Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa06445; 27 Dec 91 2:20 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA08833 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Fri, 27 Dec 1991 00:29:04 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA03357 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Fri, 27 Dec 1991 00:28:46 -0600 Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1991 00:28:46 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199112270628.AA03357@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #1051 TELECOM Digest Fri, 27 Dec 91 00:28:39 CST Volume 11 : Issue 1051 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: AT&T Echo to the UK (Floyd Davidson) Re: AT&T Rates and Low Income Customers (Gihan Dias) Re: New AT&T Charge For Overseas Information (Henry Mensch) Re: New AT&T Charge For Overseas Information (Andy Sherman) Re: Area Code 206 Changes (Steve Forrette) Re: Life on Hold: Unhappy Inbound Campers (Steve Forrette) Re: Telecaroling (Scott Dorsey) Re: BWI Airport Payphones (Desi Fuller) Re: Sprint Calling Cards and the 'Bong' Tone (Henry Mensch) Re: Lack of Phone Numbers in Yellow Page Ads (Mike Berger) Re: Call 1-900-SOMEONE (Peter da Silva) Re: Caller-ID Chip Spec Sheet Humor (Peter da Silva) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: floyd@hayes.ims.alaska.edu (Floyd Davidson) Subject: Re: AT&T Echo to the UK Organization: University of Alaska Institute of Marine Science Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1991 11:01:51 GMT In article andys@ulysses.att.com writes: > In article DREUBEN@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU > (Douglas Scott Reuben) writes: >> [ complaints about short time-constant echoes on AT&T circuits >> to the UK ] >> AT&T *always* had a slight delay -- if you hit a Touch Tone key right >> when the other side was making some sound (FAX carrier or "not in >> area" carphone message), you could hear the touch tone returned to >> you. It wasn't as long as what one would expect from a satellite >> circuit, so maybe they are using fiber one way and satellite the other >> way? (Hey, AT&T *still* uses satellites to Hawaii!) > And, yes, *every* carrier still has satellite circuits for international > calling and places like Alaska and Hawaii. (Floyd from Alascom can > correct me if I'm wrong about Alaska. I believe that Alascom is the > only IXC there.) Things recently changed ... there is a spur off the North Pacific Fiber that goes to Seward, Alaska which now handles all traffic going out of state. It was placed in service last summer. Alascom, Inc. is the regulated carrier at this time, but not the only carrier. MCI and Sprint connect calls via General Communications Inc., a small but well known (in Alaska) company. And in the very near future the inter-state service will belong to AT&T no less! The deal is done and the regulators are working on it. Alascom will become just another RBOC type entity. > There are some places where a satellite is the only way to get there. Much of the traffic within the state of Alaska fits that description. Nome, Barrow, Bethel, Kotzebue ... and all small villages are served only by satellite. > There are other places where satellite circuits > provide needed excess capacity. To the UK there are undersea fiber, > undersea cable, and satellite circuits. This is certainly the way it is normally done. Before the fiber was in place we routed traffic via both microwave and satellite. First choice was determined by which type of facility the call arrived at the toll switch on (ie. an attempt was made to avoid double hops on satellite if possible). > I believe that all three > media are used by all the major carriers, but guess who takes the lead > in laying new undersea cables? (Points off if you answered Sprint). Pacific Telecom, Inc. ??? (Ok, second maybe! And is there anyone in third place?) > However, the older but servicible facilities are not ripped out when a > new fiber comes on line. You wouldn't want to pay the long distance > charges that would result if they were. That is a serious statement in relation to AT&T, and I wouldn't want to make light of it ... but let me tell you what happened to PTI in late November when the Alaska spur broke. For two weeks all traffic was re-routed via satellite and most of it was compressed at a 4:1 ratio because much of what used to be used for our own trunks has been sold to other users (we own our own bird). It was horrible. CompuServe called me one night because they could not connect with their local modem at 300 baud! > I don't know why you are getting the echos on your calls. Even fiber has an echo if the path is long enough. The first day we had the fiber in place I had a conversation with another tech sitting ten feet away from me over a circuit that was looped through AT&T's office in Seattle. It sounded like a local call, until I multipled both lines together just to see exactly how much echo there is over a 2000 mile fiber link. It isn't like a satellite where you can NOT talk if you can hear it. It isn't that annoying, but you can sure tell its there. > If the echo problem persists, I suggest you call AT&T repair service. > But a word of advice -- don't try to diagnose the problem, just give > them the symptoms. Your credibility will be much higher if you don't > give impossible technical explanations for what you are observing. Note that I'm staying about 2000 miles away from some of what Andy said, but this paragraph is some very good advice. And if I spoke for Alascom, they would have fired me a *long* time ago. Floyd L. Davidson floyd@ims.alaska.edu Salcha, Alaska ------------------------------ From: gdias@ucdavis.edu (Gihan Dias) Subject: Re: AT&T Rates and Low Income Customers Date: 26 Dec 91 21:56:41 GMT Organization: Computer Science Dept. - U.C. Davis. In article tad@ssc.wa.com (Tad Cook) writes: > It said that AT&T is raising prices for direct dialed interstate calls > "citing rising costs of providing service to low-income telephone > users." > I am confused. I thought that local telephone companies were the only > entities in the telephone business involved in providing subsidized > service to low income customers. I can understand how this could have > been a cost to AT&T prior to divestiture, but why now? In California, at least, customers on "Lifeline" phone service do not pay the $3.50 "Network Access Charge". This may be what they're talking about, though I thought that this money goes to PacBell, not the LD carriers. Gihan Internet: dias@cs.ucdavis.edu or gdias@ucdavis.edu Bitnet: gdias@ucdavis UUCP: ...!ucbvax!ucdavis!gdias JAnet: dias%cs.ucdavis.edu@uk.ac.nsfnet-relay ------------------------------ From: henry@ads.com (Henry Mensch) Date: Thu, 26 Dec 91 16:21:52 -0800 Subject: Re: New AT&T Charge For Overseas Information Reply-To: henry@ads.com well!emmanuel@well.sf.ca.us (Emmanuel Goldstein) wrote: > As of Saturday 12/21 AT&T has begun charging $1.50 for every connection to overseas directory assistance. This is a drag. I suppose they will begin to supply international phone directories upon request at no charge (winkey-smiley)? # henry mensch / booz, allen & hamilton, inc. / ------------------------------ From: andys@ulysses.att.com Date: Thu, 26 Dec 91 11:16:48 EST Subject: Re: New AT&T Charge For Overseas Information Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Murray Hill, NJ In article well!emmanuel@well.sf. ca.us (Emmanuel Goldstein) writes: > As of Saturday 12/21 AT&T has begun charging $1.50 for every > connection to overseas directory assistance. The charge applies > whether or not you get a number but won't apply if you don't get > connected. This is unfortunate -- up until now the service had been > free. If other companies still allow free overseas information, I'll > switch to them for my international calls. Anyone have info on this? Other carriers don't have *ANY* overseas directory assistance, free or otherwise. Their version of free directory assistance is to tell their dial-1 customers to "call 10288-0 to get the number free from AT&T and then place the call with us." Their D.A. service will be no freer than ours after the charge begins. The abuse I've described above may be connected with the decision to start charging for overseas D.A., but I wouldn't swear to it. Andy Sherman/AT&T Bell Laboratories/Murray Hill, NJ AUDIBLE: (908) 582-5928 READABLE: andys@ulysses.att.com or att!ulysses!andys What? Me speak for AT&T? You must be joking! [Moderator's Note: You are correct. Charging was started on domestic directory assistance (555-1212) for the same reason. Sprint and MCI would tell their customers to use AT&T for directory, but not for the call. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Dec 91 02:11:36 pst From: Steve Forrette Subject: Re: Area Code 206 Changes Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA In article it was written: > For calls to informative numbers beginning with the prefixes > 976- or 960-, dial 1 + 206 before the prefix (customers in the > following communities will need to dial 1+503 before 976- and 960- > prefixes: Battle Ground, Camas-Washougal, Castle Rock, Cathlamet, > Longview-Kelso, Ridgefield, Vader, Vancouver, Woodland, Yacolt). > Huh?? 503 is, of course, most of Oregon, and those communities are > in that direction. Any body know why they hafta do that? Probably because these communities are in the southernmost part of 206, which is in the Portland LATA, separate from most of 206 which is in the Seattle LATA. Since US West can't provide service from those areas up to Seattle where the 976 and 960 stuff lives, and the part of 206 that's in the Portland LATA is too small to justify its own 976/960 setup, you have to call to 503 in Portland. Keep in mind that even though a call from Vancouver WA to Portland OR is both inter-NPA and inter-state, it is still intra-LATA. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Dec 91 02:26:50 pst From: Steve Forrette Subject: Re: Life on Hold: Unhappy Inbound Campers Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA In article it was written: > I have yet to see this done right. Let's say you call your credit card > company's 800 number, then punch in your card number and zipcode, and > it tells that you have $xxx available credit. You say to yourself, > "That can't be right!" and press the button to get a live operator. > After holding, live operator comes on and asks you for your card > number and address ... even though the auto-attendant already got that > information from you. It was smart enough to grab the next available > operator, but it didn't bother to tell that operator anything about > you! Citibank does this. I did just what you described -- entered my account number and ZIP code to get my balance. Then, I requested an operator, and she already knew who I was. It caught me off guard for an instant until I realized what had happened. Citibank has repeatedly shown itself to be quite "high tech" when it comes to stuff like this. Recently, I have noticed that this hasn't been happening for me. I asked the rep about it, and she said that "sometimes it works -- sometimes it doesn't". Hmmm. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ From: kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov ( Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: Telecaroling Organization: NASA Langley Research Center Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1991 13:45:34 GMT In article SYSMATT@ukcc.uky.edu (Matt Simpson) writes: > I was at my parents' house the Sunday night before Christmas. It was a > damp drizzly night. The phone rang. Mom answered it, and started > singing Jingle Bells. The rest of us sat there wondering if she had > gone off of the deep end. At the end of the song, she said "Thank you, > Merry Christmas" and hung up. She then explained to us that the caller > had said he was calling from a local church, and wanted her to sing > Jingle Bells with them. Now, with a teleconferencing bridge, you could have yourself a nice little choir ... scott [Moderator's Note: Somehow I don't think it will replace the real thing, and not just because of the poor audio quality! PAT] ------------------------------ From: dfuller@isis.cs.du.edu (Desi Fuller) Subject: Re: BWI Airport Payphones Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept. Date: Thu, 26 Dec 91 17:48:30 GMT In article Michael.Rosen@samba.acs. unc.edu (Michael Rosen) writes: > I was at the Baltimore Washington International Airport (BWI) today > picking up my folks and noticed something interesting. The last time > I'd been there the payphones were Washington Metro area phones and a > call to Baltimore would be ld. Now, there are separate phones. I saw > two phones for AT&T Long Distance, two for C&P Local, and alternating > phones for Washington Metro area and Baltimore Metro area. I'm not > quite sure if that C&P one was local, I'm trying to remember them now. > It wouldn't make much sense since there were already Baltimore and > Washington Metro area phones. Just for your F.Y.I., there has always been phones at B.W.I. which allowed local calls to Washington D.C., EXCEPT it was not until the past year that they made them widely distributed. It use to be that they had them on the lower levels but not at the gates/piers. Desmond S. Fuller - Network Administrator American Red Cross Jerome H. Holland Laboratory Office - (301) 738-0898 or -0894 15601 Crabbs Branch Way FAX - (301) 738-0794 Rockville, MD 20855 ------------------------------ From: henry@ads.com (Henry Mensch) Date: Thu, 26 Dec 91 11:26:19 -0800 Subject: Re: Sprint Calling Cards and the 'Bong' Tone Reply-To: henry@ads.com Brian.Gordon@Eng.Sun.COM (Brian Gordon) wrote: > I just talked to AT&T about that very issue today ... when I > called and asked for status, the representative said that the process > of automatically sending new cards to old subscribers had not gone > well, that my order was still in progress, and that he couldn't really > guess whether we were talking days, weeks or months until they were > sent ... Hmm ... sorta surprising ... when iIgot my new service here in April/May I got an new-style AT&T calling card right off the top. You'd think it'd be pretty easy to cancel the old ones/update the new ones. # henry mensch / booz, allen & hamilton, inc. / ------------------------------ From: berger%iboga@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Mike Berger) Subject: Re: Lack of Phone Numbers in Yellow Page Ads Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1991 22:15:33 GMT stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) writes: > But this brings up an interesting question: Isn't the whole point of > the Yellow Pages to increase usage of the telephone? I thought that > the ad revenue was secondary to the traffic it generated. Until I saw > this ad, I would have guessed that there was a rule that you had to You have a misconception. The Yellow Pages are published by a printing firm. The advertising dollars are everything. The printing firm makes nothing from the phone calls. Mike Berger Department of Statistics, University of Illinois AT&TNET 217-244-6067 Internet berger@atropa.stat.uiuc.edu ------------------------------ From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) Subject: Re: Call 1-900-SOMEONE Organization: Taronga Park BBS Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1991 04:04:18 GMT hpa@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin N9ITP) writes: > This business of Caller*ID and blocking, etc, raises an interesting > question: would it be not only possible but legal to create a 900 or > 976 number that would relay a phone call anonymously? There was at least one such service advertised as 1-900-STOPPER. Peter da Silva. Taronga Park BBS. +1 713 568 0480|1032 2400/n/8/1. [Moderator's Note: This is the number of that lawyer I mentioned yesterday, but at the time I could not remember the number. PAT] ------------------------------ From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) Subject: Re: Caller-ID Chip Spec Sheet Humor Organization: Taronga Park BBS Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1991 04:11:56 GMT lauren@vortex.COM (Lauren Weinstein) writes: > But when you look at the sample data message shown > for the extra 109 bits frame in "multiple message" format, did they > use "MOTOROLA"? Did they say "JOHN SMITH"? Naw! They clearly are > looking towards advanced call screening applications for the mass > market, because it says "MOTHER IN LAW"! Hey, if CNID becomes really popular, they might actually start making phones where you can add such "cover-sheet" info for delivery by a descendent of Caller-ID. I can easily see people thinking up cutsey "handles" to append to their phone number. "Good Buddy", or "Joe's Pizza", or "Love Handles". It could be the CB/vanity plate craze of the 21st century. With only 109 bits (why 109? What's the character set?), you'll have to think carefully: "IN 4 THE MONEY", "BIG JOE 10S NE1" ... Peter da Silva. Taronga Park BBS. +1 713 568 0480|1032 2400/n/8/1. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #1051 *******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa10230; 27 Dec 91 3:54 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA06420 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Fri, 27 Dec 1991 02:22:09 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA03300 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Fri, 27 Dec 1991 02:21:55 -0600 Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1991 02:21:55 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199112270821.AA03300@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #1052 TELECOM Digest Fri, 27 Dec 91 02:22:04 CST Volume 11 : Issue 1052 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson New Archives Exhibit: Detailed Country Code Listings (David Leibold) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Brandon S. Allbery) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Eric Florack) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (G. L.Sicherman) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Joel B. Levin) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Warren Burstein) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Bob Ackley) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (John Boteler) Re: Wrong Number (Dave Levenson) Re: Swedish Telecommunications Network (Peter da Silva) Re: Gadgets to Help Take Advantage of Custom Ringing (Russ Nelson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Dec 91 20:55:08 EST From: DLEIBOLD@vm1.yorku.ca Subject: New Archives Exhibit: Detailed Country Code Listings Announcing the TELECOM Digest Detailed Country Code List (DCCL) December, 1991 A new set of detailed country code listings is being made available via the TELECOM Digest Archives at lcs.mit.edu in the subdirectory telecom-archives/country.codes. While the Archives had country code lists for some time, these lacked the details of the area or STD (subscriber trunk dialing) codes within each country. The Detailed Country Code List (DCCL) will now provide not only the "first level" country code information, but also much of the "second level" of area code or STD code information. The local exchange prefix within the STD or area code itself can be thought of as a third level of detail. Third level information will not be dealt with in this list except in a few instances where there are area codes used within a country (ie. prefixes indicate the location within a country). Format The lists are broken up into files representing each world numbering zone (ie. country codes beginning with 2 are in one file, country codes beginning with 3 are in another, etc). The zones are as follows: 2 - Africa 3 and 4 - Europe 5 - South America 6 - South Pacific (eastern portion) 7 - Soviet Union (and now including separate republics) 8 - Southeast Asia, South Pacific (western portion) 9 - Middle East, western portion of Asia As North American area codes (zone 1) would be listed in other documents in the Archives, these are not available in the DCCL at this time. In the country.codes subdirectory on lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Archives) the lists will appear as separate files: zone.2, zone.3, zone.4 ... zone.9. Limitations, Disclaimers and Conditions The list is incomplete in many portions; conversely, it may seem to be all too complete in other parts. This reflects the availability of detailed telephone information for particular countries. Furthermore, some countries have detailed information readily available, but time constraints did not permit complete listings at this time. Assistance in filling in such gaps would be appreciated; please use one of the contact e-mail addresses listed below. Not everything was treated consistently in the list, either, owing much to the aforementioned discrepancies and time constraints in compiling the lists. ** This listing is subject to changes or errors in source or compilation. ** The DCCL was compiled for the benefit of the Internet community, and particularly for TELECOM Digest and may be freely distributed for non-commercial or individual use. Features and Notes on the Lists If a * designator appears within any country code, this indicates that only the local number need be dialed following the country code for purposes of international calls. In a few cases (France, Cuba) a main area code such as 1 needs to be dialed before a number in the main metropolitan area (Paris, Havana) but no area code would be needed for points elsewhere in the country. The STD/area codes are provided as they would be used in international dialing. That is, any domestic leading access codes are not listed (eg. 071 area code in the UK would be listed under country code 44 as STD/area code 71, and not 071). Some countries have completely revised their domestic dialing systems, or are about to, thus many STD codes available in previous years have changed or are no longer available. For such cases notes have been included in the DCCL where possible. Spellings of place names is complicated by various spellings for given places, often due to spelling within the language group of that place, or due to varying spellings applied in translation. The place names listed were ones that would be most familiar or plausible. In some cases, a listing in an English-language directory was accepted as a suitable spelling. In a few cases, the Encyclopaedia Britannica was helpful in determining a few place names. There are a few entries such as "Lisbon (Lisboa)" or "Prague (Praha)" which indicate differences used in spelling domestically and internationally. Credits Much of the information was distilled from various telephone directories and information posted on TELECOM Digest. Telephone directories from such places as Toronto, the UK and other international points were helpful. Sometimes an English-language business classified directory was available that could list the various STD codes for a country. The Hotel & Travel Index also provided some leads for area/STD codes. Some international calling guides from AT&T and Telecom Canada/Teleglobe were helpful in finding new codes or verifying others. Thanks to the following for their contributions: Warren Burstein (reviewed Israel codes), John Covert (previous work done on country code listings), J. Gao (an extra China STD code), Ben Kinchant (New Zealand information), David Wilson (Australian information). There could be others who have contributed directly or indirectly to the list; anyone who was omitted from the credits is encouraged to contact one of the e-mail addresses below. Other credits might appear in the lists themselves where appropriate. Correspondence: For any correspondence regarding these country code listings including updates to information, corrections or suggestions, please send e-mail directly to Carl Moore (cmoore@BRL.MIL) or David Leibold (dleibold1@attmail.com or dleibold@vm1.yorku.ca). Occasional updates are expected to appear in the TELECOM Digest archives as new or improved information can be compiled. Updates will not be provided on any fixed schedule, however. [Moderator's Note: My sincerest thanks to Dave and Carl for the hard work and large amount of time they spent getting this exhibit ready. I must apologize I had it a few days ago but simply had no time of my own to get it installed. It is available now, and I hope you will pick up your copy today. The Telecom Archives is available using anonymous ftp as follows: ftp lcs.mit.edu login anonymous use yourname@site.name as password cd telecom-archives cd country.codes (if that is the desired directory) If there is sufficient demand I may send this out as a special issue of the Digest as well. