Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa06441; 26 May 94 14:59 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA27470; Thu, 26 May 94 11:01:56 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA27461; Thu, 26 May 94 11:01:54 CDT Date: Thu, 26 May 94 11:01:54 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9405261601.AA27461@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #251 TELECOM Digest Thu, 26 May 94 11:01:30 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 251 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Can a Unix Box Work as an Internet Router? (Carol Gwilt) Re: GSM "Short Messages"==Pager? (Paul Hulbert) Re: No 911 Available as Tot Drowns (Steven Grevemeyer) Re: What Kind of Capacity is in VBI? (John Lundgren) Re: Pac-Tel (PC) Communication Software (Rob Lockhart) Re: Need Information on Complete PC (dolphinqst@delphi.com) Re: 800 number Billback (Smut) (castaldi@heroes.rowan.edu) Re: 800 Number Billback (Joseph Romero) Re: Cordless Phone Wanted With Ten Mile Range (William Sohl) Re: Speech Recognition "Word Spotting" (Al Varney) Re: Need Criteria for Choosing a Phone Number (Randy Gellens) Re: Long Range "Cordless" telephones (Scott D. Fybush) Re: DID Loophole or I'm Screwed up? (Paul Robinson) Re: "Erlang" the Programming Language (Jan van der Meer) Re: FAX Mailbox Services (Clarence Dold) Re: Hackers On Planet Earth Newsgroups (Carl Moore) Re: Hackers On Planet Earth Newsgroups (John Slater) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: cgwilt@vanbc.wimsey.com (Carol Gwilt) Subject: Re: Can a Unix Box Work as an Internet Router? Date: 25 May 1994 22:35:48 -0700 Organization: Wimsey Information Services xxmcleis@indsvax1.indstate.edu writes: > internet. Of course, we have very little money, but do have a few > computers. So the question is, can a computer (ie Unix) function as an > Internet router, or must we buy one of these routers like CISCO or > WellFleet? The answer is *mostly* yes. Most Unix distrib's come with all you need to set up some pretty elaborate routing on the host itself. The reason I say "mostly" is because you can usually find some extra goodies on a router that was built to be a router. All of the WAN protocols (and possibly some of the LAN protocols) might not be available on your brand of Unix -- ask your Unix vendor, or tell us what flavor Unix you have. >If so, what's the *cheapest* router available? CISCO routers have dropped in price substantially, but you pay for the WAN and LAN protocols that you need -- so, if you have a mix of protocols, you're still going to pay a pretty penny. A company called Cabletron has a program called GAN (good-as-new) and sells CISCO routers on this program (which I understand to mean that the equipment is "used"). ACC has some good mid-range routers/bridges that rival competitive high-end equipment. I've recently seen at least two reviews of *cheap* routers -- if you want really CHEAP, email me and I'll weed through my mountain of mags to find the manufacturers for you. If Cabletron and/or ACC aren't in your phone book, let me know -- I've got the numbers at my office. > Can a Unix box connect to a digital comm line (56k)? Normally you communicate on a high-speed serial port to a digital modem. You need a serial port that is capable of 56k -- but these are generally available. Good Luck!!! cgwilt@wimsey.com ------------------------------ From: hulbert@hasler.ascom.ch (Paul Hulbert) Subject: Re: GSM "Short Messages"==Pager? Organization: Ascom Hasler AG, Berne, Switzerland Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 06:59:45 GMT In article 6@eecs.nwu.edu, ketheesa@enws204.eas.asu.edu (K. Ketheesan) writes: > In article 3@eecs.nwu.edu, gregalex@cybernet.cse.fau.edu (Greg > Alexander) writes: >> Is it a pager -- or a digital message that appears when your phone is >> in range? My interest is because I will often be in No service areas >> (eg Asia Pacific -- Thailand, and non city areas of Australia). If its >> a pager -- cool, I will still be contactable. If it relies on being in >> the area -- good too (I will NEVER miss the message). > My understanding is that in order to deliver SMS messages in GSM, signaling > connection has to be established (if one is not already existing). So > that implies that when you are outside the coverage area, you will not > be able to send or receive SMS messages. But it is very important to add that if you are out of range when the message is sent to you you will still be able to receive it the next time your mobile makes radio contact with the network. Paul Hulbert ------------------------------ From: grevemes@VTC.TACOM.Army.Mil (Steven Grevemeyer) Subject: Re: No 911 Available as Tot Drowns Date: 25 May 1994 16:44:36 -0400 Organization: Vetronics Technology Center,US Army TACOM,Warren, Michigan USA Hmm. I wonder why they just didn't dial "0" for the operator and have the operator connect them? I have always used the operator as a fall back position in case the emergency system didn't work. (If the operator goes away chances are so did the rest of the phone system ...) Steven E. Grevemeyer Phone: (810)574-5106 FAX: -5008 US Army TACOM/Software Enginnering Division (AMSTA-OS) Vetronics Technology Center Warren, MI 48397-5000 Email: grevemes@vtc.tacom.army.mil ------------------------------ From: jlundgre@ohlone.kn.PacBell.COM (John Lundgren) Subject: Re: What Kind of Capacity is in VBI? Date: 26 May 94 00:15:52 GMT Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network Paul Robinson (PAUL@TDR.COM) wrote: > A question I have is, for a U.S. signal, which I believe the Vertical > Blanking Interval also exists, how much capacity is available on a > single TV channel and at what speed can the data be sent? Is this > related to closed captioning? If not, what type equipment is needed > to decode VBI data and what kind of costs are involved to build it? Well, the line is (for the U.S.), occurring at 30 times a second, and there are a couple hundred dots. Maybe about 3K baud, I would say. Of course there would be other stuff like error correcting and such. ------------------------------ From: rlockhart@aol.com (RLockhart) Subject: Re: Pac-Tel (PC) Communication Software Date: 26 May 1994 06:11:03 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) In article , przebien@news.delphi.com (PRZEBIENDA@DELPHI.COM) writes: > We had a home grown telecommunication package that allowed us to send > alphanumeric messages to our PAC-TEL pagers. We are interested in > updating the softwaree. We are interested in reasonably priced > commercial software or in the protocol specs of the 800 number we > communicate with the old package. Seems you've received some good advice on this, but let's take it one or two steps further ... I produce Motorola's Third Party Referral Guide to Alpha and Data Paging -- a freebie we give away at various shows and elsewhere. The Guide is updated on a quarterly basis and covers everything I know to be commercially available in the alpha and data paging sending and receiving software marketplace (both generic, app enablers/APIs, and vertical market apps) for DOS, Windows, OS/2, Macs, AS/400s, UNIX, Mainframes, Atari Portfolios and HP100s. It's organized by platform, application type, and manufacturers/publishers and also covers some of the information service providers available for use on most paging services. The 04 March 94 edition of the Guide is available on some of the commercial services (e.g. CIS, AOL, AppleLink) as a Stuffed MacWord file or may be obtained on paper via our NewsStream/NewsCard hotline. (BTW, it lists contact information for some of the apps listed in the other responses to your request.) You also asked 'bout the protocol used by Pac*Tel -- now AirTouch, BTW. The protocol used is called TAP (Telocator Alpha Paging. PET and IXO are different (older) names for the same industry-standard alpha paging) protocol. The only formal source for this spec is PCIA (Personal Communications Industry Association, formerly Telocator) in Washington, DC, at 202.467.4770. If, however, you'd like to look at the more commonly used portions of TAP, I've a thread (culled from a now-out-of-print programmer's guide we used to publish that Telocator used to form the basis of TAP) I can send you that covers these. More than you *ev*er wanted to know, right? <- big toothie grin. Rob Lockhart, Resource Manager, Interactive Data Systems Paging Products Group, Motorola, Inc. Desktop I'net: lockhart-epag06_rob@email.mot.com Wireless I'net (<32K characters): rob_lockhart-erl003e@email.mot.com Wireless I'net (< 1K characters): rob.lockhart@radiomail.net ------------------------------ From: dolphinqst@delphi.com Subject: Re: Need Information on Complete PC Date: Wed, 26 May 94 20:49:04 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Almost every computer corner store that you walk into carries the Complete PC line of voicemail hardware; just give them a call. ------------------------------ From: castaldi@heroes.rowan.edu Subject: Re: 800 Number Billback (Smut) Organization: Rowan College of New Jersey, Glassboro, NJ 08028 Date: Wed, 25 May 1994 23:00:51 GMT I went through the game of blocking my numbers, calling the carriers ordering toll billing exception and none of it works. I have heard that since March 9 you can restrict your billing info on non-published numbers, but it doesn't work either. Now I have an idea ... I recently tries to dial a smut number from a private pay phone and guess what? I got a recording that I should try another phone. (This came from the sleeze provider). Can I order private pay phone trunks and terminate them in my switch and route my 800 calls over it? Would this be legal? I am getting $1500.00 a month worth of these calls placed by students in a college dorm. They are getting the majority of these numbers from {Rolling Stone Magazine}. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What you term 'private payphone trunks' are just normal coin service lines from the central office provided the COCOT is correctly registered in telco's records. And no, telco won't give you coin lines to terminate on a PBX. They expect a phone with a coin box to be attached on that line (yours or theirs, no matter, but that kind of an instrument). I assume -- correct me if I am wrong -- that you have been successful in blocking 900 numbers. I assume, if you allow long distance calls in general from student dorm phones, that you have some method of requiring a PIN or access number that identifies *which* student and *which* phone made the call. If you do, why not simply require this PIN to be used on 800 calls as well? Also, you say billed number screening does not work, but maybe you have not gotten on enough databases yet or tried it long enough. In addtition to telling your local telco (which gets your number on the database used by telco, AT&T, Sprint, and MCI) you need to tell a couple of the other carriers directly. They'll add your numbers to their list also. Telling two or three of the other carriers, especially