public to call 911 when it really isn't > necessary. In this proposal, an N11 code would ring at the local > police office that handles regular non-emergency calls. I don't think > all the public assistance folks out there agree with this position, as > there would be confusion and an incredible public education effort. Yep, 311 was recently implemented in Baltimore as the non-emergency 911. > I do not support the use of N11 codes as central office prefixes, just > as I don't support their use in BellSouth territory as pay-per-use > information service numbers. I'm pretty sure that N11 codes *can't* be used as CO codes since it would difficult to program equipment to recognize only a few of the N11s as special service numbers and the others as CO codes. > I agree that they should be considered "national treasures" and should > be used for appropriate non-commercial purposes. These purposes may > not be evident at this time. Yes, as we've learned in recent years with NPAs, you never know what the future will bring. Brian Purcell bpurcell@centuryinter.net ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 10:56:45 -0800 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Re: N11 Codes Marty Tennant wrote: > Mark J. Cuccia recently said: >> "IMO, The N11 codes should have NEVER been used in the way some areas >> are now using them. Since the only real three-digit N11 code that has >> any REAL universal assignment or reservation is 911(altho' some >> locations don't yet offer 911 service), the codes 211 through 811 >> should be used as 'POTS' central office codes." > Esteemed readers, > This issue has been discussed in a still open docket at the FCC for > some time now. > Many people feel that N11 codes are "national treasures" and should > not be used for commercial purposes as BellSouth has regretably done. > In Canada and in Hawaii (GTE), N11 codes have been used for Telephone > Relay Service for TDD users. They argue for a uniform number to make > access for hearing impaired telephone users consistent across state > lines, rather than a mishmash of toll free numbers. > Also, the General Services Administration would like one of the codes > as a generic means of calling the U.S. Government! Not sure that > would work. Many independent telcos use the codes for their business > office number. If the US Federal Government wants a 'simple' or more 'generic' way of reaching its departments, offices, bureaus, etc. (hopefully toll-free) by the public -- the *citizenry* who *PAY* the salaries and bills of the government, *WHY* should a handful of the few 'national treasure' N11 codes be used? Doesn't the US Federal Government have its *OWN* Special Area Code, 710? AFAIK, there is only one 'working' number on 710, which is 710-NCS-GETS (710-627-4387). While there may also be a few more 'secret' seven-digit line-numbers not yet publicized, the 710 SAC could be used for up to almost eight-hundered possible central office NXX codes, each with a theoretical possible ten-thousand possible -xxxx line-numbers! That would allow a *FAR* bigger numbering space for reaching the departments of the Washington DC (District of Criminals?) central government, than would taking up any few other N11 codes! MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE: 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: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 09:24:10 -0800 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes Michael S. Craig wrote: > FYI, in Canada, there has been a consistent, albeit far from universal, > use of N11 codes for a variety of deemed-to-be *public* services: > 211 Not used > 311 Not used > 411 Directory Assistance (mirrors 1-NXX-555-12-12 ... used to be > local-only, now covers NPA) > 511 Not used (has been used for separation of TDD and TTY Relay Services) > 611 Telco Repair Service > 711 Relay Service (primary number: see 511 above) > 811 Telco Business Office (customer service) > 911 Emergency > This is far from universal in terms of everybody actually using the > codes, but at least the various provincial telcos have not put > contrary services in place at the end of these codes. In general, Cdn > telcos have taken a cooperative / consensus approach to N11 usage and > have not supported the commercialization of N11 services. This > position does acknowledge the existing / reasonable use of 611 and 811 > as *telco* access numbers. In mailings I receive from the CSCN (Canadian Steering Committee on Numbering), a 'Canada-specific' forum similar to the 'NANP-wide' INC (Industry Numbering Committee), 511 and 711 have been proposed or reserved or assigned to TDD/TTY 'relay' services, similar to the 800-855-1155 (or 800-855-xxxx) numbers. I don't remember which maps to which, but there are *two* N11 codes (511 and 711) for TDD/TTY 'relay' services for the Hearing-Impaired, as one N11 code answers at the relay center with a *modem* for hearing-impaired customers with a TDD/TTY calling out, and the other N11 code answers at the relay center with a voice operator (live human? automated?) for voice customers placing calls to TDD/TTY-abled hearing imparied customers. There is also discussion in the CSCN regarding Canadian use of 211 for 'interactive voice/information services' for the blind and print-handic ... er -- visually/print challenged. There are two different Canadian assistance or advocacy groups for the blind which have been in existance in Canada for many decades, which have proposed the use of 211 to the CSCN for this type of service. I would hope that if 'interactive voice/info services' using 211 in Canada were to be implemented, that the CRTC makes *absolutely sure* that it wouldn't become a 'commercialized PAY-PAY-PAY-per-call' service. At least the CRTC, Industry-Canada, etc. have prevented COCOTS and AOSlime from becoming active in Canada over the past twelve years, although the US based COCOT/AOSlime 'industry' has been trying. I still feel that N11 codes (except for 911) should be 'reclaimed' from their 'reserved' three-digit status in the NANP. Local Directory could become (NPA)-555-1212 instead of 411; in many areas local Repair and Business Office have been becoming toll-free seven-digit or 800/888 ten-digit numbers; any PAY-per-call numbers should be available *ONLY* on the 900 Special Area Code; and since most local switches in the NANP are ESS/Digital (i.e. they can handle 'custom calling' and CLASS features with *XX/11XX codes), localized test numbers (Ring-back, ANAC, etc) could become *standardized* NANP-wide with such *XX/11XX codes. Even local directory, repair, business office could become something like *411/11411, *611/11611, *811/11811 in the future. This is similar to the cellular's uses of *XXX-send codes. All N11 codes (except for 911) could then be available for POTS seven-digit assignments in POTS NPA's (N11-xxxx). 911 would remain 'sacred' as a three-digit code, although it too could also be permissively dialable as *911/11911. Maybe Bellcore-NANPA and the INC should look into revising the "Vertical Service Code (*XX) Assignments". MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE: 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: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes Date: 11 Dec 1996 21:36:12 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , Craig, Michael S. writes: > for example, ... 911 (and to a lesser extent the European 999 equivalent) > was routed to the operator to ensure the customer got *an answer* in the > absence of true 911-Emergency service. 999 is the older British code, NOT Europe-wide. (Example: Sweden uses 90 000.) Various countries have had each their own emergency number. European Union and possbly some non-EU countries in Europe are standardizing to 112, currently some countries are in the "permissive dialling" mode, eihter will work. Also, 112 will always work from a GSM phone in Europe (the cellswitch translates as necessary, and the GSM net and phone have been expediting the 112 since 1991, even with no subscription, no SIM card etc). Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: hirschd1@ix.netcom.com Subject: Re: Area Code Splits - Why? Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 18:49:05 -0500 Organization: Netcom Eric Bohlman wrote: > Robert McMillin (rlm@netcom.com) wrote: >> Do you mean to force people to buy $100-200 worth of hardware if they >> want additional phone lines? How would the lines be delivered? >> Doesn't analog DID require a trunk bundle to be hauled to the >> customer? Who and in what manner is this to be paid for? > Assuming that the customer just needs several separate *numbers* > (rather than the ability to handle several *calls* at the same time), > $100-$200 would be less than the yearly cost of 5 or more lines. > I'm pretty sure that the protocol that's used to deliver Caller ID > information from the CO to the subscriber can be extended to handle > delivery of the number actually dialed (IIRC, there's a "type" field for > which CID is just one option). > I actually have a mini-version of this on my office line. I have > three numbers with distinctive ring patterns all coming into the same > line. One of them is my regular business number, one is my fax number > (my fax traffic is too low to justify having a separate line) and one > is pointed to by my 800 number (so when I get a voice call I can tell > if I'm paying for it). I use a $60 "Ring Decipher" box to split the > fax number from the voice numbers. > Another thing that could relieve number congestion: a lot of > residential customers get a line solely for modem use, and it's almost > always used purely for outgoing calls. Why should such a line need a > number at all? Why can't the LECs offer an "anonymous" outgoing-only > line? One reason is that the DOD line needs a number because the RBOC needs to update the Local Exchange Routing Guide (LERG) so that they or another carrier to whom the RBOC delivers the traffic can determine the jurisdictional nature of the call. Each NXX (first three digits of a seven digit phone number) is associated with a specific CO and is assigned a V&H coordinate. Keep in mind that even when you buy DID for a PBX at least one number is assigned to the end user. Another reason is E911. If the E911 database cannot determine where the call originates it poses a liability nightmare to the RBOC. Imagine soomeone calls 911 from the phone without a number and the E911 database cannot match it to a location and something happens to that end user, the RBOC is deep in liability hell. ------------------------------ Subject: Telecom History in Sweden Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 16:44:32 +0100 From: Sam Spens Clason Hello Pat, I'm writing a term paper on the evolution of telephones in Sweden. The perspective I'm putting on it is: What if there had been truly free competition. In the beginning Sweden had a very free policy with lots of private operators all over the country and after only a few years the number of telephones in Sweden was very high. In, by international comparison, small-town Stockholm the absolute number of telephones was greater than in Paris, London and Berlin by 1885. This evolution was then to some extent hampered by the government since the inter-urban phone calls were a threat to the (state owned) telegraph. The phases were: 1) The government was not interested; 2) The government saw it as a way to extend and promote the telegraph. A distributed telegraph office, in modern terminology; 3) Private LD, seen as a threat to the telegraph which "served all the country to the better of society" (have we heard that one before, I mean after that ); 4) Prohibiting private LD and building a state LD network (two years later) Buying the competition by refusing interterconnection and/or demanding outrageous fees for it. 5) *de facto* monopoly. It appears that the first networks used single-wire phones. The government telegraphy board required that all networks interconnecting to their local networks and long distance network must be *all* two-wire phones. The official version is that only then could the customers make long-distance calls with good quality. That and other levys (e.g. LD between cities with telegraph stations was much more expensive) forced the many community or private networks to sell their networks to the telegraphy board. It also appears that the telephone, switchboards etc for the two-line system laid the foundation for LM Ericsson. There can be three reasons for this: 1) Ericsson made better and cheaper phones (than Bell); 2) The telegraphy board were protectionistic; 3) There were very few brands of two-wire systems on the market since it wasn't a hit else were; I *guess* it is the later one, but I'm far from sure. What were the time perspectives in other countries for converting to two-line systems and can anyone please tell me if the difference for a long distance call over, say 600 km, really was that big. The time-perspective in my paper is 1881-1902, i.e. the introduction of public telephony by Stockholm Bell on September 1 1881 and the government (forced) acquisition of "Stockholm Public Telephone" (which successfully had out-manoeuvered and subsequently bought the Bell company). Sam PS I will make the paper available on the web. PPS Please respond by email (as well). http://www.nada.kth.se/~sam home +46 70 1234567 cell +46 70 7821022 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #660 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Dec 13 09:01:04 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id JAA24728; Fri, 13 Dec 1996 09:01:04 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 09:01:04 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612131401.JAA24728@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #661 TELECOM Digest Fri, 13 Dec 96 09:01:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 661 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call (Linc Madison) Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call (Edward Shuck) Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call (Garrett Wollman) Re: WebTV vs. Client and Display Technology (Jay R. Ashworth) Re: WebTV vs. Client and Display Technology (Lauren Weinstein) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Jeff Colbert) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Andy McFadden) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Thomas P. Brisco) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Hudson Leighton) Book Review: "Asynchronous Transfer Mode: Technical Overview" (Rob Slade) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 03:20:51 -0800 Organization: No unsolicited commercial e-mail! In article , clive@demon.net wrote: > In article , "Mark J. Cuccia" > writes: > ... an awful lot, most of which I agree with. However, he also writes: >> Over the past few years, we've seen International PAY-per-call scams, some >> in the NANP Caribbean, and some to numbers (but not necessarily locations) >> outside of the NANP. > I don't see how you can class these as scams. With the +1 809 and non- > NANP numbers, you pay *exactly* the same as a call to a "genuine" > number in that area. Provided it's clearly presented as an > international call the way a genuine call would be presented, what's > the problem? That's precisely the point -- it's often NOT clearly presented as an international call. I've seen numerous spams on the net with such weak disclaimers as "Long distance charges apply if calling from outside the 664 area code." The 664 area code is the island of Montserrat, which I don't think even has a single ISP, so the wording of the disclaimer is deliberately disingenuous at the least, particularly since a grand total of three people on earth who don't read TELECOM Digest know that 664 is the new area code for Montserrat. There have also been numerous cases of e-mails or pager calls to get people to dial numbers in the Caribbean with fraudulent intent. There is also the question of whether these calls actually physically terminate in the country indicated by the number, or whether they are siphoned off domestically, but still charged the international rate. I haven't seen any documentation for the allegation that this practice occurs, but if it does, I would consider that a scam. Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ From: edshuck@best.com (Edward Shuck) Subject: Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 03:42:01 GMT Organization: Visual Traffic Reply-To: edshuck@visual-traffic.com Hi Clive, The US and the UK have two forms of the same problem it you happen to manage the telecom for a company, and that is keeping down costs and keeping the service to the users high. This takes money. Calls from the UK to ac 809 are fully recognized as long distance calls by everyone in the UK that can dial a phone. Praise your quality education for that one. But in the US, where the former vice president cannot spell potato, geography is not a core subject. So now how is it a pay per call scam. Lets consider the Dominican Republic for a moment. The sex lines in the Dominican Republic do not tell you when they will be billing for 2.99 or 4.99 per minute. There is no, repeat NO, statute that says they will or must or even hints at it. The Telecommunications act of 1995 addresses only the United States of America. What I would like,and I think Mark as well, is that the US would have the regular (regular for us) NPA NNX abcd numbering and for us to call the rest of the world would require a 011. Nice neat clean. That way our companies and corps that do not make international calls can block the 976s and look alikes, the 900s and the 011 and the telcom managers can avoid at least one staff meeting a week. Edward Shuck edshuck@visual-traffic.com Visual Traffic http://www.visual-traffic.com Telephone Traffic Analysis/Phreaker & Telabuse Abatement ------------------------------ From: wollman@halloran-eldar.lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call Date: 12 Dec 1996 10:49:59 -0500 Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science In article , Clive D.W. Feather wrote: > I don't see how you can class these as scams. With the +1 809 and non- > NANP numbers, you pay *exactly* the same as a call to a "genuine" > number in that area. Provided it's clearly presented as an > international call the way a genuine call would be presented, what's > the problem? These numbers are rarely presented as being international. They are presented as being ``FREE(*)'' with a footnote in tiny illegible print saying ``normal toll charges will apply''. Usually the number is also presented with a carrier access code and reformatted in such a way as to hide its international nature; for example: > Tel: +44 181 371 1138 | Demon Internet Ltd. | CityScape Internet ... might be presented as: 101-051-801-144-181-371-1138 (10518/101-0518 is one of the AOSlime these lot get, or have in the past gotten, kickbacks from). It's even `worse' for NANP international calls, since most telephone users have no notion that there are such things. (I don't consider that an excuse, myself.) There are also outfits that use Canadian numbers, particularly in Vancouver: 105-181-604-xxx-xxxx Garrett A. Wollman wollman@lcs.mit.edu ------------------------------ From: jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) Subject: Re: WebTV vs. Client and Display Technology Date: 12 Dec 1996 18:57:01 GMT Organization: University of South Florida Fearless Leader wrote: > A word now to those of you who read this and decide to get in the back > of your television set and experiment: *** discharge that bugger before > you go sticking your hands in there *** ! Old television sets tend to > retain a charge for a long time; a very long time in fact. I've seen > sets that were turned off and unplugged for a week or more still be > loaded with juice. Those capacitors take forever to leak it out. It > makes quite a frightful but fun display for all the neighborhood kids. > Invite them in to watch, then take a *very big* screwdriver with a > plastic handle you can hold -- do not touch the metal part! Probe in > there with the metal part of the screwdriver, touching it to those > big caps you see in there one at a time and simultaneously to ground. Actually the major storage of high-voltage is in the CRT itself, which acts as a large capacitor. > Each time you do that, there will be a loud bang! and sparks will > fly out of the back of the television at you. Don't worry; it won't > hurt you, it just looks scary and mean. Do that three or four times > or until the television set quits backfiring at you. Now it is okay to > stick your hands in there wherever you want with no concern. It won't hurt you, but it may well ruin the TV. Output transistors in high voltage multipliers tend not to appreciate this sort of behavior. > Now should you forget that first and foremost safety precaution as I > did one day when I was trying to work on a linear amplifier for a CB > radio for someone, it'll knock you on your keister and you will spend > the rest of the day with a sort of crazed look on your face, and some > confusion in your thinking, just like old fashioned electro-shock > therapy the state-run mental hospitals used to administer. If in fact it doesn't kill you. If you're unlucky enough to grab the wrong thing the wrong way, you may well stop your heartbeat. This can be disconcerting. > That will > teach you to keep your hands to yourself and not go sticking them > places they do not belong. ... remember: unplug it completely; > totally discharge those capacitors (you will know you are finished > when the television/radio quits 'arguing' and backfiring at you) and > then -- and only then -- put your hands in there to work on it. _Hand_ please, Pat. The first rule of working on electronic equipment is to keep one hand in your pocket. (Please, no Alanis jokes here.) > There are some who would claim that I still have not recovered to > this day from taking that load twenty years ago. Maybe not. Maybe > I still am crazed and confused. PAT] They're right. :-) Cheers, Jay R. Ashworth jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us Member of the Technical Staff Junk Mail Will Be Billed For. The Suncoast Freenet *FLASH: Craig Shergold aw'better; call 800-215-1333* Tampa Bay, Florida http://members.aol.com/kyop/rhps.html +1 813 790 7592 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: WebTV vs. Client and Display Technology Date: Thu, 12 Dec 96 10:03:42 PST From: Lauren Weinstein > That's what I thought, too. They do some tricky patented thing, and > the text looks about three times better than I would have thought NTSC > could do. Wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it in person. I > visited some of my own text-heavy pages, and they were quite legible. I went and looked at it on several hookups (video and s-video) and wasn't impressed at all. I saw typical NTSC crawl around edges, and the flicker was very annoying to stare at, especially on typical pages with heavy white background content. S-video naturally looks better than video, but only relatively, and only high-end TVs typically even have an s-video hookup. > In the longer run, WebTV encourages page authors to produce customized > versions of pages to serve up when a webTV request comes in, with > smaller pages and more TV-friendly colors and layout. If they get > their critical mass, I suspect this will happen, since a surprising > number of sites already have different Netscape versions for frames > and non-frames clients and the like. Which is exactly what SHOULD NOT be happening. There's enough effort going into glitzy layouts and such that really should be going into producing useful content as it is. When people have to start creating multiple versions for different platforms even more time is being wasted. It's hard enough now guessing how a simple, flat page will look on various straightforward 800x600, 640x480, or other screen sizes--and sometimes it's pretty horrifying when you go somewhere else and see what some people are looking at. More bizarre screen layouts will only make it worse. I don't touch frames with a 10-foot pole--I think they're nothing but trouble. > It ain't a Pentium with a super-VGA, but for $300, it's pretty impressive. Only because (in my opinion) there hasn't been anything like it before and the "gee-whiz" quotient is very high. I still suspect it will quickly become another box sitting in the closet unused as users who get tired of the net just turn it off and the ones who care move on to conventional systems with more power, flexibiility, ISP choices, etc. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ From: jcolb90@aol.com (Jeff Colbert) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 12 Dec 1996 17:56:48 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Ran a test here in Iowa. I live in a small town outside a city of 100k. When I gave my home number it said both were toll calls, when, infact, only one of them was. I ran a couple of other numbers for average sized Iowa towns, one of the results gave interlata numbers, the other one intralata numbers. All long distance. I do hope that there is an option to pick your access number. In my case, I would want to restrict access to the local number only. If it is not available, I DO NOT want to be connected long distance automatically. The other issue, is that if someone wants to connect long distance, they should be able to choose the number that gets them the best rates. Oftentimes Interlata is cheaper than Intralata. System should be able to connect initally to 800 number, list access numbers/locations, let you choose, and then download in to flash memory/NVram. Jeff Colbert ------------------------------ From: fadden@netcom.com (Andy McFadden) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Organization: Lipless Rattling Crankbait Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 22:05:37 GMT In article , Jack Decker wrote: > BUT - this page seems to tell you what you want to hear. If you type > in 616-842-xxxx, it tells you it has a local number in the 842 > exchange. If you use 616-846 instead, it says the local number is in > 616-846! Substitute the 847 prefix, and it says the access number's > in 847, and using 844 says the local number's in 844. It's a feature. :-) Some areas are served by an 800 number. Rather than broadcast the number, WebTV shows the area code and exchange you asked for. It's slightly silly, but eventually those people will be served by a local ISP, and WebTV doesn't want to appear like they're guaranteeing toll-free access. > (I do have to give WebTV credit for figuring out that a call > to Wisconsin would be less expensive than a call to Grand Rapids, > which appears to be the next closest in-state access point, but they > aren't always that smart -- callers from the Holland, Michigan area are > sent to the Grand Rapids number as the toll access point, even though > Wisconsin would in most cases be a less expensive call for folks in > that area)! The toll rates you see now were computed with the November CCMI database, using TOD Class 2 (evening) on a weekday for a 30-minute AT&T call. If you can give me the area codes and exchanges in question I will check out your statement. Often you will be given two POPs, one close by and one farther away, that have the same cost rating but are from different providers. I occasionally get complaints about how someone is using a really distant POP when there's a closer one available, but it turns out the closer one is more expensive. A mix of AT&T, MCI, and Sprint rates may be used in the future. > Bottom line is, it's possible that a lot of WebTV users are going to > be VERY surprised when they get their phone bills. Unless the folks > at WebTV really are putting access numbers in all the exchanges where > their Web page claims that access is available, I would not be at all > surprised to hear that they are the target of a class action lawsuit > filed by disgruntled purchasers (wanting to recover toll charges plus > the purchase price of their units) somewhere down the line. Oddly enough, they really are. The WebTV box warns you every time you're about to make a toll call, showing you the exact number you are about to dial. There is no advantage to hiding toll charges from customers; they're going to find out about them sooner or later. Sony & Philips have liberal return policies, so it's not like people are getting stuck with a box that they can't use. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I tried it with the exchanges here in > Skokie (847-673/674/675 and 847-329) and it consistently came back > saying I had two local numbers, one in 312-509 which is correct and > one in 847-480 which is also correct. PAT] You're drowning in POPs, actually. :-) The two you have are from different IAPs, so if one is down you'll get the other. I don't think anybody else does this, and certainly not at $19.95/month. And yes, I do work at WebTV Networks. I speak about "them" and post from my netcom account to prevent anybody's lawyers from taking what I say as being official statements. Nothing I've said is WebTV policy or opinion, it's all mine. fadden@netcom.com (Andy McFadden) Friends don't let friends patent software -- http://www.lpf.org/ ------------------------------ From: Thomas P. Brisco Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 12:27:48 -0500 Organization: ICon CMT I'm not sure that JP and Dave are talking about the same thing. A "niche" (presumably for people with reduced physical dexterity) doesn't necessarily imply "a very good thing". The media hype about "the web" has made me nauseous enough so that I've not even really looked seriously at the WebTV. Is it bidirectional? How are responses keyed in? Is advertising splashed/attached to information sent to the screen? I've always presumed that it did not allow for full response capability (i.e. using the "mailto:" URL/buttons to compose replies) and that it is Madison Avenue's way of ensuring that you have no way to voice your objections to anything (pretty much the way TV, Radio and Newspapers are run -- if the dictators approve, your rebuttal will be aired). The interesting thing about the Internet is that it is the worlds' *second* media that permits the mass population to have an equal voice to respond to the opinions of the "opinion makers" (newspaper, tv, etc). [I consider the "soapbox" or town square to be the first]. Thomas P. ``Tp'' Brisco brisco@core.iconnet.net Engineering Group 201.319.5260 (Voice) ICon CMT Corp 201.601.2018 (Fax) ------------------------------ From: hudsonl@skypoint.com (Hudson Leighton) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 10:56:54 -0600 Organization: SkyPoint Communications, Inc. In article , beck@slidell.com (Jeff Becklehimer) wrote: > Alan Bishop (a@corp.webtv.net) wrote: >> - we transcode images and other media types. For example, image >> creators often make their images too detailed or store them in >> a format that doesn't compress as well as it should. We fix that >> in the proxy before transmitting them over the slow link to the user. > Just curious, does this violate copyright laws? Also, when you say an > image is "too detailed" does this mean you also resize or reduce the > number of colors of the images to make them fit on the screen? Think about it, they are using a TV as a display moniter, by "derezing" all the graphics down to that level they save a ton of bandwith. I assume that there is no way to get hardcopy out of a WebTV so who cares about the resolution of the images. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 12:51:38 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Asynchronous Transfer Mode: Technical Overview" BKATMTCO.RVW 960909 "Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM): Technical Overview", Harry J. R. Dutton/Peter Lenhard, 1995, 0-13-520446-1 %A Harry J. R. Dutton %A Peter Lenhard %C One Lake St., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 %D 1995 %G 0-13-520446-1 %I Prentice Hall %O +1-201-236-7139 fax: +1-201-236-7131 beth_hespe@prenhall.com %T "Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM): Technical Overview" Of the books on ATM that I have reviewed so far, this is the most useful. Very few people will actually have to deal with ATM on a technical level, but if you do, you'll likely find this overview helpful. The principles, layers, components, characteristics, and management are all clearly spelled out. Managers will likely not appreciate the lack of "words of one syllable" analysis, but ATM is a complex system in any case. (My appreciation for the book was heightened today by a colleague who wanted to choose an ISP because "they were the only ones with ATM". He had no reason that we might need to use ATM for email.) copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKATMTCO.RVW 960909 Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. roberts@decus.ca rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@vanisl.decus.ca Materialists are Object Oriented Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #661 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Dec 16 08:38:16 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id IAA01490; Mon, 16 Dec 1996 08:38:16 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 08:38:16 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612161338.IAA01490@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #662 TELECOM Digest Mon, 16 Dec 96 08:37:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 662 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: WebTV Sad Story (J.P. White) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Andy McFadden) Re: WebTV Sad Story (lr@access4.digex.net) Re: WebTV Sad Story (John Nagle) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Jered J Floyd) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Phil Leonard) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Stanley Cline) Re: WebTV Sad Story (toolbox@ibm.net) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Alan Bishop) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Mark Ashley) Re: WebTV (Not So) Sad Story (Henry Baker) Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective (Leonid A. Broukhis) WebTV Upgrade Released (David Scott Lewis) Re: WebTV vs. Client and Display Technology (John R. Levine) Re: WebTV vs. Client and Display Technology (David Richards) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 08:03:04 -0800 From: JP White Reply-To: ffv.aerotech@ffvaerotech.com Organization: FFV Aerotech Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story > Craig Macbride Wrote: > It already connects to a TV set and many people already have cable TV, > so it would make sense to make the $450 box include a cable modem and > just run over the cable TV lines to a net connection. No phone line > costs; no long-distance charges; no having the phone line in use when > trying to make or receive phone calls; _much_ faster connection. > Of course, it wouldn't help if someone is outside the areas serviced by > cable TV, but that may still mean a lot more people would be covered > than they are by the WebTV ISP's local phone call areas at present. As I understand the specifications for the Sony Box, it already includes hookups for cable. The Sony Literature says, and I quote, "There's a WebTV Port connector for use with printers, cable modems and other products." I expect the reason WebTV isn't pushing the cable modem concept too hard, is the fact that many metropolitan areas (IE Nashville TN) are still without cable internet service providers, but virtually everyone has a phone line. It's early days, give them a chance! Expect to see a higher monthly rate when the cable modem does appear as an option. I doubt they'll give away the extra bandwidth, though it would be real nice if they did! The printer option I believe is not currently available either. WebTV/Sony/Magnavox will most likely clean up next Christmas with a bunch of new accessories for the WebTV. JP White Manager Information Systems FFV Aerotech Inc., Mail to : ffv.aerotech@ffvaerotech.com Web : http://www.ffvaerotech.com ------------------------------ From: fadden@netcom.com (Andy McFadden) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Organization: Lipless Rattling Crankbait Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 20:25:43 GMT In article , Jeff Colbert wrote: > Ran a test here in Iowa. I live in a small town outside a city of 100k. > When I gave my home number it said both were toll calls, when, infact, > only one of them was. I ran a couple of other numbers for average sized > Iowa towns, one of the results gave interlata numbers, the other one > intralata numbers. All long distance. If you send me the area code and prefix I will look into the issue. We occasionally find minor errors in the CCMI database or in the way we use it, and like to get them resolved as quickly as possible. We list expensive local calls (e.g. $0.25 flat rate per call) as being non-local, which may be what you're seeing. Again, the goal is to avoid causing any surprises for the customer. Most of them don't care whether the bill comes from AT&T or the BOC, they're just concerned about what the calls cost. > I do hope that there is an option to pick your access number. In my case, > I would want to restrict access to the local number only. If it is not > available, I DO NOT want to be connected long distance automatically. The A dialog comes up before a non-local call is made. If you don't want to make the call, don't hit the button. We err on the side of caution whenever possible. > other issue, is that if someone wants to connect long distance, they > should be able to choose the number that gets them the best rates. > Oftentimes Interlata is cheaper than Intralata. We're using the actual tariff data from CCMI. I did some tests on a few phone bills and they were dead on. > System should be able to > connect initally to 800 number, list access numbers/locations, let you > choose, and then download in to flash memory/NVram. Score three out of four. There are two problems with putting a bunch of POP numbers on the screen. First and foremost, it's fine for technical folks but fairly lame for the bulk of the population who want to plug it in and then just not worry about it. The whole "it just works" concept requires hiding as much of the internal workings from the mass-market consumer as possible, without subjecting them to any nasty surprises. I think the WebTV unit has struck an excellent balance between hiding the ugly details and letting the user know what it's doing with the phone lines. Secondly, the "pick an access number" thing gets really old when POPs come and go. As another reader discovered, the WebTV access numbers are provided by other companies (there's a Concentric Network press release on the web site at http://webtv.net/, and probably something there from UUNET as well). If CNC updated their service and switched to a new access number in a particular area, the WebTV box would automatically get the update and shift, which is much nicer than sending "this number is going away, you must pick a new number now" to your 12-year-old. Similarly, if a new access point gets added that's local to users who previously had to pay toll charges, the change is transparent and immediate. (If it went the other way, they'd start getting a dialog every time the box dials.) The WebTV way of doing things is different and unfamiliar, and not without its pitfalls, but by and large it works and works well. Please understand that the purpose behind hiding information from the user is to make them comfortable around unfamiliar technology, not subject them to hidden costs. (And there I go referring to WebTV as "we". Remember, these are my opinions, not those of WebTV Networks, Inc.) fadden@netcom.com (Andy McFadden) ------------------------------ From: lr@access4.digex.net (Sir Topham Hatt) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 15 Dec 1996 21:23:52 GMT Craig Macbride (craig@rmit.EDU.AU) wrote: > It already connects to a TV set and many people already have cable TV, > so it would make sense to make the $450 box include a cable modem and > just run over the cable TV lines to a net connection. Of course, this would require that the cable company support this. Frankly, I'm really skeptical of this because most of the cable operators have a hard enough time delivering TV signals in a forward direction, let alone a reverse channel. Everybody has or can get a phone line. ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 21:35:45 GMT Thomas P. Brisco writes: > The media hype about "the web" has made me nauseous enough so > that I've not even really looked seriously at the WebTV. Is it > bidirectional? How are responses keyed in? Is advertising > splashed/attached to information sent to the screen? > I've always presumed that it did not allow for full response > capability (i.e. using the "mailto:" URL/buttons to compose replies) > and that it is Madison Avenue's way of ensuring that you have no way > to voice your objections to anything (pretty much the way TV, Radio > and Newspapers are run -- if the dictators approve, your rebuttal will > be aired). There are two remotes, a small one with arrow keys and a full keyboard. E-mail works reasonably well. It's video that works badly; it doesn't do QuickTime or AVI. We may see well see something like this built into higher-end TV sets, like a closed-caption decoder. John Nagle ------------------------------ From: jered@mit.edu (Jered J Floyd) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 15 Dec 1996 22:40:30 GMT Organization: Massachvsetts Institvte of Technology > Alan Bishop (a@corp.webtv.net) wrote: >> - we transcode images and other media types. For example, image >> creators often make their images too detailed or store them in >> a format that doesn't compress as well as it should. We fix that >> in the proxy before transmitting them over the slow link to the user. > Just curious, does this violate copyright laws? Also, when you say an > image is "too detailed" does this mean you also resize or reduce the > number of colors of the images to make them fit on the screen? This is actually a very interesting question, which is currently being debated at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) conference in Geneva. Currently under debate are three copyright treaties intended to be the first major update of international copyright law since the Berne Convention in 1971. (WIPO can be found at http://www.wipo.int/) Relevant to this topic, one of the treaties, the Treaty on Certain Questions Concerning the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, addresses the question of whether or not cached data can be a copyright infrigement. Article 10, item 10.14, paragraph 2, currently reads: Communication of a work can involve a series of acts of transmission and temporary storage, such incidental storage being a necessary feature of the communication process. If, at any point, the stored work is made available to the public, such making available constitutes a further act of communication which requires authorization. It should be noted that storage falls within the scope of the right of reproduction (see Notes on Article 7). Article 7(2) says: (2) Subject to the provisions of Article 9(2) of the Berne Convention, it shall be a matter for legislation in Contracting Parties to limit the right of reproduction in cases where a temporary reproduction has the sole purpose of making the work perceptible or where the reproduction is of a transient or incidental nature, provided that such reproduction takes place in the course of use of the work that is authorized by the author or permitted by law. WebTV's transcoding is (imho) a case in which a temporary reproduction is made for the 'sole purpose of making the work perceptible', and since the documents are available publicly on the web, they are being used in the manner the author intended. This is just my interpretation, though, and I Am Not A Lawyer. I could be wrong; the wording of these treaties makes my head hurt. Additionally, another part of this treaty (I'm not sure which article offhand), can be interpreted to make carriers liable for copyright violations. For instance, if you put copyrighted information on your web page, your ISP, and possibly the telecom carriers you used, would be liable for copyright infringement. The third treaty, the Treaty on Intellectual Property in Respect of Databases would allow owners of databases to copyright non-creative works, such as facts. For instance, the NBA wants to copyright basketball game scores so that they can charge people licensing fees to distribute them. Due to many domestic objections, the U.S. recently decided to withdraw support for this treaty. (A good article be found at http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,6188,00.html) Jered Floyd '98 jered@mit.edu ------------------------------ From: pleonard@cybercom.net (Phil Leonard) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 00:37:14 GMT In article ID , beck@slidell.com (Jeff Becklehimer) writes: > Just curious, does this violate copyright laws? Also, when you say an > image is "too detailed" does this mean you also resize or reduce the > number of colors of the images to make them fit on the screen? If they ARE violating any copyright laws then everyone of us who cache images we view on the Internet, are, as well. I know you can't easily see this with Netscape, but Internet Explorer shows you every image you ever looked at, until the cache is full and pushes the last image out to make room for the fresh ones. http://cybercom.net/~pleonard Public PGP Key @ http://cybercom.net/~pleonard/pgp.txt E12F9F8D ------------------------------ From: roamer1@pobox.com (Stanley Cline) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 02:02:46 GMT Organization: Catoosa Computing Services Reply-To: roamer1@pobox.com > BUT - this page seems to tell you what you want to hear. If you type > in 616-842-xxxx, it tells you it has a local number in the 842 > exchange. If you use 616-846 instead, it says the local number is in > 616-846! Substitute the 847 prefix, and it says the access number's > in 847, and using 844 says the local number's in 844. Unless they > have local access lines in all four of the Grand Haven, Michigan > exchanges (which I would think is rather unlikely), something is Four numbers *apparently in the same CO* is odd to say the least. Try going back to the page and entering 706-861-0000 (my prefix); the page returns 423-756-xxxx and 423-624-xxxx which, even though in a different state and area code, are local. One number is UUNet [756-3630], the other is Concentric [624-1340]. HOWEVER, if I enter 706-965-0000 (which is ALSO local to Chattanooga, but in a different telco) it says there are *no* local numbers and gives the same Chattanooga numbers above. Using other prefixes served by other non-BellSouth telcos, but still local, did the same thing. Apparently WebTV believes that different telco = long distance, which IS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE! (For the 706-965 case, *even if* the numbers were LD, they'd be cheap intraLATA, interstate calls [19c/min at worst] and are often cheaper than calls to Atlanta, Knoxville, etc.) You can try going to Concentric's and web pages and look for local numbers as well. > aren't always that smart -- callers from the Holland, Michigan area are > sent to the Grand Rapids number as the toll access point, even though > Wisconsin would in most cases be a less expensive call for folks in Are you *sure*? It could be an intRALATA call which is often cheaper than intERLATA calls. > be VERY surprised when they get their phone bills. Unless the folks > at WebTV really are putting access numbers in all the exchanges where > their Web page claims that access is available, I would not be at all I'm really surprised they aren't offering 800/888 access at some cost. An 800/888 number with a large amount of inbound traffic can result in very low rates -- often lower than the caller can get! (I know of companies -- most of them inbound call centers -- that pay 7-8c/min for their 800/888 traffic; they do generate a large number of inbound calls, of course. CompuServe has charged 8c/min for 800 access -- now handled by LCI -- for some time.) Assuming a charge of 10-12c/min (average for ISPs) this is lower than most customer-side LD charges, and would *still* allow additional revenue for WebTV. Stanley Cline (Roamer1 on IRC) ** GO BRAVES! GO VOLS! mailto:roamer1@pobox.com ** http://pobox.com/~roamer1/ CompuServe 74212,44 ** MSN WSCline1 ------------------------------ From: toolbox@ibm.net Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 01:41:40 GMT Organization: Nut Screws and Bolts - Film at 11 Reply-To: toolbox@ibm.net Around Thu, 12 Dec 1996 12:27:48 -0500, Thomas P. Brisco wrote: > Is it bidirectional? How are responses keyed in? Is advertising > splashed/attached to information sent to the screen? WebTV is essentially a very bare-bones web browser and email client. You can send email from WebTV, but it's easier if you have $60 wireless keyboard. People who email from WebTV have "@webtv.net" on their email addresses. > I've always presumed that it did not allow for full response > capability (i.e. using the "mailto:" URL/buttons to compose replies) > and that it is Madison Avenue's way of ensuring that you have no way > to voice your objections to anything (pretty much the way TV, Radio > and Newspapers are run -- if the dictators approve, your rebuttal will > be aired). Absolutely NOT TRUE! You can send email with WebTV. They even advertise this on their advertisements! I just visited my local electronics store and sent email to their customer service dept from the demo WebTV box (but the demo units are restricted to email only to WebTV customer service for obvious reasons). Alas, USENET newsgroups are not supported by WebTV. toolbox@ibm.net ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 19:00:10 PST From: Alan Bishop Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Hi. Although I'm a software engineer for WebTV networks, these are my own opinions, and I don't speak for the company in any way. beck@slidell.com (Jeff Becklehimer) writes: > Also, when you say an image is "too detailed" does this mean you also > resize or reduce the number of colors of the images to make them fit > on the screen? We resize large images so that they fit on a television screen. We translate from one image format to another. I believe that some image formats store information in a "most detailed" to "least detailed" order, which means we can algorithmically throw away detail that wouldn't show up anyway. hudsonl@skypoint.com (Hudson Leighton) writes: > I assume that there is no way to get hardcopy out of a WebTV so who > cares about the resolution of the images. There is no printing capability today. However, we are working on it. In order to record information found on the web, some users are taping sessions on their VCRs. Thomas P. Brisco writes: > The media hype about "the web" has made me nauseous enough so that > I've not even really looked seriously at the WebTV. Is it > bidirectional? How are responses keyed in? > I've always presumed that it did not allow for full response > capability (i.e. using the "mailto:" URL/buttons to compose replies) > and that it is Madison Avenue's way of ensuring that you have no way > to voice your objections to anything (pretty much the way TV, Radio > and Newspapers are run -- if the dictators approve, your rebuttal will > be aired). There's a good chance that your local home electronics dealer has either a Sony or Philips unit set up that you can play with. It is bidirectional. The user selects the content to be displayed, using a selection box that highlights URLs, buttons, and other active areas. You can also enter URLs directly. You have three options for keying in responses. (1) You can pull up an on-screen keyboard and select keys. This is time consuming, but is suitable for some input. (2) You can get the optional wireless keyboard. (3) You can plug a standard PC keyboard into the back. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "full response capability". We provide incoming and outgoing email. You can read and post Usenet news via dejanews or other web based news services. You can fill in text areas in HTML forms and press buttons. Since you appear to be concerned about censorship, I'll describe the content screening options. You have a choice of (a) no screening, (b) SurfWatch screening, which operates off of a list of pages to reject, or (c) young child screening, which operates off of a list of pages to allow. You can select a different screening option for each of the users who share a box. Some stores have enabled screening for their demo units, but you're in control of a box that you own. alan ------------------------------ From: mark@compu.co.jp (Mark Ashley) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 23:21:07 GMT Organization: - CompuCo Japan Alan Bishop wrote: >> In defense of WebTV they do provide a service where you give them your >> area code and first three digits of your local number and they will >> inform you if the call is local or not. However there is catch 22, >> this service is available on their Web page, so if you havn't got Web >> access your stuck. > That's at: > http://webtv.net/HTML/home.retail.html (.net, not .com) I think that the choice of the .NET address will confuse many of the users that WebTV is trying to cater to. Many new users think every address ends with a .com, and get very confused when they see .net, mil, and other things. This happened with MSN when they first started out. They had aquired MSN.NET, but later bought MSN.COM from some company that had it. I wonder if WebTV will buy out webtv.com? ------------------------------ From: hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker) Subject: Re: WebTV (Not So) Sad Story Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 19:15:20 GMT In article , Jack Decker wrote: > I also suspect that many of the WebTV buyers of this year will be > lining up to get a REAL computer and Internet connection next year -- > if they aren't totally turned off to the Internet by the whole WebTV > experience, that is! I disagree. I spent two hours playing with WebTV, and I think that it is ideal for a non-computer person. I know many of my computer friends who are buying them for their mothers to keep in touch with their netizen children. I do think that the keyboard is essential (the on-screen keyboard works, but is too slow for anything but typing in a few URL's). Even the manual that comes with WebTV is written in the same familiar, but incomprehensible style that all Sony consumer product manuals are written in. Luckily, you don't need to look at it very much to get going. An existing PC user will not find WebTV acceptable for any real work, but this product isn't aimed at them. I do hope that WebTV plans to offer in the near future: 1. A local disk upgrade to cache web pages. Even a few extra megabytes of local caching RAM could help a lot. 2. The new USRobotics/Rockwell 56Kbits/sec modem technology. This should help for next Xmas's sales. 3. Ethernet option for office/kiosk use. 4. Regular PC monitor option for higher-quality video -- i.e., for heavy duty users who don't care about displaying it on their TV's. Or incorporate a TV tuner and display the TV picture on the higher-quality TV monitor. 5. Some mechanism for local printing -- i.e., to a local fax machine cleverly integrated in some way with the same phone line that is used for the modem and/or a cheap external printer that doubles as a fax machine when the WebTV isn't in use. The ability to locally print email is very important, even for non-PC types. A 'fax' print of some web pages would also be useful. 6. Some ability to integrate a Connectix-style cheap camera, even if only for still shots. Grandma could send pix to her kids & vice versa. 7. WebTV email is _very_ basic -- no audio, pix or video. Some additional software work on the email system could make this really cool. Incorporate local pix/sound into the email. 8. Put in higher quality audio system for the upcoming 56Kbit/cable modems. If put under the cabinets in the kitchen, one could finally listen to RealAudio radio stations all day long, instead of the drivel that comes out of the AM/FM dial. 9. Incorporate a cordless phone into the unit, so that you don't have to run a phone wire over to the TV. In some houses, this could be a real pain. You also get a cordless phone out of the bargain. Alternatively, utilize some sort of household wiring to carry the bits. [WebTV: email me, and I'll tell you where to send the consulting check. ;-)] ------------------------------ From: leob@best.com (Leonid A. Broukhis) Subject: Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective Date: 15 Dec 1996 23:37:21 -0800 Organization: BEST Internet Communications From my point of view, WebTV is little more than a toy without a printer interface. What worth is receiving e-mail if you cannot print it; what worth is browsing the Net if you cannot print a single line of information you need to save for later perusal? Judging by www.webtv.net, they don't address the issue now and do not provide any info on supporting printer interface in future. Leo ------------------------------ From: David Scott Lewis Subject: WebTV Upgrade Released Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 15:47:52 -0800 Organization: Strategies & Technologies, Inc. (STI) WebTV just implemented an upgrade that subscribers should know about. First, RealAudio has been added. That's one step in the right direction. I hope support for Shockwave, PDF, QuickTime, QuickTimeVR, and frames aren't too far behind. BTW, until this Web spoofing stuff can be resolved, WebTV should stay away from adding support for JavaScript or ActiveX. Second, they've added background music. The music seems to repeat after an hour or so, but it's pretty good. What they need to do is to support viewer selection of a musical genre. Personally, I like The Music of Cyberspace series. Third, they've made it possible to switch users without logging off and logging on again. There were a few other additions, such as checking for e-mail even when the unit is off, but the above are the main upgrade features. BTW, it was totally painless to add the upgrades. It took about 10 minutes, but it was a simple click on the remote control. That's it! WebTV, albeit a consumer product, is the best example of why NCs are needed: Ease of maintenance! No more goofy Microsoft Windows functions, like logging off by hitting the "Start" icon (boy, wasn't that intuitive!). For your enjoyment, here are four useful URLs (each is an article): http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,6043,00.html http://www.packet.com/schrage/today.html (this one, because it ends with "today.html" may not last for long!) http://techweb.cmp.com:80/ng/nov96/fcompare.htm http://www.nytimes.com/web/docsroot/library/cyber/techcol/1202techcol.html For a pointer, go to: http://users.visi.net/~cwt/tv-inet.html David Scott Lewis thewebguy@acm.org ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Dec 96 11:14 EST From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: WebTV vs. Client and Display Technology Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > limitation of the current WebTV unit. No matter how many tricks you > play with direct video out and S-video interfaces, the bandwidth of > conventional North American NTSC (or PAL/SECAM for that matter) > televisions makes them generally unsuitable for displaying significant > amounts of text. That's what I thought, too. They do some tricky patented thing, and the text looks about three times better than I would have thought NTSC could do. Wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it in person. I visited some of my own text-heavy pages, and they were quite legible. In the longer run, WebTV encourages page authors to produce customized versions of pages to serve up when a webTV request comes in, with smaller pages and more TV-friendly colors and layout. If they get their critical mass, I suspect this will happen, since a surprising number of sites already have different Netscape versions for frames and non-frames clients and the like. It ain't a Pentium with a super-VGA, but for $300, it's pretty impressive. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - MIT econ prof ------------------------------ From: dr@ripco.com (David Richards) Subject: Re: WebTV vs. Client and Display Technology Date: 15 Dec 1996 21:42:44 GMT Organization: Ripco Communications Inc. In article , Lauren Weinstein wrote: >> That's what I thought, too. They do some tricky patented thing, and >> the text looks about three times better than I would have thought NTSC >> could do. Wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it in person. I >> visited some of my own text-heavy pages, and they were quite legible. > I went and looked at it on several hookups (video and s-video) and > wasn't impressed at all. I saw typical NTSC crawl around edges, and > the flicker was very annoying to stare at, especially on typical pages > with heavy white background content. S-video naturally looks better > than video, but only relatively, and only high-end TVs typically > even have an s-video hookup. I stopped to play with one today in Circuit City, and it looked good _for_a_television_set_. S-Video makes a big difference on text, but I doubt I'd want it as my primary web browser. >> In the longer run, WebTV encourages page authors to produce customized >> versions of pages to serve up when a webTV request comes in, with >> smaller pages and more TV-friendly colors and layout. If they get >> their critical mass, I suspect this will happen, since a surprising >> number of sites already have different Netscape versions for frames >> and non-frames clients and the like. Actually, I found it rather annoying that my pages came up with a white background -- I didn't check if it lets you set a background color, I'd hope so -- basic black is much easier on the eyes. FYI, WebTV identifies itself as: Mozilla/1.22 WebTV/1.0 (compatible; MSIE 2.0) >> It ain't a Pentium with a super-VGA, but for $300, it's pretty impressive. > Only because (in my opinion) there hasn't been anything like it before and > the "gee-whiz" quotient is very high. I still suspect it will quickly > become another box sitting in the closet unused as users who get tired of > the net just turn it off and the ones who care move on to conventional > systems with more power, flexibiility, ISP choices, etc. Or even the unconventional Sega Saturn based browser, which supposedly looks as good, lets you choose any PPP provider, and when you're sick of the web, you can pop in a game or even a music CD. David Richards Ripco, since Nineteen-Eighty-Three My opinions are my own, Public Access in Chicago But they are available for rental Shell/SLIP/PPP/UUCP/ISDN/Leased dr@ripco.com (312) 665-0065 !Free Usenet/E-Mail! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #662 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Dec 16 09:13:12 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id JAA03541; Mon, 16 Dec 1996 09:13:12 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 09:13:12 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612161413.JAA03541@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #663 TELECOM Digest Mon, 16 Dec 96 09:13:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 663 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telephone Switchboard Electronics Web Site (Ricardo Cedar Springs) Indian Satellite Data Now in Europe (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Sprint Ordered to Pay $60 Million to One of Their Marketers (D. Burstein) GTE Suit Against Sate PUC (Monty Solomon) Pacific Bell Responds To MCI Allegations (Mike King) Re: N11 Codes (Linc Madison) Re: N11 Codes (Nils Andersson) Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes (D. Banks) Information Wanted on Destiny Telecom (Josef J. Finsel) Los Nettos as ISP (was: WebTV: Pricing and Access Issues) (Robert McMillin) Baby Bell Complaints about Internet Usage (Scott Bushey) AT&T True Connections 500 Observations (Stanley Cline) Unethical Sprint Marketing to College Students (Paul A. Houle) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ricardo@netcom.com (Ricardo Cedar Springs) Subject: Telephone Switchboard Electronics Web Site Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 11:50:13 GMT A PHONE SYSTEM FOR HOME OR OFFICE. SCHEMATICS AND SOURCE CODE INCLUDED. DELIVERED TO YOU *- WORKING -* RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX. New Features! Controlable from PC serial port with AT command set and Calls can now go from Trunk to Trunk (this would allow you to call into the system and then call out another connected telephone line or have another call conferenced onto the line your calling in on). Refer to Firmware 1.3. http://www.PhoneSwitch.com sales@PhoneSwitch.com If you have been given the responsibility to design a hardware product which interfaces to a telephone set or a telephone line or you are just interested in the intricacies of telephone call processing based on a state machine then the Small Telephone Switch Evaluation Kit is for you. The EVKIT includes a working PCB, schematics and source code written in C. You can make calls between extentions or to the outside lines. Incomming calls can also be transfered between extentions. Its a complete PBX that you can change the software on! Even add new hardware features... Begin of EVKIT overview: ------------------------------------------------------------- The sx38 product is a complete small modularly expandable open architecture private branch exchange on a 12" by 12" circuit board and is delivered partially assembled with a PC compatible 65W power supply. The sx38 switch can provide complete standalone service in remote applications. Complete schematics and source code (8051 written in C, compatible with popular compilers) are provided to facilitate development of industry standard peripherals, interfaces, software and companion switching modules. The basic printed circuit board has 8 subscriber line interfaces and 3 central office line interfaces. 2 of the slics and 1 of the co interfaces are delivered pre-assembled, working and tested. 12 speech paths are provided to support non-blocked operation and support multiple conference calls in progress at the same time. All of the ports have the same terminating impedance when measured from the switch matrix allowing any port to be connected to any other port. One board provides a complete system, all the necessary common control and signaling components to set up multiple conversations at one time are included. Basic and flexible, the software is modular by nature allowing complete software control to create sophisticated communications products. The evaluation kit is $375 and is provided with a power supply which is UL registered. Two of the eight slics and one of the three co interfaces are already assembled. When you receive the board you will be able to lift either extension phone and receive dial tone, be able to make intercom calls which ring standard phones, make calls external to the system by dialing 9, receive calls from the outside and transfer the calls to another extension and answer any ringing phone by dialing 9. The evaluation kit works when you receive it. You can also expand the evaluation kit by adding easy to purchase components and simply soldering them to the board following the pattern of the already assembled circuits. Feature Overview: 8 station 3 trunk, expandable to 16 station 6 trunk. (expansion board is $160 partially assembled). 2 DTMF Senders (one is provided in the EVKIT) 2 DTMF Receivers (one is provided in the EVKIT) 2 imprecise call progress receivers (one is provided in the EVKIT) 2 dial tone generators 90vac 20hz Bell Ringing Invertor SLIC Supervision Generator (forces answering machines to hang up) SLIC Ring trip detect (detects offhook during application of ringing signal) All ports can add gain to the call. SLIC can transmit audio during on-hook. (Slic can send audio, like caller id, to extensions) CO can receive audio on-hook (caller id can be decoded by a central, shared, CID decoder) 2 expansion connectors with CPU bus and audio channels. Full Duplex Serial Port (300,1200,9600 bps 8-N-1) Conference Matrix for conference calls. (Any time three ports need to be on the same call.) 8051 CPU, 64KROM, 8KRAM Suggested Applications with provided software: +Small Telephone System for Home or Small Business. +Personalized Ringing Pattern Decoder for fax machine or modem. +Modem Pool controller. You cant barge in on a conversation in progress. +Anyplace one phone needs to call another. +Anyplace one, two or three telephone lines need to be shared in a convenient non intrusive manner. Applications you might develop by modifying the software and interfacing to the hardware: +SEAMLESS integration of internet phone software/sound blaster card to home or office phone system. Imagine picking up a standard phone and dialing a intercom call around the world over the internet phone and reaching another standard phone at the other end. Might even be able to receive calls from the switched network and go back to the switched network. +Automated and transparent (to the user) intercept and rerouting of voice calls to private networks or common carriers. (1+ to 10XXX+ as an example). Remember the schematics and source code are included which makes modification, expansion and integration easier. Important note: This system is based on technology I presented in a article in Circuit Cellar-The Computer Applications Journal. The EVKIT is MUCH IMPROVED over the circuits presented in the article. If you are looking for something which is COST EFFECTIVE and CHEAP then the EVKIT is probably not for you. The EVKIT is comparable to what other companies are offering except the SCHEMATICS and SOURCE CODE are provided with each unit. No other telephone switch manufacturer does this. ------------------------------ Subject: Indian Satellite Data Now in Europe Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 10:52:09 PST From: rishab@dxm.org (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Reply-To: rishab@dxm.org The Indian Techonomist: bulletin, December 13, 1996 Copyright (C) 1996 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh. All rights reserved Indian remote-sensing data now in Europe December 13, 1996: GAF-Euromap of Germany has tied up with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for European rights to maket remote-sensing data from the Indian IRS-1C satellite. IRS-1C data is already distributed in the US and elsewhere by EOSAT - bought from Lockheed- Martin last month by Space Imaging Inc (SII). IRS-1C acquires the highest spatial resolution remote sensing data commercially available in the world today. Indeed, Space Imaging president Jeff Harris said last month that "with the Indian satellites [IRS and P- series], we are entering a new era of earth information products." Since its launch on December 28 last year, IRS-1C has been, says ISRO, the most sophisticated civilian remote sensing satellite in orbit. Space industry sources point out that although data is commercially available from Russian satellites originally built for military use, at somewhat higher resolutions than IRS-1C's 5-metre panchromatic (photographic) range, only IRS-1C provides full access to raw digital scanning data, rather than basic analogue photographs. In addition, IRS-1C provides many services other than photography: 25-metre multispectral data, which is essential for vegetation and natural resource planning; and 180- metre wide-field data with a repeated coverage as the satellite completes its orbit every five days - this, says SII/EOSAT, is excellent for large-area resource monitoring. IRS-1C data is currently acquired at three ground stations. At Shadnagar, India, an ISRO facility receives data for South Asia and portions of South- East and West Asia. SII/EOSAT's Norman, Oklahoma ground station receives data for almost all of North America including southern Canada and Mexico, as well as most of Central America. At Neustrelitz, Germany, GAF in cooporation with the German Aerospace Research Establishment (DLR) gathers remote sensing data covering Europe, northern Africa and parts of West Asia. The GAF facility has been operational since February this year, and its data will now, with the latest agreement, be marketed throughout Europe by GAF-Euromap. SII/EOSAT is also working on ground stations in cooperation with the National Space Development Agency, Japan; the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research of South Africa, the Australian Center for Remote Sensing, and the National Research Council of Thailand. It has an arrangement with Antrix Corp Ltd, the marketing arm of India's Department of Space, to make Indian satellite data available worldwide for at least the next decade. India is among the few countries to build and launch its own satellites. The IRS-1C is third in a line of advanced civilian remote-sensing satellites, and ISRO has also developed several geostationary satellites in the INSAT series, which are used for telecommunications and broadcasting. The agency has successfully tested its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and expects a geostationary launcher (GSLV) to be ready by the end of the decade. ISRO is negotiating with several global ventures, such as Iridium - in which the Indian government has an equity stake - for the development and launch of low- earth orbit satellites. The Indian Techonomist: 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: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 20:52:29 EST From: danny burstein Subject: Sprint Ordered to Pay $60 Million to One of Their Marketers Arbitrators order Sprint to pay $60 million The Associated Press 12/14/96 2:48 PM Eastern KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Arbitrators have ordered Sprint Communications Corp. to pay $60.9 million in commissions to a marketing company and its sales agents. The article continues with an explanation that the "Network 200 marketing repersentatives", felt they had been shortchanged on commisions, and had filed suit back in 1992. The reps, per the story, filed against both Sprint and Network 2000. Friday's ruling by a three-member panel requires Sprint to pay half the money to Network 2000 Communications Corp. of Independence and half to the firm's sales representatives. Network 2000 still has a contract with Sprint to sell its long-distance service, said Network 2000 Chairman Larry Stewart. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 01:03:08 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: GTE suit Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Excerpt from Full Closing Bell for Friday, Dec 13, 1996 * GTE filed suit to overturn a decision by Pennsylvania regulators governing the terms by which AT&T can hook up to GTE's local phone network under the new communications law. The suit is the first of its kind by a local phone company against state regulators. The suit also represents a further escalation in the legal battel GTE is waging over the terms it must use to open its local network to new competitors under the communications law. (Reuters 07:07 PM ET 12/12/96) For the full text story, see http://www.merc.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=747171-624 ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: NEWS: Pacific Bell Responds To MCI Allegations (fwd) Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 22:39:51 PST ----- Forwarded Message ----- Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 09:50:29 -0800 From: sqlgate@sf-ptg-fw.pactel.com Subject: NEWS: Pacific Bell Responds To MCI Allegations FOR MORE INFORMATION: Craig Watts (415) 394-3739 Pacific Bell Responds To MCI Allegations SAN FRANCISCO -- Pacific Bell today said a complaint filed by MCI with the California Public Utilities Commission is a transparent, self-serving attempt to manipulate regulators and unfairly influence the outcome of telephone competition. At the heart of the matter is MCI's determination to hasten its entry into the local phone market while creating regulatory stall tactics to delay Pacific Bell's entry into California's high profitable long distance market. "This complaint from MCI is just one more brazen attempt to stampede California regulators," said Lee Bauman, Pacific Bell's vice president for local competition. "MCI's action is carefully timed. Next week, the CPUC will act on the arbitrated interconnection agreement between MCI and Pacific Bell. That agreement is vital to MCI's interests in providing local service, and equally important to Pacific Bell as one more prerequisite to its entry into the long distance business. "Although we haven't seen their complaint yet, MCI is hardly in a position to accuse another company of inefficiency in its approach to local competition," Bauman continued. "For example, MCI refuses to use the electronic order system that Pacific Bell designed to the specifications of local competitors. AT&T and others are using it today to speed along their customer service. Instead, MCI insists on using "snail-mail" to ship Pacific Bell thousands of orders in cartons. We have to dedicate hundreds of people to process MCI's orders by hand, fix a myriad of MCI errors, and input those orders into our electronic system." Bauman reiterated that Pacific Bell is highly motivated to make sure local competition proceeds quickly and effectively, and will work with MCI and any other competitive local carrier to address problems as they arise. Pacific Bell is a subsidiary of Pacific Telesis Group, a diversified telecommunications company based in San Francisco. ------------ Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: N11 Codes Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 13:49:50 -0800 In article , bpurcell@centuryinter.net (Brian Purcell) wrote: > I'm pretty sure that N11 codes *can't* be used as CO codes since it > would difficult to program equipment to recognize only a few of the > N11s as special service numbers and the others as CO codes. Actually, that's not the case. There are a couple of N11 POTS prefixes in New York City, to be specific. (212-211 and 212-311, IIRC) Basically, the switches determine from the prefix how many additional digits to anticipate, the options being zero or four. In some Pacific Bell areas, the ANI readback number is just 760. In other areas, they tack on a four-digit extension after the prefix. (In fact, they may now do that in all areas, since they seem to be rotating the -XXXX periodically to keep the kids out.) Also, I don't know if the upcoming introduction of 760 as an area code in southern California will affect the use of 760 as a test code. Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: N11 Codes Date: 13 Dec 1996 00:31:35 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , Mark J. Cuccia writes: > That would allow a *FAR* bigger numbering space for reaching the > departments of the Washington DC (District of Criminals?) central > government, than would taking up any few other N11 codes! I respectully disagree. I subscibe to the theory that N11 are national treasures, to be doled out very carefully. The 311 for "non-emergency" 911 may be a good start (clogged 911 is a major problem, at least in the LA area). OTOH, I have no problem with re-using the N11 (except probably 911) as AREA CODES. There should be no ambiguities, as area codes are always preceded by a one (except from some cellphones, but the cellswich gets all the digits and can obviously determine by the presence or absence of more digits whether an area code N11 or a special access N11 is dialled). Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: D Banks Subject: Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 11:53:45 -0800 Organization: Online at Wimsey Craig, Michael S. wrote: > FYI, in Canada, there has been a consistent, albeit far from universal, > use of N11 codes for a variety of deemed-to-be *public* services: > 211 Not used > 311 Not used > 411 Directory Assistance (mirrors 1-NXX-555-12-12 ... used to be > local-only, now covers NPA) > 511 Not used* *has been used for separation of TDD and TTY Relay Services > 611 Telco Repair Service > 711 Relay Service (primary number: see 511 above) > 811 Telco Business Office (customer service) > 911 Emergency FWIW, in British Columbia, dialing 211 will tell you your own phone number (ANI?) We used to be quite strange until 1985. Feature Pre 85 Post 85 LD 112 1 Direct Ass. 113 411 Repair 114 611 ANI? 116 211 Dialling 115 (IIRC), used to 'cut' your line for two minutes. Was BC the only place in North America to use 112+Number for LD instead of 1+Number? ------------------------------ From: Josef J. Finsel Subject: Information Needed on Destiny Telecom Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 17:52:06 -0500 Pat: I have an urgent need to know if there is any info in the archives about Destiny Telecom. I just found out that our company ceo needs to explain this to the head of CBI and I am looking for help. Thanks Josef Finsel IS Mgr, CBLD 513.369.2155 ------------------------------ From: rlm@netcom.com (Robert McMillin) Subject: Los Nettos as ISP (was: WebTV: Pricing and Access Issues) Reply-To: rlm@helen.surfcty.com Organization: Charlie Don't CERF Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 06:19:06 GMT On 10 Dec 1996 03:18:09 PDT, Davew@cris.com (Dave Harrison) said: > David Scott Lewis (thewebguy@acm.org) wrote: > Just a note about ISI, or "Los Nettos". They have a T3 to MCI, and > a pipe to Mae-West, but, as of a month ago, weren't peering with > anyone at the Mae. > Los Nettos sells T3s, T1s, 56k, etc. and shared and dedicated ethernet > connections to ISP's and anyone else who wants a connection. There are > a LOT of ISP's in the same building as ISI ... they save on the leased > line and they get cheap service from ISI ... while other access > providers sell T3's for up to 27 grand a month, you can get one from > ISI for $8,250/month. ISI's T1's are $920 a month, while elsewhere, > they range from 1000 to almost 3 grand. One thing the above does NOT mention is that Los Nettos requires leased lines -- they do not support frame relay, ATM, ISDN, or anything else. All the above were contributing technical reasons we decided not to use Los Nettos (or any of the companies sharing space at their Admiralty Way facility) at my company. Service was offered with 'take-it-or-leave-it' indifference. It's all quite surprising, since ISI/Los Nettos is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, ISP in the Los Angeles area. Robert L. McMillin | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Netcom: rlm@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: ozzyfudd@mindspring.com (Scott Bushey) Subject: Baby Bell Complaints About Internet Usage Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 01:26:47 GMT Organization: MindSpring Enterprises, Inc. Reply-To: ozzyfudd@mindspring.com I am a writer for the online periodical "American Computing Magazine" (www.mindspring.com/~ozzyfudd/amercomp.htm). I am currently working on an article to appear in our February Issue regarding the Baby Bells claims that Internet usage is crippling the nations telephone network, and that raising rates, eliminating flat-rate calling, and forcing ISPs to bill on a time basis is the only solution. To date I have seen a lot of information contrary to this opinion in several newsgroups and also from MCI. We want to make sure that our information is as technically accurate as possible, and so I hope that any of you who are knowledgeable on this subject could e-mail information on this subject to ozzyfudd@mindspring.com. I have heard several ideas which center around the way in which the bells configure their switches, and am especially interested in this. All contributors will be credited in the article, J. Scott Bushey ozzyfudd@mindspring.com ------------------------------ From: roamer1@.pobox.com (Stanley Cline) Subject: AT&T True Connections 500 Observations Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 02:03:00 GMT Organization: Catoosa Computing Services Reply-To: roamer1@pobox.com I just acquired a 500 number from AT&T (the "True Connections" service.) Here's what I've found in the past few days: Caller ID If a caller uses 1-800-Call-ATT/1-800-321-0288 to reach AT&T (from COCOTs, etc.) and use one of my PINs, I get caller ID. If they dial either *1*+500 or *0*+500 (without using one of the 800 access numbers), I do NOT get Caller ID. (Never mind that if I dial 10288 + 1 or 0 + any other number [non-500], I DO get caller ID!) Phones Not PICed to AT&T If someone dials 0+500 from a phone *not* PICed to AT&T, they *always* get the message "Please hold for operator assistance", followed by an operator, instead of the prompt to enter a PIN. I checked with AT&T on this, and said this should *not* be happening. Does anyone know what's up with this? If someone not subscribed to AT&T calls 1+500 (billing it to their phone), the 80c/call "casual calling" Nonsubscriber Service Charge does NOT apply. (Verified with my bills back when I had LCI, as well as AT&T rep.) Cellular 1+500 does not work (expected, and *fully disclosed* in the 500 service manual.) Here, BellSouth allows 0+500 and CellOne does *not* (they appear to like MCI.) The American Roaming Network credit card roaming service *does* allow calls to 0+500 numbers (although not free by any means, even with a PIN. In this case, the caller would have to pay for the airtime/roaming with a credit or LEC calling card, and I would pay for long distance from [Dallas?] to here.) COCOTs Most do not allow 0+500 to be dialed; if they are *not* presubscribed to AT&T they try to send the call through *their AOS* which does NOT work! (How can USLD, Oncor, etc. bill for calls going through AT&T's network? They CAN'T!) I've found that dialing 10288+0+500 works at least on #5E switches in the Chattanooga area, but presents the problem of the operator if the phone's 1+ provider is not AT&T (see Phones Not PICed to AT&T, above.) Since most COCOTs I'm aware of use either AMNEX or LCI as their 1+ carrier, I land up getting the operator. LEC phones (even BellSouth's COCOT-ized phones) do work correctly, of course, as AT&T handles all 1+ (but not necessarily 0+) from them. I have contacted the FCC about the AOS dilemma; IMHO since only the carrier who ISSUED a 500 number can process or bill calls to that number, COCOTs should be REQUIRED to send 0+500 calls out DIRECT, withOUT AOSlime interference. (If COCOTs are allowed to charge for 800/888, they probably will for 500 too.) Fake Ringing The ringing given on all numbers until the last one (aka Final Stop) is reached is fake. (How do I know this? I have my home number, then my other home number, then my cellular number set as sequence numbers; if I call to my 500 number from my home line, or if the line is busy, it is set to forward to my cellular line. I can tell the ringing AT&T gives me is *NOT* the same as from the cellular switch. Ringing from Hughes GMH2000 switches -- the switch BellSouth Mobility here uses -- is LOUD compared to #5E/DMS ringing.) Using Master PIN and Calling "Home" The Master PIN can't be used by the 500 number holder to bill calls to the 500 number. If I enter my Master PIN, I am given the choice to "place a call"; then I can press one button to "call home" or enter another number of my choice. If I use this feature, I am billed the "Place-A-Call" rates (including 80c/call "calling card" charge) rather than only the toll.) I would prefer that I could use the Master PIN to bill calls to "myself", rather than having to keep a normal PIN for that purpose. Further, the rates for calls placed through a 500 number do *not* match the rates for calling card calls for One Rate customers. This may be a tariff issue, but I'd rather be able to use the Place-A-Call feature and get billed my One Rate card rate rather than the 500 "basic" rate. (But then again, I have other calling cards -- that charge less, such as VoiceNet, CompuServe, etc. -- which I use for most calls!) All in all, I have found the 500 service to be worthwhile (instead of having call forwarding all over the place, I can give out one number, and let either the caller or myself pay for the calls) but it's still a bit quirky. Stanley Cline (Roamer1 on IRC) ** GO BRAVES! GO VOLS! mailto:roamer1@pobox.com ** http://pobox.com/~roamer1/ CompuServe 74212,44 ** MSN WSCline1 ------------------------------ From: Paul A. Houle Subject: Unethical Sprint Marketing to College Students Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 11:27:45 -0500 Organization: Cornell University, Department of Physics I'm a graduate student and I recently had an unpleasant experience with Sprint's marketing arm aimed at college students. A telemarketer called up Olivia a few weeks ago asking if I was in and she said I wasn't -- they asked if I'd like a "free foncard" and she said no and hung up. She didn't think anything of it. Well, yesterday I got not one but two foncards with my name and phone number on them. When I called the customer service number listed on the card, I was directed into a voice-response comptuer maze. After wasting ten minutes I decided to push the panic button and "press 2 to report a lost or stolen card." This got me through to an operator who gave me a lot of grief. For instance, she wanted my social security number. I told here that it wasn't her business since Sprint shouldn't even know what my social security number is since I haven't given it to them. She ended up having to call me back to verify that I was really calling from home and then she canceled the cards. I wrote a letter to the customer service address given on the junk mail complaining about the sleazy tactics. Is there anybody I can write to to help Sprint catch hell for this? ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #663 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Dec 17 04:14:42 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id EAA10779; Tue, 17 Dec 1996 04:14:42 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 04:14:42 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612170914.EAA10779@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #664 TELECOM Digest Tue, 17 Dec 96 04:14:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 664 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson WebTV and CoyoteNet; a Minority Report (hisys@rmi.net) Internet/TV Convergence (Monty Solomon) Dataquest Survey Blasts Internet Television (David Scott Lewis) Re: WebTV Upgrade Released (Igor Sviridov) Re: WebTV Upgrade Released (James E. Bellaire) Re: WebTV Upgrade Released (David Scott Lewis) Re: WebTV Sad Story (jfmezei@videotron.ca) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Jeff Becklehimer) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Travis Dixon) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Fred R. Goldstein) Re: WebTV Sad Story (A Realworld Experience) (Bob Brown) Re: WebTV Sad Story (bwismer@msmail3.HAC.COM) Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective (bwismer@msmail3.HAC.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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: hisys@rmi.net Subject: WebTV and CoyoteNet; a Minority Report Date: 17 Dec 1996 07:18:14 GMT Organization: Rocky Mountain Internet Allow me to be the curmudgeon for a moment ... Is WebTV a blessing for the Internet, or for our culture? I have my doubts. And all the hand-wringing charges of elitism aren't going to change any facts, either way. This message will be quickly labeled as doomsaying and other predictable dismissals by some. Feel free to stop reading now and slap on a convenient label, if such oversimpli- fications appeal to you. There's a soundbite at the end; skip to it if you get bored. I don't think there's a great deal we can do about the movement of which WebTV is one leading edge; that is a massive juggernaut, probably building up near to trillions of dollars in cumulative revenues in my lifetime. The best I can do right now is to "name the beast" with as clear and honest sight as I have (and maybe suggest some interesting eddies that coexist with the main flow rather than stopping it). Be warned that this is largely focussing on the "down side", because the "up side" will be promoted and hyped with a thousand paid and a million unpaid voices, and doesn't need my help. It's not all bad, but we need to acknowledge the bad aspects rather than pretend not to notice. My concerns have to do with quality and quantity, as well as "net culture". WebTV seems to be taking the the same fine quality delta that AOLine has been known for, and moving it several notches further. No doubt we'll pick up a few eloquent voices, a few urban poets of great vision, and a few unsong heros. But in all honestly, WebTV aims to bring massive numbers of the couch potato "I pay you to keep me amused" folks online. The goal is to ultimately expand the user base for the Internet by many fold, swamping the current users and any 'net culture' they might still have; there will be little chance to "enculturate" the newcomers with any of the values or (sub)culture of the old internet -- their "culture" will be manufactured the big media corporations. My predictions: the differentiation into 'info providers' and 'informa- tion consumers' will continue to accelerate, with collaboration, peer networks, information sharing, volunteerism and mutuality becoming ever less used concepts. "Info consumers" will be looking to be entertained, or at most superficially "educated". As Intel has stated, their mission statement is not to build computers, but to compete for consumer eyeball time, head to head against television. Expect more action on the screen, of the flash-without-content sort. Fast cuts, short nibbles of "sound bite" type text. Aimed at "don't change that channel", at keeping people amused or bemused. Designed by the same people who today design supermarket packaging and magazines and television, for the same purposes. A somewhat more interactive version of the same intellectual and spritual wasteland (with islands otherwise). Most newspapers are calculatedly written for a 4th grade reading level today, a least common denominator and thus very large market. This is well documented and verifiable, not just an opinion. Pages designed for WebTV will aim lower if anything. More than a few sentences on a page will be inconsistent with the viewership. This *IS* a change from the old Internet, no matter that some apologists will try to make it a shameful, elitist thing for us to notice such facts. "Info providers" will increasingly be large corporations with employees paid to disseminate the corporate product, rather than individuals (per the academic model which jump started net culture). Most of the market will be a relatively small number (proportionately) of mega websites, with enormous high speed networks of servers. These will be very capital intensive, costing millions of dollars and having largish professional staffs of specialists, much like other mass media: Televisions stations/networks; major newspapers/chains; major magazines; the motion picture industry. Product advertisers, paid subscriptions, and corporate PR will fund and control most defacto content, seeing that it's basically not much different than existing mass media. They won't expect much info contribution from info consumers, beyond play-polls [Would you have sex with a stranger for $1,000,000 as X did in the movie? Yes/No; Current totals 5,236,197 yes/ 3,494,855 no/ 1,298,114 undecided] and marketing demographic feedback [What's most important to you in a car, pick one:...]