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Dec 91 12:32:41 -0500 From: allbery@NCoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH) Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Reply-To: allbery@ncoast.org (Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH) Organization: North Coast Public Access *NIX, Cleveland, OH I seem to remember something performed by (James Taylor? Don't remember) that starts off with "I am a lineman for the county...". Whether that was a remake of the aforementioned "Wichita Lineman" or not, I don't know. Yes did "Long Distance Runaround", but it's a trifle marginal with respect to telecom. Brandon S. Allbery, KF8NH [44.70.4.88] allbery@NCoast.ORG Senior Programmer, Telotech, Inc. (if I may call myself that...) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1991 12:00:13 PST From: Eric_Florack.Wbst311@xerox.com Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits OK, How about Shel Silverstien, whgen he was with Dr Hook and the Medicine show back around 72? Anyone recall what their first hit was (Columbia Records)? Sylvia's Mother. (And the operator says 40c more for the next three minutes...) John Lennon: You know my name, look up the number. Rupert Holmes: Answering Machine. (Circa 77?) For Jazz nuts: Takayama's "The line is Busy" Paul Macartney and Wings: Admiral Halsey. (THe middle 8 of the song....) Jim Croce's "Operator" I forget who did the original, but The Manhattan Transfer did "Operator" around 74...(No, not the Croce Song...) (Gee, this is kinda fun!) Jerry Corbetta, ex of Sugarloaf: DOn't call us, we`ll call you. (Complete with Touch-tone) Dionne Warwick, (and a half gross more) " Call me" (65?) ELO's "Telephone Line" (76?) Big Bopper's "Chantilly Lace" Memphis... Berry and J RIvers (or did someone mention that one?) "You Won't See Me" Beatles, Ann Murray. (When I call you up; your line's been changed) Steely Dan: Rikki Don't lose that number. ------------------------------ From: gls@windmill.att.com Date: Thu, 26 Dec 91 15:59:25 est Subject: Telecomm's Greatest Hits Don't forget the rock and roll standard "Western Union." And how about the instrumental "Telstar"? (Guess who I work for!) There's an old gospel song called "Jesus on the Main Line." I have a phonodisc with Ry Cooder singing it ... Col. G. L. Sicherman windmill.ATT.COM ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Reply-To: Joel B Levin Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA Date: Thu, 26 Dec 91 16:44:26 -0500 From: Joel B Levin I haven't seen anyone mention the Broadway musical and movie based on things telephonic, BELLS ARE RINGING, and Geoffry Moss's number plugged in song, PLaza 0-4433 (area code 212, of course). So is that a real exchange? Was it in the late '50s when the song was written? Possibly the answer is no because of the third digit zero. JBL Internet: levin@bbn.com | USPS: BBN Communications Division UUCP: levin@bbn.com | Mailstop 20/7A or {any}!bbn!levin | 150 CambridgePark Drive Telco: (617)873-3463 | Cambridge, MA 02140 ------------------------------ From: warren@worlds.COM (Warren Burstein) Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (was Pseudo-Area Code 311) Date: 26 Dec 91 08:26:40 GMT Reply-To: warren@itex.jct.ac.il Organization: WorldWide Software "6060-842" (yes, the dash is after the fourth digit) by The B-52's is about a disconnected "for a good time" phone number. warren@itex.jct.ac.il ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Dec 91 04:26:38 cst From: Bob.Ackley@ivgate.omahug.org (Bob Ackley) Subject: Telecom's Greatest Hits Reply-To: bob.ackley@ivgate..omahug.org In a message of <21 Dec 91 02:50:07>, Floyd Vest writes: > Blondie (and many others) recorded "Call Me" ... Jim Croce & the > Manhattan's had lyrical conversations with the "Operator" ... ^^^^^^^^^^^ I think that was the 'Manhattan Transfer.' Picky little detail ... Brenda Holloway (1965) and Mary Wells (1962) had similar conversations. From my music archives: The Telephone Song; (Stan) Boreson & (Doug) Setterbourg - a takeoff on Jimmie Rodgers' Honeycomb, circa 1957 (and *VERY* funny) The Telephone Song; (same title, different song) the Baja Marimba Band Telephone Girlie; from the Soundtrack album 'No No Nanette' Telephone Hour; from the Soundtrack album 'Bye Bye Birdie' Telephone Lover; Connie Francis Call Me; Petula Clark, Bo Diddley, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Mathis, Chris Montez, Allan Sherman and Nancy Sinatra (same title, different songs) (some of the many others Floyd noted) Call Me Anytime; Frankie Avalon. (1958) Calling You; Hank Williams (Sr.) (1953) Pnone Call; Tammy Wynette Phone Call from God; Jerry Jordan (there's another, similar, recording 'Phone Call from the Devil' by somebody else whose name escapes me) Obscene Phone Bust; Hudson & Landry (1971) I'm sure there are dozens, if not hundreds, of others. msged 1.99S ZTC Bob's Soapbox Plattsmouth Ne (1:285/2.7) ------------------------------ From: John Boteler Subject: Telecom's Greatest Hits Date: Thu, 26 Dec 91 16:30:44 EST Summary: A new one (Readers of the frank-cd-list may skip this one.) An artist local to the Washington, D.C. area, Kit Watkins, put out a song "My Telephone", replete with various telephone sounds of the area and era (1981). There is even a "talking computer" operated out of an R&D company in Reston VA, a true novelty to the public in those days. Too bad for Kit, he even uses his phone number being dialed as part of the rythm of the song -- it didn't take long for that number to be disconnected after the song received airplay. A fun, rollicking, rocky kind of upbeat song expressing wonderment and disgruntlement at crazy phone calls. bote@access.digex.com (John Boteler) Skinnydipper's Hotline => 703.241.BARE Touch-Tone info at your fingertips ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: Wrong Number Date: 27 Dec 91 00:02:07 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA A friend used to have a PBX extension numbered 411 on his desk. Quite a few others at his company used to forget the 9 when dialing for directory assistance, and would reach my friend. When he figured out that they meant to dial 9 + 411, he'd politely take out his local white pages and look up a number! (He said it preferred that duty to the job he was paid to do at the time!) Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) Subject: Re: Swedish Telecommunications Network Organization: Taronga Park BBS Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1991 04:21:28 GMT hhallika@nike.calpoly.edu (Harold Hallikainen) writes: > Is there some > standard clear way of printing phone numbers so that anyone in the > world can make sense of them? Yes. See my "signature" on this message. The "+1" in my phone number means "national code 1" (think of the + as an abbreviation for your local "international access" sequence (011 in the USA). Peter da Silva. Taronga Park BBS. +1 713 568 0480|1032 2400/n/8/1. ------------------------------ From: nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson) Subject: Re: Gadgets to Help Take Advantage of Custom Ringing Organization: Crynwr Software, guest account at Clarkson Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1991 14:37:43 GMT In article davep@u.washington.edu (David Ptasnik) writes: > barker@wd0gol.WD0GOL.MN.ORG (Bob Barker) wrote: >> 1. Is there a commercial device that will listen to the first (full) >> ring, determine if its the normal ring or custom ring, and then >> connect the line to either device A or device B depending on the ring? > Be careful of a product called Ring Rite by CMP, Inc. While it > appears from it's ads that it will send a call to either line A or > line B, it will not. It is just a filter. It will prevent a custom > ring from going to line B, but line A will get all rings. There is no > way around this that I have found. And I'll bet that line B can't make outgoing calls, or else you have to do something special to make them. Bob Barker's message got me to thinking about how you'd make such a device. It's not obvious. This is what I was going to do: o Leave both lines connected, for the purpose of making outgoing calls. o At the first sign of an incoming ring, disconnect both A and B until you determine which ring you're getting. The problem with this is that both A and B will get a short, spurious ring. This may cause a problem with some devices. The proper way to do such a device is to make a mini-PBX, or else to find someone who sells a one or two-line PBX that knows about distinctive ringing. russ ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #1052 *******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa19138; 28 Dec 91 2:11 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA28024 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sat, 28 Dec 1991 00:35:08 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA08001 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sat, 28 Dec 1991 00:34:52 -0600 Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1991 00:34:52 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199112280634.AA08001@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #1053 TELECOM Digest Sat, 28 Dec 91 00:34:49 CST Volume 11 : Issue 1053 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Martin Harriss) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits John David Galt) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Steve Thornton) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Brian Gordon) Re: Motorola Acquires GEOSTAR's Satellite Services for Iridium (R. Haddock) Re: Lack of Phone Numbers in Yellow Page Ads (Ken Weaverling) Re: Swedish Telecommunications Network (H. Peter Anvin) Re: Yellow Page Ads (Paul S. R. Chisholm) Re: Area Code 206 Changes (John David Galt) Re: AT&T Rates and Low Income Customers (John Higdon) Re: Call 1-900-SOMEONE (Guy J. Sherr) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: martin@bdsgate.com (Martin Harriss) Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Reply-To: bdsgate!martin@uunet.uu.net (Martin Harriss) Organization: Beechwood Data Systems Date: Fri, 27 Dec 91 16:13:06 GMT In article rvirzi@gte.com writes: > On a slightly more contempory note there was Nick Lowe's song called > "Switch box Susie", in which he tries to pick up the operator for a > date. The best lyrics went something like ... > > Switchbox Susie won't you give me a line, I need a number give me 999. > Switchbox Susie, can we be friends. After six, and on weekends. In case anyone's interested, 999 in the UK is the emergency number, like 911 in the US. The 'After six and on weekends' comes from a telco advertising slogan from many, many years ago: "The cheapest time to call you friends is after six and at weekends." Aside: I disagreed with this at the time and proposed an alternative slogan: "The cheapest time to call your friends is when the're out." (Answering machines notwithstanding.) Martin Harriss uunet!bdsgate!martin ------------------------------ From: John_David_Galt@cup.portal.com Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Date: Fri, 27 Dec 91 17:22:45 PST There's also the Laurie Anderson song "O Superman," in which a parody of an answering machine message is played. I used to use this as my outgoing message. (Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine" is also good for this, but isn't telecom related.) Also don't forget the B-52's "6060-842". (This came out about 1979; I doubt if it was a valid phone number anywhere in US/Canada at that time.) Happy new year. John David Galt ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Dec 91 09:43:31 EST From: Steve Thornton Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Blondie -- "Hanging On The Telephone" (way better than "Call Me"). Steve ------------------------------ From: Brian.Gordon@Eng.Sun.COM (Brian Gordon) Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Date: 27 Dec 91 22:06:43 GMT Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca. In article jeh@cmkrnl.com writes: >> In the 40's Glenn Miller dialed "PEnnsylvania 6-5000" for a hit. > This was the number of the NYC hotel where the Glenn Miller orchestra > was playing a New Year's Eve gig at which they first performed the > song. >> Any other nominations for telecommunications greatest hits? :-) What do you mean, "was"?! When I stayed there a few years ago, that was still their main number, although they did list it as 736-5000. I don't remember its name, but it is across the street from Madison Square Gardens Station. The ballroom is still there, still rather glitzy, but not as big as one would imagine. It was real easy for both my wife and I to remember when we needed to call them or to call my room! Brian G. Gordon briang@Sun.COM briang@netcom.COM [Moderator's Note: It would be interesting to find out what organization or person has had their phone number longer than anyone else. The Drake Hotel in Chicago has had SUPerior/SU-7/787-2100 since it was built in 1921. The Palmer House Hotel has had the same number for more than half a century: RANdolph/RA-6/726-7500. Yellow Cab Radio Dispatching had CALumet/CA-5/225-6000 from about 1918 until late in the 1980's when the radio room operations were merged with Checker Cab (for over sixty years they were MONroe/MO-6/666-3700) on the new number TAXICAB (312-829-4222). PAT] ------------------------------ From: rusty@cs.umd.edu (Rusty Haddock) Subject: Re: Motorola Acquires GEOSTAR's Satellite Services for Iridium Date: 27 Dec 91 19:02:59 GMT Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742 In article rhyre@cinoss1.ATT.COM (Ralph W. Hyre) writes: > In article spp@zabriskie.berkeley.edu > (Steve Pope) writes: > X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 1023, Message 11 of 13 >>> Wasn't Geostar a navigation system? If Moto can convert it into a >> More likely Motorola intends to use Geostar as part of a positioning >> system for the 77 (or thereabouts) Iridium platforms. > Navstar GPS is the positioning system. I wouldn't think it would be > that useful in space, it was designed for accurate positioning of > objects on Earth. CMUs Autonomous Vehicle used a Navstar receiver. [This should probably go into the *.space.* newsgroups but...] Why wouldn't it be useful in space ("relatively" near the satellite constellation anyhow)? Aircraft can use GPS for positioning -- it's far more accurate than that inertia guidance cruft :-). Receiving signals from (let's say) 4 GPS satellites can give you the distances from each of them. From this it's a matter of mathematics to determine your position and speed with regards to those satellites whose positions are fairly well known. Where you are on the Earth in terms of lat/lon/alt is a transformation of that position information given a 3D map/description of the world and the satellites' know positions w/ respect to that map. Being out in space you just won't have a map ... but you will still know where you are and how fast you're going in terms of a geocentric model. Disclaimer: It's been a while ('82/'83) since I was on Texas Instruments' NAVSTAR receiver effort but I believe what I'm writing is correct. Rusty ------------------------------ From: weave@chopin.udel.edu (Ken Weaverling) Subject: Re: Lack of Phone Numbers in Yellow Page Ads Date: 27 Dec 91 21:38:33 GMT Organization: University of Delaware In article stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) writes: > I saw an interesting Yellow Pages ad in the Pacific Bell Sacramento > book. It was a full-page ad for an auto wrecking yard, and it had no > phone number. I have had a somewhat similar experience with the Wilmington, DE train station. The phone book (both yellow and white), only lists Amtrak's 800 number, not the phone number of the train station. DA told me it was an unlisted number! My friend is a quadriplegic and uses a motorized wheelchair. Since the commuter train we occasionally take usually arrives on a low platform, the Station Master must reroute Amtrak and Septa trains so the desired train we need arrives on the high platform. In order to have enough time to arrange this, they want us to arrive at the station two hours ahead of time. I kept asking for their local number so I could just call ahead, and they refused, until after much complaining, they finally gave me the phone number with strict instructions not to give it out to anyone. Ken Weaverling weave@brahms.udel.edu ------------------------------ From: hpa@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin N9ITP) Subject: Re: Swedish Telecommunications Network Reply-To: hpa@nwu.edu Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1991 22:40:37 GMT In article of comp.dcom.telecom, hhallika@nike.calpoly.edu (Harold Hallikainen) writes: > Previously, it was mentioned that one might dial a leading > digit (I think a 0) from within Sweden, but not if calling from > outside. This variation in numbering has always made it interesting > for me to try to place international calls. People give me phone > numbers that work great within their countries, but I don't know how > much of the number represents what. Did they include a country code, > a city code? Since the number of digits in the number also varies > country to country, I often end up calling an international operator > to try to figure out what I actually need to dial. Is there some > standard clear way of printing phone numbers so that anyone in the > world can make sense of them? For example, I have area code and a > seven digit phone number for phone, and another for fax. To allow for > international callers who may not have the US country code memorized, > should we add that to our stationery? Yes, you definitively should. There *is* a standard way of writing phone numbers, it looks like this: Any separators conventionally put in the in-country dialling digits should be replaced by spaces, unless you have to wait for a new dial tone, in which case there should be a dash. So assuming your U.S. phone number is (708) 555-3675 you should put on your stationnery: Phone: Nat (708) 555-3675 Int +1-708 555 3675 Let me assure you that the U.S. conventions of writing ( ) around their area code, having several dashes in the number or worse to spell out the number ( (708) 555-DORK ) can be *very* confusing to outsiders. I know it by my own experience! A general hint for calling other countries: If the first digit of the number is 0, 8 or 9, don't dial it after the country code. I wish, though, that the U.S. phone books would list the country codes and appropriate dialing sequences for other countries just like the European phone books do. AT&T has a brochure on the topic, including rates, I believe. hpa INTERNET: hpa@nwu.edu TALK: hpa@casbah.acns.nwu.edu BITNET: HPA@NUACC HAM RADIO: N9ITP, SM4TKN FIDONET: 1:115/989.4 NeXTMAIL: hpa@lenny.acns.nwu.edu IRC: Xorbon X.400: /BAD=FATAL_ERROR/ERR=LINE_OVERFLOW ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Dec 91 21:42:11 EST From: psrc@sewer.att.com (Paul S R Chisholm) Subject: Re: Yellow Page Ads Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories In article stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) writes: > But this brings up an interesting question: Isn't the whole point of > the Yellow Pages to increase usage of the telephone? I thought that > the ad revenue was secondary to the traffic it generated. I don't have any numbers on this, but I doubt it. Revenue from the Yellow Pages was a significant divestiture issue. Judge Green considered it to be one of the Good Things that should be handed over to the RBOCs along with local calling (considered one of the Bad Things) when they lost long distance and the opportunity to have their own computer business (two of the Good Things AT&T got). I'd also guess this from the treatment my brother-in-law got. When he first started his steel fabrication business, he took ads in about five counties' worth of Yellow Pages. After a year, word-of-mouth was pretty good, and Yellow Pages referrals were pretty mediocre, so he cancelled the ads. He got regular calls from his New Jersey Bell account representative for over a year: Was there a problem with his ads? Perhaps bigger ads would work better? Would he like to try focusing on smaller area instead of giving up? Wasn't there *any* way they could convince him to take out new ads??? This sounds like a high commission, high profit deal to me. Paul S. R. Chisholm, AT&T Bell Laboratories, paul.s.r.chisholm@att.com att!sewer!psrc, psrc@sewer.att.com, AT&T Mail !psrchisholm I'm not speaking for the company, I'm just speaking my mind. P.S.: Yellow Pages is a trademark in the United Kingdom, but not in the U.S.A. Sun Microsystems was dismayed to hear this; they had to rename the SunOS "Yellow Pages" features to "Network Information Services" or some such. They couldn't change the names of common commands such