the ones which specialize in doing billing for the sex services, will get rid of 90 percent or more of those charges. Add to that requiring PINS on outgoing 'long distance' calls -- even 800 numbers -- for the purpose of identifying who made what calls, and your trouble should be greatly reduced if not eliminated entirely. PAT] ------------------------------ From: 1JCR7732@ibm.mtsac.edu Subject: Re: 800 Number Billback Date: Wed, 25 May 94 22:03:31 PDT Organization: Mt. San Antonio College In article steven@sgb.oau.org (Steven Bradley) writes: > Call the service as much as you want and as often as you can from PAY > PHONES and see how easily they (don't) get their money then! > Since pay phones permit 800 number calls without charge and the phone > companies see fit to permit them to go through since they are free, > there is no reason to prevent it passing. But alas ... some pay phones DO block 800 numbers. Joseph Romero 1jcr7732@ibm.mtsac.edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But legally they are not supposed to. Genuine Bells never block 800, and the COCOTS are slowing learning they cannot legally do it either. PAT] ------------------------------ From: whs70@cc.bellcore.com (sohl,william h) Subject: Re: Cordless Phone Wanted With Ten Mile Range Date: 25 May 1994 11:40:09 -0400 Organization: Bell Communications Research (Bellcore) In article , Guorong Roger wrote: > Is there any kind of CORDLESS PHONE which can be used for ten to > twenty miles distance (not a cellular phone, not the regular cordless > phone which can only be used within the house). The telephone should > still use the regular telephone switching system. The master piece of > the phone should be installed at home, and the handset could be bring > ten to twenty miles away from the home but be still access the phone > at home. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There are, but they are not legal for use > in the USA. About the closest you can come to this legally in the USA is > to use a manual phone patch attached to a CB radio or some other type of > legal radio service. CB description deleted for brevity ... > Now, if you use radios equipped for 144 megs -- what is known among > hams as 'two meters' -- then repeater sites equipped with telephone > patches are quite common. They usually belong to a local club whose > members jointly maintain the cost of the repeater site and phone line, > etc. A license is required from the FCC to operate a two meter radio, It is probably worth noting too, that the license requires passing a test on FCC regulations, elements of radio theory and safety. Additionally, the "phone patch" via an amateur radio repeater is only operated on an "originating call" basis. That is, a call from the person with the radio is the only way a call can be made. There is no provision (nor is it allowed by FCC rules) for a call to be made by someone (a non-ham) to the repeater phone patch line in an effort to contact someone via the radio (repeater) connection. > If you've got the money, you might consider setting up a little two > meter arrangement of your own with a private phone line attached, etc. While that is possible, it can only be done legally within the constraints of the FCC regulations as per my comments above. Additionally, there is a frequency coordination process that must be followed to obtain a fixed set of assigned two meter frequencies to establish a permanent repeater which is the only way this could be done and still be legal on the amateur two meter band. If you have any additional questions on this please ask. Cheers, Bill Sohl (K2UNK) BELLCORE (Bell Communications Research, Inc.) Morristown, NJ email via UUCP bcr!cc!whs70 201-829-2879 Weekdays email via Internet whs70@cc.bellcore.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 May 94 10:47:11 CDT From: varney@uscbu.ih.att.com Subject: Re: Speech Recognition "Word Spotting" In article pbflower@uts.EDU.AU wrote: > I'm looking for info on Word Spotting. Any info on developing a HMM to > do this would be much appreciated. Please mail information or names of > books, papers etc. that will do this. (It's in the mail.) November, 1993 issue of IEEE Communications Magazine contains an article by Roe & Wilpon called "Whither Speech Recognition: The Next 25 Years". HMMs are discussed -- 21 references are given, including Wilpon's "Automatic Recognition of Keywords in Unconstrained Speech Using Hidden Markov Models", from the Nov. 1990 IEEE Transactions on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ASSP). The Transactions and the companion Proceedings of IEEE International Conferences on ASSP are key to understanding the technology, and for finding people involved in it. Al Varney ------------------------------ From: RANDY@MPA15AB.mv-oc.Unisys.COM Date: 25 MAY 94 23:06:00 GMT Subject: Re: Need Criteria for Choosing a Phone Number ross@ncd.com (Ross Oliver) writes: > I personally dislike lettered phone numbers. I don't like having to > translate on the telephone keypad, and it makes modem dialing VERY > difficult (1-800-CHK-DUAT for example). I also dislike lettered numbers. I notice some ads list both forms. Also, the Convergent Technologies Voice Module (which is a fun thing to play with, having two phone line jacks, a phone set jack, a modem, a CODEC, and an analog cross-point switch) comes with driver software that, among other nifty things, lets you enter a dial string as digits or letters. (Since this means A, B, C, and D now mean 2 or 3, the