. Most WebTV viewers will "surf" on whims and fads, more like channel surfing than library research. A mention in the right places could mean any web site can get its 15 minutes of fame, and be totally saturated - unless it's one of the big corporate megasites which specialize in this. Of course, if it has more than two television- resolution screens of text, or uses more than 4th grade vocabulary, or doesn't have snazzy moving Java aplets, it won't hold people's attentions. Yes, WebTV will allow "gee whiz" email to Aunt Betty, supplementing the telephone and written mail. And later even some real time audio and low res video! This will be sorta nice at times, useful; but it won't truly do much to stay humanly more in touch with Aunt Betty for most folks, it won't impact our lives as positively as even the telephone did (ie: there will be a small incremental gain). Few people will take the time to learn and practice skillful or heartfelt communication, instead going for quick cliches and then change the channel. (The idea of spending 15 minutes *thinking* about what you really want to say and how to say it will seem alien, when you could instead click on an efficient professionally written "greeting card" slogan (without even buying one of those hard to use alphanumeric keyboards) and be off to Bay Watch Online or Web Sites of The Rich and Famous). Despite this, email is probably the best part of the whole deal, even if over hyped. Content-wise, its cultural effect will be slightly positive or slightly negative or neutral, because most of it will be contained as private communication, like the telephone (as opposed to television, which has large cultural impacts). As mentioned above, the incrmental "media format" impact will not be as great as the phone, which had cultural effect via the immediate real-time human-identifiable-voice connection which mail did not have. Email is less radical to the human psyche than the telephone was, and videophones are only a notch more effective). Oh, another prediction: personal websites will become the message doormats, bumperstickers, painted mailboxes, answering machine messages, and "personalized greeting cards" (ref Target or Kmart) of the future. 90% will be uncreative "fill in the blank" semi-rote creations of formulistic mass software. Very few will actually have original text beyond captions, interesting insights, personally created images of merit, or functional things to share (like source code). Expect cliche'd clip art of the latest fad toys (cute little ponies with hair you can comb) and hot celebs. But nearly everyone (it will seem) will be able to have one! (And some will be wonderful!). "Look it up on the Web" educational assistance will in many, perhaps most, cases become another tool for kids to regurgitate rather than learn. With relatively little work, they can "write" reports on, say, dolphins, by typing "dolfins" in a search engine form, click on the first few sites to find an interesting one, grab text and images from one or two sites, rephrase the text some (optional), throw in some fonts and emphasis, and make a report that LOOKS better than most college students could have in 1985, but without ever thinking or learning anything. (Of course, WebTV kids will be at a "disadvantage", without a word processor and local hard disk and printer. They might have to do more work than cut and paste, and something might even seep in during the processs. But I think those will be fixed before long). As always, of course, it will be *possible* for some to learn a lot, if they are so motivated. But it will be easier for most to avoid real learning. Online discussion groups, whether Usenet or mailing lists, will be deluged with folks who don't contribute much. They will either be looking for free advice (the internet has been sold as this), or will be endlessly repeating a small set of trite mass-produced opinions - the ones that don't get into the newspaper letter columns, not due to political censorship but due to simple quality control. I say "deluged" even tho I expect only a smallish fraction of the WebTV crowd to attempt to participate - but it's a small portion of a very large market. Initially, using conventional modems, there won't be too great an impact on the bandwidth. Why should tripling the number of users expecting unlimited usage for $20/month do more than accelerate the existing problems? But that will prove way too slow, because graphics, sound, movement, animation, and video are required to steal those eyeballs away from MTV. Text can come fast, but it's too boring. So there will be much movement to implement cable modems and xDSL (especially ADSL), to give every one of those consumers 1.5-8 Mbps of download channel. Think what that means: ONE NEIGHBORHOOD could saturate today's entire backbone, and one city could require the backbone to expand 100 fold to keep up (not likely to be well funded by $19.95/month). Of course, they won't get that kind of bandwidth, their big pipes will be very jerky and sporadic. But they will act as sponges, able to soak up many times a much backbone bandwidth as there is available. A low impedance short to ground, datawise. This will have real impact, tho it's not clear yet whether we'll go to some form of volume-based charge, universal access-time charges, or corporate financing of infrastructure like television (at which time it becomes "theirs" and serves their purposes). But note that these folks are largely going to be people who were once satisfied by a few dozen TV channels, and 50 popular magazines. Caches are going to work well for this market, as they are faddish and trendy and not as proportinately intellectually diverse as the former internet. (Think of the magazines near the supermarket checkout stands, rather than the selection at the best newstand in town). This will mitigate the effect some, but won't erase the thousandfold increase in demand (imagine 300 million users worldwide expecting 1-8 mbps each download at peak hours). The bandwidth crisis will be real, and it will shift the paradigm as much as the commercialization of broadcasting or the centralization of ownership of media has changed those communication channels. The internet infrastructure of 2005 will be optimized for "broadcast" information from "megasite" producers to mass consumers who are mostly passive except for "channel surfing", rather than for information collaboration among relative peers. Organizationally it will resemble today's television industry much more than 1990's internet. It may even merge into one industry with television. And it may "penalize" atypical interests. "Geraldo Online" is going to be quick to download, because six other people on your block are viewing it too, after that reference on TV this evening. But you may have to wait for anything non-faddish and uncached to download. Some will say that WebTV "democratizes" the net, making it more accessible and representative, empowering more people. To some degree it might, for some people. But the overall thrust is NOT coming from the grass roots. This is not a project wherein inner city neighborhoods gets together than uses the network to organize politically, to nourish and expand their non-mainstream culture, to address their real life problems like gangs or jobs. It's a creation of Phillips and Sony and RCA and Disney and Time and Reuters and NBC/ABC/CBS/CNN and Paramount and all the same extremely wealthy and powerful commercial portions of our society that have dominated and controlled the mainstream media. They will tout isolated examples of good deeds in things like inner cities, but those are PR; the core of this change in direction is based on the exact same agendas and worldviews that control TV or People magazine (or major sports teams). Has the ubiquity of CocaCola ads or the popularity of Cheers democratized the world? The best I can hope for now is to keep alive some "commercially unviable" niches of intelligent and thoughtful discussion, peer creativity, collaborative information exchange, and free and diverse thought that will never show up significantly on CBS's broadcasts or AT&T's web sites. Perhaps some of the magic of the old internet can survive in these niches, or even expand and flourish. We can be an insignificant (volume wise) "rider" on the tidal wave of the corporate media information model. We can be a net within a net, where one can find thoughtful and meaningful words and concepts that don't fit the MTV or WebTV "good design" guidelines. We can use a tenth grade vocabulary :) We can discuss grey and multi-hued issues. We can joke and learn about each other (in some niches) as humans, outside of only professional roles. We can balance give and take. Things like the old practice of asking for information, and then spending the time to organize and post a summary of responses. Writing FAQ-like documents. Ask for help in a respectful way, rather than thinking our $19.95 bought us a bunch of consultants just as it bought us entertaining eyecandy professional web sites from Disneycorp and GM. I call this new/old "guerilla internet" subnet the CoyoteNet (not trademarked :-) in honor of the coyotes which unlike bears and wolves and ferrets, have managed to live amidst "development", even development which ravishes the formerly fertile landscape. Don't be surprised to see web sites which deliberately seek to be unattractive to WebTV. I expect to see somebody write an FAQ on "how NOT to optimize for WebTV". As in "how not to compromise your content" or even "how to bore the couch potatos so they'll channel surf elsewhere". Rather than "how to make it impossible for them to read if they are serious". I would like to have an open door for those who truly want more than the commercial pablum, even if their tool is WebTV. I hope there will still be paths of access for the black kid on the South Side of Chicago, who can't afford a network computer but whose family does have WebTV, and who is actually trying to learn, self-educate, and enculturate into an intellectually vibrant subculture absent at home or in the public schools. But it's OK with me if they have to learn to read and conceptually integrate more than 3 short paragraphs before jumping to another subject, in order to get into this niche. The "elitism" I represent is about expecting people to develop their potentials, and rewarding same, rather than sinking to the lowest common denominator. It's about relatively equal opportunity (within an imperfect world), but not guaranteed equal outcomes; effort does count. Trying to write well, thinking before replying, critically examining alternatives - there should remain a niche on the internet where these continue to be more valued than buying a new car because it's advertized as somehow making you more potent. And yes, the old internet (and usenet/uucpnet) had problems too. There was never a perfect golden age. But even in imperfection, it had value, and values, atypical of the mainstream culture. These are in great danger of being lost in the commercial repaving of the internet wildlands. I don't mean to preserve a static remnant as a museum piece, but to keep alive a dynamic and still evolving subcultural descendant, hopefully able to reach new heights. Here's the promised soundbite: The internet is the latest orange grove to be turned into (almost) indistinguishable suburbs modeled on those left by mass TV, radio, magazines and newspapers. WebTV is the bulldozers and contract assemblers putting up more ticky tacky boxes on the hillside. Rather than the internet culture following the path of the Amazon tribe whose land has been "developed", let's think more like the coyote, and co-exist in the "unprofitable" margins. Zhahai (a gardener of memes) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 23:17:14 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Internet/TV Convergence Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Begin forwarded message: Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 12:50:55 -0800 (PST) From: Phil Agre Subject: Internet/TV convergence [Dan Schiller has been saying for a long time now that the emerging Internet business model is basically television. The evidence over the last six weeks is definitely heading in his direction. Here is his analysis.] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to rre-help@weber.ucsd.edu =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 11 December 1996 Dear Phil: Your missive, to the effect that PCs and television were on a converging course, seems to me to open up a wide and important set of issues. Why is this convergence - or collision - happening? What does it mean to transfer television practices to this new context? How far can this transfer develop; may the process of convergence become generalized as a developing model for the net? Here are some comments. Internet Television: Net Makeover? By Dan Schiller Professor of Communication University of California, San Diego December 1996 Television and the Internet are pressing against one another, in a trend that raises vitally important issues. Why is this convergence - or collision - occurring? What does it mean to project contemporary television practices onto cyberspace? Might the process of convergence become generalized as a model for the Web's further evolution; how far can it go? Let's map some of the abundant recent evidence. 1. Convergence is real Television Systems: PC and TV manufacturers each seek enlarged markets. TVs that can stand in as Internet terminals, and PCs that can accept television signals are, in turn, obvious extensions of current consumer electronics markets. Similarly, U.S. computer software companies and broadcast television networks, program companies, and stations have commenced to jockey for competitive advantage as their industries merge. Nowhere has this internecine disagreement come through more forcefully than in the process of developing technical standards for digital TVs. Negotiators for computer companies recently staged an upset victory in the standards-making contest, setting the stage for what one analyst calls "a titanic battle for the nation's living rooms" between established set makers and personal computer manufacturers, "both of which want to build the digital device that will display these images."1 In truth, this epic contest will be even broader, in part because a stable Internet infrastructure has yet to materialize. Strategic alliances have been quick to proliferate. Microsoft and DirecTV - itself a subsidiary of GM's Hughes Corporation, with minority participation by AT&T - have inaugurated DirecPC, utilizing a satellite-delivery system to furnish television over a PC for a monthly subscription fee akin to that charged by cable television system operators.2 Philips Magnavox and, separately, Sony, are marketing "Web TV" set-top boxes, while Time-Warner, like other giant cable system operators, is contracting with suppliers for similar equipment, to work with emerging systems that will beam TV-like Internet channels to suitably equipped television sets.3 Network Services and the ongoing initiative to transform the Web into a "push" rather than a "pull" medium: The Interpublic Group, a major advertising holding company, has partnered with Ifusion Com, to create an Internet broadcasting system named Arrive. Akin to analogous services offered by Pointcast, Backweb Technologies and Intermind, Arrive will deliver customized information, including advertising, directly to users' screens whenever their computers are idle. The result, writes one observer, is to relieve users of "the need to search through the overwhelming amounts of data available" - because preselected sources of information are brought to users automatically.4 In such a context, the ability to control the viewer's start-up screen acquires newly decisive importance. Both Netscape and Microsoft have targeted the startup screen as what one writer calls a "platform[] for receiving Internet broadcasts."5 Microsoft's entry will utilize its Windows operating system software to create "Active Desktop" - a TV-like receiver that is already allied with a leading Internet broadcaster. One of Active Desktop's "premier" or default channels will be supplied by PointCast, whose on-line network already reaches an estimated 1.7 million subscribers with broadcast feeds of news and advertising.6 TheWall Street Journal tellingly refers to Microsoft's overall initiative, as "an important experiment in audience-building," and one with special appeal "to new consumers that haven't been moved yet to go on- line."7 (More momentarily on who these "new consumers" might be, and on how they relate to emerging "push" services.) Another important initiative arrived last summer, when Intel, the leading semiconductor manufacturer, rolled out Intercast, a system allowing Pentium processor-equipped computers to receive video and audio signals. Intercast permits concurrent Web surfing and TV viewing, and sends out specially created content that complements or ties back into TV shows. The venture depends on a growing list of major broadcast programmers, including GE's TV network NBC, Time- Warner's CNN, Viacom's MTV and, interestingly, Boston public broadcasting station WGBH.8 And then there is America Online's recent hire of Bob Pittman, the wunderkind who launched MTV fifteen years ago, "to polish the surface of the first break-out brand in cyberspace."9 AOL's churning subscriber base of 7 million may not look like much next to the tens of millions of net surfers, but perhaps that's not the relevant comparison. It's certainly a formidable basis on which to compete against the ratings numbers garnered by any of the existing cable networks. Perhaps AOL can identify means of symbiotically migrating audiences from and to TV. Oprah Winfrey, for example - whose television talkshow reaches a daily audience of some 15 million viewers - has successfully carried a portion of her on-air bookclub audience to her AOL program service.10 ESPN's popular Web-based Sportszone comprises another such linkage between the two media. Audience measurement infrastructure: Feverish discussion is underway of how best to track the net surfers' attention - especially to commercial messages.11 Nielsen, the longtime television ratings service, is actively developing audience measurement technique on the Web, where it already faces competition. DoubleClick, for example, comprises a network service for subscribing Web sites and advertisers; by monitoring usage it builds user profiles, on the basis of which it instantaneously uploads customized ads. Since March, 1996, DoubleClick has identified the preferences of some 10 million Web surfers, with a reported 100,000 more profiles flowing in each day. A new trade association, the Internet Advertising Bureau, helps ensure that the sponsors who are, according to one writer, "trying to turn the once-eclectic Web into the ultimate 24-hour marketing machine," do not lack for an institutional voice.12 Programming: "[A]dvertisers," writes Joan Voight, a reporter for AdWeek, "want to work hand in hand with publishers to coproduce the material that packs Web pages." ParentTime, a Web site that is a joint venture between Procter & Gamble and Time Warner, provides parents with interactive advice and promotes Time Warner magazines such as Parenting and Sports Illustrated for Kids. P&G has, in addition nine brand-specific Web sites, with dozens of others waiting in the wings; but ParentTime is a collaborative effort by the world's leading advertiser and a megamedia corporate ally to experiment with interactive program forms specifically targeted at consumer advertisers' most-needed audience: women.13 At this juncture, we return to the question of who the new targets of internet broadcasting will likely be, for the effort by advertisers to increase women's use of the net has indeed been at once widespread and concerted. Ed Meyer, then CEO of Grey Advertising, was asked in March of 1995 what "key issues" had to be explored with regard to new media. He responded: "One of the biggest issues is how we get women to use new-media applications and embrace these new technologies. With 70% of traditional advertising directed to women, it's vital to the success of new-media opportunities to appeal to and be used by women."14 Women's use of the Internet has duly increased, at least in the U.S.; women accounted for less than 10% of Internet users a few years ago but, according to one tally, totaled nearly one-third by summer 1996.15 It's significant, in this context, that one of Microsoft's six introductory TV-like channels is a magazine for women called UnderWire.16 Even beyond these new channels, the horizon of on-line network television is shrinking toward experiences that give Web users incentive to interact under the sign of one or another brand. Sponsored chatrooms, for example, encourage users to exchange personal messages that contextualize their use of particular commodities - make-up, say, or malt liquor - within the span of everyday social interaction. Thus is an emergent cultural practice reconsecrated to consumption, the most hallowed ground we have. Interactive genres of different kinds, from drama to news to games, seem certain as well to evolve further, under the watchful eye of sponsors who can lard them in all sorts of creative ways with product mentions and demonstrations. On one side, then, "push" services threaten to reduce use of the net to a more passive television-type experience. On the other side, however, there are ongoing reformulations of Web experience that put a premium on forms of active engagement - but mainly insofar as users' involvement can be rechanneled on terms established by sponsorship. There is little doubt that TVs and PCs are converging, and that a series of unfolding applications are beginning to recast the Web. What then are the implications of these developments? 2. Market Power and Commercial Sponsorship It is not "television" that is converging with cyberspace, of course, but a historically specific set of practices that we can more properly gloss as "commercial networked television." Commercial networked television is hardly new. It's crucial to stress that, long before the Internet, commercial networked television had already acquired the defining institutional identity that now bulks large in its convergence with the Web. Each of the two adjectives hints at a crucial feature. First has been the centralization of television content, or programming. This centralization should be distinguished from the considerable geographical concentration in programming and related industries that it encouraged. Centralization of programming via networking meant that large producers and distributors, rather than local or nonprofit broadcasters, were enabled to gain market power sufficient to dominate the larger television industry. (Thousands of U.S. musicians and untold other performers, by comparison, became casualties, as networks and stations successfully pushed to utilize recordings in preference to more expensive and unreliable live performances. Microsoft is putting $400 million annually into developing Web content, with no expectation of turning a profit for at least three more years. That's around an order of magnitude above the annual investment that was required by Rupert Murdoch's Fox Broadcasting network [or, for that matter, by Gannett's newspaper, USA Today], before each began to pay off. And corporations as a whole are estimated to have spent a couple of billions of dollars in developing Web pages. This scale of expenditure makes it all but certain that one or another megamedia company will eventually figure out how to innovate profitable cyberspace genres. But the question of how far such companies will be able to dominate the market for Web- based experiences is a larger and more complex one. The key goal of Webcasters, on current evidence, is to concentrate and stabilize relations between program services and audiences. Under active exploration in realizing this goal, and therewith in claiming additional market power, are "push" services, exclusive licensing agreements, a star system, blockbuster programming investments, and operating system software. But it must never be forgotten that this multifaceted attempt to stabilize the relation between programming and audience is itself largely a function of the second abiding aspect of a commercial networked model - its embedded reliance on advertiser sponsorship. The Wall Street Journal is perfectly correct to reduce this sprawling hubbub of business activity to the following headline: "How Net Is Becoming More Like Television To Draw Advertisers." The explosive growth of Internet broadcasting is tantamount to an admission that advertisers have succeeded in bending the Web to their particular social purposes. TV is the world's most effective selling tool. Simplifying only somewhat, it was because of its ability to accommodate live-action demonstration, over and above identification and endorsement of products and product applications, that TV succeeded radio as the foremost advertising medium. Advertisers are not yet confident that the Web portends an equally decisive new stage in the ongoing evolution of the sales effort - but they are certain that they cannot afford to overlook that possibility. So much at least we may take from the celebrated address, already two and a half years ago, by Ed Artzt, then CEO of Procter and Gamble. Before the American Association of Advertising Agencies, Artzt hectored his audience to rouse itself from its slumbers, and to "seize technology in [its] teeth" to ensure access for commercial sponsors to new media.17 Consider how far the debate has traveled - and metamorphosized - since then. Today it is no longer a question of whether advertising and marketing will move on the net. Now, rather, the issue has become how to make the pioneering forms of commercial representation - banner ads and corporate home pages - succeed more efficiently, or give up pride of place to "new and improved" advertising practices. Hunter Madsen, vice president for commercial strategy at Hotwired, makes a strong case for unremitting experimentation, toward less- standardized banners or "brand modules," and direct interpenetration of commercial and editorial matter ["content cobranding"].18 The generic forms of advertiser sponsorship and programming on the Web, surely, are nowhere near stabilization. But neither is their ultimate form the chief issue. Advertisers have proclaimed the necessity of colonizing cyberspace, and of making it dependent on their ability to provide funding. Does anyone still truly think that they will realize the folly of this ambition, and abandon the net? If advertisers ever recognized that the "culture" of the net was unreceptive, that time is long gone. They will try, and try again, until ... 3. Implications Let's distinguish two levels of analysis. The first is, what does advertiser sponsorship do to the media that become dependent on it? The second is, to what extent will the net come to be advertiser supported? There is plenty of evidence that advertiser sponsorship profoundly affects individual media practices, content, and relationships with audiences. It is not mainly a matter of poor ethics or lapsed standards, but of a systematic overall orientation. Advertisers want media to deliver audiences to them, in predictable quantities and at standard and comparably efficient costs. These audiences, moreover, need to be of ascertained composition and "quality," in the sense that advertisers desire to purchase access to a guranteed number of women ages 18-49, or men aged 25-54. (Of course audience sales is often much more nuanced and targeted than this.) I have already underlined that the rollout of "push" services instantiates an effort to recreate an old necessity in new form: access to stable - measurable and predictable - audiences for advertisements. When advertisers foot an appreciable proportion of overall media costs, they come to dominate that medium's workaday self- consciousness, which in turn places new pressures and limits upon that medium's relationship with its audience. It is not only a matter of "censorship" to suit the idiosyncracies of particular sponsors (though neither should censorship of this kind be gainsaid). It's also, and more substantively, a question of emphasis on particular program forms, and the priorities that they express - particular creative practices rather than others. The practices that saturate our culture, and that are now being transferred wholesale to the net, are market-driven in intent and in effect. That doesn't mean they cannot sometimes eventuate in true artistry, but rather that emerging forms of art on the net are themselves being placed in harness to a narrow and exclusionary social purpose: selling.19 How far can this convergence go? Of this we can hardly be confident. The trail is already littered with the effects of poor strategic judgments and corporate missteps. Consider only the just-announced decision by Pacific Telesis, Bell Atlantic and Nynex that their venture into television production, TeleTV, will disband. Or the trade journal Variety's recent pronouncement: that "convergence" itself is ceasing to be this season's buzzword in Hollywood. Surely there will be additional failures. Nobody can be certain that any particular venture will succeed, let alone that it will transform the net. But that doesn't mean the whole thing is an open question. Most significant, it seems to me, is that the outcome itself is being left essentially to "market forces," that is, to the very business behemoths whose actions I have briefly assayed. If present trends are not interrupted, the extent to which a variant of commercial network television comes to prevail on the Web will be very largely determined by profitseeking companies. Other social interests, prospecting for alternative visions of cyberspace, including churches, public-interest organizations and community groups, educational institutions, musuems, libraries, and labor unions, will either be marginalized, or else incorporated - and exploited - by sponsors seeking access to their members, and perhaps a patina of legitimacy. The debate over the propriety of advertiser-supported radio broadcasting (the so-called "American system") unfolded through years of public discussion,20 and drew outbursts of anticommercial concern from highly placed politicians, church leaders, businesspeople, educators, and philanthropic organizations. In contrast, the "debate" over commercialism in cyberspace has been a nonstarter. The established media have been nearly silent; aside from the question of "spamming" - basically a diversion - scant attention has been accorded to the grave questions raised by the growing commercial presence on the net. In such circumstances, what chance is there of building an abiding public purpose into the net? *** In actuality, many people and organizations, a diversity of motive and ambition continue to be present, as the commercial imperative unfolds across the Web. Some participants are unalloyed boosters; some are alienated cynics - seemingly above the dismal venality and small-mindedness of it all. Still others may take pleasure in successfully smuggling private messages - cybergraffiti - into sponsored spaces, or in covertly intruding in other ways. But what of those more active dissenters, who seek to carry forward on the net the longstanding oppositional traditions of independent film and video artistry, and of free thought and association more generally? We may place our hopes in them - with our hearts, at least, if not yet with our heads. ---Dan Schiller Professor of Communication dschille@weber.UCSD.edu 1quote from Mark Lander, "Industries Agree On U.S. Standards For TV Of Future," New York Times 26 November 1996: A1, C6; Bryan Gruley, "Television and Computer Makers Reach An Accord on Design of Digital-TV Sets," Wall Street Journal 26 November 1996: B10; Joel Brinkley, "Defining TV's And Computers For a Future of High Definition," New York Times 2 December 1996: C1, C11. 2Katherine Stalter, "NBC, Intel link to channel TV to PC," Variety 1-14 July 1996: 33. 3Mark Robichaux, "Time Warner Inc. Is Expected to Order Up to $450 Million of TV Set-Top Boxes," Wall Street Journal, 10 December 1996: B8. 4Stuart Elliott, "Advertising," New York Times 20 November 1996: C5. 5David Bank, "How Net Is Becoming More Like Television To Draw Advertisers," Wall Street Journal 13 December 1996: A1, A8. 6David Bank, "Microsoft Picks On-Line News From PointCast," Wall Street Journal 12 December 1996: B4. 7Don Clark, "Microsoft's On-Line Service Goes to a TV Format," Wall Street Journal 9 Dec 96: B7. 8Amy Dunkin, "PC Meets TV: The Plot Thickens," Business Week 23 December 1996: 94-5. 9Cathy Taylor, "Welcome! You've Got Bob Pittman," MediaWeek 2 December 1996: 24-27. 10Deirdre Donahue, "But some wonder if people are really reading," USA Today 12 December 1996: D1, D2. 11Jane Greenstein, "Advertisers Stell Trying to Get a Line on Net Users," Los Angeles Times 2 December 1996: D5. 12Joan Voight, "Beyond the Banner," Wired December 1996: 196, 204. 13Jeff Harrington, "P&G's programming push," USA Today 25 November 1996: 12B. 14"InterViews," Advertising Age 13 March 1995, S-26. 15Andrew Kantor and Michael Neubarth, "Off The Charts: The Internet 1996," Internet World Dec 96: 44-51. 16Don Clark, "Microsoft's On-Line Service Goes to a TV Format," Wall Street Journal 9 Dec 96: B7. 17For an illuminating discussion, see Matthew P. McAllister, The Commercialization of American Culture. Sage, 1996. 18Hunter Madsen, "Reclaim the Deadzone," Wired December 1996, 206-220. 19For those wishing to learn more about the role of advertising in television itself, check out Erik Barnouw's classic book, The Sponsor. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. 20Robert W. McChesney, Telecommunications, Mass Media and Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. ------------------------------ From: David Scott Lewis Subject: Dataquest Survey Blasts Internet Television Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 12:28:09 -0800 Organization: Strategies & Technologies, Inc. (STI) I usually have a lot of respect for Dataquest, but they blew it big time by spewing the results of a recent telephone survey. As part of Dataquest's new The Digital Consumer program, they surveyed nearly 7,000 home consumers. Their conclusion: "The Internet television in its current form does not have significant market potential in Dataquest's view," said Van Baker, director and principal analyst of Dataquest's The Digital Consumer program. Baker later gives himself an "out" by noting that Internet TV could be made more enticing. He sites "push" customization and the delivery of local content as two ways to expand Internet TV's market potential. However, their headline reads: "Dataquest survey shows U.S. households are turned off by Internet television." How many will see the headline and never read Mr. Baker's "exceptions"? First, WebTV and its cousins from Sega and Bandai need to have more interactivity. Also, customization, push technologies, and delivery of local content _ARE_ real issues. My response to Mr. Baker is that he isn't giving the Web TV (including WebTV) clan enough credit. These are OBVIOUS limitations, but limitations that are being aggressively addressed. An open word (or several) to Mr. Baker: "Open your eyes and see the possibilities." Frankly, chastising "Version 1.0" technologies in this industry is utterly ridiculous. Vision, Mr. Baker, it takes vision to see the future in all its glory. Second, I'd like to shoot down the survey results with a bit of academic backing. Moriarty and Kosnik point out that customer needs that form a foundation for targeting a market or a segment are difficult to discern, because potential customers are typically unable to articulate needs they do not know they have. (See R.T. Moriarty and T.J. Kosnik, "High-tech concepts, continuity and change," IEEE Engineering Management Review, March 1990, pp. 25-35. BTW, yours truly was the editor-in-chief of EMR from 1987-1995.) On a much more basic level, it comes down to the flaws revealed by Prahalad and Hamel in their McKinsey award-winning papers in Harvard Business Review. Remember their ideas on strategic intent, core competencies (which most people bastardize -- bluntly, "it's a technology, stupid!") and expeditionary marketing? Let's focus on the later concept: Expeditionary marketing. How about some examples, shall we? Traditional survey methods revealed that there was no market for: 1) The Sony Walkman, 2) NutraSweet, and 3) CT scanners And, believe me, there are plenty more examples. What gets under my skin is that most traditional market research is near worthless when applied to radical innovations. But the media touts the research as Gospel. Dataquest and the other leading market research firms should stick to what they do best: Simple extrapolation. If they choose to enter the realm of radical innovations, they need to implement a whole new set of tools. They need to take their telephone surveys and put them in the circular file; frankly, that's all they're worth! To review the Dataquest release, go to: http://stonewall.dataquest.com:80/irc/press/ir-n9652.html For the marketing perspective, see the following monographs: Factors that impact consumer adoption of innovative technological services over time: The case of the Internet by Roy Henrichs (1995) Marketing high technology: An analysis of organizational buyer and seller behavior in the expert systems industry by W.A. Rooks, Jr. (1991) Using market diffusion models for developing and assessing marketing strategies by Namwoon Kim (1993) Technological generations and the spread of the social definition of new technologies by R.S. Larsen (1993) Predicting the future: Assessing forecasts and predictions for residential broadband services by Sandy Kyrish (1993) Substitutability and complementarity in the diffusion of multiple electronic communication media: An evolutionary approach by L.L. Soe (1994) Evaluative criteria and user acceptance of end user information technology: A study of end-user cognitive and normative pre-adoption beliefs by E. Karahanna (1993) Predictive insights through analogical reasoning by H. Lee (1993) Understanding products and markets for radical innovations by Gary Lynn (1993) Lead user model for analysis of new product developments in the computer industry by M.G. Angur (1991) Strategies for new products in fast changing high technology markets by C.S. Kim (1991) Anyone want to debate this further? I'm ready! :-) GO WebTV!!! David Scott Lewis thewebguy@acm.org Strategies & Technologies, an Internet marketing consultancy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 23:51:17 -0600 From: Igor Sviridov Subject: Re: WebTV Upgrade Released Organization: J. River, Inc. In article , David Scott Lewis wrote: > WebTV just implemented an upgrade that subscribers should know about. [skipped] Actually, frames ARE there and DO work :-) Other nice enhancements are multimedia mail, audio control panel with pause/start/stop, phone number display when dialing, screen saver :) and scheduled mail check (unit will be ON, though TV may be off). SSL still not implemented :-( so sfnb.com customers like me still can't use WebTV for banking ;-). I eagerly wait for SSL, cookies and telnet (well, last may be tough). Other nice extension would be HTML editor and Web hosting service from WebTV - even WebTV customers will be creative ;-) --igor -------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====----------------------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 96 17:52:00 EST From: James E Bellaire Subject: Re: WebTV Upgrade Released David Scott Lewis writes: > WebTV just implemented an upgrade that subscribers should know about. > First, RealAudio has been added. That's one step in the right > direction. I hope support for Shockwave, PDF, QuickTime, QuickTimeVR, > and frames aren't too far behind. BTW, until this Web spoofing stuff > can be resolved, WebTV should stay away from adding support for > JavaScript or ActiveX. What web spoofing stuff? Is there some kind of security hole in JavaScript that I have missed? (The last one I heard about was a few months back and was with a particular browser that has been upgraded since. That problem was related to machines behind firewalls running software to discover break-in points or relay information to machines outside the firewall. That would not affect most WebTV people, since they are on ISPs not corporate or educational dialups.) By the way: According to WebTV there is no 'local' dialup for my town of 20,000 in Indiana. (I'm 317-677, soon to be 765-677.) The non-local dialups given are in Ohio (513-291 and 513-640 - not the 317-638 and 317-977 Indianapolis numbers) A town 20 miles away (317-457) is given two other numbers, 513-868 and 513-640. Not sure why there would be a difference there ... By the way, BOTH 513-291 and 513-640 are, as of last September 28th, 937-291 and 937-640. Permissive is still in effect. (513-868 is remaining in 513.) Glad I subscribe to one of the three local ISPs! WebTV would be too expensive in this area. James E. Bellaire bellaire@tk.com Webpage Available 23.5 Hrs a Day!!! http://www.iquest.net/~bellaire/ ------------------------------ From: David Scott Lewis Subject: WebTV Upgrade Released Friday Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 10:01:52 -0800 Organization: Strategies & Technologies, Inc. (STI) WebTV just implemented an upgrade that subscribers should know about. First, RealAudio has been added. That's one step in the right direction. I hope support for Shockwave, PDF, QuickTime, QuickTimeVR, and frames isn't too far behind. BTW, until this Web spoofing stuff can be resolved, WebTV should stay away from adding support for JavaScript or ActiveX. Second, they've added background music. The music seems to repeat after an hour or so, but it's pretty good. What they need to do is to support viewer selection of a musical genre. Personally, I like The Music of Cyberspace series. Third, they've made it possible to switch users without logging off and logging on again. There were a few other additions, such as checking for e-mail even when the unit is off, but the above are the main upgrade features. BTW, it was totally painless to add the upgrades. It took about 10 minutes, but it was a simple click on the remote control. That's it! WebTV, albeit a consumer product, is the best example of why NCs are needed: Ease of maintenance! And WebTV does NOT have goofy functions, like logging off by hitting the "Start" button (boy, isn't that intuitive!). For your enjoyment, here are four useful URLs (each is an article): http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,6043,00.html http://www.packet.com/schrage/today.html (this one, because it ends with "today.html" may not last for long!) http://techweb.cmp.com:80/ng/nov96/fcompare.htm http://www.nytimes.com/web/docsroot/library/cyber/techcol/1202techcol.html For a pointer on the Web TV phenomena (including WebTV, and the systems from Sega and Bandai), go to: http://users.visi.net/~cwt/tv-inet.html David Scott Lewis thewebguy@acm.org ------------------------------ From: jfmezei Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 01:40:45 -0500 Organization: SPC Reply-To: nospam.jfmezei@videotron.ca Is WEBtv just a box you can connect to any TV set , or is it a combination of compatible CPU and monitor? Also, many have been impressed with the quality of the text. Could this be because the image is not "broadcast" but directly fed into the TV and that the monitor may in fact have a greater resolution than the broadcast NTSC standard? ------------------------------ From: beck@slidell.com (Jeff Becklehimer) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 16 Dec 1996 23:51:22 GMT Organization: slidell.com inc, Slidell Louisiana Phil Leonard (pleonard@cybercom.net) wrote: > In article ID , beck@slidell.com > (Jeff Becklehimer) writes: >> Just curious, does this violate copyright laws? Also, when you say an >> image is "too detailed" does this mean you also resize or reduce the >> number of colors of the images to make them fit on the screen? > If they ARE violating any copyright laws then everyone of us who cache > images we view on the Internet, are, as well. I know you can't easily > see this with Netscape, but Internet Explorer shows you every image > you ever looked at, until the cache is full and pushes the last image > out to make room for the fresh ones. This is true but what I was referring to is the fact that their proxy server modifies the image and then redistributes it. This is not a temporary copy used for viewing. I guess my question should have been "Is the proxy serving a derivative work or just a copy?" Jeff Becklehimer slidell.com, inc. ------------------------------ From: travisd@saltmine.radix.net (Travis Dixon) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 17 Dec 1996 01:39:39 GMT Organization: RadixNet Internet Services JP White (ffv.aerotech@ffvaerotech.com) wrote: > has a phone line. It's early days, give them a chance! Expect to see > a higher monthly rate when the cable modem does appear as an option. I > doubt they'll give away the extra bandwidth, though it would be real > nice if they did! I would imagine that the cost for extra bandwidth would be evened out by not having to provide a dial-up line for every user - just a POP at the CableCo's headend. Besides, just because they're on Cable modems doesn't mean that they're going to push more bits down the line. --travis ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 14:34:48 -0500 From: Fred R. Goldstein Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Andy McFadden writes, > We occasionally find minor errors in the CCMI database or in the way > we use it, and like to get them resolved as quickly as possible. The troubles are severalfold. The CCMI database is as good as you can get in today's market, but that doesn't make it perfect. CCMI has to make compromises too. Local calling tariffs are not all "of a mold"; the way they work in different areas can be quite variable. CCMI just takes a couple of good estimates which work in most places, but not always for everyone. > We list expensive local calls (e.g. $0.25 flat rate per call) as being > non-local, which may be what you're seeing. Again, the goal is to > avoid causing any surprises for the customer. Most of them don't care > whether the bill comes from AT&T or the BOC, they're just concerned > about what the calls cost. > We're using the actual tariff data from CCMI. I did some tests on a few > phone bills and they were dead on. But whose phone bills? Nowadays there is competition for long distance, with variout discount plans, and local rates may have options galore too. > ...There are two problems with putting a bunch > of POP numbers on the screen. First and foremost, it's fine for > technical folks but fairly lame for the bulk of the population who > want to plug it in and then just not worry about it. The whole "it > just works" concept requires hiding as much of the internal workings > from the mass-market consumer as possible, without subjecting them to > any nasty surprises. But it does have nasty surprises. The CCMI database is great in those places where calls are "toll" or "local", period. That used to be the norm in most places, and still applies in many. But what about, say, Boston, where there are something like 8 valid "local" residence tariff options, with different radii? (Measured, contiguous, suburban, metropolitan, circle, measured-circle, LATA-wide, Bay State East, just in case anyone wonders, and I may be missing one or more.) The WebTV application gave me two numbers for Needham, MA. The "local" one was Waltham, the "toll" one was Boston. That's a good approximation. BUT Needham is not *contiguous* to either, or to any of their numbers. Under the NYNEX tariff, the basic residence "flat rate" package ($16/mo) is "contiguous" only. Other exchanges within an 8 mile radius are charged at Zone 1 Measured rates (1.6 cents/minute); "local" beyond 8 miles is charged at Zone 2 (5.5 cents/minute. Zone rates have *no* off-peak discounts, so night/weekend toll calls, at 3.6c/minute, are cheaper than zone 2 local!) A web junkie in Needham would be better off with Suburban service (about $25) calling Waltham, or Metropolitan (around $30) also calling Boston. Therefore a "contiguous" user in Needham would be presented with no "free" calls, but the zone 1 is correctly positioned better than zone 2. But now let's move up the road to Belmont. The WebTV application shows two "local" numbers, but the Boston number shows first, before the Waltham number. Both are Zone 1, but Belmont is contiguous to Waltham, not Boston! WebTV would miss the free call at any opportunity to make a Zone 1 metered call. Humans can figure this out. Wetware isn't perfect but it is trainable. Getting the local numbers right is a challenge for ISPs. I've looked at, for instance, UUNET's on-line list of dial POPs. They have some exchange names wrong, so if you don't research the actual whereabouts of the prefix, you'll sometimes get a toll or unwanted zone charge. For instance, they list a "Sherman Oaks" CA number which is really in Canoga Park, several miles to the west (overlapping but different calling radius). They're not the only ones with similar errors. Fred R. Goldstein fgoldstein@bbn.com BBN Corp. Cambridge MA USA +1 617 873 3850 ------------------------------ From: Bob Brown Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story (a Realworld Experience) Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 16:36:00 -0500 Organization: The EmiNet Domain (407)731-0222 Reply-To: rbrown@emi.net Andy, I saw your post on comp.dcom.telecom. This is an interesting thread because it homes in on the only problem I see with Webtv and that is the long distance charges in some areas. I am the Director of Information Technology at my company and spend way too many hours on the web. My parents are not computer literate at all and are not good candidates to purchase a computer to use to connect to a local ISP. Your product is the perfect thing for them. I actually find myself using it as much or more than my PC. I just wanted to share the experience I just had calling their local phone provider and A T & T since it might give you some insight into what people are dealing with. My mom and dad live in area code 803 in exchange 478. So I called their local company, Farmers Tel. They have no calling plan to give my parents a break. They are actually kind of high. I should say that they were very nice and gave me AT&T's number. This is where it gets interesting. Instead of just saying that I was looking for a calling plan to reduce the charges on a frequently called number I made the mistake of mentioning the internet and Webtv. So they politely transferred me to AT&T's Worldnet service, their internet service provider group. When I explained to this person what I was trying to find out and mentioned WebTv they politely transfered me to the Direct Satellite TV group in AT&T. Now I am kind of bummed out over the fact that my mom and dad will probably be soured on the internet deal because they are very frugal and will not happily pay a lot of long distance charges. But the real reason that I am writing this to you is to share the experience that a lot of non-techie people are going to run into when they try to use your beautifully designed product and service. I'm hoping that you are agressively pursuing a relationship with some major ISP's to provide toll free service in the areas that still remain isolated. Thanks for reading this if you got this far. I don't know about you but I sure feel better now. Oh, and if anyone can figure out who I can call at AT&T to find out about a calling plan for mom and dad please let me know. Robert T. Brown III (Bob) robert.brown@sfwmd.gov (at work) West Palm Beach, Florida rbrown@emi.net (at home) 26 40 32 NORTH 80 05 37 WEST http://www.emi.net/~rbrown ------------------------------ From: bwismer@msmail3.HAC.COM Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 16 Dec 1996 17:33:10 GMT Organization: Hughes Aircraft Company I've had the Philips box for over a month now and in so far I'm happy with it. The newest download last week which audio is on in the backgroud during surf'n sessions. Problem when you call-up your own selection of radio or cd's from the list they do not play. So WEBTV has some more debuging problems? Or is it a marketing strategy for more money? ------------------------------ From: bwismer@msmail3.HAC.COM Subject: Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective Date: 16 Dec 1996 17:40:17 GMT Organization: Hughes Aircraft Company I'm going through printer withdrawl with my WEBTV. So I forward or send my email stuff to my office to print or spell check etc. but when WEBTV matures it will be a handy affordable toy instead of paying a couple of grand for an obsolete computer. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #664 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Dec 17 05:06:04 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id FAA13384; Tue, 17 Dec 1996 05:06:04 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 05:06:04 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612171006.FAA13384@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #665 TELECOM Digest Tue, 17 Dec 96 05:06:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 665 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Echelon: The Global Surveillance System (Ian Geldard) The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management (Monty Solomon) Nevada Regulators Approve SBC-Pacific Telesis Merger (Mike King) Book Review: "Mastering Microsoft Exchange Server" by Gerber (Rob Slade) Re: N11 Codes (Linc Madison) Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes (Nils Andersson) Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes (Clive D.W. Feather) Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes (Steven R. Kleinedler) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: igeldard@capital.demon.co.uk (Ian Geldard) Subject: Echelon: The Global Surveillance System Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 10:37:54 GMT EXPOSING THE GLOBAL SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM by Nicky Hager ------ The article as it appears in hard copy in the magazine also includes the following sidebars: --"NSA'S BUSINESS PLAN: GLOBAL ACCESS" by Duncan Campbell --GREENPEACE WARRIOR: WHY NO WARNING? and --NZ's PM Kept in the Dark by Nicky Hager ********Hager's book "secret Power" is available from CAQ for $33.******* ----------- [See end] IN THE LATE 1980S, IN A DECISION IT PROBABLY REGRETS, THE US PROMPTED NEW ZEALAND TO JOIN A NEW AND HIGHLY SECRET GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM. HAGER'S INVESTIGATION INTO IT AND HIS DISCOVERY OF THE ECHELON DICTIONARY HAS REVEALED ONE OF THE WORLD'S BIGGEST, MOST CLOSELY HELD INTELLIGENCE PROJECTS. THE SYSTEM ALLOWS SPY AGENCIES TO MONITOR MOST OF THE WORLD'S TELEPHONE, E-MAIL, AND TELEX COMMUNICATIONS. For 40 years, New Zealand's largest intelligence agency, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) the nation's equivalent of the US National Security Agency (NSA) had been helping its Western allies to spy on countries throughout the Pacific region, without the knowledge of the New Zealand public or many of its highest elected officials. What the NSA did not know is that by the late 1980s, various intelligence staff had decided these activities had been too secret for too long, and were providing me with interviews and documents exposing New Zealand's intelligence activities. Eventually, more than 50 people who work or have worked in intelligence and related fields agreed to be interviewed. The activities they described made it possible to document, from the South Pacific, some alliance-wide systems and projects which have been kept secret elsewhere. Of these, by far the most important is ECHELON. Designed and coordinated by NSA, the ECHELON system is used to intercept ordinary e-mail, fax, telex, and telephone communications carried over the world's telecommunications networks. Unlike many of the electronic spy systems developed during the Cold War, ECHELON is designed primarily for non-military targets: governments, organizations, businesses, and individuals in virtually every country. It potentially affects every person communicating between (and sometimes within) countries anywhere in the world. It is, of course, not a new idea that intelligence organizations tap into e-mail and other public telecommunications networks. What was new in the material leaked by the New Zealand intelligence staff was precise information on where the spying is done, how the system works, its capabilities and shortcomings, and many details such as the codenames. The ECHELON system is not designed to eavesdrop on a particular individual's e-mail or fax link. Rather, the system works by indiscriminately intercepting very large quantities of communications and using computers to identify and extract messages of interest from the mass of unwanted ones. A chain of secret interception facilities has been established around the world to tap into all the major components of the international telecommunications networks. Some monitor communications satellites, others land-based communications networks, and others radio communications. ECHELON links together all these facilities, providing the US and its allies with the ability to intercept a large proportion of the communications on the planet. The computers at each station in the ECHELON network automatically search through the millions of messages intercepted for ones containing pre-programmed keywords. Keywords include all the names, localities, subjects, and so on that might be mentioned. Every word of every message intercepted at each station gets automatically searched whether or not a specific telephone number or e-mail address is on the list. The thousands of simultaneous messages are read in "real time" as they pour into the station, hour after hour, day after day, as the computer finds intelligence needles in telecommunications haystacks. SOMEONE IS LISTENING: The computers in stations around the globe are known, within the network, as the ECHELON Dictionaries. Computers that can automatically search through traffic for keywords have existed since at least the 1970s, but the ECHELON system was designed by NSA to interconnect all these computers and allow the stations to function as components of an integrated whole. The NSA and GCSB are bound together under the five-nation UKUSA signals intelligence agreement. The other three partners all with equally obscure names are the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Britain, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) in Canada, and the Defense Signals Directorate (DSD) in Australia. The alliance, which grew from cooperative efforts during World War II to intercept radio transmissions, was formalized into the UKUSA agreement in 1948 and aimed primarily against the USSR. The five UKUSA agencies are today the largest intelligence organizations in their respective countries. With much of the world's business occurring by fax, e-mail, and phone, spying on these communications receives the bulk of intelligence resources. For decades before the introduction of the ECHELON system, the UKUSA allies did intelligence collection operations for each other, but each agency usually processed and analyzed the intercept from its own stations. Under ECHELON, a particular station's Dictionary computer contains not only its parent agency's chosen keywords, but also has lists entered in for other agencies. In New Zealand's satellite interception station at Waihopai (in the South Island), for example, the computer has separate search lists for the NSA, GCHQ, DSD, and CSE in addition to its own. Whenever the Dictionary encounters a message containing one of the agencies' keywords, it automatically picks it and sends it directly to the headquarters of the agency concerned. No one in New Zealand screens, or even sees, the intelligence collected by the New Zealand station for the foreign agencies. Thus, the stations of the junior UKUSA allies function for the NSA no differently than if they were overtly NSA-run bases located on their soil. The first component of the ECHELON network are stations specifically targeted on the international telecommunications satellites (Intelsats) used by the telephone companies of most countries. A ring of Intelsats is positioned around the world, stationary above the equator, each serving as a relay station for tens of thousands of simultaneous phone calls, fax, and e-mail. Five UKUSA stations have been established to intercept the communications carried by the Intelsats. The British GCHQ station is located at the top of high cliffs above the sea at Morwenstow in Cornwall. Satellite dishes beside sprawling operations buildings point toward Intelsats above the Atlantic, Europe, and, inclined almost to the horizon, the Indian Ocean. An NSA station at Sugar Grove, located 250 kilometers southwest of Washington, DC, in the mountains of West Virginia, covers Atlantic Intelsats transmitting down toward North and South America. Another NSA station is in Washington State, 200 kilometers southwest of Seattle, inside the Army's Yakima Firing Center. Its satellite dishes point out toward the Pacific Intelsats and to the east. *1 The job of intercepting Pacific Intelsat communications that cannot be intercepted at Yakima went to New Zealand and Australia. Their South Pacific location helps to ensure global interception. New Zealand provides the station at Waihopai and Australia supplies the Geraldton station in West Australia (which targets both Pacific and Indian Ocean Intelsats). *2 Each of the five stations' Dictionary computers has a codename to distinguish it from others in the network. The Yakima station, for instance, located in desert country between the Saddle Mountains and Rattlesnake Hills, has the COWBOY Dictionary, while the Waihopai station has the FLINTLOCK Dictionary. These codenames are recorded at the beginning of every intercepted message, before it is transmitted around the ECHELON network, allowing analysts to recognize at which station the interception occurred. New Zealand intelligence staff has been closely involved with the NSA's Yakima station since 1981, when NSA pushed the GCSB to contribute to a project targeting Japanese embassy communications. Since then, all five UKUSA agencies have been responsible for monitoring diplomatic cables from all Japanese posts within the same segments of the globe they are assigned for general UKUSA monitoring.3 Until New Zealand's integration into ECHELON with the opening of the Waihopai station in 1989, its share of the Japanese communications was intercepted at Yakima and sent unprocessed to the GCSB headquarters in Wellington for decryption, translation, and writing into UKUSA-format intelligence reports (the NSA provides the codebreaking programs). "COMMUNICATION" THROUGH SATELLITES The next component of the ECHELON system intercepts a range of satellite communications not carried by Intelsat.In addition to the UKUSA stations targeting Intelsat satellites, there are another five or more stations homing in on Russian and other regional communications satellites. These stations are Menwith Hill in northern England; Shoal Bay, outside Darwin in northern Australia (which targets Indonesian satellites); Leitrim, just south of Ottawa in Canada (which appears to intercept Latin American satellites); Bad Aibling in Germany; and Misawa in northern Japan. A group of facilities that tap directly into land-based telecommunications systems is the final element of the ECHELON system. Besides satellite and radio, the other main method of transmitting large quantities of public, business, and government communications is a combination of water cables under the oceans and microwave networks over land. Heavy cables, laid across seabeds between countries, account for much of the world's international communications. After they come out of the water and join land-based microwave networks they are very vulnerable to interception. The microwave networks are made up of chains of microwave towers relaying messages from hilltop to hilltop (always in line of sight) across the countryside. These networks shunt large quantities of communications across a country. Interception of them gives access to international undersea communications (once they surface) and to international communication trunk lines across continents. They are also an obvious target for large-scale interception of domestic communications. Because the facilities required to intercept radio and satellite communications use large aerials and dishes that are difficult to hide for too long, that network is reasonably well documented. But all that is required to intercept land-based communication networks is a building situated along the microwave route or a hidden cable running underground from the legitimate network into some anonymous building, possibly far removed. Although it sounds technically very difficult, microwave interception from space by United States spy satellites also occurs.4 The worldwide network of facilities to intercept these communications is largely undocumented, and because New Zealand's GCSB does not participate in this type of interception, my inside sources could not help either. NO ONE IS SAFE FROM A MICROWAVE: A 1994 expos of the Canadian UKUSA agency, Spyworld, co-authored by one of its former staff, Mike Frost, gave the first insights into how a lot of foreign microwave interception is done (see p. 18). It described UKUSA "embassy collection" operations, where sophisticated receivers and processors are secretly transported to their countries' overseas embassies in diplomatic bags and used to monitor various communications in foreign capitals. *5 Since most countries' microwave networks converge on the capital city, embassy buildings can be an ideal site. Protected by diplomatic privilege, they allow interception in the heart of the target country. *6 The Canadian embassy collection was requested by the NSA to fill gaps in the American and British embassy collection operations, which were still occurring in many capitals around the world when Frost left the CSE in 1990. Separate sources in Australia have revealed that the DSD also engages in embassy collection. *7 On the territory of UKUSA nations, the interception of land-based telecommunications appears to be done at special secret intelligence facilities. The US, UK, and Canada are geographically well placed to intercept the large amounts of the world's communications that cross their territories. The only public reference to the Dictionary system anywhere in the world was in relation to one of these facilities, run by the GCHQ in central London. In 1991, a former British GCHQ official spoke anonymously to Granada Television's World in Action about the agency's abuses of power. He told the program about an anonymous red brick building at 8 Palmer Street where GCHQ secretly intercepts every telex which passes into, out of, or through London, feeding them into powerful computers with a program known as "Dictionary." The operation, he explained, is staffed by carefully vetted British Telecom people: "It's nothing to do with national security. It's because it's not legal to take every single telex. And they take everything: the embassies, all the business deals, even the birthday greetings, they take everything. They feed it into the Dictionary." *8 What the documentary did not reveal is that Dictionary is not just a British system; it is UKUSA-wide. Similarly, British researcher Duncan Campbell has described how the US Menwith Hill station in Britain taps directly into the British Telecom microwave network, which has actually been designed with several major microwave links converging on an isolated tower connected underground into the station.9 The NSA Menwith Hill station, with 22 satellite terminals and more than 4.9 acres of buildings, is undoubtedly the largest and most powerful in the UKUSA network. Located in northern England, several thousand kilometers from the Persian Gulf, it was awarded the NSA's "Station of the Year" prize for 1991 after its role in the Gulf War. Menwith Hill assists in the interception of microwave communications in another way as well, by serving as a ground station for US electronic spy satellites. These intercept microwave trunk lines and short range communications such as military radios and walkie talkies. Other ground stations where the satellites' information is fed into the global network are Pine Gap, run by the CIA near Alice Springs in central Australia and the Bad Aibling station in Germany. *10 Among them, the various stations and operations making up the ECHELON network tap into all the main components of the world's telecommunications networks. All of them, including a separate network of stations that intercepts long distance radio communications, have their own Dictionary computers connected into ECHELON. In the early 1990s, opponents of the Menwith Hill station obtained large quantities of internal documents from the facility. Among the papers was a reference to an NSA computer system called Platform. The integration of all the UKUSA station computers into ECHELON probably occurred with the introduction of this system in the early 1980s. James Bamford wrote at that time about a new worldwide NSA computer network codenamed Platform "which will tie together 52 separate computer systems used throughout the world. Focal point, or `host environment,' for the massive network will be the NSA headquarters at Fort Meade. Among those included in Platform will be the British SIGINT organization, GCHQ." *11 LOOKING IN THE DICTIONARY: The Dictionary computers are connected via highly encrypted UKUSA communications that link back to computer data bases in the five agency headquarters. This is where all the intercepted messages selected by the Dictionaries end up. Each morning the specially "indoctrinated" signals intelligence analysts in Washington, Ottawa, Cheltenham, Canberra, and Wellington log on at their computer terminals and enter the Dictionary system. After keying in their security passwords, they reach a directory that lists the different categories of intercept available in the data bases, each with a four-digit code. For instance, 1911 might be Japanese diplomatic cables from Latin America (handled by the Canadian CSE), 3848 might be political communications from and about Nigeria, and 8182 might be any messages about distribution of encryption technology. They select their subject category, get a "search result" showing how many messages have been caught in the ECHELON net on that subject, and then the day's work begins. Analysts scroll through screen after screen of intercepted faxes, e-mail messages, etc. and, whenever a message appears worth reporting on, they select it from the rest to work on. If it is not in English, it is translated and then written into the standard format of intelligence reports produced anywhere within the UKUSA network either in entirety as a "report," or as a summary or "gist." INFORMATION CONTROL: A highly organized system has been developed to control what is being searched for by each station and who can have access to it. This is at the heart of ECHELON operations and works as follows. The individual station's Dictionary computers do not simply have a long list of keywords to search for. And they do not send all the information into some huge database that participating agencies can dip into as they wish. It is much more controlled. The search lists are organized into the same categories, referred to by the four digit numbers. Each agency decides its own categories according to its responsibilities for producing intelligence for the network. For GCSB, this means South Pacific governments, Japanese diplomatic, Russian Antarctic activities, and so on. The agency then works out about 10 to 50 keywords for selection in each category. The keywords include such things as names of people, ships, organizations, country names, and subject names. They also include the known telex and fax numbers and Internet addresses of any individuals, businesses, organizations, and government offices that are targets. These are generally written as part of the message text and so are easily recognized by the Dictionary computers. The agencies also specify combinations of keywords to help sift out communications of interest. For example, they might search for diplomatic cables containing both the words "Santiago" and "aid," or cables containing the word "Santiago" but not "consul" (to avoid the masses of routine consular communications). It is these sets of words and numbers (and combinations), under a particular category, that get placed in the Dictionary computers. (Staff in the five agencies called Dictionary Managers enter and update the keyword search lists for each agency.) The whole system, devised by the NSA, has been adopted completely by the other agencies. The Dictionary computers search through all the incoming messages and, whenever they encounter one with any of the agencies' keywords, they select it. At the same time, the computer automatically notes technical details such as the time and place of interception on the piece of intercept so that analysts reading it, in whichever agency it is going to, know where it came from, and what it is. Finally, the computer writes the four-digit code (for the category with the keywords in that message) at the bottom of the message's text. This is important. It means that when all the intercepted messages end up together in the database at one of the agency headquarters, the messages on a particular subject can be located again. Later, when the analyst using the Dictionary system selects the four- digit code for the category he or she wants, the computer simply searches through all the messages in the database for the ones which have been tagged with that number. This system is very effective for controlling which agencies can get what from the global network because each agency only gets the intelligence out of the ECHELON system from its own numbers. It does not have any access to the raw intelligence coming out of the system to the other agencies. For example, although most of the GCSB's intelligence production is primarily to serve the UKUSA alliance, New Zealand does not have access to the whole ECHELON network. The access it does have is strictly controlled. A New Zealand intelligence officer explained: "The agencies can all apply for numbers on each other's Dictionaries. The hardest to deal with are the Americans. ... [There are] more hoops to jump through, unless it is in their interest, in which case they'll do it for you." There is only one agency which, by virtue of its size and role within the alliance, will have access to the full potential of the ECHELON system the agency that set it up. What is the system used for? Anyone listening to official "discussion" of intelligence could be forgiven for thinking that, since the end of the Cold War, the key targets of the massive UKUSA intelligence machine are terrorism, weapons proliferation, and economic intelligence. The idea that economic intelligence has become very important, in particular, has been carefully cultivated by intelligence agencies intent on preserving their post-Cold War budgets. It has become an article of faith in much discussion of intelligence. However, I have found no evidence that these are now the primary concerns of organizations such as NSA. QUICKER INTELLIGENCE, SAME MISSION: A different story emerges after examining very detailed information I have been given about the intelligence New Zealand collects for the UKUSA allies and detailed descriptions of what is in the yards-deep intelligence reports New Zealand receives from its four allies each week. There is quite a lot of intelligence collected about potential terrorists, and there is quite a lot of economic intelligence, notably intensive monitoring of all the countries participating in GATT negotiations. But by far, the main priorities of the intelligence alliance continue to be political and military intelligence to assist the larger allies to pursue their interests around the world. Anyone and anything the particular governments are concerned about can become a target. With capabilities so secret and so powerful, almost anything goes. For example, in June 1992, a group of current "highly placed intelligence operatives" from the British GCHQ spoke to the London Observer: "We feel we can no longer remain silent regarding that which we regard to be gross malpractice and negligence within the establishment in which we operate." They gave as examples GCHQ interception of three charitable organizations, including Amnesty International and Christian Aid. As the Observer reported: "At any time GCHQ is able to home in on their communications for a routine target request," the GCHQ source said. In the case of phone taps the procedure is known as Mantis. With telexes it is called Mayfly. By keying in a code relating to Third World aid, the source was able to demonstrate telex "fixes" on the three organizations. "It is then possible to key in a trigger word which enables us to home in on the telex communications whenever that word appears," he said. "And we can read a pre-determined number of characters either side of the keyword."12 Without actually naming it, this was a fairly precise description of how the ECHELON Dictionary system works. Again, what was not revealed in the publicity was that this is a UKUSA-wide system. The design of ECHELON means that the interception of these organizations could have occurred anywhere in the network, at any station where the GCHQ had requested that the four-digit code covering Third World aid be placed. Note that these GCHQ officers mentioned that the system was being used for telephone calls. In New Zealand, ECHELON is used only to intercept written communications: fax, e-mail, and telex. The reason, according to intelligence staff, is that the agency does not have the staff to analyze large quantities of telephone conversations. Mike Frost's expos of Canadian "embassy collection" operations described the NSA computers they used, called Oratory, that can "listen" to telephone calls and recognize when keywords are spoken. Just as we can recognize words spoken in all the different tones and accents we encounter, so too, according to Frost, can these computers. Telephone calls containing keywords are automatically extracted from the masses of other calls and recorded digitally on magnetic tapes for analysts back at agency headquarters. However, high volume voice recognition computers will be technically difficult to perfect, and my New Zealand-based sources could not confirm that this capability exists. But, if or when it is perfected, the implications would be immense. It would mean that the UKUSA agencies could use machines to search through all the international telephone calls in the world, in the same way that they do written messages. If this equipment exists for use in embassy collection, it will presumably be used in all the stations throughout the ECHELON network. It is yet to be confirmed how extensively telephone communications are being targeted by the ECHELON stations for the other agencies. The easiest pickings for the ECHELON system are the individuals, organizations, and governments that do not use encryption. In New Zealand's area, for example, it has proved especially useful against already vulnerable South Pacific nations which do not use any coding, even for government communications (all these communications of New Zealand's neighbors are supplied, unscreened, to its UKUSA allies). As a result of the revelations in my book, there is currently a project under way in the Pacific to promote and supply publicly available encryption software to vulnerable organizations such as democracy movements in countries with repressive governments. This is one practical way of curbing illegitimate uses of the ECHELON capabilities. One final comment. All the newspapers, commentators, and "well placed sources" told the public that New Zealand was cut off from US intelligence in the mid-1980s. That was entirely untrue. The intelligence supply to New Zealand did not stop, and instead, the decade since has been a period of increased integration of New Zealand into the US system. Virtually everything the equipment, manuals, ways of operating, jargon, codes, and so on, used in the GCSB continues to be imported entirely from the larger allies (in practice, usually the NSA). As with the Australian and Canadian agencies, most of the priorities continue to come from the US, too. The main thing that protects these agencies from change is their secrecy. On the day my book arrived in the book shops, without prior publicity, there was an all-day meeting of the intelligence bureaucrats in the prime minister's department trying to decide if they could prevent it from being distributed. They eventually concluded, sensibly, that the political costs were too high. It is understandable that they were so agitated. Throughout my research, I have faced official denials or governments refusing to comment on publicity about intelligence activities. Given the pervasive atmosphere of secrecy and stonewalling, it is always hard for the public to judge what is fact, what is speculation, and what is paranoia. Thus, in uncovering New Zealand's role in the NSA-led alliance, my aim was to provide so much detail about the operations the technical systems, the daily work of individual staff members, and even the rooms in which they work inside intelligence facilities that readers could feel confident that they were getting close to the truth. I hope the information leaked by intelligence staff in New Zealand about UKUSA and its systems such as ECHELON will help lead to change. CAQ SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION: CAQ (CovertAction Quarterly) has won numerous awards for investigative journalism. In 1996, it won 4 of "Project Censored" top 25 awards for investigative reporting. CAQ is read around the world by investigative reporters, activists, scholars, intelligence buffs, news junkies, and anyone who wants to know the news and analysis behind the soundbites and headlines. Recommended by Noam Chomsky; targeted by the CIA. Each article in the 64-page magazine, which is in its 19th year of publication, is extensively footnoted and accompanied by photographs and graphics. For a single issue, send $6. A one year subscription: US $22; Canada/Mexico $27; Latin America/Europe $33; Other areas $35. A two year US subscription is $38 Please send check or money order in $US to: CAQ 1500 Massachusetts Ave. #732 Washington, DC 20005, USA Mail, phone or fax Mastercard or Visa with address info and expiration date Phone: 202-331-9763 Fax: 202-331-9751 E-mail: caq@igc.org CHECK OUT OUR WEB SITES: http://mediafilter.org/caq http://www.worldmedia.com/caq ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 22:20:08 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Begin forwarded message: Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 18:28:23 -0800 (PST) From: Phil Agre Subject: The InterNIC: a case study in bad database management [Sorry for the heavy traffic on RRE. The world is going nuts this week.] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to rre-help@weber.ucsd.edu =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 16:44:21 -0800 (PST) From: risks@csl.sri.com Subject: RISKS DIGEST 18.67 RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Friday 13 December 1996 Volume 18 : Issue 67 Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 17:07:04 -0500 From: "Jonathan I. Kamens" Subject: The InterNIC: a case study in bad database management (This message was also sent to comp.protocols.dns.ops .) The InterNIC (http://www.internic.net) is responsible for Internet domain name service for all top-level domains, as well as for second-level domains underneath all the old ARPA domains except MIL (EDU, GOV, NET, ORG, COM). Until a few years ago, domain registration services were provided by the InterNIC for free. That changed when they convinced the NSF that its grant money wasn't enough to cover their costs, so (amid much hubbub on the Net) they started charging $50 per year for any second-level domain registration, with the first two years (i.e., $100) payable in advance. According to , the InterNIC registered 638,788 new domains between August 1993 and September 1996. If I'm doing my math right, at $100 per domain, that's almost $64 million, or over $20 million per year. I would think that with that much money, they'd be able to provide competent service to their customers. Unfortunately, my experience has been that they're simply not doing an acceptable job. Some examples: ***** * Their automated systems do not function properly. They've introduced a PGP-based system for authentication of domain contacts. In other words, they allow domain contacts to register their PGP public keys in the InterNIC public-key database, and then requests which come from those contacts will only be accepted as authentic if they are signed with the corresponding provide key. Unfortunately, this system does not always work. Recently, I submitted a series of twelve database modification requests to the InterNIC in a single day. All of them were correctly signed with my PGP key. Of the twelve requests, three were returned to me in messages beginning, "We are not able to verify the PGP signed message that you sent us." To make matters worse, for one of those three failed requests, I received a message claiming the the modifications I'd requested had been completed, two days *before* I received the message informing me that they were unable to verify my PGP signature. I have asked the InterNIC multiple times why their system randomly fails to verify valid PGP signatures. They have not responded to my inquiries. Interestingly enough, another poster to comp.protocols.dns.ops claimed that when he asked an InterNIC on the telephone about their PGP authentication system, he was told that it is not currently working. That would seem to indicate that the InterNIC is aware that there are problems with it, and yet they continue to advertise it on their Web site without any indication that it might not work for any given request. * There are some data in the database which are impossible to update using the templates they provide. One of the types of data stored in the InterNIC database is hosts; in particular, hosts which act as domain-name servers for domains registered with the InterNIC have records in the database. Host records include an organization name and address associated with the host. And yet, the template for updating host records (available at ) does not have fields in it for updating that information! I believe that there are a couple of other record types in the database which have this same problem. This organization/address data has been described to me by an InterNIC employee as an "old hold-over;" it seems that new host records do not have organization and address data, but old ones do. Nevertheless, one would think that when switching to a new format for host records, the InterNIC would have either removed the obsolete data from the old records or established a procedure for updating it. Instead, the only way to update this information electronically is to send a plain-text message to hostmaster@internic.net explaining what you're trying to do, and then hope that whoever reads your message will be competent enough to understand what you're asking for and do the update by hand. Which brings me to my next point ... * When asked how to do something that is not handled automatically by their templates, their staff give incorrect answers (or simply ignore the query) more often than they give correct answers. Of the twelve requests mentioned above, six of them were handled improperly by the InterNIC staff members who processed them. Iwn several cases, I received a response instructing me to use a particular template to make the changes I had requested, when in fact those changes had nothing whatsoever to do with the template they told me to use. I finally had to escalate my requests by sending "out-of-band" E-mail to an InterNIC employee who has resolved problems of this sort for me in the past, and she was able to "bounce" my requests to a high enough level that they actually got processed. Incidentally, the InterNIC introduced one or more typographical errors into the data I sent them when processing six of my twelve requests (i.e., when they were done processing my requests, six of the twelve records I asked them to modify had one or more typographical errors in them). I suppose that sending incorrect answers is better than how things were a few months ago -- then, if you sent a request that the person who read your message did not know how to answer, he/she simply ignored it and sent no response whatsoever. * There are some data in their database which are impossible to update using their current procedures. Imagine this scenario ... Joe Admin at Foo, Inc. is responsible for system administration, including DNS administration. He therefore has a contact record in the InterNIC database indicating that he works for Foo, Inc., and he is listed as a contact for various domain, network, and host records, in the InterNIC database. Now, he leaves the company and takes a new job, with no further contact with Foo, Inc. He doesn't bother to update his contact record in the InterNIC database before he leaves. Foo, Inc. would rather not let records remain in the InterNIC database claiming that Joe works for them when in fact he does not. Therefore, they want to contact the InterNIC and tell them, "Look, the information in Joe Admin's contact record which says that he for us is incorrect. You can confirm this by attempting to send E-mail to the address in the record, or by calling the phone number in the record and asking to speak to him. The person who answers will confirm that he no longer works there. Please either delete the contact record completely or remove the information in it which associates Joe Admin with Foo, Inc." Sounds reasonable, right? Well, unfortunately, the InterNIC has *no procedures whatsoever* for allowing a company to remove contact information which incorrectly lists them. I attempted to do just what I described, i.e., to get the InterNIC to remove the contact record for a former employee of OpenVision who no longer works here, and who I cannot contact to ask him to update his own record (and considering that it's not hurting him in any way, I don't see that he'd have any incentive to update it even if I could ask him to). After several rounds of E-mail with the InterNIC, they called me on the telephone to discuss what I was trying to do. Once on the phone with them, I was "bounced up" through several layers of InterNIC staff, until I was finally able to speak to a woman who was perfectly willing to admit that yes, the scenario I described was a somewhat common one, and yes, it was perfectly reasonable for a company not to want the InterNIC database to associate non-employees with the company, but no, there's no way for anyone but the owner of a contact handle to update it. "Perhaps we need to establish a procedure for that, and I'll be glad to discuss that for you with our customer service manager, but we don't have one right now," she said, and she did not offer to make an exception and handle my particular request manually without the blessing of a "procedure". Presumably, this means that I could edit my own contact handle to indicate that I work for any company that I want, and that company would have no way to get the InterNIC to remove the fraudulent information. Similarly, presumably, that means that (to be a little morbid for a moment), if someone listed in the InterNIC database dies, there's no way for anyone else to get the InterNIC to remove the deceased's record from the database. When I pressed the woman about this, she said to me, "If you're a network administrator at this company, you presumably have control over the mail server" (an assumption which is not always true, and indeed isn't true in this case; although I can ask the people who administer the mail server to make changes and hope that they'll listen, I don't have the ability to make the changes directly). "Well," she continued," if you send us a mail message which claims to be from the former employee, asking for his record to be deleted, we'll process it." "Let me get this straight," I responded. "You're telling me that I should forge E-mail to your system in order to delete this record." She confirmed that interpretation. I said, "Surely you see the absurdity of that." She responded, "Well, obviously, ideally we wouldn't want anyone forging requests to our system, but in this case, that's the only way for you to delete the record." "What if the former employee had associated a PGP key with his contact record before he left the company." "Well, in that case, you'd need his private PGP key in order to delete the record." "But surely you know that's impossible -- the whole point of PGP is that only the owner a private key has access to it. Even if I had access to the file in which it was stored, I wouldn't know the correct password to unlock it." "Well, in that case, there would be no way for you to delete the record." ***** There are a number of countries with strict laws about the collection of private information in computerized databases. Database maintainers are required to seek permission from all individuals who have data about them stored in the database, to guarantee the security of the database, and to establish working procedures for keeping the data in the databases up-to-date. The United States has few such laws (there are laws about specific types of databases, such as credit and medical records, but no laws about databases in general). Until I started dealing with the InterNIC, I didn't see much point to them. Well, I've changed my mind. The InterNIC proves rather clearly that left to their own devices, companies will not maintain databases in a responsible manner. Incidentally, nowhere on the InterNIC's WWW site can I find the address or telephone number of the governmental office which oversees their grant and handles complaints about their services. Several months ago, I sent them E-mail asking for them so that I could file a complaint, to be considered the next time their grant comes up for renewal. Like many of my other messages to them, that request was ignored. Jonathan Kamens | OpenVision Technologies, Inc. | jik@cam.ov.com ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: Nevada Regulators Approve SBC-Pacific Telesis Merger Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 19:22:48 PST ----- Forwarded Message ----- Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 16:17:53 -0800 From: sqlgate@sf-ptg-fw.pactel.com Subject: NEWS: Nevada Regulators Approve SBC-Pacific Telesis Merger FOR MORE INFORMATION: Michael Runzler, Pacific Telesis (415) 394-3643 Joyce Trombley, Nevada Bell (702) 333-4332 Larry Solomon, SBC (210) 351-3990 Nevada Regulators Approve SBC-Pacific Telesis Merger CARSON CITY, Nevada -- The Nevada Public Service Commission today became the latest regulatory body to favorably approve the proposed merger of SBC Communications and Pacific Telesis Group, the parent company of Nevada Bell. The commission voted 5 to 0 in favor of the merger. "We are pleased that the Nevada Commission approved this merger expeditiously so that consumers can soon benefit from the increased competition our combined companies will provide in the fast-changing telecommunications market," said Phil Quigley, chairman and chief executive officer of Pacific Telesis Group. "We look forward to providing our Nevada customers with a full range of local and long-distance services as all telecommunications markets open to full and fair competition." "The combination of SBC and Pacific Telesis means that Nevada Bell will be part of a stronger, more competitive global telecommunications company that will provide customers with state-of-the-art communications services and quality customer service at affordable prices," said Edward E. Whitacre, Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of SBC Communications. In conjunction with the application for merger approval in Nevada, the companies agreed to provide at least $4 million to Nevada Bell customers in lieu of siting four headquarters and adding jobs in California. The merger has been approved overwhelmingly by shareholders of both companies, and the U.S. Department of Justice has said the merger does not violate federal antitrust laws. Approvals from the Federal Communications Commission on license transfers and the California Public Utilities Commission are pending. SBC and Pacific Telesis announced their merger agreement April 1. Together, the two companies will have more than $21 billion in annual revenues and serve the nation's two most populous states and seven of its ten largest metropolitan areas. Pacific Telesis (NYSE:PAC) is a diversified telecommunications corporation based in San Francisco. Through its Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell subsidiaries, the corporation offers a wide array of telecommunications services in California and Nevada, including directory advertising and publishing. The corporation serves nearly 15.8 million access lines. It offers Internet access services to both business and residential customers. Another subsidiary, Pacific Bell Mobile Services, has begun offering new wireless "personal communications services" (PCS) in the San Diego area, and will expand service in California and Nevada in 1997. SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE:SBC) is one of the world's leading diversified telecommunications companies and the second-largest wireless communications company based in the United States. SBC provides innovative telecommunications products and services under the Southwestern Bell and Cellular One brands. Its businesses include wireline and wireless services and equipment in the United States and interests in wireless businesses in Europe, Latin America, South Africa and Asia; cable television in both domestic and international markets; and directory advertising and publishing. Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 10:31:55 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Mastering Microsoft Exchange Server" by Gerber BKMSXSRV.RVW 960912 "Mastering Microsoft Exchange Server", Barry Gerber, 1996, 0-7821-1867-4, U$39.95 %A Barry Gerber %C 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94501 %D 1996 %G 0-7821-1867-4 %I Sybex Computer Books %O U$39.99 510-523-8233 800-227-2346 Fax: 510-523-2373 info@sybex.com %P 659 %T "Mastering Microsoft Exchange Server" Gerber does offer a complete and easy to follow guide to setting up an MS Exchange Server. In addition, there is direction on the use of both the Server and the client software. The material is well presented, if little different than would be found in the documentation. Singularly missing is any compelling reason to use MS Exchange Server. Those who have heard some of the claims for Exchange will find little evidence to support its purchase. Examples of real applications would have made the book more convincing, and likely more useful. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKMSXSRV.RVW 960912 Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca rslade@vanisl.decus.ca BCVAXLUG Envoy http://www.decus.ca/www/lugs/bcvaxlug.html ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: N11 Codes Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 16:03:25 -0800 In article , nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) wrote: > I subscibe to the theory that N11 are national treasures, to be > doled out very carefully. The 311 for "non-emergency" 911 may be a > good start (clogged 911 is a major problem, at least in the LA area). > OTOH, I have no problem with re-using the N11 (except probably 911) as > AREA CODES. There should be no ambiguities, as area codes are always > preceded by a one (except from some cellphones, but the cellswich gets all > the digits and can obviously determine by the presence or absence of more > digits whether an area code N11 or a special access N11 is dialled). Problem: in some toll-alerting areas (Texas, specifically, and probably other states as well), you don't dial 411 for local directory assistance. You dial 1+411, because there is now a charge associated with the call. (It changed in the late 1970s, when D.A. stopped being free.) That leaves you with only six N11 codes to use as area codes, and that doesn't seem worthwhile, given the public perception of N11 as "special." In fact, all area codes with the second and third digits the same (i.e., 222, 233, 244, 255, etc.) are reserved for special purposes as "easily remembered" codes. > The issue of 1+411 should go away, just because 411 is a charged call does > (in a contemporary setting) not mean that it has to be dialled as 1+... Tell that to the Texas PUC! These are the same dinosaurs who still refuse to PERMIT you to dial a local call with a leading '1'. If you dial a number in a different area code that just happens to be local, you MUST NOT dial the 1. And heaven *forbid* you should ever try to dial a local number in your own area code with 1+area+number! Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes Date: 16 Dec 1996 19:27:02 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , D Banks writes: > Was BC the only place in North America to use 112+Number for LD instead > of 1+Number? Back in 1966 (yup, nineteen hundred and sixty-six AD), I was in Montreal. They switched sometime in the summer of that year from 112+ac to 1+ac. Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 18:36:31 +0000 From: Clive D.W. Feather Reply-To: clive@demon.net Subject: Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes Organization: Clive's laptop (part of Demon Internet Ltd.) In article , Nils Andersson writes > 999 is the older British code, NOT Europe-wide. (Example: Sweden uses 90 > 000.) > Various countries have had each their own emergency number. European > Union and possbly some non-EU countries in Europe are standardizing to > 112, currently some countries are in the "permissive dialling" mode, The UK has no plans to ever drop 999; 112 and 999 will run in parallel for ever. Clive D.W. Feather | Associate Director | Director Tel: +44 181 371 1138 | Demon Internet Ltd. | CityScape Internet Services Ltd. Fax: +44 181 371 1150 | | Written on my laptop - please reply to the Reply-To address ------------------------------ From: srkleine@midway.uchicago.edu (Steven R. Kleinedler) Subject: Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes Organization: The University of Chicago Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 18:56:08 GMT In article , D Banks wrote: > Was BC the only place in North America to use 112+Number for LD instead > of 1+Number? In my rural neck of the woods (eastern 517 quite close to the 313 (now 810) line about 20 miles southwest of Flint), until the early 80s, we had to dial 120 and then the area code and number. A live operator would come on line and we'd give our phone number, and then we were connected through. Since I lived in a small 517 corner of the school district, I did this quite a lot. This message has been brought to you by Steve Kleinedler. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #665 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Dec 17 07:45:02 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id HAA18845; Tue, 17 Dec 1996 07:45:02 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 07:45:02 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612171245.HAA18845@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #666 TELECOM Digest Tue, 17 Dec 96 07:45:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 666 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (Clive Feather) Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (Matt Landry) Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (C. Cramer) Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (H. Gorman) Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (W. Leatherock) Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (Dave Hultberg) Kid-Safe ISPs (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 13:00:12 +0000 From: Clive D.W. Feather Reply-To: clive@demon.net Subject: Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News Organization: Clive's laptop (part of Demon Internet Ltd.) Pat writes: > instead, try the appproach suggested by > mcs.net here in Chicago, which they are publicizing widely in their > advertising: they do not carry newsgroups which *on their face* are > intended as ways to exploit children; ie the newsgroups which by their > title suggest advocacy of pedophilia. The recent advertisement by > mcs.net lists about a dozen newsgroups. Part of the problem with this is determining which newsgroups actually do and don't carry illegal material (which is all, in my opinion, ISPs should worry about). Even a title like "alt.sex.pedophilia" doesn't tell you much - the group is supposed to be about supporting and helping people so that they *don't* abuse children. Cutting it off would, I am told, do more harm than good. > As mcs.net pointed out in its > advertisement, a survey of a few dozen ISPs found that about half > said they never 'censor' newsgroups in any way, shape or form. But > you say, not at this site. Go elsewhere. That is the stance mcs.net > has adopted. I don't have a problem with individual ISPs taking this attitude. So long as there is no coercion involved. > Common rebuttal: if deprived of mass circulation of their newsgroup, > 'those people' will start posting in other groups. Okay, so what? > That's not your problem. Let them deal with the flame war sure to > result when they post in some totally unrelated group. Firstly, there have been several examples of this happening - it's not just a theoretical problem. Secondly, the people doing these postings just ignore the flame wars. They want to get their stuff out to a specific audience, and are using Usenet to do so. Both senders and readers will ignore everything else. Thirdly, experience shows that the stuff tends to end up in totally unsuitable newsgroups, like alt.disney. The result is that children are *more* likely, not less, to come across the material. > Kids don't have to go in taverns -- where they are forbidden by law > to be -- in order to find some beer to drink. They don't have to go > to an adult bookstore in order to find a 'friendly' adult willing to > explain the facts of life to them. But that is not the problem of > the tavern owner or the bookstore manager who work to keep those > situations from occuring *on their own premises, in situations under > their direct control*. Not a good analogy. A better one is the one that a policeman once gave to me: every now and then, there are complaints about begging or prostitution in an area. The police go in, clamp down, and clean up the area. The net result is *not* to improve the environment, but simply to push the beggars and whores to somewhere else. Nothing's been gained - simply a load of police time has been wasted. In the UK this is known as the "displacement theory". There is now universal agreement, from ISPs, police, and government, that banning newsgroups is the wrong way to go. > Am I the only person who knows the purpose of, and how to use .http-access > files in connection with a web page? [...] > For instance, suppose you denied access to '@u18.' wildcard ... meaning > any site that had '.u18' as part of its name was denied viewing. There's a better way to do this. There is a technology called PICS - Platform for Internet Content Selection. This allows all that you suggest, but with a much finer level of detail and without needing to give every computer two names. What you do is to go to a rating service and generate a rating for your web pages. For example, the RSACi system rates pages on the level of bad language, nudity, sexual activity, and violence. You then place a string in the HTML source of your page which encodes this rating. When someone comes to view the page, their browser can detect this tag and not display the page if the rating is unacceptable. For example, with Microsoft Internet Explorer 3, you set the maximum acceptable rating and then lock it with a password. IE3 will then refuse to display a page over that rating until the password is entered. You can therefore allow your child to browse without worry, *and*, rather than a simple under/over-18 choice, you can fine-tune the sort of material they can look at. [RSACi has, in my and many other opinions, a number of deficiencies in its rating system. But the principles still apply.] Clive D.W. Feather | Associate Director | Director Tel: +44 181 371 1138 | Demon Internet Ltd. | CityScape Internet Services Ltd. Fax: +44 181 371 1150 | | Written on my laptop - please reply to the Reply-To address ------------------------------ From: mbl@mail.msen.com (Matthew B Landry) Subject: Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News Date: 16 Dec 1996 21:04:31 GMT Organization: Flunkies for the Mike Conspiracy In article TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > even' ... not once did anyone say let's go over and talk to the > man and see what it is exactly he wants and try to find some way "What he wants" is not the issue. He might in fact be a decent guy that I wouldn't too terribly mind having to dinner at my house. That's not the point. No one (well ... no one credible) is attacking Sen. Exon or his cronies as individuals, the internet community is attacking their collective effort to muzzle us all. The fact that a bad law was drafted by OK people with good intentions doesn't mean it isn't a bad law, or that any punches should be pulled in getting it taken back off the books as soon as possible. The groups which pushed for this bill would not be happy with lesser restrictions. The government's defenses to the contrary, the aim of those who pushed hardest for CDA is to silence anyone and everyone who doesn't agree with them. "Indecent" is in that bill for a reason, and that reason is to give prosecutors all the latitude they need to lock up just about anybody. Maybe our representatives in Congress were duped into unknowing collaboration with this agenda, or maybe they actually agreed with it. (Personally, I rather suspect a combination of both.) That also isn't the point ... the point is that the law as written is constitutionally unacceptable. As the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I don't care if they "meant well", I care that if they get their way a mildly popular and potentially controversial web page could earn me or any other American a longer prison term than that extended to such upstanding citizens as Al Capone, just as long as they can drag together twelve people in the entire united states who are offended by it. CDA's proponents say its purpose is to get the hard-core pornography off the internet. That cannot be reconciled with its actual and easily predictable effect of actively ENCOURAGING commercial pornography (just about the only impenetrable defense against prosecution under the law is that you charge someone's credit card before you show them anything) while stifling controversial free (in both political and economic senses) expression. > Why did no one go to Exxon (again, I am using him as a generic > example) and say something like this ... [See below.] > some of the protections you are looking for. Over a period of > two to three years, we should be able to identify parts of the > net which are adult in nature and pretty well segregate it from No, not really. Not until one can define a _precise_ standard, guaranteed by statute to be good nationwide, for what is "adult oriented". Good luck. > First Amendment hassles -- we will probably begin moving the > kids onto machines which are restricted in the contacts they > can establish. I've done a lot of research on this, and I have yet to encounter a commercial ISP that will allow anyone on without some kind of affirmation that the customer is over 18 or that his/her parents understand the implications of an internet account and accept liability for it. In other words, this change has already happened. The problem is, the kids can lie. I did, when I was 14 and wanted an internet account. And the ISP is still held liable if it's found out that the kids did lie. Moreover, since everyone on the net KNOWS that kids lie to get past these things, there's no way someone faced with a multimillennial prison term could defend himself by saying that he didn't know that minors might be able to access his site. Liquor store owners that accept fake ID get prosecuted pretty regularly. Why should ISPs or web site owners be any different? > Senator, suppose we use the term 'obscenity' instead of 'indecency' > as the cut-off point. It has already been defined, it has no [Here's the "below" I asked you to "see".] I did in fact speak to Sen. Exon's co-sponsor about this issue. And he specified to me, personally, on the phone, that "indecency" had been used as the standard deliberately. That is, limiting the law to well-defined restrictions had been considered and actively rejected during the drafting stage. That implies to me that they knew what they were getting America into, and did it anyway. It's a lot harder to forgive them when one knows that. > a lot the same with ISPs. No, they are not legally common > carriers, but for all intents and purposes they are. It really Well ... actually ... since Cubby v. Compuserve, ISPs and similar entities have had the content-isolation aspects of common carrier protection availible to them in a legally enforceable manner. > And *we* (yes I mean we, the net) could have participated in > drafting a law which would have been very favorable to us ... We did. Patrick Leahy had a net-friendly alternative ready, and he offered it up for consideration. Congress rejected it, which again makes one wonder where their priorities really are. > if we win, we still lose. Nope. > Because if we win, then they start on the next issue, which I > believe will be copyright. Ah, but the WIPO copyright monstrosity has enemies with a much easier time defending themselves. > same reason I have little business talking about it; I do not own > the computer upon which this is published and very few of you have > any property rights where the network or your local site is concerned. All Americans have the right to freely enter contractual relationships such as commercial internet accounts and positions of employment. No, I cannot compel my ISP of choice to offer me access to the facilities I want on the net. But I can go down the road to their competitors if they refuse. And I can insist upon (and generally receive) explicit guarantees of access as a non-negotiable condition of signing a user agreement. No, I do not have _all_ the priveledges of ownership over the infrastructure of the internet, but a complex web of such contractual relationships gives me all of those priveledges which are relevent to this discussion. > You are there with the blessings of your corporate employer who will > let you talk smart and sassy until he finally gets tired of it and > then fires you. Well, actually I'm here with the knowledge (but not explicit blessings) of my ISP employer, who will completely ignore whatever I say on the net as long as it does not relate to our company, and I include a disclaimer equivalent to the one actually installed in my .sig file. Before I worked here, I posted from the exact same account in my capacity as a customer of this ISP, and at that time they didn't care _at all_ what I had to say. The only change was that I stopped paying for the account, and I had to become a little more careful about talking to people in the company's market area about internet services. > being that a semi-retired prissy old-maid librarian who helps some > child log on to the net only to have the child do a search on > Alta Vista and turn up some string with a four letter combination > in the middle somewhere considered 'indecent' gets sentenced to > life in prison. All the librarians are now frantic. So the soloists Let them be frantic. It'll only last until The Court upholds the injunction. > for the court. What the judges know about computers could be written > on the head of a pin. Actually, given the level of detail in the court's findings of fact, it appears that by the time the ruling was issued, they knew quite well how the internet worked, at least as it relates to this issue. > Being respectful of the First Amendment, they go out of their way to > avoid violating it. This is proper and appropriate behavior for federal judges. Frankly, it's better than I had expected, until I saw the ruling. > how come you did not get Exxon and his buddies straightened out a I can't speak about Exxon as a specific person, but "his buddies" had no interest in being straightened out. They made that more than clear to me on the phone. Matthew Landry Well, yeah. Actually I do sometimes speak for Msen. But not from THIS account. O- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 09:41:36 -0800 From: Clayton E. Cramer Reply-To: cramer@dlcc.com Organization: Diamond Lane Communications Subject: Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News I am in complete agreement with you Pat. There are a lot of people out there who have no idea the damage that exposure to a group like alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teens would do to a child. They have become enamored of an extremist point of view about the First Amendment that is contrary to original intent, and have mistakenly applied it to situations where children are present. Clayton E. Cramer Technical Marketing Manager, Diamond Lane Communications email: cramer@dlcc.com web page: http://www.cs.sonoma.edu/~cramerc ------------------------------ From: hillary@netaxs.com (Hillary Gorman) Subject: Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 14:50:36 -0500 Organization: Packet Shredders Anonymous In article , TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > Hillary wants to know what is a poor sysadmin to do? She suggests > hiring ten additional people to 'read everything' in the news every > day. No, not at all ... instead, try the appproach suggested by > mcs.net here in Chicago, which they are publicizing widely in their > advertising: they do not carry newsgroups which *on their face* are > intended as ways to exploit children; ie the newsgroups which by their > title suggest advocacy of pedophilia. The recent advertisement by I did not suggest hiring ten people to read news. I inquired as to what we should do to filter based on content that did NOT involve hiring ten people to read news. We already do not carry the kiddy porn groups, or any other group widely known to carry content in violation of federal law. But, the content is still extant in other groups, and we have no way of controlling what users may for example, scan in, and email to users at other sites. How do you filter on content in a case like that, Pat? Or, a user may put files called biblestudy.jpg and biblestudy.gif on his web page entitled seminary.html. If I grep through my users' web directories for sexual keywords, these files will not show up, but they could very well be pornographic ... > mcs.net lists about a dozen newsgroups. I suppose it would take > Hillary thirty seconds to call up an editor and cut a few lines out > of the system-wide .newsrc file. What you are saying is your site > does not receive those groups and does not pass them along. There is Right, we don't. But what about OTHER "illegal content" - it's not all in newsgroups. Plus, what if the content simply shifts to alt.haha.can't.find.us or some such? We *can't* read every new group that comes by. If informed of illegal content, we can act on it, but beyond that, it's out of my hands. > Common rebuttal: if deprived of mass circulation of their newsgroup, > 'those people' will start posting in other groups. Okay, so what? > That's not your problem. Let them deal with the flame war sure to > result when they post in some totally unrelated group. But they can start their OWN newsgroup, Pat. I have SEEN it. Or they can "take over" an unused existing group, like alt.conspiracy.yeast or something. And what if we don't find out about it until one of our users SUES us because his kid wanted to read about yeast and accidentally downloaded ten gifs of nude porn stars and now they're going to sue us? > Am I the only person who knows the purpose of, and how to use .http-access > files in connection with a web page? The presence of such a file in a > directory causes various things to happen: depending on what you put > in the file, you can deny access to a given user and/or site; you can > deny access to all but a select few users/sites, etc. So Hillary and > other sysadmins, why not teach your web customers how to install and > use .http-access files as a way to control who gets to see their page? - added load on server; - reconfiguring software required; - brains required (not all of every ISP's userbase has those); - can't control it anyway. Are you implying that I tell every customer they must use this, even if they don't have "adult pages"? How am I supposed to know if my users are complying, if only "adult pages" have to do it? View every user webpage? Right ... > For instance, suppose you denied access to '@u18.' wildcard ... meaning > any site that had '.u18' as part of its name was denied viewing. Now > suppose on the flip side of the coin, you (if you even have the > possibility of underage subscribers) take one of your machines and > give it -- in addition to its regular name -- an *alias* of 'u18', and > anytime that machine makes any outbound connection anywhere on the > net it introduces itself as 'u18.the.rest.of.its.name' ... actually > I think you would name the machine 'u18' and its 'alias' would be > the regular name it has had all along, so that your users need not > know anything at all about the 'u18' part ... Wait. You're saying that the users IP addresses should resolve to a hostname including the u18 bit in it, right? Well, dynamic IP addressing is used by most ISPs, and what if there are over 18 and under 18 year old subscribers? You're telling me that I have to limit the accessibility of my service to my users, because instead of having one pool of dynamic IP addresses to assign, now I have to have two ... one which resolves to hostnames including u18 and one which does not. And since I'm using xylogics terminal servers and because of the way we've got everything configured, the pools of IP addresses must be assigned to a specific terminal server. So I'd have to limit which phone number the u18 people could call in on. No way, Pat. I think you're underestimating the technical side of this all in a major way. And as far as the amount of users under age 18 ... we have quite a few. I was in COLLEGE when I was 17, do you think that all university computer labs need to have this u18 bit in their hostnames? Then how on earth will 17 yr old biology students be able to study the explicit portions of the visible man project, prithee tell? As far as marking user web files ... Who designates the files that must contain the wildcard? You're telling me I have to hire a bunch of people to review content for user web pages? Not something I'm about to do. > Now, starting with your next billing cycle, and continuing over a > period of several months with *existing users* and from the start > with *new users* you require your user to certify to the following: > "I am of legal majority age in the state in which I reside". In other > words, the person is 18 years of age or older. With new users, you > might decide to have them submit a photocopy of a driver's license > or birth certificate. With existing users, do something; do not > inconvenience your admins and do not unduly annoy your users. Just > phase them in over a period of time. > Those who do not certify or offer proof, etc get placed on the > 'u18' machine. Those who do get placed elsewhere. Now we no longer What about dynamically assigned slip/ppp users as stated above? It's not this simple, Pat. > have to worry about 'decency bits' or whatever they called them. You > decide which of the web pages on your site should be restricted in the > same way you decide which newsgroups will not be carried: a cursory > glance through the page at the time it is installed. If it appears Pat, users install web pages constantly, update them on the fly. I'm not going to read it every time it gets updated. One of my users updates his web page easily 20 times a day. I'm not going to have time for this ... would YOU? Even if I set up a process to grep for keywords, it wouldn't work. People would know about it and avoid the keywords, or they'd switch providers to someone who didn't do it and I'd be out of business. Any solution which requires the admins to actually load up a graphical browser and look at a user web page before approving it is, IMO, too much of a burden on the ISP. > (1) the web page owners will cheat and not deny access to u18. Of > course some will. There are merchants who sell cigarettes to minors > knowing good and well the kid is not old enough. There are bartenders > who do not bother to check identification. Sometimes they get caught, > sometimes not. That's not your problem. You have set the rules for > your site; you reserve the right to audit your users and drop those This is already the case: I have rules, I reserve the right to enforce them. We don't need some new law -- child pornography is already illegal ... allowing users under 18 to access pornography is already illegal. Why do we need another law which will make me a criminal when I am already exhibiting a desire to comply with the alleged spirit of this law? > Why not try dropping those users who refuse to categorize themselves > as 'adult' when such is the case? ***Note I did not say drop those > who operate adult web pages; I said drop those who refuse to lock > out minors from viewing adult material or who lie to you (the admin) > and claim they are not when you find out they are, etc***. Is the > goodwill of one user worth having the authorities come down on you > and possibly hassle your entire site? I think not. Nobody has ever complained to me about porn being accessible from our server, though I know that some is ... do you seriously think someone's going to complain that a page isn't restricted? No, not until some gov't honcho decides to try to bust someone, then we'll get nailed and it won't be fair ... > (2) not only will the web page owners cheat, the kids will cheat. > See, says Hillary, (and don't take it personally, I am using her > as a generic example), I told you there was nothing we could do > about it! ... > Well gosh then let's drop all the liquor licensing laws and the > laws about being of a certain age to smoke or drive a car or drop > out of school ... after all, clever, mischevious children will > always find work arounds ... Come on, Pat ... It's not the point that people will cheat. The point is, it's not possible to implement except on a purely voluntary basis. When I go to buy liquor there is someone STANDING there to ask for ID. Same thing if I try to sign up for Driver's ed, or buy cigarettes. But if I request a web page from a webserver, there's no one there. If I ftp a file into my web directory - or even if I open up a text editor in my web directory and prepare a file that says "I want to F*** small children" (not that I would) there is no automatic way to check that or to flag it over 18. > a) they'll sign up with false identification ... sure, and kids > never use false id to buy beer do they? You're still basing this on the assumption it is possible to split users into "over 18" and "under 18" pools, which I maintain is a technically NONtrivial matter! > b) they are too clever! They'll find ways to hack right into the > stuff they want to see. Yep, that's right, and its not your > problem as long as you took reasonable efforts to prevent it. You sound like the mass media, here. Totally irrelevant. Computer crimes are already illegal. > To Hillary, all I can say is we went through this before, you and I. > Get in your system .newsrc file today and go snip-snip here and > snip-snip there. Then forget about it. Just do that little bit to > help, okay? Obviously you aren't understanding me. We already do not carry groups widely known to have illegal traffic. I resent the implication that we would do otherwise, quite frankly. As discussed above, that's the simplest action to take. I maintain that passing a law which it is going to be impossible to comply with is counter productive. It is *already* illegal to allow access to pornography to underage kids in the US. Our users, if we find out they're running porn sites, do have to password protect them. It is *already* to distribute kiddie porn (and pirated software). What happens when one of my users emails pirated software or pictures of naked ladies worshipping Satan to this CDA people? *I'M* in violation of the law ??? I simply think that network administrators should *NOT* be held legally liable for enforcing federal law with reference to what kind of traffic goes through the network unless/until technically feasible methods of doing so exist, which you have not demonstrated to be the case. hillary gorman http://www.hillary.net info@hillary.net "to err is human; to moo, bovine." ------------------------------ From: wes.leatherock@hotelcal.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 15:25:35 GMT Organization: Hotel California BBS Subject: The Opposition Point of View: My Response ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick Townson) wrote: [ ... much text deleted ... ] > Remember Senator Exxon? Way back then ... more than two years ago > or so, when all this hullabaloo was first coming up ... the net's > response was to protest, to demonstrate, to throw tantrums, to > mail bomb everyone involved. We were told to turn our web pages > black, all sorts of responses and schemes were devised to 'get > even' ... not once did anyone say let's go over and talk to the > man and see what it is exactly he wants and try to find some way > to appease those people. > Why did no one go to Exxon (again, I am using him as a generic > example) and say something like this ... Pardon me, Pat, but isn't it Senator Exon (one "x")? I must confess that when I came to the second paragraph of the material quoted above (where "Senator" was not prefixed) that I came to a stop and wondered what this much-vilified oil company had done to or about the net. I believe Exxon (the oil company) did research in many languages and databases to make sure their name did not match any existing word (including proper names) they could find. Wes Leatherock wes.leatherock@hotelcal.com wes.leatherock@origins.bbs.uoknor.edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Would it help if I said it was a typographical error? Probably not ... PAT] ------------------------------ From: dave.hultberg@paonline.com (Dave Hultberg) Subject: Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 16:32:05 GMT Organization: NAVCOMTELSTA, Pensacola, FL Reply-To: dave.hultberg@paonline.com On Wed, 11 Dec 1996 00:15:00 EST, TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > To John Levine, I agree the way it is written is not very good. So > damned if the court approves it and damned if they don't. You are so > good at teaching things to Dummies (your book was great by the way), > how come you did not get Exxon and his buddies straightened out a > couple years ago? Why didn't you counter him; shall we say match his > bid and raise it? > To Hillary, all I can say is we went through this before, you and I. > Get in your system .newsrc file today and go snip-snip here and > snip-snip there. Then forget about it. Just do that little bit to > help, okay? Pat, While I agree with your moral arguments and your technical points as for as USENET newsgroups, I believe that webservers and other servers present major technical problems that you haven't addressed. Even if you pass some version of CDA, all the purveyors of filth will have to do is move offshore just as the 900 phonesex folks have. There will always be countries that permit this stuff either for the money that it brings in or because their standards of obscenity are different from ours. Sure you can filter out sites with access lists by IP or domain name, but just as soon as you do that, they will change to a new one. Eventually your filter lists will get large enough to impact network performance. What do you do with a site that has "legal" material and smut? It is easy to block something with a name like www.filthysex.com, but if a major provider in Scandinavia, the UK or elsewhere in the world permits smut sites, do we block all of their traffic in order to catch the smut? Do we blacklist entire countries, because they won't go along with our concepts of acceptable use of the net? What do we do about internet chat servers? What do you do to prevent someone from telneting to a machine outside of the U.S. and then surfing the nasty sites from that machine? Take a look at the problems Singapore is having trying to keep "unacceptible" internet traffic out of their country. Germany didn't like some Nazi stuff on an XS4ALL server in the Netherlands and told their ISPs to block that server. XS4ALL got around the block by rotating the IP address of the server. Usenet and servers located within US jurisdiction are relatively easy to regulate, but what do we do about all the stuff that originates outside our borders? As a parent I don't trust anyone else to protect my children. Too many people in this country want to abrogate their responsibility to their children to someone else and another group wants to control what you and I do, because they know what is "good for us". I take responsibility for raising my children and Senator Exon and other dogooders can just leave them alone. Dave Hultberg ------------------------------ Subject: Kid-Safe ISPs Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 00:56:28 PST From: rishab@dxm.org (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Reply-To: rishab@dxm.org Pat, Once you say that the CDA should have been about 'obscenity' and not 'indecency' the rest of your comments, however well-reasoned, become irrelevant. Obscenity has always been illegal on the Net under US law. Indeed it is under existing obscenity statutes that BBS sysops (AABBS) were prosecuted. The analysis of the CDA by the EFF and others right from the beginning was NOT about protecting adults' right to view porn, but about their right to read about breast cancer or breeding horses, among the things classified as indecent but not obscene. If obscenity were Sen Exon's goal, there would be no need for new legislation - except something minor to clarify on the 'local standards' clause given that the Net's not local anywhere. Of course the Senator's goal was political mileage more than anything else, so there had to be a bill. The stuff you wrote about - child pornography etc - is completely illegal in the US, even for adults. There have been arrests in some cases, and many investigations. No _new_ law is necessary there either. So, you may ask, why's all the dirty stuff still around? Pat, when was the last time you visited alt.sex.pedophilia? If you think spammers are inventing newer ways of sending untraceable mail, you should see the posters of pictures in these groups. The headers on one post I tried to trace terminated with some unnamed IP machine (that couldn't be pinged) after going through half the countries in Europe. If it's next to impossible to trace _one_ of these posts within the US, it IS impossible to trace hundreds or thousands every day, going around the world. Again, there is no need for a new law. Existing laws apply. If you followed the Teal-Homolka mess in Canada, you should know that it's far better to keep unwanted content in one newsgroup - or a handful of them - than to have it spread elsewhere and ruin the Net. Now at least only people interested in porn must be flooded with it; those interested in telecom can get on with life. BTW don't talk of 'flaming' posters of porn to comp.* - these posters don't need return addresses of _any_ kind, so flaming will probably not work. The final stupidity of the CDA is that it applies to the US only, of course, so it's irrelevant to the Net. Porn sites are already moving off the US into Europe and Japan, and you can't prevent access to them. I believe in free market solutions. There are signs one is already found. Most porn web sites now ask you to confirm your adulthood through one of several membership/validation schemes (adultcheck, adultpass etc) which charge a few dollars a year. Furthermore, although 'family-oriented' Prodigy didn't do very well, there's certainly an increasing market for 'family' ISPs that can say they'll try to be kid-safe. To Hillary and the other ISP owners out there - you can do this by setting up a proxy server with one of those nanny programs, as well as killing many of the nastier newsgroups. You're providing an extra service, so you can charge for it. I don't agree with Pat that it's every ISPs duty to make their systems kid-safe. Some will want to address that market, others need not. It's probably better that way, because those who want unrestricted access will know where to go - maybe eventually adult ISPs will be the more expensive - and not clutter previously kid-safe newsgroups. First Monday - The Peer-Reviewed Journal on the Internet http://www.firstmonday.dk/ Munksgaard International Publishers, Copenhagen International Editor - Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (ghosh@firstmonday.dk) Mobile +91 11 98110 14574; Fax +91 11 2209608; Tel +91 11 2454717 A4/204 Ekta Apts., 9 Indraprastha Extn, New Delhi 110092 INDIA ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #666 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Dec 17 08:23:02 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id IAA21019; Tue, 17 Dec 1996 08:23:02 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 08:23:02 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612171323.IAA21019@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #667 TELECOM Digest Tue, 17 Dec 96 08:23:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 667 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines (toolbox@ibm.net) Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines (Curtis R. Anderson) Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call (North Coast Communications) Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call (was Re: Further Notes on 555) (Clive Feather) Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call (Nils Andersson) Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call (Ray Rikansrud) Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes (Stanley Cline) Heartline Service SUSPENDED in California! (John Cropper) Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges (Dave Levenson) $911 Air Ticket (Mark Brader) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. From: toolbox@ibm.net Subject: Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 01:41:36 GMT Organization: Nut Screws and Bolts - Film at 11 Reply-To: toolbox@ibm.net Around 12 Dec 96 05:21:09 GMT, Greg Stahl wrote: > DataComm over power lines is used in alot of different places. One > that I am aware is the mass transit subway system in Washington, D.C. > called Metro. Although I cannot describe the details, the trains are > powered by a "third rail" that carries 380 volts (I could be wrong > about the voltage). [snip] I can't really believe this. What I do know about the Washington, DC, Metro system is that they have full radio communications for Metro Police and the maintenance personnel, and they communicate via two-way radio. You can see the repeaters at regular intervals in the tunnels; and closer if there's a bend in the tunnel they look like two square fins on the walls of the tunnels. Although not the same thing, there is also full-coverage from one of the cellular carriers (I think Cellular One). They use two thick white cables: one transmits and one receives. You can see the name on the insulation if you look hard enough. For the stations there are these suspicious-looking finned panels on the ceilings in obvious locations. But as far as communications via the third rail, I find that very hard to believe since radio communications is pervasive in the tunnels *and* the train car sensors between the rails are frequent enough that they could be used themselves as the means of communications. But I'm just a rider and casual observer of Metro, so what do I know? toolbox@ibm.net ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 01:54:27 -0500 From: Curtis R. Anderson Organization: Gleepy's Henhouse Subject: Re: Ethernet Over Power Lines Tim Dillman wrote: > I recently visited one of my customers to discuss future technologies > and he brought up the wildest idea I have heard yet. It seems that > the public utilities are using power lines as the transmission media > for internal ethernet transmissions (or so he said). I was very > skeptical about this notion but managed a smile and nod when my > customer told me of this, but sill I wonder ... > ... Can anyone confirm or dispel this idea? Out here in this part of New York state, the power company, Steuben Rural Electric Cooperative (SREC), installed a Load Management Unit to shut off major appliances (such as an electric water heater in an all-electric home) during peak periods. "Peak periods" would be defined as those times when the farmers are milking the cows or during the hottest summer days when heavy air conditioning use is anticipated. The load management unit installed to control the house's water heater is a QEI, Inc. model 8135. A power company tech wrote "32" in the Group Address box. Three poles away toward the substation is a lone transformer with a box attached to the transformer's secondary. This might be some kind of signaling amplifier for the two houses down the line from it, each on its own transformer. No capacitors appear to be installed on the transformers, but SREC uses a common neutral for primary and secondary in what might be called a three phase/four wire system. A small capacitor might be built into the transformer, though. At least SREC is nice enough to give a two dollar credit per month for each LMU! If there is enough interest, I'll take a picture of the LMU and make it available through anonymous FTP. Digital cameras are so much fun. :-) Curtis R. Anderson, Co-creator of "Gleepy the Hen", SP 2.5?, KoX URLs: http://www.servtech.com/public/cra/ | XENU: All that needs ftp://ftp.servtech.com/pub/users/cra/ | to be said! mailto:gleepy@intelligencia.com | ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 96 12:11 EST From: North Coast Communications <0005082894@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call Speaking of misleading ... In the {Chicago Sun-Times}, ads for calls to 1-664-410-XXXX ^^^ ^^^ are advertised (in fine print of course), "normal ld rates to MO apply". ^^ What are we supposed to assume? That these calls are to MISSOURI??!!! **** In checking classifieds from many newspapers & magazines nationwide, "410" seems to be the only prefix used in 664 for this purpose. Which leads me to wonder if this is a "special" prefix, not reachable by callers on Montserrat. "404" seens to serve a similiar purpose in 268. As does "704" in 941 (FL). I am interested in similiar NPA/NXX combinations used this way for a "Hot" list that I am compiling. ---------- A few years back there were Party Lines and such in the 515 NPA. These were run by the Jefferson Telephone Company in their 386 (adv. "FUN) prefix. They were all located in the 6XXX series, which was not reachable from other 386 numbers (calls dialed from that town would reach a fast busy). This proved so lucrative that they opened a 945 prefix specifically from that purpose. Again, though 945 was listed "Jefferson IA", there was no way you could call FROM Jefferson. Only calls from outside the one prefix dialing area (386) were accepted. I went to Jefferson IA on a road trip to investigate this. Jefferson Telephone was a "family-owned business" and the people in town had no idea what was going on right under the noses. In fact, when I spoke with the county sheriff (Jefferson is the county seat), he informed me he had heard "rumors", but when he dialed the numbers in question all he got was a busy signal. Of course I set him, other county officials, (and a few local preachers) straight in the whole matter! :+) Heh Heh ... The president of Jefferson Telephone was NOT pleased when I finally caught up with him to ask for an interview! Had a lot of "FUN" with that one! Michael Fumich ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 12:43:42 +0000 From: Clive D.W. Feather Reply-To: clive@demon.net Subject: Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call (was Re: Further Notes on Use of 555) Organization: Clive's laptop (part of Demon Internet Ltd.) In Digest 16.658 I wrote: >> Over the past few years, we've seen International PAY-per-call scams, some >> in the NANP Caribbean, and some to numbers (but not necessarily locations) >> outside of the NANP. > I don't see how you can class these as scams. With the +1 809 and non- > NANP numbers, you pay *exactly* the same as a call to a "genuine" > number in that area. Provided it's clearly presented as an > international call the way a genuine call would be presented, what's > the problem? The number of responses I've received show that I didn't make myself clear, so I hope Pat will let me make a clarification. I know that these numbers are often presented in a misleading manner. That's clearly a scam, and I dislike it as much as anyone else. However, the original posting appeared to object to the entire concept of using foreign numbers and revenue sharing at all, and I read it as calling that process a scam. If a number is clearly presented in the normal format (no playing around with funny punctuation or prefixes), and it is clear that it is charged as an international call at the same rate as all other calls to that country (i.e. no forwarding to 900 numbers or anything like that), then I see it as perfectly legitimate for the callee to receive revenue from the telco, or to divert the call to another location that's cheaper to call, or whatever. Hopefully we can now close this topic. Clive D.W. Feather | Associate Director | Director Tel: +44 181 371 1138 | Demon Internet Ltd. | CityScape Internet Services Ltd. Fax: +44 181 371 1150 | | Written on my laptop - please reply to the Reply-To address ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nilsphone) Subject: Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call Date: 16 Dec 1996 07:12:17 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com > That way our companies and corps that do not make international calls > can block the 976s and look alikes, the 900s and the 011 and the > telcom managers can avoid at least one staff meeting a week. The NANP will probably stand. What the company telco manager can do: 1) Block 809 if necessary, and the other Caribean/etc area codes as necessary. (You probably do not want to block calls to Canada). 2) Block 10xxx dialling. The company that pays the bill has the right to choose the carrier. Period. What the local Telcos should do, possibly aided by the FCC etc: 3) Disallow backcharges to the caller on any but 900/976 calls that the caller should KNOW are surcharged, and which, unlike 011 calls, are blocked by the 900 block. 4) Allow BLOCKING of 10xxx calls!!! This may be an original idea of mine. What we all should do, including the above entities: 5) Raise public awareness about scams, particularly the 10xxx-011 variety with kickbacks, this one was new to me, I must admit. Pretty nasty, but clever! Questions: Should 10xxx+011 with kickbacks be allowed? Can they be disallowed? Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: Ray Rikansrud Subject: Re: Yet Another PAY-per-Call Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 15:13:09 -0800 Organization: University of Washington That is actually kind of funny. The name of the Teleslime that is: Telecon Communications Corporation (yes that's an n, not an m) -Ray On 12 Dec 1996, Garrett Wollman wrote: > 101-051-801-144-181-371-1138 > > (10518/101-0518 is one of the AOSlime these lot get, or have in the > past gotten, kickbacks from). ------------------------------ From: roamer1@pobox.com (Stanley Cline) Subject: Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 02:02:35 GMT Organization: Catoosa Computing Services Reply-To: roamer1@pobox.com On Wed, 11 Dec 1996 09:24:10 -0800, Mark Cuccia wrote: > (Industry Numbering Committee), 511 and 711 have been proposed or > reserved or assigned to TDD/TTY 'relay' services, similar to the > 800-855-1155 (or 800-855-xxxx) numbers. Another related proposal: Reserve a N11 code (or some other standardized code) for *TDD/TTY* users to reach the local emergency agency. In most areas, the TDD/TTY number for "911" is a standard POTS number, which is *not* standard from one community to the next. In my town (Ft. Oglethorpe, GA) the number is 706-861-xxxx; In Chattanooga, TN, the number is 423-629-xxxx; Why not have it some standard code? A question: I know 800-855 was reserved for TDD/TTY services. But why didn't the various state relay services locate in 800-855, *instead* of the mishmash of other numbers? For example, the Georgia relay service numbers are: 1-800-255-0135 and 1-800-255-0056 and the Tennessee numbers are: 1-800-848-0298 and 1-800-848-0299 It's bad enough trying to remember which number is voice and the other TDD/TTY! ** Notes on relay services: ** Originally, the state relay services would only complete calls that both *originated and terminated* in the same state (aside from 800 numbers, etc. which were normally always reachable.) For local calling areas that span states, such as the Chattanooga/north Georgia area, this meant that part of the local calling area was unreachable through a relay service. Since that time, most relay services have expanded to allow interstate calls; only *one* point has to be in the state that sponsors the relay service. (For example, to call a Tennessee hearing-impaired customer from my house in Georgia, I can call either the Georgia *or* Tennessee relay services.) Most relay services are still tied closely to AT&T, mainly because AT&T often provides the long distance for the relay service, or *the relay service itself.* For example, the vast majority of relay services will still accept only LEC or AT&T calling cards for non-1+ calls (from payphones, etc.) and calls are billed at AT&T rates, through AT&T's billing system. (If I recall correctly, MCI has its own relay service -- "TeleRelay" -- but no other IXCs do; they didn't require the stilted "go ahead" conversation that the AT&T-based services do.) > N11 code answers at the relay center with a voice operator (live > human? automated?) for voice customers placing calls to TDD/TTY-abled They're humans. SomeONE has to type the voice person's words into the TDD! *Good* voice recognition still isn't here yet. :( ** end relay service notes ** > There is also discussion in the CSCN regarding Canadian use of 211 for > 'interactive voice/information services' for the blind and > become a 'commercialized PAY-PAY-PAY-per-call' service. At least the > CRTC, Industry-Canada, etc. have prevented COCOTS and AOSlime from At least there *aren't* COCOTs in Canada! Most COCOTs use 211 for refund/repair! > and Business Office have been becoming toll-free seven-digit or > 800/888 ten-digit numbers; any PAY-per-call numbers should be PacBell uses the "811" prefix for the telco business office, etc. Why not establish a standard prefix for telco business office/repair/etc., and force all telcos to use that standard, instead of having the mess of 811 [PB]/N11 [independents]/557 [BellSouth]/780 [BellSouth]/800/888 numbers that exist now? For example: 811-2311 ANAC (derived from 311, used in many DMS switches for ANAC) 811-2611 repair (derived from 611) 811-2411 optional, for local DA or reverse-search service (411) 811-2000 residential customer service etc. > with such *XX/11XX codes. Even local directory, repair, business > office could become something like *411/11411, *611/11611, *811/11811 At least with *61x and *81x, these run right up against the established "call selector" codes. > in the future. This is similar to the cellular's uses of *XXX-send > codes. All N11 codes (except for 911) could then be available for POTS Cellular switches aren't as bound to 10-digit/*xx [fixed-length-number] translations as landline switches are. For example, in various cellular systems, there are all sorts of * codes of varying lengths: *data modem pool (more or less standard code) *help road service (GTE Mobilnet Chattanooga and other cities) *18 activate follow-me roaming (B-side carriers) *350 activate NACN (A-side carriers) *phone automated phone users guide (GTE Mobilnet Tampa) etc. The SEND key acts as a "number terminator", so requiring timeouts, etc. is not an issue on cellular. Implementing new "standard" * codes, at least in the *5x-*8x range, would result in disrupting codes for CLASS and other optional services; I don't know that varying-length * codes could be implemented well in a landline environment, as timeouts, the # key, etc. would have to be used to signal the end of the number! (If all codes were a SINGLE length, this would not be an issue.) Instead of using *6x/*8x for CLASS services, something like this could be used: *441 =3D activate feature *440 =3D deactivate feature Just opening the two-digit *xx dialing pattern to *xxx would allow for 10 times (if 0 and 1 are allowed as leading digits, no reason I can think of not to) more numbers in the same space. (The "end-with-0-to-deactivate-or-activate" convention is common in the cellular network. For example, some carriers use *73 to activate no-answer transfer, and *730 to deactivate it. NACN uses the reverse [*35 to DEACTIVATE NACN call delivery, *350 to activate], which I have never figured out. Since the issue here is varying-length numbers, use *731 for activation of the feature.) > seven-digit assignments in POTS NPA's (N11-xxxx). 911 would remain > 'sacred' as a three-digit code, although it too could also be I don't think 911 can *ever* be reclaimed for *any* purpose. The implementation of 112 as a "permissible" dialing code for 911, at least from GSM PCS (to allow GSM users from abroad, using their SIM card in a North American GSM phone, to use the same code for an "emergency" number), should be considered. (Are any of the US GSM systems allowing 112 as an alternate for 911 now?) Stanley Cline (Roamer1 on IRC) ** GO BRAVES! GO VOLS! mailto:roamer1@pobox.com ** http://pobox.com/~roamer1/ CompuServe 74212,44 ** MSN WSCline1 All opinions are strictly my own! ------------------------------ From: John Cropper Subject: Heartline Service SUSPENDED in California! Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 18:30:11 -0500 Organization: MindSpring Reply-To: psyber@mindspring.com An item from the CPUC I thought you'd ALL find very interesting ... CONTACT: Kyle DeVine December 9, 1996 CPUC - 563 213-897-4225 (I.96-04-024) CPUC ORDERS HEARTLINE AND TNT TO REFUND $600,000 TO CUSTOMERS FOR SLAMMING AND SUSPENDS SERVICE FOR 40 MONTHS The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) today approved a settlement proposed by its Consumer Services Division (CSD), Heartline Communications, Inc. (Heartline) and Total National Telecommunications, Inc. (TNT) which settles the CPUC investigation of allegations that Heartline and TNT switched consumers to their long distance service without consumers' consent - a practice known as slamming. Under the terms of the settlement, Heartline and TNT cannot provide retail long distance service to customers in California for 40 months. The companies also must offer $600,000 in refunds in the form of $20 checks to each of the 32,000 California customers who complained that their long distance service was slammed by TNT or Heartline. The agreement lays out a claim process for customers who claim losses greater than $20. Customers that currently have TNT as their long distance service provider will be notified in the next few months that they will need to switch to another carrier. Until they switch, consumers will not be billed excessive rates by TNT because the company has reduced its toll rates in California to levels charged by AT&T. The CSD initial investigation indicated consumers had been slammed as a result of signing a sweepstakes entry form. CSD alleged that some consumer signatures had been forged. The investigation also found that Hispanic neighborhoods were targeted with false offers of discount long distance service when Heartline and TNT charged significantly higher rates than the major long distance carriers. -more- After reviewing staff's initial investigation in April, the Commission ordered Heartline and TNT to respond to slamming allegations in formal hearings and prohibited them from contacting local exchange companies directly to switch any more customers to their service. The Commission also prohibited selling their customer subscriptions to other entities. The Commission approved the settlement because it is reasonable in light of the whole record, consistent with the law, and in the public interest. It settles the investigation without long and expensive litigation. It also provides immediate refunds to the 32,000 consumers who called Pacific Bell, GTE of California, or the Commission to complain that their service had been switched without their authorization. -###- John Cropper voice: 888.NPA.NFO2 LINCS 609.637.9434 PO Box 277 fax: 609.637.9430 Pennington, NJ 08534-0277 mailto:psyber@mindspring.com http://www.the-server.com/jcbt2n/lincs/ ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 13:49:07 GMT > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you are going to pass along the > COCOT 'surcharge' to the owner of the 800 number, what do you do in > cases where an 800 subscriber has a deal with his carrier to pay > just X cents per minute? The carrier will probably pass the increase in its costs along, either to the specific subscriber, or to all of its subscribers. Remember, however, that when the carrier became liable for the payphone set use fee, it also began paying reduced CCL charges, as the LEC payphones are removed from the rate base. The carrier will see lower CCL charges, and increased set use fees ... probably a slight overall increase in its overhead. > He says if the carrier is going to surcharge him for calls coming > from COCOTS, *then do not pass those calls on to him*. The carrier has the right, under the regulations, to block 800 calls from payphones. Note that the regulation is not limited to COCOT payphones. Compensation to payphone owners applies to _ALL_ calls from payphones, regardless of whether the owner is a COCOT provider or the deregulated payphone business owned by an RBOC. > What then prevents the COCOT owner from raising the 'surcharge' to a > dollar or two dollars, as long as he no longer has to fight with his > customer to get the money? The set-use fee is now $45.85 per month regardless of the number of calls. As of 9/1/97 it becomes $0.35 per call. This amount is set by the FCC. As of 9/1/98 it becomes the initial deposit amount for local calls at the payphone. It is not an arbitrary amount. A payphone which imposes an arbitrarily high fee for local coin calls will probably not stay in business very long! Jay R. Ashworth (jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us) writes: > Ok, admittedly, they may have a financially sound motivation for this > desire, although I'd be _really_ surprised if there was a good > justification for their not noticing for _13_ years ... Over the past 13 years, the volume of 800 traffic has increased from 4% of the traffic to 24% of the traffic. (Why do you think we have run out of 800 numbers?) When the users getting a free ride on the payphone become that high a fraction, they _did_ get noticed. That it took this many years to fix the problem is not because nobody noticed it ... but that governmental action normally proceeds at a rather stately pace! > The "rule" I'm discussing is the implied contract that Dave feels that > he, and his daughter at swim practice, have with "the telephone > company". For many, _many_ years, it has been possible to place a > call to a "so-called" toll-free number, without needing to carry any > money, and many, _many_ customers have taken advantage of this > capability. That has not changed. The payphone compensation is paid to the payphone operator (LEC or COCOT-owner) by the carrier, not by the caller. There is still no need to carry change to make calls to 800 numbers! Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: uunet!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ From: msb@sq.com Date: Mon, 16 Dec 96 17:39:34 EST From: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) Subject: $911 Air Ticket Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 22:39:26 GMT This item appeared in the Daily Bulletin for November 26 from last month's North American Bridge Championships tournament. The Bulletin is edited by Henry Francis and Brent Manley and can currently be found under the American Contract Bridge League web site . =========================================================== $911 for air ticket? Mike Aliotta called his travel agency recently to arrange for some airline tickets. Even before he could tell the agent where he wanted to go, the agent told him, "Yes, we can take care of that for you. The price will be $911. And please come by now to pick them up." Aliotta knew something was wrong -- he hadn't said where he was going, the price was out of sight and they always delivered the tickets to him. $911? He thanked the agent, hung up and quickly dialed 911. Shortly afterwards the police broke into the travel agency and arrested the person who was holding the employees at gunpoint and threatening to dismember them. ==================================================== Forwarded here by: Mark Brader, msb@sq.com, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #667 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Dec 18 08:57:15 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id IAA06556; Wed, 18 Dec 1996 08:57:15 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 08:57:15 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612181357.IAA06556@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #668 TELECOM Digest Wed, 18 Dec 96 08:57:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 668 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Indian Government May Rule Out Foreign Broadcasters (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Parollees and the Net (Tad Cook) Analog Call Cut-Offs on ISDN BRI Line (Mac Aldente) www.webcom.com Site Down Most of Weekend (Mark J. Cuccia) Finally: a Map of the 908->732 Area Code Split (Col. G.L. Sicherman) Unheralded Deaths of 1996 - George Oslin (Mike Pollock) Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (Gary Fancher) Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (C. Macbride) Connecticut DPUC Gets Slammed (Alan Lange) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Indian Government May Rule Out Foreign Broadcasters Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 11:39:46 PST From: rishab@dxm.org (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Reply-To: rishab@dxm.org The Indian Techonomist: bulletin, December 18, 1996 Copyright (C) 1996 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh. All rights reserved Indian government may rule out foreign broadcasters December 18: "Foreign media tries back door" screamed headlines in New Delhi's normally sober business dailies last week. Following the headlines were a stream of articles over the next several days, on the "problem" of the entry of foreign media into India - particularly broadcasting - and what the government could do about it: legislate, perhaps? All India Radio (AIR), which like Doordarshan TV is a government monopoly, has been issuing franchises for FM radio airspace for the past couple of years to private broadcasters. Last week it surfaced that in the latest auction for franchises, two bidders, TNE Asia and UDD Systems, bid the highest (about $800 per hour of airtime). They are both believed to be indirectly controlled by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Mr Murdoch was already in trouble in India. The ultimate symbol of foreign media, News Corp was granted permission by India's Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) to start a wholly-owned Indian subsidiary last month. This company, to be called INDCO, would invest in programming and cable networks. However, earlier this month, Minister for Information and Broadcasting C M Ibrahim objected, and the venture is once again delayed - all though another News Corp subsidiary for programming, cleared in August, is going ahead. In this context, rumours about News Corp control of the FM franchisees naturally led to an outcry over a "back door" entry. India has to open up its huge media market quickly; Indians love TV, yet the Bombay slum-dwellers with no proper sewage but dish antennas clearly don't care for Doordarshan. At the moment, the Indian cable business is like American Internet Service Providers - totally disorganised and unregulated. Some 50,000 cable networks will rake in about $1 billion in subscriber revenues this year, but none of that goes to the satellite channels themselves, who are forced by current Indian law to broadcast from abroad - even if owned and operated by Indians. Till now a new law was needed to open up the market - and revenue streams, such as Direct-to-Home (DTH) subscriptions. After last week's Murdoch-filled headlines, MPs (members of parliament) want the new law to control foreigners. The government has been sluggish about finalising legislation cutting down regulations - despite a Supreme Court ruling egging it on - but now that any new law could include new restrictions against foreigners, it appears more keen on getting something done. The government is now thinking of issuing an order - perhaps as early as next week - allowing limited private broadcasting, thereby ending the monopoly of AIR and Doordarshan, but imposing further controls on foreign ownership. This order will be a stop-gap measure until comprehensive legislation can pass in Parliament. Some of the ideas the government has, such as issuing franchises to DTH operators, may be unworkable, as they would probably go against last year's Supreme Court ruling granting all Indians what is in effect a right to broadcast, natural resources such as frequencies permitting. In any case, Indians don't let inconvenient rules get in their way: when cable TV was illegal, it was growing at 50% a year. For more information, follow the links in the hypertext version of this document at http://dxm.org/techonomist/news/ The Indian Techonomist: 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 ------------------------------ Subject: Parollees and the Net Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 14:33:12 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Rising computer crime prompts parole rules WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Parole Commission has approved restrictions on the use of computers by certain high-risk parolees. The Justice Department announced Monday that the panel voted this month to authorize such restrictions as requiring certain parolees to get prior written approval from the commission before using an Internet service provider, computerized bulletin board system or any public or private computer network. Other restrictions would: prohibit particular parolees from possessing or using data encryption programs, require some parolees to agree to unannounced inspection of computers by probation officers, require some parolees to compile daily logs of computer use or to pay for equipment to monitor their computer use. "Unrestricted access to the Internet and other computer online services can provide sophisticated offenders with new opportunities for crime and criminal associations," said Edward F. Reilly Jr., commission chairman. "We cannot ignore the possibility that such offenders may be tempted to use computer services to repeat their crimes." The commission noted a surge in "how-to" information on child molestation, hate crime and the illegal use of explosives available on the Internet and on computer online services. ------------------------------ From: macaroni@ingress.com (Mac Aldente) Subject: Analog Call Cut-Offs on ISDN BRI Line Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 22:10:01 -0500 Organization: IngressNet (info@ingress.net) I have an ISDN BRI line that disconnects all analog (voice, data, fax) calls every 16 minutes. NOT 16 minutes into the call, but on a NYNEX 16 minute schedule. The D channel traces are as follows: 00:02:58.97 4 bytes LAPD D NT C SAPI=0 TEI=97 RR P/F=1 NR=6 00:02:58.98 4 bytes LAPD D TE R SAPI=0 TEI=97 RR P/F=1 NR=9 00:02:59.15 4 bytes LAPD D NT C SAPI=0 TEI=72 RR P/F=1 NR=1 00:02:59.16 4 bytes LAPD D TE R SAPI=0 TEI=72 RR P/F=1 NR=4 00:03:27.28 4 bytes LAPD D NT C SAPI=0 TEI=97 RR P/F=1 NR=6 00:03:27.29 4 bytes LAPD D TE R SAPI=0 TEI=97 RR P/F=1 NR=9 00:03:27.47 4 bytes LAPD D NT C SAPI=0 TEI=72 RR P/F=1 NR=1 00:03:27.48 4 bytes LAPD D TE R SAPI=0 TEI=72 RR P/F=1 NR=4 This causes the cut-off: 00:03:39.56 14 bytes LAPD D NT C SAPI=0 TEI=97 INFO P=0 NR=6 NS=9 10 bytes Northern American ---- CR = Dummy PD=Q.931 INFOrmation 1 1001---- INFORMATION ELEMENT : SHIFT ----0--- Shift type : locking -----101 Codeset ident. : codeset 5 1 00101010 INFORMATION ELEMENT : Set(05)/Code(2A) 2 00000100 IE length : 4 octets 3 ******** IE Contents : 80 80 01 50 00:03:39.58 4 bytes LAPD D TE R SAPI=0 TEI=97 RR P/F=0 NR=10 00:03:39.62 14 bytes LAPD D NT C SAPI=0 TEI=72 INFO P=0 NR=1 NS=4 10 bytes Northern American ---- CR = Dummy PD=Q.931 INFOrmation 1 1001---- INFORMATION ELEMENT : SHIFT ----0--- Shift type : locking -----101 Codeset ident. : codeset 5 1 00101010 INFORMATION ELEMENT : Set(05)/Code(2A) 2 00000100 IE length : 4 octets 3 ******** IE Contents : 80 80 01 50 Any explanations or suggestions would be appreciated. TIA. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 09:27:46 -0800 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: www.webcom.com Site Down Most of Weekend I heard on the 8:00 am (Eastern Time) hourly Westwood/Mutual/NBC-Radio news this morning that www.webcom.com was down for about forty hours this past weekend, due to computer hackers. The news report mentioned that many commercial and business customers are users of Webcom, and their pages couldn't be accessed this weekend. The report did mention that email was able to be sent and received without many problems, however. I was wondering why I couldn't access Judith Oppenheimer's ICB/Callbrand page nor Long Distance Digest this past Saturday. Both are at the Webcom site. I had thought that either the 'routers' on my end (or in transit) were having trouble accessing the site, or the site was brought down temporarily for maintenance. But then I heard the news report on the radio this morning. The news report also mentioned that it will be 'virtually impossible' to determine who 'hacked' into the site and took it out of service. I would hope that some additional security and tracking measures will be able to prevent or reduce such activities in the future. As for the tragedy in New Orleans over the weekend, I was no where *near* the "Riverwalk" shopping facility, and I heard about it about an hour later over the hourly national news on CBS Radio. At first, it was thought that about six people fell into the Mississippi River and were presumed dead, however later news reports on radio and television mentioned that about six department store manequins had fallen into the river from one of the shops in the Riverwalk. So far, there haven't been any confirmed reports of deaths due to the ship (which lost all of its power including steering) crashed into the "Riverwalk" shopping mall. And as of the last local news report I've heard or read, no known tourists (nor locals) have been reported missing. MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE: 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: sicherman@lucent.com (Col. G.L. Sicherman) Subject: Finally: a Map of the 908->732 Area Code Split Date: 17 Dec 1996 15:23:40 GMT Organization: Lucent Technologies In a two-page ad in the Asbury Park Press for 1996-12-17, Bell Atlantic identifies the exchanges in the area-code splits 201->973 and 908->732. John Cropper has already published the list for 201->973 here. I don't think that an authoritative version of the 908->732 split has appeared in the Digest yet. MOVING FROM 908 (Central New Jersey) TO 732 (East-Central New Jersey): 202 288 364 442 531 634 747 834 902 203 290 365 445 532 636 748 836 905 205 291 366 446 536 639 750 837 906 206 292 367 447 541 641 751 838 907 207 293 368 448 542 646 752 839 909 208 294 370 449 544 650 758 840 910 214 295 380 450 545 651 760 842 913 216 296 381 457 548 652 764 843 914 217 297 382 458 549 656 767 844 915 219 299 385 460 560 657 770 845 916 220 302 386 461 562 660 773 846 918 222 303 387 462 563 661 774 847 919 223 304 388 463 566 663 775 849 920 224 307 389 469 567 664 776 853 922 225 308 390 471 570 667 777 854 928 227 309 392 472 571 670 779 855 929 228 312 393 473 572 671 780 857 930 229 315 394 476 573 679 783 861 932 235 316 396 477 574 680 785 863 933 237 318 398 478 576 681 786 864 934 238 320 402 487 577 683 787 865 935 239 321 404 488 583 692 792 866 937 240 323 405 489 585 694 793 867 938 243 324 406 492 586 695 794 868 939 244 326 407 493 590 697 796 869 940 246 327 408 494 591 698 797 870 942 247 329 409 495 592 699 798 871 943 248 330 413 499 594 701 799 872 944 249 331 414 501 599 702 804 873 945 251 332 415 502 600 706 805 875 946 254 335 416 503 601 714 807 878 949 255 336 417 504 602 715 808 880 952 257 339 418 505 603 716 812 881 954 258 340 420 506 605 721 814 882 955 262 341 421 509 606 723 815 883 957 263 342 422 510 607 726 816 884 968 264 343 424 513 610 727 817 885 969 269 345 427 514 613 728 818 886 970 270 346 428 517 614 737 819 888 972 271 348 431 519 615 738 821 890 974 274 349 432 521 616 739 826 892 975 275 350 433 524 617 741 827 893 980 278 356 434 525 618 742 828 896 981 280 357 435 528 627 743 830 897 985 283 358 438 529 628 744 831 899 988 286 360 440 530 632 745 833 901 989 287 363 441 The centrals for these exchanges are: Asbury Park Freehold Monmouth Junction Atlantic Highlands Holmdel New Brunswick Belmar Jamesburg Perth Amboy Bound Brook Keansburg Point Pleasant Carteret Keyport Rahway Deal Lakehurst Red Bank Dunellen Lakewood Seaside Park East Millstone Long Branch South Amboy Eatontown Manasquan South River Englishtown Matawan Spring Lake Farmingdale Metuchen Toms River Franklin Park Middletown Woodbridge According to my Bell Atlantic phone directory, 405 is Unionville. No other Unionville exchanges are listed in 732. I cannot tell whether this is a minor office on the fringe of Unionville, or just an error. I was surprised to find on the list almost 100 exchanges that I did not know about. Can anybody point me to an online mapping of exchanges to central offices? Col. G. L. Sicherman sicherman@lucent.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 11:40:42 -0800 From: Mike Pollock Organization: SJS Entertainment Subject: Unheralded Deaths of 1996 - George Oslin By The Associated Press When George Burns died, a century of mirth-making was rewarded with f ront-page obituaries and public lamentations. When George Oslin died, few marked his passing. Oslin was not well-known. But long ago, in a moment of genius, he invented the singing telegram, and the world became a bit more tuneful. GEORGE OSLIN Delivery Hymn of the Singing Telegram (sung to the tune of ``Battle Hymn of the Republic'') Mine ears have heard the glory of some singing on the way. It's that boy from Western Union, and he's got some things to say, But like Samuel Morse and Edison, it's disappeared today. Still, the memory lives on. CHORUS: Western Union at the door, ma'am. Bringing you a singing tel'gram. It'll give you information; it'll brighten up your day. George Oslin led the way. He was Western Union's czar of the obscure and the old ways. He recorded comp'ny history; took down all each had to say. Then it dawned on him that singing just might help to cheer the day. Now his memory lives on. CHORUS: Western Union at the door, sir. Our aged hero's met his maker. He died at 97 down in Florida, they say. George Oslin led the way. Today we have the telephone, the Internet, the fax We communicate so quickly that the telegram seems lax. But for just one fleeting moment, please, nostalgic let us wax. For a memory now gone. CHORUS: Western Union's almost gone now Cyberspace has got the know-how. But remember, long ago, that there was something more fun, ma'am. The singing telegram. -- By Ted Anthony ------------------------------ From: Gary Fancher Subject: Re: The Opposition Point of View: My Response Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 14:30:19 -0600 Organization: DSC Communications Corporation, Plano, Texas USA Pat, I would like to extend my appreciation for your well-written essay concerning the freedom of speech on the Internet, etc. You started out with the same premise that we have heard from everyone, and that is that parents have the ultimate responsibility for what they allow their children to see and hear. I have no argument with that statement since it is obviously correct, but I do think that a little more support from the community would be very helpful. I am in the process of raising four children, and I can tell you from experience that parenting is not an easy task. I often find myself wondering if those who cry out so loudly for the freedom of expression are themselves trying to raise any children. When I was a child (in the 50's and 60's), virtually everyone in society agreed on what was good for us children. We all knew what was right from what was wrong, and our teachers, leaders, pastors, politicians and judges as well as our parents all at least paid lip service to wanting to point us in the right direction. I really believe that the vast majority were sincere in their desires to do that. (One might argue that they did not succeed very well, but that's another story.) We had TV shows like _My_Three_Sons_ and _Father_ Knows_Best_ (to name just a couple) which reinforced "family values." Movies like _The Last Picture Show_ were shockers because they went AGAINST the grain. Such is no longer the case. Much of today's TV, movies and the Internet are still trying to tear down the conscience that our parents and society instilled in us. It seems that in these days, the judges, teachers, sometimes the politicians, and even sometimes the pastors and parents are trying to show how much freedom we have by declaring everything to be permissable. As a result, we parents who are still trying to raise our children to be good and decent citizens find that WE are the ones who are going against the grain. Society no longer upholds what used to be good high standards. In fact, there almost seem to be no standards. We've thrown out the Ten Commandments, closed the Good Book, declared God to be dead or at least so ill that He has become impotent, and even decided in some cases that we are gods ourselves. (Oops, here I am preaching when I'm really a programmer.) I am not asking that society raise my children for me - I do not want to shirk my responsibility, but a little help would be appreciated, and if I cannot get that, then I beg of society to not fight against me in my efforts. Do not think that we (society in general) will be absolved of any and all responsibility for what will happen if we do not change course as a society just simply by saying that "it is the parent's responsibility to raise their children properly." Do not forget the saying (before it became a political slur), "It takes a village to raise a child." We all have a responsibility to one another's children if the next generation is going to exceed the grasp of the current one. Now I'll get back to programming. Have a Merry Christmas. Gary D. Fancher E-mail: gfancher@spd.dsccc.com DSC Communications Corporation voice: 972-519-5268 1000 Coit Road, MS 121, Plano, Texas 75075 fax: 972-519-3563 ------------------------------ From: craig@rmit.EDU.AU (Craig Macbride) Subject: Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News Date: 17 Dec 1996 20:36:25 GMT Organization: Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. Clayton E. Cramer writes: > There are a lot of people out there who have no idea the damage that > exposure to a group like alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teens would > do to a child. The average child will not be interested or even go far enough to download and decode what's there, but that's not even the point. The net is a large, easy to access part of the world. You can post defamatory items and end up in jail, book airline or hotel tickets that must be paid for, etc. This is not a kiddies' playground. Do you let a 10 year old borrow the car and do a cross-country trip in it? If not, you shouldn't be letting them on the net either. The extremist viewpoint here is that somehow everyone else should be looking out for the wellbeing of children of inexcuseably stupid parents, no matter how inconvenient that may be for us all. Craig Macbride URL: http://www.bf.rmit.edu.au/~craigm ------------------------------ Subject: Connecticut DPUC Gets Slammed From: Lange@snet.net (Alan Lange) Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 08:00:00 EST The page 1 headline in the 12/17/96 {Hartford Courant} is: "States's telephone watchdog finds its own lines crossed." A couple of nice quotes from the article: "The latest telephone-line caper under investigation by the state is either a gutsy crime or a wild mixup. 'It's sort of like pulling an armed robbery at the police station,' said Thomas Benedict, one of the state's top telephone regulators. Benedict ought to know. The victim in this case was the state Department of Public Utility Control, which polices the telephone industry in Connecticut. That would make Benedict the desk sergeant; he's the commissioner most familiar with telephone issues." "Beryl Lyons, a department spokeswoman, described the feeling among employees at agency headquarters in New Britain: 'They did WHAT??? ... Excuse me, we're the DPUC, and we got slammed?' " It seems that 6 of the department's 14 lines got moved from MCI to Wiltel. SNET confirmed that the lines had been moved last week after Wiltel made the request. For the time being the whole article is at: http://news.courant.com/article/biz1.stm Alan Lange Lange@snet.net ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #668 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Dec 19 08:55:28 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id IAA13350; Thu, 19 Dec 1996 08:55:28 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 08:55:28 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612191355.IAA13350@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #669 TELECOM Digest Thu, 19 Dec 96 08:55:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 669 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson How Business Almost Derailed the Net (Monty Solomon) 920 Announced for Wisconsin (John Cropper) Fixed Rate National 800 Service (Steve Sullivan) Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News (Martin Baines) Last Laugh! Ultimate Chain Letter (Scott Hemphill) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 22:52:10 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: How Business Almost Derailed the Net Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Begin forwarded message: Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 10:09:40 -0800 (PST) From: Nathan Newman Subject: [ENODE] How Business Almost Rerailed the Net EEEEE N N OOO DDDD EEEEE E NN N O O D D E EEEE N N N O O D D EEEE E N NN O O D D E EEEEE N N OOO DDDD EEEEE ================================================ DECEMBER 15, 1996 To subscribe to this monthly newletter on information technology and society, send the message "subscribe" to enodelist@garnet.berkeley.edu HOW PRIVATE BUSINESS ALMOST DERAILED THE INTERNET ...AND HOW THEY STILL MAY -- by Nathan Newman, Progressive Communications, newman@garnet.berkeley.edu In a remarkable turn of societal imagination, many conservatives have begun picturing the computer age as the rejuvenation of small-scale entrepreneurial capitalism against the institutions of the nation state. Whether it's Alvin Toffler "quantum revolution" or Newt Gingrich promoting decentralization of economic decision-making to local regions, there has been a steady stream of conservative analysis making the case that new technology has made government's role, especially the federal government's role, irrelevant and even dangerous to the healthy functioning of the economy. Even THE ECONOMIST, a magazine with an early enthusiasm for the Internet and usually a somewhat more balanced eye, has described the success of the Internet as the "triumph of the free market over central planning. Democracy over dictatorship." The new conservative view has been that the private sector is the font of technological and economic innovation. The federal government should get out of the way and leave economic development to the private sector, maybe occasionally working with local governments promoting innovation and job creation locally. What is repressed in this bit of economic myth making is not only the key role the federal government played in each step of the growth of the computer industry, and, to an even larger extent, in the birth and formation of the Internet, but also the fact that left to private industry, much of the computer technology would never have come to market and, in the case of the Internet, the result would have been less innovative and less of an economic engine for growth. In fact, it's unclear that the hallmark of the federally-created Internet would have even occurred out of the private visions and competition of industry. The Internet is in many ways the product of central planning in its rawest form: planning over decades, large government subsidies directed from a national headquarters, and experts designing and overseeing the project's development. The government not only created whole new technologies to make the Internet a possibility, it created the standards for forms of economic exchange of information that had never been possible before. The comparison has been at times to the interstate highway system but the analogy would hold only if employees of the federal government had first imagined the possibility of cars, subsidized the invention of the auto industry, invented the technology of concrete and tar, and built the whole system with only a few stray dirt roads existing anywhere on the assumption that private industry would build along. It's worth remembering that the headlines just a few years back in 1993 about the Information Superhighway were not over the Internet and software companies like Netscape but about mergers and financial deals between those who controlled the cables to the home, on the assumption that those who monopolized control of the physical hardware connecting homes and business would reap monopoly profits in selling information services. As Fortune magazine described the ultimately unsuccessful merger of TCI cable and Bell Atlantic telephone back in 1993, "It was the bold stroke of two captains of industry bent on securing their share of whatever booty washes ashore when the interactive age finally arrives ... When the dust settles, there will probably be eight to ten major operators on the highway, some earning their way mainly by collecting tolls for the use of their networks." In many ways, this private vision harked back not to the original federal highway system but to the first transit system that criss-crossed the nation's land -- the railroads. And in fact, that historical legacy gives some sense of what a privately designed system would have looked like. In the 1840s and 1850s, the first large railways were built, usually with incompatible track widths where trains entering the same city could not switch directly to another company's rail track. This was not accidental but a deliberate strategy by merchants sponsoring one railroad to avoid having another company (usually sponsored by merchants in a the gauges of different train companies were all standardized and freight could be easily transferred from line-to-line for longer distances. Even as such standardization was achieved by the 1880s, giant railroad companies sought to create competing railway systems that could control enough territory to control the flow and pricing of significant portions of freight against competing systems, becoming the first major oligopolies in the US economy. Later columns of ENODE will talk about some broad ways the federal government contributed to the creation of the Internet, but this month I just want to emphasize a number of cases where the private sector either missed where the technology needed to go, or, worse yet, came close to derailing the publicly funded Internet system. In the early sixties, researcher Paul Baran had begun planning how to build the technology necessary for the goal of networking computers. Baran worked at Rand Corporation, a research company setup to monitor and preserve the US government's operations research capability. Worried about the survivability of US communication networks in the case of nuclear war, Baran envisioned the movement from analog telephone signals to digital signals that could perform in a networked system of digital transmission. Instead of a central switching node where the whole wire between two points would be reserved specifically for the sound signals of a specific conversation, such a system would be a "distributed network" with each node connected to its nearest neighbors in a string of connections, much like the child's game of telephone. Allowing fuller use of all lines in the network instead of holding lines open from end-to-end for each message, such a system would have each node would keep track of the fastest route to each destination on the network (and be constantly updated with information from adjoining nodes) and help route information without need of central direction. RAND was enthusiastic about Baran's ideas but when AT&T was approached about its feasibility, AT&T executives dismissed the idea and even refused to share information on their long distance circuit maps -- Baran had to purloin a copy to evaluate his ideas which he and RAND were convinced were right. Based on RAND's recommendation, the Air Force directly asked AT&T to build such a network but AT&T still refused saying it wouldn't work (except for a faction of scientists at Bell Labs). This may have been technical myopia by the business-oriented executives, but it was an economically self-interested myopia. Such a distributed network threatened (and today does threaten) the central economic assets of the telephone industry: central computers and central switches. It highlights the fact that corporate research labs, the main alternative to long-term government funding of technological alternatives, rarely if ever invest in fundamental technology that will likely undermine the natural economic monopolies they currently enjoy. In the meantime, British physicist Donald Davies had begun promoting a similar idea of a computer network with "packets" of information. He soon learned of Baran's similar ideas and was encouraged enough to get support by the British Post Office, notably a state run agency which ran the telephone system in Britain. In 1968, the first computer distributed network was established on computers located at the National Physical Laboratory where Davies worked. It was at the US military's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) that distributed computing would be taken to the next level. Larry Roberts, a researcher from the military-funded Lincoln Labs at MIT, was hired to work on the computer networking project. Starting out at four west cost sites: UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, University of Utah, and the Stanford Research Institute, the plan was to install a new computer at each site as part of the network. In 1968, ARPA advertised the bid for building the specialized computers to be used to run the network. IBM and other big computer companies declined even to make a bid, saying it wasn't possible at a reasonable price. Again, like AT&T, this was partially the myopia of those grounded in older technology but it was also a self-interested economic fear of the new timesharing minicomputer technology (itself recently heavily funded by ARPA) that was challenging the dominance of companies like IBM. They rightly feared that networking would make many government agencies and businesses rethink the need to actually own their own mainframe computer. In the end, the small (600 employees) consulting firm of Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) did the work. BBN was intimately tied to MIT and it was sometimes called the "third university" in Cambridge. With the promise of a large government contract and the top technical talent of mostly MIT graduate students, BBN was able to take on a task that only a large company could have done without such a government contract. By October 1969, the network connection between SRI and UCLA was established and within months, all four nodes were on-line. By the time the network was demonstrated publicly for the first time at the International Conference on Computer Communications in October 1972, there were twenty-nine "nodes" in the network (dubbed at this point ARPANET) clustered in four areas: Boston, DC, Los Angeles and San Francisco. What would evolve into the Internet had been born. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, ARPA would build a national community of public-minded experts who helped shepherd open Internet standards that would radically expand the network to a wide range of users. In doing so, it was clear that the public- spirited professional norms promoted by ARPA and the community of researchers was critical in keeping individual profit-taking from undermining that openness. In 1973, ARPA's networking head Larry Roberts was hired by BBN to run a private packet switching network subsidiary called TELENET (which would evolve into SprintNet). In coming to BBN, Roberts carefully deflected a bid by BBN to take over the ARPANET privately. And his ARPA successor J.C.R. Licklider, a key researcher in building the ARPAnet and one-time BBN employee, was faced with his old employer BBN refusing to publish the original computer code for the networking computer routers they had designed, while at the same time becoming more and more reluctant to fix software bugs on the ARPANET. Licklider, in the name of the openness of the Net, threatened to hold up BBN's federal contract funds unless they released the code publicly. BBN published the code, enhancing the tradition of open codes in the development of standards. Ironically, as networks spread in the 1980s, it was the government experts at ARPA and universities who backed the flexible, tested TCP/IP protocol, while big private companies like MCI, IBM and Hewlett Packard adopted an untested, bureaucratically inspired standard created in international committees called OSI. Vincent Cerf, the creator of the TCP/IP system who is now a Vice-President at MCI, had been hired in 1983 to build MCI's message networking system and he remembers, "So I had to build MCI Mail out of a dog's breakfast of protocols." It was only with the technical dominance of the Internet that most private industry would convert over to the public TCP/IP protocol. The other key thing to understand is the government's role in being the source of much of the commercial business explosion in Internet-related business. This goes beyond merely creating the Internet itself but to directly being the source of the energy that the private sector is directing to this area of economic innovation. Mitch Kapor, the founder of the software company Lotus, has argued, "Encouraged by its successor, the rapidly expanding government/academic [Internet], the commercial internet ... represents the natural development and expansion of a successful government enterprise." The political economist Karl Polanyi argued half a century ago that "The road to the free market was opened and kept open by the enormous increase in continuous, centrally organized and controlled interventionism." The reality is that the Internet is no accident but neither was it a technological inevitability. It was the product of a US federal government, in association with other nation's experts, guiding its evolution, in demanding that its standards be open and in the public domain, and that its reach be extended broadly enough to overwhelm the proprietary corporate competitors. It is under such an open system that small companies can create Internet-related software products and know that they will be compatible with other products given the pervasiveness of the standards. The fate of the companies that were building Microsoft's proprietary network -- dropped by Microsoft and left with a useless set of products when Microsoft switched to Internet standards -- shows the shadow life of companies that depend on the whims of corporate standards. The open standards of the Internet and the easy distribution of products assures that new companies have the ability to at least attempt to take on established players without having the technology itself used as a block against them. This is critical for a whole range of information-based industries that Stanford economist Brian Arthur has argued are governed by the law of increasing returns for investment. The argument (which Arthur submitted as part of a legal brief to the Justice Department against Microsoft's original proprietary system and its incorporation into its Windows 95 operating system) is that because of a range of built-in advantages for early innovators, companies that attain initial control of a market have a massive advantage over latecomers. Because business customers for software demand compatibility with other products they use and because they have to invest training time to use the initial product, those customers are often reluctant to change products, so early entrants to a market often have an overwhelming advantage in holding onto their market dominance. By assuring a degree of compatibility of all programs and cutting distribution costs, the Internet mediates against the worst monopoly effects of this increasing returns effect. This privatization of the Internet threatens further evolution of the Internet. This extends from the coordination of networking to avoid capacity overload to the danger that standards and protocol design are being shaped more and more to commercial needs. While the overall compatibility of systems through the IP protocol is unlikely to be undermined in the near term, related standards such as Web browsers are being increasingly designed with commercial interests in mind. When Netscape or Microsoft design their browsers, they are marketing not to individual users (who generally receive the browsers for free) but to the purchasers of related software that depend on the standards determined by the browsers. If the base of a particular broser standard is high enough, corporations will buy particular server software from the producer of that standard browser so that consumers can access the bells and whistles associated with that brand of browser. This is in many ways analogous to broadcast television where stations sell "audiences" to advertisers. This is a recipe for concentration of standards in few hands, since the federal government has largely bowed out of intervention to assure broad participation in the design of standards for the Web. What is worth emphasizing is that the federal government did a very good job for twenty-five years in designing and guiding the standards and development of the Internet. Putting some regulatory teeth back into government standards committees is an infinitely preferable alternative to letting Microsoft's or Netscape's corporate strateges in selling server software to other companies determine the standards with which the rest of us have to live. --- end --- --------------------------------------------------- ENODE: to loose, untie a knot; to solve a riddle. E-NODE is a monthly column about the Internet. To subscribe to E-NODE, send the following email to enodelist@garnet.berkeley.edu: subscribe e-node ENODE is brought to you by Progressive Communications, a policy research and computer consulting firm. ------------------------------ From: John Cropper Subject: 920 Announced for Wisconsin Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 16:42:05 -0500 Organization: MindSpring Reply-To: psyber@mindspring.com From Action 2 News in Green Bay: Northeast Wisconsin's New Area Code Announced A public education campaign will soon get underway to promote a new area code for Northeast Wisconsin. Because of a growing number of telephone numbers, including cellular phones, fax machines, pagers, and computer modems, Wisconsin is quickly outgrowing the 414 area code. Starting July 26, 1997, callers can use both the old 414 area code and the new area code -- 920. After October 25, 1997, use of the 920 area code will be required. The 920 area code covers all or part of 20 counties in Wisconsin: (Areas based on map provided by telecommunications companies) Brown Oconto (southeast half) Shawano (far eastern quarter) Marinette (southcentral portion) Door Kewaunee Outagamie (all but northwest corner) Waupaca (eastern third) Winnebago Calumet Manitowoc Sheboygan Waushara Green Lake (all but far southwestern corner) Marquette (far northeast corner) Fond du Lac Columbia (eastern third) Dodge Jefferson (all but far western portion and southeastern corner) Washington (far northwestern corner) Ozaukee (far northern portion) Waukesha (far northwestern corner) Customers with questions about the plan can contact the area code information hotline at: 1-800-378-2222 . John Cropper voice: 888.NPA.NFO2 LINCS 609.637.9434 PO Box 277 fax: 609.637.9430 Pennington, NJ 08534-0277 mailto:psyber@mindspring.com http://www.the-server.com/jcbt2n/lincs/ ------------------------------ From: Steve Sullivan Subject: Fixed Rate National 800 Service Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 09:50:58 -0800 Organization: Fishnet Internet Services Pardon the post but I am looking for a list of ISPs and other service providers that would benefit from a fixed monthly rate 800 service. There are no per minute charges or hourly charges. This would allow an ISP to become a national provider with a national 800 number. The service allows for up to 4000 concurrent users. If you are interested and would like more information or know of how to contact ISPs please respond to on of the locations below. Thanks in Advance. Steve Sullivan Franklin Internet steves@ftel.net ------------------------------ From: Martin Baines Subject: Re: The Opposition Point of View: FRC on Supreme Court News Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 17:08:19 +0000 Organization: Silicon Graphics Craig Macbride wrote: > Clayton E. Cramer writes: >> There are a lot of people out there who have no idea the damage that >> exposure to a group like alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teens would >> do to a child. > The average child will not be interested or even go far enough to > download and decode what's there, but that's not even the point. > The net is a large, easy to access part of the world. You can post > defamatory items and end up in jail, book airline or hotel tickets > that must be paid for, etc. This is not a kiddies' playground. Do you > let a 10 year old borrow the car and do a cross-country trip in it? If > not, you shouldn't be letting them on the net either. > The extremist viewpoint here is that somehow everyone else should be > looking out for the wellbeing of children of inexcuseably stupid > parents, no matter how inconvenient that may be for us all. Something that occured to me recently -- the issue of parental responsibility ties in with issues like how we price access to the Internet. E.g. if the marginal telecoms costs for Internet access are effectively zero (i.e locals calls are free), there is no financial incentive for parents to even consider installing another line for their kids exclusive use. I know of several cases here in the UK, where parents have stopped their kids using the Internet because of the huge increase in their phone bill. It may not be the ideal way of "helping" parents act responsibly, but it's better than nothing. In an ideal world everyone would do the right thing, but we don't live in an ideal world! I completely agree with Clive Feather's earlier post about control of Internet content, but as Clive is part of the management of the UK's largest ISP he should have good insight! Martin Baines - Telecommunications Market Consultant Silicon Graphics, Arlington Business Park, Reading, RG7 4SB, UK email: martinb@reading.sgi.com SGI vmail: 6-788-7842 phone: +44 118 925 7842 fax: +44 118 925 7545 URL: http://reality.sgi.com/martinb_reading/ Silicon Surf: http://www.sgi.com/International/UK/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Dec 96 07:25 PST From: Scott Hemphill Subject: Last Laugh! Ultimate Chain Letter __FORWARD_ Heh heh heh The ultimate in get-rich-quick schemes! Subject: Humor(G): Ultimate Chain Letter Date: Wednesday, December 18, 1996 3:41 AM Hi, my name is Aloysius. Five years ago I had no money. People wanted me to pay for services that I had used, yet I had no funds to pay them with. Then an amazing thing happened! A friend of mine told me about a place where people get together for about 8 hours at a time. While together, these `employees' provide services, build things, add value to things, and even manage the activities of others. All this is done in exchange for money, often paid at the completion of 40 hours of activity. My friend told me that if I joined him, the people at this place would give me money too! In time, they may even give me lots of money, and I mean a LOT of money. Just imagine my joy at being told of a system that would enable me to pay for all the things I want and need! I was so happy to learn of this system that I set out on a mission. There are too many people on the Internet who have not yet discovered this method of obtaining money. Instead, these misguided souls participate in schemes that promise thousands of dollars in exchange for an illegal five dollar investment. If you read any Usenet newsgroup on a regular basis, you know the people I mean. They post messages such as: " Big Money NOW ", "Fast Cash NOW" and " Get out of Debt and into Jail, NOW!" These unfortunates must hear this message of great joy and good fortune: GET A JOB AND STOP FLOODING THE INTERNET WITH GET RICH QUICK SCHEMES!!!! I invite you to join me in this quest. How? Simple! Whenever someone posts an illegal get-rich-quick-scheme to your favorite newsgroup, simply E-mail this letter back to them. An additional step may be required to deliver the good news to people who post these messages under phony e-mail addresses. For them, a hard copy of this letter to their postal address may be required. (They always include a postal address because that's where they want you to send the BIG MONEY.) It has also been suggested to me that people may wish to send this letter to the Sysop or Postmaster of the letter writer's Internet Service Provider. I think this is a great idea, and I fully encourage further suggestions for improving the delivery of this good news! You have my permission to copy this letter. Feel free to add your name to mine and those listed here, (when and if people decide to add their names to this letter), or remain anonymous and send it as is. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #669 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Dec 19 23:53:37 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id XAA29686; Thu, 19 Dec 1996 23:53:37 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 23:53:37 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612200453.XAA29686@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #670 TELECOM Digest Thu, 19 Dec 96 23:53:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 670 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson 510 Splits to 925 (Tad Cook) 925 Selected for East Bay Area (John Cropper) BellSouth Blows It (Ed Ellers) GSM is GSM is GSM - Not (Lloyd Matthews) Book Review: "The Internet Revealed" (Video) (Rob Slade) Web TV: Another Challenge to the Dataquest Survey (David Scott Lewis) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: 510 Splits to 925 Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 14:02:19 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) And the New Number is ... 925; Plan Filed to Split East Bay's 510 Area Code SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 19, 1996--An area code relief plan has been submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission that would split the 510 area code in San Francisco's East Bay and create a new area code -- 925 -- to serve part of that area. California Code Administrator Bruce Bennett submitted the 510 area code relief plan on Wednesday to the Commission for review and final approval. Bennett said the plan is supported by the telecommunications industry and reflects customer input received during three public meetings in October. Introduction of the new 925 area code, which will be California's 19th, is planned for March 14, 1998, and is needed to meet the rapidly growing demand for additional phone numbers in the 510 area code, which currently serves Contra Costa and Alameda counties and very small sections of Solano and San Joaquin counties. Under the plan, the existing 510 area code would be split using the east-west topographic boundary of the Oakland Hills. The details are as follows: -- Customers in the existing 510 area code west of the Oakland Hills would keep the 510 area code. Some of the communities in this area include: Oakland, Berkeley, Hayward, Fremont, Richmond, Hercules, El Sobrante, Crockett and Pinole. -- Customers in the existing 510 area code east of the Oakland Hills would receive the new 925 area code and would need to change the area code portion of their telephone number. Some of the communities in this area include: Martinez, Concord, Walnut Creek, Orinda, San Ramon, Moraga, Sunol, Livermore and Pleasanton. The CPUC is expected to issue a final decision on the 510 area code relief plan in the next few months. Persons who wish to comment on the plan may write to the: California Public Utilities Commission President P. Gregory Conlon 505 Van Ness Avenue San Francisco, CA 94102 Bennett said two 510 area code relief options were presented to the public for comment during meetings in October: a north/south split that divided the 510 at the Contra Costa and Alameda County lines, and an east-west split similar to the plan submitted to the CPUC. The east-west plan was modified to incorporate public comment and input from elected officials, Bennett said. `The north/south plan to split along county lines did not receive strong public support,` he explained. `People told us the county line divisions were not as significant as the community of interest that exists between various areas.` Instead, people generally preferred the east-west plan, with some suggested modification. `We heard concerns that the east-west plan should leave west Contra Costa County in the 510 due to a strong community of interest between cities there and in northern Alameda County. We were able to make that adjustment with little impact on the life of the 510 area code.` As proposed, the new 925 area code would last about 13 to 16 years, while the reconfigured 510 would have enough numbers to accommodate growth through the year 2004, a lifespan of about six years. While customers who receive the new 925 area code will have to change the area code portion of their telephone number, the new three-digit code will not affect the price of telephone calls in any of these areas, Bennett said. `Call distance determines call price and is not impacted by the creation of a new area code,` he said. `What is a local call now will remain a local call regardless of the area code change. `It's also important for customers to know that PBX's, private phone systems, auto-dialers, alarms and other telecommunications equipment will have to be re-programmed to recognize the new area codes,` said Bennett, adding that people should check with their equipment vendors to see if their equipment needs to be reprogrammed. `Historically, area codes always had either a `1' or a `0' as the middle digit for identification purposes, but all of those codes have been used.` These new number combinations allow area codes to be any three digits from 220 to 999, creating an additional 5 billion telephone numbers nationwide, Bennett said. Bennett also noted that when the new 925 area code is introduced in March, 1998, there will be a six-month `permissive` dialing period during which callers can dial either the old or new area code. San Francisco's East Bay is the latest in a series of regions in California requiring area code relief. Today, California has 13 area codes, more than any other state. Plans call for doubling that number from 13 to 26 over the next five years to keep up with the state's record telephone number consumption. That consumption is being spurred by the high-technology explosion of fax machines, pagers, cellular phones and modems for Internet access along with the onset of local competition in California's telephone market. Ten of the 13 new area codes will be introduced by mid-1998. Plans for the 510 area code were collectively developed by a telecommunications industry group representing more than 30 companies, including Pacific Bell, AT&T, MCI, Sprint, AirTouch, Pagenet, AT&T Wireless, MFS Communications Co., Teleport Communications Group (TCG), the California Cable Television Association and others. CONTACT: Pacific Telesis John Britton, 415/394-3764 URL: http://www.pactel.com ------------------------------ From: John Cropper Subject: 925 Selected for East Bay Area Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 17:32:23 -0500 Organization: MindSpring Reply-To: psyber@mindspring.com ... from Contra Costa media (newspapers) Published on December 19, 1996 Area code east of hills to be 925 By GEORGE AVALOS Staff writer Telephone customers in the East Bay will have another number to memorize: 925. That's the new area code planned for most of Contra Costa County and a big swath of Alameda County. Phone officials Wednesday announced the decision, which is necessitated by the huge demand for new telephone numbers. It will become California's 19th area code when it takes effect in March 1998. The cities and towns west of the East Bay hills that are near Interstates 80 and 880 will retain the 510 code. The communities east of the hills, primarily those near Interstate 680 and Highway 4, will receive the 925 code, said Bruce Bennett, California code administrator. Why are the hills being used as the line of demarcation? Economic and social factors, along with topography, are among the big reasons. At one point, telephone officials intended to split the East Bay along the Alameda-Contra Costa county line. But after meetings last month with political leaders in West Contra Costa County, they followed the hills. The older industrial regions west of the hills would keep 510 and the newer suburbs east of the hills would get 925. "We found the county line was not as significant a factor in preserving a community of interest as the actual commuting, social and living habits of the population," Bennett said. When the split goes into effect, about 66 percent of the East Bay's phone customers will be in the 510 region, while about 34 percent will be served by the new code. Customers who now can make local calls in the East Bay will continue to be able to do so, even if the call travels between the 510 and 925 areas. The telephone industry is scrambling to create the new number because the region quite literally is running out of phone numbers. "The 510 region is in jeopardy," the San Ramon-based Bennett said. "It could run out of phone numbers before a new plan is implemented." At the current rate of consumption, the 510 area will exhaust them in the second half of 1998. Plans for the new number and the geographic split have been submitted to the state Public Utilities Commission. Pacific Bell intends to disclose a new area code for the South Bay region currently served by 408 sometime after Christmas. But it's the East Bay, not Silicon Valley, that's California's hottest spot for new phone numbers. For the first 11 months of this year, 118 prefixes have been added to the 510 roster -- up 24 percent from the number for all of 1995. Only 182 prefixes -- roughly 1.8 million phone numbers -- are available to be assigned in the 510 area. About 77 percent are in use today. Rapid expansion The business and population boom in parts of the East Bay helped fuel the startling demand for phone numbers. But Bennett believes a new trend -- the advent of local telephone competition in California -- has suddenly become an equally crucial factor. About 58 percent, or 68 prefixes, have been assigned to companies that are competing against Pac Bell. Another 33 percent, or about 40 prefixes, were assigned to Pac Bell to meet the demands of its own customers. About 8 percent, or roughly 10 assignments, were for wireless services, such as cellular phones or pagers, Bennett estimated. That's a big change from recent years, when new technologies helped the East Bay become the state's fastest-growing telephone market. "In 1995, about 60 percent of the new prefixes were for wireless services," Bennett said. If the East Bay exhausts its remaining prefixes before the new area code can be used, officials will ration numbers or establish a lottery to assign them. Such a system is being used for the 415 code. Still more numbers Officials hope that the 925 code will last 14 to 16 years. Once the split occurs, the new 510 territory will last about six years -- before yet another new number is needed west of the hills. "Customer notifications for the new number and split will begin immediately," Bennett said. Even after the split, East Bay customers will have a grace period before they are mandated to use the new code. "We would start with permissive dialing, a six-month period when you could call either area code and get through," said John Britton, a Pacific Bell spokesman. "People will be warned they have to use the other area code. Finally, the calls won't go through unless they dial the area code." John Cropper voice: 888.NPA.NFO2 LINCS 609.637.9434 PO Box 277 fax: 609.637.9430 Pennington, NJ 08534-0277 mailto:psyber@mindspring.com http://www.the-server.com/jcbt2n/lincs/ ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: BellSouth Blows It Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 19:24:53 -0500 Organization: Mikrotec Internet Services, Inc. (MISNet) Last month I posted a note questioning the wisdom of junking a 13-year-old 1A ESS switch. As planned, BellSouth cut over the new 5ESS-2000 in the wee hours on December 7, and I'm sorry to say that the results -- at least as far as I'm concerned -- have so far been disastrous. I stayed up late that night, partly to see what would happen when the new switch went in, and as luck would have it the cutover crew pulled my line while I was connected to my ISP, Mikrotec. Oh well, they had to do it some time -- they couldn't sit around waiting for *everyone* to hang up. I have been getting consistent connections to this firm at 26,400 bps (with *one* good 28,800 bps connection) ever since I switched to them over a year ago; my connections to CompuServe's local node have also been at 26,400 bps since I got my V.34 modem in April 1995, and I had found that I could get consistent 28,800 bps connections to (800) 793-6675 -- this is the number Microsoft uses for ISP referrals, so it does me no good at all but *did* prove that my modem and my local loop were up to the task. It took an hour after this cutover before I could call the ISP, or anyone else outside my neighborhood, since they apparently cut over the subscriber lines first and then the interoffice trunks. When I could again call Mikrotec, I found that I could only get through at 24,000 bps! The same happened on CompuServe, and even on that Microsoft 800 number. What was even worse, when I tried BellSouth.net (the RBOC's own ISP) I could only connect at 21,600 bps. Since I figure that the cutover crew had to move smartly, I decided to give BellSouth and Lucent a few days to tweak things before reporting the problem, which I finally did on Friday, the 13th. (Great day for it, hmmm?) The rep told me that the problem would be fixed by 8 pm on Saturday. On Saturday afternoon I got an *automated* call to say that my service had been restored, and asking me to press 1 or 2 to indicate whether or not I was satisfied; since at this point I hadn't tried a modem call I pressed 2 for 'no,' just in case. I tried the modem, found that I was still connecting at only 24,000 bps, and called repair service back to say that the job was not done. They then said that they'd have it fixed by 5 pm Sunday. On Monday a technician showed up to work on the lines outside the house; I was at work, but he told my mother that they had found, and fixed, a bad splice somewhere in the line. Yesterday they were back and installed a new drop to my house, complete with a new 'demarc' box, even though I had explained that the problem was caused by the new 5ESS-2000 switch! Apparently someone had discounted my description of the problem and sent the outside plant guys out (in the cold and rain) to work on everything *except* the CO. On Tuesday afternoon I noticed a slight improvement in my modem connections -- Mikrotec and CompuServe were still managing only 24,000 bps, but that Microsoft 800 number was up to 26,400 bps. Unfortunately, that night we got a *lot* of noise on the line, so much that I couldn't hear what the other party was saying, and for a while the line was completely dead. It came back later that night but was still noisy on Wednesday morning; as of 9:45 Wednesday night it was completely dead, and the best 'repair' could promise was that it would be back on by noon Thursday. They did get it fixed just before 9 am today, and it does seem to have been the fault of the newly installed drop, but I still can't connect at any speed faster than 24,000 bps. I called BellSouth management to complain about the problem; they promised a call back (to my work number) later today, and someone did call back after I'd left for the day. I'll let everyone know what I find out tomorrow morning. It seems to me that when someone reports a problem as being related to changes the telco has made, they should assume that the problem is related to what they did, but instead this sad bunch seems to think that I'm the twin brother of the Connecticut man who allegedly called 911 twenty-five times in a row to report a toothache! (It's said that he was arrested for cussing out the dispatchers; the police naturally offered him his 'one phone call,' and instead of calling a lawyer he called 911 and started cussing the dispatcher again.) I used to think that BellSouth was a better-than-average LEC, but at this point when true facilities-based competition does arrive it won't be a moment too soon for me. ------------------------------ From: Lloyd Matthews Subject: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 18:17:20 +0000 Organization: TRW-SIG Sunnyvale Reply-To: lloydm@pop.svl.trw.com Hi - I have a GH388 GSM phone from Sprint Spectrum/DC which I'd like to use in PacBell's GSM service area in Los Angeles (and someday all of CA). But they use a CF388 phone, and possibly a different frequency (1800 vs 1900 MHz)? The people at PacBell Mobile Services said the phones were not compatible, and that their GSM was "better" than in Europe or DC. You'd think they'd go with the majority standard so they could collect roaming fees, unless the later phases of GSM service will only work with PacBell's system? The odd thing is that something is weakly pinging my phone in San Jose and giving me a No Access message. I can't figure out who the carrier might be, since Pac Bell isn't officially up yet in NoCal and they're supposedly incompatible anyway. How can I find out exactly which GSM systems worldwide use the GH388, and who the mystery carrier is in San Jose? And what's the point of a worldwide standard like GSM if everybody has a different, incompatible implementation? -- A frustrated non-user of Sprint Spectrum's "nationwide" service...which will be CDMA everywhere except DC..and the GSM "worldwide" standard... Lloyd Matthews (Lloyd.Matthews@trw.com) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 13:30:38 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "The Internet Revealed" (Video) VDINTRVL.RVW 960917 "The Internet Revealed", Gregory Giagnocavo/Tim McLain, 1995, 0-932577-24-5/-23-7/-22-9/-10-5, U$150.00 %A Gregory Giagnocavo %A Tim McLain %C 1866 Colonial Village Lane, PO Box 10488, Landcaster, PA 17605-0488 %D 1995 %G 0-932577-24-5/-23-7/-22-9/-10-5 %I Wentworth Worldwide Media %O U$150.00 800-638-1639 fax 717-393-5752 success@wentworth.com %P 3 hr (approx.) %T "The Internet Revealed" A video tape, by its nature, has difficulty in conveying the accuracy and detail of information that a book can. A video is also not suited to reference type material. A video is good for a presentation of highly graphical (but not highly resolved) material and the inclusion of audio content. Popular theory states that video is good for highly motivating, though perhaps superficial, introductory courses. Tape one is the usual gee whiz ad for the Internet. Tape two give a brief introduction to email (using Eudora). Tape three looks at some search tools. Tape four shows you how to point the pointer at an underlined word in blue until it changes to a hand and then click. It also gives you a fairly good introduction to Netscape and, if you are using Netscape, the second half of tape four may be the most useful part of the package. It's hard to review a video tape curled up in a corner, so my wife saw a good bit of this. Her response was that it was very boring, and she didn't know how I stayed awake through the whole four tapes. I can't really argue with that. The presentation is the standard talking head and screen shots. The screen shots, of course, lose a lot in clarity and readability. The organization fo the material could be a lot better, with many functions being described before you get to the reason you might want to use them, and some others being required before there is an explanation of how to use them. The content is highly system, and even program, specific, which is particularly unfortunate in the tape on search tools. In an effort to add some pizazz to the presentation, there are annoying special effects, such as silly themes and threads, cartoon characters that bounce onto the screen and definitions that race in from the side and (literally) screech to a halt. And, although there are some few handy tips that are seldom covered in the run of Internet books, the material is superficial. So popular theory is partly right, after all. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 VDINTRVL.RVW 960917 Distribution permitted in TELECO Digest and associated publications. roberts@decus.ca rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@absolute.com I have seen progress in an egg. It's called "going bad." Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER) ------------------------------ From: David Scott Lewis Subject: Web TV: Another Challenge to the Dataquest Survey Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 11:18:42 -0800 Organization: Strategies & Technologies, Inc. (STI) First, please read this posting with a sense of humor. Second, I need to make a legal disclaimer: My comments are based upon inputs from a reliable source. However, I have NOT been privy to the actual survey questions put forth by Dataquest. With that said, I'll continue. It is my understanding that Dataquest asked the following type of question to Jane and John Q. Public: "Are you interested in accessing the Internet through your set-top box?" If Dataquest really asked such a goofy question, when Mr/s. Public don't even know what a "set-top box" is, then they should have expected overwhelmingly negative responses. Here are the type of questions they should have asked (remember, keep your sense of humor!): 1) Do you consider yourself a religious or spiritual person? If your answer is "no", please proceed to Question #3. 2. Would you like to hear prayers, scripture readings or meditations anytime of the day or night through your television? For example, would you like to hear a blessing by the Pope, an uplifting scriptural reading by Max Lucado, sayings of Muhammad, thoughts in solitude by Thomas Merton, Zen verse by Basho and Natsume Soseki, lessons in simplicity by Elaine St. James, essays on love by Rabbi Harold Kushner, "street" wisdom by Rev. Tony Evans, or meditations by Sisten Wendy Beckett -- at anytime -- through your TV? (NOTE: Saying "on-demand" instead of "anytime of the day or night" might confuse Mr/s. Public, even though that's a more linguistically appropriate phrase.) THANK YOU FOR COMPLETING THIS QUESTIONNAIRE. 3) Would you like to see pictures of scantly clad women (or naked bodies in general!) at anytime of the day or night? THANK YOU FOR COMPLETING THIS QUESTIONNAIRE. Boy, I'll bet Dataquest would have had a much, much different response! :-) Of course, it's possible to answer "yes" to questions #2 and #3, but an affirmative answer to at least one question is sufficient. And why not throw Christian and Gospel music "on-demand" into question #2; both are very popular. Matter of fact, why not ask a separate question on musical genres of all types? Anyway, you get my point. Mr/s. public couldn't care less about what we talk about in Online-News, comp.infosystems.www.*, comp.dcom.telecom, or comp.multimedia. But why should they? The 'Net to date has been a playground for the intelligentsia and illuminati. But offerings by WebTV, Sony, Philips, Bandai and many others to follow, will expand the scope of the Internet to include EVERYONE. IMHO, that's a good thing. Give people the freedom to use the 'Net as they choose; don't force feed them dribble on how to write better Java code (which is an admirable feat, but not at all relevant to Mr/s. Public). And remember, with WebTV your kids get their own "home page" with Yahooligans!, National Geographic Online, the Discovery Channel, and other features fit, targeted and appropriate for children. With the Sega unit they can play games and use any ISP. Fortunately, the offerings that already exist fit the needs of key market segments. If you're a Sega family, you may want the Sega unit. If you want to give a unit to your parents, WebTV is a great choice. (BTW, it _might_ be possible to use the Sega unit with WebTV as your ISP; if it isn't, it's something they should work on. Ditto for Bandai and WebTV. And I'll bet that GI and SA are making their newgen set-top boxes with optional PPP connectivity.) Frankly, Dataquest, Forrester and Web Week just don't get it. I pity those with such an obvious lack of vision. Stop chastising version 1.0 systems. (BTW, was the Apple I or Windows 1.0 a success?). Instead, look at the possibilities, especially with push technologies -- from Catanet and its cool Bongo development tool (courtesy of the hottest Internet company, Marimba) to the Enliven suite to the joys of Communicator and Constellation. (FYI, Communicator should be in beta by next week, albeit without Constellation.) Let's not forget that the Internet was developed in large part by funding from the U.S. government ... and paid for by ALL U.S. taxpayers, not just those with advanced degrees. I'm not asking for subsidies for Mr/s. Public; however, they shouldn't (and won't) be denied content that they want. What's on the Web circa December 1996 will bore the living daylights out of Mr/s. Public. However, WebTV and its cousins will bring about whole new opportunities for developing content ... and create an abundance of global entrepreneurial opportunities. Perhaps this is the real beauty of WebTV. For previous musings, go to: http://www.gina.com/wire/tn/tn960835.htm AND http://www.social.com/social/hypermail/news/index.html David Scott Lewis Strategies & Technologies -- The Internet Marketing Consultancy thewebguy@acm.org ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #670 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Dec 20 08:58:24 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id IAA23923; Fri, 20 Dec 1996 08:58:24 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 08:58:24 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612201358.IAA23923@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #671 TELECOM Digest Fri, 20 Dec 96 08:58:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 671 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson 510/925 Split: My Reaction (Linc Madison) Calling US 800 From UK: Answer Supervision on Recorded Message (L Madison) GTE Sues PUC Over Discounts (Tad Cook) Fourth Area Code for Colorado (Tad Cook) Re: Parollees and the Net (Jack Decker) Re: www.webcom.com Site Down Most of Weekend (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: www.webcom.com Site Down Most of Weekend (Van Hefner) Re: How Business Almost Derailed the Net (Henry Baker) Re: How Business Almost Derailed the Net (Craig Nordin) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: 510/925 Split: My Reaction Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 23:44:16 -0800 Well, I've seen the various public announcements about the new area code for the East Bay area of northern California, and I have a few thoughts. We got a bit spoiled the last time we had an area code split in this area, the original 415/510 split back in 1991. You could hardly imagine a more perfect split, even for a textbook example. The dividing line between 415 and 510 was simple, straightforward, and geographically meaningful. It was easy to explain to both locals and non-locals, with no ambiguity about which side of the line a given community landed on. What's more, the split in terms of prefixes was almost exactly 50/50, a point reflected in the fact that the two offspring of that split are both splitting within a few months of each other. The new split for 510 does pretty well on the geographic side of things, but not nearly so well on the prefix level. Only about 1/3 of the prefixes are being shifted, even though the new area code has the majority of the land area by about the same 2:1 margin. The "north/south" proposal, to follow the Alameda/Contra Costa county line, received little public support, and was wisely abandoned. Indeed, I think the county line should be redrawn to reflect the lines now being used for the area code split, but of course, that will never happen. The line as it is now constituted divides along a major natural geographic boundary, the East Bay Hills. The hills don't form quite as dramatic a boundary as the Bay itself, but it's as natural a line as you can draw in 510. It's reasonably straightforward and easy to explain to both locals and non-locals. As for the prefix imbalance, which results in estimates of 2004 for 510 to exhaust again and 2012 or so for 925 to exhaust, by the time either of those dates rolls around, we'll just add overlay area codes. The existing geographic boundary lines will make that pretty sensible. My only other quibble regards the timing of some of these splits in California. The projected exhaust date for 510 is in mid-1998, but the split doesn't even go into permissive dialing until mid-March 1998. We will very likely see prefix rationing before the mandatory cutover in September. It seems to me that, in view of all the talk about 510 being the hottest spot in California for number growth, we could advance the timetable a bit. Most especially, if 510 is the one that is most critical, why is 415 splitting first? Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Calling US 800 From UK: Answer Supervision on Recorded Message? Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 23:55:20 -0800 There has been some talk recently in uk.telecom about various ways of dialing (or dialling, if you prefer ;->) a U.S. 800 or 888 number. Apparently, on the two largest carriers, British Telecom (BT) and Mercury (Hg), you can simply dial 00-1-800-nxx-xxxx or what have you. A recording, with an American accent, then informs you that the call will be completed, but not for free -- you will pay the normal rate for the international call. A couple of posters have insisted that the intercept is provided on the U.S. side, and that it returns answer supervision at the beginning of the recorded intercept, rather than at the point where the called number actually answers. They have bills to prove that they were charged for calls to non-working U.S. 800 numbers, where clearly the call couldn't complete. I'm a bit skeptical, since, first of all, this recorded intercept should be provided on the originating side of the Atlantic, and, even if it is a U.S. intercept, we supposedly know how to do that without returning answer supervision. By the way, these calls are being dialed with 00-1-800, not using the "replace" code of +1 880 for "caller pays" 800. I haven't seen any reports about 888 numbers. Does anyone know the technical particulars of how an international call to a U.S. 800 number is handled? What U.S. carrier does the call first land on? Does that carrier play this intercept message and wrongly return answer supervision? Does the U.K. carrier perhaps ignore the absence of answer supervision and begin billing simply because of the presence of a voice without SITs? Also, what happens if the 800 number you're calling from the U.K. happens to be, for example, Canada-only? Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ Subject: GTE Sues PUC Over Discounts Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 00:22:34 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) GTE Sues Virginia Corporation Commission over Discount Phone Rates By Otesa Middleton, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Dec. 20--GTE Corp. is suing the State Corporation Commission over the discount rates the regulatory panel set earlier this month. The fight revolves around a Telecommunications Act of 1996 provision that said new competitors can offer local telephone service by using an existing company's equipment at a discounted, or wholesale, rate. The SCC decided that long-distance giant AT&T Corp. will have to pay 20.6 percent less to use GTE's equipment than GTE customers pay for its services, if the company uses GTE's operators. The discount is 23.4 percent if the company uses its own operator services. GTE thinks the discount is too steep, so the commonwealth's secondlargest local telephone company filed suit against the SCC yesterday in U.S. District Court. "The SCC's decision directs GTE to underwrite the cost of entry into local markets for some of the largest companies in the world," said Stephen Spencer, a GTE spokesman. Robert M. Gillespie, an SCC lawyer, said the suit is premature. GTE and AT&T have two months to work out a contract based on the rates. The SCC said that the rates are temporary and permanent rates will be decided later. "The federal courts will probably be reluctant to review something that is temporary," Gillespie said. AT&T's vice president of law and government affairs, Wilma McCarey, said GTE is anti-competition. "Giving consumers choice in local telephone markets will be a long, complicated process that will only really succeed if all parties cooperate and try to comply with the law," McCarey said. Spencer, at GTE in Richmond, said GTE suggested a 7 percent discount rate because the company's costs are high due to the fact it serves rural areas where it is more costly to supply telephone service. The discount rate the SCC set for Bell Atlantic-Virginia was 18.5 percent if companies use Bell Atlantic's operators and 21.3 percent if the companies use their own operators. ------------------------------ Subject: Fourth Area Code for Colorado Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 00:24:38 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) U S West Requests Fourth Area Code for Colorado By John Branch, Gazette Telegraph, Colorado Springs, Colo. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.--Dec. 19--One year after a large part of Colorado was given the 970 area code, U S West Communications Corp. has requested a fourth calling area. The proposed fourth code won't change numbers in the Pikes Peak region, but may cause dialing and technological headaches. Colorado's original area code, 303, will be splintered again, pending approval from the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. Serving the Denver metropolitan area, from Castle Rock to Longmont, area code 303 will be out of available numbers by late 1998, U S West said. But this time, the split may not be geographic. If the utilities commission determines a new area code is needed, it will consider an overlay approach. That means that a second area code will be added to the 303 area, giving the Denver area two codes. An overlay approach would keep phone numbers programmed into computer systems from changing; cellular service providers would not have to recall all cellular telephones in order to reprogram the internally programmed area code. Thus, some of the high-tech confusion that took place earlier this year when the 970 code was added to northern and western Colorado might be avoided. The bad news is that a single home could have one area code for its telephone and a separate one for its fax machine. Or making a call to a next door neighbor might mean calling a different area code. "There's no indication on which way the PUC is leaning now," said Terry Bote, a spokesman for the commission. "It would depend on which solution would cause the least amount of disruption for people." The commission will gather information from now until the end of January to determine whether a fourth area code is necessary and the best approach to adding one. Abel Chavez, southern Colorado manager for U S West, said his company hopes to give customers from 18 to 24 months to prepare for changes if the company's request is approved. An advertising campaign would then begin, especially warning those with complex computer systems to prepare for the reprogramming process. Chavez said that the 719 code, which covers Colorado Springs, Pueblo and the rest of southeastern Colorado, is not in danger of running out of numbers. "We are well-positioned to meet the needs for some time," Chavez said. He didn't pinpoint when that date may arrive. The proposal for a fourth area code was prompted by the soaring amount of cellular phones, pagers, fax machines and computer modems that each require a separate phone number. ------------------------------ From: jack@novagate.com (Jack Decker) Subject: Re: Parollees and the Net Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 14:40:21 GMT On Tue, 17 Dec 1996 14:33:12 PST, in comp.dcom.telecom is written: > Rising computer crime prompts parole rules > WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Parole Commission has approved > restrictions on the use of computers by certain high-risk parolees. > The Justice Department announced Monday that the panel voted this > month to authorize such restrictions as requiring certain parolees to > get prior written approval from the commission before using an > Internet service provider, computerized bulletin board system or any > public or private computer network. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I can see that it's certainly desirable to keep pornography away from known sex offenders. However, one might ask the question, if someone is still dangerous to society then why are they out on parole? Computers are becoming such a part of our everyday lives that I suspect it would be nearly impossible to enforce such a parole restriction (unless you tell a parolee that he can never visit computer-owning friends in their homes without a chaperone). Sooner or later it will be like telling a parolee that they could never view a television set, when there are TV's everywhere you go. The thing that troubles me a little bit about this is that it opens the door for the government to restrict how a particular group of U.S. citizens are using computers. Granted, this is a group that isn't likely to elicit much sympathy from the general public, and there is precedent for restricting the activities of those on parole. But consider this: Suppose that someone were arrested in connection with political activities. It is entirely conceivable that because the government wanted to silence that person's views, they would stipulate that the person stay off of computers (and certainly off of the Internet) during their parole. In that way, the parolee would be inhibited from expressing their political views to the 'net audience. I am all for keeping known sex offenders away from the sexually explicit materials on the internet (if that is possible), but I do think that we have to be careful that the government does not attempt to use the authority to regulate the activities of parolees as a way to stifle the free speech of those who may disagree with those currently in power in the government. Otherwise, you may start seeing people arrested for relatively minor infractions, given a light sentence, and then placed on a parole that includes the computer restrictions, just to keep their writings off the Internet. Jack ------------------------------ From: icb@juno.com (Judith Oppenheimer) Subject: Re: www.webcom.com Site Down Most of Weekend Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 19:10:33 EST In reporting on Webcom being down last weekend, Mark Cuccia noted, "I was wondering why I couldn't access Judith Oppenheimer's ICB/Callbrand page nor Long Distance Digest this past Saturday. Both are at the Webcom site." Luckily, Van Hefner, Long Distance Digest's publisher and our host, moved our page to his new domain, thedigest.com, just in time. ICB Toll Free News is now located at www.thedigest.com/icb/. Long as I'm here, I'll take this opportunity to wish everyone a wonderful holiday, and a Happy New Year. Judith Oppenheimer, ICB Toll Free Consultancy Publisher, ICB Toll Free News - www.thedigest.com/icb/ 1 800 THE EXPERT, (ph) 212 684-7210, (fx) 212 684-2714 icb@juno.com, j.oppenheimer@worldnet.att.net ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 00:52:43 -0800 From: VANTEK COMMUNICATIONS Subject: Re: www.webcom.com Site Down Most of Weekend On Tues, 17 Dec 1996, Mark J. Cuccia said: > I heard on the 8:00 am (Eastern Time) hourly Westwood/Mutual/NBC-Radio > news this morning that www.webcom.com was down for about forty hours > this past weekend, due to computer hackers. The news report mentioned > that many commercial and business customers are users of Webcom, and > their pages couldn't be accessed this weekend. The report did mention > that email was able to be sent and received without many problems, > however. > I was wondering why I couldn't access Judith Oppenheimer's > ICB/Callbrand page nor Long Distance Digest this past Saturday. Both > are at the Webcom site. I had thought that either the 'routers' on my > end (or in transit) were having trouble accessing the site, or the > site was brought down temporarily for maintenance. But then I heard > the news report on the radio this morning. > The news report also mentioned that it will be 'virtually impossible' > to determine who 'hacked' into the site and took it out of service. I > would hope that some additional security and tracking measures will be > able to prevent or reduce such activities in the future. Webcom was indeed down for over 40 hours this weekend. In fact, Pac Bell connectivity problems shut-down Webcom's server for several additional hours on Monday. The cause for the weekend fiasco was a Denial of Service (DOS), or syn-flood attack. Such attacks take advantage of a security "loophole" in the internet's TCP/IP protocol. Directions on how to generate such an attack were recently printed in hacker pubs 2600 and Phrack. These attacks are incredibly difficult to stop, and almost impossible to trace (from a practical standpoint). Webcom's server was flooded with bogus "requests" for webpages from a non-existent IP address. The "hacker" spoofed an address of a server that did not exist, sneding thousands of bogus requests to the server every second. The server became overloaded trying to respond to the bogus access requests (like attempting a "handshake"), and eventually the server's queque was filled, denying access to legitimate requests from real users trying to access Webcom's pages. A New York based internet provider PANIX suffered a similar attack a couple of months ago. It's server was flooded for nearly an entire WEEK before the originating IP address was found, and the attack shut-off. I spent nearly 20 solid hours this weekend moving files from our Website at www.webcom.com to our new location on another server. Luckily, I had secured the services of a new provider only a few weeks earlier, and had someplace else to go. Most of the other 3,000+ customers on Webcom who have webpages were not so lucky. We still have most of the back issues of our newsletter at Webcom, and I will probably spend an additional 100+ hours moving those over to our new server as well. I apologize to those of you who have tried accessing our "old" Homepage since last Friday. The problem was obviously a bit beyond our control. Even now, Webcom's server is still "recovering", and access is really difficult at times. For those of you who haven't been able to reach us, please try us at our new Web address. You shouldn't have any problem accessing us there. Discount Long Distance Digest: http://www.thedigest.com Judith Oppenheimer's Toll-Free News: http://www.thedigest.com/icb/ Van Hefner - Editor Discount Long Distance Digest The Internet Journal of the Long Distance Industry Our OLD Homepage: www.webcom.com/longdist/ VANTEK COMMUNICATIONS + 3144 Broadway, Suite 3 + Eureka, CA 95501 1-707-444-6686 PHONE + 1-707-445-4123 FAX + e-mail: postmaster@thedigest.com ------------------------------ From: hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker) Subject: Re: How Business Almost Derailed the Net Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 18:42:01 GMT In article , monty@roscom.COM wrote: > From: Nathan Newman > Subject: [ENODE] How Business Almost Rerailed the Net [snip] > The Internet is in many ways the product of central planning in > its rawest form: planning over decades, large government subsidies > directed from a national headquarters, and experts designing and > overseeing the project's development. [snip] > Ironically, as networks spread in the 1980s, it was the > government experts at ARPA and universities who backed the flexible, > tested TCP/IP protocol, while big private companies like MCI, IBM and > Hewlett Packard adopted an untested, bureaucratically inspired > standard created in international committees called OSI. [snip] > What is worth emphasizing is that the federal government did a > very good job for twenty-five years in designing and guiding the > standards and development of the Internet. I will overlook the socialist nostalgia of this message to focus upon a very large change in the business climate that has been ignored by its author -- the meteoric rise in _venture capital_. Although venture capital was present in the 1960's -- viz. Scientific Data Systems and Digital Equipment Corp. -- it played a vanishingly small part in technology development compared with the major government funding of the Defense Dept. and NASA. But fast-forward to 1996, and we find that venture capital has now transformed the landscape of high-tech development. A substantial fraction of the R&D in America is now done _within_ VC-backed companies, as large existing companies discover that it is cheaper and more efficient for them to buy the results of these companies, or the companies themselves, than to try to manage and incentivize the R&D internally. The VC industry, unlike the captive R&D of the Fortune 100-type companies, is not dedicated to preserving some monopoly, but to constantly attack any portion of the economy in which the incumbents have become too fat and complacent to offer the best prices, goods and services. More importantly, the VC industry is now large enough to attack relatively large incumbents, so that mere size is no longer such an obstacle to technical change. The nature of standards bodies has also changed dramatically, leading to much quicker development and deployment of interoperable standards. Whereas in the past, standards bodies were primarily the captives of large corporations seeking to slow or stop technical change, modern standards bodies quickly arise as loose associations of organizations dedicated to advancing the state of the art. By the time the old-line standards bodies start to work on a standard, it already has a large number of existing vendors, and it is now the job of the Fortune 100 company to adapt to the new standard rather than the other way around. The OSI standards mentioned by the author were one of the last gasps of the old guard. I strongly disagree with the author of ENODE, and contend that if the venture capital industry had been active in the 1960's, that we would have had a more thriving computer networking industry already in the 1970's. Witness the meteoric rise of the Internet, once the gnarled, arthritic hand of the federal government was removed from the throat of this industry. Most monopolies -- including govts -- pat themselves on their backs and toot their horns about their accomplishments. But the correct question is "at what cost?", and in particular, "at what opportunity cost?". A monopolist can always discount the opportunity cost, because there is no competitor to embarrass him. We have recently seen a number of instances where private innovation is far ahead of govt-sponsored research -- e.g., computer languages and compressed virtual memories. Due to the large time constants built into govt-sponsored research, I expect that the fraction of these instances will continue to increase. Govt-sponsored research is a good mechanism for developing models and theories, but it is a very poor mechanism for implementing actual languages, systems and hardware. Perhaps the severe distortions in innovation that were caused by the hot/cold wars of the previous half-century are finally being eliminated in favor of a more efficient distribution of resources. Perhaps the govt can finally get back to very _basic_ research, and leave technology development to the private sector where it can be done much quicker and more efficiently. ------------------------------ From: cnordin@vni.net (Craig Nordin) Subject: Re: How Business Almost Derailed the Net Date: 20 Dec 1996 00:51:42 -0500 Organization: Virtual Networks The point is well made: Internet is a product of the Federal Government. But go read your Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson and your Neuromancer by William Gibson. Find out what Dystopia means. It is not impossible that the Federal Government has created the method of communication that negates its need in the future. Jobs - Graphic Arts - Commercial Production -> http://studio.vni.net/jobs/ Virtual Networks Premier Internet Services cnordin@vnii.net Indianapolis Indianapolis Indianapolis Metro http://www.vnii.net/ Indiana Indiana Indiana Washington DC Washington DC Washington DC Metro http://www.vni.net/ Virtual Networks Incorporated Virtual Networks of Indiana, Incorporated ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #671 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Sat Dec 21 08:47:11 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id IAA22933; Sat, 21 Dec 1996 08:47:11 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 08:47:11 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612211347.IAA22933@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #672 TELECOM Digest Sat, 21 Dec 96 08:47:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 672 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: "Java Developer's Resource" by Harold (Rob Slade) 385 or 435 to be Used for Utah (John Cropper) California Telephone News (Tad Cook) Ameritech Wants to Enter InterLATA Market in Michigan (Jack Decker) PUC Says No Overlays for California (Tad Cook) Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not (David Clayton) Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 14:09:29 EST From: Rob Slade (roberts@decus.ca> Subject: Book Review: "Java Developer's Resource" by Harold BKJAVADR.RVW 960917 "Java Developer's Resource", Elliotte Rusty Harold, 1997, 0-13-570789-7, U$26.95/C$26.95 %A Elliotte Rusty Harold elharo@sunsite.unc.edu %C One Lake St., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 %D 1997 %G 0-13-570789-7 %I Prentice Hall %O U$26.95/C$26.95 +1-201-236-7139 fax: 201-236-7131 beth_hespe@prenhall.com %P 608 %T "Java Developer's Resource" Resourceful this book definitely is, covering all the standard topics. In fact, it goes a bit farther, with a chapter on how to generate VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) descriptions with Java. Additional readings are recommended at the end of each chapter for those who want to explore further, and the last chapter in the book lists archive sites, lists, groups, and even a couple of magazines on Java. (And, Elliotte, while I could agree with you on most Java books, you might want to have a look at "Java in a Nutshell" (cf. BKJAVANS.RVW) and "Core Java" (cf. BKCORJAV.RVW).) The most interesting thing about this book, though, is that while the author states outright that it is for those who already know programming, no knowledge of any specific language is assumed. The explanations thus provided are accessible to any intelligent reader, and therefore provide an excellent introduction to the language, without oversimplifying to the point where the book loses usefulness to the programming expert. I was slightly disappointed by the chapter on object-orientation, but only because of the high quality of the rest of the book: the topic is covered better than in almost all other Java books, and, indeed, better than in many object-oriented programming texts. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKJAVADR.RVW 960917 Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca | "It says 'Hit any Institute for rslade@vcn.bc.ca | key to continue.' Research into rslade@vanisl.decus.ca | I can't find the User Rob_Slade@mindlink.bc.ca | 'Any' key on my Security Canada V7K 2G6 | keyboard." ------------------------------ From: John Cropper Subject: 385 or 435 to be Used for Utah Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 14:29:58 -0500 Organization: MindSpring Reply-To: psyber@mindspring.com Deseret News Archives, Thursday, December 12, 1996 LITTLE NOISE FROM RURAL UTAH ON NEW AREA CODE By Jennifer Toomer, Staff Writer A Public Service Commission hearing on a proposal to give rural Utah a different area code reaped little participation from those who would be most affected. The Utah telecommunication industry has proposed limiting the current 801 area code to the Wasatch Front to handle growth and the abundance of fax machines, cellular phones, pagers and modems in Utah. ``We're running out of telephone numbers to distribute to customers,'' PSC chairman Stephen Mecham said at the hearing. Two other discussions on the matter have been held since May. But on Tuesday, just three people - plus one via e-mail - spoke in otherwise empty classrooms set up in 20 locations statewide for an interactive teleconference, broadcast from the University of Utah campus. None opposed the plan to assign area code 385 or 435 (802 already has been issued in Vermont) to those outside the populous Wasatch Front, although it would cost them. Richfield resident Dale Gibson owns several restaurant businesses in Sevier and Beaver counties and subscribes to a dozen phone numbers. He and other business owners in the affected area would shoulder the cost of altering stationary and other advertising items to reflect the new code. ``I see the need for a new area code, but I think we need to see two or three put in,'' Gibson said from the Sevier Valley Applied Technology Center. ``I'd not like to face those (printing costs) more than once.'' He likely wouldn't have to, since rural Utah would change area codes only once. But businesses retaining 801 in Weber, Davis, Salt Lake and Utah counties may have to add another area code by 2005, and possibly again after that, depending on growth, said Jack Ott of the North American Numbering Plan Administration. The administration is unlikely to assign more than one new area code at a time unless need is demonstrated, Ott said. Besides, several area codes would require 10-digit numbers for local calls. ``Why get them before we have to? Let's continue the seven-digit dialing as long as we can,'' Ott said. Local calling areas, dialing plans and rates, at least for US WEST customers, would not be altered under the plan, Ott said. Cellular phone customers in the affected area would need to have their phones reprogrammed, Ott said. He was unsure about the cost. AirTouch Cellular, which recently has added new area codes in several states, provides the reprogramming free of charge, spokeswoman Lisa Bowersock said from Seattle. Customers can reprogram their phones themselves within minutes in some cases or take them to an authorized retailer, she said. Fax machines, modems or pagers would not need to be reprogrammed. If approved, the plan would take effect June 22. A permissive dialing period, where callers could get through using either code, would extend through January 1998. Afterward, a recorded message would give misdialers the appropriate area code. The proposal mirrors those recently implemented in Phoenix and Seattle. A new area code is expected to cost US WEST several million dollars to reprogram data bases, switchboards and billing systems, Ott said. But US WEST spokesman Duane L. Cooke said the one-time cost would not overwhelm the company, which serves 14 states and has assigned additional area codes in the past. ``It's part of the cost of doing business,'' Cooke said. ) 1995 Deseret News Publishing Co. John Cropper voice: 888.NPA.NFO2 LINCS 609.637.9434 PO Box 277 fax: 609.637.9430 Pennington, NJ 08534-0277 mailto:psyber@mindspring.com http://www.the-server.com/jcbt2n/lincs/ ------------------------------ Subject: California Telephone News Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 12:02:53 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Pac Bell customers to get aid from the North We've heard from people who need regular ol' phone service work. We've heard from folks who want a high-speed ISDN line installed. Their complaint: It takes too long -- weeks -- to get Pacific Bell to show up. Guess what? Pac Bell agrees, and says the cavalry is on the way -- including from as far away as British Columbia, no less. "We're definitely out further than we want to be" on service calls, company spokesman John Britton said. "We are definitely in a hiring mode." While the great bulk of service orders get handled promptly, he said, record demand for new lines is an issue. In the South Bay, for example, the company has added 170 service and maintenance technicians this year, on top of a base of about 475, and is still looking to hire 200 more. "The truth of the matter is: It did catch us a bit by surprise," Britton said. Another factor: Installation of second lines is taking a back seat to wiring of first lines, he said, so those customers might wait longer. Earlier corporate downsizing hasn't played much of a role, he said, although that's debatable to some. Last month, a state administrative law judge recommended improved standards for ISDN customer service. In the meantime, crews are working overtime and help is expected from an unusual quarter. On Jan. 6, at least 120 technicians from British Columbia are due to arrive. ----------------- GOT IT? Speaking of phones, there's a murky region of the telephone landscape that could, ironically, end up costing you money even as you try to save. It involves local toll calls and long-distance carriers. It gets a little tricky, but bear with us: Domestically, there are essentially three zones of telephone service. Make a local call -- up to 12 miles -- and it's free, because it's already included in the cost of your monthly service. Next come those local toll calls -- calls made beyond the free area but short of your local LATA. (That's phone company talk for a large service region that sometimes follows area code boundaries, but sometimes doesn't; California has 11 of them.) Typically, local service providers Pacific Bell and GTE handle these calls, which are charged on a per-minute basis. Finally, come calls that reach beyond the LATA -- the calls we commonly recognize as long distance. (Things are slightly different for calls in the 12-to-16-mile range, but the basic logic doesn't change.) Today, most folks know they've got a choice in long-distance carriers. It's less well appreciated, however, that callers might save money by routing local tolls calls through one of many long-distance providers. (This is done by dialing a five-digit code preceding calls.) And that's where the trap can lie waiting for you. Let's say you're making a local toll call, and because you've got a better deal from Joe's Long Distance Co. than Pac Bell, you route the call through Joe. Bully for you. But what if it turns out your call actually isn't long enough to be a toll call? What if you thought it was beyond the free boundary, but it really wasn't? In that case, if you route it through Joe's, Joe will charge you for use of his network. So you end up paying for what should have been a free call. It's not hard to imagine this happening. How often do you really know the precise mileage of your call? And did you know the mileage is calculated not from your telephone but from the central office serving your phone? Nor is it hard to imagine how charges like these could add up if you do a lot of calling in that blurry area near the edge of your free area -- a not uncommon experience in lifestyle- and business-dispersed California. So what to do? Like so many efforts at deregulation, the situation has created a new market. Stepping into the void is a Bay Area firm, Telegen Corp. of Redwood City, which sells, for $69.95, a box that will take account of all the relevant factors and route a call to avoid that extra charge. "Why pay Joe when Pacific Bell is free?" asks Telegen exec Warren M. Dillard. "People are picking up on it." (If you're interested in the Telegen box, called the ACS 2000, call the company's customer service at 415-261-9400.) ------------------------ PHONING HOME: The term global is often used with the term Internet to describe the scope of this communications network. But so far, the Net hasn't been great for globetrotters. For subscribers to most U.S. Internet-service providers who travel overseas, accessing the Net can be both frustrating (finding closest dial-up access point) and expensive (running up long-distance). A few local companies are trying to bring costs down, by applying to Net access the "roaming" concept widely used by cellular phone customers outside their carriers' service areas. AimQuest, in Santa Clara, grew out of the software division of Aimnet, a Bay Area ISP, and now offers other ISPs membership in a partnership called the Global Reach Internet Connection. The company has partners in 22 countries, predominantly in Asia but a growing number of which are in Europe. It works this way: A Net user outside the country makes a connection with a local ISP. Software would identify them as part of AimQuest's global gig. And with that, long-distance charges are avoided. AimQuest, meanwhile, will take care of the intra-alliance billing, acting as a clearinghouse of sorts for the ISPs. "We want to be the VISA or Cirrus of the Internet," said Vice President Christophe Culine. The field isn't without competition. One Palo Alto start-up, I-Pass Alliance, has ISPs in 159 countries on board and has allied with BBN Planet to help make the worldwide connections. But AimQuest this month took the technology a further step, offering the same capability for sending faxes internationally. ---------------------- SIGNS OF THE TIMES: Joining the likes of Goodyear and Fuji, the AltaVista Internet search engine now has a blimp ... Bumper sticker recently seen: "Hang up and drive." Pipeline appears every other Friday and is compiled by members of the Mercury News' telecommunications reporting team: Mike Antonucci, Howard Bryant, Elizabeth Wasserman and Christopher H. Schmitt. We'd love to hear from you with ideas -- call (408) 920-5265 and leave a message, fax to (408) 288-8060 or e-mail to pipeline@sjmercury.com . ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 21:17:27 -0500 From: Jack Decker Subject: Ameritech Wants to Enter InterLATA Market in Michigan I got an e-mail today from Rick Gamber at the Michigan Consumer Federation. He tells me that Ameritech has started the process of trying to get approval to enter the interLATA long distance market in Michigan. The interesting part of this is that they are asserting that they meet all of the 14 requirements of the federal telecom law. I won't quote Rick's comments precisely, but let's just say that he expressed some doubt about the validity of that assertion. :-) Anyway, Rick wants to hear from competitors or potential competitors of Ameritech who feel that they have been treated in a discriminatory manner -- what he calls "roadkill on the information superhighway." If you have attempted to compete with Ameritech in any way, and have been subjected to unusual and unnecessary details, charges, roadblocks, and/or just being made to jump through a lot of unnecessary hoops, and would be willing to allow your story to become part of the record of this case, please contact the Michigan Consumer Federation. Even if you are just a potential competitor, but have information that you think would be helpful, they would like to hear from you. It is quite possible that there are stories of Ameritech inhibiting local competition that have not yet been told. Comments must be filed soon, so if you have info please send e-mail ASAP to mcf@sojourn.com While I'm at it, I'd like to take this opportunity to mention a Web site that is under development at http://www.utilitywatch.org/. It's called UtilityWatch and the intent of the site is to provide links to consumer-oriented utility information. We have pages with links to Utility Watchdog Groups, State and Federal Utility Regulatory Agencies, and State Public Utility Laws that can be found on the Web, plus a section for e-mail mailing lists (which so far only contains a listing for MI-Telecom, the Michigan Telecommunications Mailing List). If you maintain or know of a page in any of these categories, and it's not already listed, let me know and I'll see that it gets added. Jack ------------------------------ Subject: PUC Says No Overlays for California Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 00:26:42 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Geographic Splits Set For Area Code Relief in California Until Year 2001; Pacific Bell Calls CPUC Decision On Area Code Overlays `Disappointing` SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 20, 1996--The state Public Utilities Commission adopted a comprehensive policy today that reinforces geographic splits as the only accepted method of providing area code relief in California through the year 2000. The decision effectively precludes the use of overlays as a viable alternative to traditional geographic area code splits in 12 area code relief projects to be implemented in the next three years in California. The Commission said an overlay option will not be considered until the next round of area code relief projects, which are set to begin in the year 2001. Because overlays cannot be considered in the current round of area code relief projects, an estimated 12 to 15 million California residents and businesses assigned to the new area codes through geographic splits will need to change the area code portion of their telephone number. Pacific Bell, which has been an advocate of overlays as the preferred form of area code relief for dense urban areas, said it was `very disappointed` with the Commission's ruling. `We believe this decision deprives consumers, particularly in the 213 area code, of a logical solution that would be less disruptive to them than a geographic split,` said John Banuelos, the company's regulatory policy manager. The Commission also said it will require a number of conditions to be met before overlays can be implemented, including: -- Mandatory 1 plus 10 digit dialing for all calls in the affected region -- Permanent local number portability, which allows people to keep their same phone number even if they move or change telephone companies. -- An overlay must have at least three more years of life than a geographic split -- Every prospective competitor must have at least one prefix (10,000 telephone numbers) 90 days in advance of the overlay's introduction With an overlay, a new area code is placed over the existing area code, with the two codes sharing the same geographic boundaries. Existing customers keep their area code and the new area code is given only to people requesting new phone numbers. Consequently, customers are not required to print new stationary, business cards, etc. or learn new area code boundaries. New York has already successfully implemented the nation's first overlay and three area code overlays are planned -- one in Pennsylvania, and two in Maryland in May and June of 1997 respectively. Banuelos said the 213 area code, which is projected to run out of phone numbers in early 1999, is a `perfect candidate` for an overlay because of its small geographic area -- only 9 square miles -- and dense population. `It doesn't make sense to rule out the possibility of an overlay for the 213 area code, especially since this area has suffered in recent years from negative impacts of multiple area code relief projects,` he said. Since 1984, the 213 has spun off two area codes -- the 818 and 310, both of which will split again in 1997 followed by another 213 split in 1998. The latest 213 geographic split now pending before the Commission would keep downtown Los Angeles in the 213 area code and place other nearby cities in a new area code. `This creates a donut-shaped area code split, with downtown Los Angeles being the center of the donut,` Banuelos said. `This will be difficult for consumers trying to keep track of the area code dividing line since you'll have one area code plunked down in the middle of another area code.` Banuelos said his remarks are not intended to criticize the proposed 213 geographic split plan. `It was the best plan the industry could come up with given the small geography of the 213 area code. The 213 plan is just a reflection of the overall problem with geographic splits. You cannot continue to divide area codes into smaller and smaller pieces. At some point, we'll have area codes that look like city blocks and very angry consumers who are fed up with widespread confusion, inconvenience and the added expense of changing their business cards, stationary and so forth over and over again because of area code splits. We already have people in this region who live in one area code, work in another one and send their children to school in still another area code. This creates unnecessary stress and confusion in people's lives.` That's why it's so important for the Commission to give overlays a chance. `With overlays, we can stop slicing up area codes to gain more phone numbers and disrupting consumers each time. If more numbers are needed, another overlay is added,` he said. `Overlays are a solution needed in California where number usage has gone through the roof,` he continued, adding that the second round of area code relief projects in the 415, 310, 916 and 408 regions are prime candidates for overlays. Today, California has 13 area codes, more than any other state. Plans call for doubling that number from 13 to 26 by the year 2001 to keep up with the state's phenomenal phone number usage. That usage is being spurred by the high-technology explosion of cellular phones, fax machines, pagers and modems and the onset of local telephone competition. Ten of the 13 area codes must be added by the end of 1998. In another decision Friday, the CPUC denied a request by telecommuni- cations industry representatives to move up the introduction dates for new area codes in the 310 and 619 area codes in Southern California. `We applaud the Commission's decision and agree that moving up the timeline is not appropriate because of negative impacts on customers,` Banuelos said. The Commission said accelerating the implementation dates by several months would cause `widespread and massive` customer confusion and disruption because it doesn't allow enough time for advance notice of the change and jeopardizes Pacific Bell's ability to provide critical customer support and billing functions. CONTACT: Pacific Telesis Dave Miller, 916/972-2811 URL: http://www.pactel.com ------------------------------ From: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) Subject: Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 22:10:38 GMT Organization: Customer of Access One Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia Lloyd Matthews contributed the following: > I have a GH388 GSM phone from Sprint Spectrum/DC which I'd like to use > in PacBell's GSM service area in Los Angeles (and someday all of CA). > But they use a CF388 phone, and possibly a different frequency (1800 > vs 1900 MHz)? The people at PacBell Mobile Services said the phones > were not compatible, and that their GSM was "better" than in Europe or > DC. You'd think they'd go with the majority standard so they could > collect roaming fees, unless the later phases of GSM service will only > work with PacBell's system? > The odd thing is that something is weakly pinging my phone in San Jose > and giving me a No Access message. I can't figure out who the carrier > might be, since Pac Bell isn't officially up yet in NoCal and they're > supposedly incompatible anyway. > How can I find out exactly which GSM systems worldwide use the GH388, > and who the mystery carrier is in San Jose? And what's the point of a > worldwide standard like GSM if everybody has a different, incompatible > implementation? AFAIK the USA is the only place that does not conform to the "normal" GSM standard. GSM phones in Australia can be used in New Zealand, Europe, South Africa, etc. etc. with most providers having international roaming agreements, (either automatic, or via additional SIM cards). If the USA goes to GSM on 1800/1900Mhz you may have to get a multi frequency phone to have full usability and roaming on everyone elses GSM networks. The Ericsson home page, (sorry - don't know it's URL), should tell you what networks that phone will work on, unless it's a special USA model. There are also quite a few other GSM info. pages on the web. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. ------------------------------ From: rishab@nntp.best.com (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Subject: Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not Date: 20 Dec 1996 23:25:28 GMT Organization: Best Internet Communications Lloyd Matthews (lloydm@pop.svl.trw.com) wrote: > I have a GH388 GSM phone from Sprint Spectrum/DC which I'd like to use > in PacBell's GSM service area in Los Angeles (and someday all of CA). > But they use a CF388 phone, and possibly a different frequency (1800 > vs 1900 MHz)? The people at PacBell Mobile Services said the phones I presume you mean the GH388 and the GF (not _CF_) 388 manufactured and trademarket by The only difference between these two is the shape of the case. GSM operates at around 900 or around 1800; both are compatible. If your operators insist you use the phones they supply you with they're ripping you off. The neatest thing about GSM is that it _is_ a standard. Any phone should work with any network, only the SIM card provided by the operator differs. In India where it's all GSM (see http://dxm.org/techonomist/news/cellular.html) people keep switching from one operator to another depending on who's got the best discounts. The same instrument can be used anywhere in the country, under any network. If roaming is not enabled, all you need is a SIM for every operator you use. BTW as a large percentage of the phones here are smuggled from east Asia, Europe or the US to avoid import duties, there's a lot of variety, but they all work fine in any network, because GSM is a standard. Rishab The Indian Techonomist - newsletter on India's information industry http://dxm.org/techonomist/ rishab@dxm.org Editor and publisher: Rishab Aiyer Ghosh Pager +91 11 9622 162187 A4/204 Ekta Vihar, 9 Indraprastha Extension, New Delhi 110092, INDIA ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #672 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Sat Dec 21 12:51:19 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id MAA06525; Sat, 21 Dec 1996 12:51:19 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 12:51:19 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612211751.MAA06525@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #673 TELECOM Digest Sat, 21 Dec 96 12:51:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 673 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Digital PBX Lines and Modems (Stewart Fist) New Houston Phone Books (Tad Cook) Re: NPA 570 for Colorado (Linc Madison) Kansas: 913 to Split (John Cropper) Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not (Nils Andersson) Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not (Juha Veijalainen) Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not (Stewart Fist) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 17:04:10 +1000 From: fist@ozemail.com.au (Stewart Fist) Subject: Digital PBX Lines and Modems This topic deserves some more discussion. I wasn't aware of this problem until Dan Shearer bought it to my attention. Forward with permission from Dan Shearer. History On the 28th of November Richard Sharpe told me that he he had blown up two Netcomm PCMCIA card modems by plugging them into a digital line from a digital PABX. He and I both did some investigations and concluded that Australian manufacturers, Netcomm and Banksia both guaranteed their modems would certainly blow up under these circumstances and specifically excluded it from the warranty. At the same time at least two other (non-Australian) manufacturers were loudly proclaiming that their PCMCIA products were guaranteed to survive a digital line. Since it is impossible to tell a digital line from any other line without a special diagnostic tool (hotel or office staff won't know, and a digital PABX often has analogue lines as well as digital) a lot of people are rather annoyed. The time they are most likely to hit a digital line is when they are in hotels or motels, when they can least afford to be without their modem. One of the modems providing protection was Xircom, whose products many people (including me) do not particularly like, and the other didn't appear to have an Australian distributor. The local modems seem to be better quality, but I still strongly recommend that people do not purchase them because of this problem. An analogue PABX provides analogue lines, but a digital PABX may provide both analogue and digital lines. Nobody except an expert in the voice communications field is likely to be able to tell the difference, and certainly the kinds of people at hotel reception desks cannot be relied on for accurate information. So it can cost you several hundred dollars every time you make a mistake or are given incorrect information. Even worse, if you buy the ethernet/modem combo cards and the modem blows up, you are giving up either a PCMCIA slot or a perfectly good ethernet card. There seem to be three kinds of PCMCIA modems: The kind to buy: * those that survive being plugged into the (increasingly common) digital PABX lines in offices and hotels. They won't work, but they won't blow up either. Some manufacturers explicitly guarantee their products in this situation. The kind not to buy: * those that won't survive a digital line under any circumstances. Some manufacturers (such as Netcomm and Banksia) have repeatedly told customers that their products are not covered by warranty under these circumstances. Netcomm goes as far as putting a card in the box saying that if you plug their modem into a digital line then it is toast. Another kind not to buy: * modems from manufacturers that don't mention the problem in their literature and whose support staff haven't heard of it, promise to return calls, and never do. Australian modem manufacturer Netcomm now say they have developed a variation on their PCMCIA card modems that won't get fried by digital PABX lines. They aren't selling it yet, but they certainly haven't been ignoring the complaints I made either Following is the reply I received today from Shane Lord at Netcomm. > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: "Lord, Shane" > Dan, > This is an email to thank you for your notification on the lack of line > protection in our PCCard products. > Since your mail we have begun looking into the possibility of > incorporating a self resetting fuse into the line interface of our > CardModem and Socket Rocket range of products. > Our current products will be altered to include this fuse, and all future > products will incorporate this feature. Keep in mind, however, that some > of these products will have the same product code as our current modems on > the market that do not have the alteration. > I believe we will include a way to differentiate when this occurs. (to be > confirmed) This is to look at the box or on the modem and look for a > statement that says something similar to: > "This modem includes line protection circuitry" > Technically, what will be fitted is a UL Approved self-resetting fuse that > is rated to 36volts 1amp. Once blown, power to the PCCard must be removed > and the line cable unplugged from the offending socket, and the modem > should be left for up to 1 minute to let the fuse reset. > As this requires a PCB change to the modem, our modems currently on sale > and previously sold will not be able to be retrofitted with this fuse, as > it requires new Austel approval. > If you require any further information, please let me know. > Regards, > Shane Lord > Technical Services > NetComm Limited. ------------------------------- Dan Shearer email: Dan.Shearer@UniSA.edu.au Information Technology Unit Phone: +61 8 302 3479 University of South Australia Fax : +61 8 302 3385 Forwarded-By: Stewart Fist Technical writer and journalist. Homepage:< http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/stewart_fist > Archives of my columns:< http://www.abc.net.au/http/pipe.htm > Development site: Phone:+612 9416 7458 Fax: +612 9416 4582 ------------------------------ Subject: New Houston Phone Books Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 00:11:08 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Houston Phone Books Set to Begin New Chapter By Dwight Silverman, Houston Chronicle Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Dec. 21--Local phone books, which have remained essentially unchanged for decades, get a major facelift next year. Not only will they include the new 281 area code -- so every phone number in both the Yellow and White pages will be 10 instead of seven digits -- but also some e-mail and World Wide Web addresses. And large businesses will get first crack at an electronic version of the business and residential white pages on CD-ROM, a Southwestern Bell product that could eventually be sold to consumers. These changes will be phased in as each of the various parts of the phone book come out, said Mike Hillyer, marketing manager for Southwestern Bell's white pages. Some of them -- such as e-mail and Web addresses as an option for residence listings -- won't be available until the 1998 editions. "Right now we have a certain system constraint in our residential listings database that prevents us from printing certain characters on a page," Hillyer said. "The biggest problem is that we can't print the sign." The sign is a crucial part of all e-mail addresses, separating the user's name from the computer system -- or domain -- he uses. The printed directories' changes reflect the ongoing upheaval in communications. From the growth in phone lines causing the need for new area codes to the increased use of electronic mail, reaching out and touching someone is not as simple as it used to be. The increase in phone lines in the Houston area nearly forced Southwestern Bell to split the residential White Pages into two volumes, as the Yellow Pages have been for years. To conserve paper and prevent a split, the type used to print the current White Pages -- which will be replaced in March -- was made smaller, Hillyer said. Some consideration was given this year to returning the type to its original size, but that would have necessitated printing two residential volumes. In 1996, Southwestern Bell estimates it has added more than 137,000 phone lines in the Houston region, which includes much of Southeast Texas. In 1995, the phone company added more than 119,000 lines. The phone book shows similar increases. For example, the current residential White Pages has nearly 861,000 listings, compared to 1995 edition's more than 841,000 numbers. The book due in March will have almost 897,000 phone numbers. The changes in the phone book will happen in this order: The March 1997 residential and business White Pages will appear first, with each phone number sporting either a 281 or 713 area code. The numbers in the September 1997 Yellow Pages also will include area codes. They'll come out well after the May 2 date when it will be mandatory to dial the area code when calling across the 713/281 line. Until September, callers may have to rely on the business White Pages and directory assistance to tell them which area code a particular business is in. The September 1997 Yellow Pages also will have e-mail and Web site addresses as an optional part of a business' paid listing. The March 1998 White Pages books also will have optional e-mail and Web addresses. Hillyer said businesses and individuals already can buy additional lines of text in the White Pages, and the electronic addresses simply will be an extension of that offering. Nancy Friedman, who operates a St. Louis-based telephone consulting firm called The Telephone Doctor, said the addition of electronic addresses is a good idea for businesses, but may not be great for individuals. "On the one hand, people can find you if you want them to," Friedman said. "But so will telemarketers. You'll get a lot of junk e-mail." Early in 1997, the phone company will begin offering to large businesses an electronic version of the residential and business White Pages it's calling the Southwestern Bell LitePages. "We initially developed this product to serve as an alternative to the hundreds and thousands of phone books that large business customers receive today," Hillyer said. An early version of the CD-ROM program will include the listings from seven cities -- St. Louis, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston. In April, it will be revamped to include the newest phone books, and more cities -- including Austin -- will be added. Hillyer said the early version of the LitePages would be given to large customers, who'll be asked to try it out. If they like it, they can have the new version in April -- if they agree to take the disks instead of the truckloads of phone books they usually receive. Eventually, the LitePages will be sold to individuals. Southwestern Bell spokesman Chris Talley said the company is still studying distribution and pricing of the software. Although there already are several programs available that provide phone numbers on CD-ROM, the LitePages is different in that its listings are searchable only one way -- by name. The other products -- such as PhoneDisc PowerFinder and Select-a-Phone -- let users search by addresses, phone number, name and even business category, and usually contain listings from almost every phone book in the country. What users see when they search the LitePages looks just like a printed page out of the phone book, complete with page number and the header showing the beginning and ending entries. The opening screen is a picture of the printed phone book's cover. Hillyer said the LitePages capabilities were deliberately limited because of privacy issues. "We didn't want to hand a powerful tool to telemarketers," he said. There are no immediate plans for a CD-ROM version of the Yellow Pages, said Dennis Payne, regional manager for the Southwestern Bell Yellow Pages. But he said his group would be closely studying the success of the LitePages. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 13:52:00 -0800 From: Linc Madison Subject: Re: NPA 570 for Colorado At 10:44 AM -0800 12/20/96, Mark J. Cuccia wrote: > I heard that KOA-Radio (am) Denver (a 50K-watter clear channel) announced > last night on their local news that "570" will be the next NPA code for > Colorado with the next split of NPA 303. I didn't actually hear the news > report myself - someone related it to me - altho' from here in N.O., > I *can* 'pick-up' KOA-Radio (am) from time-to-time. Given the history of area code splits in Colorado, I can just see the formal announcement: "The new area code 570 will be assigned to Longmont, Fort Lupton, Idaho Springs, Castle Rock, and Elizabeth, while Denver, Boulder, Parker, and Brighton retain 303. A total of twelve prefixes will move to the new 570 area code, which is expected to last until the year 2478 without further relief. The newly-trimmed area code 303 is projected to require relief within ten days to two weeks. A spokesperson for the Colorado PUC said, 'We just can't separate these outlying communities from Denver until it's absolutely necessary!' Plans for the next split after 570 are expected to be unveiled next week." The original 303/719 split should have put the area that is now 970 into 719. Given that they didn't do that, the 303/970 split should have pushed the exurbs (especially on the north -- Longmont and Boulder) into 970. The state utility boards need to show some evidence of spinal firmness in ignoring the whining of the towns that get moved in a split. There is simply no excuse for Colorado to be adding a fourth area code. Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ From: John Cropper Subject: Kansas: 913 to Split Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 15:38:34 -0500 Organization: MindSpring Reply-To: psyber@mindspring.com Kansas area code to split 913 zone will divide next year; phones outside KC area will get new code. By: The Associated Press Date: 12/14/96 TOPEKA - Thousands of phone customers outside the Kansas City area will get a new area code for their telephone numbers, the Kansas Corporation Commission decided Friday. The commission issued an order splitting the 913 area code, which covers the northern part of the state. The change will occur next summer. The commission said it split the 913 area code because not enough three-digit prefixes for seven-digit numbers are likely to be available by the end of 1998. Commission spokeswoman Rosemary Foreman said many telephone users probably will dislike the change. ``We want to give people as much time as possible to make any adjustments necessary,'' she said. The new number will be assigned by the North American Numbering Plan Administration, an independent telecommunications industry group. The 913 code will encompass only the state's portion of the Kansas City metropolitan area, Leavenworth, Linn and Miami counties and parts of Jefferson and Atchison counties. The rest of the existing 913 area will be assigned the new code. John Cropper voice: 888.NPA.NFO2 LINCS 609.637.9434 PO Box 277 fax: 609.637.9430 Pennington, NJ 08534-0277 mailto:psyber@mindspring.com http://www.the-server.com/jcbt2n/lincs/ ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not Date: 20 Dec 1996 19:40:34 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , Lloyd Matthews writes: > But they use a CF388 phone, and possibly a different frequency (1800 > vs 1900 MHz)? The people at PacBell Mobile Services said the phones > were not compatible, and that their GSM was "better" than in Europe or > DC. You'd think they'd go with the majority standard so they could > collect roaming fees, unless the later phases of GSM service will only > work with PacBell's system? Both DC and CA use 1900 MHz, as does all of North America. It is just possible that there is some subtle difference beween CA and DC, but I doubt that. Europe uses primarily 900 MHz for GSM, and they are upbanding to 1800 MHz. As to the pinging, I assume somebody, probably Pac Bell, is experimenting with something. Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: Juha Veijalainen Subject: Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not Date: 20 Dec 1996 21:26:58 GMT Lloyd Matthews wrote in : > I have a GH388 GSM phone from Sprint Spectrum/DC which I'd like to use > in PacBell's GSM service area in Los Angeles (and someday all of CA). > But they use a CF388 phone, and possibly a different frequency (1800 > vs 1900 MHz)? The people at PacBell Mobile Services said the phones > were not compatible, and that their GSM was "better" than in Europe or > DC. AFAIK all US "GSM" systems use 1,9 GHz range. I believe 1,8GHz used elsewhere is not possible because of frequency allocation in USA. US "GSM" phones are not compatible with GSM anywhere else (GSM at 900MHz) or DCS-1800 (GSM at 1800MHz). In future, you might be able to use the SIM card for international roaming -- the terminal device,handset, is not internationally compatible. I'd say that PacBell's system could be "better" if: - they have more services available than DC system (data, voice mail, SMS and related services, fax, IN services, etc.); - they cover their area with small cells/micro cells instead of full power cells; I cannot think of any other reasons. GSM (900MHz) roaming is available in over 50 countries - DCS-1800 systems are also popping up everywhere, especially in densely populated areas. > How can I find out exactly which GSM systems worldwide use the GH388, > and who the mystery carrier is in San Jose? And what's the point of a > worldwide standard like GSM if everybody has a different, incompatible > implementation? I have not used Ericsson recently, but I think you should have some kind of "Search network" function (like Nokia does) -- unless of course your phone has somehow been locked to single network provider. You should be able to see names of the networks available, or at least their ID number. GSM is a very wide set of standards and radio interface is just a part of it. Unfortunately USA and some areas in Asia, for example, do have different frequency allocations, so European -- dare I say worldwide -- GSM phones cannot be used there. SIM cards will provide roaming accounts, but you still need to get a phone. Juha Veijalainen, Helsinki, Finland http://www.sci.fi/~juhave/ ** Mielipiteet omiani ** Opinions personal, facts suspect ** ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 17:35:39 +1000 From: Stewart Fist Subject: Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not Lloyd Matthews (lloydm@pop.svl.trw.com) wrote: > I have a GH388 GSM phone from Sprint Spectrum/DC which I'd > like to use in PacBell's GSM service area in Los Angeles > (and someday all of CA). > But they use a CF388 phone, and possibly a different > frequency (1800 vs 1900 MHz)? The people at PacBell Mobile > Services said the phones were not compatible, and that > their GSM was "better" than in Europe or DC. You'd think > they'd go with the majority standard so they could collect > roaming fees, unless the later phases of GSM service will > only work with PacBell's system? This is a plea for clarity in our use of terms. The world is going to get awfully confused unless you American technologists clean up your use of technical terms, as the above illustrates. The rest of the world is still trying to decipher the relationship between what you Yanks call TDMA (a generic term), NDAC, D-AMPS, Digital AMPS and IS-54. Please, can we clear up the GSM mess now? GSM was a term applied to a CEPT committee which designed the original TDMA mobile phone system in Europe. The acronym stood for Groupe Speciale Mobile (French). CEPT handed over part-control of GSM to ETSI in 1988, and total control in March 1991. The old committee is now known as the Special Mobile Group (SMG). The acronym was later used for general marketing purposes, and then change to Global System for Mobiles (although in some parts of the world it stands for "Grand Slam Mistake"!) It allows up to five operators to share the bandwidth.The system is designed around duplex 25MHz bands set aside in the spectrum to provide 124 (+4 signaling) radio carriers and 992 full-rate voice channels in total (these need to then be divided among the five potential carriers). The standard spectrum allocation for GSM is between 890.2 - 914.8MHz for mobile transmit, and 935.2 - 959.8MHz for mobile receive, with a 45MHz duplex spacing. What the above correspondent is refering to is an up-banded PCS version correctly called DCS-1800 or DCS-1900 (depending on the frequencies). DCS stands for Digital Cellular System or Digital Communications Specification. (They change the name also!) It allows two operators to share a network, and it relies on high-capacity small cells of about 1km diameter or less. Like GSM, the DCS voice is coded by 8-to-13kb RPE-LTP coding. The standard frequencies are between 1710 - 1785MHz and 1805 - 1880MHz, with 374 8-slot carriers having 200kHz of separation. DCS is a GSM derivative, but there are 11 additional 'Delta' recommendations added to the basic GSM standards, plus the frequency change and the band subdivision. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #673 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Sat Dec 21 13:34:03 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id NAA09773; Sat, 21 Dec 1996 13:34:03 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 13:34:03 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612211834.NAA09773@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #674 TELECOM Digest Sat, 21 Dec 96 13:34:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 674 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Still Another LA Area Code (Tad Cook) Bell Canada's Operac - Comments (J.F. Mezei) Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes (Steve Gaarder) Re: How Business Almost Derailed the Net (Fred R. Goldstein) Re: WebTV and CoyoteNet; a Minority Report (Craig Nordin) Re: WebTV and CoyoteNet; a Minority Report (Ron Bean) Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges (Nils Andersson) Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not (Martin Baines) Re: Parollees and the Net (Gary Sanders) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Still Another LA Area Code Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 00:06:32 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Los Angeles to Get New Area Code, Implementation Date Not Yet Revealed By Susan Pack, Press-Telegram, Long Beach, Calif. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Dec. 21--Downtown Los Angeles will retain its 213 area code, but the surrounding area will get a new one, the California Public Utilities Commission decided Friday. Neither the new code nor the implementation date was determined, however. The new doughnut configuration retains 213 for central Los Angeles, including downtown, USC, Westlake, Echo Park and Koreatown. Among the cities due for a new code are South Gate, South Pasadena and Hollywood. The split was one of two options considered by commissioners. They rejected an overlay, which would have assigned a new area code to new telephone lines in the area. In fact, with the possible exception of the 310 area code, the commission decided to continue to use geographic splits rather than overlays to establish new area codes through the year 2000. Three consumer surveys concluded splits were preferable to overlays, which could result in different area codes within the same business or household if a new line was installed. Overlays also require all customers in the area to dial 11 digits (one plus the area code plus the seven-digit number) on all calls, even when they're placed within the same area code. On Jan. 25 the 310 code will split, with callers east of the Los Angeles River acquiring a 562 area code. If the 310 code runs out of numbers again, however, the commission left open the possibility of an overlay instead of yet another split. ------------------------------ From: jfmezei Subject: Bell Canada's Operac - Comments Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 05:02:45 -0500 Organization: SPC Reply-To: jfmezei@videotron.ca Last month (November) Bell Canada introduced its Operac services for users of the Nortel Vista 350 telephones. These include the basic Bell services which were available before, as well as automatic advertising displays as well as access to banking services from various banking institutions. I tried it for a short while and have comments: 1- NONE of the services can be removed (as the NT manual says they should). So if you don't like one, you have to reset the whole phone and forget about the other services. 2- The "Bell Services" still disable the LINK key, make the "redial" button less usable and in short were not improved a bit. 3- The "advertising" is interesting. You can subscribe to various "groups" and "someone" regularly calls your phone (without it ringing it seems) and downloads the ads that scroll on your screen. In my case, before these were downloaded, I had already reset the phone, but the next morning, they had been reprogrammed :-) ! Frankly, I do not see how this can be interesting for the customer. 4- I tried the Royal Bank banking system. It is a direct tie in to their existing Royal Direct voice system. The only difference is that when you select it, it dials a (different) phone number. However, the service is much less usable than the pure voice system. - It constantly switches between voice and data, with the annoying "beep" and then the wait for the data to load. So, instead of saying " you account balance is ten dollars and 20 cents", it goes "beep", waits a while and you see the balance on the screen, and then switches back to voice, and says "press 6 to get account balance of another account, or 9 to return to the previous menu". The big disadvantage is that you cannot press keys as quickly as you can with the pure voice system to make it faster because of the constant switches between voice and data modes. In other words, the Royal Bank's use of the Vista 350 is a hindrance and adds no new functions. On the other hand, if it had been a purely data system where you could have filled out a screen-full of info, and press the "enter" key and have the whole transaction then go through in purely data mode, it may have been quicker than the voice system. Some of the Bell Canada advertising says that you can inquire about your account balance and current rates for long distance calls with these functions. I did not see this functionality, although I may have thougt that the "Bell Services" in the services menu were those "make phone less usable" features. ------------------------------ From: gaarder@lightlink.com (Steve Gaarder) Subject: Re: Canadian Use Of N11 Codes Date: 20 Dec 1996 11:47:12 -0500 In article , D Banks wrote: > Was BC the only place in North America to use 112+Number for LD > instead of 1 + number? No, I think a lot of places did. In Carlisle, Pennsylvania, you had to dial 112 plus a party ID digit to call long distance up until 1974. This was a Kellog K60 crossbar. As for other 11x codes, I'll quote myself from the TELECOM Digest of 1991: 113 got you directory assistance, 114 repair, and 116 ... well, that was weird. At first, it was some sort of dial speed test, responding with a dial tone and accepting one digit. One day, though, the dial tone stopped happening. The switch would accept quite a number of digits, then I'd get recordings from other places. It finally dawned on me that it was acting just like 112 -- making a long distance call! So I went and tried it from a pay phone and I got my dime back. Only catch was that only one person in town could use it at a time. So, when word got around about this, the circuit was constantly busy. Finally, it stopped working, and I heard through the grapevine that someone had been ordered off the circuit by a rather gruff craftsman. To this day, I have no idea why that circuit was ever set up. Perhaps it was a mistake. Steve Gaarder, Ithaca, N.Y., USA gaarder@lightlink.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 13:42:50 -0500 From: Fred R. Goldstein Subject: Re: How Business Almost Derailed the Net It's always fun to hear these differing economic theories try to explain history. Maybe there's some truth to be gained from several of them. But the history of the Internet itself has some little- remembered details. In the world of "economic theory" arguments, one can describe government intervention into the economy, and in this case the net, in at least three different ways: 1) The government sponsors research and/or development. 2) The government regulates something. 3) The government is a customer and its purchasing power is influential. The ARPAnet was in large part a mix of cases 1 and 3. It was actually building a network for its own use, and for use in performing government contracts. Since the technology didn't exist, they paid private industry to develop it. Of course the rules for this kind of development encourage private use of the technology, so it is in effect sponsored R&D, but not in the "pure subsidy" sense. It's a win/win situation when the government develops something for itself that has spinoff value. Some conservative economists decry case 1 as "industrial policy", unless of course it's in an area they want to see ... The regulatory issue is separate. Henry Baker's argument about venture capital is interesting, but no amount of venture capital could have created today's Internet under 1975's rules! The only practical medium for high-speed (9600 was high-speed then!) data transfer then was leased lines. Ma Bell had a tariff clause (common among all telcos in those days) stating that leased ("private") lines were only for the use of *one* customer, intra-company use only. You couldn't run a leased line to anyone else. Dial-up data was capped at 300 bps (1200 was being invented; 2400 could be done over a pair of calls). The ARPAnet had one customer, Uncle Sam, so Ma Bell couldn't complain. When the public packet switching business began around then (X.25 and the like), each provider had to get an FCC license to become a common carrier. They created a new class of "value added network" to accomodate them, but it was still a tough nut to crack -- getting the license required lots of proving yourself to the FCC, and you had to file tariffs. Once you had the common carrier license, Ma Bell could then provide bandwidth to your subscribers under a "service to other common carriers" tariff. BBN thus establshed Telenet (later sold to GTE, thence to Sprint) and Tymshare established Tymnet (later sold to McDonnell Douglas, thence to BT, thence to MCI). A couple of others started up too but weren't as big. Compare this to today's wide-open Internet market, with thousands of domestic providers. In 1978, the FCC overturned the "no sharing" clause. The voice-centric telephone companies thought that leased lines existed as a way to evade toll charges. Data was incidental. But when the FCC intervened and made "sharing and resale" legal, and stopped regulating "value-added networks", the market could be opened up. A decade later, the Internet went commercial. Fred R. Goldstein fgoldstein@bbn.com BBN Corp. Cambridge MA USA +1 617 873 3850 ------------------------------ From: cnordin@vni.net (Craig Nordin) Subject: Re: WebTV and CoyoteNet; a Minority Report Date: 20 Dec 1996 00:41:05 -0500 Organization: Virtual Networks I think that TV would be alot different if there were unlimited numbers of channels to broadcast from and the cost of a broadcasting office were $5,000 -- that one person could run. I expect that there will be a wonderful diversity and mix of the WebTV Wall-Marts and the Brilliant One-Person Pages. Quite a bit like the way books come out as polished corporate product or as personal statements. There is room enough for all of it ... Jobs - Graphic Arts - Commercial Production -> http://studio.vni.net/jobs/ Virtual Networks Premier Internet Services cnordin@vnii.net Indianapolis Indianapolis Indianapolis Metro http://www.vnii.net/ Indiana Indiana Indiana Washington DC Washington DC Washington DC Metro http://www.vni.net/ Virtual Networks Incorporated Virtual Networks of Indiana, Incorporated ------------------------------ From: Ron Bean Subject: Re: WebTV and CoyoteNet; a Minority Report Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 17:37:07 CST hisys@rmi.net writes: > Allow me to be the curmudgeon for a moment ... Ok ... > And all the hand-wringing charges of elitism aren't going to > change any facts, either way. For a minute there I wasn't sure which side was being 'elitist': people who think content from peons like us doesn't count, or people who think content from the megamedia companies doesn't count. > This message will be quickly labeled as > doomsaying and other predictable dismissals by some. It's hardly doomsaying since it basically describes the status quo (in general, not on the net-- but the net will catch up). So the net won't save the world (are we surprised?). But it won't make things any worse either. If you find my comments predictable, feel free to surf to the next channel ... > A somewhat more interactive version of the same intellectual and > spiritual wasteland (with islands otherwise). The old "net culture" never reached very many people. The island just *appears* to be shrinking because the ocean is expanding. You might have to swim a little further to find it. The loss of the "pioneer spirit" is inevitable in any maturing industry, I'm sure you can think of any number of examples. > Oh, another prediction: personal websites will become the message > doormats, bumperstickers, painted mailboxes, answering machine > messages, and "personalized greeting cards" (ref Target or Kmart) of > the future. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as nobody is preventing you from doing it any other way. Which is better: A car with no bumper stickers that looks like hundreds of thousands of other cars, or one with a mass-produced bumper sticker on it? I claim that the latter is ever-so-slightly better (certainly enough to justify the cost of the bumper sticker). A can of paint and a paintbrush would be even better, but nobody's stopping you ... > "Look it up on the Web" educational assistance will in many, perhaps > most, cases become another tool for kids to regurgitate rather than > learn. In other words, no worse than what we have now. > [Re: Bandwidth]... it's not clear yet whether we'll go to some form > of volume-based charge, universal access-time charges, or corporate > financing of infrastructure like television (at which time it becomes > "theirs" and serves their purposes). The question is whether they'll do it in such a way that it prevents peons like us from having our own web pages. If not, no problem; the few who care to think will be able to find each other. It's a bit like asking whether the USPS will stop delivering first class mail because it's not presorted (not likely, but not entirely out of the question either). The "Compuserve model" has already failed several times, but the "cable TV model" might work, and might serve to exclude the rest of us (imagine an "internet" that only connected to Compuserve, AOL, and other large services. In some ways we're already moving in that direction). > And it may "penalize" atypical interests. "Geraldo Online" is going > to be quick to download, because six other people on your block are > viewing it too, after that reference on TV this evening. But you may > have to wait for anything non-faddish and uncached to download. Well, back in the BBS days I used to call at 4am because that's when the lines weren't busy. Later my computer was able to do this unattended (UUCP worked that way too). And now we have multitasking OS's, so we can do other things while we wait. > The best I can hope for now is to keep alive some "commercially > unviable" niches of intelligent and thoughtful discussion ... This kind of thing exists in the print world, and there's no reason to think it won't happen online as well. > We can be an insignificant (volume wise) "rider" on the tidal wave > of the corporate media information model. This is a big point in our favor. Compare this to the cost of, say, public access TV. > I hope there will still be paths of access for the black kid on the > South Side of Chicago, who can't afford a network computer but whose > family does have WebTV, and who is actually trying to learn, > self-educate, and enculturate into an intellectually vibrant > subculture absent at home or in the public schools. But it's OK with > me if they have to learn to read and conceptually integrate more than > 3 short paragraphs before jumping to another subject, in order to get > into this niche. If the public schools can get them that far, that's probably enough. The real problem is not the schools, but that once they graduate they're too busy trying to keep a roof over their heads to think about anything else. Once "the system" lets them have that few hours a week of spare time, it's up to them to do something with it. With TV, all you could do was turn it off, but with WebTV, you can at least surf to a non-mainstream channel. ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges Date: 20 Dec 1996 01:48:20 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) writes: > The set-use fee is now $45.85 per month regardless of the number of > calls. As of 9/1/97 it becomes $0.35 per call. This amount is set by > the FCC. As of 9/1/98 it becomes the initial deposit amount for local > calls at the payphone. It is not an arbitrary amount. A payphone > which imposes an arbitrarily high fee for local coin calls will > probably not stay in business very long! Since the debate about reimbursement is over (and FCC has decided anyway), this poses some interesting questions. 1) What is to prevent a payphone operator from generating a large amount of 800 calls, even autodialled, just to push up revenue? (Yes, I understand that this might be illegal, but how do you enforce that?) The owner could even just pay somebody to stand there and dial away! You could probably make at least a call a minute, works out to about 20 bucks an hour. Enough for the dialler and the payphone operator! 2) What if I am at a pay phone, and would like to place an 800 call to somebody that does not accept pay phone calls? Assume I am quite willing to pay the 35c or even more? If I am telco adept, I might try the AT&T 800-321 0288, dial the 800 and give them my credit card number, but the ANI transmitted to the destination is still that of the originating phone (I tested that), and would presumably be rejected! I can think of several routes to solve this, but I do not know to what extent they are technically possible and/or legal: a) The payphone operator with or without assistance from the local telco figures out the situation and I get a voice prompt to put in 35 cents (or more). The 800-owner needs to get a spoofed (non-payphone) ANI. b) I)This does not work, and I get a voice prompt as to what to do, see below. b) II)There is no voice prompt, but a sign on the phone on what to do, see below. b) III) What to do: Dial some special number (could be a local number posted on the phone), costs me 35 cents, fine, and I get a new dial tone good for 800 only, and I dial the number. The ANI sent to the 800 owner is some local trunk (non-payphone). c) I get a voice prompt (or there is a sign as under roman I-II-III above) giving a special number, local or 800, where some computer will accept local telco and AT&T/MCI/Spring LD cards. Works like 800-321 0288, except the ANI is spoofed to non-payphone. Similar to b), but payment is by credit card, not coin. Note that if AT&T or somebody provides this with a special-800-good-for-calling-other-800 only, they get to pay the paypone op 35c, and recover that (and, knowing them, probably more) from the caller by charging his card. Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: Martin Baines Subject: Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 11:19:11 +0000 Organization: Silicon Graphics Lloyd Matthews wrote: > I have a GH388 GSM phone from Sprint Spectrum/DC which I'd like to use > in PacBell's GSM service area in Los Angeles (and someday all of CA). > But they use a CF388 phone, and possibly a different frequency (1800 > vs 1900 MHz)? The people at PacBell Mobile Services said the phones > were not compatible, and that their GSM was "better" than in Europe or > DC. You'd think they'd go with the majority standard so they could > collect roaming fees, unless the later phases of GSM service will only > work with PacBell's system? In most of the World GSM mean GSM900 and all the systems interwork pretty seamlessly froma user view point. More recently in Europe the new "PCN" systems are using GSM1800 and again the few services that are around and have set up roaming seem pretty seamless. I have no idea of the detailed implementation in the US, but from what I recall some of the PCS operators are using GSM1900. I didn't think the 1800 band was available in the US, but I could be wrong. I know a number of operators are looking at roam from GSM800/1800 to GSM1900 by either SIM card swapping or (not yet available) multi-frequency phones; this would imply the systems are more or less compatible. I suspect what you are seeing is simply two operators who do not have a roaming agreement. Although if that were the case, I would expect the phone to find the network if you do a manual search, but just not be able to log in to it. Maybe that is what the "No Access" message you get means -- it pretty similar to what happens if I use my (GSM800) phone and try and connect to the UK operator I *don't* have a contract with. As for one GSM being "better" than another -- that just sounds like spurious marketing/service speak! Martin Baines - Telecommunications Market Consultant Silicon Graphics, Arlington Business Park, Reading, RG7 4SB, UK email: martinb@reading.sgi.com SGI vmail: 6-788-7842 phone: +44 118 925 7842 fax: +44 118 925 7545 URL: http://reality.sgi.com/martinb_reading/ Silicon Surf: http://www.sgi.com/International/UK/ ------------------------------ From: gws@monroe.cb.att.com (Gary Sanders) Subject: Re: Parollees and the Net Date: 20 Dec 1996 14:17:23 GMT Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Columbus Ohio. Reply-To: gary.w.sanders@att.com In article , Jack Decker wrote: > On Tue, 17 Dec 1996 14:33:12 PST, in comp.dcom.telecom is written: >> The Justice Department announced Monday that the panel voted this >> month to authorize such restrictions as requiring certain parolees to >> get prior written approval from the commission before using an >> Internet service provider, computerized bulletin board system or any >> public or private computer network. What next; parolees need permission to go to a 7/Eleven?. If they are that worried that the person is going to commit another crime why are they being let out in the first place? Gary W. Sanders (N8EMR) gws@sunray.cb.att.com AT&T Columbus,Ohio 614-860-5965 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #674 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Dec 24 00:34:03 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id AAA10950; Tue, 24 Dec 1996 00:34:03 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 00:34:03 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612240534.AAA10950@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #675 TELECOM Digest Tue, 24 Dec 96 00:34:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 675 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Parollees and the Net (Dale Farmer) Re: Parollees and the Net (Nevin Liber) Re: How Business Almost Derailed the Net (Robert McMillin) Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not (Kimmo Ketolainen) Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not (Nils Andersson) Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not (Henry Baker) Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not (Stuart Jeffery) Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not (Frederic Leroudier) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Leonard Erickson) Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges (John R. Levine) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: dale@access5.digex.net (Dale Farmer) Subject: Re: Parollees and the Net Date: 23 Dec 1996 20:14:32 GMT Organization: Dale's House of Turnips Gary Sanders (gws@monroe.cb.att.com) wrote: > In article , Jack Decker > wrote: >> On Tue, 17 Dec 1996 14:33:12 PST, in comp.dcom.telecom is written: >>> The Justice Department announced Monday that the panel voted this >>> month to authorize such restrictions as requiring certain parolees to >>> get prior written approval from the commission before using an >>> Internet service provider, computerized bulletin board system or any >>> public or private computer network. > What next; parolees need permission to go to a 7/Eleven?. If they are > that worried that the person is going to commit another crime why are > they being let out in the first place? You are forgetting what parole is. It is the state letting convicted criminals serve out the tail end of their sentence under (supposedly) strict supervision outside of the prison. They have many other restrictions placed on their lifestyles during this period. Such as weekly drug tests, cannot associate with other parolees, can be checked up on at any time, must account for all of their time when they meet their parole officer. Reduced protections against search and seizure, Freedom of speech and association curtailed, many other aspects of their life controlled. The goal is to give a smooth transition from the total control prison lifestyle to a productive free citizen lifestyle. Of course in practice it is generally not that well implemented, but life is not perfect. Dale ------------------------------ From: nevin@cs.arizona.edu (Nevin Liber) Subject: Re: Parollees and the Net Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 14:37:05 -0700 Organization: University of Arizona CS Department, Tucson Arizona In article , jack@novagate.com (Jack Decker) wrote: > But consider this: Suppose that someone were arrested in connection > with political activities. It is entirely conceivable that because > the government wanted to silence that person's views, they would > stipulate that the person stay off of computers (and certainly off of > the Internet) during their parole. It isn't just arrested. In order to be a parollee, you must be arrested, indicted, arraigned, have a criminal trial, be convicted by a jury of twelve of your peers, and spend some time in jail. Parollees don't have the same rights as other U.S. citizens since they committed a crime that is harmful to society at large. Nevin ":-)" Liber (520) 293-2799 ------------------------------ From: rlm@netcom.com (Robert McMillin) Subject: Re: How Business Almost Derailed the Net Reply-To: rlm@helen.surfcty.com Organization: Charlie Don't CERF Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 20:30:38 GMT On 18 Dec 1996 20:52:10 PDT, Monty Solomon published a newsletter by Nathan Newman , famed "progressive" and longtime champion of every wacky socialist idea to come grinding down the road. This letter purported to show why capitalism is Bad For The Net and how it could one day End The Net As We Know It. Like most good socialists, Newman finds new and inventive ways to blame the market for governmental failures. Too, he ignores or gets wrong significant details of the Internet's history. > The Internet is in many ways the product of central planning in > its rawest form: planning over decades, large government subsidies > directed from a national headquarters, and experts designing and > overseeing the project's development. The government not only created > whole new technologies to make the Internet a possibility, it created > the standards for forms of economic exchange of information that had > never been possible before. Yes, and at every turn the government tried to stop such "economic exchange of information". Remember the old "fair use" restrictions on Usenet traffic? Hell, the owners of the old Arpanet SF-LOVERS mailing list used to get queasy thinking some government snoop might shut them down! No, Nathan, the Internet as a mass medium wasn't possible until the government got out of it. Certainly, I'll grant the researchers who invented TCP/IP did some great work, but the government's role in expanding the Internet is a sorry tale of restrictions. > It's worth remembering that the headlines just a few years back > in 1993 about the Information Superhighway were not over the Internet > and software companies like Netscape but about mergers and financial > deals between those who controlled the cables to the home, on the > assumption that those who monopolized control of the physical hardware > connecting homes and business would reap monopoly profits in selling > information services. As Fortune magazine described the ultimately > unsuccessful merger of TCI cable and Bell Atlantic telephone back in > 1993, "It was the bold stroke of two captains of industry bent on > securing their share of whatever booty washes ashore when the > interactive age finally arrives ... When the dust settles, there will > probably be eight to ten major operators on the highway, some earning > their way mainly by collecting tolls for the use of their networks." Yes, and what was that NII supposed to be? Could it have been Al Gore's wet dream of a government-financed-but-privately-operated data network? > In many ways, this private vision harked back not to the original > federal highway system but to the first transit system that > criss-crossed the nation's land -- the railroads. [...] But in 1993, the NII was supposed to be something even more whiz-bang than the Internet. Now, first, it's pretty clear that the capital to build and operate one of these NII thingys is just not gonna appear in the Federal budget. Second, an analogy does not reality make. Newman here takes a previous case (railroad gauge standards) and extrapolates from it a situation that simply did not exist after the privatization of the Internet. If he were to ever escape from the pink-lined walls of his Berkeley asylum, Newman might realize that the market has brutally punished AOL, Microsoft, GE, Apple, and Compuserve for their proprietary networks. The Internet has been successful in part because of the open nature of its standards, true, but far more because of the willingness of individuals to use their capital to provide connections. > RAND was enthusiastic about Baran's ideas but when AT&T was > approached about its feasibility, AT&T executives dismissed the idea > and even refused to share information on their long distance circuit > maps -- Baran had to purloin a copy to evaluate his ideas which he > and RAND were convinced were right. Based on RAND's recommendation, > the Air Force directly asked AT&T to build such a network but AT&T > still refused saying it wouldn't work (except for a faction of > scientists at Bell Labs). This may have been technical myopia by > the business-oriented executives, but it was an economically > self-interested myopia. Such a distributed network threatened (and > today does threaten) the central economic assets of the telephone > industry: central computers and central switches. It highlights the > fact that corporate research labs, the main alternative to long-term > government funding of technological alternatives, rarely if ever > invest in fundamental technology that will likely undermine the > natural economic monopolies they currently enjoy. Well, golly, who GAVE the old Bell System that monopoly in the first place? Nathan gets it both ways here, as he is so frequently wont to do: he blames the old Bell system for attitudes that were, if not fostered by, undeniably built upon government-granted monopoly. Back in those days, Ma Bell provided a phone, told you how to dial, but no way would they tell you how it works. I can hardly be surprised that they didn't want to cooperate with technical details about their digital transmission networks. > The political economist Karl Polanyi argued half a century ago > that "The road to the free market was opened and kept open by the > enormous increase in continuous, centrally organized and controlled > interventionism." The reality is that the Internet is no accident but > neither was it a technological inevitability. It was the product of a > US federal government, in association with other nation's experts, > guiding its evolution, in demanding that its standards be open and in > the public domain, and that its reach be extended broadly enough to > overwhelm the proprietary corporate competitors. In the end, however, this analysis is sheer BS. Want two different computer vendors' machines to talk? Gee, does HP make an SNA protocol stack? No? Why didn't OSI ever able get off the ground? Maybe it hadn't been tested. Maybe it was too complex. But in any case, ascribing the success of TCP/IP to the fiat of some five-year-planner in government is simple nonsense. In the final analysis, TCP/IP was the only workable lingua franca available on *all* platforms. > This privatization of the Internet threatens further evolution of > the Internet. This extends from the coordination of networking to > avoid capacity overload to the danger that standards and protocol > design are being shaped more and more to commercial needs. Which, while you're sneering at it, includes things like expanding the Net so Aunt Tillie can use it and providing more and better services. Ever wondered why the government-protected telcos hate IPhone? Do you think the NSF would have allowed such a thing back when they were running the show? Yes, there are capacity problems, but they were present back in the dear, departed, Federally-subsidized days Nathan longs for -- capacity problems that would undoubtedly be solved by bandwidth rationing. Yes, Microsoft's dance with open standards in the form of ActiveX is execrable, but nobody forces me to use the thing. Likewise, Netscape's creation-by-fiat of HTML standards has overrun the usual standards creation process. However, for the most part, both companies' browsers do work on pages "best viewed with" the other. Net commerce has not ground to a halt. The world continues to spin 360 degrees each day. The faith of communists and "progressives" in government seems unshakable, and nowhere is it more unshakable than in the U.S., where communism has luckily has never been tried. Mr. Newman pulls out of his hat a few examples where government works. By extension, he claims that more would be better. Inbetween, he conveniently forgets how the Net got from UCLA to Main Street -- not through someone at the Department of Defense, but because of private ISPs. This, to me, is inexcusable. Robert L. McMillin | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Netcom: rlm@netcom.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: On the other hand Robert, I have seen some changes around here in the past couple years caused by the intrusion of big business and the mass media into the net which have in my opinion produced some perfectly dreadful results. A lot of those people basically just moved in and took over, not knowing anything about net history or culture, and rarely caring about it either way. It just seems to me a lot of the new entries on the net have ruined it for the rest of us. Perhaps it is just my annual time of the year to be very depressed (I am today) but to be honest with you, this net for me is no longer fun; it just is no longer a place I want to be any more than I have to. I lay the blame for that on the arrival of the many corporate new-comers in the past year or two. Big goverment is hardly the answer either. I would like to see .edu and .org go our separate ways and leave the mess the internet has become to .com with all the spammers, junk-emailers, etc. Seriously, I am just getting very sick of it. So please don't discredit everything he had to say. A lot of it made sense to me. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kk@iki.fi (Kimmo Ketolainen) Subject: Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not Date: 23 Dec 1996 06:47:44 +0200 Organization: Weyland-Yutani Group > I have a GH388 GSM phone from Sprint Spectrum/DC which I'd like to use > in PacBell's GSM service area in Los Angeles (and someday all of CA). > But they use a CF388 phone, and possibly a different frequency (1800 > vs 1900 MHz)? > How can I find out exactly which GSM systems worldwide use the GH388, > and who the mystery carrier is in San Jose? And what's the point of a > worldwide standard like GSM if everybody has a different, incompatible > implementation? GH388 and GF388 are basically the same telephone, but the latter one comes with the flip cover. As far as I know, Ericsson already produces them for all networks, analog and digital. GSM in question there are three phones models, three and implementations of the GSM network: 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 1900 MHz. Basically phones are interchangable between these three types of networks. Both Ericsson phones are being sold here for the "old" 900 MHz networks as the 1800 MHz networks have not yet been opened for public access. GH338 is the dominant Ericsson phone on the market. The only _nearly_ worldwide GSM frequency at the moment and far into the future (10 years, 20 years) will be 900 MHz. Here comes the short term problem: the first double or triple frequency phones are still being finished off in Lund at Ericsson and in Salo at Nokia. So, if you want to start using a GSM phone now right away, you'll have to pick one using a _single_ frequency band. You can't have a GSM phone in the 900 MHz frequency in USA because other traffic uses that frequency. Between 1800 MHz and 1900 MHz the first one would be your best choice, as it will be the first US GSM frequency to be used to roam in another country (UK, in January), and nearly all current "doubled frequency" networks abroad use 1800 MHz, especially in Europe. However, according to the country-by-country and network-by-network listings at GSM MoU Association's site at http://www.gsmworld.com all current US networks use 1900 MHz, including Pacific Bell and Sprint (under a different name). This pretty much says what you should get. [If anyone's interested, the 900 MHz GH338 is being sold here for FIM 2690 (lowest), that's USD 581 or DEM 901. Bundling with a contract is prohibited to ensure fair competition and low network traffic fees.] Kimmo Ketolainen * kk@sci.fi * http://iki.fi/kk * Tel. Earth +358 40 55555 08 Studentville 84A, 20540 Turku, Finland * irc:Kimble#42 * Fax +358 22 50 22 40 SunOS weyland-yutani0 5.5 Generic_103093-03 sun4d sparc SUNW,SPARCserver-1000 ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not Date: 23 Dec 1996 17:50:33 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , Juha Veijalainen writes: > - they have more services available than DC system (data, voice > mail, SMS and related services, fax, IN services, etc.); Data traffic works for PacBell GSM. I tried it in August, went down to the RNC just to check out Pac Bell GSM, plugged their PCMCIA card into my laptop, and hit the icon to connect to Compuserve. Voila! I do not know if the support SMS and voice mail, but believe they do or at least very soon will. Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: hbaker@netcom.com (Henry Baker) Subject: Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 22:17:58 GMT In article , lloydm@pop.svl.trw. com wrote: > I have a GH388 GSM phone from Sprint Spectrum/DC which I'd like to use > in PacBell's GSM service area in Los Angeles (and someday all of CA). > But they use a CF388 phone, and possibly a different frequency (1800 > vs 1900 MHz)? The people at PacBell Mobile Services said the phones > were not compatible, and that their GSM was "better" than in Europe or > DC. You'd think they'd go with the majority standard so they could > collect roaming fees, unless the later phases of GSM service will only > work with PacBell's system? I believe that PacBell uses the 'enhanced full-rate' voice encoder, which is different from the 'full-rate' voice encoder used by Sprint Spectrum in DC. I believe that transcoding between the two is possible, but the software to do so may not be enabled yet. The frequency band _is_ the same -- 1900 MHz. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 17:19:59 -0800 From: Stuart Jeffery Subject: Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not In TELECOM Digest V16 #670 Lloyd Matthews writes: > I have a GH388 GSM phone from Sprint Spectrum/DC which I'd like to use > in PacBell's GSM service area in Los Angeles (and someday all of CA). > But they use a CF388 phone, and possibly a different frequency (1800 > vs 1900 MHz)? The people at PacBell Mobile Services said the phones > were not compatible, and that their GSM was "better" than in Europe or > DC. You'd think they'd go with the majority standard so they could > collect roaming fees, unless the later phases of GSM service will only > work with PacBell's system? All North America (US and Canada) PCS operates on the same frequencies. The band assignment for PCS in North America is different than PCN (European name for PCS) because of the FCC allocated different bands. So Sprint Spectrum/APC phones are frequency compatible with PacBell Mobile Services (PBMS), but neither is compatible with the European band allocation. They are compatible with each other as they both are PCS1900 (which is the name North America upbanded GSM) The reason you can't roam between Sprint Spectrum/APC and PBMS in San Jose is PBMS network in San Jose is not yet commercially operating. You might be able to roam now between Sprint Spectrum/APC and PBMS in San Diego. If you can't, it is most likely a business issue, coupled with some inter network technical subtleties, which are being rapidly resolved. All the North American PCS1900 operators are working to get roaming agreements in place and the inter-working tested as fast as they can. The reason PBMS people say their system is "better" than Europe is that PBMS launched its network using the Enhanced Full Rate Vocoder (EFRV). The original GSM vocoder (Full Rate Vocoder - FRV) was developed in late 80's and it is what is commonly deployed in GSM systems today. Speech processing has improved a lot since the late 80's. Many PCS1900 operators, PBMS included, wanted to have the best sounding speech they could and thus have adopted EFRV from the start. To take advantage of EFRV both the phone and the network must be EFRV compatible. Sprint Spectrum/APC launched before the EFRV standard was completed and their phones are standard Full Rate Vocoder. Because of backward compatibility, FRV phones should work on PBMS network (provided there is a roaming agreement in place) but the phone must be EFRV capable to take advantage of the EFRV feature. The GSM standard is controlled by the GSM MOU and the standard supports multiple vocoders on the same network. EFRV has been accepted by the GSM MOU as an alternate Vocoder and it will become, over time, supported by all GSM operators all over the world. In the mean time, if EFRV cannot be supported, by either the phone or the network, the FRV will be used. > The odd thing is that something is weakly pinging my phone in San Jose > and giving me a No Access message. I can't figure out who the carrier > might be, since Pac Bell isn't officially up yet in NoCal and they're > supposedly incompatible anyway. PBMS is putting up bases stations in the Bay Area at a rapid rate. These base stations are currently operating in a test mode. Your phone is responding to the signals from these bases stations, trying to gain access, but being denied access. Your phone is being denied access because the system is coded for only engineering tests. If the system were commercially operating, like it is in San Diego and Las Vegas, your phone will be granted access provided PBMS and Sprint Spectrum/APC have worked out their roaming agreement. Within a few months, these problems should be all be worked out. > How can I find out exactly which GSM systems worldwide use the GH388, > and who the mystery carrier is in San Jose? And what's the point of a > worldwide standard like GSM if everybody has a different, incompatible > implementation? GSM is a world wide standard, but it has to operate in the frequency bands that are allocated by the local regulating authorities. The US chose not to use the same band as had been already adopted by Europe. Maybe someone else knows the history of that decision. Stuart Jeffery phone (415) 966-8199 1072 Seena Ave. fax (415) 966-8456 Los Altos, CA. 94024 stu@accesscom.com ------------------------------ From: fleroudier@ftna.com (Frederic Leroudier) Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 11:42:20 -0800 Organization: France Telecom, Inc. Subject: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not What PacBell is referring to as "better" than in Europe is probably their use of the so-called "enhanced speech coder" in their network. Of course this new feature will only work with handsets that also support it, but it shouldn't prevent those (GSM handsets that operate in the US 1900 MHz band that is) that don't from registering with the network, provided of course that it has a subscription to PacBell or to any network with which PacBell has a roaming agreement. Frederic Leroudier FLeroudier@FTNA.com ------------------------------ From: shadow@krypton.rain.com (Leonard Erickson) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 18:50:43 PST Organization: Shadownet Alan Bishop writes: > Hi. Although I'm a software engineer for WebTV networks, these are my > own opinions, and I don't speak for the company in any way. > beck@slidell.com (Jeff Becklehimer) writes: >> Also, when you say an image is "too detailed" does this mean you also >> resize or reduce the number of colors of the images to make them fit >> on the screen? > We resize large images so that they fit on a television screen. We > translate from one image format to another. I believe that some image > formats store information in a "most detailed" to "least detailed" > order, which means we can algorithmically throw away detail that > wouldn't show up anyway. The closest to this "most detailed to least detailed" idea that I'm aware of is the use of "interleaved" display on some GIF files. Bit maps are bitmaps. To throw away detail you have to process the image *very* carefully, or the result is useless. A *very* good test for your dithering algorithms would be to take a 800x600x256 (or more!) color image that contains some *small* print in black on white. By "small" I mean that the "strokes" of the letters are only a pixel or so across. It's virtually certain that your resolution reducing software will render the text unreadable. For cases like this, the ability to display *portions* of an image at the original resolution is a necessity. As well as being able to "pan" this view around the larger virtual image. Otherwise you'll have some unhappy customers the first time they come across a set of plans or diagrams on a web page. Leonard Erickson (aka Shadow) shadow@krypton.rain.com <--preferred leonard@qiclab.scn.rain.com <--last resort ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Dec 96 12:34:00 EST From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. >> The set-use fee is now $45.85 per month regardless of the number of >> calls. As of 9/1/97 it becomes $0.35 per call. This amount is set by >> the FCC. As of 9/1/98 it becomes the initial deposit amount for local >> calls at the payphone. It is not an arbitrary amount. A payphone >> which imposes an arbitrarily high fee for local coin calls will >> probably not stay in business very long! Wow, is this a screaming invitation for abuse. Here's my plan: 1. Place COCOTs all over the place, by promising location owners an unheard of $2 for every call, local or long distance, from the phone. 2. Adjust them to require a $10.00 initial deposit, in quarters, for the first minute for local calls. Mark this clearly on the phone. 3. Encourage merchants to place a phone card dispenser next to each of my phones that sells 800-access cards that give you, say, four minutes for a dollar. 4. Place large signs on each phone that say NO COINS NEEDED FOR 800/888 CALLS. Now I get $8, net, per call, remitted automatically from the IXCs, and I'll only have go out to collect the coins from the phones (which is tedious, expensive, and prone to theft) once a century or so. Explain to me why, under the new FCC rules, this would be illegal. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, http://iecc.com/johnl, "New witty saying coming soon." ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #675 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Dec 24 01:22:27 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id BAA14153; Tue, 24 Dec 1996 01:22:27 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 01:22:27 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612240622.BAA14153@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #676 TELECOM Digest Tue, 24 Dec 96 01:22:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 676 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson "Hidden Agendas" in Web Blocking Softtware (Monty Solomon) Representation At The FCC Hearings On Jan 23rd (Gordon Jacobson) Calling U.S. Toll Free Numbers From Abroad (Kimmo Ketolainen) California PUC Split on NPA Splits (Tad Cook) Re: 385 or 435 to be Used for Utah (Paul Robinson) World-wide Cellular Phone Rental? (Joel M. Hoffman) EIA 602 Information Wanted (Rafy Carmon) More on California Geographic Split Decision (Tad Cook) NPA 570 For Colorado (Mark Cuccia) Last Laugh! Not Exactly in the Holiday Spirit, But .. (Cliff McGlamry) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 21:33:04 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: "Hidden Agendas" in Web Blocking Software Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Excerpt from PRIVACY Forum Digest V05 #22 Date: Fri, 20 Dec 96 15:23 PST From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator) Subject: "Hidden agendas" in web blocking software Greetings. While the ability of parents to control their children's access to web pages via specialized "blocking" software has been widely touted, it's becoming apparent that problems are already appearing. First, there seem to be a variety of "rating" services, all promoting their own mechanisms (and logos of course) to web sites. A site operator might be excused for throwing up his or her hands at the confusion and being rather reluctant to deal with any of them. Now it's becoming known that at least some of the available blocking software packages apparently include what might be called "hidden agendas". These silently block not only obvious topics like "porn", but also access to animal rights, feminist, liberal, and other sites that have been identified as being on various conservative and other "hit" lists. What's of particular concern (regardless of one's personal political leanings) is that the users of such packages may not even be aware that such broad blocking is going on -- or who is being blocked. In one case, the manufacturer of such software threatened legal action when the software's database of blocked sites was "decrypted" and the list published. The same manufacturer also reportedly added an entire ISP's domain to the software's block list, apparently because that was the ISP where the entity publishing the list (and associated information about the blocking) had their web site and e-mail addresses. Such episodes could tend to cast a shadow on the entire category of "parental control" software. Clearly, the ability of parents to control access by their children to materials on the net is important. But it's also important that it be completely clear exactly what and who is being blocked, and that hidden political or economic motives not be embedded within such software. I would therefore recommend that parents only use blocking software where the *complete* list of default blocked sites and site "certification" criteria are made publicly available by the manufacturer, without any special provisos or conditions. Such software should also allow the parent to modify and update that list (either to add or delete arbitrary specific sites as they choose, regardless of whether or not a site bears a particular "stamp of approval" from a "certifier"). Any blocking systems that do not meet these criteria should be considered unacceptable. --Lauren-- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 02:34:52 -0500 From: Gordon Jacobson Subject: Representation At The FCC Hearings On Jan 23rd On January 23, 1997 one or more of our esteemed collegues will be testifying before the FCC, concerning the request from several Telcos to burden ISP/IAP providers with usage charges for dial-up connections provided to subscribers. It is imperative that we arm our representatives with as much information, research and support as we can during the next few weeks. Of particular concern are all facts related to the assertion by the Telcos that Internet dial-up users have significantly raised the average call length which the Telcos use to calculate how many ports they need on a switch and that such "increased average call length" will require enormous Telco investment in new and/or expanded plant that must be paid for by the ISPs/IAPs. From the page one article in December 16th issue of Communications Week, we are aware that a coalition of Major Computer and Data Communications companies (referred to as the Data Coalition) will be filing a report in January contradicting the Telco claims. We are interested in hearing anything that may be of use to us. Please respond by email to the address in the header of this message. Regards, - GAJ Home Page: http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~gaj1/home.html ------------------------------ From: kk@iki.fi (Kimmo Ketolainen) Subject: Calling U.S. Toll Free Numbers From Abroad Date: 23 Dec 1996 00:25:37 +0200 Organization: Weyland-Yutani Group After the introduction of the 888 code earlier this year I made another set of test calls to both the 1800 and 1888 numbers. All about 50 test calls were made on a Telecom Finland card payphone which I suppose was connected to the local network of Turku Telephone, member of the Finnet Group of local telecoms (10019, the universal toll free fault report number rang at their office). Results in general: calls go through using the three following access codes: 00 - operator roulette, 994 - Telivo Ltd, 990 - Telecom Finland Ltd). I didn't test 999 (Finnet International Ltd) because the payphone was set to charge for all calls to this access code. The combination 990 1888 was the only one which didn't work. The subsitute codes 1880 and 1881 are not recognised, but the original codes 1800 and 1888 work flawlessly on every try (except 990 1888). An intercept message was played in the beginning of every call to warn about charging for every answered call, and charging did not begin until the other end answered *EXCEPT* on about every fifth call. Also, at least twice I dialed a *non-existent* 1888 number and charging started right away, during the intercept message from the U.S. I couldn't find any reason for this randomness. The most positive finding anyway was that most non-existent numbers (N-E below) were signalled straight to the local operator, and the local intercept message (4) was played. In the table below one can also find out that calls to some non-existent numbers were not catched locally. Dialled number|Intercept Dialled number|Intercept --------------+--------- --------------+--------- 00 1800 + 7D | 1, 2 994 1800 + N-E| 1 (!) 00 1888 + 7D | 2 994 1888 + N-E| 4 00 1800 + N-E| 3, 5, 6 990 1800 + 7D | 2 00 1888 + N-E| 1!, 5, 6 990 1888 | 6 (unprogrammed!) 994 1800 + 7D | 1 990 1800 + N-E| 1 994 1888 + 7D | 1 990 1888 | 6 (unprogrammed!) Intercepts: 1. "Access to the number you have dialed is not free of charge outside the United States. If answered, you will be charged international direct dialing rates for this call. If you do not wish to proceed with this call, please hang up now." (U.S. recording) 2. "The toll free number you have dialed is not toll free if dialed from outside the United States. You will be charged at international direct dialing rates. If you do not wish to be charged please hang up now." (U.S. recording) 3. "Your call can't be completed as dialed. Please check the number and dial again." (I could get this recording only once. It is an U.S. recording. I did hang up at this point, the recording probably continued in French or Spanish.) 4. "Valitsemanne numero ei (unreproduceable in 7-bit ASCII). Numret ni valde inte i bruk. Var god kontrolera numret. The number you have dialed is not in use. Please check the number." (Finnish - Swedish - English, local recording) 5. (Intercept sound - invalid number) "Numero ei ole (unreproducable in 7-bit ASCII) Olkaa hyv ja tarkistakaa numero. Numret inte i bruk. Var god kontrolera numret. The number is not in use, please check the number." 6. (Intercept sound - invalid number) Kimmo Ketolainen * kk@sci.fi * http://iki.fi/kk * Tel. Earth +358 40 55555 08 Studentville 84A, 20540 Turku, Finland * irc:Kimble#42 * Fax +358 22 50 22 40 SunOS weyland-yutani0 5.5 Generic_103093-03 sun4d sparc SUNW,SPARCserver-1000 ------------------------------ Subject: California PUC Split on NPA Splits Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 00:40:35 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Commission Split over How to Add California Area Codes By George Avalos, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Dec. 23--California residents and businesses will continue to see area-code splits until at least 2000 as a solution to the state's telephone number crunch, officials decided Friday. A bitterly divided state Public Utilities Commission voted 3-2 to continue the present system of dividing a region geographically prior to adding a new area code. This procedure will be used to add the 925 area code to part of the East Bay while keeping the existing 510 area code in an adjacent section of the East Bay. The process of splits has worked smoothly to add area codes in California until the last few years. Lately, though, the proliferation of wireless telephones, pagers, fax machines, Internet accounts and new contestants in California's telephone market have ratcheted up the demand for new prefixes and forced an acceleration in creation of area codes. The PUC decided against using an alternative method called "area-code overlays." In this system, officials would retain the current area-code number and assign the new area code to any new numbers added in the same region. In an overlay system, a geographic region would have two or more area codes. Plus, people and businesses on the same block or in the same building could have different area codes, depending on when they were assigned their telephone numbers. Overlays also would require customers to dial a 10-digit number (the three-digit area code and the seven-digit number) to call anywhere, even within the same area code. As a result of the PUC's vote, people will be able to continue to dial a seven-digit number when they place a call in their own area code. A poll commissioned by some competitors of Pacific Bell found that 85 percent of the California phone customers surveyed would prefer to retain the seven-digit dialing system, said PUC President P. Gregory Conlon. But as California continues its hectic pace of adding phone numbers, officials may have to mandate 10-digit dialing (after dialing a 1 before the area code) anyway. "Eleven-digit dialing will come to us one way or another," said John Gueldner, a Pacific Bell executive. PUC Commissioner Josiah Neeper criticized area-code splits as a temporary measure that will do little more than soothe public concerns about dialing extra digits. "This is a choice between short-term compromise and toadying on one hand, and long-term vision," Neeper said. "Geographic splits are more costly than overlays and must be done too frequently." For example, officials this week disclosed plans for a 925 area code, effective in 1998, to ensure the East Bay doesn't run out of telephone numbers before then. The new 925 region of the East Bay should have enough phone number capacity to last 14 years. But the part of the East Bay that retains the 510 code will exhaust its supply of numbers only six years after the split occurs, which means the East Bay will have at least three area codes by the year 2004, Pacific Bell officials estimate. "We would go merrily on our way to nowhere" with area-code splits, said PUC Commissioner Daniel Fessler. "Seven-digit dialing is for those wedded to a 1950s, 'Leave it to Beaver' version of the telephone industry." But polls conducted on behalf of Pac Bell, GTE Corp. and other telephone companies suggest the current system has plenty of support. "All three surveys found that area-code splits are the preferred method for most people," said Thomas Pulsifer, a PUC administrative law judge. "The surveys also found concern about confusion over dual area codes in the same location or same neighborhood." The PUC on Friday also decided to cease nearly all regulation of California's cellular, paging and personal communications services. ------------------------------ From: Paul Robinson Subject: Re: 385 or 435 to be Used for Utah Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 01:39:22 -0500 Organization: Evergreen Software In article , John Cropper wrote: > Deseret News Archives, > Thursday, December 12, 1996 > None opposed the plan to assign area code 385 or 435... outside... > Wasatch Front... > Weber, Davis, Salt Lake and Utah counties ... several area codes > would require 10-digit numbers for local calls. > Local calling areas, dialing plans and rates, at least for US WEST > customers, would not be altered ... cellular phone customers in the > affected area would need to have their phones reprogrammed ... Fax > machines, modems or pagers would not need to be reprogrammed. Either the item was taken verbatim from a press release by someone who either doesn't know what they are doing, or the writer doesn't understand how technology works. Yes, pagers will not need to be reprogrammed. A pager is an incoming only device, it does not dial phone numbers. But *any* device that dials telephone numbers - which includes fax machines and modems - would need to be reprogrammed if any stored number is changed. If a number moves to a new area code requiring the new code to be entered, or if all numbers have to be dialed as ten digits, or any other change of that type occurs, then any stored numbers *must* be changed to accomodate that change. Now, technically a modem usually does not need reprogramming -- most people probably do not use the AT &Z telephone number list of up to four numbers that most modems do support -- but the database used by their software programs *does* need reprogramming, and for the purposes of this article, that is essentially the reprogramming of the modem which is required that I am referring to. But a fax machine, which includes the ability to store frequently dialed numbers in speed-dial buttons, would need it. Also, the fax machine's own telephone number -- sometimes referred to as the CSI field -- would need to be changed to reflect a new area code if it was changed or the CSI would show the wrong sender number (and in fact, may constitute a violation of Federal Law if a cover sheet does not show the correct number.) (Formerly ) Paul Robinson Evergreen Software ------------------------------ From: joel@exc.com (Joel M. Hoffman) Subject: World-Wide Cellular Phone Rental? Date: 23 Dec 1996 17:11:39 GMT Organization: Excelsior Computer Services In the back of an airline magazine, I saw an offer for world-wide cellular phone rental, where I would pay only for calls (probably at quite a high rate), and nothing for renting the phone or the cellular service. But I forgot to keep the advertisement. Does anyone have any details on this sort of service? At the moment I'm mostly interested in Israel, but in the coming months Europe, too. Joel (joel@exc.com) ------------------------------ From: Rafy Carmon Subject: EIA 602 Information Wanted Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 00:46:39 +0300 Organization: Motorola - MCIL I need urgent information regarding the EIA 602 standard. Does someone knows where such info might be available? Any information will be helpful, http/ftp sites, docs, book references, etc. Thanks, Rafy Carmon | Smtp: rafyc@comm.mot.com DSP SW Group Leader, Digital Radio Dept. | X-400 email: CRC020@email Motorola Communications Israel Ltd. | Ms-Mail: BRC005@email 3 Kremenetski st. P.O.B. 25016 | Tel: +972-3-565-9131 | Tel-Aviv 67899 ISRAEL | Fax: +972-3-565-8754 ------------------------------ Subject: More on California Geographic Split Decision Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 21:30:16 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) PUC decision means millions will get change in area code SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Millions of California phone customers are likely to see their area codes change by the year 2001 under a policy adopted by the state Public Utilities Commission. In a 3 to 2 vote Friday, the commission decided that in order to accommodate millions of new phone lines, area codes running out of capacity must be split geographically. The decision will force an estimated 12 million to 15 million California residents and businesses to change area codes in the next few years, Pacific Bell projects. The commission rejected so-called "overlay" plans in which new area codes are introduced within the same geographic boundaries as existing codes, adding capacity without forcing customers to change. Of the 12 new area codes that Pacific Bell projects will be needed, new ones have already been ordered for the southern part of the 415 region and the 916 region outside of Sacramento County. Last week, the telephone industry petitioned the PUC to split parts of Contra Costa County from the 510 area code. Seven other area codes will likely split within the next few years -- including 408, 310, 619, 818, 714, 213, 209 and 805 -- and will have to be approved by the commission as needed. The 12th new area code will be a second split for 415 by the year 2000, according to Pacific Bell. The ruling was a setback for Pacific Bell, which had fought for the overlay option. The company argued that the plan would allow existing customers would not have to print new stationary and business cards or notify associates of number changes. "The transition cost to customers (of area code splits) will be in the tens of millions of dollars," said Pacific Bell spokesman Dave Miller. Explaining the ruling, the commission cited surveys showing that most consumers prefer area code splits to overlays. In a written statement, the commission said that "the greatest concerns about an overlay are having a mix of codes within the same household or business." Further, overlays require customers to dial 11 digits even on calls in their area code. Most of Pacific Bell's competitors, including major long distance companies that are entering the local market, favor geographic splits. If new customers all get new area codes, many people might be reluctant to switch providers, they fear. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 15:26:47 -0800 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: NPA 570 For Colorado I did check with Rate & Route -- I mean the AT&T Operator, to determine if there is a 570 local central-office prefix presently in the 303 Area Code in Colorado. Indeed there *IS*, for Idaho Springs CO, which is about fifty miles west of Denver. I think that it is used for some form of wireless functions, i.e. cellular/paging/mobile/etc. However, whether 570 is to be the new NPA for code relief for 303, or another code yet to be announced, there is the talk about the new NPA being an *overlay*, and with it the associated ten-digit local dialing for all local-area calls, whether within your 'own' NPA code, or to numbers with the 'other' NPA code. In other words: 570-NXX-xxxx would mean Area Code 570, plus whatever local exchange; while 303-570-xxxx will continue to mean Area Code 303, plus local exchange 570 *within the 303 area code*. With overlays and mandatory ten-digit local dialing, such things *are* possible, and actually make *more efficient use* of numbering/code resources than area code splits do. MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE: 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: 23 Dec 96 12:50:50 EST From: Cliff McGlamry <102073.1425@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Last Laugh! Not Exactly in the Holiday Spirit, But ... For decades, two heroic statues, one male and one female, faced each other in a city park, until one day an angel came down from heaven. "You've been such exemplary statues," he announced to them, "that I'm going to bring you both to life for thirty minutes, in which you can do anything you want." And with a clap of his hands, the angel brought the statues to life. The two approached each other a bit shyly, but soon dashed for the bushes, from which shortly emerged a good deal of giggling, laughter, and shaking of branches. Fifteen minutes later, the two statues emerged from the bushes, wide grins on their faces. "You still have fifteen more minutes," said the angel, winking at them. Grinning even more widely the female statue turned to the male statue and said, "Great! Only this time you hold the pigeon down and I'll crap on it's head." ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #676 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Dec 24 02:58:33 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id CAA18969; Tue, 24 Dec 1996 02:58:33 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 02:58:33 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612240758.CAA18969@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #677 TELECOM Digest Tue, 24 Dec 96 02:58:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 677 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: WebTV and CoyoteNet; a Minority Report (Brett Frankenberger) Re: WebTV and CoyoteNet; a Minority Report (Morgan Warstler) Re: Echelon: The Global Surveillance System (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management (H. Gorman) Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management (M. Deignan) Re: Kid-Safe ISPs (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Re: Kid-Safe ISPs (Andy McFadden) FCC Wants Lower International Settlement Fees (oldbear@arctos.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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: brettf@netcom.com (Brett Frankenberger) Subject: Re: WebTV and CoyoteNet; a Minority Report Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 04:05:32 GMT In article , wrote: > Allow me to be the curmudgeon for a moment ... Your factual observations are right on, IMO ... but I'm not sure the implications are as far reaching as you predict ... read on ... > My concerns have to do with quality and quantity, as well as "net > culture". WebTV seems to be taking the the same fine quality delta > that AOLine has been known for, and moving it several notches further. > No doubt we'll pick up a few eloquent voices, a few urban poets of > great vision, and a few unsong heros. But in all honestly, WebTV aims > to bring massive numbers of the couch potato "I pay you to keep me > amused" folks online. > The goal is to ultimately expand the user base > for the Internet by many fold, swamping the current users and any 'net > culture' they might still have; there will be little chance to > "enculturate" the newcomers with any of the values or (sub)culture of > the old internet -- their "culture" will be manufactured the big media > corporations. There never has been a "Net Culture". The net is just silicon and copper. What manifested itself as the Net Culture had less to do with the Net and more to do with the people on the Net. When the Net was less accessible, it took a certain type of person to get onto it (i.e. University Research Type or at least a Hacker-type with some friends who know how to get on). As the Net became more accessible, it expanded around these circles. For example, anyone at a University could get an account without having a specific research need ... and bulletin boards, etc, began to connect to the net so that any computer-geek, instead of just well-connected (no pun intended) computer-geeks, could get on. What we then wound up with was, not a culture of the Net, but rather, the culture of the people who made up the Net manifesting itself on the Net. The Net only facilitates letting these kinds of people get togethor. Rather than discussing on the telephone what I was interested in with people who shared that interest, I could discuss it over the Net. And reach many more people who shared my interests that way. This will not change. I am not the "couch potato - I pay you to keep me informed type" and I (hopefully) never will be. Nor will I ever use the Net in that fashion. Unfortunately, personality types such as those of the people who initially made up the Net are a minority in society. And, as a result, as the Net becomes more ubiquitous, such personality types will also become a minority on the Net. This is neither a good thing or a bad thing -- it is probably somewhat of a bad thing that the majority of the population wants to sit in front of X (whether X is WebTV or broadcast TV or whatever) and be entertained, but that was a bad thing before the web existed. But the increase in mindless content doesn't decrease the mindful content. Nor does it change the Web, except in the area of percentages. The amount of truely "useful" content on the Net is not decreasing. It is merely increasing less rapidly than the about of "crap" that is appearing on the Net. No, www.cbs.com is not a site where I will probably spend any signifigant amount of time. But the fact that is exists doesn't harm me, and the fact that lots of people stare at such sites doesn't harm me either. I can still discuss whatever meaningful topics that I wish over the Net. The difference is that the couch-potato next door (figuratively speaking -- no offense to my neighbors :) ) can post about his favorite Bay Watch episode, or whatever he wishes. The only disappointment I see is for those who had hoped that the Internet would revolutionize society. Turn all couch-potatos into actual, thinking citizens/netizens. Bring everyone into a wonderful world full of meaningful discussions and mindful content. I never expected that to happen, and don't currently expect that it will happen. The net is only a tool. It will help couch potatos be better couch potatos. It will help researchers be better researchers. And so on. And so on. But it won't turn couch potatos into something else. > My predictions: the differentiation into 'info providers' and 'informa- > tion consumers' will continue to accelerate, with collaboration, peer > networks, information sharing, volunteerism and mutuality becoming > ever less used concepts. I agree only on the percentage basis. The total amount of "peer-to-peer" content will not decrease. But it will increase at a rate slower than the "info provider" content. So you will end up with a large percentage of the content being info-provider content, but the actual amount of non-prodiver content won't be less than it would have been if not for the info-providers. That is, I don't see anyone deciding skip making a quality site, and instead make a lame personal site, just so he has more time to go visit www.nekkid-gurls.com. > Most newspapers are calculatedly written for a 4th grade reading level > today, a least common denominator and thus very large market. This is > well documented and verifiable, not just an opinion. Pages designed > for WebTV will aim lower if anything. More than a few sentences on a > page will be inconsistent with the viewership. This *IS* a change > from the old Internet, no matter that some apologists will try to make > it a shameful, elitist thing for us to notice such facts. But that's not the type of page I am interested in anyway. Are you suggesting that a large entertainment company, say, NBC, might actually make meaningful content if it weren't for WebTV? I don't think so. It's more likely that they wouldn't make *any* content if no means existed for the mindless masses to get on the Internet and see their page. This is not a zero sum game. All the content that you always liked will still be there. It's just that, additionally, we'll have content for the couch potoatos. And since couch potatos make up a large percentage of the population, there will be a lot of Web Sites directed to them. > Oh, another prediction: personal websites will become the message > doormats, bumperstickers, painted mailboxes, answering machine > messages, and "personalized greeting cards" (ref Target or Kmart) of > the future. Again, no change. Just additions. Your Web Site won't change. Most of my friends' Web Sites won't change. (I don't yet have a Web Site). But there will be a lot more personal Web Sites, and many of them will be the sort of tripe you describe above. > "Look it up on the Web" educational assistance will in many, perhaps > most, cases become another tool for kids to regurgitate rather than > learn. But the kids doing that are the same kids who are today plagerizing one encyclopadeia and then listing five others as references. The Net makes legitimate research easier, it also makes bad research easier. But it won't make good researchers become bad researchers, nor will it make poor researchers into good researchers. > Online discussion groups, whether Usenet or mailing lists, will be > deluged with folks who don't contribute much. They will either be > looking for free advice (the internet has been sold as this) This is one place where we will have to adapt. Without a doubt there is a change here -- newsgroups that used to be perfectly good places to have technical discussions and/or meaningful discussions about non-technical things are now little more than flame-fests and/or forums for the clueless to ask about thus and such. (This isn't an entirely web-based phenomenon, BTW. I've talked to college professors who routinely get (paper) letters from crackpots who claim to have found ways to trisect angles, build perpetual motion machines, whatever. The Net just makes it easier for those crackpots to find appropriate "experts.") This is the same as everywhere else -- the amount of useful content is still increasing -- but just not as fast as the amount of useless content. Unfortunately, while it's relatively easy to avoid the crap on the web, it's much harder in newsgroups. This will have to play itself out. Perhaps after enough flames, the word will spread wide enough. Or maybe we'll end up with a lot more moderated groups. The changing of Usenet is a very real phenomenon, and is already in progress. (September 1993 -- the September that Never Ended.) > So there will be much movement to implement cable modems and > xDSL (especially ADSL), to give every one of those consumers 1.5-8 > Mbps of download channel. Think what that means: ONE NEIGHBORHOOD > could saturate today's entire backbone, and one city could require the > backbone to expand 100 fold to keep up (not likely to be well funded > by $19.95/month). Increasing backbone capacity is easier than increasing subscriber capacity. So the backbone will almost certainly keep up. > The internet infrastructure of 2005 > will be optimized for "broadcast" information from "megasite" > producers to mass consumers who are mostly passive except for "channel > surfing", rather than for information collaboration among relative > peers. Organizationally it will resemble today's television industry > much more than 1990's internet. It may even merge into one industry > with television. > And it may "penalize" atypical interests. "Geraldo Online" is going > to be quick to download, because six other people on your block are > viewing it too, after that reference on TV this evening. But you may > have to wait for anything non-faddish and uncached to download. Yes, the mindless stuff will load faster than the mindful stuff, because of the caching. But we'll need bigger pipes to fill the caches, and the mindful stuff will benefit from those caches. The result is that mindful content will speed up because of bigger pipes. Mindless content will speed up even more because it will be more readily cached, but the mindful content will still benefit from the bigger backbone pipes that keep the caches full. > Some will say that WebTV "democratizes" the net, making it more > accessible and representative, empowering more people. To some degree > it might, for some people. But the overall thrust is NOT coming from > the grass roots. This is not a project wherein inner city > neighborhoods gets together than uses the network to organize > politically, to nourish and expand their non-mainstream culture, to > address their real life problems like gangs or jobs. It's a creation > of Phillips and Sony and RCA and Disney and Time and Reuters and > NBC/ABC/CBS/CNN and Paramount and all the same extremely wealthy and > powerful commercial portions of our society that have dominated and > controlled the mainstream media. They will tout isolated examples of > good deeds in things like inner cities, but those are PR; the core of > this change in direction is based on the exact same agendas and > worldviews that control TV or People magazine (or major sports teams). > Has the ubiquity of CocaCola ads or the popularity of Cheers > democratized the world? Here we agree completely. The Web will not democratize the world. It represents only an incremental change. It's a new media. Technically quite different than existing media, but fundamentally the same. > The best I can hope for now is to keep alive some "commercially > unviable" niches of intelligent and thoughtful discussion, peer > creativity, collaborative information exchange, and free and diverse > thought that will never show up significantly on CBS's broadcasts or > AT&T's web sites. My point exactly. But those niches will be bigger than the Net initally was. Instead of 90% of a relatively small Net, we'll have .1% of an outrageously huge net. We come out ahead, even if some other people come out more ahead. And we'll benfit from the infrastructure put in place to help "them". > Trying to write well, thinking before replying, critically > examining alternatives - there should remain a niche on the internet > where these continue to be more valued than buying a new car because > it's advertized as somehow making you more potent. This niche will remain, just as it continues to exist in the non-Internet world. This is my fundamental point. The Net as we know it will continue to exist ... just as a subset of a much larger net. My other point would be that no new media is likely going to completely change the nature of the average lazy person. Those who had hoped that the Net would radically democratize society -- give everyone a voice and make everyone a mindful productive netizen -- are going to be disappointed. Those who do not want to be "democraticized" are not going to be ... not via the Net ... not via anything else. Brett (brettf@netcom.com) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Do you *really* believe that 'the net as we know it will continue to exist ...' ? I am wondering how many families in the United States during Christmas, 1996 will open their gifts to one another and find a Web TV device? And how many will be thrilled with this wonderful new possession and hook it up immediatly to get on the web and the net for the first time? I'll bet their numbers will be legion. Years and years ago, in the CB Radio days, when CB was to a small elite group what Usenet was to many of us five or ten years ago, it was inevitable that the busiest days of the year for traffic on the radio were Christmas and the week or so following. We would joke and kid around about it the week before Christmas saying to one another, 'expect to hear a lot of new voices and strange people beginning in a few days ...' and indeed, we always would. Starting Christmas Day, they'd be out there in droves. Every one of them so proud of their new radio and new ability to communicate. You see, CB Radio was going to 'democraticize' the world. Everyone was now going to have a chance to participate in the lively conversations which took place night after night on the 11-meter airwaves across America. The veteran CB-ers were in two camps: there were a large number who would harass the new guys to the point they would give up and no longer participate. It was common to just 'throw carrier' at them, 'walk on them' and otherwise jam their signals making it impossible for them to participate. The other camp took the position that everyone was new at some point or another, and that it reflected well on all of us to be as charitable as possible to the new guys, even if the new guys acted ignorant and had no interest at all in the 'gentlemens agreements' which the rest of the CB community observed, i.e. teenagers would talk on one channel, the politicians and philosophers on another channel, the people who were interested in sports on another channel, and *never* any commercial advertising, etc. Then within a week or two after the holiday was over, as the new year go underway, a lot of very disillusioned people would unplug their radio and put it in a closet somewhere to gather dust. I suspect we will have a lot of new netters with us beginning later this week. Don't forget, people also buy computers for their kids at Christmas, and I would like to suggest we all take the high road and assume that everyone of them mean well until as *individuals* they prove themselves otherwise. To say that someone 'means well' is not to say they are not ignorant; it is not to say there won't be lots of chain letters and spams and other nuisances. But I dunno ... let's just wish one another a happy holiday and seek out the best of the net where we can find it. You can probably tell I am very ambivilent on this point; there are days I feel like unplugging my terminal and tossing it all in also; yet when you least expect it, you meet the *nicest* people. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Morgan Warstler Subject: Re: WebTV and CoyoteNet; a Minority Report Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 17:41:22 -0800 Organization: Earthlink Network, Inc. Reply-To: dmcopy@earthlink.net All I care about is the sound bite: > The internet is the latest orange grove to be turned into (almost) > indistinguishable suburbs modeled on those left by mass TV, radio, > magazines and newspapers. WebTV is the bulldozers and contract > assemblers putting up more ticky tacky boxes on the hillside. Rather > than the internet culture following the path of the Amazon tribe whose > land has been "developed", let's think more like the coyote, and > co-exist in the "unprofitable" margins. I only care about the sound bite because that's all I need. You see, it's not that I didn't have time to read your thoughts, it's that I refuse to believe you needed all that space to say what you said. I won't demean you by allowing you to ramble on. I expect you to evolve and express concisely. This is why the sound bite culture is SUPERIOR to your mythical elite village. I don't do computers, I do communication. As a theory, I posit: it is more effective to trade 500 sound bites back and forth, then to have each side (assuming bipolar theory) develop a single persuasive case for it's view. What's more, 1000 rapid stream images blown over a two minute period can convey all the thought and depth of the entire Lincoln-Douglas debates. Finally, the best part about the unwashed masses is that they don't give a damn about your feelings of web ownership. It's that very attitude of theirs which makes them INHERENTLY GOOD. So, I put it to you: Can you defend your feelings of ownership? If not, what right do you have to care if it is destroyed? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Your point is good in the sense that there are so many 'old timers' on the net -- myself included -- who talk about 'their net' as though they did have some ownership rights. I'll admit it, I am guilty of it also. The fact is, very few of us own anything except our own computers (and maybe our employer owns that also ... ) and we participate here purely through the good will of the companies/institutions which do pay the bills. So readers, how *do* you defend your feelings of ownership if you do, and what right *do* you have to say the direction things should be going? Did I open up a hornet's nest here? .... PAT] ------------------------------ From: rishab@nntp.best.com (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Subject: Re: Echelon: The Global Surveillance System Date: 23 Dec 1996 21:56:16 GMT Organization: Best Internet Communications It's only to be expected that the NSA and friends try to monitor e-mail and other data traffic. Now I'm probably _really_ stupid, but if the NSA had the technology to do good, high-volume (HIGH!) "keyword" recognition on intercepted voice traffic - or even fax traffic - it would sell it and make pots of money to buy the new toys that tight-fisted Congress denies it. I don't believe they have the technology to do much of what Nicky Hager's article describes - i.e. sure all those spooks may intercept traffic, but they couldn't make much sense of it. I _do_ believe that the NSA could make a lot of sense of huge volumes of data traffic, which is why good people must include lots of spookbait in their mail (terrorist bomb Hamas Iran Clinton CIA nuclear sarin) to keep them usefully occupied. Why do I believe this? Because the NSA has been flogging this tech to the private sector. See for example, _Science_ 10 Feb 1995 (vol. 267 p. 843) "Guaging similarity with n-grams: language- independent categorisation of text" by Marc Damashek of a familiar Fort Meade, DoD address. The same technology is referred to in the old post by Bruce Schneier attached below. When the NSA starts selling voice-recognition technology ("language- independent"!) _then_ it's time to worry. Right now, just use PGP. -Rishab Newsgroups: sci.crypt,alt.security,alt.privacy From: schneier@chinet.chinet.com (Bruce Schneier) Subject: "Interesting Stuff" Checkers at the NSA Message-ID: Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX Date: Thu, 19 May 1994 17:40:15 GMT This is from a flyer that NSA people have been distributing: NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY -- TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER Information Sorting and Retrieval by Language or Topic Description: This technique is an extremely simple, fast, completely general mathod of sorting and retrieving machine- readable text according to language and/or topic. The method is totally independent of the particular languages or topics of interest, and relies for guidance solely upon exemplars (e.g., existing documents, fragments, etc.) provided by the user. It employs no dictionaries keywords, stoplists, stemmings, syntax, semantics, or grammar; nevertheless, it is capable of distinguishing among closely related toopics (previously considered inseparable) in any language, and it can do so even in text containing a great many errors (typically 10 - 15% of all characters). The technique can be quickly implemented in software on any computer system, from microprocessor to supercomputer, and can easily be implemented in inexpensive hardware as well. It is directly scalable to very large data sets (millions of documents). Commercial Application: Language and topic-independent sorting and retieval of documents satisfying dynamic criteria defined only by existing documents. Clustering of topically related documents, with no prior knowledge of the languages or topics that may be present. It desired, this activity can automatically generate document selectors. Specializing sorting tasks, such as identification of duuplicate or near-duplicate documents in a large set. National Security Agency Research and Technology Group - R Office of Research and Technology Applications (ORTA) 9800 Savage Road Fort George G. Meade, MD 20755-6000 (301) 688-0606 If this is the stuff they're giving out to the public, I can only imagine what they're keeping for themselves. Bruce ************************************* Bruce Schneier Counterpane Systems For a good prime, call 391581 * 2^216193 - 1 schneier@chinet.com ------------------------------ From: hillary@hillary.net (Hillary Gorman) Subject: Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management Date: 23 Dec 1996 20:51:42 GMT Organization: Packet Shredders Anonymous In , Monty Solomon wrote: > Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 17:07:04 -0500 > From: "Jonathan I. Kamens" > Subject: The InterNIC: a case study in bad database management > Foo, Inc. would rather not let records remain in the InterNIC > database claiming that Joe works for them when in fact he does not. > Therefore, they want to contact the InterNIC and tell them, "Look, the > information in Joe Admin's contact record which says that he for us is > incorrect. You can confirm this by attempting to send E-mail to the > address in the record, or by calling the phone number in the record > and asking to speak to him. The person who answers will confirm that > he no longer works there. Please either delete the contact record > completely or remove the information in it which associates Joe Admin > with Foo, Inc." Sending a fax on Foo, Inc letterhead, or a certified letter on same, is what I have been advised to do, what NIC reps on the ISP mailing list have suggested, and it works for me and many others ... ------------------------------ From: kd1hz@anomaly.ideamation.com (Michael P. Deignan) Subject: Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management Date: 23 Dec 1996 16:23:42 -0500 Organization: The Ace Tomato Company > From: "Jonathan I. Kamens" > Subject: The InterNIC: a case study in bad database management [64-million-dollar mismanagement story deleted] You think that trying to change existing Internic records are bad, just try getting a new block of IP address assignments from them! I manage a large munipical wide-area-network. I filed paperwork with the Internic on several occasions asking for a block of Class-C IP address assignments to use on my network. The response, each time, was that I should contact my ISP and obtain IP address allocations from them. So, I wrote back explaining that I was a large municipal wide-area network, and like many municipalities, the ISP was not 'set-in-stone' as it was a service that goes out to competitive bid every year or so. I explained that I was in no position to manually re-assign the IP address on the hundreds of machines under my control on a yearly basis should the ISP winning the contract change. Their response? "Please contact your ISP for an IP address allocation". I went through this four times over the past year. I still don't have a block of IP addresses. I gave up six months ago and just selected a block at random to use. If and when we ever do connect to the Internet (not a high priority right now anyway) I'll worry about it then (and probably use another tool like a proxy server to "fix" it.) Of course, what type of behavior do you really expect from a monopoly? Anyone want to start a competing Internic? At $64 million dollars in revenue for one year alone I'm sure we can get the venture capital needed to properly fund the expedition. MD ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Kid-Safe ISPs Date: Wed, 24 Dec 1996 03:50:55 GMT From: rishab@dxm.org (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Reply-To: rishab@dxm.org deh@atype.com wrote: >> Obscenity has always been illegal on the Net under US >> law. Indeed it is under existing obscenity statutes that BBS sysops >> (AABBS) were prosecuted. > Wasn't the Adult Action case based on a local statue, not US federal law? Under federal law, obscenity is a crime, although the precise definition of what is and is not obscene is left to "local standards". That's how AABBS was violating _federal_ law although its content was obscene only by local standards, albeit local to another state. That's why I suggested updation of the obscenity "local standards" definition to deal with the Net. Rishab ------------------------------ From: fadden@netcom.com (Andy McFadden) Subject: Re: Kid-Safe ISPs Organization: Lipless Rattling Crankbait Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1996 21:03:48 GMT In article , Rishab Aiyer Ghosh wrote: > To Hillary and the other ISP owners out there - you can do this by > setting up a proxy server with one of those nanny programs, as well as > killing many of the nastier newsgroups. You're providing an extra > service, so you can charge for it. I don't agree with Pat that it's > every ISPs duty to make their systems kid-safe. Some will want to > address that market, others need not. It's probably better that way, > because those who want unrestricted access will know where to go - > maybe eventually adult ISPs will be the more expensive - and not > clutter previously kid-safe newsgroups. WebTV offers kid-safe surfing at no extra charge. It comes in two forms, "black list" (which bans certain sites) and "white list" (which only allows you to go to approved sites). You can choose to allow e-mail or not. If WebTV does become a major consumer force, it might show the pro-CDA people that it really is possible to let your kids loose on the Internet without putting severe restrictions on content. fadden@netcom.com (Andy McFadden) Friends don't let friends patent software -- http://www.lpf.org/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Dec 1996 10:17:28 -0500 From: The Old Bear Subject: FCC Wants Lower International Settlement Fees FCC HAS PLANS FOR SLASHING OVERSEAS PHONE RATES The Federal Communications Commission has developed a new set of substantially lower benchmark "settlement fees," which are the payments that phone companies make to each other for completing each their calls. Because U.S. carriers send more calls overseas than they receive, the system results in a net outflow of $5 billion from the U.S. to foreign phone service providers, who in many cases have used the funds to build their own networks. Some analysts say that the FCC plan could harm developing countries, which have the least competitive phone markets. source: New York Times December 19, 1996 page C4 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #677 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Dec 25 22:38:40 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id WAA21468; Wed, 25 Dec 1996 22:38:40 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 22:38:40 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612260338.WAA21468@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #678 TELECOM Digest Wed, 25 Dec 96 22:38:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 678 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson No Progress on Indian Regulators for Telecom, Broadcasting (R Ghosh) Book Review: "VRML: Exploring Virtual Worlds on the Internet" (R. Slade) Bell Issuing Year-Long *Temporary* Numbers (Andrew B. Hawthorn) California Area Codes, the Real Story (Linc Madison) Web Page on Federal Telecom Act (Danny Burstein) AT&T 3.5 Cents per Minute Illinois (Monty Solomon) Re: Replacing A Cell Phone (Ed Ellers) A Christmas Present From the FCC (Jeremy Parsons) Christmas Cheer (Julie Lumine) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: No Progress on Indian Regulators For Telecom, Broadcasting Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 13:56:46 PST From: rishab@dxm.org (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Reply-To: rishab@dxm.org The Indian Techonomist: bulletin, December 21, 1996 Copyright (C) 1996 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh. All rights reserved No progress on Indian telecom, broadcasting regulators - Direct-to-Home TV stalled, wireline telecom licences crawl December 21: With the close of the winter session of Parliament this week, there has been little progress in the process of creating independent regulatory authorities for telecom and broadcasting. Legislation for the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the lack of which has stalled the telecom privatisation programme, is now likely to wait three months for the next session of Parliament. For broadcasting, the government passed an order yesterday requiring licences for the use of dish antennas for reception of signals at 4800Mhz - this is meant to stall Ku-band broadcasts for Direct-To-Home (DTH) television until the government and parliament agree on comprehensive legislation ending the government monopoly on broadcasting. The bill on broadcasting, calling for an independent regulatory authority, was not even presented in this session of parliament. In the second week of this month, Indian Communications Minister Beni Prasad Verma had conditionally cleared a bill - previously a Presidential Ordinance - that was to set up the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) if passed in the current session of Parliament. Mr Verma reportedly accepted many suggestions of the parliamentary committee on telecom, including those to do with the composition of the authority, but drew a line at the crucial one: an excision of section 35 of the TRAI Bill, which states that the regulator may create rules "with the previous approval of the Central Government" seriously limiting its credibility as an institution independent of the government. The Minister reportedly accepted the committee's suggestion to strengthen the wording of the TRAI bill clarifying that its jurisdiction would extend to the network operations of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), which while losing its monopoly will remain the main wireline operator and only provider of nationwide and international long- distance services. However, the intent to retain section 35 makes the boundaries between various roles of the DoT - representative of state, policy-maker, licenser, regulator, operator - rather porous. The telecoms regulator, as planned, is neither like the American FCC nor the British Oftel; it does not - and the government has made it clear that it will not - have the power to grant licences of any sort. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India will act as a sort of special court. According to the TRAI bill, the main role of the authority is to ensure that the agreements between operators are followed, to act on complaints from telecom service consumers, and to resolve conflicts between the DoT and its private competitors. With the DoT operations likely to remain part of the government for some time, the independence of the TRAI is thought crucial by industry. The TRAI will be headed by a High Court judge - or a retired Supreme Court judge. This is traditional in autonomous institutions set up by the Indian government that operate. Its members, according to the original bill, were to be drawn from diverse government departments; following the Parliament's objections, this may be extended to "respected" members of the public and business. The TRAI bill has been trying to get past Parliament since fall 1995. It was then held up for two sessions of Parliament, and was issued as an Presidential ordinance (executive order). This was not ratified by Parliament, and lapsed. The Bill returned to Parliament last month, and was criticised. The changes approved by the cabinet yesterday have not be enough for the bill to pass this year - the bill was not even presented in Parliament. This leaves the primary concern of the private operators - and most of the telecom privatisation process - dangling. Wireline licences crawl on Though cellular networks are now spreading across the country, as licensees nationwide begin to start operations, the licensing of basic services - wireline and fixed wireless telephony - has come to a standstill after a short-lived break-through in October. Then, five of six holders of Letters of Intent (LoIs) from the DoT accepted the government's offer. The private consortia - Reliance-Nynex, Ispat-Hughes, Tata-Bell Canada, Essar-Bell Atlantic, Usha Techno Teleservices and RPG-NTT - were worried about government policies on licence transferability and interconnect rates with the DoT's competing network. The Communications Minister - Beni Prasad Verma - offered to meet the private operators half-way - verbally, but not in writing. So while five signed the LoI, RPG-NTT - which put in a high bid for the Tamil Nadu circle - did not, and sued the DoT when it tried to encash the bidder's earnest money. This puts five bids in court: the highest first- round bidder, HFCL, sued the DoT in June, and a verdict was postponed this month by the Delhi High Court, to the middle of next month. Early this month, four of the five bidders sent a letter to the DoT reiterating their complaints (Reliance chose to keep quiet), and asked for the Minister's promises to be reflected in the licence agreement. They are also upset by the delays in the creation of the TRAI, without which they feel reluctant to sign the agreement, leave alone pay the first installment of their hefty licence fees. The DoT has also not gone ahead with issuing LoIs for three other circles, where the bidders are keen to sign up. One of them - Bharti-Stet for the Madhya Pradesh circle - is a simple case, while the other two face legal complications. Ispat-Hughes' bid for Karnataka was cleared by the courts this month; the method of evaluating the weighted criteria of the bid - which included points for rural coverage and the use of locally-manufactured equipment - had been contested by Tata-Bell Canada. Shyam-Harris' bid for Rajasthan, where the initial pay-out plan over the 15-year licence period differed from other bidders' resulting in the discounted present value dropping below the reserve price, was cleared under law with a new pay-out schedule. But the DoT has acted on none of these three, using as its perennial excuse possibly non-existent delays at the Law Ministry, the government's internal solicitors. It is difficult to fathom why the government is delaying the legislative and executive actions needed for a completion of these reforms. Every delay opens possibilities of further setbacks. The reluctance of the government to accept changes to the TRAI bill suggested by the parliamentary committee on telecom has been followed by a committee report criticising the entire telecom privatisation process. The committee - chaired by a member of India's main Communist party - has complained about the notional loss of some $15 billion thanks to the caps on licences per bidder giving HFCL-Bezeq-Shinawatra an exit from five of its nine high bids; this issue stalled activity in the entire parliamentary session a year ago, after the August 1995 tenders. The committee has also questioned the planned roles of the DoT and private operators, as well as plans to corporatise the network operations of the DoT. The only explanation at hand for government indecision seems to be the Minister's preoccupation with events in his home state of Uttar Pradesh, where inconclusive recent elections led to a hung assembly, its suspension and the imposition of President's rule. After a short spell of much publicised activity in telecom affairs immediately after the arrest of his predecessor in the $4 million telecom scandal this August, the Communications Minister has not pushed things forward. At this rate, the Techonomist's prediction the day the tenders were opened - that there would be "considerable delays" in basic service licences - seems far from pessimistic. Indeed, October's forecast of a TRAI sometime after April 1997, with significant operational wireline networks not before the third quarter of next year, now seems almost certain. For more information, including details of cellular/wireline licensees, bids and the text of the TRAI Ordinance, see the hypertext version of this document at http://dxm.org/techonomist/news/21dec96.html The Indian Techonomist: 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: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 13:42:17 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "VRML: Exploring Virtual Worlds on the Internet" BKVRMLEV.RVW 960924 "VRML: Exploring Virtual Worlds on the Internet", Walter Goralski/Matthew Poli/Peter Vogel, 1997, 0-13-486960-5, U$39.95/CC$55.95 %A Walter Goralski %A Matthew Poli %A Peter Vogel %C One Lake St., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 %D 1997 %G 0-13-486960-5 %I Prentice Hall %O U$39.95/CC$55.95 +1-201-236-7139 fax: 201-236-7131 beth_hespe@prenhall.com %P 481 %T "VRML: Exploring Virtual Worlds on the Internet" So, having an Internet account no longer sets you apart? Most of your friends are "surfing the Web" now, too? Some of them even have followed your lead in setting up a Web home page? Need to maintain your technological superiority? Go VRML, young man, go VRML. The Virtual Reality Modeling Language is a description language for three dimensional (virtual reality) graphical spaces. It also has the hypermedia linking capability that HTML (HyperText Markup Language) gives to the World Wide Web. Thus VRML proposes the possibility of "browsing" through virtual malls and museums, rather than the simple page oriented information links currently provided by the Web. At the moment, that promise is more proposed than actual. Virtual worlds do exist in cyberspace (if you have the right browser), but tend to be explorations of the ideas rather than useful presentations. Still, they do exist, and this book indicates that VRML is growing: this is a basic, user level introduction to the field. While other VRML books are more technical, and concentrate on the building of 3-spaces, almost half of the text here deals with the concepts (coming close to being tedious on the subject) and the installation and use of one of the included browsers. This is, then, a book for the novice user who wants a bit of hand-holding while getting started on VRML explorations. The VRML side of the text does give some instruction on simple shape creation, but those who do want to build virtual worlds will have to look elsewhere. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKVRMLEV.RVW 960924. Distribution permitted in TELECO Digest and associated publications. Vancouver roberts@decus.ca | You realize, of Institute for rslade@vanisl.decus.ca | course, that these Research into Rob.Slade@f733.n153.z1/ | new facts do not User .fidonet.org | coincide with my Security Canada V7K 2G6 | preconceived ideas ------------------------------ Subject: Bell Issuing Year-Long *Temporary* Numbers Date: Tue, 24 Dec 96 10:27:20 -0600 From: Andrew B. Hawthorn I recently moved from Atlanta to Houston and became a Southwestern Bell customer. When I contacted Southwestern Bell to set up my residential service, they assigned me two phone numbers that were in NPA 281 (which recently split from 713), despite being well inside Beltway 8, the approximate boundary for the geographic split. The SWBT representative told me that all of the 713 numbers in my area had been taken and that I would have to be assigned a 281 area code number. It's not so much the annoyance of 10-digit dialing to old neighbors and 7-digit dialing to new neighbors that gets me; rather, it's the absurd fact that SWBT is changing my NPA *and* prefix within a year. On Saturday, I received a letter in the mail from Southwestern Bell explaining the terms of the 281 area code number assignment: (From the SWBT Letter) Dear Mr. Hawthorn: We want to provide you with additional information concerning your recently assigned telephone number. The 281 number you received is temporary and will change to 713 by the end of 1997. This temporary arrangement is necessary because we have run out of 713 numbers and must fill new requests with 281 numbers resulting from the new area code being added to Houston. The new 281 area code is being implemented by means of a geographical split as directed by the Public Utility Commission of Texas. Under this plan, central Houston and the surrounding area will keep 713. Customers outside a boundary that roughly follows Beltway 8 will change to 281 but keep the remaining seven digits of their telephone numbers. Since these 281 customers will move out of the 713 area code, additional numbers will be available to be assigned within the new 713 geographic boundary by the end of 1997. Until then, it will be necessary to fill new requests for telephone service with 281 numbers, even within the new 713 boundary, where you reside. That's why you received 281-290-XXXX as your temporary number. By the end of 1997, both your area code and your prefix (the first three digits of your phone number - 290) will change. Your area code will become 713 and we will notify you of your new prefix. We wanted to let you know about this upcoming change to enable you to plan appropriately for such items as personal stationary and business cards. As always, we're available to visit with you concerning this change. If you have any questions, please call our Area Code Hotline on 1 800 869-5868. Our goal is to keep you informed as a valued customer of Southwestern Bell. We appreciate your business. ------------- I can't find any records that indicate that there is a 713-290-XXXX exchange. Why couldn't they create one so that new customers could have a 713 number and wouldn't have to change their area code or prefix? I find it terribly inconceivable that they are totally out of 713 numbers in my area. Are they conserving these numbers? I suppose I should include an asterisk after my phone numbers on my stationary with a disclaimer reading "subject to change without notice." Andrew B. Hawthorn ahawthorn@earthlink.net ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: California Area Codes; The Real Story Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 15:28:51 -0800 Here is my cut at what the Associated Press report SHOULD have said: Millions of California phone customers are likely to see their area codes change by the year 2001 under a policy adopted by the state Public Utilities Commission. In a 3 to 2 vote Friday, the commission decided that in order to accommodate millions of new phone lines, area codes running out of capacity must be split geographically. The decision will force an estimated 12 million to 15 million California residents and businesses to change area codes in the next few years, Pacific Bell projects. The commission rejected so-called "overlay" plans in which new area codes are introduced within the same geographic boundaries as existing codes, adding capacity without forcing customers to change. [SO FAR, SO GOOD] Of the 13 new area codes that Pacific Bell projects will be needed, four have already received final approval. Area codes 619 and 310 in southern California, and area codes 415 and 916 in northern California, will all split in 1997. In addition, plans for splits of area code 510 in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area and area code 818 in Los Angeles County, are nearly completed. Plans for splits of the 408 and 714 area codes are in preliminary stages, and area codes 213, 209, and 805 will also require splits. The possibility exists that both area codes 310 and 415 will require a second split around the year 2000. [NEW TEXT, WITH ACTUAL FACTS] The ruling was a setback for Pacific Bell, which had fought for the overlay option. The company argued that the plan would allow existing customers to avoid printing new stationery and business cards and notifying associates of number changes. "The transition cost to customers (of area code splits) will be in the tens of millions of dollars," said Pacific Bell spokesman Dave Miller. [MINOR CORRECTIONS] Explaining the ruling, the commission cited surveys showing that most consumers prefer area code splits to overlays. In a written statement, the commission said that "the greatest concerns about an overlay are having a mix of codes within the same household or business." Further, overlays require customers to dial 11 digits even on calls in their area code. Most of Pacific Bell's competitors, including major long distance companies that are entering the local market, favor geographic splits. If customers of the new companies all get new area codes, many people might be reluctant to switch providers, they fear. [MINOR CORRECTIONS] However, in some areas of California, particularly area code 213 in central Los Angeles County, 11-digit dialing is already a fact of life in an area code that covers only 9 square miles, but which will soon border on four other area codes. Also, telecommunications experts point out that having to change area codes is a secondary consideration in switching local providers -- more important is the issue of changing the 7-digit local number. In addition, an overlay plan can be structured to give residential and small business customers requesting additional lines priority in receiving spare numbers in the old area code, to avoid having two different area codes in the same household or small business. Besides that, the area code will soon be thought of in the same terms as the prefix -- the first three digits of a 7-digit local number -- and no one seems confused by having different prefixes in the same household or business. [NEW TEXT] Having different area codes within the same neighborhood is already a reality in Los Angeles County, and will be moreso in the future, whether the PUC continues with geographic splits or moves forward into overlays. [NEW TEXT] Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Excpet it is quite unlikely that anyone will have two different area codes in the same private residence or in an office, regardless of how much new service they install. Even with an overlay plan, there always remains a small residual of numbers from the old area code to be used to fill in where appropriate in existing service situations, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 07:56:34 EST From: danny burstein Subject: Web Page on Federal Telecom Act ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 06:24:43 EST From: Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> Subject: Fwd: Web page on fed. Telecom. Act ========== Forwarded Message ======== Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 12:14:08 -0600 From: Gleason Sackman Subject: RESOUR> Web page on fed. Telecom. Act Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 16:55:59 -0600 (CST) From: Bob Bocher Subject: Web page on fed. Telecom. Act To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L ------------------------Original message----------------------- Hi: The federal Telecommunications Act (104-104), which passed in Feb. of this year, holds both promise (universal service section) and problems (CDA) for the library community. If you have an interest in this area I have had a Web page on the act available since about March. It is at: http://www.state.wi.us/agencies/dpi/www/telecom_act.html This page has about 50 links divided into the following three sections. 1) General Information On The Act. Includes actual full text of the act, reviews, interpretations and critiques. 2) Information On Universal Service (US). Includes the section of the Act related to US including statements by ALA and FCC actions in this area. 3) Information On The Communications Decency Act (CDA). This section includes sites tracking CDA activities and court actions on this issue. I hope you find this site useful. Bob Bocher, Library Technology Consultant WI Dept. of Public Instruction, State Division for Libraries... Box 7841 Madison, WI 53707 608-266-2127 fax: 608-267-1052 bocherf@mail.state.wi.us 2nd email: rbocher@mail.badgerdial.net http://www.state.wi.us/agencies/dpi/www/lib_nii.htm Forwarded by List Owner -------------------------------------------- Elliott Parker BITNET: 3ZLUFUR@CMUVM Journalism Dept. Internet: elliott.parker@cmich.edu Central Michigan University The WELL: eparker@well.com Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859 USA URL:mailto:3zlufur@cmich.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 23:12:26 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: AT&T 3.5 Cents per Minute Illinois Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Excerpt from Full Closing Bell for Monday, Dec 23, 1996 * AT&T CORP set a basic flat rate of 3.5 cents per minute for all in-state local toll calls in Illinois. The long-distance telephone service provider said the plan will affect calls more than 15 miles away from the caller's home but still within the customer's local calling area. The new price is more than 10 % below rates charged by AMERITECH CORP for local toll calls, AT&T said. AT&T said the rate change is a shift away from a multi-level pricing schedule. (Reuters 11:37 AM ET 12/23/96) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 16:58:32 -0500 From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Replacing A Cell Phone > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Most carriers will allow you to extend > your contract another period of time to commence when the current > contract expires. For example, you have six months to go on your two > year contract with the cellular carrier. You need to get a new phone. > Ask the carrier to allow you to commit to another two year contract in > addition to the six months remaining on the present one. The carrier > will refer you to a dealer who will match the ESN in your new phone with > your existing number and deactivate the ESN in the old phone. It won't > take but a few minutes most of the time.] BellSouth Mobility did that for my boss a few years ago when he traded in his car (which had a phone in place) and got a "free" phone with the purchase of the new car. (Since this fellow has had cellular phones for twelve years -- always with BSM, and the first installed *a month before* the system was turned on in Louisville -- IMHO they'd better treat him right. :-) ------------------------------ Reply-To: From: Jeremy Parsons Subject: A Christmas Present From the FCC Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 11:42:47 -0500 What with the FCC's musings on international settlements, I think it would be fitting and seasonal for them to extend the principle to exported computer software. We could skip the study of long run incremental cost for, for instance, the Microsoft systems and applications because I'm sure the rest of the world would happily accept a high figure (let's say $10 per megabyte per country). What a nice Christmas present that would be to the developing world! Jeremy Parsons ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 09:47:58 -0800 From: Julie Lumine Reply-To: juliel@mtcworld.com Organization: MTC Subject: Christmas Cheer May an IlLUMINE-ating season bring you new hope for the new year! ...julie Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 18:07:18 -0800 From: Debra Nathan Subject: christmas cheer TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE IMPLEMENTATION 'Twas the night before implementation, And all through the house, Not a program was working, Not even a browse. The programmers hung by their tubes in despair, With hopes that a miracle soon would be there. The users were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of inquiries danced in their heads. When out of the CASIM there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my desk to see what was the matter. And what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a super C++ programmer (with a six pack of beer). His resume glowed with experience so rare, He turned out great code with a bit-pusher's flair. More rapid than HPS, his programs they came, And he whistled and shouted and called them by name: On Update! On Add! On Inquiry! On Delete! On Batch Jobs! On Closing! On Functions Complete! His eyes were glazed over, fingers nimble and lean, From weekends and nights in front of a screen. A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head, Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, Turning specs in to code; then he turned with a jerk; And laying his finger upon the Enter key, The system came up and worked perfectly. The updates updated, the deletes, they deleted; The inquiries inquired, and closing completed. He tested each whistle, and he tested each bell, With nary an ABEND, and all had gone well. The system was finished, the tests were concluded. The clients' last changes were even included. And the client exclaimed with a snarl and a taunt, "IT'S JUST WHAT I ASKED FOR, BUT NOT WHAT I WANT!" ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #678 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Dec 26 00:48:06 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id AAA28842; Thu, 26 Dec 1996 00:48:06 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 00:48:06 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612260548.AAA28842@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #679 TELECOM Digest Thu, 26 Dec 96 00:48:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 679 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AT&T Merlin Used Equipment Needed (Steve Bagdon) Re: BellSouth Blows It (Nils Andersson) Re: 510/925 Split: My Reaction (Nils Andersson) Re: 510 Splits to 925 (Dave Close) Re: More on California Geographic Split Decision (Linc Madison) Re: Fourth Area Code for Colorado (John Cropper) Re: "Hidden Agendas" in Web Blocking Software (Glen L. Roberts) Re: Unheralded Deaths of 1996 - George Oslin (Lisa Hancock) Re: Calling US 800 From UK: Answer Supervision on Recorded Msg? (G. Hills) The Hornet's Nest (was WebTV and CoyoteNet; Minority Report) (D. Clayton) Complaining About InterNIC to the NSF (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management (Louis Raphael) Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management (Jonathan Kamens) GTE's CyberPOP (J. Keith Pillow) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bagdon@rust.net (Steve Bagdon) Subject: AT&T Merlin Used Equipment Needed Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 17:21:44 -0400 Organization: Rust Net - High Speed Internet in Detroit 810-642-2276 My wife and I believe we have *finally* found our first house, so that means I can finally wire up a property the way I've always wanted to. We've rented up to now, so wiring a house for networking, phone systems, television, etc, has never gotten past the planning stages - no reason to put a lot of work into a house that we don't own! After viewing the house, I believe I will need 6 extensions upstairs (4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms), 6 extensions downstairs (2 in living room, 1 in kitchen, 1 in den, 1 in bathroom, 1 in garage), 4 extensions in the basement (1 by the laundry, 1 by the work-area, 2 in the common area), and 2 extensions outside (1 by the pool, and 1 in the storage shed, both in a sealed box). I'd like 1 extension upstairs (master bedroom), 1 extension downstairs (kitchen), and 1 extension in the basement (by the work area, which would be where the cpu/controller would go) to have a sufficient quantity of buttons to (a) control the entire system and (b) be able to page every other extension in the house. Figure that means I'll be able to limit myself to 20 extensions total, with 3 or 4 extensions with 20-button bases. Basically, I'm looking for an AT&T Merlin system that can handle this setup. I don't know where the 'systems' fit into a particular scheme, ie: max extensions, max incoming lines, etc. I'm sure I'll go against all rules of the extension/lines ratio (I want a lot more extensions then lines), so I figure I'll have to overbuy to get the number of extensions that I want. So, is there a central clearing house for used Merlin equipment (cpus, extensions, etc) that an individual can buy from? Thanks in advance to anyone who can recommend a particular system, and where to get it at a reasonable price! Steve B. bagdon@rust.net (h) USFMDDKT@ibmmail.com (w) http://www.rust.net/~bagdon ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: BellSouth Blows It Date: 25 Dec 1996 19:40:38 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , Ed Ellers writes: > I used to think that BellSouth was a better-than-average LEC, but at > this point when true facilities-based competition does arrive it > won't be a moment too soon for me. The telcos have a corporate policy (unpublished) to the effect that all subscribers are blithering idiots. If you tell them the problem is at the CO, that is itself a good reason to assume that the problem is in the outside wiring. Out of many incidents, I remember once back in England, the phone line suddenly would not accept incoming calls (outgoing worked normally). The phone would ring, but nothing I did would connect the call. I tried various phones, even shorting the incoming line briefly. Nothing helped. I called the GPO (General Post Office) as they were called then, and explained the problem, including the fact that NO THEY COULD NOT CALL ME BACK AND MAKE AN APPOINTMENT, I only had one phone line. Nor should they need one, as the problem was obviously at the CO. Sure enough, a day later the GPO guy appeared. As I was sharing accommodations, somebody let them in. Not so good, as I had an (illegal at the time) extension wired up, making me people's enemy number 1. They did fix the problem, however, I did have to spend another evening rewiring the extension. Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: 510/925 Split: My Reaction Date: 25 Dec 1996 19:40:42 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , Telecom@Eureka.vip. best.com (Linc Madison) writes: > As for the prefix imbalance, which results in estimates of 2004 for > 510 to exhaust again and 2012 or so for 925 to exhaust, by the time > either of those dates rolls around, we'll just add overlay area codes. > The existing geographic boundary lines will make that pretty sensible. Overlays make more sense than anything else. The PUC objection that this forces newcomers to have "uncool" newbie area codes is a very minor objection, compared to having to redo stationary, phone lists and whatever. The time for uniquely geographical area codes is over, folks, lets face it. While we are at it, I am waiting for the day the feds relent on the stupid view that you cannot assign "classes of service" by area code. A cellphone is not "located" anywhere in particular - except maybe in the _whole_ metro area, as far as the subscriber and the caller are concerned, why should it not have a special area code, 917-style? (Yes, I realize that the phone is serviced by a switch that takes the incoming calls and indeed has a geographical location, but this is pretty transparent to everybody but the cellphone provider, why bother anybody else with a technical detail?) Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: dave@compata.compata.com (Dave Close) Subject: Re: 510 Splits to 925 Date: 25 Dec 1996 00:24:04 -0800 Organization: Compata, Costa Mesa, California tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) writes, quoting Business Wire and a Pacific Telesis press release: > That consumption is being spurred > by the high-technology explosion of fax machines, pagers, cellular > phones and modems for Internet access along with the onset of local > competition in California's telephone market. Why do they keep perpetuating this myth? The growth in usage does not account for the number problem. 95% of the problem is competition. When this article hits the newspapers, like Sunday's LA Times, only the "fax machines..." part is mentioned. The papers don't even hear the competition phrase. It's time for PacTel and the CPUC to make the real problem more prominent in their releases. Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA "Politics is the business of getting dave@compata.com, +1 714 434 7359 power and privilege without dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu possessing merit." - P. J. O'Rourke ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: More on California Geographic Split Decision Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 15:31:53 -0800 In article , tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) wrote (quoting an Associated Press report): > Of the 12 new area codes that Pacific Bell projects will be needed, > new ones have already been ordered for the southern part of the 415 > region and the 916 region outside of Sacramento County. Last week, the > telephone industry petitioned the PUC to split parts of Contra Costa > County from the 510 area code. > Seven other area codes will likely split within the next few years -- > including 408, 310, 619, 818, 714, 213, 209 and 805 -- and will have > to be approved by the commission as needed. > The 12th new area code will be a second split for 415 by the year > 2000, according to Pacific Bell. This is very confusing wording. Area codes 310 and 619 are splitting within the next three months (310/562 on 1-25-97 and 619/760 on 3-22-97). Is this report projecting that 310 and 619 will split *again* by the year 2001? The plans for area code 818/626 are nearly finalized, too. Of course, the other problem is that 408, 310, 619, 818, 714, 213, 209 and 805 makes EIGHT area codes, not seven, and neither 7+2 nor 8+2 makes twelve, and the existing 13 plus 12 new ones don't make the 26 that we are projected to have by 2001. Your average eight-year-old can count better than that! Yet more sloppy reportage, surprise, surprise. (Please note that Tad was only quoting a press report -- the sloppiness is on AP's part, not Tad's.) As for doing a second geographic split of 415, there is only one acceptable line for a standard two-way split, and that is the Golden Gate. However, Marin County accounts for only about 1/5 or so of the exchanges in the newly-reduced 415, and I believe it is growing less rapidly than San Francisco. Even within San Francisco, the city is currently divided into three rating zones. "San Francisco 1," which includes downtown, accounts for over 3/4 of the exchanges in the city (182 out of 241, as of the 9/96 directory publication date). (Marin County has about 60 prefixes.) Thus, even if you did a split of SF1 keeping 415 while SF2, SF3, and all of Marin move into the new area code, that's still only about a 60/40 split by number of prefixes. Of course, that split would never fly politically, putting "the neighborhoods" in an area code they share with Point Reyes but not with downtown. That means that we either do a very lopsided split, moving only Marin into the new area code, and hope that lets us hold out long enough for an overlay, or we do a three-way split, Marin/Downtown/Neighborhoods, which would still leave downtown to do an overlay before 2010. I also think the commissioners should be involuntarily committed to a mental hospital for proposing to geographically split area code 213. They are showing clear symptoms of delusional psychosis. Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ From: John Cropper Subject: Re: Fourth Area Code for Colorado Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 10:23:32 -0500 Organization: MindSpring Reply-To: psyber@mindspring.com Tad Cook wrote: > U S West Requests Fourth Area Code for Colorado > By John Branch, Gazette Telegraph, Colorado Springs, Colo. > Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News > COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.--Dec. 19--One year after a large part of > Colorado was given the 970 area code, U S West Communications > Corp. has requested a fourth calling area. > The proposed fourth code won't change numbers in the Pikes Peak > region, but may cause dialing and technological headaches. > Colorado's original area code, 303, will be splintered again, pending > approval from the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. The article does not mention what other media sources reported: 570 was the code chosen by USWest for relief of 303 ... John Cropper voice: 888.NPA.NFO2 LINCS 609.637.9434 PO Box 277 fax: 609.637.9430 Pennington, NJ 08534-0277 mailto:psyber@mindspring.com http://www.the-server.com/jcbt2n/lincs/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Dec 1996 17:13:05 GMT Reply-To: glr@glr.com From: glr@glr.com (Glen L. Roberts) Subject: Re: "Hidden Agendas" in Web Blocking Software Organization: Full Disclosure Monty Solomon wrote: > Excerpt from PRIVACY Forum Digest V05 #22 > Date: Fri, 20 Dec 96 15:23 PST > From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator) > Subject: "Hidden agendas" in web blocking software > Greetings. While the ability of parents to control their children's > access to web pages via specialized "blocking" software has been > widely touted, it's becoming apparent that problems are already > appearing. For example, Cybersitter has blocked the entire domains of pages.ripco.com and www.glr.com as well as such words as phreddd and peacefire Apparently the ripco.com and glr.com domains were blocked because of ONE of my web pages, http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~glr/nurse.html Since then, I have added some more details, the blocked words I ran across in an afternoon: http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~glr/badwords.html And, a parody on the creation of Cybersitter: http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~glr/milburn.html The Stalker's Home Page -- What the hell? Are you listed? Privacy? http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~glr/stalk.html Tech Support Hell Hole: http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~glr/hellhole.html ------------------------------ From: hancock4@cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Re: Unheralded Deaths of 1996 - George Oslin Date: 25 Dec 1996 21:50:51 GMT Organization: Philadelphia City Paper's City Net That was sad to hear. I have his book "The Story of Telecommunications", and it is very good (mostly on Western Union), but the Oslin was frank about how government involvement, however well intended, hurt Western Union at several points (such as forcing a bad merger on it.) Oslin also hits on bad presidents, too. ------------------------------ From: George Hills Subject: Re: Calling US 800 From UK: Answer Supervision on Recorded Msg? Date: 25 Dec 1996 15:47:44 GMT Organization: University of Newcastle upon Tyne Linc Madison (Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com) wrote: > Apparently, on the two largest carriers, British Telecom (BT) and > Mercury (Hg), you can simply dial 00-1-800-nxx-xxxx or what have you. I know of no UK carriers which will refuse to connect such a call; I know of only one calling card system which will refuse to connect +1-800 numbers. > for the international call. A couple of posters have insisted that > the intercept is provided on the U.S. side, and that it returns answer > supervision at the beginning of the recorded intercept, rather than at > the point where the called number actually answers. They have bills > to prove that they were charged for calls to non-working U.S. 800 > numbers, where clearly the call couldn't complete. The announcement has a US accent, and it's the same over every carrier I've tried. Doesn't /necessarily/ mean it's on the US side, though if anyone can suggest how it could possibly be UK based I'd be interested. It's not just a matter of bills. Mercury customers can request (indeed, used to have whether they wanted it or not) a "beep" when a call supervises. It beeps directly the announcement starts. > if it is a U.S. intercept, we supposedly know how to do that without > returning answer supervision. This is done perfectly successfully for other announcements. > because of the presence of a voice without SITs? Also, what happens > if the 800 number you're calling from the U.K. happens to be, for > example, Canada-only? If someone would like to provide a list of area-specific or country-specific 800 and 888 numbers, I'd be only too happy to play with a few ... George http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/strowger ------------------------------ From: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) Subject: The Hornet's Nest (was WebTV and CoyoteNet; Minority Report) Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 03:57:33 GMT Organization: Customer of Access One Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia Our Esteemed Editor contributed the following: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Your point is good in the sense that > there are so many 'old timers' on the net -- myself included -- who > talk about 'their net' as though they did have some ownership rights. > I'll admit it, I am guilty of it also. The fact is, very few of us > own anything except our own computers (and maybe our employer owns > that also ... ) and we participate here purely through the good will > of the companies/institutions which do pay the bills. So readers, > how *do* you defend your feelings of ownership if you do, and what > right *do* you have to say the direction things should be going? It this really an issue?, as other posters have pointed out the 'net' is growing all the time, and maybe there is enough space in this bigger 'net' to have something like the 'net' you once knew and loved, (the "old timers sub-net" maybe :-) ?). I don't consider myself an 'old timer' by any stretch of the imagination so I don't consider myself to have any ownership rights to the 'net'. I am just grateful that this medium, which more and more people have access to for sharing information around this planet, exists. This newsgroup is part of the 'net' that I appreciate, there are other parts that I could live without, like the growing junk e-mails etc., but as a trade off to having access to this stuff, I'm willing to live with it. In a perfect world, these problems would not occur, but on this planet at this time - well, enough of the obvious. And who knows, maybe technology will allow some sort of method to insulate us, (if we desire), from some of the annoying stuff? Hang in there Pat, there may be a lot more garbage around but you can still appreciate finding "a jewel in the junk heap", I know I have. PS: Thanks again for all of the work you've put in on this newsgroup, I'm pretty sure that it's very much appreciated by many others as well. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for your kind note of support. Maybe I can use it as a lead in to the first of what I hope will not be very many pitches to readers to please send in your annual donation to the Digest at this time for 1997. I had to go take a new job a couple weeks ago to get a few past due bills paid off; this has left only about half the time for the Digest I had a month ago. Please do on the web pagwhat you can, and remember that corporate sponsorships are welcome on the telecom web page as well. Please do what you can so that I can start 1997 fresh. Write to TELECOM Digest, PO Box 4621, Skokie, IL 60076. Thank you. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rishab@nntp.best.com (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Subject: Complaining About InterNIC to the NSF Date: 25 Dec 1996 21:40:30 GMT Organization: Best Internet Communications > From: "Jonathan I. Kamens" > Subject: The InterNIC: a case study in bad database management As this is the fourth time jik's post has landed up in my mailbox, I guess I better quote from my reply to him: To: jik@cam.ov.com Date: Sat, 14 Dec 1996 12:50:53 -0800 (PST) From: rishab@dxm.org (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) http://rs.internic.net/nsf/agreement/ is a directory containing the 1993 contract between NSI and the NSF, and four amendments including last year's one allowing for fees. Contact persons, addresses and sometimes phone numbers are there too, for NSI and the NSF. As the agreement requires NSI to submit 10 (yes, ten!) hard copies of a progress report, plan and budget to the NSF each January 31st, the NSF may actually intend to do something about complaints on quality of service. Do try to publicise this URL. The NSI-NSF deal appears shrouded in mystery in most discussions I see. Best, Rishab [...] First Monday - The Peer-Reviewed Journal on the Internet http://www.firstmonday.dk/ Munksgaard International Publishers, Copenhagen International Editor - Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (ghosh@firstmonday.dk) Mobile +91 11 98110 14574; Fax +91 11 2209608; Tel +91 11 2454717 A4/204 Ekta Apts., 9 Indraprastha Extn, New Delhi 110092 INDIA ------------------------------ From: Louis Raphael Subject: Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 21:39:14 -0500 Organization: PubNIX Montreal I have also had problems with the InterNIC and my domain. Of all the things one would think they would forget to send, the last would be the bill. They never sent it. *I* finally called them to pay, because I knew that they'd be cutting the domain off otherwise. That was months ago. Still no sign of the bill, either by e-mail or postal (and I *did* specify postal on the template). My address is correctly entered in the contact/domain WHOIS information. Things that make you wonder ... I think that the new iTLDs proposed by IANA should help solve the problem. Louis ------------------------------ From: jik@cam.ov.com (Jonathan I. Kamens) Subject: Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management Date: 24 Dec 1996 14:19:50 GMT Organization: OpenVision Technologies, Inc. In article , hillary@hillary.net (Hillary Gorman) writes: > Sending a fax on Foo, Inc letterhead, or a certified letter on same, > is what I have been advised to do, what NIC reps on the ISP mailing > list have suggested, and it works for me and many others ... Um, are you sure what you describe works for exactly the situation I described? I'm not talking about a domain, netblock, or netnumber record related to Foo, Inc. I'm talking about a contact record for an individual who used to work for Foo, Inc. I explicitly asked the InterNIC (when I finally got to speak to someone who seemed to know what she was talking about) if I could do what you describe to remove the out-of-date data in that contract record. She told me no, explicitly, several times. "The only entity that can modify a contact record is the individual identified in that contact record." So, which of these do you think is the case? (1) You were confused about exactly what I was trying to do, and the cases in which you used a letter on company letterhead were not analogous to this case; (2) The woman to whom I spoke to on the phone was wrong; (3) Some of the people who process contact change requests will accept a letter as you've described, some of them won't, and which one I end up getting when I send such a letter is the luck of the draw. Jonathan Kamens | OpenVision Technologies, Inc. | jik@cam.ov.com ------------------------------ From: keithpillow@sylvaninfo.net Subject: GTE's CyberPOP Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 18:19:37 GMT Has anybody gotten any information on this, other than that it exists? I've read the press release. What's it cost? What are the particulars? I checked their web pages and supposedly you can get more info at http://www.gte.com/cgi-bin/contact/cyberpop/Cando/Carrier/Docs/Wired/cyber2.html But the form there sends your request to a bogus address: cyberpopinfo@telops.gte.com No one at GTE (that I've encountered so far) knows anything about it. What's the deal? J. Keith Pillow, President Sylvan Information Services, Inc. 84 Main Street PO Box 1295 Warsaw, VA 22572___www.sylvaninfo.net ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #679 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Dec 27 08:16:18 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id IAA05314; Fri, 27 Dec 1996 08:16:18 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 08:16:18 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612271316.IAA05314@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #680 TELECOM Digest Fri, 27 Dec 96 08:16:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 680 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson List of Military Government Reports on Telecom Topics (Michael Ravnitzky) BellSouth Launches Bid For Ownership in Tele 2000 (Mike King) And the New Number is ... 949 (Mike King) Competition for WebTV (Lauren Weinstein) Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management (oldbear@arctos) Re: How Business Almost Derailed the Net (Shawn Barnhart) Anti CallerID? (Eduardo Kaftanski) Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not (David Clayton) Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not (Ari Ollikainen) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 23:56:42 -0600 From: Michael Ravnitzky Reply-To: MikeRav@ix.netcom.com Subject: List of Military Government Reports on Telecom DO YOU WANT A LIST OF REPORTS ON THE SUBJECT OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS? You can get a list of [largely unpublished] military technical reports on telecommunications and related topics. Many of these reports have been locked away for various bureaucratic reasons and have not been put into the public domain. Here are some subject keywords with which you can obtain a LIST of several hundred military technical reports on telecommunications and related subjects from the Defense Technical Information Center, a government agency. [see below] KEYWORDS: telecommunications, telephone systems, modems, telephone communication systems, telecommunication circuits, telephone equipment, telephone cables, telephone transmitters, telephone lines, telephone amplifiers, telephone receivers, telephone signals, ship telephone systems, communication equipment, sound powered telephones, underwater telephones, multichannel communications, pulse communications, telegraph systems, voice communications, demodulators, phase locked communications, modulators, radiotelephones, videophones, adaptive communications, secure communications, teletype systems, telemeter systems, communication switching centers, underwater communications, global communications, intercommunication systems, data links, microwave communications, optical communications, radio links, radio relay systems, space communications, circuits, digital communications, transmission lines, communication and radio systems IMPORTANT NOTE: Do not bother using the DTIC web site -- in a nutshell, it is worthless because the web site omits most of the two million technical reports in the DTIC collection. [Most of these reports are NOT, repeat NOT, repeat NOT in the NTIS collection, and have been unavailable to the public.] Send a letter instead -- you will get much better results. The fee is likely to be free or only a few bucks. You probably want to include a statement in the letter such as *I agree to pay reasonable fees associated with this request. Please notify me if the cost will exceed $25.*, so that they won't delay the processing of the request. Remember, they WILL try to dissuade you from asking for such a list. If they send you a letter, and you do not respond, they will withdraw your request and you will not get your information. Here is a form letter to use for your request: To: Defense Technical Information Center Attn: DTIC-RSM [Kelly D. Akers, FOIA Manager] 8725 John J. Kingman Road, Suite 0944 Fort Belvoir, VA 22060-6128 USA Phone: 703-767-9194 Dear Ms. Akers: I request the following records under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act: A computer generated technical report bibliography of reports on the subject[s]/keyword[s] of: ________________ OR _________________ OR ________________ OR _______________ OR _________________ OR _______________ Please send me this biography for this period of time: (choose one) _______ ALL YEARS IN YOUR COMPUTERIZED INDEX _______ the past 10 years only _______ the past 20 years only _______ all years in your manual card index (1940's and early 1950's) This is a request for DTIC records; please don't forward my request to NTIS. Please include both classified and unclassified records in your search. If any of the records are classified, please review them for release, or the release of nonsensitive portions. I am an individual, noncommercial requester and this request is not being made for commercial purposes. [OR YOU MIGHT INSTEAD INDICATE DIFFERENTLY IF YOU ARE A COMMERCIAL REQUESTER, OR AN EDUCATIONAL OR SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION, OR A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE MEDIA] I also agree to pay up to $25 for reasonable fees associated with this request. Sincerely, ______________ I hope you find this a useful resource. Michael Ravnitzky MikeRav@ix.netcom.com ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: BellSouth Launches Bid For Ownership in Tele 2000 Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 20:10:47 PST Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 09:56:37 -0500 (EST) From: BellSouth Subject: BELLSOUTH LAUNCHES BID FOR OWNERSHIP IN TELE 2000 BELLSOUTH LAUNCHES BID FOR OWNERSHIP IN TELE 2000 ATLANTA - BellSouth Corporation (NYSE: BLS) announced today a public tender offer to buy approximately 54 to 64 percent of Peruvian communications company Tele 2000. BellSouth's bid is contingent upon the company's acquisition of at least 54 percent of Tele 2000's outstanding shares at the offering price of $1.50 per share. Shareholders of Tele 2000 have two weeks, or ten business days, to tender their shares. Tele 2000 holds cellular rights to serve Lima and portions of western Peru. It also provides cable TV and paging communications. BellSouth has agreed to purchase the major portion of its acquisition, 38 percent of Tele 2000, from two major sharholders including Tele 2000's chairman, Genaro Delgado Parker. Assuming BellSouth's public tender offer is successful, BellSouth and Parker would end up holding a combined minimum of 90 percent of Tele 2000's capital stock. BellSouth's acquisition of 54 percent ownership of Tele 2000 would be worth an estimated $100 million. BellSouth provides telecommunications, wireless communications, directory advertising and publishing, video, Internet and other information services to more than 26 million customers in 17 countries worldwide. For more information, contact: Tim Klein 404-249-4135 Kevin Doyle 404-249-2793 ------------------ Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ From: Mike King Subject: And the New Number is ... 949 Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 20:14:18 PST Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 13:54:03 -0800 From: sqlgate@sf-ptg-fw.pactel.com Subject: NEWS: And the New Number is ... 949 FOR MORE INFORMATION: David A. Dickstein (213) 975-4074 dadicks@legal.pactel.com And the New Number is ... 949 Plan Filed to Split Orange County's 714 Area Code LOS ANGELES -- An area code relief plan has been submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission that would split the 714 area code in Southern California's Orange County and create a new area code -- 949 -- to serve the county's southern half. California Code Administrator Bruce Bennett submitted the 714 area code relief plan earlier this month to the Commission for review and final approval. Bennett said the plan is supported by the telecommunications industry and reflects customer input received during three public meetings in June. Bennett said the Commission also will be asked to determine the new area code's introduction date. Most members of the telecommunications industry have asked the Commission to move up the scheduled introduction date by six months from April 18, 1998 to October 18, 1997, due to rapid phone number usage in the 714 area code. Under the 714 area code relief plan, the existing 714 area code -- which serves most of Orange County -- would be split near the county's geographic center. The details are as follows: Most existing 714 customers in the northern portion of Orange County would keep the 714 area code. Some of the communities that would remain entirely in the 714 include: Anaheim, Buena Park, Cypress, Fountain Valley, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Orange, Placentia, Seal Beach, Stanton, Westminster and Yorba Linda. The majority of customers in Santa Ana and Tustin would also keep the 714 area code. The 714 area code would also continue to serve very small portions of Brea, La Mirada, La Palma, Los Alamitos and La Habra. Most existing 714 customers in the southern portion of Orange County would receive the new 949 area code. Some of the communities to be served by the 949 include: Aliso Viejo, Balboa, Capistrano Valley, Corona del Mar, Dana Point, Laguna Beach, Laguna Niguel, Lake Forest, Mission Viejo, Newport Beach, San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, and Santa Ana Heights. Most customers in Irvine would also receive the new 949 area code. Several communities located along the new 714/949 split line border would be served by both area codes, meaning part of the community would stay 714 and part would receive the new 949. In Irvine, for instance, most of the city would be served by 949, except a small portion to stay 714. Other cities that would be served by both area codes include: Santa Ana and Tustin, which primarily remain 714 and Costa Mesa, which would be divided in half by the two area codes. In planning area code splits, Bennett said the industry tries to avoid dividing cities. "However, sometimes this cannot be avoided because telephone wire center serving boundaries do not necessarily coincide with city and county lines," he said, explaining that the telephone wireline network has been in place for many years, while political boundaries have changed over time. "Consequently, we cannot always follow political boundary lines and still gain adequate area code relief." The Commission is expected to issue a final decision on the 714 area code relief plan as early as January. Persons who wish to comment on the plan may write to the: California Public Utilities Commission President P. Gregory Conlon 505 Van Ness Avenue San Francisco, CA 94102 Bennett said two 714 geographic split options were presented to the public for comment during meetings in June. Both plans used a north/south Orange County split to create a new area code and were very similar, except one also kept Huntington Beach, Westminster and half of Fountain Valley in the 714 area code. "In general, the public preferred the plan that included Huntington Beach, Westminster and Fountain Valley in 714 due to a strong community of interest between these cities and other nearby cities in the 714," Bennett said. "There was also a concern that Santa Ana, being the county seat, should remain in the 714. "We were able to make those adjustments, although it shortens the life of the 714 area code by almost a year." Other adjustments to the original plan included keeping all, rather than only part, of Fountain Valley in 714, Bennett said. As proposed, the new 949 area code would last 18 to 22 years, while the reconfigured 714 would last four to five years. While customers who receive the new 949 area code will have to change the area code portion of their telephone number, the new three-digit code will not affect the price of telephone calls in any of these areas, Bennett said. "Call distance determines call price and is not impacted by the creation of a new area code," he said. "What is a local call now will remain a local call regardless of the area code change. "It's also important for customers to know that PBX's (private phone systems), auto-dialers, alarms and other telecommunications equipment will have to be re-programmed to recognize the new area codes," said Bennett, adding that people should check with their equipment vendors to see if their equipment needs to be reprogrammed. "Historically, area codes always had either a "1" or a "0" as the middle digit for identification purposes, but all of those codes have been used." These new number combinations allow area codes to be any three digits from 220 to 999, creating an additional 5 billion telephone numbers nationwide, Bennett said. Bennett also noted that when the new 949 area code is introduced, there will be a six-month "permissive" dialing period during which callers can dial either the old 714 or new 949 area code. Orange County is the latest in a series of regions in California requiring area code relief. Today, California has 13 area codes, more than any other state. Plans call for doubling that number from 13 to 26 over the next five years to keep up with the state's record telephone number consumption. That consumption is being spurred by the high-technology explosion of fax machines, pagers, cellular phones and modems for Internet access along with the onset of local competition in California's telephone market. Ten of the 13 new area codes will be introduced by the end of 1998. Plans for the 714 area code were collectively developed by a telecommunications industry group representing more than 30 companies, including Pacific Bell, GTE, AT&T, MCI, Sprint, AirTouch, Pagenet, AT&T Wireless, MFS Communications Co., Teleport Communications Group (TCG), the California Cable Television Association and others. ----------------- Mike King * Oakland, CA, USA * mk@wco.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Dec 96 11:32:00 PST From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein) Subject: Competition for WebTV Greetings. Look, let's boil this all down to the essentials. What WebTV really has done is build a vertically integrated "TV Typewriter" service (that's a term we used in the 70's for computer terminals displaying on ordinary televisions). They've organized the dialup facilities and proxy servers, added some graphics support and the ability to minimally deal with a couple of popular specialized net multimedia clients (at least until the RAM runs out...) They've squeezed about as much out of a flickering, 60 Hz, interlaced NTSC TV display as is probably possible given current technology. This all took significant work. But the real money maker for WebTV no doubt revolves around the monthly service. It's a box that can *only* be used with their service, even though for most people the end-user Web sites they're looking at could of course be accessed through any ISP. Already I'm seeing ads and reports of other similar "TV Typewriter" systems that do allow use with *any* ISP, using standard PPP. True, there may not initially be as much "customization" of the screen displays for the limited NTSC format, but many users may find the ability to use their hometown ISP, often at a significantly lower cost per month, to be highly desirable. It'll be interesting to see how WebTV fares as these other boxes become available. One other point. At least one of these other boxes has a credit card reader built-in, so as to "simplify" on-line purchases. Well, at least they're being up front about it all. Because there are two categories of applications that at least some of the manufacturers of such systems may feel will be especially satisfied by the NTSC display technology. One is home shopping. The other is porn viewing. Big surprise, huh? --Lauren-- http://www.vortex.com ------------------------------ From: oldbear@arctos.com (The Old Bear) Subject: Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 09:36:34 -0500 Organization: The Arctos Group - http://www.arctos.com/arctos jik@cam.ov.com (Jonathan I. Kamens) writes: > hillary@hillary.net (Hillary Gorman) writes: >> Sending a fax on Foo, Inc letterhead, or a certified letter on same, >> is what I have been advised to do, what NIC reps on the ISP mailing >> list have suggested, and it works for me and many others ... > Um, are you sure what you describe works for exactly the situation I > described? > I'm not talking about a domain, netblock, or netnumber record related > to Foo, Inc. I'm talking about a contact record for an individual who > used to work for Foo, Inc. I've run into a similar problem. I am tech contact for a domain whose owner (and admin/billing contact) parted company with a particular ISP over a billing dispute and then had problems moving the domain to another ISP because InterNIC would not recognize email coming from a different email address. Here was the scenario: 1. John opens an account with an ISP and is assigned an email address of john@isp.net. 2. John sends email to obtain a domain john.com. 3. Internic creates a record for john.com, listing John as admin contact with email address john@isp.net. 4. John has billing dispute with ISP, which closes his account. John opens a new account with a new ISP. 5. Coincidently, John moves to a new snail-mail address and phone number at about the same time. 6. Try though he may, he cannot change his contact record at internic to reflect his new ISP or new address information because internic will only accept changes sent from john@isp.net. 7. John is able to get his domain name moved to the new ISP only because InterNIC is able to do this upon request from the Technical Contact, whose information has not changed. Still, it took two telephone calls from me as tech contact and a certified letter including the signature of the domain owner (admin/billing contact), notarized and with a photocopy of the individual's driver's license seemed to solve the problem of getting the domain record changed and updated. However, even though the certified letter also included a request to update the contact record, that change did not occur. Hence, the domain owner was unable to update snail-mail address and phone number, and did not received his billing which was sent by snail-mail to his old street address and via email to his old ISP email address. Multiple submissions of the specified update forms via email proved absolutely futile. Sometimes submission was acknowleged, sometimes not. Regardless, the contact record never changed. Finally, under threat of cancellation, I sent InterNIC a check via certified mail with another request to update the record. This had to be followed by a telephone call with another half hour on hold. The record is now correct (except for the phone number -- don't ask!) and, I believe, the registration fee is current for another year. The entire process took four LD phone calls ranging in length from 35 minutes to over an hour, two certified letters, over a dozen pieces of email -- and, because of the apparent randomness of the solution, I still don't know what to do if this or a similar problem ever occurs again. Having worked part of my life in government and being married to a tax-code-reading CPA, I have seen a lot of bureaucracy. However, I have never been so frustrated as I was in dealing with InterNIC on what should have been a simple matter. I know that InterNIC would prefer to do 100% of this stuff via email using some kind of password or encryption scheme. But there is no system on the face of the planet which does not have exceptions ... and there has to be a simple process for the filing of affidavits or some such. Even the California Dept of Motor Vehicles, the Social Security Administration, and the IRS (which I believe are the three biggest record-based operations in the U.S.) each have systems for exception handling. Cheers, The Old Bear PS: Ironic thought: ever wonder why the Internic never seems to screw up those dozens of impenetrable interlocking domains and records which belong to the great spam-generating sites like BEST.COM and EARTHSTAR.COM? ------------------------------ Subject: Re: How Business Almost Derailed the Net From: swb@mercury.campbell-mithun.com (Shawn Barnhart) Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 10:36:36 -0600 Organization: Chaos In comp.dcom.telecom TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: On the other hand Robert, I have seen > some changes around here in the past couple years caused by the > intrusion of big business and the mass media into the net which have > in my opinion produced some perfectly dreadful results. A lot of those > people basically just moved in and took over, not knowing anything > about net history or culture, and rarely caring about it either way. I'd have to agree here. However, as an employee of an advertising agency that has "moved in" on the net, I can say that the "culture and standards" of the internet ARE preached to our clients when we pitch/demo web sites. We go into some depth about the need to NOT send junk email and abuse the data collection ability of web sites. We mention horror stories of web sites taken down, hacked, mailbombed or otherwise mangled when the operators side- or overstepped the "culture and standards". And most of all we try to explain to them, in a way that marketers understand, that you don't want to try to insult your target market. One advantage of the internet is that in many ways it does have a definable demographic that mirrors the "computer personality". Not as much as it may have ten years ago, but then again computers are more widespread and the "computer personality" is not as narrow as it once ways. Part of the problem, though, is that the "culture and standards" of the internet are pretty nebulous concepts. I could imagine that trying to define them in toto would start a flamewar that would make Mac v. PC or UNIX v. NT seem like a North Dakota bridge club discussion of how to best make hot dish. There never have been defined "standards" much beyond Emily Postnews' Guide to USENET Ettiquette that I've seen. Sure, everyone has "ideas" of what they are but getting more than three people from different "regions" to agree to them beyond the vaguest of principles is impossible. Many of the "principles" seem to revolve around respecting certain technical limitations which are eased or eliminated on a regular basis. (e.g., attaching unwanted binaries to email. Still a no-no -- but originated as such because of limits on external link bandwidth, disk space, etc. As those limits evaporate for a lot of people, a binary in email isn't that big of a deal as it used to be). In a way, I think that some of the hackers that sysadmins love to hate almost provide a kind of justice to the bigger .com entities when they overstep their bounds. I think the threat (real or imagined) that SPAM or junk mailing may result in retaliatory hacking, mailbombing, etc has kept some of the more agressive marketers in line. I also think that there is a genuine desire among reputable marketing entities to work WITH the internet rather than to try to reshape it into another TV channel. For most marketers the concept of an interactive medium is new to them. They're used to getting some phone calls and letters from users of their products, but the idea that people can so easily talk back to them via email (or about them to a large audience on USENET) is a little intimidating and the reshaping of the marketer-consumer relationship that an interactive medium entails will take them a little getting used to. Shawn Barnhart swb@mercury.campbell-mithun.com ------------------------------ From: ekaftan@ns.rdc.cl (Eduardo Kaftanski) Subject: Anti CallerID? Date: 27 Dec 1996 00:54:07 -0300 Organization: RdC S.A. Hi, I have just finished a chat with a local 'cracker' who told me he was using an anti CallerID device ... Suposedly he can force a false caller id to be logged in my boxes. I don't believe him, but I am forced to ask ... Thanks, Eduardo Kaftanski |Poco das cuando das tus pertenencias, ekaftan@rdc.cl |Das realmente cuando das de ti. Beeper: 7378087 C/5271 |Gibran Khalil Gibran, El profeta, Dar y Recibir. |http://www.rdc.cl/~ekaftan [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There exist attachments for the phone which will automatically prepend *67 (which is the commonly used code for witholding caller-id) to the start of every dialing string. The 'cracker' is not defeating caller-id; he is simply using the telco- given arrangements for privacy. Regarding 'forcing a false caller-id to appear on your box', I would have challenged him to do it; to really *do it*. We have had this discussion here before a couple of times and a few obscure methods were presented by readers which for all intents and purposes are very unlikely to be used with any degree of regularity. Generally speaking, it does not happen. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au (David Clayton) Subject: Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 03:57:31 GMT Organization: Customer of Access One Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia kk@iki.fi (Kimmo Ketolainen) contributed the following: Lots cut regarding GSM specs ... > [If anyone's interested, the 900 MHz GH338 is being sold here for > FIM 2690 (lowest), that's USD 581 or DEM 901. Bundling with a > contract is prohibited to ensure fair competition and low network > traffic fees.] Sounds like a good idea, the myriad of bundled contracts on offer here in Australia, (mostly to stop carrier "churning" as we have a choice of 3 GSM carriers virtually Australia wide), are responible for lots of consumer confusion and are the main cause of complaints to our industry watchdog. Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@acslink.aone.net.au Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. ------------------------------ From: Ari Ollikainen Subject: Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 23:12:43 -0800 Reply-To: ari@interserve.com Stuart Jeffery wrote: > The reason you can't roam between Sprint Spectrum/APC and PBMS in San > Jose is PBMS network in San Jose is not yet commercially operating. > You might be able to roam now between Sprint Spectrum/APC and PBMS in > San Diego. If you can't, it is most likely a business issue, coupled > with some inter network technical subtleties, which are being rapidly > resolved. In actuality, the reason the REAL Sprint (Spectrum) PCS won't support roaming with PBMS or any other GSM operator is that SprintPCS is deploying CDMA, NOT GSM, everywhere EXCEPT Spectrum/ APC in the DC area! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #680 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Dec 27 09:02:25 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id JAA07367; Fri, 27 Dec 1996 09:02:25 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 09:02:25 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612271402.JAA07367@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #681 TELECOM Digest Fri, 27 Dec 96 09:02:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 681 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson L,H,O Pad Formulas Required (Dale Laluk) Can You Recomend a Small Business Switch? (Michael Ayotte) Cellular Network Simulation Packages? (Ravi Prakash) Free Calls From Payphones/COCOTS (Eric Friedebach) Re: WebTV and CoyoteNet; a Minority Report (Jay R. Ashworth) Re: GTE's CyberPOP (John Rice) Re: More on California Geographic Split Decision (John Cropper) Re: Bell Issuing Year-Long *Temporary* Numbers (John R. Levine) Re: California PUC Split on NPA Splits (Nils Andersson) Re: NPA 570 For Colorado (Nils Andersson) Pager Scam - or Wrong Number? (Michael Schuster) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 25 Dec 96 20:48:00 PST From: lunarcom@computime.bc.ca (Dale Laluk) Subject: L,H,O Pad Formulas Required I am interfacing some audio circuits to the KSU at this location and need some padding. I don't remember the formulas for L,H,O Pads and what is the benefits of each one over the other, etc. Does someone have this up on the internet or can reply or fax me details ? I am in a very remote location of Northern British Columbia Canada and the local library doesn't have anything to guide me. TIA. ------------------------------ From: mja-usenet@ayotte.com (Michael Ayotte) Subject: Can You Recomend a Small Business Switch? Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 22:32:31 -0800 Organization: Bit Bucket I thought this would be the appropriate place to get advice on a good small business switch. We have around 40-50 phone lines on a centrex system. We use Pacbell for our voicemail, and currently have one ISDN BRI. We may need more BRIs or a single PRI/FT1/T1 in the future, but if its cost prohibitive, we could have these bypass the switch. We would like to see what it would cost, and what it would save us in the long run to purchase/lease a switch with voicemail capabilities? On a related note, we are investigating remote access (Appletalk and IP) options for around 4-16 users over analog modems (perhaps an ISDN TA or two will pop up in the future). Are there switches that incorporate this funtion? Are they good at the job? Any advice would be appriciated, especially from small business customers. But manufacturers comments are welcome as well. It may be usefull to post the comments here (althought I am not sure that the group charter allows manufactuers to post), or you are welcome to email me at the address listed in my signature. Thanks in advance. Michael Ayotte ------------------------------ From: prakash@cs.rochester.edu (Ravi Prakash) Subject: Cellular Network Simulation Packages? Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 15:41:56 GMT I am looking for commercial as well as non-commercial simulation packages for cellular networks. I would like to simulate the performance of some of my distributed algorithms for channel allocation and location management. In the past I have used general purpose process-based simulation packages like CSIM (from MCC) for my simulations. However, it gets progressively painful and time-consuming as the granularity of simulation gets finer. So, any pointers to suitable simulation packages and their documentation will be highly appreciated. With best regards, Ravi Prakash prakash@cs.rochester.edu Department of Computer Science www.cs.rochester.edu/u/prakash University of Rochester Phone: (716) 275-5492 Rochester, NY 14627-0226. Fax: (716) 461-2018 ------------------------------ From: Eric Friedebach Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 07:56:30 EST Subject: Free Calls From Payphones/COCOTS In 1987 I signed up for an 800 number from MCI for my small business that sells technical data for old aircraft. This gave me a certain edge over some of the other folks in the same business. Having an 800 number in those times was not very common within my market. A little side benefit I found was that I could call into the office on my 800 number while out of town cheaper and easier than with a calling card. From a payphone. Fast forward ten years: the distribution of 800 numbers has exploded. So much so that we had to go to 888. The 800/888 market has gone beyond the business market to the consumer market. We now hear cries of protest about access charges from people that rely on payphones/ COCOTS to call home on their own 800/888 number. Same goes for calling cards. But wait a minute here. That big metal box with the handset attached to it found in various public places is called a *PAYphone*. If it is a big metal box of lesser regard it called a COCOT as in *Customer Owned COIN Operated Telephone*. In other words, by their very definition, they work when you pay for them to do so. Maybe a more informed TELECOM Digest reader/poster like Mark Cuccia can correct me here but was not the 800 service originally designed for business use such as customer service/incoming sales? At least that was my intention back in 1987. The possibility of a customer calling me from a payphone did not figure in. Nowadays I also market discount calling cards and 800/888 numbers for home/consumer use. I don't like the thought of my customers having to shell out some extra money if they are using a payphone/COCOT since our marketing efforts have in the past focused on the *free factor* but maybe that's our own fault to start with. As this whole subject settles down, I guess the concept (and cost) of using a public telephone to access your own number will be acceptable. So goes the free market. Eric Friedebach aerostar@ccia.com ------------------------------ From: jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) Subject: Re: WebTV and CoyoteNet; a Minority Report Date: 26 Dec 1996 23:56:51 GMT Organization: University of South Florida Brett Frankenberger (brettf@netcom.com) wrote: > In article , > wrote: > There never has been a "Net Culture". The net is just silicon and > copper. What manifested itself as the Net Culture had less to do with > the Net and more to do with the people on the Net. When the Net was > less accessible, it took a certain type of person to get onto it (i.e. > University Research Type or at least a Hacker-type with some friends > who know how to get on). As the Net became more accessible, it > expanded around these circles. I think perhaps you intrepret that phrase a little too tightly, Brett. What you describe in your next graf: > For example, anyone at a University could get an account without > having a specific research need ... and bulletin boards, etc, began to > connect to the net so that any computer-geek, instead of just > well-connected (no pun intended) computer-geeks, could get on. What > we then wound up with was, not a culture of the Net, but rather, the > culture of the people who made up the Net manifesting itself on the > Net. The Net only facilitates letting these kinds of people get > togethor. Rather than discussing on the telephone what I was > interested in with people who shared that interest, I could discuss it > over the Net. And reach many more people who shared my interests that > way. is precisely what I think he meant, and is certainly what _I_ mean, when I use the phrase "Net Culture". > This will not change. I am not the "couch potato - I pay you to keep > me informed type" and I (hopefully) never will be. Nor will I ever > use the Net in that fashion. Unfortunately, personality types such as > those of the people who initially made up the Net are a minority in > society. And, as a result, as the Net becomes more ubiquitous, such > personality types will also become a minority on the Net. This is > neither a good thing or a bad thing I disagree. It is the nature of social groups that the majority tend to guide the decisions made concerning the group's existence, and therefile the directions in which it is inclined to go. The shape of the Internet is, in large part, what it is today, because of the attitudes and intentions of the people who shaped it. > -- it is probably somewhat of a > bad thing that the majority of the population wants to sit in front of > X (whether X is WebTV or broadcast TV or whatever) and be entertained, > but that was a bad thing before the web existed. But the increase in > mindless content doesn't decrease the mindful content. I'm not sure that _this_ will turn out to be true, either, but we'll see. > The difference is that the > couch-potato next door (figuratively speaking -- no offense to my > neighbors :) ) can post about his favorite Bay Watch episode, or > whatever he wishes. > The only disappointment I see is for those who had hoped that the > Internet would revolutionize society. Turn all couch-potatos into > actual, thinking citizens/netizens. Bring everyone into a wonderful > world full of meaningful discussions and mindful content. I never > expected that to happen, and don't currently expect that it will > happen. It is an open question whether the reason that most people don't think is that they _can't_, or that they don't _care_ to, and whether if they're given a well, they'll drink from it. But if we fill the well with horseshit, I'll bet you they'll turn up their noses and walk away. You know, that's "that hotbed of filth, the Internet"? >> My predictions: the differentiation into 'info providers' and 'informa- >> tion consumers' will continue to accelerate, with collaboration, peer >> networks, information sharing, volunteerism and mutuality becoming >> ever less used concepts. > I agree only on the percentage basis. The total amount of > "peer-to-peer" content will not decrease. But it will increase at a > rate slower than the "info provider" content. So you will end up with > a large percentage of the content being info-provider content, but the > actual amount of non-prodiver content won't be less than it would have > been if not for the info-providers. That is, I don't see anyone > deciding skip making a quality site, and instead make a lame personal > site, just so he has more time to go visit www.nekkid-gurls.com. No, unless the advance in infocrap makes it unreasonably slow and unproductive for people to bother putting up things that no one will read anyway because they can't get to it. There's also the argument that the rapid advance of the net is due to the lack of marginal cost to many of the useful services therein (IMDB, Lycos, AltaVista, etc..), and that since there's no practical way _yet_ to provide those services at a reasonably small marginal cost -- and if Commerce and Defense don't get off their asses soon, there never will be -- that the decline in such services will have an effect on the over all shape of the net. Remember, those cbs.com's aren't there for the masses that are there _now_... they're there for the masses that those people think will show up based on the number of us geeks that are there now. >> Most newspapers are calculatedly written for a 4th grade reading level >> today, a least common denominator and thus very large market. This is >> well documented and verifiable, not just an opinion. Pages designed >> for WebTV will aim lower if anything. More than a few sentences on a >> page will be inconsistent with the viewership. This *IS* a change >> from the old Internet, no matter that some apologists will try to make >> it a shameful, elitist thing for us to notice such facts. > But that's not the type of page I am interested in anyway. Are you > suggesting that a large entertainment company, say, NBC, might > actually make meaningful content if it weren't for WebTV? I don't > think so. It's more likely that they wouldn't make *any* content if > no means existed for the mindless masses to get on the Internet and > see their page. No, I think that he's asserting that anything that trades quality for quantity of viewers is, _in the long run_ a bad thing. This has been proven in the TV business. Look at all the 'critically acclaimed' shows that now make good ratings, but took years to get there. CBS.com doesn't have that sort of attention span; the suits won't let them. > This is not a zero sum game. All the content that you always liked > will still be there. It's just that, additionally, we'll have > content for the couch potoatos. And since couch potatos make up a > large percentage of the population, there will be a lot of Web Sites > directed to them. For the reasons noted above, I'm not sure I agree. Certainly, it's not a zero sum game, but the infrastructure isn't keeping up with the growth _now_, and I don't see CBS.com contributing to the IAB. >> "Look it up on the Web" educational assistance will in many, perhaps >> most, cases become another tool for kids to regurgitate rather than >> learn. > But the kids doing that are the same kids who are today plagerizing > one encyclopadeia and then listing five others as references. The Net > makes legitimate research easier, it also makes bad research easier. > But it won't make good researchers become bad researchers, nor will it > make poor researchers into good researchers. It might help in the latter case. If you're a bad researcher because encyclopediae cost $1k, then it might help quite a lot. >> Online discussion groups, whether Usenet or mailing lists, will be >> deluged with folks who don't contribute much. They will either be >> looking for free advice (the internet has been sold as this). > This is one place where we will have to adapt. Without a doubt there > is a change here -- newsgroups that used to be perfectly good places to > have technical discussions and/or meaningful discussions about > non-technical things are now little more than flame-fests and/or forums > for the clueless to ask about thus and such. And indeed, this has been almost-, if not fatal, to many newsgroups I used to particiapte in. Why, oh why, don't the majors start running Usenet software that bounces postings with more than five newsgroups? This seems perfectly _trivial_. > This is the same as everywhere else -- the amount of useful > content is still increasing -- but just not as fast as the amount of > useless content. Unfortunately, while it's relatively easy to avoid > the crap on the web, it's much harder in newsgroups. As I noted, and because of that, it's a _much_ more important problem. IMHO, notwithstanding the web and it's popularity, Usenet is still "the Net", and will be until it dies (film at 11). > This will have to play itself out. Perhaps after enough flames, the > word will spread wide enough. Or maybe we'll end up with a lot more > moderated groups. Neither a fun alternative. > The changing of Usenet is a very real phenomenon, and is already in > progress. (September 1993 -- the September that Never Ended.) Beautiful quote. >> So there will be much movement to implement cable modems and >> xDSL (especially ADSL), to give every one of those consumers 1.5-8 >> Mbps of download channel. Think what that means: ONE NEIGHBORHOOD >> could saturate today's entire backbone, and one city could require the >> backbone to expand 100 fold to keep up (not likely to be well funded >> by $19.95/month). > Increasing backbone capacity is easier than increasing subscriber > capacity. So the backbone will almost certainly keep up. Um, from 28.8 Kbps to 8 Mbps? That's roughly 2.5 orders of magnitude. That's a much bigger jump than they've ever swallowed before. >> Has the ubiquity of CocaCola ads or the popularity of Cheers >> democratized the world? > Here we agree completely. The Web will not democratize the world. It > represents only an incremental change. It's a new media. Technically > quite different than existing media, but fundamentally the same. And it's here that I diverge with you completely, Brett. The web may not "democratize the world", but it is, by it's nature, the first technology that has the _opportunity_ to, because it provides 1) an audience and 2) a low bar to entry. Coke ads and Cheers are a strawman in the face of those two facts, I think. If you think this is fundamentally the same, I suggest you go by a small printing press and attempt to reach the same potential audience as a Sunday paper. >> The best I can hope for now is to keep alive some "commercially >> unviable" niches of intelligent and thoughtful discussion, peer >> creativity, collaborative information exchange, and free and diverse >> thought that will never show up significantly on CBS's broadcasts or >> AT&T's web sites. > My point exactly. But those niches will be bigger than the Net > initally was. Instead of 90% of a relatively small Net, we'll have > .1% of an outrageously huge net. We come out ahead, even if some > other people come out more ahead. And we'll benfit from the > infrastructure put in place to help "them". If, indeed, it is. > This niche will remain, just as it continues to exist in the > non-Internet world. This is my fundamental point. The Net as we know > it will continue to exist ... just as a subset of a much larger net. > My other point would be that no new media is likely going to > completely change the nature of the average lazy person. Those who > had hoped that the Net would radically democratize society -- give > everyone a voice and make everyone a mindful productive netizen -- are > going to be disappointed. Those who do not want to be "democraticized" > are not going to be ... not via the Net ... not via anything else. I'm going to try to comment on Pat's observations, but I'm home sick, and may give up ... > I suspect we will have a lot of new netters with us beginning > later this week. Don't forget, people also buy computers for > their kids at Christmas, and I would like to suggest we all take > the high road and assume that everyone of them mean well until > as *individuals* they prove themselves otherwise. To say that > someone 'means well' is not to say they are not ignorant; it is > not to say there won't be lots of chain letters and spams and > other nuisances. But I dunno ... let's just wish one another a > happy holiday and seek out the best of the net where we can find > it. You can probably tell I am very ambivilent on this point; > there are days I feel like unplugging my terminal and tossing > it all in also; yet when you least expect it, you meet the > *nicest* people. PAT] So you do. Maybe Honda bought the net? Cheers, jr '' a Jay R. Ashworth jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us Member of the Technical Staff Junk Mail Will Be Billed For. The Suncoast Freenet *FLASH: Craig Shergold aw'better; call 800-215-1333* Tampa Bay, Florida http://members.aol.com/kyop/rhps.html +1 813 790 7592 ------------------------------ From: rice@ttd.teradyne.com (John Rice) Subject: Re: GTE's CyberPOP Date: 26 Dec 96 14:37:24 CDT Organization: Teradyne Inc., Telecommunications Division In article , keithpillow@ sylvaninfo.net writes: > Has anybody gotten any information on this, other than that it exists? > I've read the press release. What's it cost? What are the > particulars? > I checked their web pages and supposedly you can get more info at > http://www.gte.com/cgi-bin/contact/cyberpop/Cando/Carrier/Docs/Wired/cyber2.html > But the form there sends your request to a bogus address: > cyberpopinfo@telops.gte.com > No one at GTE (that I've encountered so far) knows anything about it. > What's the deal? Try sending e-mail to cyberpopinfo@telops.gte.sprint.com . gte.com is not related to GTE, I don't think. Every GTE e-mail address I've ever seen is '@gte.sprint.com' and using nslookup, I see that '@telops.gte.sprint.com' is a valid e-mail address. John Rice rice@ttd.teradyne.com ------------------------------ From: John Cropper Subject: Re: More on California Geographic Split Decision Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1996 02:44:05 -0500 Organization: MindSpring Reply-To: psyber@mindspring.com Linc Madison wrote: > This is very confusing wording. Area codes 310 and 619 are splitting > within the next three months (310/562 on 1-25-97 and 619/760 on > 3-22-97). Is this report projecting that 310 and 619 will split > *again* by the year 2001? The plans for area code 818/626 are nearly > finalized, too. > Of course, the other problem is that 408, 310, 619, 818, 714, 213, 209 > and 805 makes EIGHT area codes, not seven, and neither 7+2 nor 8+2 > makes twelve, and the existing 13 plus 12 new ones don't make the 26 > that we are projected to have by 2001. Your average eight-year-old > can count better than that! Yes, Linc, but we are referring to a group of people that are swayed by the likes of Regina Costa... :-) > Yet more sloppy reportage, surprise, surprise. (Please note that Tad > was only quoting a press report -- the sloppiness is on AP's part, not > Tad's.) The press in general is known for its breaking news, not accurate reporting ... > As for doing a second geographic split of 415, there is only one > acceptable line for a standard two-way split, and that is the Golden > Gate. However, Marin County accounts for only about 1/5 or so of the > exchanges in the newly-reduced 415, and I believe it is growing less > rapidly than San Francisco. Even within San Francisco, the city is > currently divided into three rating zones. "San Francisco 1," which > includes downtown, accounts for over 3/4 of the exchanges in the city > (182 out of 241, as of the 9/96 directory publication date). (Marin > County has about 60 prefixes.) Thus, even if you did a split of SF1 > keeping 415 while SF2, SF3, and all of Marin move into the new area > code, that's still only about a 60/40 split by number of prefixes. Of > course, that split would never fly politically, putting "the > neighborhoods" in an area code they share with Point Reyes but not > with downtown. > That means that we either do a very lopsided split, moving only Marin > into the new area code, and hope that lets us hold out long enough for > an overlay, or we do a three-way split, Marin/Downtown/Neighborhoods, > which would still leave downtown to do an overlay before 2010. What about shifting Marin into 707, and then splitting the rate zones? There would be a handful of prefix reassignments in Marin, but that would prolong the life of the 'newly assigned' codes ... > I also think the commissioners should be involuntarily committed to a > mental hospital for proposing to geographically split area code 213. > They are showing clear symptoms of delusional psychosis. I prefer the term 'T-U-R-N-ITIS', a swelling of the brain caused by activists swarming utility commission meetings! John Cropper voice: 888.NPA.NFO2 LINCS 609.637.9434 PO Box 277 fax: 609.637.9430 Pennington, NJ 08534-0277 mailto:psyber@mindspring.com http://206.112.101.209/jcbt2n/lincs/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Dec 96 10:42:00 EST From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Bell Issuing Year-Long *Temporary* Numbers Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > I can't find any records that indicate that there is a 713-290-XXXX > exchange. Why couldn't they create one so that new customers could > have a 713 number and wouldn't have to change their area code or prefix? It's probably been reserved by a competitive provider. News reports have done a notably bad job of explaining where all of the prefixes have really gone: they're all reserved for potential local service competition. A combination of the way that billing works (by prefix) and the way that routing works (also by prefix) means that every company that is thinking about offering service in an area has to reserve at least one prefix for every rate center that they might serve. This means that when local service was opened up to competition, thousands and thousands of prefixes were scooped up, many of which will never be used, or if they are used, will only have a few hundred customers. At least this is a temporary phenomenon. I gather that most of the scooping has taken place, and when local number portability is implemented it'll fix the routing problem and allow carriers to share prefixes. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com, http://iecc.com/johnl, "New witty saying coming soon." ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: California PUC Split on NPA Splits Date: 24 Dec 1996 19:02:33 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) writes: > "All three surveys found that area-code splits are the preferred > method for most people," said Thomas Pulsifer, a PUC administrative > law judge. "The surveys also found concern about confusion over dual > area codes in the same location or same neighborhood." This is one of those cases where the public has no particular opinion until asked. Thus, you can more than normally get whatever answer you want by carefully phrasing the question. Thus, public opinion polls are worthless!!!!! At LEAST, show the questions asked, not just the percentages! Regards and Happy Solstice, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: NPA 570 For Colorado Date: 24 Dec 1996 21:11:06 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , Mark J. Cuccia writes: > 570-NXX-xxxx would mean Area Code 570, plus whatever local exchange; > while 303-570-xxxx will continue to mean Area Code 303, plus local > exchange 570 *within the 303 area code*. > With overlays and mandatory ten-digit local dialing, such things *are* > possible, and actually make *more efficient use* of numbering/code > resources than area code splits do. True, but I want to make another point. By Bellcore recommendations (i.e. allowing seven digit or 1+ten or 0+ten) you do not need "mandatory 10 digit dialling". It is quite feasible to allow good old seven digits to mean same area code as caller. I am aware that there are some backward areas of the country (Texas for one) that still insist that the presence or absence of "1+" has something to do with how much a call costs. This paradigm died most places when mechanical switches were carried out to the scrapyard (and should be put to death where still alive). Where it is dead, seven digit dialling would work just fine. Regards and Merry Solstice, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: schuster@panix.com (Michael Schuster) Subject: Pager Scam - or Wrong Number? Date: 25 Dec 1996 09:59:17 -0500 Very few people have my direct beeper number; it mainly serves as a conduit for my answering machine to notify me of new messages. So normally I don't answer pages which display unknown numbers. A few months back my pager number was forcibly changed from the 718 to the 917 (pager and cellphone) exchange here in NYC. Since then, an intermittent series on unknown numbers has appeared on my pager, all bearing a similar pattern. 1. Usually Friday or Saturday evenings (sometimes noon on a weekday). 2. Two identical messages 5 minutes apart. 3. No area code, just a 7-digit number. The numbers received seem to rotate through 3 or so of them (I started writing them down). With talk recently of pager scams involving people making unexpected toll calls when answering pages, I've been wary. But I'm getting curious. Ideas? I'm trying to resist dialing 917-xxx-xxxx to see if I can find out. Mike Schuster | 70346.1745@CompuServe.COM schuster@panix.com | schuster@mem.po.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #681 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Dec 27 23:40:41 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id XAA10716; Fri, 27 Dec 1996 23:40:41 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 23:40:41 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612280440.XAA10716@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #682 TELECOM Digest Fri, 27 Dec 96 23:40:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 682 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Dialing Procedures and Charging (Re: NPA 570 For Colorado) (Mark Cuccia) Re: World-Wide Cellular Phone Rental? (Nils Andersson) Re: World-Wide Cellular Phone Rental? (David Whiteman) Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges (Jay R. Ashworth) Re: 385 or 435 to be Used for Utah (Linc Madison) Re: And the New Number is ... 949 (John Cropper) Re: And the New Number is ... 949 (Robert McMillin) Re: Bell Issuing Year-Long *Temporary* Numbers (David Esan) Re: Bell Issuing Year-Long *Temporary* Numbers (Nils Andersson) Re: Free Calls From Payphones/COCOTS (Roy Smith) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 11:21:53 -0800 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Dialing Procedures and Charging (Re: NPA 570 For Colorado) Nils Andersson wrote: > Mark J. Cuccia writes: >> 570-NXX-xxxx would mean Area Code 570, plus whatever local exchange; >> while 303-570-xxxx will continue to mean Area Code 303, plus local >> exchange 570 *within the 303 area code*. >> With overlays and mandatory ten-digit local dialing, such things *are* >> possible, and actually make *more efficient use* of numbering/code >> resources than area code splits do. > True, but I want to make another point. By Bellcore recommendations > (i.e. allowing seven digit or 1+ten or 0+ten) you do not need > "mandatory 10 digit dialling". It is quite feasible to allow good old > seven digits to mean same area code as caller. But you have a 'code conflict' and the switch requires a 'time-out' if you are going to have permissive seven-digit dialing in an overlay situation. i.e. local calls to (303)-570-xxxx dialed as just seven-digits, if coming from a number in the 303 area code will result in a three-to-five second delay, as a *local* call to a number in the 570 area code (570-NXX-xxxx) will require ten-digits. But being a *local* call, particularly in an *overlay* situation shouldn't have to *require* a '1+'. True, the '#' (pound) button can 'cancel' the wait to time-out. But how many in the general public will remember to hit a '#' after dialing a seven-digit local number in their own area code if there is a code-conflict situation. What about people who are pausing too long while dialing, while looking up the number? If they pause too long at the wrong spot, they will connect to (303)-570-nxxx rather than the 570-NXX-xxxx number they *intend* to reach. And rotary dial phones are still in use, and will continue to be. People who don't have a touchtone signaling device will be *forced* to wait for a 'time-out' on such dialed seven-digit calls. Over the decades, places have gone from local numbers of three to six digits in length to a more-or-less 'fixed' length of seven-digits. However, we are really part of a *ten* digit length number in the NANP. And with all of the need for number/code assignments these days, it would be better if everyone in the US and Canada thought of their telephone number as full ten-digits. If I am making a local call in my own central office switch and code, I must dial the number as seven-digits, and can *not* dial the number simply by its last four or five digits. This was possible in many rural areas, and still might be in effect in some places, but is vanishing. Of course, PBX's can dial 'shortcut' numbers within their PBX dialing group, but 'outside' calls usually require the '9+' exit code. Cellular phones aren't rotary but all touchtone. However, they also *require* the 'SEND' button be pressed ... with my cellular, I can *still* even make 0+ calls in the 504 area code as _0+seven-digits+SEND_, whether it is in my local cellular area (Bell South Mobility airtime only), intra-LATA toll (BSM airtime plus BellSouth wireline toll), or to the Baton Rouge LATA (BSM airtime, plus wireline _AT&T_ toll), or I can enter 0+504+seven-digits+SEND. Same goes for toll calls in 504 to the Baton Rouge LATA ... I can enter seven-digits+SEND, 1+seven-digits+SEND, 504+seven-digits+SEND, or 1+504-NXX-xxxx+SEND. And *NO* call even begins to 'set-up' to completion *until* the 'SEND' button is entered! > I am aware that there are some backward areas of the country (Texas > for one) that still insist that the presence or absence of "1+" has > something to do with how much a call costs. This paradigm died most > places when mechanical switches were carried out to the scrapyard (and > should be put to death where still alive). Where it is dead, seven > digit dialling would work just fine. The following relates to *billing* of calls, and the use of '1+': IMO, the use of a '1+' should mean 'put the call through, dialed as a full NANP ten-digit number, whether local or toll. Charge me toll if there is toll -- don't charge me toll if it is local/free (or charge me whatever local message units apply, in areas where there is no unlimited fixed-monthly-rate local dialing area). IMO, *absence* of a '1+' on a full NANP ten-digit number should mean to put the call through *only* if the call is local/free or, in the case of mandatory local measured/message rate 'below' the local price barrier or threshold. IMO, 'free' would include 800/888/877/etc. i.e., in a mandatory ten-digit dialing situation, such calls could be dialed (at the *customer's* whim) as either/both 1-800-NXX-xxxx and/or 800-NXX-xxxx. Same applies for 888 and the future 877, etc. IMO, if the customer has blocking against pay-per-call prefixes, calls to 900-NXX-xxxx, NPA-976-xxxx, and others, whether dialed with '1+' or without '1+' would result in a "call cannot be completed as dialed" type of recording. But if the customer desired access to such prefixes, such calls would be dialed a mandatory ten-digits (i.e. a local area NPA plus 976 on such '976' calls), but would *require* a mandatory '1+'. Any chargeable call (or call above a certain local price threshold) dialed in full ten-digits, but without a '1+' would result in the recording, "you must first dial a '1' or '0' when calling this number." The 1+ did have something to do *specifically* with the actual switching and routing the call in the electromechanical days. In other areas, it indicated the difference between seven-digit "home" NPA calls and ten-digit "foreign" NPA calls, whether or not either was 'local/free' or toll. Today, '1+' could be used as a 'toll-indicator', but permit all local/ free calls as well, while ten-digit calls without the '1+' would be available only for dialed NPA-NXX terminations which are 'local/free'. MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE: 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: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: World-Wide Cellular Phone Rental? Date: 27 Dec 1996 19:02:38 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , joel@exc.com (Joel M. Hoffman) writes: > Does anyone have any details on this sort of service? At the moment > I'm mostly interested in Israel, but in the coming months Europe, too. I know the company (not in my head). They rent Irish and Swiss based GSM 900 MHz phones. The call charges are pretty steep; they have to be. Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: dbw@autopsy.com (David Whiteman) Subject: Re: World-Wide Cellular Phone Rental? Date: 27 Dec 1996 06:45:15 GMT Organization: Network Intensive In article , joel@exc.com (Joel M. Hoffman) wrote: > In the back of an airline magazine, I saw an offer for world-wide > cellular phone rental, where I would pay only for calls (probably at > quite a high rate), and nothing for renting the phone or the cellular > service. But I forgot to keep the advertisement. > Does anyone have any details on this sort of service? At the moment > I'm mostly interested in Israel, but in the coming months Europe, too. Recently during random web surfing I found a web side for a company that rents international cellular phones. I have no idea of the quality of their service, or how relatively cheap or expensive their products are. The website is www.mobell.com and the company is Mobell Communications. They rent US cell phones, UK cell phones, GSM and MTS phones for over 30 countries, and the Planet 1 phone, which is Comsat's new portable satellite phone. ------------------------------ From: jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us (Jay R. Ashworth) Subject: Re: COCOT 800-Access Charges Date: 27 Dec 1996 16:58:24 GMT Organization: University of South Florida Dave Levenson (dave@westmark.com) wrote: > Jay R. Ashworth (jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us) writes: >> Ok, admittedly, they may have a financially sound motivation for this >> desire, although I'd be _really_ surprised if there was a good >> justification for their not noticing for _13_ years ... > Over the past 13 years, the volume of 800 traffic has increased from > 4% of the traffic to 24% of the traffic. (Why do you think we have > run out of 800 numbers?) When the users getting a free ride on the > payphone become that high a fraction, they _did_ get noticed. That it > took this many years to fix the problem is not because nobody noticed > it ... but that governmental action normally proceeds at a rather > stately pace! It's gone up that much? Ok. >> The "rule" I'm discussing is the implied contract that Dave feels that >> he, and his daughter at swim practice, have with "the telephone >> company". For many, _many_ years, it has been possible to place a >> call to a "so-called" toll-free number, without needing to carry any >> money, and many, _many_ customers have taken advantage of this >> capability. > That has not changed. The payphone compensation is paid to the > payphone operator (LEC or COCOT-owner) by the carrier, not by the > caller. There is still no need to carry change to make calls to 800 > numbers! Well, yeah, but see my earlier comments to Brett (I think it was) on this topic. Cheers, Jay R. Ashworth jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us Member of the Technical Staff Junk Mail Will Be Billed For. The Suncoast Freenet *FLASH: Craig Shergold aw'better; call 800-215-1333* Tampa Bay, Florida http://members.aol.com/kyop/rhps.html +1 813 790 7592 ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: 385 or 435 to be Used for Utah Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 17:29:25 -0800 In article , psyber@mindspring. com wrote: (quoting the Deseret News Archives, 12/12/96) > Cellular phone customers in the affected area would need to have their > phones reprogrammed, Ott said. He was unsure about the cost. > Fax machines, modems or pagers would not need to be reprogrammed. This last point is flat wrong as far as fax machines. Fax machines in an area code MUST be reprogrammed, because the "station ID" is entered manually. Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ From: John Cropper Subject: Re: And the New Number is ... 949 Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 19:17:14 -0500 Organization: MindSpring Reply-To: psyber@mindspring.com Mike King wrote: > And the New Number is ... 949 > Plan Filed to Split Orange County's 714 Area Code > Most existing 714 customers in the northern portion of Orange County > would keep the 714 area code. Some of the communities that would > remain entirely in the 714 include: Anaheim, Buena Park, Cypress, > Fountain Valley, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Orange, > Placentia, Seal Beach, Stanton, Westminster and Yorba Linda. The > majority of customers in Santa Ana and Tustin would also keep the 714 > area code. The 714 area code would also continue to serve very small > portions of Brea, La Mirada, La Palma, Los Alamitos and La Habra. > Most existing 714 customers in the southern portion of Orange County > would receive the new 949 area code. Some of the communities to be > served by the 949 include: Aliso Viejo, Balboa, Capistrano Valley, > Corona del Mar, Dana Point, Laguna Beach, Laguna Niguel, Lake Forest, > Mission Viejo, Newport Beach, San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, and > Santa Ana Heights. Most customers in Irvine would also receive the new > 949 area code. Sounds to me that the easiest explanation is that the border runs from the coast along Harbor Blvd, turns east along I-405, straddles mid-county along state route 55 (Costa Mesa Freeway and Newport Freeway), then turns and follows state route 91. > Several communities located along the new 714/949 split line border > would be served by both area codes, meaning part of the community > would stay 714 and part would receive the new 949. In Irvine, for > instance, most of the city would be served by 949, except a small > portion to stay 714. Other cities that would be served by both area > codes include: Santa Ana and Tustin, which primarily remain 714 and > Costa Mesa, which would be divided in half by the two area codes. When you're making am omelette ... > In planning area code splits, Bennett said the industry tries to avoid > dividing cities. "However, sometimes this cannot be avoided because > telephone wire center serving boundaries do not necessarily coincide > with city and county lines," he said, explaining that the telephone > wireline network has been in place for many years, while political > boundaries have changed over time. "Consequently, we cannot always > follow political boundary lines and still gain adequate area code > relief." > The Commission is expected to issue a final decision on the 714 area > code relief plan as early as January. Persons who wish to comment on > the plan may write to the: > California Public Utilities Commission > President P. Gregory Conlon > 505 Van Ness Avenue > San Francisco, CA 94102 -or- MindNumbed TURN sympathizers President Regina Costa c/o CPUC 505 Van Ness Avenue San Francisco, CA 94102 attention: NO OVERLAYS, OR WE'LL PINCH YOU! > Bennett said two 714 geographic split options were presented to the > public for comment during meetings in June. Both plans used a > north/south Orange County split to create a new area code and were > very similar, except one also kept Huntington Beach, Westminster and > half of Fountain Valley in the 714 area code. > "In general, the public preferred the plan that included Huntington > Beach, Westminster and Fountain Valley in 714 due to a strong > community of interest between these cities and other nearby cities in > the 714," Bennett said. "There was also a concern that Santa Ana, > being the county seat, should remain in the 714. > "We were able to make those adjustments, although it shortens the life > of the 714 area code by almost a year." Other adjustments to the > original plan included keeping all, rather than only part, of Fountain > Valley in 714, Bennett said. Everybody's code-happy ... 'we gotta keep our code, we gotta keep our code'. This mentality will perpetuate the need for relief! > As proposed, the new 949 area code would last 18 to 22 years, while the > reconfigured 714 would last four to five years. Rediculous! Both codes should be split so that they both last an average of eight to ten years. > While customers who receive the new 949 area code will have to change > the area code portion of their telephone number, the new three-digit > code will not affect the price of telephone calls in any of these > areas, Bennett said. "Call distance determines call price and is not > impacted by the creation of a new area code," he said. "What is a > local call now will remain a local call regardless of the area code > change. Dialing patterns, however, will change! > Bennett also noted that when the new 949 area code is introduced, > there will be a six-month "permissive" dialing period during which > callers can dial either the old 714 or new 949 area code. If they're smart, they'll make it three months of dial-through, and three months of intercept recordings ... > Orange County is the latest in a series of regions in California > requiring area code relief. Today, California has 13 area codes, more > than any other state. Plans call for doubling that number from 13 to > 26 over the next five years to keep up with the state's record > telephone number consumption. That consumption is being spurred by the > high-technology explosion of fax machines, pagers, cellular phones and > modems for Internet access along with the onset of local competition > in California's telephone market. Ten of the 13 new area codes will be > introduced by the end of 1998. This is the most accurate depiction of the situation to date. Of course, it IS PacBell who is reporting this fact ... :) > Plans for the 714 area code were collectively developed by a > telecommunications industry group representing more than 30 companies, > including Pacific Bell, GTE, AT&T, MCI, Sprint, AirTouch, Pagenet, > AT&T Wireless, MFS Communications Co., Teleport Communications Group > (TCG), the California Cable Television Association and others. This explains why new area code boundaries resemble voting districts. :) John Cropper voice: 888.NPA.NFO2 LINCS 609.637.9434 PO Box 277 fax: 609.637.9430 Pennington, NJ 08534-0277 mailto:psyber@mindspring.com http://206.112.101.209/jcbt2n/lincs/ ------------------------------ From: rlm@netcom.com (Robert McMillin) Subject: Re: And the New Number is ... 949 Reply-To: rlm@helen.surfcty.com Organization: Charlie Don't CERF Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1996 03:34:35 GMT On 26 Dec 1996 21:14:18 PDT, Mike King reposted a Pac*Bell press release, which in part read: > Most existing 714 customers in the northern portion of Orange County > would keep the 714 area code. Some of the communities that would > remain entirely in the 714 include: Anaheim, Buena Park, Cypress, > Fountain Valley, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Orange, > Placentia, Seal Beach, Stanton, Westminster and Yorba Linda. The ^^^^^^^^^^ > majority of customers in Santa Ana and Tustin would also keep the 714 > area code. The 714 area code would also continue to serve very small > portions of Brea, La Mirada, La Palma, Los Alamitos and La Habra. Isn't Seal Beach entirely served by 310 (soon to be 562)? The only thing I can think of that might be in 714 is the Naval Weapons Station, but that's not even listed in my White Pages. (Hey, maybe they're in 710 ... :-) Does anyone know differently? > As proposed, the new 949 area code would last 18 to 22 years, while the > reconfigured 714 would last four to five years. Typical of what seems to be happening across the country. North OC residents can look forward to yet another geographic split in 2002 or so. My guess at the most likely boundaries are the Santa Ana River and/or Euclid Street. Most of Santa Ana, Anaheim (i.e., Disneyland/ Anaheim Stadium/the Arrowhead Pond), and Tustin, along with all of Orange, Yorba Linda, Placentia, the Silverado exchange, eastern Fullerton, and the eastern extremities of Garden Grove would remain 714. Cypress, Buena Park, La Palma, Stanton, western Garden Grove and Fullerton, Westminster, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, and the 714 remnant of Costa Mesa would move to the new area code. Both area codes will exhaust in 2004 :-). The more I think about overlays, the more I like it. Robert L. McMillin | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Netcom: rlm@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: David Esan <103145.117@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: Bell Issuing Year-Long *Temporary* Numbers Date: 27 Dec 1996 15:28:31 GMT Organization: MOSCOM > A description of being given a 281 number, that will change > into a 713 number in a year. I wouldn't blame SWBT too much for the mix up. The 281 overlay was in the works for nearly a year, when objections to an overlay were raised in the Texas PUC. They then ruled that the earlier 281 overlay had to be redone, and that the split had to be geographic. I am sure that the confusion that was created was tremendous, as existing exchanges had to be moved out of the new 713 area and those people, assigned a 281 exchange, had to be moved back into 713. All this in an area code that was running out of exchanges to begin with. BTW, there is a 713-290 exchange. In fact, according to my latest information, there are 764 exchanges in 713. Remember, there is a maximum of 800 possible exchanges, and there are a certain number that are reserved for various uses and therefore not available for use. ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: Bell Issuing Year-Long *Temporary* Numbers Date: 27 Dec 1996 19:16:20 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com > I can't find any records that indicate that there is a 713-290-XXXX > exchange. Why couldn't they create one so that new customers could > have a 713 number and wouldn't have to change their area code or > prefix? I find it terribly inconceivable that they are totally out of > 713 numbers in my area. Are they conserving these numbers? This kind of little shop of horrors is another illustration to why I believe the PUCs should bite the bullet and to overlays. Regards and Happy Solstice, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 10:00:28 -0500 From: roy@mchip00.med.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) Subject: Re: Free Calls From Payphones/COCOTS Organization: New York University School of Medicine Eric Friedebach wrote: > In 1987 I signed up for an 800 number from MCI for my small business > that sells technical data for old aircraft [...] > As this whole subject settles down, I guess the concept (and cost) of > using a public telephone to access your own number will be acceptable. I ran into an interesting problem related to 800 numbers and pay phones recently, related to aviation too. Every airport that has an instrument approach is required by regulation to have some way to communicate with Air Traffic Control from the ground, so you can close flight plans after landing, obtain pre-takeoff clearances, etc. If there is no ATC facility on the field, then there either has to be an RCO (Remote Communications Outlet; basicly an automated VHF tranceiver remoted over a leased line circuit back to an ATC facility) or a commercial pay phone. RCOs are relatively expensive to install, so only the busiest uncontrolled fields have them. The smaller ones just have a plain old public pay phone on the field somewhere. The FAA, in their zeal to ensure that pilots do indeed contact ATC when they are supposed to, provided a nationwide 800 number which connects you to the nearest flight service station (not actually an ATC facility, but they do relay messages to ATC, and that's good enough). This is also the same 800 number you use to obtain weather briefings. So, of course, you've got these pay phones, sitting out at small airports, getting used a lot. Unfortunately, 99% of the calls don't generate any coins into the coin box, because they are to the 800 number. So, this past summer, NYNEX decided to start yanking out all the "unprofitable" payphones at small airports. Of course, the phones do generate revenue producing calls, they just don't generate coins in the box. The FAA pays for all the 800 calls, via invoice at the end of the month on their 800 line. But, that's not the way the accounting is done, so NYNEX views the phones as "unprofitable", and pulled them all out. Roy Smith Hippocrates Project, Department of Microbiology, Coles 202 NYU School of Medicine, 550 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #682 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Sun Dec 29 00:07:31 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id AAA28752; Sun, 29 Dec 1996 00:07:31 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 00:07:31 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612290507.AAA28752@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #683 TELECOM Digest Sun, 29 Dec 96 00:07:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 683 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AT&T's New Prepaid Phone Card (Mark J. Cuccia) Prepaid Phone Card Scams (Tad Cook) Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management (Lars Poulsen) Cellular Translations (was Dialing Procedures and Charging) (Stan Cline) Re: AT&T Merlin Used Equipment Needed (Don Ritchie) Utah, 385, 435 and Possibilities (John Cropper) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1996 15:51:43 -0800 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: AT&T's New Prepaid Phone Card In the mail at home the other day, I received a promotion from AT&T. It was a gift of one of their new pre-paid Phone Cards with 100-units of calling! This is part of their new "Personal Account Service" for 'special' customes. I am a high-volume toll user of AT&T's service, incidently. Regarding the prepaid (actually gift) card, it is good for 100 units of calls, in which domestic calls (which, of course, includes Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands) are 1 unit per minute. International calls are "rated" as follows: Canada, Mexico ......... 3 units per minute United Kingdom ......... 3 units per minute non-US Caribbean ....... 4 units per minute Central/South America .. 4 units per minute Japan, Australia ....... 4 units per minute Asia/Pacific ........... 5 units per minute The dialing procedures to use this card are as follows: Dial up the 800 number printed on the back of the card. This number is *NOT* 800-CALL-ATT nor 800-3210-ATT. Voice-recording prompts are now heard, welcoming you to the service. DTMF enter the prepaid card number. It is ten-digits in length, rather than fourteen. The ten-digits on my card are of the form NXX-NXX-XXXX. I don't know if the fourth digit in ten-digit card number could be '1' or '0', or if the first digit could be '1' or '0' as well. It possibly could, as I don't think that you can 'cut thru' to an operator when using this card. More voice-recording prmpts are now heard -- first indicating how many units are remaining on the card, and if enough, then instructing you to enter '1' if the call is in the US, Canada or the Caribbean, then the area code and local seven digit number; *OR* to enter the country code plus city-code and local number of a country outside of North America. NOTE: *** "You do not need to enter the 011 before the country code, because AT&T does it for you." *** In other words, you are entering the 'full worldwide' telephone number, without any 'access prefixes'. Calls within the NANP are preceded with a '1' (which you do normally dial from a home/business phone on 'station sent paid' calls, anyhow), and all calls to non-NANP locations are dialed with the country code first, and then continuing. If there are enough units on the card, the call will go through. If you get a busy, no-answer, or intercept/vacant type of recording, you can hit the '#' button and redial that call or place another call, or hang up. At the end of a completed call, when the called party hangs up, you then hear how many units remain on the card. If you wish to call another number, hit the '#' button, and enter the number as desrcibed above, or hang up. When only one minute remains on the card, an announcement will 'cut-in'. You can then enter another valid prepaid card number to continue. There are another 800 numbers for customer service, as well as for my "Personal Account Representative." On the terms and conditions, it mentions that the card can't be used from rotary phones (unless you have a portable touchtone signaling dialer - like the one I have from Radio Shack), nor can it be used to call 700, 800, or 900 calls. It doesn't mention anything about 500 number calls, however. Nor can the card be used for certain types of operator assisted calls such as 3rd-party billing or collect (how would anyone want to use a prepaid card, but then place calls to 800 numbers, or billed collect/3rd-party?), nor can the card be used calls to Directory Assistance. (I don't understand why one or more units can't be deducted for DA, even with 'Directory Link' connecting the call. Maybe it is because that DA is a 'fixed' charge, and if you connected to the number looked up, it couldn't deduct those units.) The card has no surrender value and is not refundable. As for me, I consider it a nice gift from AT&T! (And, I've used it a lot already, and I only have 7-units remaining out of the initial 100!) *However*, I don't like the way you enter all NANP numbers as 1+ten-digits, and all non-NANP calls as their full worldwide number but without the 011+. I've mentioned it to the customer service already that even though the instructions are printed on the card, and I am aware of them, I am not always in the habit of entering a '1+' when entering in a called NANP number on various carriers' 'card' services accessed with 950-xxxx or 800/888 numbers, whether the initial call, or a sequence call after the '#' (pound) button. And for calls to non-NANP countries placed via a calling card with AT&T and other carriers (accessed with 950-xxxx and 800/888 numbers), I am always accustomed to entering '011+' or '01+' and then the country code, etc. With my 'regular' AT&T and BellSouth cards, I can enter sequence calls to NANP numbers as ten-digits, 1+ten-digits, or sometimes even 0+ten-digits. And all sequence calls to non-NANP locations as 01(1)+cc+nn+(#). And sequence calls include the 'initial' number when using fg.B (or like) access with a 950-xxxx or 800/888 number, rather than (10(1X)XXX)+0/01+ fg.D access. I even accidently placed a one-minute (4-units deducted) call 'sequence' call to Honduras (Country Code +504) when I really intended to call Baton Rouge LA (area code 504 within the NANP, +1), because when I finished with the earlier call and then hit '#', I entered the NANP ten-digit number without first entering '1+'. And since '01(1)+' isn't required, the 504 was picked up as Honduras' country code, rather than southeastern Louisiana's area code! My "personal account representative" told me that she understood that this could be confusing or misleading, and she would see if she could credit me. I hope that AT&T takes this into consideration; and I am also pleased with the friendliness and response from the "Personal Account Representative" to see if she could credit me! And the card/account itself was really a gift ... something I didn't have to pay for ... except that I am a high-toll-volume customer of AT&T. MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE: 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 ------------------------------ Subject: Prepaid Phone Card Scams Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1996 00:11:33 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Scam Artists Cheat Buyers of Prepaid Telephone Cards By Simon Barker-Benfield, The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Dec. 27--A $25,000 fine by the Florida Public Service Commission is a warning flag to consumers to make sure companies selling prepaid phone cards can deliver on the service. "It's a buyer-beware market,"said Rick Moses, a PSC communications engineer supervisor. Last week, the commission said it fined I.S.C. International Telecommunications, (copy is garbled here) ... service providers, including AT&T, GTE and MCI. "The cost of entry is so low that it almost encourages three different classes of people; the undercapitalized, the talent impaired and the ethically challenged," Segermark said. There have been problems with service providers selling more time than they have bought. Other tricks include delivering 54 seconds of calling time but charging for 60 seconds, or increasing charges without warning, Segermark said. There have also been problems with inadequate equipment. Segermark said he knew of companies who had gone into business with a toll-free "800" number, an old personal computer designed for home use and four modems. "It's a small number of ripoff artists, but it hurts all legitimate service providers," Segermark. I.S.C. International Telecommunications was not fined for cheating customers. It was fined for not following state rules for offering telephone service. Certification by the state of Florida is no guarantee that a service provider can deliver what it says it will deliver. But at least it requires demonstration of a minimum level of resources. "They must prove their managerial, financial and technical capability," said Moses. Companies must also file a price list. One problem for regulators is that companies market the cards for a period of time in a given area, then close up shop and move on. Some of the companies are selling in Florida from bases in other states. For instance, the PSC is having trouble tracking down I.S.C. International Telecommunications. It first refused to accept a registered letter from the PSC at its Biscayne Boulevard offices in Miami in July. A second letter was returned with the notation "moved, no forwarding address," said Paula Islar, the PSC investigator on the case. Telephone numbers listed on the company's prepaid card have been disconnected. The account at BellSouth was listed in the name of Interglobal Services Corp., according to PSC filings. Phone card buyers can check to see whether their phone card company is registered with the Public Service Commission by calling the division of communications at (904) 413-6600 and talking to Tommy Williams or Moses. Consumers can also find out whether a service provider is a member of the International Telecard Association by calling 1-800-333-3513. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Interesting that AT&T was one of the companies fined for poor performance in this area when considering the marketing push they are making at this time according to the earlier article in this issue by Mark Cuccia. PAT] ------------------------------ From: lars@anchor.RNS.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management Date: 28 Dec 1996 18:06:07 -0800 Organization: RNS / Meret Communications In article kd1hz@anomaly. ideamation.com (Michael P. Deignan) writes: > You think that trying to change existing Internic records are bad, > just try getting a new block of IP address assignments from them! > I manage a large munipical wide-area-network. I filed paperwork with > the Internic on several occasions asking for a block of Class-C IP > address assignments to use on my network. > The response, each time, was that I should contact my ISP and obtain > IP address allocations from them. As surprising as this may seem to you, this is the correct answer. > So, I wrote back explaining that I was a large municipal wide-area > network, and like many municipalities, the ISP was not 'set-in-stone' > as it was a service that goes out to competitive bid every year or so. > I explained that I was in no position to manually re-assign the IP > address on the hundreds of machines under my control on a yearly basis > should the ISP winning the contract change. > Their response? "Please contact your ISP for an IP address allocation". You seem to assume that if you were to get a "class C" sized address assignment from the InterNIC ("provider-independent addresses"), it would be globally routable, even if you change ISPs. The truth is that it would not be routable ANYWHERE. As the global Internet routing tables are now well over 30,000 entries, service providers are refusing to advertise routes to networks whose addresses cannot be aggregated into larger blocks. The only way to make small amounts of address space aggregatable, is to assign it out of a larger block assigned to the service provider ... then all other providers can just maintain a single route for the entire aggregated block. Small networks (less than a few thousand hosts) MUST renumber when their connectivity changes. The only exceptions are for addresses issued prior to about 1993, when this policy was instituted. That old address space (192.*.*.*) is known among network operators as the "Toxic Waste Dump" because it is totally unstructured and cannot be aggregated. You may ask why we can have telephone number portability for individual numbers in the 800- and 888- service codes, but not for blocks of a few hundred IP addresses? The answer is that telephone numbers need to be looked up and routed only once per call, and as you may have experienced, it takes a few seconds. On the other hand, IP-addresses need to be looked up at each router for each packet passing through, and at some major routing points, the flow is over a quarter million packets PER SECOND. > I went through this four times over the past year. I still don't have > a block of IP addresses. I gave up six months ago and just selected a > block at random to use. If and when we ever do connect to the Internet > (not a high priority right now anyway) I'll worry about it then (and > probably use another tool like a proxy server to "fix" it.) If you don't need the addresses to be routable or globally unique, you can use the addresses SPECIFICALLY SET ASIDE FOR LOCAL ADMINISTRATION. See RFC1597: "Address Allocation for Private Internets". A quote: The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) has reserved the following three blocks of the IP address space for private networks: 10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255 172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 It is unfortunate, if nobody explained this to you at the time, but this particular issue has been given *a lot* of thought. Lars Poulsen Internet E-mail: lars@OSICOM.COM OSICOM Technologies (Internet Business Unit, formerly RNS) 7402 Hollister Avenue Telefax: +1-805-968-8256 Santa Barbara, CA 93117 Telephone: +1-805-562-3158 ------------------------------ From: roamer1@pobox.com (Stanley Cline) Subject: Cellular Translations (was Dialing Procedures and Charging) Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 00:21:46 GMT Organization: Catoosa Computing Services Reply-To: roamer1@pobox.com On Fri, 27 Dec 1996 11:21:53 -0800, you wrote: > the 'SEND' button be pressed ... with my cellular, I can *still* even > make 0+ calls in the 504 area code as _0+seven-digits+SEND_, whether > enter 0+504+seven-digits+SEND. Same goes for toll calls in 504 to the > Baton Rouge LATA ... I can enter seven-digits+SEND, 1+seven-digits+SEND, To comment: This does *not* work in BSM/Chattanooga for all calls, mainly because the Chatt local area is split between two area codes. Local customers of BSM can dial seven digits for calls *within MOST of the Chattanooga LATA/local calling area* whether the area code is 423 or 706. HOWEVER, there are numbers that must STILL be dialed as TEN digits, even though there's NO conflict: 706-397 Villanow, GA LOCAL, but STILL ROUTED BY BSM AS INTERLATA CALL, THROUGH SPRINT <-- I have complained about this but their MTSO techs won't change the translations. ALLTEL, the LEC In this area, says these calls should be routed as intRALATA... Oh FCC... 423-496, 706-492 Copper Basin, TN/GA = LOCAL on most plans (there is no B-side cellular here, of course) 706-462 Rising Fawn, GA INTERLATA TOLL (even though this area is INSIDE the Chatt LATA, and really should be LOCAL.) 205-437 Bridgeport, AL INTERLATA TOLL (again, withIN the Chatt LATA) (This is nearly as bad as ALLTEL's stupidity of requiring 7/10/11 digits for different local calls in the LaFayette, GA area.) Calls outside the Chatt LATA (to Knoxville, Dalton/Atlanta, etc.) whether toll is charged or not must be dialed as ten digits. Both ten and eleven digits are allowed as permissive for all calls. Examples: to call someone in Chatt (local): 265-xxxx, 423-265-xxxx, 1-423-265-xxxx all work. to call someone in Rossville, GA: 861-xxxx, 706-861-xxxx, 1-706-861-xxxx to call someone in Knoxville: 423-522-xxxx, 1-423-522-xxxx to call someone in Nashville: 615-386-xxxx, 1-615-386-xxxx to call LA, CA: 213-221-xxxx, 1-213-221-xxxx to call an 800 number: 800-222-xxxx, 1-800-222-xxxx CellularOne/GTE allows the dialing of seven digits for all of NPA 423, and requires the area code for intra-region (within SID 93*) calls that are "local", and 1+ the area code for out-of-region (outside SID 93*) calls: to call someone in Chatt (local): 265-xxxx, 423-265-xxxx, 1-423-265-xxxx to call someone in Rossville, GA: 706-861-xxxx, 1-706-861-xxxx to call someone in Knoxville: 522-xxxx, 423-522-xxxx, 1-423-522-xxxx to call someone in Nashville: 1-615-386-xxxx (even though call is rated for most customers as "local") to call LA, CA: 1-213-221-xxxx to call 800: 800-222-xxxx, 1-800-222-xxxx (888 requires the leading 1?!) On both carriers, for 0+ calls 0 and the area code MUST be dialed. *SID 93 now includes Chattanooga, Knoxville, and the Tri-Cities (Bristol/Johnson City) area, as well as Bristol, VA and parts of five counties in Georgia. It does *not* include TN RSA 4 (licensed to Bachtel Cellular, butcalls are switched by GTE in Knoxville.) This doesn't apply to roamers, or even those customers part of the "statewide*" local calling plans of CellOne, BSM and US Cellular, who must dial ten digits for ALL calls (and for CellOne, 11 digits for "out of NPA 423 or 800 or SID 93" calls.) (*They are *not* statewide, as has been posted before.) When roaming, in fact, there is no true "standard" dialing procedure. The B-side MobiLink standard (followed by the major B-side carriers, except US Cellular and BANM) is: ten digits for calls local to the roaming area 11 (1+) for calls outside the local roaming area Some carriers [BellSouth] use ten digits for *all* calls; others [Century Cellunet/Tupelo] allow seven digits for calls local to the roaming area; yet others [ATTWS/NYC] require 1+ on *all* calls, even local. Stanley Cline (Roamer1 on IRC) ** GO BRAVES! GO VOLS! dba Catoosa Computing Services, Chattanooga, TN mailto:roamer1@pobox.com ** http://www.pobox.com/~roamer1/ ------------------------------ From: dritchie@nacs.net (Don Ritchie) Subject: Re: AT&T Merlin Used Equipment Needed Date: 28 Dec 1996 14:04:40 GMT Organization: New Age Consulting Service, Cleveland, OH, USA Steve Bagdon (bagdon@rust.net) wrote: Lots of "big house" stuff snipped > Basically, I'm looking for an AT&T Merlin system that can handle this > setup. I don't know where the 'systems' fit into a particular scheme, ie: > max extensions, max incoming lines, etc. I'm sure I'll go against all > rules of the extension/lines ratio (I want a lot more extensions then > lines), so I figure I'll have to overbuy to get the number of extensions > that I want. What is the reason you would buy/build a house like you discribed, and put in a twenty year old Telephone system? Merlin hasn't really changed since the late 70's (and the legend is "just another Merlin") and even tends to be over-priced on the secondary market. For not much more then you would pay for a used Merlin, you can buy a new Panasonic. With Panasonic you can use single line telephones in every port, if you wanted to, and only get one 4 port C.O. card. With the Digital 1232 you could have just 4 "trunks" and as many as 64 stations IF YOU DID IT "RIGHT". (This would require 32 digital stations and 32 single lines sets) but I digress. I sell mostly Vodavi StarPlus, but in you kind of setting I would recommend the Panasonic, Most likely the analog 1232 configured 4/24 would already be overkill and you could add another eight station card and two more four C.O. cards. > So, is there a central clearing house for used Merlin equipment (cpus, > extensions, etc) that an individual can buy from? Thanks in advance to > anyone who can recommend a particular system, and where to get it at a > reasonable price! E-mail me with any questions. I CAN supply equipment and may be able to supply installation through a network of "friends". Free advice is worth every penny you paid for it ! Don Ritchie Century Communications Euclid, Ohio e-mail dritchie@nacs.net OR k8zgw@hamnet.org ------------------------------ From: John Cropper Subject: Utah, 385, 435 and Possibilities Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1996 09:41:22 -0500 Organization: MindSpring Reply-To: psyber@mindspring.com Two weeks ago, Utah announced (rather inadvertently) that it had been given a choice (by USWest) of one of *two* area codes for the state. Having tipped its hand slightly (USWest has obviously reserved BOTH numbers for use in their territory), USWest gave us a holiday gift ... speculation. Here's are a few facts, and my 2c: USWest territory, and NPAs needing relief in the next 24 months: Arizona 602: no NXX 385, 435 in use (Glendale) 520: no NXX 435, 385 in use (San Manuel) Conclusion: Use would cause someone confusion; neither code could be used here ... Minnesota 612: 385 in use (Red Wing), 435 in use (Burnsville) Conclusion: no-brainer ... even with mandatory 10D HNPA-L, no dice ... Washington 206: (yeah, I got a feeling the 3-way in April won't last too long): While neither 385 nor 435 is in use in 206, both are in use in 360. However, after the 206/253/425 split is completed, 206 will no longer be adjacent to 360 ... Conclusion: A slight possibility here, since neither NXX was used in 206 after 206/360. New Mexico 505: Neither 385 nor 435 is in use here. San Manuel, AZ (520-385) is not local; Littlefield, TX (806-385) not local; Perryton, TX (806-435) is not local; Odessa, TX (915-385) is also not local. Conclusion: a much better possibility here, if it runs out of prefixes before 206 ... As for Utah itself, no adjacent state has an NXX 385 or 435 that would be a 7D FNPA local call from Utah (closest 385 & 435 NXXs are both in Las Vegas, NV!), so there is no general sway for Utah itself to favor one code over the other. I predict a coin flip, or perhaps an old native legend to offer guidance in choosing the code. :-) Given the above factors and conditions, the code not chosen by Utah stands an excellent chance of being used for New Mexico in 1999 (give or take a year). John Cropper voice: 888.NPA.NFO2 LINCS 609.637.9434 PO Box 277 fax: 609.637.9430 Pennington, NJ 08534-0277 mailto:psyber@mindspring.com http://206.112.101.209/jcbt2n/lincs/ ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #683 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Dec 30 23:30:42 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id XAA23216; Mon, 30 Dec 1996 23:30:42 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 23:30:42 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612310430.XAA23216@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #684 TELECOM Digest Mon, 30 Dec 96 23:30:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 684 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: How Business Almost Derailed the Net (Ronda Hauben) Re: New Area Codes (John Cropper) Re: Prepaid Phone Cards (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: Bell Issuing Year-Long *Temporary* Numbers (Michael Chance) Re: AT&T Merlin Used Equipment Needed (Jeff Rauland) Re: Utah, 385, 435 and Possibilities (Linc Madison) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: rh120@columbia.edu (Ronda Hauben) Subject: Re: How Business Almost Derailed the Net Date: 30 Dec 1996 17:57:51 GMT Organization: Columbia University > Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 10:09:40 -0800 (PST) > From: Nathan Newman > Subject: [ENODE] How Business Almost Rerailed the Net It seems there is a battle on, not quite that it is over, so it was a welcome event to see Nathan's article posted on comp.dcom.telecom > In a remarkable turn of societal imagination, many conservatives > have begun picturing the computer age as the rejuvenation of > small-scale entrepreneurial capitalism against the institutions of the > nation state. Whether it's Alvin Toffler "quantum revolution" or Newt It doesn't seem it is just the conservatives. It is also unfortunate that this is the image that the U.S. government (with the exception thus far of the federal court in Pa) is trying to convey. It is helpful that this article demonstrates that the mythology of so called "competition" is just a veneer for the actuality of unregulated conglomerates and monopolies trying to impose their view of the world and their products on an uncooperative public. But the more important fact that this all brings to light is that the Internet was created as a scientific, educational resource. As such it made possible the public participation needed to develop technology. I have begun to document this in a new piece of work I am doing applying Jurgen Habermas's notion of the need for a reemergence of the public sphere to the development of Usenet and the early ARPANET mailing lists. > Gingrich promoting decentralization of economic decision-making to > local regions, there has been a steady stream of conservative analysis > making the case that new technology has made government's role, > especially the federal government's role, irrelevant and even > dangerous to the healthy functioning of the economy. The development of new technology requires that government play its crucial role. My research about Usenet and the ARPANET mailing lists in the 1981-2 period (Usenet was formed in 1979 so this is fairly early in its development) shows that there were important debates and discussions on both early Usenet and on the ARPANET mailing lists carried on Usenet during this period which examined the different views of technology that the commercial world was promoting and that the scientific and technical community needed. For example, on the workstation mailing list FA.works there was a discussion of whether Xerox should offer a programming language with its new workstation. There was resistance from Xerox for offering a programming language as that was in conflict with the commercial control of its product, while those on the mailing list who were to be the users of the workstation discussed how the lack of a programming language would make the workstation useless to them. That they would need to be able to customize their uses of the workstation and not having a programming language would make their work impossible. Thru this kind of discussion and debate Xerox was won to recognize the need to offer a programming language. > Even THE ECONOMIST, a magazine with an early enthusiasm for the > Internet and usually a somewhat more balanced eye, has described the I haven't noticed the more balanced eye, but have instead felt the Economist has promoted the ideology of the so called "free market" for quite a while, but I haven't particularly followed its Internet coverage. > success of the Internet as the "triumph of the free market over > central planning. Democracy over dictatorship." The new conservative What is interesting is that democracy in the political realm needs some sort of check over corporate power in the political and economic realm. This is helpfully pointed out in Habermas's work. He shows how in the development of a political system there is a need to have debate and discussion over crucial issues and that this is what happened in the development of our current political forms in England, Germany and France. (And others have pointed out how this was true as well in the early days of the U.S.) However, Habermas shows how public relations firms have been hired by big corporate entities to put their narrow self interest out to the public as the public interest. The public debate and discussion over public issues is replaced by public relations ads from corporate entities who propose their ads as the news. Habermas points out how this use of the press by corporate entities has corrupted the press. And in a time of technological and scientific developments there is a special need for the public to be able to discuss public issues and questions to be able determine what will serve the public interest. With the development of Usenet and the early ARPANET mailing lists there was a reemergence of a public sphere where the public could discuss technological developments and determine what was needed for this to serve the public. Such discussions also helped the companies who were developing products as they could hear complaints when their products didn't meet the needs of the public. Unfortunately instead of recognizing and valuing this resource represented by early Usenet and the ARPANET mailing lists, corporations were eager to stop the criticism of their products and to substitute public relations for such criticism. Fortunately the Acceptible Use Policy (AUP) governing the ARPANET and therefore also the ARPANET mailing lists carried on Usenet forbid public relations activity and thus helped to nourish the development of a new public sphere. Clearly much of the corporate world has been eager to get rid of this prohibition against public relations activity on the Internet as they want to corrupt it with their public relations activity as they have much of the U.S. press. Therefore instead of encouraging any discussion and debate about what should happen with the Internet, much of the corporate world in the U.S. at least, is encouraging the Internet as a new means of consumerism. However, Usenet and the Internet make it possible for people to be citizens of their countries (i.e. to participate in the important public issues) and netizens (i.e. to participate in determining the affairs of the Net.) Therefore there is a need to understand and encourage the reemergence of the public sphere that mailing lists like comp.dcom.telecom and Usenet newsgroups make possible and to discuss and debate the future of the Internet, as is being begun by this thread. For those interested in these issues, the Netizens netbook which is online at http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook documents the scientific and academic foundations of the ARPANET and Usenet as the basis for the Internet. Government funding made this all possible, and there is much to learn from this to help to nourish the future development of the Internet. We welcome comments and discussion of the articles in the Netizens netbook. Ronda rh120@columbia.edu ronda@panix.com P.S. A draft of my work on applying Habermas's framework to understand early Usenet is available if anyone is interested. Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook ------------------------------ From: John Cropper Subject: Re: New Area Codes Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 19:39:06 -0500 Organization: MindSpring Reply-To: psyber@mindspring.com Derek wrote: > About a year or so ago, when additional area codes within the city of > Chicago were still in the planning stages, there was a debate whether > or not they were going to divide up the city geographically, or whether > they would just assign all NEW numbers the new area code, and leave all > existing numbers alone. This would mean that within city limits there > would be two (or more) area codes scattered all throughout. This would > have a tremendous advantage in that millions of people would not be > inconvenienced by their area code changing. I believe it also meant > that even if you were dialing a number across the street, you would > need to include the area code. Split proponents have used the 'mandatory ten-digit dialing' as a scare tactic, although the FCC would be well-advised to make such dialing mandatory to prevent such situations as will be present in Chicago (five codes in the area), Seattle (soon to be four codes in the area), LA (soon to be six codes), New York (soon to be seven codes), Miami (soon to be five code) ... and the list goes on. > The final decision was to go with the geographical boundaries. It seems > to me it would be a small price to pay to key in 4 extra digits for a > local number than to risk missed calls and missed business for millions > of people because their phone number changed. Splitting area codes has been the preferred method of relief since the NANP was implemented in 1951. While old habits die hard, some people (like Regina Costa of TURN, in California) REFUSE to let the concept of area code splits die without a fight. > Is there any city which uses this method of multiple area codes in a > geographical area? At the time the debate was a local debate. Has > this debate been raged in other cities? Have any adopted this method? In 1997, both of Maryland's area codes, and Pennsylvania's 412 will be overlaid, making them the second, third, and fourth such overlay codes behind New York's wireless 917 area code. Plans are under way by USWest to possibly overlay Phoenix (602), and Denver (303, 570 has been assigned for the relief plan there), and discussions will open regarding the disposition of Minneapolis/St. Paul's 612 in January. Bellsouth will be dicussing overlays for Atlanta's 404 and 770. Bell Atlantic is pushing them for 215, 610, and 717. NYNEX is pushing for Manhattan (212) to have another overlay code added. Finally, Canada is considering overlays for 416 and 514. John Cropper voice: 888.NPA.NFO2 LINCS 609.637.9434 PO Box 277 fax: 609.637.9430 Pennington, NJ 08534-0277 mailto:psyber@mindspring.com http://206.112.101.209/jcbt2n/lincs/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 10:14:33 -0800 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Re: Prepaid Phone Cards In TELECOM Digest (volume 16, issue 683), our moderator mentions to Tad Cook's article on Prepaid Phone Card Scams: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Interesting that AT&T was one of the > companies fined for poor performance in this area when considering > the marketing push they are making at this time according to the > earlier article in this issue by Mark Cuccia. PAT] The prepaid phone card (with 100-units of calling time) that AT&T sent me in their marketing promotion is a "free gift" I received from them, and I do appreciate it! It does have AT&T's logo on the front and back of the card. On the front, it says "AT&T Personal Account Service - AT&T Prepaid Card - 100 Units". The back of the card mentions an 800 number for the AT&T Prepaid Card Customer Service. BTW, there is *no* magnetic stripe on the back of this AT&T Prepaid Phone Card. Also, the back of the card mentions that the card expires on 12/31/97 (next year), but I'll probably expire the card before then (maybe 31 December *this* year), as I've already used up most of the card, now with only 7-units remaining! As for me, when it comes to prepaid phone cards, I would *never* actually choose to *pay money to buy* such a card. I consider the card that I received from AT&T to be a *gift*, which the promotional material which came with the card refers to it as. I *do* continue to have various 'traditional' *credit* account calling cards from AT&T and BellSouth, and even similar cards associated with an MCI account I still have (but use only from time-to-time). While some of these 'other' prepaid phone cards might actually *utilize* the services of the AT&T long distance network as the carrier (or MCI, Sprint, GTE, etc.), is AT&T's name or logo printed on the card? If it is, has AT&T *authorized* the use of their logo? If AT&T's *name* (but maybe *not* the trademarked logo) is indicated on the card 'as the carrier' which actually *connects* the calls, the *provider* of the prepaid card service is actually *reselling* the services of AT&T's long distance network. It could be that AT&T isn't really 'at fault' here ... rather the 'middleman' which provides such cards to the public (the prepaid card's indicated *service-provider* but not 'telco carrier' *nor* the store merchant) could really be the one at fault. The prepaid card I received in the mail (and it is a "free gift") actually *came* from AT&T, with AT&T's name and logo on both sides of the card. And the recorded voice greetings and menus when the 800 access number is dialed are those of AT&T, not some 'middleman' prepaid phone card provider. BTW, in my earlier article on these AT&T Prepaid cards, I mentioned the "rate schedule" of how many units-per-minute are deducted for calls to particular locations outside of North America. I mentioned 3-units for calls to the UK, but I forgot to include (the rest of) Europe, which deducts 4-units-per-minute. Also there is no indication of units-per-minute deducted for Africa on the original "rate/unit schedule" provided by AT&T. Since Asia/Pacific is 5-units-per-minute deducted, I *assume* that the same number of units are deducted for calls to Africa. As for the actual *length* of a 'minute', I didn't actually time the calls to see if I were 'short-changed' or if I was getting the full amount of a minute for my 'unit(s)'. But remember that with most carriers, through various different billing methods/services, you are charged for a full minute whenever you *begin* a new minute of conversation, even if you talk for only a fraction of a minute. i.e., if you place a call which is only 15 seconds total, you are charged for one full minute; if you talk for 20 minutes and 10 seconds, you are charged for 21 minutes, as you entered 'into' the 21st minute, since you *continued* the conversation after you finished 20 full minutes of talk time. Of course, some carriers do offer six-second billing periods with some services. Finally, many carriers and operator service providers (whether 'legit' traditional telcos/IXC's or the AOSlime) accept 'commercial' credit card numbers for billing (Visa, AmEx, MasterCard, etc). These days, even AT&T accepts such cards when you get the 'bong' tone: "Please enter your card number and PIN -- *OR* major credit card number and the four digit expiration date, now". However, my understanding is that billing telephone calls to such cards, even when handled by AT&T, can result in surcharges and the like which are *much* higher than AT&T's tariffed calling card rates! MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE: 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: Michael Chance Subject: Re: Bell Issuing Year-Long *Temporary* Numbers Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 09:25:12 CST Andrew B. Hawthorn wrote: > I recently moved from Atlanta to Houston and became a Southwestern > Bell customer. When I contacted Southwestern Bell to set up my > residential service, they assigned me two phone numbers that were in > NPA 281 (which recently split from 713), despite being well inside > Beltway 8, the approximate boundary for the geographic split. The > SWBT representative told me that all of the 713 numbers in my area had > been taken and that I would have to be assigned a 281 area code > number. It's not so much the annoyance of 10-digit dialing to old > neighbors and 7-digit dialing to new neighbors that gets me; rather, > it's the absurd fact that SWBT is changing my NPA *and* prefix within > a year. [ SWBT letter deleted ] > I can't find any records that indicate that there is a 713-290-XXXX > exchange. Why couldn't they create one so that new customers could > have a 713 number and wouldn't have to change their area code or > prefix? I find it terribly inconceivable that they are totally out of > 713 numbers in my area. Are they conserving these numbers? Unfortunately, you've gotten caught up in the results of the Texas PUC's waffling between an overlay and a geographic split of NPA 713 this past year. The Texas PUC originally approved NPA 281 as an overlay on the rapidly exhausting NPA 713, and SWBT and the various wireless carriers got approval to start issuing new numbers with 281 numbers in advance of resolving the technical issues of a landline overlay. Then a number of protests from various quarters *against* the overlay were registered, and the PUC re-opened their decision, resulting in a number of additional public hearings and numerous delays and they swung back and for between the various competing proposals. But before they made the _final_ decision in favor of an split, several landline wirecenters had completely exhausted their 713 number ranges, and had even scavanged all of the available numbers from adjacent wirecenters, as well. So, a number of 281-NXX ranges were opened, on both sides of the final split line. You just happen to be on the 713 side of the line, and live in one of these areas. There was some "pre-split" re-alignment work that was done in August, as well, and the final re-alignment work (including your phone number) will occur once the permissive dialing period ends, and each NPA is free to use the duplicated NXX ranges that are now one the "wrong" side of the split line. Incidentally, there is a 713-290 NXX. It's part of the 713-681 (Houston OVerland) wirecenter. Your 281-290 number is part of the 713-781 (Houston SUnset) wirecenter, hence the need for re-alignment. Michael A. Chance FIRST Support Team Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., St. Louis, Missouri Tel.: (314) 235-4119 Email: mc307a@helios.sbc.com ------------------------------ From: jrauland@investec9.com (Jeff Rauland) Subject: Re: AT&T Merlin Used Equipment Needed Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 19:27:49 GMT Organization: Alpha.net -- Milwaukee, WI On Wed, 25 Dec 1996 17:21:44 -0400, in comp.dcom.telecom is written: > So, is there a central clearing house for used Merlin equipment (cpus, > extensions, etc) that an individual can buy from? Thanks in advance to > anyone who can recommend a particular system, and where to get it at a > reasonable price! There is -- ACR Telecom -- we can get you any telecom equipment you want at great savings -- new or refurbished -- with a warranty. We also want to buy used phone systems -- working or not -- so if you know of anyone that's got one to sell, please let them know about us. I just got a bunch of Merlin equipment -- please check out my posting (Update: Telecom Gear For Sale) on Usenet -- there's an equipment list there. If you want 20 extensions, the smallest KSU you could go with would be an 820, maxed out for 8 lines/20 stations. I've got a bunch of 5-button and 10-button phones (standard), some HFAI-10's (hands-free), and some BIS-10's (speakerphones). I've also got two 34-button speaker phones, two 34-button deluxe phones and two Busy Line Fields (shows which extensions are busy). I might be able to sell you a 1030 cabinet, configured whatever way you want it, but I'll have to wait a day or two, because I had already proposed selling it to my brother-in-law -- if he says "no", you can have your choice. The stuff I have on hand I have taken in trade; thus its not refurbished and has no warranty. However, I can get you refurbished Merlin equipment real cheap (not as cheap as the equip. I've got), that all looks as new as the day it was manufactured, and has a one-year warranty. If you want to pay a little more, I think I can get some Merlin equipment that comes with a three-year warranty. ATT Merlin 1030 Cabinet 1 $150 3070 Expansion Cabinet 1 $125 Feature Module 4 1 $90 SMDR Module 1 $35 Service Module 1 $55 CO Modules 5 $95 10-Station Modules 5 $95 820 KSU (2x5) 4 $125 2x5 Modules 12 $25 0x5 Module 1 $20 2x0 Module 1 $20 410 KSU's 2 $95 Feature Pak II 4 $100 Feature Pak I 1 $35 Page/BGM/MOH Module 1 $35 5-button phones 27 $45 10-button standard phones 26 $60 HFAI 10 2 $70 BIS 10 6 $75 SP 34 3 $60 34 Deluxe 3 $65 H8D2C Consoles 2 $75 For what you want to do, this is what I'd recommend: 1 820 KSU $125 3 2x5 Modules $ 75 1 Feature Pak II $100 1 MOH Module $ 35 (music on hold/bkgrd music) 3 SP 34 Phones $195 17 5-button Phones $765 ======== $1,295 + Shipping ** Please note that the above items have not been refurbished -- I will guarantee not DOA, but they are offered for sale "as-is", with no warratny. For more information, please call Amy or Jeff at: (800) 576-1309 Thanks, Jeff Rauland ACR Telecom ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: Utah, 385, 435 and Possibilities Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 13:12:21 -0800 In article , psyber@mindspring.com wrote: > [ ...analysis of the possibility of using 385 or 435 as a relief NPA in > various USWest states ...] > As for Utah itself, no adjacent state has an NXX 385 or 435 that would > be a 7D FNPA local call from Utah. ... I predict a coin flip, or perhaps > an old native legend to offer guidance in choosing the code. :-) > Given the above factors and conditions, the code not chosen by Utah > stands an excellent chance of being used for New Mexico in 1999 (give > or take a year). Based on the highly-unscientific technique of looking at what each area code potentially SPELLS, I'd predict that Utah will take 385 and leave 435 for somebody else. Otherwise, 1/8 of the population of rural Utah will be consigned to live in HEL-L, with another 1/8 needing HEL-P... (435-5xx-xxxx or 7xx-xxxx) We could even put the "Manson Family" behind a PBX at 435-837-7535 x837 (left as an exercise for the reader). Of course, if those folks don't end up in HELL, then life will just be DULL*, I guess. On the other hand, there's a town that I'm sure would be happy to have 435-737-8824 as its city switchboard number. * Yes, I know it also spells FULL, but DULL makes a better punch line. Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #684 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Dec 31 00:29:33 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id AAA27828; Tue, 31 Dec 1996 00:29:33 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 00:29:33 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612310529.AAA27828@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #685 TELECOM Digest Tue, 31 Dec 96 00:30:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 685 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Miami Herald on Telecom Competition (Tad Cook) Sleazy Telcos Get You by the Calls (Ray Normandeau) Book Review: "Expanding Your BBS" by Wolfe (Rob Slade) Intel to "Debunk" Telco ISP Complaints (oldbear@arctos.com) SPA Legal Action Against Small ISPs (Bill Sohl) Re: AT&T Merlin Used Equipment Needed (we202c3f@aol.com) Re: AT&T Merlin Used Equipment Needed (Robert Becnel) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Miami Herald on Telecom Competition Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 23:11:58 PST From: tad@ssc.com (Tad Cook) Consumers Will Benefit from More Competitive Telecommunications Industry By David Poppe, The Miami Herald Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Dec. 30--Pleasantly plump Ma Bell, monopoly supplier of local telephone service, is on her deathbed. When she's gone, the telecommunications industry -- one of the nation's largest -- will look profoundly different. Millions of U.S. consumers will benefit. Many companies will disappear. As a result of federal legislation and state-by-state regulatory actions, thto survive from among the hundreds that today provide telephone, cable TV or Internet service. At the same time that companies are bracing for a new order, they're fighting intensely to ensure it's favorable to them. Herb Kirchhoff, editor of State Telephone Regulation Report, expects 1997 to be the year in which telephone companies go to court to try to change new rules they don't like. He expects it could be five years before the courts clear the air. In the interim, investors should expect uncertainty. "There is going to be just as much of it in '97 as there was in '96," he said. "So for nervous investors, '97 will be another year of hell." What makes deregulation so compelling is that, for the companies that figure out how to deliver a full menu of services at a good price, the rewards will be astronomical. Local and long-distance telephone services generate about $160 billion in annual revenue, with AT&T alone posting $51 billion in annual sales. Cable TV is an estimated $25 billion-a-year industry. About 10 million people bought wireless telephones last year, and industry revenues grew by 25 percent, to $21.5 billion. Some analysts believe demand for Internet access will add another $20 billion to phone company revenues by 2002. Most analysts expect only a handful of today's big telecom players to survive -- and virtually no small telephone companies, Internet service providers or cable TV companies to remain independent. A recent Yankee Group survey found that two-thirds of consumers like the idea of buying all their telephone and cable TV services from one company. In the Southeast, the survey found, a slim plurality of 36.1 percent prefer to use BellSouth for all their phone services; 35.1 percent said they'd prefer AT&T. About 4.6 percent said they'd use MCI, and even fewer picked Sprint -- but those two have traditionally done well with business customers and affluent consumers, meaning their future revenues could be disproportionate to their market share. About 20 percent of consumers were undecided. But that's not to say BellSouth or AT&T are prohibitive favorites to dominate Florida's telecom industry. Some analysts fear the Bells' lack of marketing expertise will hurt them in a competitive environment. BellSouth stock was flat this year, despite rising profits. And AT&T has been restructuring for years, with little to show for it. Its stock is off 5 percent this year, and profits are down. The fear that only giants will survive deregulation has prompted many smaller companies to look for suitable marriage partners. "You've had four mega-billion dollar deals in the last 12 months, and I don't think there's any reason to believe that it's all over," said Bob McNamara, managing director at Broadview Associates, a New Jersey mergers and acquisitions consultant. (The four deals he cites are the mergers of MCI-British Telecom, Nynex-Bell Atlantic, Pacific Telesis-Southwestern Bell and MFS-WorldCom.) McNamara calls these mergers "hedging strategies" by anxious companies. "The issue that each of the players is figuring out," he said, "is how do I strategically best-position my company? Defensively, how do I defend my turf, and offensively, how do I take advantage of all the opportunities available to me?" Why is the future so uncertain? Mainly because it is no mean feat to make the telephone business competitive. Over the years, the heavy hand of government regulation has tangled telephone charges in ways that aren't easy to unwind. In Florida, for example, consumers pay $10.65 per month for basic local phone service. BellSouth says the fee is far below its actual cost. BellSouth, in turn, is subsidized by the long-distance companies, which pay about 40 percent of their total revenues, or $30 billion a year, in access fees to the regional Bell companies that connect their long-distance phone calls. The access fee is meant to reimburse the Bells for offering phone service to the poor and in rural areas. But industry analysts say the charges are much higher than the Bells' actual cost, providing the Bells with fat profits. The popularity of the Internet throws a monkey wrench into the system. The government has exempted Internet service providers from paying access charges for connecting computers over the telephone lines. As a result, it's cheaper to send data via electronic mail than over a fax line. That boosts Internet traffic, but reduces long-distance company revenues. Also, many companies are developing software that would enable people to talk over the Internet. If successful, Internet telephony would be much cheaper than conventional long-distance calling. That would reach much deeper into the long-distance companies' purses. The Federal Communications Commission plans to reexamine the whole system. At the state level, regulators are setting the terms under which new competitors will be allowed to enter the local telephone business. That's not an easy process, either. Because BellSouth owns a $10 billion telephone network in Florida, built under the umbrella of monopoly protection, competitors won't be expected to build competing networks to offer local phone service. Instead, they'll be able to buy access to BellSouth's system and resell phone service under their own brand names. But because local telephone rates are heavily subsidized by long- distance users, regulators have struggled to determine how much BellSouth should charge new entrants for access to its service. Both AT&T and MCI have expressed disapproval of the Florida Public Service Commission's framework for competition. The PSC says BellSouth must grant newcomers a 21.8 percent discount off the rates it charges regular consumers. AT&T says 21.8 percent won't be enough to let it sell service at a price competitive with BellSouth's prices. "The commission didn't set the rules correctly," said Mike Tye, an AT&T government affairs vice president. "Given the way the rules are coming out skewed ... the real disadvantage is going to come to the consumer." In an allusion to litigation, Tye said, "There will have to be some maneuvering on our part" in 1997. In addition to regulatory uncertainty, there is uncertainty about the future demand for some services. McNamara, the mergers specialist, noted that nobody knows whether the huge investments that phone companies have to make to become full-service providers will pay off. "Nobody has quite figured out how soon demand for video services is going to take off. And people aren't sure if the Internet is a fad, or are we just at the tip of the iceberg," he said. Yet the phone companies can't wait around to see how things will shake out. They're making moves today that anticipate a different business environment tomorrow. BellSouth, for example, is rolling out PCS wireless phone service in the Carolinas and Eastern Tennessee and testing video services in Atlanta, with an eye on challenging cable TV operators. It's also testing a program where it jointly markets traditional telephone service and wireless service, with consumers getting one bill for all their phone lines. And over the past two years, BellSouth has consolidated all its businesses under one brand name, so that customers no longer do business with Southern Bell, South Central Bell or BellSouth Mobility. That's a move made strictly for the future. With all its services sold under a single name, BellSouth can afford a huge advertising campaign. "We want consumers to understand that going forward, if you have communications needs, there's a company that you probably already do business with that can address those needs," said Kevin Doyle, a BellSouth spokesman. Early returns are promising. "Our brand, in our region, is very strong. There's nobody in our region who is stronger than us," he said. Boyd Peterson, a telecommunications analyst at Yankee Group in Boston, said BellSouth is rare among the Baby Bells, which aren't used to marketing products: "It is one of the best-run. It seems to me to be the most focused, from a marketing perspective." Analysts think BellSouth might be the only Bell to survive the next few years as an independent company. "If any company could, it would be BellSouth or Ameritech," Peterson said. McNamara agreed, although he predicted that within a decade virtually all of today's top phone companies will gobble up smaller players -- or be eaten themselves. "Do I think BellSouth will do a multibillion dollar deal in the next five years? Yes. Do I think they have to do something in the next two years? No. There's not the urgency for them," he said. Herb Kirchhoff said he expects legal challenges to various state and FCC rulings to go on for years, suggesting that BellSouth would be wise to wait before tying its future to another company. However, he said it's not too early to see that the regional Bell companies will have significant advantages over the long-distance companies. In Kirchhoff's view, one might think of AT&T, MCI and Sprint as owning interstate highway systems, while each Bell company controls all of the surface streets in its region. Once the industry is deregulated, Kirchhoff said, it will be a lot easier for a company like BellSouth to lease space on the highway to carry its long-distance calls than it will be for AT&T to buy access to the local streets, which it needs to complete every call on its system. He said the discounts offered to long-distance companies in Florida and elsewhere will not enable them to undercut the Bells' prices for local service. But the Bells, conversely, will be able to undercut the long-distance companies, because they'll be able to negotiate with more than one "highway" system to carry telephone traffic. Also, unless the FCC changes access charges, the Bells will pay themselves an access fee every time they carry a long-distance call. "In effect, it is a super-hidden discount that allows a lot of pricing flexibility," Kirchhoff said of the Bells paying access fees to themselves. "For the folks that are powers in long-distance now, they have every reason to be terribly worried." But Yankee Group's telecom analyst, Boyd Peterson, said long-distance companies are generally much better at marketing than the Bells. He believes that AT&T, MCI, Sprint and others will succeed by creating new service packages that combine many services into one bill. For example, he said a company such as MCI could offer a local phone- service package for $30 a month that would include caller ID and call waiting as standard features and would expand the local service area to include all of the 305 and 954 area codes. The flat rate would be high, but consumers would get more. "What we think of as local phone service is going to be redefined," Peterson said. Janet Craft, assistant vice president of sales at BellSouth Business Systems, agrees. She markets BellSouth service to large businesses, the one area of the telecom market where buyers have a choice for local phone service. Craft said she sees companies scrambling to offer new services and cutting prices to retain good ones. One common strategy is to offer a popular service, perhaps long-distance, as a loss-leader to customers who spend a lot on telecommunications. The toughest part? Maintaining profits. "There must be some kind of margin," Craft said. "You can't go into a death spiral." She predicts regular consumers will eventually reap the same rewards that big business customers enjoy: simplified pricing, more product offerings and better customer service from their phone company. "There are going to be so many funky things happening in the next 18 months," she said. "It's going to be amazing." ------------------------------ Subject: Sleazy Telcos Get You by the Calls From: ray.normandeau@factory.com (Ray Normandeau) Date: Sun, 29 Dec 96 16:00:00 -0500 Organization: Invention Factory's BBS - New York NY - 212-274-8110 Reply-To: ray.normandeau@factory.com (Ray Normandeau) CONTACT: Ray Normandeau 718-392-1267 Email: ray.normandeau@factory.com http://www.buzznyc.com/actors/res.normandeau.raymond.html http://www.buzznyc.com/actors/res.frazier.rita.html Sleazy Telcos Get You by the Calls ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Have you been slammed lately? In telephone company parlance, "slamming" is when your long distance company is switched against your will. Ray Normandeau and Rita Frazier Normandeau of Queens, New York were recently surprised to receive a letter addressed to Mrs Normandeau stating: "Welcome! We have received your LONG DISTANCE APPLICATION AND ENTRY FORM for the Qcc Ford Explorer or $10,000 Cash Giveaway. ... With Qcc, your rates for state-to-state calling are among the lowest in the industry. Daily 19.9./minute, Evenings/Weekends 17.9./minute." The Normandeaus were a bit taken aback as Mrs Normandeau never had filled out such an application and would never even consider such rates as their current carrier LCI offers Daily 19; Evenings of 14; with Weekends at 12, all with a minimum of thirty seconds, or calls as low as six cents coast-to-coast. To add insult to injury, Qcc stated that there would be a monthly fee of three dollars for this overpriced service! The letter threatening them that they would be switched against their will and charged thirty-six dollars a year was signed by K. Martin Chadwick, Customer Service Manager at 1-800-267-0157. Altho the Normandeaus are members of Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, they are out of work and must watch every penny. So they decided to call this sleaze-ball Chadwick to demand to see a copy of this "LONG DISTANCE APPLICATION AND ENTRY FORM". Every time they called for Chadwick at 1-800-267-0157, Chadwick was always at a meeting or out for the day. Finally one of the co-conspirators at Qcc said that the Normandeaus would be faxed a copy of the application the next day. Several days later the fax still had not arrived. Ray Normandeau then called 1-800-267-0157 again and upon being told that Chadwick was at a meeting said "I'll hold on until he comes out." Qcc hung up on him. He kept calling back as the 1-800-267-0157 was on their bill and refused to give up. Finally Qcc faxed Mrs Normandeau's "application" which not only was an obvious forgery but even had her signature misspelled! NYNEX billed the Normandeaus five dollars for switching long distance carrier to Allnet which was obviously paying Qcc for fraud and forgery. With all the long distance calls to be billed for Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa and New Year's, some customers will be very surprised when they see calls billed by strange phone companies at strange rates with strange monthly service charges. There is one way that anyone can immediately find out if they have been slammed. That is to call 1-700-555-4141 from their home phone. A recording will tell you who is handling your long distance calls. The Normandeaus are happy that New Years Day is one of eight holidays when LCI gives customers half an hour of calling at a penny a minute because on that day they will be faxing Washington. Their Congressperson (Tom Manton, D-Queens) is a member of the Congressional telecommunications sub-committee. They are also offering to fax the media copies of the forged application and are making themselves available for media interviews while they are not working. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 02:32:22 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Expanding Your BBS" by Wolfe BKEXPBBS.RVW 960923 "Expanding Your BBS", David Wolfe, 1995, 0-471-11566-5, U$34.95 %A David Wolfe dwolfe@pandy.com %C 5353 Dundas Street West, 4th Floor, Etobicoke, ON M9B 6H8 %D 1995 %G 0-471-11566-5 %I Wiley %O U$34.95 416-236-4433 fax: 416-236-4448 800-567-4797 fax: 800-565-6802 %P 371 %T "Expanding Your BBS" Since the publication of "The BBS Construction Kit" (cf. BKBBSCON.RVW), Wolfe has kept some of his views, changed others, and added more. He now, though, more strongly identifies opinions as such, and is more inclined to provide reasons. The result is that this work is still useful, but is much more good- humored. As with his prior work, this guide is eminently practical. It even starts with an in-depth overview of batch files, and the COMMAND.COM replacement 4DOS. Wolfe then proceeds to cover advanced modem and port information, fax capability, fossil drivers, doors (BBS add-on programs), graphics, CD-ROM, QWK, and Internet connectivity. The discussion of ports was the only disappointment, still failing to cover the addition of more than two modems with standard hardware. With the rise of interest in the Internet, the running of a BBS is becoming something of a lost art. BBSes are by no means dead, though, and for those still keen on the local online scene this makes an excellent reference. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKEXPBBS.RVW 960923. Distribution permitted in TELECO Digest and associated publications. DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca rslade@vanisl.decus.ca BCVAXLUG Envoy http://www.decus.ca/www/lugs/bcvaxlug.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 10:55:09 -0500 From: The Old Bear Subject: Intel to "Debunk" Telco ISP Complaints It will be interesting to see the Intel submission to the FCC which is mentioned in the last paragraph ... FCC RELUCTANT TO APPLY ACCESS CHARGES TO INTERNET PROVIDERS The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) says that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should not have to pay the same "access fees" that long-distance companies now pay to local phone companies for connecting long-distance calls at their initiation and destinations. ISPs are not currently paying such fees, although the local phone service companies argue that Internet usage accounts for an increasing amount of phone traffic and the phone companies are being prevented from recovering the associated costs. AOL chief executive Steve Case dismisses such arguments as a request for a "modem tax," and Intel executive Paul Misener says that Intel will submit to the FCC a paper that will "debunk Bell studies which have wildly overstated the negative impact on their network" resulting from Internet communication. source: New York Times December 26, 1996 page C2 via edupage ------------------------------ From: billsohl@planet.net (Bill Sohl) Subject: SPA Legal Action Against Small ISPs Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 23:26:46 GMT Organization: BL Enterprises Just received the Feb. 97 issue of {Internet World} and it contains another excellent article by Attorney Mike Godwin (of CDA fame). The article is entitled "Foul Play" and as its intro contains the following: "The Software Publishers Association appears to be using strong-arm tactics to force small ISPs to settle meritless lawsuits." The three page article chronicles Mike's investigation of one alleged complaint by SPA against a single, small ISP. Mike notes: "The SPA's code of conduct seems to put each ISP in the role of policing content on the net as a whole." Rather than tell all here, I suggest that everyone who wants an open internet free of privacy violations by ISPs should read the article and judge for yourself what is going on. Bill Sohl (K2UNK) billsohl@planet.net Internet & Telecommunications Consultant/Instructor Budd Lake, New Jersey ------------------------------ From: we202c3f@aol.com Subject: Re: AT&T Merlin Used Equipment Needed Date: 30 Dec 1996 20:27:16 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Steve, have you considered a Partner Plus system (AT&T)? You could use two 2 line by 6 station plus one 0 by 6; the multiline sets use two pair rather than the 4 pair of Merlin (though I would recommend wiring your whole house with at least 4 pair home run from each staion to the basement). The 3 multiline sets you want can be bridged with single line sets, cordless, ans. mach, whatever on the same port -- just use a bridging adapter (ie a 12 button phone and a trimline on the same port, say ext. 14) ... even rotary phones will work; (each turn of the dial is translated to a dtmf tone as you dial). I like being able to use everyday phones -- proprietary single line sets (as with the comdial dxp) obviates the need for touchtone receivers and ring generators but necessitates added expense for proprietary digital phones. A trimline touch-tone wall is plenty for a bathroom. I'm using a Partner Plus at my house with three partner multi-line sets and the rest single lines. The single lines can be programmed for intercom dial tone first, dial 9 for an outside line, though if programmmed to ring on incoming calls from the c.o., then with ringing line preference you just pick up to seize the trunk call; then you can flash and transfer to another extension. ------------------------------ From: becnel@crl.com (Robert Becnel) Subject: Re: AT&T Merlin Used Equipment Needed Date: 30 Dec 1996 05:49:23 -0800 Organization: CRL Network Services (415) 705-6060 [Login: guest] Steve Bagdon (bagdon@rust.net) wrote: > My wife and I believe we have *finally* found our first house, so tha > means I can finally wire up a property the way I've always wanted to. > We've rented up to now, so wiring a house for networking, phone > systems, television, etc, has never gotten past the planning stages - > no reason to put a lot of work into a house that we don't own! Wow! I'd like to visit you houst just to play with the toys. :) Wouldn't you rather just buy a 900 MHz portable and put the cost into something else, like a big screen? :-) Robert G. Becnel becnel@crl.com (email) http://www.crl.com/~becnel (www) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #685 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Dec 31 01:44:52 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id BAA02943; Tue, 31 Dec 1996 01:44:52 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 01:44:52 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612310644.BAA02943@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #686 TELECOM Digest Tue, 31 Dec 96 01:44:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 686 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson MCI Criticizes NYNEX Order Processing System (Mike Pollock) North American Numbering Council (Mark J. Cuccia) MCI Bait-And-Switch Beware (Ron Bolin) IntraLATA Operator Receiving InterLATA Calls? (Stanley Cline) Construction of New Telecom Infrastructure (R. Lipschult) Where Can I Find Used Phone Equipment (Paul Rob SJ) Employment Opportunity: Senior ISDN/ADSL/Cable Modem Designers (Steve Ide) Seeking Out Source For Bulk FAXing? (Gloria MacFarland) Should Pay Phones Post Rates (Lisa Hancock) Re: AT&T's New Prepaid Phone Card (Peter Corlett) Re: AT&T's New Prepaid Phone Card (Nils Andersson) Re: Prepaid Phone Card Scams (Peter Bell) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 20:05:45 -0800 From: Mike Pollock Organization: SJS Entertainment Subject: MCI Criticizes NYNEX Order Processing System A recent report appearing on Yahoo: MCI Criticizes NYNEX Order Processing System for Delaying Customers' Ability to Switch Local Telephone Companies WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- A seriously flawed NYNEX order processing system is delaying the ability of New Yorkers and New Englanders to switch their local telephone service to another company, MCI said today. The NYNEX system fails to meet system standards established by the Federal Communications Commission, MCI said. The FCC is requiring local telephone monopolies to install electronic order processing systems by January 1 to ensure that customers who chose to switch their local telephone company can do so easily and quickly, MCI said. The NYNEX system does not meet the FCC test because it is an interim plan that requires manual input from sales representatives and is not an electronic, system to system solution. The manual system can lead to serious delays and errors in processing customer sales orders and other pertinent information. A fully automated electronic order processing system better enables companies to share information required to handle new service requests, repair calls and billing information. Electronic systems allow competitors to more quickly and more effectively resell local network capacity at a lower cost to customer. "Customers want choices when selecting a phone company for local service," said Donald T. Lynch, MCI senior vice president for financial operations and accounting. "They won't tolerate inconvenience or delays. NYNEX is simply not preparing a system that can meet customer needs." "We already are competing with NYNEX through our own, state-of-the-art local networks. Allowing NYNEX to use this flawed order processing system would severely limit MCI's ability to expand local competition by competing in the resale market." "The ability to compete through resale is critical, because it gives customers a greater number of choices for local service and allows competitors to quickly reach more customers." MCI has discussed the problems inherent in the NYNEX system, known as a Graphical User Interface (GUI), with other companies planning to enter the local market in NYNEX territory. No other company felt the GUI system could handle a large volume of customer requests. The serious ordering and maintenance problems with the NYNEX system inhibit a competitor's ability to process new customers' requests and service their accounts. This in turn slows down the ability of competitors to provide high quality, low cost customer service and will therefore delay the expansion of local competition. Because the NYNEX order processing system is not fully automated, competitors must manually input information which needlessly limits the volume of customer requests that can be processed and delays a customer's ability to change local service providers. In addition, sales representatives cannot know electronically what features and services are available at a given local switch. In addition, sales representatives: -- have to make needless double entries using multiple computer screens; are unable to electronically save a customer service record on the current system; -- can only offer a customer one number, while NYNEX can offer a choice of three; -- must wait up to 24 hours to be notified of an editing error in the processing of a customer's order; -- do not have access to an on-line table of NYNEX maintenance codes and must receive additional training. MCI, headquartered in Washington, D.C., provides a full range of integrated communication services to more than 20 million customers. Credited with opening up the U.S. long distance market for competition, MCI is now leading the charge to bring competition to the $100 billion local market, offering American consumers for the first time the freedom to choose their local carrier. With quarterly annualized revenue of more than $18 billion, MCI is one of the largest and fastest growing telecommunication companies in the world. SOURCE MCI ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 14:22:26 -0800 From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: North American Numbering Council The North American Numbering Council (NANC) which is supposed to take over numbering administration in World-Zone/Country-Code +1 from Bellcore NANPA at some point in the near future now has webpages of its own located at the FCC's website. The full URL is: http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/WWW/NANC/ There are several webpages available from this homepage, as various text files (.txt), MS-Word (.doc) and Word Perfect (.wpd) documents and files to either be clicked to or downloaded. At the present time, Bellcore NANPA still does the majority of 'top level' numbering administration in the North American Numbering Plan. BTW, many of the industry forums and committees which I frequently refer to are undergoing a reorganization and renaming for 1997. Details can be found at ATIS' (the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions) website: http://www.atis.org click on "ATIS Committees": http://www.atis.org/atis/committe.htm then go to "CLC and IILC Reorganize, January 1, 1997": http://www.atis.org/atis/clc/clc.htm MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE/CABLE: 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: Ron Bolin Subject: MCI Bait-And-Switch Beware Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 06:50:40 -0500 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises I just recently changed from AT&T to MCI. MCI promised significantly lower rates when they called me to switch. They had some third party call and confirm my change and service. After a month on MCI I found that they did not honor their rates and that the rates were actually higher than AT&T. I have a major problem with this kind of marketing. I call it a lack of integrity. Needless to say I switched back to AT&T and will never consider MCI again. Get it in writing before you change providers. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you 'get it in writing before you change providers' then you probably never will change providers since all of them hate to write letters or make any written commitments. I do not know why it is, but getting any telemarketer -- not just the ones for phone companies -- to engage in written correspondence is almost impossible. Telephone companies in particular never like to write letters it would seem. PAT] ------------------------------ From: roamer1@pobox.com (Stanley Cline) Subject: IntraLATA Operator Receiving InterLATA Calls? Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1996 07:18:45 GMT Organization: Catoosa Computing Services Reply-To: roamer1@pobox.com BellSouth Mobility's long distance now appears to believe that intraLATA (LEC) operators can handle all calls, regardless of their destination ... I was testing some other things from my cellular phone earlier today (does 0+500 still work? Do some new access codes work?) and dialed 0+706+some number *outside* of the Chattanooga LATA ... the BELLSOUTH operator answered. I apologized and hung up, I looked at what I'd dialed and it *WAS* outside the Chatt LATA. I dialed a number in NPA 303 -- Denver, CO, far away from here -- and STILL got the BellSouth operator! Never mind LEC operators can't handle interLATA calls, and must hand them off to an IXC (often resulting in surcharges, as with AT&T, or just generally high prices, as with the "I Don't Care" family of companies.) And I still get charged airtime, even if I hang up to dial 10288, an 800 number, etc., as the calls supervise when the operator ANSWERS, NOT when a call is connected! Note that intRALATA calls (except for some specific prefixes) and calls dialed with access codes (10288, etc.) are not affected. As soon as a month ago, 0+ interLATA (and some intRALATA) calls were routed to an intercept -- "This feature is not currently available to you" -- but now *all* 0+ calls go to BellSouth. I can't understand this, as they should route the 0+ calls to either Sprint (the carrier providing BellSouth Mobility's "own" LD service) or AT&T (who GTE/CellOne, the bulk of other carriers, and even BSM when I'm ROAMING, rely on for 0+.) Or they could contract with an operator-service provider, such as USLD or MCI's "carrier operator services", to provide 0+ service. Or maybe BellSouth is *wanting* customers to pay the LD carriers' surcharges or high prices. I dunno ... This is not the first time BellSouth has messed up translations in the Chattanooga MTSO, of course -- at one time, some local calls were not, and were charged as INTERLATA [by BellSouth LD, LCI, and AT&T, depending on my "carrier of the month"] even they are both INTRALATA and LOCAL. They no longer charge for the calls -- after I complained -- but are *still* sending those calls through Sprint, instead of the LEC lines as should be done. BellSouth claims the problem is caused by the LECs serving the affected areas, but the LECs -- both indepen- dents -- claim it's BellSouth causing the problems. They are sending calls to Copper Basin, TN (inside the Chatt LATA; US Cellular is licensed to serve the area -- but they don't) and to the Bridgeport, AL area (in Chatt LATA, but served by Huntsville, AL BSM) to Sprint as well. Next thing I know, the LEC operator will handle *all* calls (BSM) or *none* at all (payphones, under new FCC regs.) It'll get even more confusing, as LATAs (for practical purposes) may soon have no meaning. Stanley Cline (Roamer1 on IRC) ** GO BRAVES! GO VOLS! dba Catoosa Computing Services, Chattanooga, TN mailto:roamer1@pobox.com ** http://www.pobox.com/~roamer1/ ------------------------------ From: rlipschult@aol.com (R. Lipschult) Subject: Construction of New Telecom Infrastructure Date: 30 Dec 1996 21:39:26 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com I am trying to locate info on the construction of the new tower, antenna and other infrastructure being built to make use of the bandwidths the FCC has been auctioning off since 1994. Where can I find out what has been built, by whom & where. Also the technical and market analysis needed to select sites & the equipment needed at those sites. Thanks for any info or other help. Rick Lipschultz Tel 847 677 4051 Fax 847 677 3846. email Rlipschul@aol.com ------------------------------ From: paulrobsj@aol.com (Paul Rob SJ) Subject: Where Can I Find Used Phone Equipment Date: 31 Dec 1996 03:37:51 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Is there a Web page or Usenet group that deals with used PBX equipment? I have some to sell, and I need to buy some. Thanks, PaulRobSJ@aol.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Buyers and sellers please respond directly to each otehr, and *not* to the Digest. Thanks. PAT] ------------------------------ From: sai1@mindspring.com (Steve Ide) Subject: Employment Opportunity: Senior ISDN/ADSL/Cable Modem Designers Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 13:52:23 -0400 Organization: interspeed If you are a very senior (ten years plus) designer/engineer guru who would like more than just a job but a unique opportunity to share in the profits of a new company in the boston area please contact me asap. We are a fully funded subsidiary of a well known 12 year old telecommunications firm wishing to expand into the high speed modem market. This is an opportunity to have all the excitement and rewards of a start-up without the risk. We have a fully equpped lab west of Boston -- t1/fr isdn and cable modem facilities . If your entreprenuerial spirit wants to be set free contact me for details. sai1@mindspring.com tel 617 455 7120 fax 617 455 7133. ------------------------------ From: mediabrokr@aol.com (MediaBrokr) Subject: Seeking Out Source For Bulk FAXing Date: 30 Dec 1996 16:59:48 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com We are seeking an out source to handle a large volume of our faxing. We are a marketing company based in Southern California. We develop qualified prospects for our clients, who range from Fortune 500 firms, to start ups doing a few hundred thousand dollars a year in business. We develop prospects for our clients' products via broadcast fax. Our volume has increased to a point where we need to develop an out source or out sources to handle our overload. Please consider the following: 1. Sprint can fax our one page marketing documents in approximately 54 seconds (this is the result of a 35,000 fax test to companies nationwide). Internally, we do about the same. Your technology must be able to approximately match this transmission rate. 2. We can move between 100,000 and 200,000 one page faxes monthly to an outside fax service. 3. We will pay only for the faxes which actually go through. 4. We need to be able to transfer lists and fax material to you electronically. 5. Off peak transmission is fine. 6. We will need logs for each phone book sent. 7. We would like to have a merge capability for cover sheets. However, this is not essential. 8. However you bill, if you cannot offer us a bid of at least nine to ten cents per completed fax, all services inclusive, you will not be competitive with a bid we have received to date. We are ready to proceed immediately. Please fax your company information to (805) 299 2825, or call (805) 299 2800, extension 8. Gloria McFarland, President, Media Brokers, Inc. Phone: 805-290-3388 Fax: 805-298-3399 Media Brokers is a marketing company, specializing in custom market development projects. We also offer lead management services for major corporations and sales organizations. If you would like more information, e-mail or fax us your name, company name, phone and fax number, or call us at our office in Santa Clarita, California. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Again I suggest that interested parties respond direct rather than through the Digest. PAT] ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Lisa Hancock) Subject: Should Pay Phones Post Rates? Date: 31 Dec 1996 00:13:01 GMT Organization: Net Access BBS When I argue against private payphones, advocates say consumers should be able to make their own choices, rather than "big brother" (be it government or the phone company) making it for them. IMHO, private pay phones are generally a rip-off of consumers. To make them fair, why can't the law require prices be posted on near pay phones, in readable print? We have laws requiring supermarkets to properly price items on shelves or have accurate shelf stickers. Some states require gasoline pumps to have prominent prices, not just a tiny figure in the pump meter. Now that pay phones are unregulated, why can't we show a price card as well? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 20:32:51 GMT From: Peter Corlett Subject: Re: AT&T's New Prepaid Phone Card Organization: Metamedia In article is written: > More voice-recording prmpts are now heard -- first indicating how many > units are remaining on the card, and if enough, then instructing you > to enter '1' if the call is in the US, Canada or the Caribbean, then > the area code and local seven digit number; *OR* to enter the country > code plus city-code and local number of a country outside of North > America. > NOTE: *** "You do not need to enter the 011 before the country code, > because AT&T does it for you." *** > In other words, you are entering the 'full worldwide' telephone > number, without any 'access prefixes'. Calls within the NANP are > preceded with a '1' (which you do normally dial from a home/business > phone on 'station sent paid' calls, anyhow), and all calls to non-NANP > locations are dialed with the country code first, and then continuing. This all seems more logical when one remembers that the country code for the USA is 1, and so _all_ calls are dialed from the same point of reference, that is from an international level, back into the USA if necessary. People in the UK don't consider the idea of dialing the full international code for a call within the UK either, because it is not particularly useful for the Joe Public, but also because it doesn't work from most networks. Indeed, British Telecom have various test numbers starting 0044 (i.e. international call, destination UK) and many other networks haven't implemented this either. Interestingly, the aging, and well-hacked Cellnet ETACS analogue mobile phone service, to be retired soon, correctly routes a call starting 0044 to a UK destination. The biggest surprise about the BT test numbers, is that when one is found that gives answer supervision, it is itemised on the international section of the bill, and charged at a high rate, much higher than a call to the USA for example, and has the destination listed as `United Kingdom'. When BT's customer services [`Planet 150'] are challenged about these calls, they come up with all sorts of weird and wonderful excuses, but no real explaination. Hence the nickname `Planet 150', since one dials 150 to contact them, and they are clearly not on Planet Earth. ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: AT&T's New Prepaid Phone Card Date: 31 Dec 1996 04:36:44 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , Mark J. Cuccia writes: > In other words, you are entering the 'full worldwide' telephone > number, without any 'access prefixes'. Calls within the NANP are > preceded with a '1' (which you do normally dial from a home/business > phone on 'station sent paid' calls, anyhow), and all calls to non-NANP > locations are dialed with the country code first, and then continuing. One interesting thing about this is that you can view the "1" as the normal prefix before area code, or you view it as a country code. I always thought this was an interesting coincidence(?). Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: Peter Bell Subject: Re: Prepaid Phone Card Scams Organization: Yale University Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 23:00:00 EST Article says: > Last week, the commission said it fined I.S.C. International > Telecommunications, (copy is garbled here) ... service providers, > including AT&T, GTE and MCI. and you append: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Interesting that AT&T was one of the > companies fined for poor performance in this area when considering > the marketing push they are making at this time according to the > earlier article in this issue by Mark Cuccia. PAT] Now, does the earlier article say ATT was one of the ones fined? Cause the one you've made the comment in respect to doesn't seem to; I almost think it might be saying that the bunco artists in questions were telling people the LD time they had was bought from ATT, GTE and MCI. Peter bell@pantheon.yale.edu ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #686 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Dec 31 02:40:04 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id CAA06219; Tue, 31 Dec 1996 02:40:04 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 02:40:04 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612310740.CAA06219@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #687 TELECOM Digest Tue, 31 Dec 96 02:40:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 687 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Free Calls From Payphones/COCOTS (Nils Andersson) Re: Free Calls From Payphones/COCOTS (Barton F. Bruce) Re: GTE's CyberPOP (Matt Holdrege) Re: GTE's CyberPOP (Kim Carraway) Re: GTE's CyberPOP (Derek Balling) Re: Dialing Procedures and Charging (Re: NPA 570) (Nils Andersson) Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management (Craig Nordin) Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management (Linc Madison) Re: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not (Earle Robinson) Re: And the New Number is ... 949 (Linc Madison) Re: Anti CallerID? (Steve Bunning) Re: Anti CallerID? (Brett Frankenberger) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: Free Calls From Payphones/COCOTS Date: 31 Dec 1996 04:36:39 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , Eric Friedebach writes: > Maybe a more informed TELECOM Digest reader/poster like Mark Cuccia > can correct me here but was not the 800 service originally designed > for business use such as customer service/incoming sales? At least > that was my intention back in 1987. The possibility of a customer > calling me from a payphone did not figure in. > Nowadays I also market discount calling cards and 800/888 numbers for > home/consumer use. I don't like the thought of my customers having to > shell out some extra money if they are using a payphone/COCOT since our > marketing efforts have in the past focused on the *free factor* but > maybe that's our own fault to start with. > As this whole subject settles down, I guess the concept (and cost) of > using a public telephone to access your own number will be acceptable. > So goes the free market. We had a long debate on this one. The bottom line is that the use of 800/888 has reached 25% of the traffic on payphones, and has particularly cannibalized the long distance from payphones, the one area where they make money. So, the FCC agreed (unlike myself, most posters to this NG abhor the idea) that payphone operators needed to be reimbursed for 800 calls, one could obviously look at this as e.g. an equipment rental fee. (The explosion of 800 is due primarily to phone company credit cards and easy-access prepaid calling cards, secondarily to the use of "home" 800 for MCI and AT&T). The choice was between having the caller pay a fee and the callee pay a fee. For various reasons (I suspect that there would have been public outcry at caller pays, judging from the reactions in this NG), the solution was to allow the payphone operators to charge the 800 owner. An 800 number can be programmed to accept or reject a call from a payphone by the time this is brought online, sometime in 1997 (September, AFAICR). The fee is set at a flat 35 cents per call. Various people have wondered what was "wrong" with the old system. The reality is that the "old system" with a single MaBell etc, and massive cross-subsidies, has been dismantled, and long distance is no longer the cash cow that subsidizes everything else, including (typically phoneco owned) payphones. Each type of service must now bear its own costs, and payphones (which must be spun-off from local telcos as separate accounting units, BTW, so in a sense all payphones will be COCOTs soon enough!) are no exception. Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: bruce@eisner.decus.org (Barton F. Bruce) Subject: Re: Free Calls From Payphones/COCOTS Organization: CentNet, Inc. Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 01:07:48 GMT In article , roy@mchip00.med. nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes: > Eric Friedebach wrote: > So, of course, you've got these pay phones, sitting out at > small airports, getting used a lot. Unfortunately, 99% of the calls > don't generate any coins into the coin box, because they are to the > 800 number. > So, this past summer, NYNEX decided to start yanking out all the > "unprofitable" payphones at small airports. Of course, the phones do > generate revenue producing calls, they just don't generate coins in > the box. The FAA pays for all the 800 calls, via invoice at the end > of the month on their 800 line. But, that's not the way the > accounting is done, so NYNEX views the phones as "unprofitable", and > pulled them all out. NYNEX gets VERY WELL compensated for originating 800 calls as well as all other toll calls regardless of how the billing is done. If their policy for yanking a pay phone is solely based on cash in the box, NYNEX is dumber than I think they are. Nynex also has some credit-card-only phones that show up in hotel lobbies and in restaurants on the Mass Pike. 800 calls are cardless and free from these, and their per site maintenance expenses are doubtlessly lower. Perhaps someopne simply needs to request these instead. ------------------------------ From: holdrege@eisner.decus.org (Matt Holdrege) Subject: Re: GTE's CyberPOP Organization: DECUServe Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 02:54:00 GMT In article , rice@ttd.teradyne.com (John Rice) writes: > Try sending e-mail to cyberpopinfo@telops.gte.sprint.com. gte.com is > not related to GTE, I don't think. Every GTE e-mail address I've ever > seen is '@gte.sprint.com' and using nslookup, I see that >'@telops.gte.sprint.com' is a valid e-mail address. FYI, GTE.COM is owned by GTE Labs, but they allow other GTE entities such as Telops to have domains under GTE.COM. Before they allowed this, GTE employees could only use the Sprint address since they gatewayed their internal mail systems through an X.400 system at Sprint. Today many GTE employees have GTE.COM addresses, but all GTE employees have access through the Sprint X.400 gateway whether they know it or not. There is also an "experimental" SMTP gateway to Telops TMAIL which runs through GTE Labs. But few know about this. Like many large corporations and the US government, once something becomes established at GTE, it's hard to make it go away. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Dec 96 7:35:03 -0500 From: Kim Carraway Subject: Re: GTE's CyberPOP For information concerning GTE CYBER-POP try calling GTE Internet Solutions at 1-800-927-3000 They may be able to help answer any question you have or direct you to the appropriate person. Or email them at webmaster@gte.net Kim Carraway kim.carraway@telops.gte.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 14:30:52 -0500 From: Derek Balling Subject: Re: GTE's CyberPOP > Try sending e-mail to cyberpopinfo@telops.gte.sprint.com . gte.com is > not related to GTE, I don't think. Every GTE e-mail address I've ever > seen is '@gte.sprint.com' and using nslookup, I see that > '@telops.gte.sprint.com' is a valid e-mail address. GTE.COM is definitely GTE, since when I used to work for GTE, my internet address was derek.balling@telops.gte.com. Derek J. Balling | " Every man dies, but not Director of Technical Operations | every man really lives... " TEK Interactive Group, Inc. | - Mel Gibson Midwest Internet Exchange, Inc. | Braveheart dredd@mixi.net | http://www.megacity.org | dredd@megacity.org ------------------------------ From: nilsphone@aol.com (Nils Andersson) Subject: Re: Dialing Procedures and Charging (Re: NPA 570 For Colorado) Date: 31 Dec 1996 04:36:40 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com In article , Mark J. Cuccia writes: >> True, but I want to make another point. By Bellcore recommendations >> (i.e. allowing seven digit or 1+ten or 0+ten) you do not need >> "mandatory 10 digit dialling". It is quite feasible to allow good old >> seven digits to mean same area code as caller. > But you have a 'code conflict' and the switch requires a 'time-out' if > you are going to have permissive seven-digit dialing in an overlay > situation. Not at all. I can see either of two schemes that maximize (each in a different way) the ease of making a call. 1) The first is to allow seven digits (but the FCC does not like it): a) xxx-xxxx b) 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx (including own ac OK) c) 0-xxx-xxx-xxxx (including own ac OK) There is no conflict, no braiding, no timeout, no problem! 2) The other, assuming that the feds stick to their guns (they usually do), and prohibit seven digit calling, is to allow absence and presence of the little "1". a) xxx-xxx-xxxx (including own ac) b) 1-xxx-xxx-xxxx (for compatiblity with the rest of the country, portable devices etc) c) 0-xxx-xxx-xxxx Again, there is no conflict, no braiding, no problem! The one notion that must be disposed of is the old electromechanical one that the presence or absence of a "1" has something to do with billing! Regards, Nils Andersson ------------------------------ From: cnordin@vni.net (Craig Nordin) Subject: Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management Date: 31 Dec 1996 00:22:48 -0500 Organization: Virtual Networks lars@anchor.RNS.COM (Lars Poulsen) writes: > Internet routing tables are now well over 30,000 entries, service oops, that is over 45,000 now ... > providers are refusing to advertise routes to networks whose > addresses cannot be aggregated into larger blocks. Washington DC Metro http://www.vni.net/ Indianapolis Indiana Metro http://www.vnii.net/ Quake? quake.vni.net ctf.quake.vni.net quake.vnii.net ctf.quake.vnii.net Kali: kali.vni.net kali.vnii.net kali.wheretorace.com Virtual Networks Premier Internet Services mailto:info@vni.net Jobs - Graphic Arts - Commercial Production -> http://studio.vni.net/jobs/ ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: The InterNIC: A Case Study in Bad Database Management Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 22:18:44 -0800 In article , oldbear@arctos.com (The Old Bear) wrote: > PS: Ironic thought: ever wonder why the Internic never seems to screw > up those dozens of impenetrable interlocking domains and records which > belong to the great spam-generating sites like BEST.COM and > EARTHSTAR.COM? Excuse me? BEST.COM is *NOT* a spam-generating site. I have an account with that particular ISP, and I can tell you they vigorously pursue anyone who spams from their system. Best.com is a legitimate ISP which actively discourages spammers. (My only connection to Best is as a customer, btw.) I keep tabs on the spam I see, and there was one point where the Usenet spam I was seeing was about 70% originating from EarthLink, but they've made major strides in cleaning up their act. Best.com has never been a major spam source -- most of the "best.com" spams I've seen were forged, in fact, and posted from other providers. Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 14:48:37 -0500 From: earle robinson <76004.1762@compuserve.com> Subject: GSM is GSM is GSM - Not Kimmo Ketolainen wrote: > [If anyone's interested, the 900 MHz GH338 is being sold here for > FIM 2690 (lowest), that's USD 581 or DEM 901. Bundling with a > contract is prohibited to ensure fair competition and low network > traffic fees.] With all due respect, that so-called fair competition only protects the operators. In France I can get a gh388 for $170 when signing up for a service and our call costs are less than what you pay in finland, 1 franc per minute throughout the country when paying $38 per month as a fee. Or, one can get 4 hours included paying $80. David Clayton wrote: > Sounds like a good idea, the myriad of bundled contracts on offer here > in Australia, (mostly to stop carrier "churning" as we have a choice > of 3 GSM carriers virtually Australia wide), are responible for lots > of consumer confusion and are the main cause of complaints to our > industry watchdog. First of all churning is much rarer with gsm because you are locked into a year's contract, and you probably have paid some fee to open the account, too. So, the 'discount' on the phone is supposed to be compensated by the revenue earned from you (and those who call your gsm number) during that year. Within those 12 months a new generation of phones will appear, with new features, even lighter in weight (next year will they only weigh only 10 grammes?). I don't know the economics of gsm, but I assume the high capital costs of antennas and the other hardware involved, plus the customer acquisition costs and retention (mainly after sign-up service) costs are such that it takes several years for a gsm service to begin making money. There seem to be six ways of generating revenue: 1. Sale of the phone. In most countries this is not done. A low cost is an incentive to sign-up. Exceptions are Italy where phone costs are high through cosy cartelization among the operators. 2. Front-end fee to initialize service. This is almost pure profit, though the reseller may get a percentage. 3. Monthly fees. If you are away for a month or so this means nice 'breakage' for the operator. Monthly fees are often set in tandem with the calling charges: A low monthly fee = high per minute call charges. 4. Per minute call charges. These might be lower when the monthly fee is higher, as already mentioned. 5. Per minute charges to call YOU. Here is where the operators are really quite sneaky. I only pay $0.20 per minute to call with one of my gsm services, but anyone calling me pays $0.75 per minute! You'll find this perhaps in the brochures, at the bottom of the last page and set in 4 point type. It seems the French operators hope to make their money through these charges most especially. I note that the web pages of gsmmou don't reveal these charges either, publishing only the per minute costs for outgoing calls. Alas, this is self-serving and typical of an organization run by the operators. 6. Various charges, especially roaming in other countries. Roaming charges are seldom highlighted in the brochures either. But, they can be high. Here in France we pay relatively little for calls within this country, while the germans pay high charges (again the operator cartel, brussels, brussels wherefor art thou, brussels, this is illegal), but roaming charges in other countries are lower than what french operators exact from their customers. Other charges can include: voice mail, sms, directory assistance, various services such as sending flowers, etc. etc. The newest french operator, Bouygues, the first 1800 mhz service, includes voice mail and free query about to date call charges in the monthly fee. In summary, the gsm companies are all big boys and they in the business to make money. De facto regulation (like the high prices in germany) or de jure regulation (like the high phone costs mandated by the Finnish government) only help the gsm companies, not the consumers. Confusion will always reign in a complex market like gsm. If one or more of the operators eventually goes bankrupt, well that's business. Government's role should be limited to maintaining honesty in advertising, and forbidding price fixing through cartels. -er ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: And the New Number is ... 949 Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 22:09:24 -0800 In article , psyber@mindspring.com wrote: > Mike King wrote: >> (details of nearly-final proposal for 714/949 split in Orange County, CA) > Sounds to me that the easiest explanation is that the border runs from > the coast along Harbor Blvd, turns east along I-405, straddles > mid-county along state route 55 (Costa Mesa Freeway and Newport > Freeway), then turns and follows state route 91. Well, actually, no. The border you describe does not follow very close to the proposed split line. Harbor Blvd as a starting point would cut off a significant chunk of Newport Beach, which is slated to be entirely 949, and the line along highways 55 and 91 would put most of Tustin and parts of Orange and Anaheim into 949. Most of Tustin will remain 714 along with all of Orange and Anaheim. The line you describe runs mostly south to north and then bends to the east at the northern end, while the actual line is at more of an angle, closer to perpendicular to the coastline. One other oddity I noticed: it looks like John Wayne Airport may be in the new area code, since it is sandwiched between Costa Mesa and Irvine. That would be a trifle confusing, since the airport is designated SNA for Santa Ana, but most of Santa Ana will remain 714. I must say I'm very disappointed with the extremely lopsided nature of this proposed split. It's ridiculous to have at least a factor of four difference in projected life expectancy of the offspring. The CPUC should have just bitten the political bullet and moved Santa Ana into the southern half of the split, or gone forward with a three-way split, or found some other way to split 714 more evenly. In any case, the CPUC had damned well better not come back in three or four years and propose another geographic split of 714. Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 17:52:19 -0500 From: Steve Bunning Subject: Re: Anti CallerID? TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > Regarding 'forcing a false caller-id to appear on your box', I would > have challenged him to do it; to really *do it*. We have had this > discussion here before a couple of times and a few obscure methods > were presented by readers which for all intents and purposes are very > unlikely to be used with any degree of regularity. Generally speaking, > it does not happen. PAT] In the Washington Business section of the December 16 {Washington Post}, there is an article titled "Intent to Deceive: The Manipulation of Caller ID." The article alleges instances of caller ID information being deliberately and routinely modified by businesses via PBX originated calls. At the moment, there is a copy of the article on the Post's Web Site at the following URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1996-12/16/030L-121696-idx.html Steve Bunning | ACE*COMM | 301 721-3023 (voice) Product Manager | 704 Quince Orchard Road | 301 721-3001 (fax) TEL*COMM Division| Gaithersburg, MD USA 20878 | sbunning@acecomm.com ------------------------------ From: brettf@netcom.com (Brett Frankenberger) Subject: Re: Anti CallerID? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 06:00:15 GMT In article , Eduardo Kaftanski wrote: > I have just finished a chat with a local 'cracker' who told me > he was using an anti CallerID device ... > Suposedly he can force a false caller id to be logged in my > boxes. That depends on knowledge of how caller ID works. In between the first and second rings, the switch sends out the Caller ID. The was this is sent is as a simplex (i.e. one way) modem signal (1200 baud Frequency Shift Keying, I believe -- Bell 212?). The Caller ID box detects this carrier and demodulates the signal, giving the caller ID information. The way a Caller ID box should work is that it should wait for the first ring, then start listening for a Caller ID data stream, and record the number. It should stop listening when (1) It receives a valid number, (2) The second ring occurs, or (3) The phone is answered. However, what some caller ID boxes to is: Listen for a Caller ID data stream (i.e. the appropriate modem carrier) at all times, and if a signal is detected, record the number. What this means is that a 'cracker' can call you, wait for you to answer the call, and then send a caller ID signal (using some equipment he has that will generate the appropriate data stream -- it's not all that difficult). What this means is that the following sequence of events will occur: (1) Your phone will ring once. (2) The telco will send the "real" caller ID (or "Private" if the cracker dialed *67). (3) Your Caller ID unit will display the above. (4) Your phone will ring a second time. (5) You answer your phone. (6) The cracker sends a bogus Caller ID data stream. (7) Your box either (a) ignores this data, or (b) accepts this data and displays it. The result is that if (1) you have a box that receives caller ID data when it shouldn't be, *AND* (2) You don't look at the readout until after you answer the phone, the cracker can do what he claims to do. (Note that if your box remembers a certain number of callers, as most do, you can probably scroll back and get the real number.) Anyway, your E-Mail address is .cl ... the above applies in the US ... It may or may not be similar elsewhere. Brett (brettf@netcom.com) Brett Frankenberger ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #687 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Dec 31 23:46:07 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id XAA14735; Tue, 31 Dec 1996 23:46:07 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 23:46:07 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199701010446.XAA14735@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #688 TELECOM Digest Tue, 31 Dec 96 23:46:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 688 Inside This Issue: Happy New Year, Everyone! ISP's Will Get *NO* Refunds (Monty Solomon) Fraud Calls on Centrex ISDN PRI (Monty Solomon) The Information Age and TELCO Voice Networks (jfmezei) 900-Number Company Leaves TV Stations, "Psychics" Unpaid (Nigel Allen) Arkansas Splits ... Gets 870! (John Cropper) Internet by Satellite (Rob Gordon) Internet-Based Personal Information Services (Ted Lee) Re: How Business Almost Derailed the Net (Eric Florack) Getting in the Last Word: That's All Folks! (TELECOM Digest Editor) 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. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * 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. * ************************************************************************* 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 04:09:11 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: ISP's Will Get *NO* Refunds Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Begin forwarded message: Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 16:55:06 -0800 (PST) From: Michael Dillon Subject: ISP's will get *NO* refunds Organization: Memra Software Inc. - Internet consulting It now appear that the whole issue of ISP exemption from FCC Subscriber Line Charges is wrong, wrong, wrong. As I mentioned a month or so ago it appears that the people who have promoted this idea were getting the Network Access Charges (around two cents per minute) confused with the Subscriber Line Charge of $6 per line per month. ISP's are considered Enhanced Service Providers by the FCC and are thus exempt from the NAC but are explicitly required to pay the SLC. Period, end of story. In researching this whole issue I have discovered, via the ISP's who assisted me, that most telco people just don't have a clue about these charges and how or why the NAC is different from the SLC. At one point I expressed the opinion that the only known ISP to get a refund may have bamboozled their local telco into refunding money that they shouldn't have. Anyway, this whole thing started with some public statements by an organization called IDEA followed by a SPAM to all ISP's from IDEA. The evidence so far available publicly makes it appear that IDEA is lying about ever having collected telco refunds. And even if they did manage to bamboozle money out of the telco they did not deserve the refund and will have to pay it back. Here is what someone else discovered when they dug into IDEA and in particular note what Bell Atlantic said about refunds to Imagixx. > It may interest you to know that Shannon Hamra of LDD Net, who is > active with the AOP Internet Service Provider and Marketing SIGs (you > may have met her at the AOP conference last October), took the time to > contact IDEA and pursue them on this issue. Here's what she found: > 1) Though its name includes the word "Association," IDEA is a > for-profit corporation rather than a non-profit trade or professional > association. Their motivation is profit for themselves, not the good > of the industry or the defense of ISPs. > 2) When pressed, IDEA admitted that they have never actually > collected any money for any ISP. They do claim to have recovered such > monies for themselves, though Bell Atlantic has no record of such a > refund. At various times, IDEA has made claims to have recovered > money from Pac Bell and others, but is able to offer no substantiation > of these claims. > 3) When pressed for details of the alleged overcharges, IDEA sent > Hamra to the CIX web site. The document she was instructed to read > was, in fact, a draft white paper in response to the Clinton > Administration's GII (Global Information Infrastructure)/NII (National > Information Infrastructure) policy draft from last year. It only > encourages the White House to seek a continuation of existing > exemptions from per-minute access charges. IDEA also sent her to the > web site of the National Exchange Carrier Association, though that > site has nothing helpful to offer. Michael Dillon Internet & ISP Consulting Memra Software Inc. Fax: +1-604-546-3049 http://www.memra.com E-mail: michael@memra.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 04:10:11 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Fraud Calls on Centrex ISDN PRI Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Begin forwarded message: Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 15:47:48 -0800 (PST) From: Earl Wallace Subject: Fraud Calls on Centrex ISDN PRI We are getting bills from PacBell on our Centrex ISDN PRI showing local, national and international calls originating from our PRI line. These calls are Voice, not data. And the caller is a not a modem or fax, but answering machines, people, etc. When you look at the bill it looks like a phone bill for a medium size company so we thought it might just be a simple PacBell translations problem but they say that the AMA tapes show the calls coming from us. The PRI is connected to an Ascend P400T1 and doesn't have any digital modems so we were wondering if it was possible for the Ascend to make a fully random Voice call to someone in Japan and hold a 58 minute conversation with another human being. Ascend agrees with us that couldn't happen. So we are pretty darn certain we are not originating these calls, now how do we get PacBell to troubleshoot this problem? As soon as I say the word "ISDN" to PacBell, they fall apart. They have been unable to get past the AMA Tapes to see what's going on. I wish the AMA Tape would say "Please send the customer a Lexus 400", but it doesn't. Bummer :-) We are either engaged in or will be with AT&T, FBI, FCC, CPUC, our reps at the Calif State and Sentate, Congressional reps, and others but are trying not to overheat the situation if there's a way to convince PacBell with a simple test. What I would like them to do is come out to our site and place some equipment on the demarc and see for themselves if we are generating any of these bogus calls. These calls are being made during the week, Mon-Fri, during the hours of 10:00am to 6:00pm. It works out to be about 9 calls a minute. They could stand there and stare at the test equipment for 2 hours and then go back to the CO and see what the AMA says during that time period. If the AMA shows calls and the test equipment at the demarc shows nothing, it would seem to me that PacBell would be satisfied that it's not being caused by our equipment and maybe they would actually start doing something to fix the problem. Does this seem like a logical, valid test? After all, I'm only trying to prove the calls are not originating from that line. Anyone know what test equipment can do this task, what is it called and where can I rent it? Is there a better way to solve this problem? TIA, -earlw P.S. - Is it possible to hate any company more than PacBell? ------------------------------ From: jfmezei Subject: The Information Age and TELCO Voice Networks Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 11:11:06 -0500 Organization: SPC Reply-To: nospam.jfmezei@videotron.ca With the advent of 57k modems which no longer work fully across POTS lines (ISP has digital trunk to the telco to bypass A/D converters), it seems that we have finally reached the speed limit of the conventional voice telephone networks. Even when one removes the A/D converters to get an ISDN line at 64kpbs, it is still not a very impressive rate compared to what cable companies can offer (1.5mbps). While one would never think about a telco going under, I am wondering if this will not become more and more likely as cable companies start to steal customers at first for data/fax and then for voice as well. If the telcos wait too long, by the time they wake up, will they still have enough strength to convert their huge voice infrastructure designed to give no more than 64kbps, into something more competitive? Can telcos afford NOT to act NOW to start to completely rethink their infrastructure? Can telcos afford do to it now? Is there any chance that during such a transition from the current telephone/voice infrastructure to a new one, a single standard would be adhered to by all north american telcos, or would there be different companies pushing for their own standards? Is there any chance that a telephone number may in fact become a TCP address (area code+ country = domain name?) Is there any chance that we will see fibre to the homes offered by telcos to compete against coax to the homes already installed by the cable companies? Is there any chance that wireless high-speed data may happen and steal the show from both cable and telco? Have we really reached the limit of the POTS-to-POTS modems at the speed of 33kbps? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 14:43:21 EST From: Nigel Allen Subject: 900-Number Company Leaves TV Stations, "Psychics" Unpaid The {Montreal Gazette} reports that several television stations that aired infomercials for a 900-number psychic hotline haven't been paid. Some low-paid "psychics" also complained they hadn't been paid. The 900-number company is Integrated Communication Network Inc. of Miami, Florida. Calls to the company's psychic hotline were routed through a switch in Omaha, Nebraska, then connected to one of 2,000 people throughout North America working out of them home as psychics, the Gazette said. Callers were changed $4.99 a minute. Nigel Allen, Toronto, Ontario ndallen@io.org http://www.io.org/~ndallen/ ------------------------------ From: John Cropper Subject: Arkansas Splits ... Gets 870! Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 15:03:29 -0500 Organization: MindSpring Reply-To: psyber@mindspring.com Most Arkansas media hasn't even moved on this yet but ... 501 Area Code to Split During the Coming Year Some Arkansas residents will be receiving a new area code next year. 870 has been announced for residents to the south, and west of Little Rock. SBC, the largest of the primary telecommunications service providers in the state, and the company responsible for assigning exchanges in the 501 area code, has been studying a plan to relieve the overburdened 501 area code. Under the proposed plan, Little Rock, and sections of the northeastern corner of the state would retain the 501 area code, while the remainder of the state will move to the 870 area code. No date for the final split has been announced yet, and SBC will plan informational meetings sometime after the first of the year. John Cropper voice: 888.NPA.NFO2 LINCS 609.637.9434 PO Box 277 fax: 609.637.9430 Pennington, NJ 08534-0277 mailto:psyber@mindspring.com http://206.112.101.209/jcbt2n/lincs/ ------------------------------ From: robgordon@usa.net (Rob Gordon) Subject: Internet by Satellite Date: Wed, 01 Jan 1997 02:16:06 GMT Organization: Netcom INTERNET BY SATELLITE (Repost from Technology Transfer in International Development) Friends, I have developed an interest in the technology of establishing Internet connections by satellite and I would like to identify others with similar business interests. About a year ago, I saw a post that a small computer company in West Africa had filed with the U.S. Embassy Trade Opportunity Program. This company wanted to establish itself as an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and resell connectivity services to its clients. They noted that their country's telecommunications industry was being deregulated and privatized and were looking for a consultant to help them with planning the service. Although I had no particular experience with this technology, I had once lived in their country and this struck me as a particularly good business opportunity. I wrote this company and found that they were impressed by my background and seemed sincerely interested in doing business with me. The American Embassy said they had good references and they were apparently well funded. After several phone conversations with the company, they asked if I could meet them in Las Vegas (for last year's Comdex computer exposition) where we would finalize my consulting contract and look for other technical partners. I began organizing some research on this by calling several firms who specialized in internet hardware and software. The problem was that this country had a very poor telecommunications infrastructure and these companies only knew how to connect to existing systems. I then called several of the major telecommunications firms and found that they also were not very helpful. These multinational firms were used to doing business with government telecommunications authorities (PTTs) and were not open to doing business with any small companies. The government's PTT, in turn, controlled all land lines and was not open to doing business with anyone other than large telecommunications firms. I came to the conclusion that a satellite link would probably be the only way to establish a new independent ISP in this developing country. I identified several firms who supply these systems using a turn key approach and began to get a rough idea of the costs and technologies involved. My customer agreed with this approach and we decided to continue this line of research when we met at Comdex. Just two days before I was to leave for Las Vegas, the military dictatorship in this country executed a famous and respected author. As a result, the American Embassy became very stingy with visas and my customer was forced to cancel the trip to the United States. They called and said that they considered this to only be a temporary setback and still wanted to do business with me. I decided to go to Comdex anyway to identify firms with this capability and to learn enough about the technology to initiate this project with customer investment funds. I made the trip to Comdex and was shocked that, at this showcase of advanced American technology, I could find almost no one who even understood what I was trying to accomplish. Technology firms apparently are not oriented to doing business in countries where there is no technology infrastructure. After two days of talking to every large computer and networking firm, I was ready to give up. Finally, just a few hours before I had to leave, I met a manager from Hughes Network Systems who was able to provide a conceptually detailed sketch of how to link a VSAT station with customer sites using web servers, comm servers, routers, modems, etc. I took this information home and began working on a technical proposal for my customer. I then realized I was still missing an important piece of the puzzle. Although I now had a pretty good idea of how to set up an internet satellite downlink in Africa I didn't know what to hook it up to. (I later learned that this is called "the last mile problem"). I did some more research and came up with a point to point breakdown of all the components needed to establish a new ISP along with an estimate of costs (using this approach, you wouldn't be forced to do business with a turn key vendor but could put each individual component out to bid). I faxed this to my customer and eagarly awaited the start of my consulting contract. To make a long story short, the deal never happened. It became more difficult to communicate with this customer and the political situation in the country seemed to be disintegrating. There was talk of difficulties with the national telecommunications company. I never found out exactly what happened but after several unreturned phone calls and faxes, I was forced to call it quits with this particular customer. I learned alot from this experience and I would still like to work with this technology. If you are reading this message, you obviously have access to the Internet, but as we all know, many remote areas of the world do not. I think that satellite technology will be the only way to deliver the information revolution to millions of people in the developing world where there is a poor telecommunications infrastructure. I would be very interested in learning if there are other companies or individuals who are considering working with this technology. If possible, I would like to share information on potential customers, technical approaches, regulatory issues, investment strategies and any other issues involving establishing new ISPs in the developing world. Thank you. ------------------------------ From: tmplee@MR.Net (Ted Lee) Subject: Internet-Based Personal Information Services Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 13:35:07 -0600 Organization: Minnesota Regional Network (MRNet) The last few issues of the RISKS Digest have had a couple of messages pointing out the various directory (white pages, yellow pages, e-mail lists, etc) becoming available on the net/web and rightfully pointing out that people should be aware of how this ought to change their expectations of privacy (regardless of what one feels about the subject.) Does anyone know how the white pages (one of which, by the way, has a national reverse-number-lookup) databases in those services are compiled? The reason I ask is that I was surprised to find a listing for my wife in at least one, but not all, of them and yet she is *not* listed (either separately or as part of my entry) in either our metropolitan (Bell) directory or in the local (GTE or something community directory). I thought perhaps someone here might know. Dr. Theodore M.P. Lee Consultant in Computer Security PO Box 1718 tmplee@MR.Net Minnetonka, MN 55345 612-934-4532 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 07:38:20 PST From: Eric_Florack@xn.xerox.com (Florack,Eric) Subject: Re: How Business Almost Derailed the Net In response to;rh120@columbia.edu (Ronda Hauben) in conversation with Nathan Newman , re: How Business Almost Derailed the Net: Ronda, I've been holding off on commenting on this exchange for around a month, now, but your comments, for some reason, pushed me over the edge, as it were. I'm under pressure of time, (meeting in a half-hour) so these comments may come off somewhat disjointed. Sorry about that. > It is helpful that this article demonstrates that the mythology of so > called "competition" is just a veneer for the actuality of unregulated > conglomerates and monopolies trying to impose their view of the world > and their products on an uncooperative public. Huh? Come again? The public buys things of their own will. Do you suppose someone to be holding a gun to their collective heads, saying 'Buy this or else?' > But the more important fact that this all brings to light is that the > Internet was created as a scientific, educational resource. As such > it made possible the public participation needed to develop technology. > I have begun to document this in a new piece of work I am doing > applying Jurgen Habermas's notion of the need for a reemergence of the > public sphere to the development of Usenet and the early ARPANET > mailing lists. Excellent. Someone who is actually researching their topic. While you're there, Rhonda, you might want to look into the federall laws and regulations that would have prevented the private sector from constructing anything resembling the net of today. Any one of the regulars in this digest will be able to spout at length on that subject. Particulalry, look into the artificial propping up of AT&T, which basicly prevented any other firm than AT&T doing anything in the way of long lines ... data or otherwise.. The only reason government was able to set this up as a " scientific, educational resource" is because under that guise, they were not subject to the laws that the private sector was. If a private sector company had attempted what the government did, they'd have been in direct violation of several laws. I suggest in the strongest possible terms that had the burden of federal regulations been lifted, the Internet would be at least 10 years ahead of it's current state, and, since governmental over-regulation in large part has caused our under-development in phone capacity ... we'd not be concerned about telephone capacity problems as a result of internet use, either, because far more would have been built. >> Gingrich promoting decentralization of economic decision-making to >> local regions, there has been a steady stream of conservative analysis >> making the case that new technology has made government's role, >> especially the federal government's role, irrelevant and even >> dangerous to the healthy functioning of the economy. > The development of new technology requires that government play > its crucial role. > My research about Usenet and the ARPANET mailing lists in the 1981-2 > period (Usenet was formed in 1979 so this is fairly early in its > development) shows that there were important debates and discussions > on both early Usenet and on the ARPANET mailing lists carried on > Usenet during this period which examined the different views of > technology that the commercial world was promoting and that the > scientific and technical community needed. I agree, government has a crucial role to play. The largest part of that role is staying out of the way. Fact is, government cannot create, only regulate, retard, slow down, or halt something altogether. Government needs other entities to create. Therefore, how can government take the leading role in the creation of anything but regulation, and taxing, ie; slowing down, the progress of anything? Look, you're quite right, so far as you go. Problem is, you're not telling the whole story. Such discussions occurred there, simply because given the over regulation, the overly large role government was playing in the stunting of technological growth of this country, (and thereby the world) it was the only place where such discussions COULD occur ... Hmmm ... Other than, perhaps the technical echoes on FIDO, GT, RYME, and so on. Which brings to mind a side-point; A lot of the technical advances we take for granted came from PRIVATE sources, such as private BBS's. Consider the BBS Ward Christiansen ran in Chicago just a few years ago. (Has it been so long?) Ward, you may recall, was the individual who implimented Xmodem, the protocol that just about all EC serial protos are based on. And let's recall the stink the regulators put up about the private BBS's and their use of the 'public' network, shall we? And why was that stink put up? Because it was out of the government's control, and the government didn't like it. Can you say, "Modem Tax"? Remember? Telco, who knew their meal-ticket was government provided, chimed in, too, claiming they were being shorted, and their capcity is limited ... whicle to this day, they quietly have been selling line after line under special deals specificly for modem use ... and in many cases, Telcos are ISP's themselves ... which exposes the screams of capacity problems for the lies they are ... The issue, is thus exposed as Government's need for control, regardless of the outcome of that control. Do not mistake me, here. I do not intend to imply that there were not many dedicated people involved in the government-based effort.You are correct in giving them the credit they deserve. But can you honestly say that the private sector, once freed, would not have come up with a system that was either similar or better than what we have now? I think they would. Indeed; I *know* they would. Witness; it was only when the private sector was turned loose on the net that it began to really take off. > For example, on the workstation mailing list FA.works there was a > discussion of whether Xerox should offer a programming language with > its new workstation. There was resistance from Xerox for offering a > programming language as that was in conflict with the commercial > control of its product, while those on the mailing list who were to be > the users of the workstation discussed how the lack of a programming > language would make the workstation useless to them. That they would > need to be able to customize their uses of the workstation and not > having a programming language would make their work impossible. > Thru this kind of discussion and debate Xerox was won to recognize > the need to offer a programming language. Are you speaking of the 6085? Look at my address. I happen to know something of that particular unit. I will suggest to you that the processes involved with the design of ANY system is not unlike a governmental process. Somewhat high-handed in nature, and thereby less effective than it might be. Now, the 6085 was a hell of a nice unit. Certainly ahead of it's time. All of the things we take for granted in the GUI's of today, Viewpoint had in the middle 70's, in 4 megs /tops/ of RAM and in under 40 megs of drive space, plus seemless intergal networking.. But it suffered, even during it's heyday, from a prorietary structure, and OS, that even (what I cansider to be) a fairly decent programming language couldn't make sync with the remainder of the world. There's one of them downstairs, in the Museum. To a lesser degree, I suspect, Apple, who basicly swiped the Look and feel of the 8000 and 6085 series workstations for their OS, suffers from the same problem. But, over time, (when law allows it) the public tends to make use of the best ideas, and combine them with other ideas. Witness the operating system I'm willing to bet you're running: WIndows ... the look and feel of which also based largely on the VIEWPOINT OS. The point here being that these choices are made over time by the public, when the government stays out of the way. Would we have done OK, if government had mandated that the VP OS as the way to go? Sure. And, of course it would certainly have made my wallet somewhat fatter. (grin) But would we be as well off? I must be fair and say, I don't think so. Others were free to develop and market their own systems, some of which were better in the overall. As a result we now see Xerox using Microsoft's OS, as opposed to the other way around. Similarly, If government, instead of being more directly involved in development of the internet, had simply lowered the legal barriiers to private concerns to create their own networks, we'd have had a number of systems from which to choose, and, (might I say it) we'd have had a better one when the last one was left standing ... without the designed-in frailties that the one we have now contains. > This is helpfully pointed out in Habermas's work. He shows how in the > development of a political system there is a need to have debate and > discussion over crucial issues and that this is what happened in the > development of our current political forms in England, Germany and > France. (And others have pointed out how this was true as well in the > early days of the U.S.) The debate and discussion over technology is, in the ultimate sense, handled at the cash register. Again, look at the OS's in the grave, or nearly so. VIEWPOINT, for all of it's qualities, is one such. Each person making their own choices. For all the screaming about Microsoft, for example, the bottom line is (pun intended) that Microsoft's operationg systems are more prevelent than those of APPLE, or, UNIX. The latter two clearly have their place, of course ... (Though not much longer for Apple, I think.) > However, Habermas shows how public relations firms have been hired > by big corporate entities to put their narrow self interest out > to the public as the public interest. Yes, indeed. The most recent election cycle is proof of that. Or is it? You under-estimate the longer term thinking ability, I think, of Americans. > The public debate and discussion over public issues is replaced > by public relations ads from corporate entities who propose their > ads as the news. Again, I point at the Presdential elections most recent, as an interesting parallel. The heavy push by the PR firms managed to get a highly questionable person re-elected. Blip! And yet the longer term voting patterns and trends, years in building, have continued in Congress, and on the local level. Understand what I mean here. You're right, in the shorter term. But in the longer term, the PR firm victories are short lived, in reality. Because I give the public credit for being able to see the better path, eventually, (given the chance to make their own choices) people see through the nonsense. Bottom line: Yes, government provided the base for what we now know as the Internet. But the private sector, given the chance by government, (by means of eliminating legal prohibitions, would have provided far better. Regards for the new year to all of you. /E ------------------------------ From: TELECO Digest Editor Subject: Getting in the Last Word: That's All, Folks! Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 23:30:00 EST So another year and another volume of your favorite Digest (or at least my favorite Digest) comes to an end. For the next few days I am going to be very busy updating the indexes and loading the archives with many new files, etc. Expect to see the Digest resume about the first of next week -- maybe January 5-6 -- with the start of volume 17. I will have a couple special mailings for you in the meantime however. Mark Cuccia has sent along several more files of historical interest, and they are quite large. Watch for them to arrive in your email soon. As a closing note for this year and perhaps an opening note for 1997, a replay of "The Day the Bell System Died" is in order. This originally appeared in TELECOM Digest in July, 1983, when the Digest was two years old and the divestiture of AT&T was well underway. Readers who have been around for a few years have seen this here before; I hope new readers will enjoy it also. Date: Tuesday, 12-Jul-83 01:18:19-PDT From: Lauren Weinstein Subject: "The Day Bell System Died" To: TELECOM@ECLB Greetings. With the massive changes now taking place in the telecommunications industry, we're all being inundated with seemingly endless news items and points of information regarding the various effects now beginning to take place. However, one important element has been missing: a song! Since the great Tom Lehrer has retired from the composing world, I will now attempt to fill this void with my own light-hearted, non-serious look at a possible future of telecommunications. This work is entirely satirical, and none of its lyrics are meant to be interpreted in a non-satirical manner. The song should be sung to the tune of Don Mclean's classic "American Pie". I call my version "The Day Bell System Died"... --Lauren-- ************************************************************************** *==================================* * Notice: This is a satirical work * *==================================* "The Day Bell System Died" Lyrics Copyright (C) 1983 by Lauren Weinstein (To the tune of "American Pie") (With apologies to Don McLean) ARPA: vortex!lauren@LBL-CSAM UUCP: {decvax, ihnp4, harpo, ucbvax!lbl-csam, randvax}!vortex!lauren ************************************************************************** Long, long, time ago, I can still remember, When the local calls were "free". And I knew if I paid my bill, And never wished them any ill, That the phone company would let me be... But Uncle Sam said he knew better, Split 'em up, for all and ever! We'll foster competition: It's good capital-ism! I can't remember if I cried, When my phone bill first tripled in size. But something touched me deep inside, The day... Bell System... died. And we were singing... Bye, bye, Ma Bell, why did you die? We get static from Sprint and echo from MCI, "Our local calls have us in hock!" we all cry. Oh Ma Bell why did you have to die? Ma Bell why did you have to die? Is your office Step by Step, Or have you gotten some Crossbar yet? Everybody used to ask... Oh, is TSPS coming soon? IDDD will be a boon! And, I hope to get a Touch-Tone phone, real soon... The color phones are really neat, And direct dialing can't be beat! My area code is "low": The prestige way to go! Oh, they just raised phone booths to a dime! Well, I suppose it's about time. I remember how the payphones chimed, The day... Bell System... died. And we were singing... Bye, bye, Ma Bell, why did you die? We get static from Sprint and echo from MCI, "Our local calls have us in hock!" we all cry. Oh Ma Bell why did you have to die? Ma Bell why did you have to die? Back then we were all at one rate, Phone installs didn't cause debate, About who'd put which wire where... Installers came right out to you, No "phone stores" with their ballyhoo, And 411 was free, seemed very fair! But FCC wanted it seems, To let others skim long-distance creams, No matter 'bout the locals, They're mostly all just yokels! And so one day it came to pass, That the great Bell System did collapse, In rubble now, we all do mass, The day... Bell System... died. So bye, bye, Ma Bell, why did you die? We get static from Sprint and echo from MCI, "Our local calls have us in hock!" we all cry. Oh Ma Bell why did you have to die? Ma Bell why did you have to die? I drove on out to Murray Hill, To see Bell Labs, some time to kill, But the sign there said the Labs were gone. I went back to my old CO, Where I'd had my phone lines, years ago, But it was empty, dark, and ever so forlorn... No relays pulsed, No data crooned, No MF tones did play their tunes, There wasn't a word spoken, All carrier paths were broken... And so that's how it all occurred, Microwave horns just nests for birds, Everything became so absurd, The day... Bell System... died. So bye, bye, Ma Bell, why did you die? We get static from Sprint and echo from MCI, "Our local calls have us in hock!" we all cry. Oh Ma Bell why did you have to die? Ma Bell why did you have to die? We were singing: Bye, bye, Ma Bell, why did you die? We get static from Sprint and echo from MCI, "Our local calls have us in hock!" we all cry. Oh Ma Bell why did you have to die? ---------------------- And that was back in 1983 ... think of how far things have come since then. Lauren is a charter subscriber to this mailing list; he was on the list on opening day in August, 1981 and he remains a regular participant. Please do not forget: TELECOM Digest is brought to you -- by you. The grant from ITU does help with my expenses, but I really very much appreciate the letters and gifts that you send me. There is a suggested donation of twenty dollars per year as the subscription cost for this Digest. No one has ever been cut off for not sending it, and editorial content is completely independent of donations received (or the lack of same.) If you would like to 'subscribe' for another year, and have not recently sent anything, please consider doing so this week. TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL 60076 Your letters *do* mean a great deal to me. Words cannot express how much your donations have helped in the past couple years. Once you get your other bills and pressing matters taken care of, please help this Digest if you can. Happy New Year! We'll chat again in a few days. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #688 ******************************