as ypcat without breaking lots of shell scripts, though. ------------------------------ From: John_David_Galt@cup.portal.com Subject: Re: Area Code 206 Changes Date: Fri, 27 Dec 91 18:24:41 PST The elimination of (1-xxx-xxxx) calls is part of a change that has been going on throughout the US and Canada, at least since breakup and maybe longer. Its ultimate purpose is to allow AREA CODES of the form NXX. (N = 2 through 9, X = any digit.) In the past, all area codes were of the form N0X or N1X, and all prefixes were of the form NXX. Thus, in many places you could just dial seven or ten digits, and the first three digits were enough to tell the equipment how many digits followed. (Where an initial "1" was required for toll calls, this was usually not a technical requirement, but rather was imposed by a state commission that assumes you are too stupid to distinguish a seven-digit toll call from a local call.) As certain areas get more crowded, they have started requiring that all 10-digit calls be preceded by a "1" (or 0), and that seven-digit calls NOT have an initial "1". With this change, the equipment can use the "1" to distinguish seven- and ten-digit calls; thus prefixes of the form N0X and N1X can be issued in those areas. But that isn't enough. The telcos collectively are now adding four or five new area codes per year. At this writing, fewer than a dozen N0X/N1X codes remain unused (I exclude N00 and N11 codes -- it would be seriously stupid to issue these as "normal" area codes, IMHO.) Therefore, within about two years they will have to start issuing NXX AREA CODES. And that means that the new dialing instructions will have to be used throughout the US and Canada. What this boils down to is: You have to dial 1-206-xxx-xxxx for toll calls within your own area because the choices were either that or to remove the 1, and you have a "stupid" state utility commission. Happy new year. John David Galt ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Dec 91 01:16 PST From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: AT&T Rates and Low Income Customers gdias@ucdavis.edu (Gihan Dias) writes: > In California, at least, customers on "Lifeline" phone service do not > pay the $3.50 "Network Access Charge". This may be what they're > talking about, though I thought that this money goes to PacBell, not > the LD carriers. The $3.50 that Pacific Bell holds you up for in the name of "FCC mandated network access charge" goes straight into the utility's pocket. It is not earmarked for any purpose, nor does the utility have to account for it other than as general revenue. In other words, any rate that you are quoted should have $3.50 added to it to obtain the TRUE monthly rate that you pay. If Lifeline customers are not required to pay that charge, then add $3.50 to any amount that is discounted from standard rates to obtain the total discount available on Lifeline. In the Victorville hearing that I attended, the PB spokesperson kept talking about the difference between the requested rate and the actual cost of the service. He kept referring to the difference between the requested $13.00/month and the "actual cost" of $24.00/month. I pointed out that he had overlooked the $3.50 NAC which reduced the difference from $11/month to $7.50/month. He reluctantly agreed that this was correct. The LECs would like you to ignore that "access charge" and think about it as a "tax". But always remember that every dime of that money goes right into the LEC kitty along with the regular monthly service charge. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Dec 91 14:37 GMT From: "Guy J. Sherr" <0004322955@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: Call 1-900 SOMEONE I have seen this advertised in {The City Paper} (Washington, DC), where the rate was mentioned at $2/Minute, not $2/Call which would seem a bit more fair. I am reminded of an old saying about how in this country, you can just nail two boards together, and somebody will want to buy it from you. Guy Sherr 0004322955@mcimail.com !Not really employed by MCI! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #1053 *******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa25291; 29 Dec 91 3:13 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA04509 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 29 Dec 1991 01:38:22 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA14127 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 29 Dec 1991 01:38:07 -0600 Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1991 01:38:07 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199112290738.AA14127@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #1054 TELECOM Digest Sun, 29 Dec 91 01:38:03 CST Volume 11 : Issue 1054 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Call Return Has Its Problems (Dannie Gregoire) Hayes V Series 9600 Upgrade? (Ron Saad) Call From MCI (David Niebuhr) So How do Rail/Air Phones Work? (Steve Chafe) ANI in NJ (Dave Levenson) Telephone Museum in Chicago? (Maurice R. Baker) Bells and Information (John Higdon) Telephone Number Presentation (was Swedish Network) (Tony Harminc) AT&T Does An Excellent Job on Calls Down Under (Dennis G. Rears) This is Class? (Rick Rodman) Weird AT&T Rates (Ron Schnell) Cellular Coverage on the Southwest Chief? (Jim Rees) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: dannie@coplex.com (Dannie Gregoire) Subject: Call Return Has Its Problems Organization: Copper Electronics, Inc. Date: Thu, 26 Dec 1991 17:30:40 GMT I have a few problems with the phone company's CALL RETURN services. The other day, I was placing a call and pressed two numbers on the keypad similtaneously, while trying to dial the last digit. As soon as I did this, I hung up, redialed the number correctly, and completed my call. As soon as I completed my call and hung up, my phone rang. I answered it, and was immediately screamed at "What the f*** do you want?" Not having any clue what had taken place, I said "excuse me" and was answered with a rage of obscenities, about calling and hanging up. A moment later, another person got on the phone, who was a bit more calm and explained that they had dialed *69 to return my "hang up". Then this person began demanding to know why I had hung up on them. I tried to explain to them what I thought had taken place, but was of little use. Finally, these people slammed their phone down and HUNG UP ON ME! (If only I had call return ;-) After the person mentioned CALL RETURN, I knew what had taken place. My incorrect dial had actually rung their phone. However, on my end I heard no ring. I had hung up immediately giving barely enough time for their phone to just "ping". My disgruntledness over CALL RETURN is three fold. 1) The phone company should allow at least one full ring to occur before storing a callers number for call return. Perhaps call return blocking is in order ;-) 2) A nice phrase should be developed to use when returning such a call. This is something that has made me wonder wince the service came into existence. "What do you want?" is not quite the thing. 3) Does the returned call I received constitute a harrassing/obscene call? COMMENTS??? SUGGESTIONS??? Dannie J. Gregoire dannie@coplex.com Copper Electronics Inc. !uunet!coplex!dannie [Moderator's Note: People have quickly caught on to the fact that call return can be used not only to conveniently return a call intended for you that you just missed (coming out of the shower, or whatever), but it can also be used to give a piece of your mind to wrong number callers who simply hang up without an apology after they have disturbed your peace and quiet. I'll grant you the response you got from your unintended action -- and the relatively minor disturbance caused at the other end -- was a bit of an overkill, to say the least. I've found in my own experience though that people (at least the ones who were chronic about wrong-numbering me) have begun to be a bit more careful and courteous in their dialing now that I call them back in the same way you were called; although I am not quite so vigorous in my response. I merely ask, 'you rang here, did you want me?'. Most of them will then apologize and say it was an accident. What's funny though are the ones who lie about it; claim they did not call, and have 'no idea' why I am calling them. :) The ones who are chronic misdialers simply get added to my call-screening list. Call-Screening, Caller-ID and Return-Call (which will return the call even if the caller used *67) are certainly changing everything we have assumed about telephony in the past. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Dec 91 16:20:40 EST From: ron@whamg.att.com (Ron Saad) Subject: Hayes V Series 9600 Upgrade? Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Hello, We have a bunch of these modems that say V.32, V.42 and V.42bis on them. However, the manual specifies a half duplex, "ping pong" V.32 implementation and these modems will not talk to other, "normal" V.32 modems at anything above 2400 bps. Anyone know if there is an upgrade (EPROM?) for these to make them speak real V.32 (or, dare I hope, V.32bis) ? Ron Saad - WF2K ...!att!whamg!ron ron@whamg.att.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Dec 91 17:35:22 -0500 From: niebuhr@bnlux1.bnl.gov (david niebuhr) Subject: Call From MCI In and I spoke about AT&T outages. Yesterday afternoon, I received a call from someone from MCI who wanted more information which could be found in two issues of {Newsday}. I tried to find out where she recieved the information which I'm assuming came from someone in MCI who reads c.d.t. The upshot was that I told her to get the information from the same source that I did: {Newsday}. They can get the address and dates just the same as I can. Interesting. Dave Niebuhr Internet: niebuhr@bnl.gov / Bitnet: niebuhr@bnl Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, NY 11973 (516)-282-3093 [Moderator's Note: TELECOM Digest has a wide-ranging readership. The direct email edition goes to several hundred names at various telcos and long distance carriers. PAT] ------------------------------ From: chafe@ucdavis.edu (Steve Chafe) Subject: So How do Rail/Air Phones Work? Date: 26 Dec 91 22:35:52 GMT Reply-To: chafe@ucdavis.edu (Steve Chafe) Organization: University of California, Davis With all the discussion about Rail phones, and the mention of the GTE Airphone which I used once to really surprise someone, could someone explain how they work? I can see the Railphone using the cellular network, but the airphone couldnt possibly do that -- could it? The sound quality on the airphone I used was too good for shortwave radio -- anyone know what frequency band it uses? Steve Chafe chafe@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: ANI in NJ Date: 27 Dec 91 00:03:31 GMT Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA Dial 958 in Northern New Jersey. You get a verbal readback of the number you're calling from. This did not work a few months ago; does anybody know exactly when NJ Bell turned this on? Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Dec 91 11:45:31 EST From: jj1028@homxc.att.com (Maurice R Baker) Subject: Telephone Museum in Chicago? Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Hi --- I just returned from a Christmas trip to the Chicago area. While planning one of my excursions into the "city" (we stayed in Evanston) I noticed the notation "Telephone Museum" on the transit map of the subways, El, etc. It appeared to be at or near the corner of Franklin and Randolph Sts. Well, after a quick visit to the Sears Tower Observatory, I decided to walk over to Franklin and Randolph. When I got there, the only thing related to telephones that I could find was the Illinois Bell building. No one at the information desk seemed to know about a "telephone museum". I even checked the phone book (yellow and white pages) with no success. After wandering about the neighborhood a bit, I gave up and went to Marshall Field & Co. department store to finish my Christmas shopping. To complicate my confusion even more, the Fodor's Guide to Chicago which I was using (quite a recent edition, possibly 1990 or 1991) lists a "Telephone Museum" in its index twice. Upon checking one of the pages mentioned, I can't find a clue. The other page does include it in a list of "museums and attractions which are free" but fails to give an address. Either the museum isn't there anymore, or I blatantly overlooked it. In any event, I had a nice visit to Chicago although I'm still full from lunch at Ed DeBevic's Diner. M. R. Baker AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel jj1028 at homxc.att.com [Moderator's Note: You did not overlook it. Illinois Bell, in their wisdom -- and they are never wrong about anything (: -- closed down the exhibit about two years ago and built something called 'Work at Home Center' in its place where they sell fancy phone equipment and services to people who work at home. The Telephone Pioneers maintained this very wonderful exhibit for many years, right where your tourist book said it would be found. But IBT knows best, and they ripped it out. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Dec 91 13:28 PST From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Bells and Information In side-by-side articles in today's {San Jose Mercury}, Arthur C. Latno, Jr., Executive VP for Pacific Telesis and Jim Cooper, (D. Tennessee), discuss the issue of the RBOCs providing information services. Mr. Latno brings up the usual Pacific Telesis misinformation about how special interests are preventing the public from having information services at all. He also seems to question the ability and propriety of the Congress to pass laws that "are contrary to a federal court ruling". Perhaps someone ought to explain to Mr. Latno how our system of government works. But I will cut right to the chase. Rep. Cooper mentions what I think is the one restriction that the Bells fear most: the prohibition of service providing in the RBOC's own service area. If Pacific Telesis would be allowed to offer information services everywhere EXCEPT California and Nevada, I would get off this horse and find another cause. But would that not be fair? Allow any and all RBOCs to compete in the IAS industry -- but ONLY in some other RBOCs service area. That way Pacific Telesis could offer any service it liked in New York or Florida or even Washington. US West could compete in California or Texas. But somehow I suspect that the seven sisters will fight such a provision with all the might and ratepayer money that can be mustered. And if they DO fight such a provision it would be interesting to see the justification. Of course, there is still the issue of risky and costly ventures financed on the backs of ratepayers, but that problem exists in every non-regulated activity practiced by the RBOCs, not just the IAS arena. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Dec 91 22:57:47 EST From: Tony Harminc Subject: Telephone Number Presentation (was Swedish Network) hhallika@nike.calpoly.edu (Harold Hallikainen) wrote about the Swedish Telecommunications Network: > Is there some standard clear way of printing phone numbers so that > anyone in the world can make sense of them? For example, I have area > code and a seven digit phone number for phone, and another for fax. > To allow for international callers who may not have the US country > code memorized, should we add that to our stationery? Yes -- precede your "national number" with a plus sign. Don't use parentheses or any other punctuation except spaces and hyphens. So: +1 212 687-6604 a number in New York, USA +1 416 599-4323 a number in Toronto, Canada +44 71 222-1234 a number in London, England +61 3 646-7824 a number in Sydney, Australia Don't include any access digits in the number. In many countries the national access code is commonly quoted as part of the number (a bizzare practice IMHO which in North America is common only for 800 numbers). Much confusion has been caused by the fact that the "country" code for the USA, Canada, and the rest of the NANP is 1, which is also the access code in many of those countries. This "leading plus sign" scheme is often listed in the front of phone books in European countries. It doesn't seem to be as popular in North America. Tony H. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Dec 91 0:25:34 EST From: "Dennis G. Rears " Subject: AT&T Does An Excellent Job on Calls Down Under For the last year I have had Sprint as my dial 1 service. I have made many calls to my brother in Australia (Aikenvale) using Sprint. Recently, I signed up for AT&T Reach Out World (Yes, I am frugal) and called him using AT&T and was pleasanty surprised by the quality of the connection. Previously, if we both spoke at the same time our voices would cancel each other out. With AT&T we can both speak at the same time. Has anybody any similiar experiences? Dennis ------------------------------ From: virtech!rickr@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Rodman) Subject: This is Class? Date: Sat, 28 Dec 91 0:17:49 EST John Higdon says he feels Contel (now GTE) is "classy". Hah! Here in Manassas, I had the problem that 10XXX + 1 calls to neighboring states were blocked or stolen by Contel. I've heard that C&P (Bell Atlantic) doesn't do this. There's one reason for it: GOUGING. Contel charges 23 cents a minute for a call from Manassas to, say, Bethesda. MCI (via 950) charges 11 cents a minute. And Bethesda is about 30 miles from here. It's in another state. Why shouldn't Contel honor my selection of a long-distance carrier? GOUGING. IMHO, GOUGING the customer is NOT Class. I hope to find someone at Contel/GTE who understands the issue and give him a piece of my mind. Hope, that is, not expect. In the past, I have been unable to find anyone there who understood either 10xxx or 950 access. Today I called them asking about ISDN -- and they'd never heard of it. We gave them local monopolies to get universal service. That was a bad mistake. Contel stinks -- and the first local telco competitor that comes here will get 90% of the business in the first week. TOO BAD THE PUC STANDS IN THE WAY. ECCH. Those scumbags ripped us off so John can have a nice Xmas card? Sickening. Putrid. I'd tell them where to stuff it, John. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Dec 91 17:39:40 -0500 From: Ron Schnell Subject: Weird AT&T Rates I called AT&T to find out about various rates, and changes which will affect Reach Out America(tm) next month, and discovered some very interesting things. Under ROA Evening plan, until next month, the rate is 30% off of their already discounted evening rates. This means that it would be cheaper for me to call Massachusetts and New York during evening rates, than during night rates (I am in Miami). The evening rate is under 15 cents each minute. I really wish I had realized that earlier. Of course the discount is going down to 20%, and evening rates are going up! I also found out that the rate to call Massachusetts is more expensive for the first minute than for each additional minute. I asked the rep why, and she said it is because there are so many people using faxes and answering machines, and it is to give them a break. Of course the implication is that it is cheaper to hang up every minute and call back, than to stay on the line. Apparently, this is true for many different city pairs. I thought it used to be the opposite. Also, the fact that All Hour Savings (or whatever it is called) is going down to 11 cents/minute really makes Reach Out America pretty useless, unless you don't make that many calls. Any comments? #Ron (ronnie@eddie.mit.edu) ------------------------------ From: rees@dabo.citi.umich.edu (Jim Rees) Subject: Cellular Coverage on the Southwest Chief? Reply-To: Jim.Rees@umich.edu Organization: University of Michigan IFS Project Date: Sat, 28 Dec 91 18:48:14 GMT I'll be taking the train from Chicago to San Francisco in a few weeks, and I plan to take my Outback cellular modem along (I have to keep up with the TELECOM Digest!). I'll be taking the Southwest Chief from Chicago to L.A., then the Coast Starlight to S.F. How good is the cellular coverage along this route? Will I have any trouble roaming? Also, is the Outback likely to work while the train is moving? They don't recommend using it while in motion, but in my experience PEP is pretty good at keeping a connection going. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #1054 *******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa29062; 29 Dec 91 5:07 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA18103 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 29 Dec 1991 02:57:09 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA13975 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 29 Dec 1991 02:56:54 -0600 Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1991 02:56:54 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199112290856.AA13975@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #1055 TELECOM Digest Sun, 29 Dec 91 02:56:30 CST Volume 11 : Issue 1055 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (John Higdon) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Andrew C. Green) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Gil Kloepfer Jr.) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Haroon H. Dogar) Re: AT&T Echo to the UK (Roy M. Silvernail) Re: Another Way to Make a Profit at Cellular (Macy Hallock) Re: Swedish Telecommunications Network (Jim Rees) Re: Gadgets to Help Take Advantage of Custom Ringing (Gil Kloepfer Jr.) Re: International Dialing (was Swedish Telecom Network) (Bruce Clement) Problem With Procomm; Help Needed (I18BC@cunyvm.cuny.edu) Telemarketing cartoon (Bruce Oneel) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 28 Dec 91 00:49 PST From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits On Dec 28 at 0:34, TELECOM Moderator writes: > [Moderator's Note: It would be interesting to find out what > organization or person has had their phone number longer than anyone > else. I object. Only the larger cities will even have entries that will be in the running. While San Francisco may have come competing entries, the suburbs will not. For instance, San Jose has no phone numbers any older than 1948. This is the year that dial service was introduced and the prefix was CYpress. Previously, the exchange names were Ballard and Columbia and were very manual. It may be of interest to note that the first dial equipment in this town was #1 crossbar. When it was introduced, all telephone numbers changed from either Ballard or Columbia to CYpress and due to the difference in digit count (variable to all seven-digit), no one's number remained. San Francisco has had dial service (on panel) since before the flood. However, over the years many of the businesses that might have been around all of these years have grown and had number changes due to phone system upgrades, etc. For instance, the {San Francisco Chronicle} had the number GArfield 1-1111 for years and years. It is now 777-1111, probably due to a change to Centrex, or because the change was necessary to provide certain features. BTW, Chicago was a panel town, was it not? How did you like the way that you would dial a number and get a burst of ringback tone that would sort of slide into a busy signal? And the noise while it was completing a connection could blow your ear off. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! [Moderator's Note: Yes indeed, panel was very prevalent here, with the last of it downtown pulled out in the middle seventies when the Chicago-Wabash CO went from ancient panel to ESS overnight. One other panel exchange was LOngbeach-1, which was wired out of the Chicago-Edgewater office, and it finally cut over to ESS about 1978 / 79 if my memory is correct. LOngbeach subscribers couldn't even use 911 after everyone else in the city had the service, and they had to keep the old POLice-5-1313 and FIRe-7-1313 numbers for those subscribers until they were cut. And yes, they were noisy monsters. IBT craftspeople did not call it the Wabash Cannonball for no good reason. Sometimes there'd be several seconds of chattering and clacking in your ear as the switch train shuffled along. If the called line was busy, there'd be one, two or sometimes three rings in your ear before it would finally cut over to a busy signal. The coin phones were funny also, because the local operator for some reason could not collect or return the coins deposited. If you did not get an answer on a toll-call the operator would tell you to hold on a second ... you'd hear a connection made to 'Wabash trunking' (that's how the new operator on the line would answer) and your operator would say something like 'return on 6096'. You'd hear an irritating buzz in your ear and your coins would fall down the return slot. Or, the request would be to 'collect on XXXX' ... and sometimes Wabash trunking would do it the other way by accident, and your operator would say "oops! so sorry! Please be a good sport and deposit it again for me ... " or if it was collected by accident they'd tell you 'when you try again, just tell the operator you have XX cents credit by Operator .' All very charming. But what you are forgetting John, is that we had manual service here until 1939, and a combination of manual / automatic exchanges from that year until the final office (Chicago-Avenue) was cut over in 1955. The dial conversion here was interuppted by the war when Western Electric was pressed into service full time for the war effort. But for the most part, the names stayed the same after the conversion, and were only changed when a conflict occurred. The original 'central' of 1878 became Central a couple years later when Franklin was introduced; and CENtral with automation in 1939. It became CEntral-6 later, and for about 25 years now has been 236. Suffixes less than four digits under the old system had zeros prepended to them at the cutover, so that "Central 1" which was the number for City Hall in the 1880's eventually became CENtral-0001 when dialing was introduced. By that time (1939 or so) it was a private line in Mayor Cermak's office. It was 312-236-0001 when (the first) Mayor Daley was around. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1991 13:07:43 CST From: acg@HERMES.DLOGICS.COM Reply-To: acg@hermes.dlogics.com Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Good grief, I thought SOMEONE would have mentioned the album that actually FEATURES an anonymous telecom employee by now ... (The following is courtesy of my wife, the music expert, so refer all corrections to her :-) Find a copy of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" and play the cut entitled "Young Lust". At the end of the song, you hear a series of comments from a rather perplexed Long-Distance operator trying to complete a call from the U.S. to the caller's wife in London, England. The phone rings, a man's voice answers, and as the operator starts to say "I have a collect call for Mrs. Floyd from Mr. Floyd; will you accept the charges?", he hangs up on her. This happens several times, with the puzzled operator saying, "He keeps hanging up, sir...", "There's someone there besides your wife, sir...", and stuff to that effect. The story is that Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, while in L.A. or some other city in the U.S., conspired with a friend in London to pull this off. He would tell the operator that he wanted to place a long- distance call to his wife in England, person-to-person I assume. Upon receiving the call, the guy in England would simply hang up the phone, and Waters would persuade the operator to try again. All this was taped for the album. Waters was hoping for a talkative operator that would put up with this nonsense for at least a few attempts, and on only the second call to an operator, he found one. He said in a radio interview about the making of the album, "You could tell [that] her imagination just went berserk ... that lady thought she was witnessing the breakdown of a marriage!" I don't know whether the poor telecom lady was ever let in on the joke. Andrew C. Green (312) 266-4431 Datalogics, Inc. Internet: acg@dlogics.com 441 W. Huron UUCP: ..!uunet!dlogics!acg Chicago, IL 60610 FAX: (312) 266-4473 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1991 16:35:46 -0600 From: "Gil Kloepfer Jr." Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Organization: Southwest Systems Development Labs, Houston, TX > Any other nominations for telecommunications greatest hits? :-) How about "BEechwood 4-5789" ("...you can call me up and have a date any old time..."). It's been done by a couple of groups I think, the latest I heard was by the Carpenters. As far as Wichita Lineman (by Glen Campbell) ... isn't that really about an electric lineman (not telephone)? And how can anyone who hasn't seen movies on cable lately forget the rather silly (but telecom-related) movie "976-EVIL". Heck, with all the talk about 900-numbers and the like, everyone'd get a real thrill out of this one! Gil Kloepfer, Jr. gil@limbic.ssdl.com ...!ames!limbic!gil Southwest Systems Development Labs (Div of ICUS) Houston, Texas [Moderator's Note: In the April 1, 1989 issue of TELECOM Digest, our resident movie critic Charles Manson reviewed that film. :) PAT ------------------------------ From: dogar@rtsg.mot.com (Haroon H. Dogar) Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Group, RTSG Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1991 17:42:39 GMT John_David_Galt@cup.portal.com writes: > There's also the Laurie Anderson song "O Superman," in which a parody > of an answering machine message is played. I used to use this as my > outgoing message. (Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine" is also good > for this, but isn't telecom related.) Man's voice: "Hello." Operator's voice: "Collect call for Mrs. Floyd from Mr. Floyd. Will you accept the charges?" Click. Am I mistaken, or is this supposed to be a collect call from the United States to England? Finally, a reference to a band from *this* century. hd ------------------------------ Subject: Re: AT&T Echo to the UK From: cybrspc!roy@cs.umn.edu (Roy M. Silvernail) Date: Fri, 27 Dec 91 23:10:25 CST Organization: Villa CyberSpace, Minneapolis, MN floyd@hayes.ims.alaska.edu (Floyd Davidson) writes: >> There are some places where a satellite is the only way to get there. > Much of the traffic within the state of Alaska fits that description. > Nome, Barrow, Bethel, Kotzebue ... and all small villages are served > only by satellite. And a great improvement it was over the previous arrangement. When I was a lad in Nome (circa 1970), the only long distance service was via White Alice, a tropospheric scatter arrangement. Floyd, do you happen to know how many long distance trunks could be carried over a White Alice link? I seem to recall only 8 or 10 trunks available out of Nome in those days. What with rotary dial, it made for a lot of '00' tries on the busy days. Roy M. Silvernail |+| roy%cybrspc@cs.umn.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Dec 91 20:59 EST From: fmsys!macy@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu (Macy Hallock) Subject: Re: Another Way to Make a Profit at Cellular Organization: The Matrix In article is written: > I've got a new bone to pick with my cellular carrier: they bill for > calls from the moment that SEND is pressed. You are not alone. Cellular One (CCI) in Ohio has been doing this from the beginning, too. GTE Mobilnet and Ameritech Mobile bill from the actual answer, though. (Cell One is the Ohio A Carrier, the other two are the predominant B carriers here.) When I had a Cell One phone, many moons ago, I called their business office about this ... and was told -repeatedly- that they billed from answer, not send. It took quite a bit of wrangling to clear this up, too. I've been told that the GE/NTI cellular MTSO equipment that Cell One uses could only bill this way in the beginning, but it turns out that the access lines they were obtaining from the telcos for local exchange access on outbound calls did not have answer supervision in all cases. Although Cell One bills from send to this day, the technical barriers have long since fallen that began this practice. Macy M Hallock Jr N8OBG 216.725.4764 macy@fmsystm.uucp macy@fmsystm.ncoast.org [No disclaimer, but I have no real idea what I'm saying or why I'm telling you] ------------------------------ From: rees@dabo.citi.umich.edu Subject: Re: Swedish Telecommunications Network Reply-To: Jim.Rees@umich.edu Organization: University of Michigan IFS Project Date: Sat, 28 Dec 91 19:28:25 GMT In article , hpa@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin N9ITP) writes: > I wish, though, that the U.S. phone books would list the country codes > and appropriate dialing sequences for other countries just like the > European phone books do. AT&T has a brochure on the topic, including > rates, I believe. US phone books usually include country codes, but no longer include dialling instructions since the advent of "equal access." This is apparently because different long distance carriers could use different access methods, although in practice they all use the same (011 for direct dial, 01 for operator assisted). I do wish US phone books would include the country code for the US. At one time it was nearly impossible to find out what the code was from inside the US, although most operators seem to know it now. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1991 16:48:33 -0600 From: "Gil Kloepfer Jr." Subject: Re: Gadgets to Help Take Advantage of Custom Ringing Organization: Southwest Systems Development Labs, Houston, TX In nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson) writes (in regard to personalized ring decoders): > thinking about how you'd make such a device. It's not obvious. This > is what I was going to do: [his recommendations deleted] I have built such a device. You *can* sense the first pulse of the ring and cut off the ring to all devices fast enough with a relay to prevent most devices from seeing that pulse. I have a modem which sees it, but I can simply set that to answer after two rings. The commercial model I have seen (I can't remember what the name of it was) worked the same way (they may have used solid state relays instead of mechanical ones though). I have a cheapie phone that will let out a quick "chirp" when the device catches that first ring. Beware to those who plan on building a device like this about the ring interface. 5ESS switches are very picky about what they consider a trouble condition on the line...and a couple of designs I used caused the 5ESS to report trouble (ie. the old ring-busy syndrome). I finally used my own common sense design (rather than borrowing "tried and true" ideas) and this worked fine. Remember to load the phone line as little as possible. Gil Kloepfer, Jr. gil@limbic.ssdl.com ...!ames!limbic!gil Southwest Systems Development Labs (Div of ICUS) Houston, Texas ------------------------------ From: bclement@cavebbs.gen.nz (Bruce Clement) Subject: Re: International Dialing (was Swedish Telecom Network) Organization: Children of Ingle-Frey Date: Sat, 28 Dec 91 21:49:58 GMT In article hpa@nwu.edu writes: > A general hint for calling other countries: > If the first digit of the number is 0, 8 or 9, don't dial it after the > country code. Another tip (Especially for commercial users): If you are advertising etc. internationally, it might seem like a friendly move to have a 1-800 number for your callers, but always give an other number as we can not dial into your 1-800 (or 1-900 for that matter) numbers from here. Twice now, I have wanted to buy from a US company (which advertised that it wanted to sell internationaly) which only gave a 1-800 number. Each time the sale has gone to a rival which *did* give a normal number. ------------------------------ Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center Date: Thursday, 26 Dec 1991 17:50:42 EST From: Eddie G Subject: Problem with Procomm; Help Needed I have a problem with Procomm 2.4.3. When I turn on the printer (ALT-L), procomm doesn't send line feeds to the printer. I get the display output all bunch up together. The log function does the same. I had the same problem with version 2.4.2. Can anyone tell me what am I doing wrong? I use VT100 emulation. Please write back to: I18BC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU [Moderator's Note: Please reply only by email to the writer. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Dec 91 10:34:07 EST From: oneel@arupa.gsfc.nasa.gov (Bruce Oneel ) Subject: Telemarketing Cartoon In the 10/28 issue of the {Washington Post} there was a cute telcom related cartoon in the comics section. The strip CROCK is about the French? Legion in Africa (at least from the pictures it is). Today we have two different members talking while one of them patrols the wall. "It taks a man totally devoid of compassion and pity to stay in the Legion." "I LOVE it! ... I signed up for thirty years." "What did you do before?" "I was in telemarketing." bruce ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #1055 *******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa23557; 29 Dec 91 22:33 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA30210 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 29 Dec 1991 20:55:21 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA27330 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 29 Dec 1991 20:55:01 -0600 Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1991 20:55:01 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199112300255.AA27330@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #1056 TELECOM Digest Sun, 29 Dec 91 20:54:59 CST Volume 11 : Issue 1056 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson White Alice in Nome, Alaska (Floyd Davidson) Proposed New Vermont Telecommunications Agreement (G. A. Wollman) Current Prices - Modems (Shawn Beltz) Call-Forwarding Loops? (Michael Ho) Re: Call Return Has Its Problems (Peter da Silva) Re: Call Return Has Its Problems (Mark Oberg) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Larry Rachman) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Glen Overby) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: floyd@hayes.ims.alaska.edu (Floyd Davidson) Subject: White Alice in Nome, Alaska Organization: University of Alaska Institute of Marine Science Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1991 12:22:55 GMT In article cybrspc!roy@cs.umn.edu (Roy M. Silvernail) writes: > And a great improvement it was over the previous arrangement. When I > was a lad in Nome (circa 1970), the only long distance service was via > White Alice, a tropospheric scatter arrangement. > Floyd, do you happen to know how many long distance trunks could be > carried over a White Alice link? I seem to recall only 8 or 10 trunks > available out of Nome in those days. What with rotary dial, it made > for a lot of '00' tries on the busy days. Nome was connected to the world via the Anvil Mountain White Alice Site located some 13 miles out of town. (And it turns out that when they finally found the source of gold for the "golden sands of Nome" beaches, it was right along side the Anvil Mountain Road, 125 feet down. About four years ago they walked a dredge right over it, at 50 feet too high to get the gold ... strange people mine for gold.) The particular equipment at Nome could handle all of two "L" carrier supergroups of 60 channels each, plus one each "K" group. So there could have been 132 channels into Nome. But of the 11 groups of 12 channels, two went to North East Cape AFB on St. Lawrence Island, and four went to Tin City AFB right on the Bering Straights. So that would leave a maximum of only 60 channels for everything in Nome. Except you couldn't get that many there ... here is a diagram of about what it was like. (I am only absolutely positive of Tin City, I was there. The rest is a fair guess.) TNC NEC OME GMT KKK ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- | |---3 L---| |---4 L---| |---7 L---| |---10L---| | | | | | | | | | | | | |---1 K---| |---1 K---| |---1 K---| |---1 K---| | ----- ----- ----- | | ----- | | OTZ | | TNC = Tin City AFB ----- | | NEC = N.E. Cape AFB | |---2 L---| | OME = Nome, AK. | | | | GMT = Granite Mnt. WACS | |---1 K---| | OTZ = Kotzebue, AK. ----- | | KNR = North River WACS | | (Unalakleet, AK.) KNR | | KKK = Kalakaket Creek WACS ----- | | (Galena, AK. and | |---2 L---| | Galena AFB) | | | | | |---1 K---| | ----- | | ----- There was a bottle neck between Granite Mountain and Kalakaket Creek. The maximum configuration was 10 L groups (two supergroups). Out of that everything for the radar sites of Tin City (yes, there is a tin mine) and North East Cape, plus the three towns of Nome, Kotzebue and Unalakleet had to be served. Plus each WACS (White Alice Communications System) site needs a couple circuits. It got fairly tight for circuit use. KKK was the busiest WACS site. Not shown are two other tropo shots from KKK that connected it (through other sites) to Pedro Dome (Fairbanks, AK.), Neklason Lake (Palmer,AK.), and Big Mountain (remote WACS site). Each of those sites had 4A crossbar autovohn switches. Pedro Dome and Neklason lake were upgraded to DMS-200 autovohn switches in about 1982 (and the other two closed), and Pedro Dome was closed in 1989/90. Just a short distance from KKK is the town and F-16 fighter base at Galena. F-16's from Galena played cat and mouse games with Russian Bear bombers right up till earlier THIS year. Tin City AFB was kind of special and had more autovohn trunks than most radar sites. They were (still are) in visual contact with Siberia and in radar contact with a fighter base in Siberia. (The Air Force people there called it "Tin City, first to know, first to go." That wasn't true, but they took it serious.) Your estimate of eight or ten LD trunks to Nome would be about right. There would also have been at least one 931Y teletype system, Armed Forces Radio Network (at that time AFRN was the only 1A priority circuit in Alaska), a few autovon lines to such places as the National Guard and the FAA, plus a couple for the WACS site itself. Nome today has a modern digital switch (I don't know what kind) and gets local telephone service from GTE. There are about 72 toll trunks into Nome. They are all via satellite of course, but all are digital and use the most modern equipment around ... AT&T's packet switched IAC compression equipment (with no compression on the toll trunk). Of the people who worked at the Anvil Mountain WACS site, the fellow who was site supervisor there for 20 years that I know of retired last month (he spent the last ten years in the Anchorage Toll Center as mid shift network supervisor). Only one tech from 1970 is still around, and he works day shift at the Fairbanks Toll Center. Floyd L. Davidson floyd@ims.alaska.edu Salcha, Alaska ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Dec 91 19:44:39 -0500 From: wollman@uvm-gen.UVM.EDU Subject: Proposed New Vermont Telecommunications Agreement I received an announcement of this new agreement between the Vermont Public Service Board and New England Telephone recently, and I thought I might share it with Telecom readers. The proposed agreement, if no serious objections are raised during the public hearing process, would come into effect on 15 July 1992 and terminate 14 July 1997. Here are the terms, according to the NET pamphlet that was sent out (my comments in brackets). - Expansion of local usage calling areas and increase in local usage charges. [Currently, "local" areas are defined rather haphazardly. Metered service is $0.005/minute off-peak and $0.02 peak, which would increase to $0.01/$0.03 for adjacent exchanges and $0.03/$0.07 for nonadjacent exchanges within 24 miles of originator's exchange.] - Reduction of in-state long-distance rates. [56+-mile calls would go from .63 first minute/.31 add'l (day rate) to .20 per minute flat in FY 1993; flat rate would be for all toll calls in the state.] - Phase-in of higher monthly local exchange service charges, with annual price adjustments related to the annual inflation rate. - Reduced wholesale prices for NET's in-state long-distance competitors, which could mean lower rates from competitors. [Most people have never even heard of NET's in-state long-distance competitors.] - Specific network improvement requirements. - An expansion of the calling area for local pay telephone calls and an increase [$0.10 -> $0.25] in the price of such calls. - A 50% reduction in local mileage changes in 1993, with total elimination in 1994. - Elimination of the Directory Assistance three free call allowance for residence customers. - Service quality requirements for NET services, with local rate increases tied to performance. - Continued freedom from most traditional utility regulation. - Streamlined products and services introduction. - Phase-out of multi-party service. [I think they're determined to do this anyway.] - Continued Lifeline discounts and new local usage calling discounts for eligible low-income and elderly Vermonters. - Procedures intended to protect customers' privacy interests in connection with new services from NET. [This probably refers to ANI blocking...] - New customer information and protection policies regarding 900 number charges. - Access to emergency services in 911 areas [count them on the fingers of one hand] even from disconnected phones. [Under a separate