extra DTMF digits A-D are dialed with a ! first). I wish standard modems had this feature. Randall Gellens randy@mv-oc.unisys.com (714) 380-6350 fax (714) 380-5912 Mail Stop MV 237 Net**2 656-6350 ------------------------------ From: fybush@world.std.com (Scott D Fybush) Subject: Re: Long Range "Cordless" telephones Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 00:59:10 GMT Al Cohan <0004526627/{s7@mcimail.com> writes: > Pat, someone recently asked about long range (ten to twenty mile) > "cordless" telephones -- not cellular. Yes, there are several illegal > high power full duplex cordless phones, but there are also rural > systems that are perfectly legal. [deletia] > Maybe Scott Fybush will jump on this thread and tell us how it worked > when he attended Deep Springs College here in CA. I actually saw and > heard their unit in a radio shop in Bishop, CA where the telco line > was connected. Didn't sound bad, but has now been replaced with > cellular. It has? That must be costing an arm and a leg! When I was there (six years ago already), the setup worked like this: At the Deep Springs end, a small (24 student) private college in an isolated desert mountain valley, we had a Panasonic KX-T616, set up with the full complement of 16 extensions, but with just the one incoming phone line. That line came in over a business-band radio system that operated, if memory serves, on 461.XXX/466.XXX (I'm not concealing; I just don't remember!) There was a small vertically- polarized yagi on the roof of the school, aimed up at Silver Peak in the White Mountains. A repeater up there bounced the signal down to that radio shop in Bishop. That was where Contel terminated 619-872- 2000. At the Deep Springs end, the transceiver box in the radio closet presented a standard RJ-11 to the KX-T616. From our end, it was essentially transparent: when we picked up the line at Deep Springs, the transceiver would send the appropriate signals to Bishop, the actual Contel line would be picked up at that end, and we'd dial just like normal. Audio quality? Well ... let's just say it was better than the ancient Contel wireline over the mountains, the old "Deep Springs Toll Station #2" that was pulled out circa 1986-1987. And of course you could direct dial into and out of the valley with the radio system. But the system was being pushed a bit beyond its capacity ... some 12 miles from Bishop up to Silver Peak and about 15 or so from Silver Peak back down to Deep Springs. There was a lot of audio fading ... a lot of noise whenever there were storms, and if that antenna were to be knocked ever so slightly off-beam, well ... forget about the phone! :-) When I left Deep Springs in June 1989, there was still no cell service in the valley, or in Bishop for that matter. I'd like to know more about the cell system they have in place now ... especially how Deep Springs justifies the cost of cellular usage. (When I was there, the 40 or so people living in the valley kept that one radio line humming almost 24 hours a day, and since the college had absorbed the initial cost of the equipment, we paid only the normal telco LD charges for our own personal calls!) Scott Fybush - Deep Springs '88 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 05:24:12 EDT From: Paul Robinson Reply-To: Paul Robinson Subject: Re: DID Loophole or I'm Screwed up? Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA >> Per FCC Part 68 and TELCo tariffs, anything other than audible >> ring and busy tone (with some exceptions) is "meaningful" -- and >> the call must be supervised (answered). > I thought it was OK for a PBX to issue an intercept without > returning supervision. For example, "The extension you dialed > does not exist. Please call xyx-xxyy for assistance." Do these > messages have to be supervised? My office has Centrex service. As lines are not used, they return exactly that type of message, referring people to our main switchboard. I would assume that it is permitted to provide an unsupervised announcement since I believe the message does not supervise. And I doubt that even the telephone company can provide a class of service that violates an FCC regulation. Or perhaps Telco Centrex is not subject to the same rules as PBX service. ------------------------------ From: etmjvdm@angstrom.ericsson.se (Jan van der Meer) Subject: Re: "Erlang" the Programming Language Date: 26 May 1994 11:33:10 GMT Organization: Ericsson Telecom bv, Rijen, the Netherlands Hi, I am using Erlang for a couple of years now. There is more information available by anonymous ftp: euagate.eua.ericsson.se, start looking in file: /pub/eua/erlang/info/INDEX. The ISBN number of the book is: ISBN 0-13-285792-8 They classify Erlang as follows - Classification: Concurrent functional programming language for large industrial real-time systems. Untyped. Pattern matching syntax. Recursion equations. Explicit concurrency, asynchronous message passing. Relatively free from side effects. Transparent cross-platform distribution. Primitives for detecting run-time errors. Real-time GC. Modules. Dynamic code replacement (change code in running real-time system, without stopping system). Foreign language interface. Availability: Free version (subject to non-commercial licence) with no support. Commercial versions with support are available (Erlang Systems AB). Hope this helps you, Jan van der Meer Research Manager, Intelligent Networks Application Lab Ericsson Telecom, Rijen, the Netherlands ------------------------------ From: dold@rahul.net (Clarence Dold) Subject: Re: FAX Mailbox Services Organization: a2i network Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 05:48:57 GMT Jack Bzoza (JackB@delrina.com) wrote: > Clarence Gold wrote: Hmm, how much effort was it to misspell my name in the quote? Jack and I hashed out his slightly inflated claims via email. I think WinFax 4.0 is a wonderful product. I use it to retrieve my FaxMail from my system at work, which happens to be an AudioFax. This is done on a turnaround line, which Jack implies is my imagination. In order to retrieve my fax, I do need to key some touchtones. I might be able to accomplish this via a clever dialing strings, with empirically determined commas for delays, but I use a telephone. If you can use WinFax 4.0 to retrieve faxes without the need for touchtones, then it is an advance in program technology. My other point, that requiring a step backwards from Class 2 to Class 1 faxmodems seemed odd, was also lost on Jack. Perhaps everyone has the CPU power to drive Class 1 faxmodems, and Class 2 is a waste of time. I certainly hope Jack isn't in Tech Support. Clarence A Dold - dold@rahul.net - Milpitas (near San Jose) & Napa CA. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 May 94 04:17:35 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: Hackers On Planet Earth Newsgroups And of course there is the song (from the "big band era") PEnnsylvania 6-5000. ------------------------------ From: johns@scroff.UK (John Slater) Subject: Re: Hackers On Planet Earth Newsgroups Date: 24 May 1994 15:43:02 GMT Organization: Sun Microsystems (UK) Reply-To: johns@scroff.UK > it and used that number as part of the movie's theme. Then of course > there was the campy Dracula movie a few years ago which used a take-off > on the same thing with the number TRansylvania 6-5000. PAT] Then, of course, there was the Sesame Street version with Count von Count singing a song called "Transylvania 1-2-3-4-5". And no, I am not making this up. I saw it. John [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I know you are not making it up. Sesame Street is on television here every day; my nephew watches it. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #251 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa07185; 26 May 94 16:12 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA01525; Thu, 26 May 94 12:18:03 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA01516; Thu, 26 May 94 12:18:01 CDT Date: Thu, 26 May 94 12:18:01 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9405261718.AA01516@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #252 TELECOM Digest Thu, 26 May 94 12:18:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 252 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Eleven Montrealers Arrested in Telephone Fraud (Peter M. Weiss) Book Review: "Riding the Internet Highway" by Fisher (Rob Slade) Message Waiting Problem on OPX in CA (Barton F. Bruce) Nice Job, if You Can Get it! (Gerry Brown) Tellabs Information Request (Leroy Casterline) Flames For ISD? (Joe Jarrett) Looking for FEC Decoder (Harry Smith) What's a 1A3B? (Stan Schwartz) SIGNIDR V Preliminary Meeting Announcement (Manette B. Lazear) Paper on International Callbacks (Douglas Mckeen) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 05:36:37 EDT From: "Peter M. Weiss" Subject: Eleven Montrealers Arrested in Telephone Fraud Organization: Penn State University Original received From: Melvin Klassen A Canadian Press story: MONTREAL - Eleven people have been arrested in connection with an alleged scheme to defraud the phone systems of British Columbia, Alberta, and Edmonton of about $700,000. RCMP said the operation was run out of Montreal -- the eleven arrested are all Montrealers -- and it offered illegal cut-rate long-distance telephone service to overseas clients. Once a client got interested, an agent would contact a cohort in Edmonton, who could reroute the call anywhere in the world. The client had no indication that it wa an illegal operation. RCMP Corporal Dominique Delage said the mechanism used for conference- calls make long-distance fraud easy for people who charge the calls to companies that exist only on paper. Four men were arrested April 19 in Edmonton, and charged with theft, fraud, and conspiracy. The seven people arrested Thursday in Montreal were released, but are to be charged soon. ----------------- Mel's subtitle: "RCMP reach out and touch someone" :-) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: RCMP = Royal Canadian Mounted Police, essentially the Canadian federal police force and equivilent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the USA. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 14:42:28 MDT From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Riding the Internet Highway" by Fisher BKRIDINT.RVW 940204 New Riders Publishing 201 W. 103rd Street Indianapolis, IN 46290 phyllis@prenhall.com 70621.2737@CompuServe.COM Alan Apt Beth Mullen-Hespe beth_hespe@prenhall.com "Riding the Internet Highway", Fisher, 1993, 1-56205-192-X, U$16.95/C$21.95 slf@netcom.com Fisher shows admirable restraint in limiting the scope of this book. Where others try to produce "complete" documentation for the "whole" Internet, Fisher flatly states (correctly) that this is impossible. Where others try to take you "from the modem up," Fisher suggests you get some basic experience with local bulletin boards. The intent is to give desktop (PC and Mac) users some basic grounding in Internet functions and