heading...] - Customers with two party lines would be converted to local measured service. - Nonrecurring Charges and Analog Private Line rates would be increased. - OUTWATS would be eliminated. [Note: NET handles most of the phone service in Vermont. Elsewhere, customers are "served" by Contel or by a handful of municipal telephone companies; all of them purchase much of their service (such as directory listing, directory assistance, and service outside of their domains) from NET, so this agreement affects almost everyone who has a telephone in Vermont.] GAWollman ------------------------------ From: disk!unknown@uunet.uu.net (unknown) Subject: Current Prices - Modems Organization: Digital Information Systems of KY Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1991 15:35:50 GMT Would anyone happen to have a list of standard prices for all varieties of modems? I'd like to buy a 9600 Baud modem, if the price is right, else I'll live with an MNP and v.42 bis 2400.. Also, what have 1200 baud modems dropped to? And 300? And what are the fastest modems going for? Thanks in advance.. Shawn Beltz unknown@disk.UUCP uunet!coplex!disk!unknown ------------------------------ From: ho@hoss.unl.edu (Tiny Bubbles...) Subject: Call-Forwarding Loops? Organization: A Figment of Your Imagination Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1991 17:45:19 GMT (was Re: Technological Nightmare Keeps Lincoln [NE] Phone Busy) That story about a family in my hometown who ended up with a bizphone forwarded to them makes me scratch my non-existent beard and say hmmm ... I have call-forwarding myself. If someone forwards to *me*, and I forward to *them*, what happens? I am permitted to forward to a busy phone by entering the request twice, so it would be easy to generate a loop. * Would everyone get busy signals? (The desired effect.) * Would the phone company figure it out and remove my forwarding? * Would I get charged for thousands of 1-minute calls to a busy number? (I doubt it, because my LD carrier uses answer supervision, but Lincoln Telephone's own LD service does *not* use supervision.) Yes, I know the *easiest* way to deal with the situation is to take the phone off-hook (did the Mannings do this?) -- but it brings up an odd question. Any takers? Michael Ho | UNTIL JAN. 9: University of Nebraska, Internet:ho@hoss.unl.edu [Moderator's Note: Different systems work different ways, but what usually happens is only one call can be forwarded at a time, and on your first cycle around to the person who was forwarding to you, you (and consequently the people behind you) would receive a busy signal, and the forwarding would come to an end. The reason for this seems to be that the person who was forwarding to you already had one call in progress being forwarded when you approached them for the first time. PAT] ------------------------------ From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) Subject: Re: Call Return Has Its Problems Organization: Taronga Park BBS Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1991 13:59:58 GMT Danny Gregoire brings up a general problem with phone dialing that has caused lots of low-grade irritation to people all over the country ... and now can bounce back on the guy who made the mistake: Phone dialing probably needs to be redesigned from the ground up to require a "send" key like cellular (probably #) before processing the number. I mean, it's not like you're hitting all those switches with uniselector pulses any more. Peter da Silva. Taronga Park BBS. +1 713 568 0480|1032 2400/n/8/1. ------------------------------ From: grout!mark@uunet.uu.net (Mark Oberg) Subject: Re: Call Return Has Its Problems Date: 29 Dec 91 14:41:44 GMT Organization: Grout, Beltsville, MD In article dannie@coplex.com (Dannie Gregoire) writes: > I have a few problems with the phone company's CALL RETURN services. > The other day, I was placing a call and pressed two numbers on the > keypad similtaneously, while trying to dial the last digit. As soon > as I did this, I hung up, redialed the number correctly, and completed > my call. > As soon as I completed my call and hung up, my phone rang. I answered > it, and was immediately screamed at "What the f*** do you want?" Not > having any clue what had taken place, I said "excuse me" and was > answered with a rage of obscenities, about calling and hanging up. A > moment later, another person got on the phone, who was a bit more calm > and explained that they had dialed *69 to return my "hang up". Then > this person began demanding to know why I had hung up on them. I > tried to explain to them what I thought had taken place, but was of > little use. Finally, these people slammed their phone down and HUNG UP > ON ME! (If only I had call return ;-) Call Return is available here in C&P territory on a per-call basis, as well as by monthly subscription. I often use it to return calls missed due to being "indisposed" or in the shower or just busy and not near the phone. My experience is that 80-90% of the times I've used it, the party on the other end denies calling -- even if I suggest to them that a wrong number call might have been dialed. In most cases, the person answering has informed me that they are the only resident in the household and that no call was attempted on or around the time my phone was ringing. As I rarely receive wrong number calls here when I do answer the phone, I wonder what the possibility might be for an incorrect Return Call to be made? Calls to C&P about this result in an answer that the service is perfect with no chance of error and that the dialing party must be too embarassed to admit calling. Rather than berating the caller, I do try to ask enough of the right questions to determine the exact reason for the call but usually get the type of response shown above. Has anyone else experienced a similar situation? Does anyone know of any technical reasons why the call might be returned incorrectly? [P.S. to Pat: Thanks for another great year of Telecom! Hope that 1992 brings more of the same! Happy New Year to all.] Mark Oberg NATel, Inc. | UUCP: wb3ffv!grout!mark Voice: (410)964-0505 | Internet: mark%grout@wb3ffv.ampr.org BBS: (301)596-6450 | Fidonet: 1:109/506 [Moderator's Note: Thanks for your kind words, and happy new year to you also! Like yourself, a great many calls I have returned result in the person denying any knowledge of it ... but listen to their voices carefully; you know they are lying. So let them ... who cares. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 29 Dec 91 12:26:58 EST From: Larry Rachman <74066.2004@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hit Wish I could give more specific information on this one, but there was a song a bunch of years ago called 'Don't Call Us, We'll Call You', about an unknown band seeking their way to fame and fortune. It starts out with a string of ten touchtone digits, followed by a first verse telling about the band being ignored by one agent after another. As the song progresses, the band gets more and more popular until they are world-renowned, and the song ends with anothe ten-digit touchtone string. The beginning phone number was CBS studios in New York, and the ending phone number was the White House! Larry Rachman, WA2BUX Reply-to: 1644801@mcimail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Dec 91 15:05:22 CST From: overby@SendIt.NoDak.edu (Glen Overby) Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Who ya gonna call? GHOSTBUSTERS! I don't remember if they showed a phone number on the "TV" adds in the movie, but there was a almost identical commercial aired on national TV that had a 800 number (that was before the days of 900 numbers!). I called it several times, but it was always busy. Going a bit further off track ... Don't forget Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure where our heroes used a phone booth as a time machine. They had one heck of a phone book! Did anyone catch the 'phone number' for those babes? One of the Superman series had Clark giving a rather dismayed look when he found that modern phone booths are no longer enclosed boxes (a revolving door sufficed). I think this one has allready been mentioned, but try giving Jenny a call at 8765-309 (I can't remember the group, but I vaguely remember the video). Glen Overby ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #1056 *******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa25409; 29 Dec 91 23:50 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA28594 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Sun, 29 Dec 1991 22:15:56 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA32351 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Sun, 29 Dec 1991 22:15:40 -0600 Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1991 22:15:40 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199112300415.AA32351@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #1057 TELECOM Digest Sun, 29 Dec 91 22:15:28 CST Volume 11 : Issue 1057 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson What a Way to End the Year! Cell Phone Blows Up (TELECOM Moderator) WLUP Challenges FCC on Indecency Ruling (TELECOM Moderator) Re: This is Class? (John Higdon) Re: Weird AT&T Rates (Mark Oberg) Re: Cellular Coverage on the Southwest Chief? (Bob Denny) Re: ANI in NJ (Terry Kennedy) Re: ANI in NJ (And Other Telco Test Lines) (Macy Hallock) Re: Swedish Telecommunications Network (David G. Lewis) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1991 21:06:34 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: What a Way to End the Year! Cell Phone Blows Up I just a few minutes ago managed to blow up a cellular phone. I have two cell accounts, one with each carrier and the 'bag phone' was being used in our car, mainly by my brother. The cigarette lighter adapter was acting funny on the thing, and somehow it got shorted out. Had it blown the fuse in the adapter, that would be simple enough, but as it turns out it somehow got passed there and apparently blew a diode in the phone. I feel sort of sick right now since I had planned to have my brother use that phone in the car on his (and his wife's) trip to Ohio the week after next. Maybe I can get it repaired, but something tells me it will cost more to repair it than to buy a new phone, with Cellular One looking for a new commitment and a new security deposit, etc. A great way to end the year! Does anyone have a bag phone, easily programmable they'd like to sell me for fifty dollars or so? I'd get it reprogrammed on my existing Cell One account. Time is of the essence since I'd like to have something in the car when my family leaves next Friday night. Anyone in Chicago? Gratefully, PAT ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1991 22:07:05 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: WLUP Challenges FCC on Indecency Ruling Steve Dahl and Garry Meier are two radio personalities with a large following in the Chicago area. Their stock in trade on the airwaves here includes a big dose of lewd jokes, sexual innuendo and commentary on current events. They consistently poke fun at various lifestyles, including very unflattering commentaries about gay people, women and other minority groups. They're on WLUP (1000 on the AM dial, formerly known as WCFL) during the late afternoon for a couple hours. In 1989, Dahl and Meier, along with their employer Evergreen Media Corporation, the owner of WLUP were cited by the Federal Communications Commission with three counts of on-air indecency based on two broadcasts in 1987 and one in 1989 in which the pair, according to the FCC, employed "terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards [to describe] sexual and excretory activities or body organs used in these activities." The FCC levied a $6000 fine against the corporation, along with Dahl and Meier as individuals, and recently made demand for payment of the fine. The response from the station was that the corporation intends to fight the matter, and will refuse to pay the fine. Their response was that the FCC can now seek resolution in federal court if the Commission wishes to do so ... the FCC has not given a formal response yet, but it appears likely the matter will be referred to the United States Attorney for collection. "I'm pleased that Evergreen is backing me and Gary, and our freedom of speech," Dahl said. "We all talked about it and decided that if we are willing to profit by the exercise of our constitutional rights, we also have to be willing to fight to protect them." This pair does indeed profit from their 'free speech rights'. Despite their ugly remarks about gays and others, their show sells a huge amount of advertising at a great profit for the station, as well as Dahl and Meier who produce their own show. Now we shall see if the FCC is willing to push harder on this, and if so, how the court will respond. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Dec 91 01:43 PST From: john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) Reply-To: John Higdon Organization: Green Hills and Cows Subject: Re: This is Class? virtech!rickr@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Rodman) writes: > IMHO, GOUGING the customer is NOT Class. I hope to find someone at > Contel/GTE who understands the issue and give him a piece of my mind. Well, one man's caviar is another man's poison. Contel of California is for all practical purposes THE LEC of the high desert region of the state. The local rates are somewhat higher than Pac*Bell's because of provisions in the tariffs that give special consideration to rural areas. It is considered more difficult and costly to provide service in a sparcely populated locale. Contel does a fine job. It has fully implemented FGD, uses nothing but DMS and 5ESS switches and is quite reliable. It provides service to some very out of the way places and yet has good audio quality and availability of facilities. An associate lives half way between Victorville and Barstow. Those of you who know the terrain are aware that this is some pretty barren and desolate land. But Contel has all the facilities you might want served out of a remote office providing Victorville prefixes. And unlike Pac*Bell, the Contel DMSes have all the good feature packages and generics. The three-way does not sound like excrement as it does in Pac*Bell land. (When you talk to Pac*Bell, the people deny that it can be any better than currently provided.) CLASS features are scheduled to be offered long before Pac*Bell ever gets off its behind and does so. And in general (sorry), Contel's personel are well trained and helpful, unlike some of the front-line trainees that many seem to be getting lately when calling Pac*Bell's business office. > Hope, that is, not expect. In the past, I have been unable to find > anyone there who understood either 10xxx or 950 access. Today I > called them asking about ISDN -- and they'd never heard of it. Not only does Contel of California fully implement 10XXX and 950 (and has for some time), it carries 811-XXXX calls which are toll-free to Pac*Bell offices around the state. Ask Pac*Bell about ISDN sometime! > Those scumbags ripped us off so John can have a nice Xmas card? > Sickening. Putrid. I'd tell them where to stuff it, John. Quite honestly, if I could get Contel at my home, I would pay the extra money willingly. As it stands, it looks as though I will have a choice from Pac*Bell: eventually be able to have CLASS features on the wretched-sounding 5ESS, or do without on the much-better-sounding 1ESS. Some choice, eh? What I suspect is that it is all relative. You are comparing Contel to C&P and I am comparing it to Pac*Bell. That should probably clear up any questions. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o ! ------------------------------ From: grout!mark@uunet.uu.net (Mark Oberg) Subject: Re: Weird AT&T Rates Date: 29 Dec 91 15:08:39 GMT Organization: Grout, Beltsville, MD In article ronnie@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Ron Schnell) writes: > I called AT&T to find out about various rates, and changes which will > affect Reach Out America(tm) next month, and discovered some very > interesting things. > I also found out that the rate to call Massachusetts is more expensive ^^^^ ??? > for the first minute than for each additional minute. I asked the rep > why, and she said it is because there are so many people using faxes > and answering machines, and it is to give them a break. Of course the > implication is that it is cheaper to hang up every minute and call > back, than to stay on the line. Apparently, this is true for many > different city pairs. I thought it used to be the opposite. I assume that you meant to say "less expensive" from the context of the paragraph. If so, the reason might be marketing rather than any corporate sympathy for the plight of fax users. MCI has had the very interesting habit of quoting first minute rates that are lower than the additional minute rate for quite some time now. If the rate were, for example, $0.10/min first minute and $0.13/min additional minutes. Someone calling to compare rates might ask "How much do you charge for a one minute call to ?" and receive the truthful and accurate answer "Ten cents" without further explanation. Also, the advertising people can make the rate comparisons look a lot better by showing one to five minute calls where the lower first minute will reduce the apparent cost per minute. Of course, on more typical calls of longer duration, the rate per minute might actually work out to be higher than the other carrier. AT&T might be making a change to allow for higher revenues while appearing to reduce rates . Disclaimer: These are my own ideas and opinions. NATel, Inc. does not have anything to do with them. Mark Oberg NATel, Inc. | UUCP: wb3ffv!grout!mark Voice: (410)964-0505 | Internet: mark%grout@wb3ffv.ampr.org BBS: (301)596-6450 | Fidonet: 1:109/506 ------------------------------ From: denny@dakota.alisa.com (Bob Denny) Subject: Re: Cellular Coverage on the Southwest Chief? Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1991 19:28:10 GMT Organization: Alisa Systems, Inc. In rees@dabo.citi.umich.edu (Jim Rees) writes: > I'll be taking the train from Chicago to San Francisco in a few weeks, > and I plan to take my Outback cellular modem along (I have to keep up > with the TELECOM Digest!). I'll be taking the Southwest Chief from > Chicago to L.A., then the Coast Starlight to S.F. How good is the > cellular coverage along this route? Will I have any trouble roaming? I do know that the coverage along US101 and I5 from LA to SF is good. I believe the railroad follows US101 so you should have good luck. Expect breaks when transiting between systems, and of course, the roaming charge for each system you talk thru. If you have a choice, stay with non-wireline ... LA Cellular definitely has better services (at least for LA home subscribers), including instant follow-me roaming. I have used both PacTel and LA Cellular, and I dumped PacTel for LA's coverage, quality, and value-added services. > Also, is the Outback likely to work while the train is moving? They > don't recommend using it while in motion, but in my experience PEP is > pretty good at keeping a connection going. Can't comment on signal problems, but I have found that your call will not get passed from system to system, once you get out of LA Cellular's "super roaming" service area, which covers up to San Luis Obispo, and then picks up again south of the Bay area. Robert B. Denny voice: (818) 792-9474 Alisa Systems, Inc. fax: (818) 792-4068 Pasadena, CA (denny@alisa.com, ..uunet!alisa.com!denny) ------------------------------ From: terry@spcvxb.spc.edu (Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr.) Subject: Re: ANI in NJ Date: 29 Dec 91 12:12:21 GMT Organization: St. Peter's College, US In article , dave@westmark.westmark.com (Dave Levenson) writes: > Dial 958 in Northern New Jersey. You get a verbal readback of the > number you're calling from. This did not work a few months ago; does > anybody know exactly when NJ Bell turned this on? Shortly after the 200 exchange (a 5ESS in Jersey City) went live. 958 replaces the older 200-xxxx number. Note that 958 is the same code as is used in New York. Perhaps this is going to become a standard? I'll have to look at some Bellcore documents to see if this is the case. It would be interesting to see what area codes don't have a 958 exchange in service. Terry Kennedy Operations Manager, Academic Computing terry@spcvxa.bitnet St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA terry@spcvxa.spc.edu (201) 915-9381 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Dec 91 11:58 EST From: fmsys!macy@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu (Macy Hallock) Subject: Re: ANI in NJ (and Other Telco Test Lines) Organization: The Matrix In article Dave Levenson writes: > Dial 958 in Northern New Jersey. You get a verbal readback of the > number you're calling from. This did not work a few months ago; does > anybody know exactly when NJ Bell turned this on? A number of random comments here: My list of reserved exchange codes show 958 is reserved for telco use. Its my understanding that the original purpose of the exchange was for internal telco numbers and special services, much like PacTel uses 811, but also with Dialing Number Identification Announcements, various test lines and such included. I've seen it used in only a few areas in the past. In at least one area code it seems to have been assigned as a regular exchange. I know that at least one area code in Canada that has placed 958 into regular service. In converstations with Ohio Bell and GTE North engineers, I have suggested that they place 958 in service for just these types of service. Most were unaware of the special status of 958. Ohio Bell still seems to feel that these types of number are internal and confidential. I know that Ohio Bell employees have been told not to give these numbers out or else they will be subject to disciplinary action. There is a procedure mandated by the FCC to obtain certain telco test numbers. This yields 1000hz and quiet line numbers in requested exchanges when filed and executed. The Ohio COG office (this is the business office arm that deals with interconnect vendors) has great difficulity dealing with these requests, it seems. Requests for number identfication numbers are refused. I have had several instances where I could not identify numbers of lines on telco demarcation blocks. Each time I ask to have these lines identified, the telco sends out a tech to do so. In converstations with supervisors and test board staff, all agree that just dialing the number identification number will fix the problem, but they cannot give it out ... so they send out a tech, at telco (and subscriber) expense to do so. In one instance, the telco did not want to send a tech or give me the number ID number. I asked how I could identify the lines on their demarcation block and was told to check my paperwork and call the business office. After asking for a supervisor, explaining the situation, and reminding them I knew the procedure for submitting a PUC complaint, they dispatched a tech. Sigh. GTE used 311 in most exchanges for nubmer ID up until a couple of years ago. I was told by at least on GTE engineer that the change was caused by a new software generic that came out during the implementation of Centrex type services. GTE North now uses random seven digit numbers for test purposes, just like they used to years ago. Their people do not seem inclined to divulge number ID lines, but noone has told be that they have been threatened with discipline in the manner that Ohio Bell staffers have been. I have not filed a format request for these numbers with their business office because a couple of helpful GTE staffers verbally advised me of their number ID numbers in certain CO's I work with. This action has saved GTE several tech dispatches for non-identfied lines on demarc block. (Especially useful with GTE's occasional sloppy cable pair reassignments.) Regards, Macy M Hallock Jr N8OBG 216.725.4764 macy@fmsystm.uucp macy@fmsystm.ncoast.org [No disclaimer, but I have no real idea what I'm saying or why I'm telling you] ------------------------------ From: deej@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (david.g.lewis) Subject: Re: Swedish Telecommunications Network Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1991 21:33:56 GMT In article hhallika@nike.calpoly.edu (Harold Hallikainen) writes: > Is there some standard clear way of printing phone numbers so that > anyone in the world can make sense of them? The standard is +CC NN where + equals the (administration-specific) code used for access to international dialing (e.g. 011 in the USA) CC equals the country code NN equals the national significant number So I would show my number as +1 908 949 XXXX. "Qualifiers" between CC and NN, and within NN, are probably specified by CCITT (I think they prefer spaces or single periods), but are pretty much at the discretion of the specific administration. David G Lewis AT&T Bell Laboratories david.g.lewis@att.com or !att!houxa!deej ISDN Evolution Planning ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #1057 *******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa14127; 30 Dec 91 22:17 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA08932 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Mon, 30 Dec 1991 20:41:27 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA28631 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Mon, 30 Dec 1991 20:41:07 -0600 Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1991 20:41:07 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199112310241.AA28631@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #1058 TELECOM Digest Mon, 30 Dec 91 20:41:00 CST Volume 11 : Issue 1058 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Call Return Has Its Problems (John Temples) Re: Call Return Has Its Problems (Tony Harminc) Re: AT&T Does An Excellent Job on Calls Down Under (Michael G. Katzmann) Re: Gadgets to Help Take Advantage of Custom Ringing (Andrew M. Dunn) Re: Problem with Procomm; Help Needed (Ken Abrams) Re: ANI in NJ (Don Maslin) What is "System Code Please"? (John R. Levine) Massachusetts DPU Ponders ISDN Request (Middlesex News via Adam M. Gaffin) Re: Yellow Pages (Joshua E. Muskovitz) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jwt!john@uunet.uu.net (John Temples) Subject: Re: Call Return Has Its Problems Organization: The Museum of Barnyard Oddities Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1991 05:59:15 GMT In article dannie@coplex.com (Dannie Gregoire) writes: > [Moderator's Note: [...] Call-Screening, Caller-ID and Return-Call > are certainly changing everything we have assumed about telephony in > the past. PAT] I'll say. I had an episode of "high-tech phone wars" last week. My roommate has a RingMaster number on my line (distinctive ring with its own phone number). He got a call at 2 AM which consisted of laughing followed by a hang up. He immediately called back (we have Caller-ID rather than Call Return) and gave them a piece of his mind. A few seconds later, the phone rang again, but this time with *my* ring -- they had apparently called back with Call Return, since he had *67'd his call to them. (Would this be considered a "bug" in Call Return?) I answered, and got a half dozen "hellos" shouted at me. I started to file an annoyance complaint against them, but decided I'd give them another chance. Anyway, I've now got their name, address, and phone number thanks to Caller-ID and Phone*File. :) > [PAT continues: The ones who are chronic misdialers simply get added > to my call-screening list.] I have a little more fun with them. I annotate all wrong numbers as such in my Caller-ID database. When I get a repeat wrong number (which happens surprisingly often), it's displayed on my computer's screen, and I'll answer the phone with "You have the wrong number" or "There's no 'Herbert' here." It draws some startled reactions. John W. Temples -- john@jwt.UUCP (uunet!jwt!john) [Moderator's Note: Sorry, but just imagining someone calling at that time of night, making some insane laughter then hanging up and your roomate's indignant response caused me to sit here with the giggles reading it. I guess this whole thread could be retitled 'phun with phones' or something. Its funny -- but its not funny -- if you understand what I mean. Your roomate's mistake was in not *immediatly* adding 'last call received' to the Call Screening list, and *then* calling back. When he hung up and they called back, they'd get screened, since *69 does not override Call Screening, nor does *67 prevent the number from being captured for screening purposes. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Dec 91 12:51:52 EST From: Tony Harminc Subject: Re: Call Return Has Its Problems dannie@coplex.com (Dannie Gregoire) wrote: [ Description of people using Call Return to call back after an inadvertant wrong number and swear at the caller] > 3) Does the returned call I received constitute a harrassing/obscene > call? I would say so, yes. If I had Call Display (Caller*ID) or Call Trace I would turn 'em in. When I was an intervenor before the CRTC on Bell Canada's application for Call Management Services in 1989/90, I made the point that Call Return could itself be used to make harrassing calls. The phone company's answer to your problem is undoubtedly to tell you to subscribe to Call Display or Call trace. This brings us to the point made by Administrative Law Judge John Schnierle in the Pennsylvania case: "An appropriate, albeit extreme analogy, is that of an arms dealer selling advanced weapons to both sides in a war so that each side may, alternatively defend and attack with the most modern technology." [The Moderator uses Call return for wrong numbers] > What's funny though are the ones who lie about it; claim they did > not call, and have 'no idea' why I am calling them. :) Has it occured to you that perhaps you are not reaching the person who misdialed you ? There are all sorts of situations, most of them PBX related, that will lead you to call back someone other than the person who called you. Here I have picked up the night line and got someone claiming that I called them. Presumably it was someone else in this company who happened to get the same PBX trunk. Tony H. [Moderator's Note: I'm not as dumb as I look, Tony. A call at midnight with a two year old child on the other end saying 'da da da' then a voice in the background screaming 'hang up the phone and get back in bed you little 'bas---d' followed by a receiver going on hook most likely did not originate from the Widget Corporation's PBX. PAT] ------------------------------ From: vk2bea!michael@uunet.uu.net (Michael G. Katzmann) Subject: Re: AT&T Does An Excellent Job on Calls Down Under Date: 30 Dec 91 14:45:53 GMT Reply-To: vk2bea!michael@uunet.uu.net (Michael G. Katzmann) Organization: Broadcast Sports Technology, Crofton. Maryland. In article rears@pica.army.mil (Dennis G. Rears ) writes: > voices would cancel each other out. With AT&T we can both speak at > the same time. Has anybody any similiar experiences? It sounds like you just got a cable circuit rather than a satellite path. My experience with AT&T, is that it's about 50/50 cable to satellite. The satellite delay (one-way) is about 1/4 second whereas the trans-pacific cable is about 50 milliseconds. I gather the cable is all digital now, judging by the quality of the audio. A few years ago when they used TASI (an analog multiplexing scheme) very strange effects were noticable. I think that the cable is owned by AT+T and so SPRINT and MCI et al would use leased Intelsat/Comsat paths in preference to the cable. I think SPRINT were talking about a fiber cable to Japan but I don't think this has happened. Michael Katzmann Broadcast Sports Technology Inc. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Crofton, Maryland. U.S.A Amteur Radio Stations: NV3Z / VK2BEA / G4NYV opel!vk2bea!michael@uunet.uu.net ------------------------------ Date: Sun Dec 29 17:39:40 1991 From: mongrel!amdunn@uunet.uu.net (Andrew M. Dunn) Organization: A. Dunn Systems Corporation, Kitchener, Canada From: amdunn@mongrel.UUCP (Andrew M. Dunn) Subject: Re: Gadgets to Help Take Advantage of Custom Ringing Organization: A. Dunn Systems Corporation, Kitchener, Canada Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1991 22:39:32 GMT In article gil@limbic.ssdl.com (Gil Kloepfer Jr.) writes: > I have built such a device. You *can* sense the first pulse of the > ring and cut off the ring to all devices fast enough with a relay to > prevent most devices from seeing that pulse. I have a modem which > sees it, but I can simply set that to answer after two rings. Why not include a relay to cut off the line to other devices, until a ring comes in and is detected? Ie. don't pass anything on to the devices until you have decided they're good and ready. Of course, if some of the "devices" also want to make outgoing calls, you'll have to supply them with -48V and an off-hook detector can be used to pull in the above-mentioned relay. When the relay is open, the devices are connected to a 48V battery or other relevant supply, through a current detector (a simple transistor will often do) and not connected to the telephone line. If a current is detected, or if the telephone line rings and you WANT to pass whatever ringing pattern you have detected, the relay is pulled in. The devices are no longer connected to the battery; they are now connected to the telephone line, and they'll catch the NEXT set of rings in the cycle. You can have as many of these as you like ... one device per group for which you want to decode a unique ring. Andy Dunn (amdunn@mongrel.uucp) ({uunet...}!xenitec!mongrel!amdunn) ------------------------------ From: kabra437@athenanet.com (Ken Abrams) Subject: Re: Problem with Procomm; Help Needed Organization: Athenanet, Inc., Springfield, Illinois Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1991 15:47:20 GMT In article I18BC@CUNYVM.BITNET (Eddie G) writes: > I have a problem with Procomm 2.4.3. When I turn on the printer > (ALT-L), procomm doesn't send line feeds to the printer. I get the > display output all bunch up together. The log function does the same. > I had the same problem with version 2.4.2. Can anyone tell me what am > I doing wrong? I use VT100 emulation. > [Moderator's Note: Please reply only by email to the writer. PAT] I will (try) to send the author mail but I think this is likely to have some general interest value since the problem is probably not unique to Procomm. I have had the same problem and it took me a while to figure out what caused it. In my case, also using VT100 emulation, I discovered that the host system was not SENDING cr/lf to make a new line but was instead sending cursor positioning commands. Since the capture file expects to store pure ASCII and the printer doesn't respond to the escape sequences, this creates a problem. In my case, column alignment was also done by cursor positioning instead of tabs or spaces so text alignment was all messed up too. The only solution I have found is to display the data one screen at a time and do a series of screen dumps. Ken Abrams nstar!pallas!kabra437 Springfield, IL kabra437@athenanet.com (voice) 217-753-7965 [Moderator's Note: Actually Ken, I'm glad you did reply to the Digest; I hadn't thought about it before, but the problem is common. PAT] ------------------------------ From: donm@pnet01.cts.com (Don Maslin) Subject: Re: ANI in NJ Organization: People-Net [pnet01], El Cajon CA Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1991 20:16:34 GMT terry@spcvxb.spc.edu (Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr.) writes: > Shortly after the 200 exchange (a 5ESS in Jersey City) went live. > 958 replaces the older 200-xxxx number. Note that 958 is the same code > as is used in New York. Perhaps this is going to become a standard? Dialing 958 in the 619 area produces nothing but silence. UUCP: {hplabs!hp-sdd ucsd nosc}!crash!pnet01!donm ARPA: crash!pnet01!donm@nosc.mil INET: donm@pnet01.cts.com ------------------------------ Subject: What is "System Code Please"? Date: Mon, 30 Dec 91 0:36:48 EST From: John R. Levine While up in Vermont over Christmas, I discovered a most peculiar thing about the local phone exchange. Whenever I dialed a *, after a few seconds a synthesized voice would ask for "System Code Please." A zero dropped back to where I was, nothing else I could think of did anything interesting, except that one time a # read back in the same voice what sounded like a list of alarms generated at the CO. This happens no matter when I push the star, whether it's at dial tone, ringing, busy, or in the middle of a conversation. It occasionally happens in the middle of conversation without any dialing, I suppose because something sounded like a star. What in the world is this obnoxious thing? The exchange is Woodstock, Vt., 802-457. It's a NET exchange, with reasonably new equipment that supports equal access, upgraded within the last five years or so, though this 'System Code Please' business is new within the last year. We're ten miles or so from the CO so there might be a SLC or something in between. By the way, in reference to a previous thread about getting both sides of a party line as a kind of rich man's distinctive ringing, I note that the phone book has for several years stated that you can't get private line service in Woodstock or nearby Bethel, only two or four party. In fact, nearly everyone I know has a private line, so I'm not sure who NET thinks they are kidding here. It's not like either town is in the middle of a construction boom which suddenly swamped the equipment, either. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl ------------------------------ From: adamg@world.std.com (Adam M Gaffin) Subject: Massachusetts DPU Ponders ISDN Request Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1991 19:41:23 GMT {Middlesex News}, Framingham, Mass., 12/24/91 Phone company will offer data system; competitors cry foul By Adam Gaffin NEWS STAFF WRITER FRAMINGHAM - New England Telephone says a proposed high-speed data system could bring a wealth of new services to companies in Framingham and Marlboro. But a pair of opponents says the company's proposed rates are so high they would squelch innovation and deprive residents of potentially valuable new information services. The computerized system, known as an ``integrated services digital network'' or ISDN, would allow such things as simultaneous voice and data communications on one line and would let users tap into the power of a phone company central office. The state Department of Public Utilities is expected to rule in early February on the proposal. New England Telephone has proposed a $35 installation fee and a monthly fee of $8 a month for the basic 960-character-per-second residential service. Users would also have to pay a fee each time they accessed the network, and there would be far higher charges to use a faster data system and other features of the network. Framingham and Marlboro would be among the first six communities in the state to get the service, the company says. Prodigy Services Co., which runs the national Prodigy consumer computer network, says the phone company unfairly built in huge profits made possible by its monopoly position in the local market. Providing that $8 service would cost the phone company only $3.30, it says. Mitch Kapor, co-founder of Lotus Development Corp,, and chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argues that the phone company should be forced to set low enough rates to encourage ``another generation of explosive growth of services, led by a generation of information entrepreneurs.'' The phone company, however, argues that there is a limited potential home market for ISDN at present for technical and economic reasons: High-speed data can only be transmitted over short distance through the copper cable that still connects almost all homes to the phone system. The phone company also notes that ISDN data converters cost $700 or more and are incompatible with existing answering machines and other phones. And it argued that its ISDN service would not be a monopoly because other companies already provide similar services, such as high-speed data links. Kapor countered that ``in order to become ubiquitous, ISDN access must be priced low enough that the average consumer finds it affordable. As a practical matter, this means that there must be a residential tariff comparable to the unlimited local calling plans available to residential customers. ``Today these information entrepreneurs enjoy a marginal existence in the largely non-commercial world of bulletin boards and on the national research and education network called the Internet,'' Kapor said. ``Give them a commercial information infrastructure which can reach large numbers of people inexpensively, and I believe we will all be truly amazed at the results.'' Adam Gaffin Middlesex News, Framingham, Mass. adamg@world.std.com Voice: (508) 626-3968. Fred the Middlesex News Computer: (508) 872-8461. [Moderator's Note: As always, Adam, thanks for sharing your column with the Digest. Your stories are always great! Happy New Year! PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Dec 91 09:15:21 EST From: "Joshua E. Muskovitz" Subject: Yellow Pages Not only SunOS, but IBM AIX, too, has Network Information Services. All the commands start with yp. I guess BT didn't have a problem with that. ;-) Personally, I don't see why they made a big deal out of it. josh ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #1058 *******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa17321; 31 Dec 91 0:28 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA21583 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Mon, 30 Dec 1991 22:49:26 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA25084 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Mon, 30 Dec 1991 22:49:09 -0600 Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1991 22:49:09 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199112310449.AA25084@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #1059 TELECOM Digest Mon, 30 Dec 91 22:49:03 CST Volume 11 : Issue 1059 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Michael G. Katzmann) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Ethan Miller) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Douglas W. Martin) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Tom Coradeschi) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Scott Fybush) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Andrew Burt) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Doug Lee) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Tony Harminc) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Andrew M. Dunn) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (John David Galt) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Jon Bosak) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Guy R. Berentsen) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Bill Pfeiffer) PEnnsylvania 6-5000 (was Greatest Hits) (Charles MdGuinness) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (TELECOM Moderator) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: vk2bea!michael@uunet.uu.net (Michael G. Katzmann) Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Date: 30 Dec 91 14:58:04 GMT Reply-To: vk2bea!michael@uunet.uu.net (Michael G. Katzmann) Organization: Broadcast Sports Technology, Crofton. Maryland. In article dogar@rtsg.mot.com (Haroon H. Dogar) writes: > John_David_Galt@cup.portal.com writes: > Am I mistaken, or is this supposed to be a collect call from the > United States to England? If it was an English operator it would be: "A Reverse Charge call for Mrs. Floyd from Mr. Floyd. Will you accept the charges?" Michael Katzmann Broadcast Sports Technology Inc. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Crofton, Maryland. U.S.A Amteur Radio Stations: NV3Z / VK2BEA / G4NYV opel!vk2bea!michael@uunet.uu.net ------------------------------ From: elm@cs.berkeley.edu (ethan miller) Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Date: 30 Dec 91 11:46:43 > Any other nominations for telecommunications greatest hits? :-) Does anyone else remember a parody of "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" which came out around the time of the AT&T breakup? It was called "Breaking Up Is Hard On You" and featured such lines as (from memory, so they may be off): They say that breaking up is good to do Then they send six bills to you. Don't say it's fate my friend. Even though they're breaking up they're also jacking up the rates again. AT and T, don't say goodbye. Don't want to use my MCI. When they divest, then I'll be blue. 