tools. As such, the book is much less imposing than most of the others of this ilk. (Cheaper, too.) The emphasis on the micro computer is followed through in the material covered. Like a number of other guides, some very basic UNIX background is given. It is clear, though, that the expectation is that the UNIX box is not on your desk, but a remote system on which you have an account. When discussing ftp, readers are reminded that they still need to download from the local host to their own desktop. Although I appreciate the limitation of the information contained herein, at times things are kept just slightly too terse. The very important tip about not sending subscription and signoff requests to the mailing list, itself, is here but the material isn't completely explicit about what *is* the correct procedure. Readers are told that ftp.misc.sri.com has a list of mailing lists; they aren't told the file name or directory. (Ironically, thirty-three pages later an ftp screen is used from that very directory -- although it doesn't list the interest-groups file.) One other regrettable shortcoming is the limited discussion of mail servers. Although Fisher obviously feels local service providers are the answer, for many users online commercial service vendors may be the only realistic answer, and these are often limited to email access. Some topics may appear fragmented, since the book is organized by application rather than function. Finger and whois are discussed under "Finding Information" rather than under email. Fisher's discussion of the distinctives of Usenet is very good -- but news *could* be discussed alongside mailing lists. For the majority of new users, however, this is a good, basic introduction. What shortcomings there are in specific information can be quickly filled in once a user has gotten onto the net. The very personal style here probably more than makes up for any other lacks -- the Internet is primarily other people, not technologies. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKRIDINT.RVW 940204. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated newsgroups/mailing lists. Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca Institute for Robert_Slade@sfu.ca Research into rslade@cue.bc.ca User p1@CyberStore.ca Security Canada V7K 2G6 ------------------------------ From: Barton.Bruce@camb.com Subject: Message Waiting Problem on OPX in CA Organization: Digital Equipment Computer Users Society Date: 25 May 94 23:30:09 -0400 A site in CA has a problem getting the message waiting lamp to light at an off premise location three miles away. I am in Mass and so can only guess what is happening and have suggested some tests that may help pinpoint what is happening, but any help is most welcome. The PBX is a big Fugitsu with an OPX station card using 48VDC for talk battery, so loop supervision over that range should be no problem. The message waiting lamp signal is on the station line where it leaves the PBX site, but does not light the lamp at the remote station. The phone at the remote site does have the lamp flash during ringing, so it seems to be a working traditional neon lamp across T and R. I am assuming that PACBEL is running the line through something akin to a traditional dial-long-line (DLL) unit that lets them reinsert talk battery and is really necessary when working any distance from a PBX with 24VDC station battery. PACBEL probably just does this on all OPX lines to 'protect' themselves. This is all in the same town (Sebastopol). I am assuming that at that distance they are NOT doing a full four wire transmission system with FXO and FXS ends which could extend the station to any place even thousands of miles away. Any such equipment will immediately eliminate the message waiting signal. I am also assuming that breaking the loop at the PBX or reversing T and R there will propably not result in any differance in the on hook open circuit voltage seen at the station end -- further proving there is a DLL unit or equiv in between. Is there an alternate service that can be ordered that is just copper wires that PACBELL officially tolerates OPX stations on? USOC code or other incantation for it? Does one have to resort to ordering LADD type copper lines for 'short-haul' line driver modems and then using them otherwise? Are such copper only circuits readily available in CA? Is a four wire version only a tad more or is it exactly twice. i.e. could a second such circuit be ordered for peanuts more since only a single pair is really needed. Does PACBELL put those "RUDE" protectors/filters on LADD circuits that preclude DDS (or even faster:-) ) 'abuse' and that also preclude normal station battery let alone superimposed ringing and message waiting battery? There are plenty of 'cute' ways to repeat the message waiting signal given enough $s and possibly another circuit in parallel, but what is needed here is the right magic incantation to get an appropriate circuit from them that lets the message waiting light on the OPX line work the way it is supposed to. Does PACBELL have a consultant liason / out of state vendor type contact group with a competant staff? EMAIL if posting it is a bad idea. TIA, Barton ------------------------------ Date: 26 May 94 03:17 GMT From: BROWN.GERRY@AppleLink.Apple.COM (Gerry Brown Assoc, Gerry Brown,PAS) Subject: Nice Job, if You Can Get it! This could be retitiled, How can I ever thank them.. This afternoon, my home telephone went south. Anyone who called in got one ring followed by a fast busy. I