'Cause breaking up is hard on you. I don't remember who sang it, but it'd be interesting to get my hands on a copy. Any ideas? ethan miller--cs grad student elm@cs.berkeley.edu #include ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Dec 91 13:15:53 PST From: martin@cod.nosc.mil (Douglas W. Martin) Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Here are some songs I haven't seen mentioned yet. In country music, from the late 50's, Don Gibson had a hit with "Call me at Lonesome Number One". The lyric, which I can't quote exactly, talked about: "I had my number changed today. You're the only one I'll give my number to. So if my phone rings, I'll know it's you. Call me at Lonesome number one." Stevie Wonder had: "I just called to say I love you." In James Taylor's "Fire and Rain" is the line: "It's been hours of time on the telephone line, to talk about things to come.". Doug Martin martin@nosc.mil ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Dec 91 16:46:28 EST From: Tom Coradeschi Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Operator. Written by Ron McKernan (pigpen), it appears on American Beauty by The Grateful Dead. Performed four times in 1970, so it might even be on a tape somewere ... (and who says work isn't all fun:-}). Operator. Can you help me. Help me if you please. Give me the right area code and the number that I need... tom coradeschi <+> tcora@pica.army.mil ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1991 18:33 EDT From: Scott Fybush Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Several readers have mentioned PEnnsylvania 6-5000. It is still the main number for the Pennsylvania Hotel (until last year the New York Penta) on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan. Of course, they give the phone number as 736-5000, but then what do they know? One amusing note: Brandeis University's PBX is on the 617-736 exchange. When they assigned the new 736 numbers about six years ago, they decided to give the police dispatcher extension 5000. Thus, anyone needing emergency service on the Brandeis campus has to call PEnnsylvania 6-5000! :) (I don't think anyone in the Brandeis telecom department realized that, somehow.) PAT asked what telecom customer has kept the same number the longest. I'm not sure, but his comment brought to mind one useful idea. If one has a rough idea of the relative age of the various exchanges in an area, one can (sometimes) tell how long a business has been around. Thus in my hometown of Brighton, NY, I can assume that a phone on the 473 exchnage, around since the early days of dial service, has been in place longer than one on the 256 exchange, introduced a couple of years ago. This is not always reliable, but it can be of use occasionally. Happy New Year, and thanks PAT for another fun year of c.d.t! Scott Fybush -- ST901316@pip.cc.brandeis.edu -- Waltham MA USA *Please no mail to the above address between 6-16 Jan 1992!!!* ------------------------------ From: aburt@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu (Andrew Burt) Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci. Date: Mon, 30 Dec 91 23:59:15 GMT My father-in-law, who put in 40 years with Mountain Bell, has a tape of a song, title is something like "Mr. Telephone Man". Has a dizzy sounding woman singing enticing lines like "I'm gonna tell him where I want it" and "I'm gonna let my fingers do the walking on the telephone man". A real hoot. I have no idea who sings it -- anyone know this gem? Andrew Burt uunet!isis!aburt or aburt@du.edu ------------------------------ From: dlee@athenanet.com (Doug Lee) Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1991 17:15:05 GMT I haven't seen any mention of Rupert Holms' (sp? on both) song: I'm so sorry. You have just reached my answering machine. I'm not here at present - I'm sure you know this whole routine. Leave your name and number, and I'll try to get back to you. You have thirty seconds to talk to me before you're through. Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of the song. It was written back when most (all?) answering machines could only record very short messages, and it is basically a series of examples of messages cut off at most inopportune moments. Doug Lee (dlee@athenanet.com or nstar!pallas!dlee) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Dec 91 12:45:45 EST From: Tony Harminc Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits acg@HERMES.DLOGICS.COM wrote: > Find a copy of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" and play the cut entitled > "Young Lust". At the end of the song, you hear a series of comments > from a rather perplexed Long-Distance operator trying to complete a > call from the U.S. to the caller's wife in London, England. The phone > rings, a man's voice answers, and as the operator starts to say "I > have a collect call for Mrs. Floyd from Mr. Floyd; will you accept the > charges?", he hangs up on her. This happens several times, with the > puzzled operator saying, "He keeps hanging up, sir...", "There's > someone there besides your wife, sir...", and stuff to that effect. On one of the attempts a burst of MF tones is clearly audible. I remember wondering years ago if it would be considered illegal to possess the album. Certainly interesting to play it very loudly into the phone. Tony H. ------------------------------ From: amdunn@mongrel.UUCP (Andrew M. Dunn) Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Organization: A. Dunn Systems Corporation, Kitchener, Canada Date: Sun, 29 Dec 1991 22:33:29 GMT In article John Higdon writes: > On Dec 28 at 0:34, TELECOM Moderator writes: >> [Moderator's Note: It would be interesting to find out what >> organization or person has had their phone number longer than anyone >> else. > I object. Only the larger cities will even have entries that will be > in the running. While San Francisco may have come competing entries, > the suburbs will not. For instance, San Jose has no phone numbers any > older than 1948 ... Not many old numbers are still around. Most established businesses like to have two things: (a) multiple lines on a hunt group (b) easy-to-remember numbers ending in zeroes (ie. xxx-2500) These were mutually exclusive on step-by-step gear. Since the digit zero was the LAST position on the step canister, it couldn't START a hunt group. Hunt groups of any size usually started with a 1. Well, as soon as xbar or something else came along, most businesses changed their numbers, to get both (a) and (b) above. Even if they didn't have to. So a lot of the original numbers, while remaining in the same exchange, changed as soon as the equipment did. Pity ... Andy Dunn (amdunn@mongrel.uucp) ({uunet...}!xenitec!mongrel!amdunn) [Moderator's Note: When I worked in the phone room at the University of Chicago (around 1958-62) our numbers were all wired from what was known as 'the Kenwood Bell', officially the Chicago-Hyde Park CO at 61st and Kenwood Sts. The 13 *yes, thirteen* position switchboard had three hunt groups, all of which began with zero. MIDway-3-0800 had about 80 trunks hunting upward from it; MUseum-4-6100 had 95 trunks hunting upward from it, and NORmal-7-4700 had about 20 trunks running up from that number. I think they were all 5-Xbar. The 'Midway boards' had all the 2xxx, 3xxx, and 4xxx extensions. The 'Museum boards' were for the 5xxx, 6xxx and 7xxx extensions. 8xxx was wired from what we called the 'Normal boards'. Calls from 2/3/4xxx to 5/6/7xxx or 8xxx went from the operator who picked up the call via a 'tie-line' from that position to a position across the room equipped with the 5/6/7xxx or 8xxx lines. Each cluster of extensions ([2-3-4] [5-6-7] [8]) had their own LDN (listed directory number) as per the above, but calls to any of the hunt groups could be routed to any extension, of course. The reason so many older businesses have double or triple zero endings is because at one time, numbers with 'long dial pulls' were considered very fashionable. Your house could burn down while you were rotary dialing TUXedo-9-9000, the number at a branch fire station on the far northwest side in the 1950's. PAT] ------------------------------ From: John_David_Galt@cup.portal.com Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Date: Sun, 29 Dec 91 22:24:35 PST Haroon H. Dogar writes: > Man's voice: "Hello." > Operator's voice: "Collect call for Mrs. Floyd from Mr. Floyd. > Will you accept the charges?" > Click. No, no. That is (an almost-accurate transcription of) something from a different Pink Floyd album, "The Wall." "Welcome to the Machine" starts off with a lot of machine sound effects, and then: Welcome, my son Welcome to The Machine What did you dream It's all right, we told you what to dream ... John David Galt ------------------------------ From: bosak@netcom.com (Jon Bosak) Subject: Telecom's Greatest Hits Date: Tue, 31 Dec 91 01:30:01 GMT Organization: Netcom, a Commercial Internet Service in San Jose Let's not forget those little keepers of popular culture -- the kids. My six-year-old daughter has been chirping that hoary old song that lets you say "naughty" words without really saying them -- you remember, the one that goes something like: Behind the 'frigerator There is a piece of glass Little Jenny found it And stuck it up her -- Ask me no more questions And I'll tell you no lies ... and so on; we all know some version of this. Well, one of the verses starts out: Hello, operator Give me number nine ... Curious, I asked her, "What does that mean?" Of course, she hadn't the faintest idea, and was slightly amazed when I explained that there was a time when you had to ask a PERSON to make your telephone connection for you. It's interesting to see how oral transmission can preserve a piece of language that goes on with a life of its own long after its meaning has been lost. I wonder how many centuries that one will last. [Moderator's Note: And the last part of that one goes, " .... and if he does not answer, give me back my dime." PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Dec 91 13:24:40 EST From: guy@ihlpw.att.com (Guy R Berentsen) Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories My favorite is "Telephone" by Arlo Guthery from his 1979 album "Outlasting The Blues". The song complains about being bothered by unwanted phone calls all day. I once put the chorus on my answering machine: "Hang up ... Hold on... You've got a dime so you come on so strong. Save your money and let me be. Hang up the phone and quit bothering me." I took the message off due to the large number of people that couldn't figure out they had reached an answering machine. "Something is wrong with your phone, I tried to call you and all I heard was music." (Would you put a bell in your house that anyone in the world can ring whenever they want to?) ------------------------------ From: wdp@gagme.chi.il.us (Bill Pfeiffer) Subject: Telecom's Greatest Hits Date: Mon, 30 Dec 91 21:04:13 CST Hello Telecom folks, Here are a few more gems of Ma Bell Music trivia. "Don't call us ... we'll call you" was indeed done by Sugarloaf. I didn't know that the tones actually dialed working numbers, though. The song '867-5309' by Tommy Tutone actually rang an answering machine in the Chicago suburb of Harwood Heights where the machine would answer and say "Hi, this is Tommy Tutone and even if your name isn't Jenny, I love you." That recording was there for years and our 'reverse directory' service here always said it was non-published. I wonder how many people in other area codes got weird calls on that one. Mojo Nixon had a song last year in which he implored Elvis to call him at 619-239-KING. When I called, it was usually busy (of course), but when I did get through, it was an answering machine asking if I was Elvis, or had seen Elvis. I got a 30 second chance to leave a message. I don't know if it is still up and running, though. AC/DC's hit if the late 70's called Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap had a line in it saying ... call me anytime 36-24-36 HEY! The 'Hey' was mistaken by many to be an 8 and people with the number 362 4368 were getting calls requesting dirty deeds ... etc. Later, (Wild) Bill Pfeiffer wdp@gagme.chi.il.us ------------------------------ From: Charles McGuinness Subject: PEnnsylvania 6-5000 (was Greatest Hits) Date: Mon, 30 Dec 91 10:13:48 EST It's worth a brief mention that (212) PEnnsylvania 6-5000 connects you to Hotel Pennsylvania, across the street from the Pennsylvania train station (aka Penn Station), which is underground and has Madison Square Garden sitting on top of it. The interesting thing telecom-wise is that, for a while, the hotel had given up the number (when it was refered to as the "Penta Hotel"), but apparently got the number back when they changed their name back. The rest of the hotel is on the 502 exchange, however, making me wonder if they just have a call forwarding on the 736-5000 number. ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Date: Mon 30 Dec 1991 22:40:00 Well, fellas and girls, have we finally gotten this out of our system? Gawd, I hope so! Enuff already! "Greatest Hits" has been one of the more popular threads here in the Digest this past year, for sure. What do you suppose 1992 will bring to the forum? PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #1059 *******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa18838; 31 Dec 91 1:43 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA08448 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Mon, 30 Dec 1991 23:51:23 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA08387 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Mon, 30 Dec 1991 23:51:06 -0600 Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1991 23:51:06 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199112310551.AA08387@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #1060 TELECOM Digest Mon, 30 Dec 91 23:50:59 CST Volume 11 : Issue 1060 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Computer Integrated Telephony (Kjetil Otter Olsen) Telephony Museum (Patrick Fargo) How do Party Lines Work? (Russ Latham) New "Charge Cards" in NYTELland (Jerry B. Altzman) Telephone Number Format (Robert La Ferla) Rate Table For 900 Numbers (Mike Sullivan) Re: So How do Rail/Air Phones Work? (Lance Hall) Various Questions About Phone Company Numbers (Sean Petty) Re: White Alice (Jim Haynes) Extra Lines Wanted: Landlord Says No (Dennis G. Rears) Re: Gadgets to Help Take Advantage of Custom Ringing (John Levine) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kjetilo@bilbo.uio.no (Kjetil Otter Olsen) Subject: Computer Integrated Telephony Organization: University of Oslo, Norway Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1991 15:26:26 GMT Does anyone use Computer Integrated Telephony (CIT)?? At the University of Oslo (in Norway) we are shortly installing new PABX's and want to explore the possibilities of making applications use both our computers and the PABX's. Today we think of making applications to do student registration, to inform about grades, general information telephones etc. mostly to enhance student services. Other plans also exist. To avoid reinventing the wheel I would like to get in contact with universities (or others) with experience in this field and ask them for some friendly advice and maybe get a few ideas. Our PABX will be a network of approximatly ten Northern Telecom Meridian 1's and we plan to use CIT 3.0 from Digital for the computer connection. All information is most welcome! Please answer by E-mail. Thanks in advance! Regards, Kjetil Otter Olsen E-mail: kjetilo@usit.uio.no Senior System Engineer, PABX / Computing / Communications / Networking Center for Information Technology Services (USIT), University of Oslo, Norway PoBox 1059 Blindern, 0316 Oslo, Norway. Phone +47-2-453 488, Fax +47-2-453 730 ------------------------------ From: ebupaf@anah.ericsson.se (Pat Fargo 6266) Subject: Telephony Museum Organization: Ericsson Business Communication, Anaheim, California Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1991 14:33:02 GMT Many years ago, while I was a Bell Labs employee, I visited the basement at the Holmdel Bell Labs facility, and was amazed at the old equipment set up by decades. They had rows of old equipment, starting from the early 1900's arranged like a museum. Does anyone know if it is still there? Do they allow tours now? Patrick A. Fargo Ericsson Business Communication Anaheim, California ------------------------------ From: Russ Latham Subject: How Do Party Lines Work? Date: Mon, 30 Dec 91 11:22:07 CST I was visiting a friend in Colorado (Steamboat Springs) over Christmas, and they have a party line, due to lack of telephone lines serving their area. Without knowing much about party lines, I suggested connecting an LED and a resistor (used an 8.8 K) across the line to tell when another person at another house was using the phone. After connecting the LED and the 8.8K resistor, everything was working fine, except that they started getting phone calls for another telephone number. They have two phones in the house, one with an electronic ringer. The calls received for the other number caused only the phone with the electronic ringer to ring. Calls intended for their number still came through as normal, ringing both phones. I disconnected the LED after this happened a couple of times. Does anyone have an explanation of party line service, and why this would happen? The party line is NOT the older type which had different ringing signals to indicate which number was being called. The phone ONLY rings for the number being dialed, like the usual private line service. But you can pick up the phone when someone at another house is on it, and hear them talking, typical of a party line. Thanks for any info! Russ Latham (rlatham@mailbox.fwrdc.rtsg.mot.com) ------------------------------ From: jbaltz@hebrew.cc.columbia.edu (Jerry B. Altzman) Subject: New "Charge Cards" in NYTELland Organization: mailer daemons association Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1991 16:34:45 GMT Well, it happened. NYTEL came out with those "stored value cards" (whose technical names I forget) that you stick into new, funky-yellow phones with a certain amount (either US$5.25 or US$10.50) charged onto them so you "don't have to carry change" around. So far all the phones of this type I've seen are at the St. George and Whitehall terminals of the Staten Island Ferry. The cards themselves are reminiscent of the ones issued by the Belgian PTT when I was there in 1987, except that instead of a plain red, the NYTEL ones have a pretty picture of the Manhattan skyline on them. As well, the phones themselves look like the Belgian counterparts. I haven't tried them yet, but my fiancee' has a card and will be trying it soon to see how long a $5.25 card lasts ($5.25 bought for $5.00). jerry b. altzman +1 212 854 2057 jbaltz@columbia.edu jauus@cuvmb (bitnet) NEVIS::jbaltz (HEPNET) ...!rutgers!columbia!jbaltz (bang!) ------------------------------ From: lotus!rlaferla!robertl@uunet.uu.net (Robert La Ferla) Subject: Telephone Number Format Reply-To: lotus!robertl@uunet.uu.net Organization: Lotus Development Corp. Date: Mon, 30 Dec 91 16:30:33 GMT Can someone please explain what the new format for telephones is all about? What implications does it have for foreign telephone numbers? For example: (800) 222-1212 is now +1 800 222-1212 Thanks, Robert La Ferla Lotus Development Corporation Advanced Technology Group / Improv robertl@lotus.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Dec 91 17:58:46 PST From: "Sullivan" Subject: Rate Table For 900 Numbers Is there a vendor that keeps track of rates for 900 number service? PacBell seems to have no such thing according to co-workers who have checked into it. I imagine that someone who has gone through the trouble of compiling a Rate Table could also have compiled a directory though that is not as useful. For how much would you sell the table? Work-in-progress anyone? If others are interested, let me know, in the absence of a canned ready-made rate table perhaps one could be built. Mike Sullivan ------------------------------ From: lanceh@ecs.comm.mot.com (DX516 Lance Hall) Subject: Re: So How do Rail/Air Phones Work? Organization: base_stations Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1991 22:31:51 GMT In article chafe@ucdavis.edu (Steve Chafe) writes: > With all the discussion about Rail phones, and the mention of the GTE > Airphone which I used once to really surprise someone, could someone > explain how they work? I can see the Railphone using the cellular > network, but the airphone couldnt possibly do that -- could it? The > sound quality on the airphone I used was too good for shortwave > radio -- anyone know what frequency band it uses? Steve is correct that the RailFone units used the available cellular systems along the train's route. The AirFone units have a dedicated network of stations throughout the US, Canada (I believe now), and the Carribean. If they have expanded beyond that, I have not kept in contact with my collegues at GTE AirFone. The AirFone system used some 800-900 MHz frequencies on an experimental FCC license. The modulation scheme was some narrow band (6KHz) AM sideband that I never understood and always seemed extremely finicky at best. In addition, the cabin system used frequencies similar to commercial cordless phones (1.7/45 MHz). My knowledge comes from my being an employee of GTE AirFone from 1985-1988. I was solely in charge of keeping the software working on the airborne radios, controllers, wall units, & handsets. IMHO, it still is a prototype not worthy of consumer usage. I hope this gives some further depth of understanding of these services. Lance N. Hall +1 708 576 5799 (Client) lanceh@ecs.comm.mot.com +1 708 505 9100 x387 (Work) lanceha@i88.isc.com ------------------------------ Subject: Various Questions About Phone Company Numbers From: Sean Petty Date: Mon, 30 Dec 91 22:35:44 EST Organization: The Underground - Pennsylvania I have a few questions that have been bothering me over the past few months, and I figured that this was the best place to get answers. First, my local phone company has a number (XXX-0083) that they call a DATU, or Digital Access Test Unit. When you call, it immediatly gives you a low tone. You enter a four digit code, then another low tone. At this second low tone, you enter a phone number in that exchange. After a few odd beeps, it responds either "OK", or "A LEAD LINE" (Not sure about second one, can someone clarify what it says?). If it says ok, you can put high level tones on the line, low level tones, short to ground, open line, close line, etc. You can also monitor lines. If they are in use, it allows you to listen to extremely scrambled speech. Can anyone tell me more about this, or what it is used by/for? Next, if I dial XXX-0070, a message comes back saying "You have reached XXX-0070, (City) DS0, (City) RS0, and (City) RS0." What does this mean, and what is it good for? Another number, XXX-0081, gives me an IMMEDIATE tone, then kills my line (no dial tone, voltage, etc) for about 2 minutes. Can anyone help with the use of this? One that I can identify, the quiet line, has a brother right next door to it. Where the local quiet line is 0078, and gives a short (ten seconds) LOUD tone, then goes quiet, it's neighbor at 0079 gives a long (30 seconds) tone, a one second pause, then another 30 second tone over and over. What is this for? Lastly, when my local area code (215) killed 1+ dialing, they also killed the ANI and Ringback numbers that I knew which were 410-4100 and 610-XXXX respectivly. Now I have found the new ANI (958) but the new ringback eludes me. Is there a number which commonly goes with 958? Any help with these questions would be greatly appreciated. Sean Petty undr!seanp@tredysvr.Tredydev.Unisys.COM ------------------------------ From: haynes@cats.UCSC.EDU (Jim Haynes) Date: Mon, 30 Dec 91 21:00:02 -0800 Subject: Re: White Alice I passed that item along to a friend, Larry Laitinen who used to work for RCA Alascom. Here's his response. From LAITINEN@eshop.uoregon.edu Mon Dec 30 18:02:00 1991 Very interesting on the AK WACS et al. Pacific Power and Light (parent company is PacifiCorp or something like that) is moving their Pacific Telecom AK engineering back to Anchorage from Vancouver, WA. PP&L bought RCA's Alascom back in the 1979-80 time frame and moved the engineering from Anchorage to Vancouver. Most of the USAF AC&W (Aircraft Control & Warning) sites went to the MAR concept (Minimally Attended Radar). The old 1950's AC&W sites typically had 100 to 150 or so people. I think with the MAR upgrade they were able to get away with only six to twelve people or so, mostly civilians. But I don't really know as I left before any of that was implemented. Most of the interior WAC tropo sites had 60 ft billboard antennas while those on the Aleutions between Adak and Shemya had 120 ft billboards with 50 KW transmitters as I recall. The interior sites mostly ran 10KW xmtrs. Some of the small communities were spurs on the WAC network and had PT-80 VHF radios giving them a couple of MTS circuits, often with lots of fading! Nome was one of two RCA sites with a coast telegraphy station operating manual Morse code at the time. The AC&W radar sites typically had search and height finder radars. The search operated in 'L' band around 1300 to 1400 MHz and the height finder radar was up higher, I think about 2500 MHz or so and used a vertical banana peel section of a prarabola antenna. The tropo rigs operated in the 800 MHz spectrum. My favorite places included Lake Iliamna, Sand Point and Indian Mtn. Sand Point is a small fishing village in the Popof Islands where the main street was made up of wooden boards from WW-II. The streams were abundant with fish. Nearby Cold Bay has some of the most awful weather and is also the site of the longest airport runway as it was an Air Force Base (Thornburg?) before being decommisioned and turned over to the state. It was a favorite refueling point for Flying Tigers as it is a shorter route to the Orient than Anchorage. Flying Tigers operated a roadhouse there. The place is covered with WW-II quonset huts and so it was interesting to go check them out and the junk left behind. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Dec 91 0:17:38 EST From: "Dennis G. Rears " Subject: Extra Lines Wanted: Landlord Says No Does anyone know how I can get an extra two lines? I currently have two lines (two pair wiring with a two line enterprise bridge) in an 1000+ unit apartment complex. The complex won't allow TPC to install additional lines into the complex. I tell the TPC (NJ Bell) to just install another two pair wire to my glass sliding door and that will be my demarc. I will supply my own bridge. They say no way; my landlord has to approve. I know it will look shitty but I am willing to absorb all charges, why won't NJ Bell allow me to have another two lines? Dennis [Moderator's Note: If you really fought them on this, you'd probably win in the short term since in most situations telco's easement rights allow them access to the landlord's property provided they do not do something to harm the property or degrade its value, etc, and they are required to provide service to qualified persons (ie those people who exhibit an ability and willingness to pay for the service). But *your* fight with your landlord is another matter. He is not the telco, and he doesn't have to allow additional phone service, etc. So you could have the phones installed and he could evict you, I suppose, or give you a hard time. Did the landlord give any reason *why* they would not permit more lines in the complex? Can you overcome those objections with him, ie paying for required construction, etc? PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Gadgets to Help Take Advantage of Custom Ringing Organization: I.E.C.C. Date: 30 Dec 91 23:41:35 EST (Mon) From: johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) In article is written: > 1. Is there a commercial device that will listen to the first (full) > ring, determine if its the normal ring or custom ring, and then > connect the line to either device A or device B depending on the ring? This should definitely go in the FAQ, it's about the tenth time it has come up. I have an Autoline Plus from ITS Communications in Endicott NY. It has a short modular cord and three jacks for the three devices corresponding to the different ring patterns. There are two DIP switches to adapt to various funky variations on the ring patterns, and a small transformer to provide 9V power. For incoming calls, it listens to the first ring and then connects the appropriate device. It never answers the phone itself. For outgoing calls it acts as an exclusion unit, so only one of the devices can be talking at once. I use it to share a single line among a fax modem, a data modem, and a phone and answering machine. It works like a charm. I paid about $85 for it, although I gather that the price has gone up since I bought it about a year ago. I've heard reports of other similar devices but haven't followed them up since this one is entirely satisfactory. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #1060 *******************************   Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by mintaka.lcs.mit.edu id aa24798; 31 Dec 91 23:01 EST Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA04458 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist-outbound); Tue, 31 Dec 1991 21:04:45 -0600 Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu id AA08445 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for telecomlist); Tue, 31 Dec 1991 21:04:31 -0600 Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1991 21:04:31 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Message-Id: <199201010304.AA08445@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V11 #1061 TELECOM Digest Tue, 31 Dec 91 21:04:27 CST Volume 11 : Issue 1061 Index To This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (H. Peter Anvin) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (Floyd Davidson) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hots (Doctor Math) Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits (system@tel-cen.uucp) Re: Call Return Has Its Problems (Peter da Silva) Re: Massachusetts DPU Ponders ISDN Request (Peter da Silva) How Do I Connect Two Lines Together at Home? (Steve Chafe) "Minimum Charge" for Unsuccessful LD Calls from Bell Canada? (C. Mingo) 900-SPELLIT (Jeffrey Mattox) Gov. Jerry (1-800-Moonbeam) Brown (R. Freeman) Phone Company Humor (Andrew C. Green) That's All, Folks! (TELECOM Moderator) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: hpa@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin) Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Reply-To: hpa@nwu.edu Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1991 07:00:40 GMT In article of comp.dcom.telecom, vk2bea!michael@uunet.uu.net (Michael G. Katzmann) writes: > If it was an English operator it would be: > "A Reverse Charge call for Mrs. Floyd from Mr. Floyd. > Will you accept the charges?" Not necessarily. When I was in England this summer I wanted to call my family in Sweden to tell them I had arrived OK. Seeing only BT-card phones, I decided to call collect. I told the operator I wanted to make a collect call to Sweden 21-XXXXXX, and she asked me for my first name, then called and said (with a strong London accent): "This is Peter calling you collect from England. Will you take this call?" Apparently the term "collect call" goes over there as well. INTERNET: hpa@nwu.edu TALK: hpa@casbah.acns.nwu.edu BITNET: HPA@NUACC HAM RADIO: N9ITP, SM4TKN FIDONET: 1:115/989.4 NeXTMAIL: hpa@lenny.acns.nwu.edu IRC: Xorbon X.400: /BAD=FATAL_ERROR/ERR=LINE_OVERFLOW ------------------------------ From: floyd@hayes.ims.alaska.edu (Floyd Davidson) Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits Organization: University of Alaska Institute of Marine Science Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1991 07:43:42 GMT In article wdp@gagme.chi.il.us (Bill Pfeiffer) writes: > Mojo Nixon had a song last year in which he implored Elvis to call him > at 619-239-KING. When I called, it was usually busy (of course), but > when I did get through, it was an answering machine asking if I was > Elvis, or had seen Elvis. I got a 30 second chance to leave a > message. I don't know if it is still up and running, though. That number does get a recording, though not an answering machine. Ahhhem, an unusual recording too. Floyd L. Davidson floyd@ims.alaska.edu Salcha, Alaska ------------------------------ From: drmath@viking.rn.com (Doctor Math) Date: Tue, 31 Dec 91 13:26:07 EST Organization: Department of Redundancy Department Subject: Re: Telecom's Greatest Hits The Steely Dan album "Pretzel Logic" (1974) includes the song "Rikki Don't Lose That Number", the chorus of which is: Rikki don't lose that number You don't wanna call nobody else Send it off in a letter To yourself ... Rikki don't lose that number It's the only one you want You might use it if you feel better When you get home ... Does anyone else here think it might be a fun idea to gather all these Great Telecom Hits of Yesteryear and produce a compilation tape/CD? Getting all required permission from the respective parties, of course. I'd certainly buy a copy ... ------------------------------ Subject: Telecom's Greatest Hits From: system%tel-cen.UUCP@nosc.mil (System Operator) Date: Tue, 31 Dec 91 16:12:59 PST Organization: Telecommunications Central, San Diego CA wdp@gagme.chi.il.us (Bill Pfeiffer) writes: > Mojo Nixon had a song last year in which he implored Elvis to call him > at 619-239-KING. When I called, it was usually busy (of course), but > when I did get through, it was an answering machine asking if I was > Elvis, or had seen Elvis. I got a 30 second chance to leave a > message. I don't know if it is still up and running, though. It is. Mojo has been running that for quite a while now. I just called today, and he's singing holiday jingles ... :) system@tel-cen.UUCP (System Operator) Telecommunications Central San Diego, CA. ------------------------------ From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (peter da silva) Subject: Re: Call Return Has Its Problems Organization: Ferranti International Controls Corporation Date: Tue, 31 Dec 91 17:54:36 GMT > [Moderator's Note: I'm not as dumb as I look, Tony. A call at midnight > with a two year old child on the other end saying 'da da da' then a > voice in the background screaming 'hang up the phone and get back in > bed you little 'bas---d' followed by a receiver going on hook most > likely did not originate from the Widget Corporation's PBX. PAT] Why did you return call such a number? You know what the cause was, and it's unlikely that a return call would do much good. Or did you just feel like harassing someone who was already aware of the problem and acted to resolve it? Peter da Silva Ferranti International Controls Corporation Sugar Land, TX 77487-5012; +1 713 274 5180 [Moderator's Note: It was not a question of harrassment. I thought it proper that the mother, or babysitter or whoever at least take the receiver and listen to see if someone was on the line, and if so, two things might have been in order: (1) She might say she was sorry the little bas---d, uh, I mean the little tyke had caused a disturbance. (2) She might have asked my approximate location, to see if there was going to be a long distance -- or even international! -- call on her bill. Instead, if she gets a long distance charge on the bill, she will naturally call telco and deny making the call and accuse telco of making an error. From what I could understand of the little bugger's speech, I think he was trying to call Santa Claus. PAT] ------------------------------ From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (peter da silva) Subject: Re: Massachusetts DPU Ponders ISDN Request Organization: Ferranti International Controls Corporation Date: Tue, 31 Dec 91 18:03:57 GMT > New England Telephone has proposed a $35 installation fee and a > monthly fee of $8 a month for the basic 960-character-per-second > residential service. Users would also have to pay a fee each time they > accessed the network, and there would be far higher charges to use a > faster data system and other features of the network. In other words, you'd have to pay a premium to actually use *less* bandwidth on the phone system (that is, a 2400 baud POTS call uses a 64 KB channel or a dedicated line (in the local area), where a 9600 baud ISDN connection only uses a 9.6 KB channel. Sounds like Touch Tone fees all over again. > The phone company also notes that ISDN data converters > cost $700 or more and are incompatible with existing answering > machines and other phones. The network has to be in place for the economy of scale to exist for cheap convertors. There is no reason an ISDN convertor should cost any more than a 2400 baud modem (currently, about $70 external) given the existing chip sets and reasonable FAB run sizes. > And it argued that its ISDN service would not be a monopoly > because other companies already provide similar services, such as > high-speed data links. Since they're not allowed to deliver digital dialtone to your home, that's pretty much irrelevant. Peter da Silva Ferranti International Controls Corporation Sugar Land, TX 77487-5012; +1 713 274 5180 ------------------------------ From: chafe@ucdavis.edu (Steve Chafe) Subject: How Do I Connect Two Lines Together at Home? Date: 31 Dec 91 21:54:20 GMT Reply-To: chafe@ucdavis.edu (Steve Chafe) Organization: University of California, Davis Does anyone know how to connect two phone lines together so that I can make a three way conversation using the two lines I have? Is there a circuit I could build that would allow me to do this? I want to be able to dial up one person, then add in the second line so that we both can hear the dial tone, and then once I dial, all three of us should be able to converse. Anyone who has done this or who knows a good book that might show how to do this, I would very much like to hear from you. Thanks, Steve Chafe chafe@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu ------------------------------ From: Charlie.Mingo@p0.f70.n109.z1.FidoNet.Org (Charlie Mingo) Date: 31 Dec 91 15:27:40 Subject: "Minimum Charge" for Unsuccessful LD Calls from Bell Canada? My sister who lives in Toronto believes that Bell Canada has begun charging tolls for incomplete call attempts (busy or no answer), as numerous one minute charges have been appearing on her bill after no call was completed. Several of the one minute tolls are marked "minimum charge" which suggests that Bell knows they didn't complete. (The calls are from Toronto to Ottawa, Kingston and Halifax.) I had thought that any "legitimate" LD company would look for answer supervision before starting the clock, and that such practices were confined to sleazy AOS's. Does anyone know if Bell Canada has started doing things like this? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Dec 91 17:07:36 CST From: jeff.mattox%heurikon.UUCP@cs.wisc.edu (Jeffrey Mattox) Subject: 900-SPELLIT WGN television (Chicago) has been running a late-night advertisement for a spelling contest via telephone. If you call 900-SPELLIT, you are asked to spell out words on your telephone keypad. An example word is "CASH". The fine print says: $1.95 per minute, average call 5 minutes. The quickly-spoken rules say: Spell 21 words correctly in 2 minutes and win $200.00 instantly! More fine print says: $5,000.00 grand prize awarded to the best response (most correct words in least amount of time). Contest runs from 9/1/91 through 12/31/91. Because it's so hard to type words on a telephone pad, I think the only way to spell 21 words in 120 seconds (that's only 5.7 seconds per word, including overhead) would be to have a computer do the "dialing." That is, instead of typing the word on your telephone, type it on a computer keyboard and have the computer spit out the correct tones. The computer could spell-check the word along the way. If I had the right software and interface hardware, I'd go after the $200.00 and probably be on top for the grand prize. Has anybody else heard of this 900 number and/or tried it (manually or with a computer)? Keep your eyes open -- maybe they'll run the contest again. Jeff ------------------------------ Subject: Gov. Jerry (1-800-Moonbeam) Brown Date: Mon, 30 Dec 91 17:59:20 CST From: rfreeman After reading the following I decided to have my name legally changed to either 1-800-America or 1-900-Freedom and then promote it like Billy Blue Blazes. Which do you think would rake in the most cash? Campaign Trail Roundup: Brown, Wilder, Duke Brown's 800 line brings in cash ... he may have been the brunt of jokes for hawking an 800 telephone line, but Democratic presidential candidate Jerry Brown is laughing all the way to the bank. The former California governor, once nicknamed "Governor Moonbeam" for his penchant for off-beat causes, is relying heavily on the toll-free telephone line to solicit campaign contributions. Charging that big money controls politics, Brown has pledged to accept no donation larger than $100. Brown is turning away contributions from political action committees that represent businesses and unions. Much to the consternation of his opponents, Brown unabashedly recites the telephone number at campaign appearances, including a recent nationally televised debate. But Jodie Evans, Brown's campaign manager, says the toll-free number has generated about $600,000 in pledges and $200,000 in contributions. Evans says the average contribution is about $60. Brown has raised about $500,000 so far. The tactic hasn't stopped the jabs, however. A spokesman for Sen Tom Harkin of Iowa, another Democratic candidate, has compared Brown's fund-raising to "televangelism," and a newspaper columnist jested that the number was "1-800-MOONMAN." Brown expressed anger at such criticism. "It is ironic that media outlets are attempting to censor a presidential campaign that seeks to reach beyond the small elite that now bankrolls national politics," Brown told the Orange County Register. "My 800 number is no gimmick." ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1991 15:48:39 CST From: acg@HERMES.DLOGICS.COM Reply-To: acg@hermes.dlogics.com Subject: Phone Company Humor Our Moderator writes: > Well, fellas and girls, have we finally gotten this out of our system? > Gawd, I hope so! Enuff already! "Greatest Hits" has been one of the > more popular threads here in the Digest this past year, for sure. What > do you suppose 1992 will bring to the forum? Well, as I type this, it's only New Year's Eve, but I'm submitting this as a new topic for 1992. "Phone Company Humor" is NOT an oxymoron; the (previously) monolithic phone company does have human beings working for it, after all, and it looks like we could all use a break from the sturm und drang ... two stories come to my mind. Back in the late '60's someone gave me a phone book which I think came from Houston, Galveston or Corpus Christi -- somewhere in Texas, anyway. The cover of the White Pages phone book was strictly routine, an artist's drawing of an aerial view of the city, and the book simply credited the artist on an inside page without further comment. Anyway, as time went by, people began to notice that if you squinted closely at the drawing, you could see some very strange things going on: a horse and buggy going down the middle of a major highway; a Spanish galleon sitting in the middle of the harbor; a couple of early explorers in canoes going up the river; and so on. I lost the illustration years ago, but I remember that some things in the drawing were pretty bizarre, and rumor had it at the time that no one at the printers' had noticed any of it until the books hit the street. When I was studying, more or less, at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, in the late 1970's, I came across a strange entry in the White Pages when looking up a friend's number. It read something like "PHONE COMPANY, THE", and proceeded to list some of their main numbers. It was NOT a simple cross-reference like "See Indiana Bell Telephone Company"; someone had very patiently keyed in the entire entry. Thinking I was on to something here, I started looking around. Sure enough, I found more full listings under "TELEPHONE COMPANY, THE", "BELL TELEPHONE", "THE PHONE COMPANY", "THE TELEPHONE COMPANY", and the wonderfully inspired "FONE COMPANY, THE". I guess someone at the keyboard must have been getting a little punchy that day. Well, that's all I can come up with at the moment. Gee, I wonder if there might be any other stories out there! :-) Andrew C. Green (312) 266-4431 Datalogics, Inc. Internet: acg@dlogics.com 441 W. Huron UUCP: ..!uunet!dlogics!acg Chicago, IL 60610 FAX: (312) 266-4473 [Moderator's Note: Apparently we did not get it all out of our systems since I got a few more today which are the first articles in this, the final issue for 1991. For many years (maybe still) the Chicago phone book had an alphabetical entry for 'America' which it cross referenced to 'see US Government listings in front pages of directory'. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1991 20:56:34 -0600 From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: That's All, Folks! And there you have it ... 1061 big issues of TELECOM Digest, wrapping up another year. The next time you hear from me, the masthead will say Volume 12. The subject and author index for Volumes 9-10-11 will up updated over the holiday with the final issues of this volume, so you may wish to pick up a copy from the archives Thursday. Are you making any New Year's resolutions? A poem by Rudyard Kipling might be a good outline to use, and perhaps it will help sustain you during the year to come: If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired of waiting, Of being lied about, don't deal in lies, Of being hated, don't give way to hating ... Adios! PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V11 #1061 *******************************