called the local (Pac Bell) operator who forwarded me to PacBell service after confirming my problem. Service reminded me that they would have to charge me if it was internal wiring. I agreed to wait to report the problem until AFTER I had tested their side of the line. PacBell supplies each house with an external box that has a modular jack. To test it all one has to do is plug a phone into the external jack. If it works, the problem is internal -- my fault. If it doesn't, the problem is outside PacBell's fault. While reporting the problem, the service tech told me that effective June 1, 1994, PacBell will be charging for a service call WHETHER THE PROBLEM IS INSIDE OR OUTSIDE. The only way around the charge is to subscribe to their Wire Service Plan. Not a bad scam, heh! I pay for service no matter who is at fault. The PacBell repair service claimed that the California PUC forced them to implement this plan. Boy am I glad that the telephone industry has been deregulated. Imagine what we would have to pay if that hadn't happened. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would double check the source on this. Do you mean to tell me that if there is a problem in the CO that *you* are going to have to pay for the repair? If the problem is on the pole in the alley behind your house *you* will have to pay? Gimme a break. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 May 1994 21:59:53 -0600 From: Leroy Casterline Subject: Tellabs Information Request Salutations, telecom netlanders! Not long ago, I requested information from this group on loop-start <-> ground-start converters. My thanks to all who responded. Now I come to you once again requesting your assistance. Tellabs produces converters which appear to satisfy our need. While I have heard of Tellabs, I have no direct experience with them or their products, and therefore solicit your input on the company and its converters. The converters we are considering are: Tellabs Model 6007 - 2 line, PBX-side converter Tellabs Modem 9006 - 4 line, CO-side converter Thank you one and all! Leroy ------------------------------ From: joejarre@netcom.com (Joe Jarrett) Subject: Flames For ISD? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Wed, 25 May 1994 21:49:57 GMT I'm the Field Applications engineer for Information Storage Devices, commonly known as "ISD". ISD makes a series of chips that store audio (speech, sounds, etc). I've been told that we have taken some bad press in one of the "telecom" newsgroups. Did that happen here? If so, if anyone has any copies of the threads that ran then, I'd appreciate them being sent to me. Otherwise, I would be willing to discuss the subject either via Email or here in the TELECOM Digest. Thanks for your time. Joe Jarrett, K5FOG joejarre@netcom.com Information Storage Devices FAE Austin, Texas ------------------------------ From: hsmith@lmsc.lockheed.com (Harry Smith) Subject: Looking For FEC Decoder Organization: Lockheed Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 00:54:45 GMT I have just picked up Sklar's book on digital communications. (It is a great book.) In the back it has code for doing Viterbi decoding on a PC. Does anyone know of an FTP site where I can find it in softcopy. (I have typing several pages of some elses code.) While I am at it, is this the correct location find information about the different error correcting codes and what people are doing? ( If not, can you point me to the right place.) Harry Smith hsmith@lmsc.lockheed.com ------------------------------ From: stans@panix.com (Stan Schwartz) Subject: What's a 1A3B? Date: 26 May 1994 00:32:28 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC Here in downstate NYNEXland if an exchange has not been "taken over" by a pager or cellular company, you can dial the NNX and 9901 to find out what kind of switch is in that C/O. For example, dialing (516)694-9901 will tell you that you have reached the Farmingdale 5ESS test number, serving the following prefixes ... (you get the idea). When dialing (516) 352-9901, however, I am told that I have reached the Floral Park 1A3B, the only one of it's kind in Nassau County. Now I have heard of 5ESS's and DMS-100's, but what is a 1A3B, and why is it such a distinction to have one? Thanks! Stan ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 12:30:39 +0100 From: manette@mitre.org (Manette B. Lazear) Subject: SIGNIDR V Preliminary Meeting Announcement SIGNIDR V Preliminary Meeting Announcement Special Interest Group on Networked Information, Discovery, and Retrieval (Previously SIGWAIS, Special Interest Group on Wide Area Information Server) The MITRE Corporation will sponsor the next meeting of the Special Interest Group on Networked Information, Discovery, and Retrieval. General topics of interest for this group are WAIS, gopher, World Wide Web, and other information retrieval and discovery technologies. We are planning for an interesting and exciting meeting. We look forward to seeing you there. This meeting will focus in on three areas: 1. security including firewall issues, 2. electronic publishing and copyright issues, and 3. knowbots and other information discovery technologies. IF YOU WOULD BE INTERESTED IN MAKING A PRESENTATION IN ANY OF THESE AREAS, PLEASE INDICATE THIS ON THE REGISTRATION FORM BELOW AND SEND IT TO US AT "signidr@mitre.org". Date: Thursday, August 4, 1994 Time: 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Place: The MITRE Corporation 7525 Colshire Drive McLean, VA 22102 Registration: PLEASE REGISTER EARLY TO ASSURE YOUR ATTENDANCE. Space is limited to 300 attendees. Complete registration form below and return by e-mail or fax: e-mail: signidr@mitre.org fax: 703/883-1397 (c/o Lorrayne Schaefer) Fee: None Demos Welcome: If you have a demo you would like to share with your colleagues in our demo area, there is space to indicate this on the registration form; please let us know. Demo selection will be coordinated based on space availability and focus of presentation. Vendors Welcome: We would like to include vendor information and demos at this meeting. If you are a vendor and would like to participate please indicate this in the space provided on the registration form. Selection will be coordinated based on space availability and focus of presentation. Access: Free, on-site, parking at MITRE Corporation. Driving directions to MITRE will appear in a later announcement. Nearest Metro is West Falls Church (orange line) with approximately an $8 taxi ride (~7 minute) from Metro to MITRE. Bus #3B marked "Tyson's Corner" also runs from West Falls Church Metro to the vicinity of MITRE. The fare is $1 and takes about 15 min. plus a short walk from the bus stop. Airport: MITRE is approximately equi-distant from Washington National Airport and Washington Dulles Airport. Travel time from the airports to MITRE is about 25 minutes and taxi cost is approximately $30.00. Nearby Hotels: Best Western Tyson's Westpark 2 miles to MITRE 8401 Westpark Drive McLean, VA 22102 703/734-2800 McLean Hilton at Tyson's Corner 1.5 miles to MITRE 7920 Jones Branch Drive McLean, VA 22102 703/847-5000 Ritz-Carlton, Tyson's Corner .5 miles to MITRE 1700 Tyson's Blvd McLean, VA 22102 703/506-4300 Tyson's Corner Ramada 1 mile to MITRE 7801 Leesburg Pike Falls Church, VA 22043 703/893-1340 Tyson's Corner Marriott 1 mile to MITRE 8028 Leesburg Pike Vienna, VA 22182 800/228-9290 -------------Registration Form------------ SIGNIDR V Registration Thursday, August 4, 1994 MITRE CORPORATION McLean, VA Name:___________________________________________________________________ Title:____________________________________________________________________ Affiliation:_____________________________________________________________ Address:__________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ E-mail:___________________________________________________________________ Phone:_________________________________FAX:______________________________ Which previous SIGNIDR/SIGWAIS have you attended? (Check all that apply.) SIGWAIS I (USGS, Reston, VA) _________ SIGWAIS II (Library of Congress, Wash., DC) _________ SIGNIDR III (Nat. Library of Med., Bethesda, MD) _________ SIGNIDR IV (Dept. of Commerce, Wash., DC) _________ Participant Information: If you wish to participate through a presentation, demonstration, or vendor display please complete the appropriate information area(s) below. For demos you must supply all equipment you will need, including workstations and other hardware, software, etc. Connections to the Internet will be available. PRESENTATION Title:_______________________________________________________ Brief Description:_________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ DEMO Name:________________________________________________________________ Demo Description:_________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ VENDOR Name:______________________________________________________________ Description of how you would like to participate:__________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________ Manette B. Lazear Digital Libraries Technologies MITRE, 7525 Colshire Dr., McLean, VA 22102 Phone: 703/883-6728 FAX:703/883-3315 (manette@mitre.org) MITRE Mail Stop: Z160 ------------------------------ From: dmckeen@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca (Douglas Mckeen) Subject: Paper on International Callbacks Date: 26 May 1994 06:18:21 GMT Organization: University of Alberta I am taking an international marketing course at the University of Alberta right now and I'm considering doing a paper on international callback. I am looking for information on callback services and any problems/experiences that either customers or suppliers of callback services have encountered. I am still debating whether to pursue this paper from a business plan perspective or from a research perspective. Any input I receive will probably sway me one way or the other. I am also looking to expand on some of the ideas I have already. Such as ... -The name of the service - One name for all markets served or tailor the name to suit the countries/customers served. -Language problems - I only speak one language. Will my customers require more? If so, how do I solve this? -Legal/Regulatory Issues (Possibly a whole paper on its own) -What markets should I serve? There are a few possible target markets. 1) Any customer wishing to connect from anyplace to any other place. (pretty broad) 2) Canadian companies abroad wishing to call Canada or other countries. 3) The many Americans struggling to call Cuba every day. (Canada doesn't have the embargo against Cuba) -Strategic Business Alliance - Should I form some form of alliance with "agents" in the foreign countries? That is, to what degree should I get involved? I could try promoting the service from here but it would be difficult. -Other - Still very important are issues such as price, billing, what countries to serve, costs, sales force, etc. I mentioned mostly marketing or business issues above; however, I am also interested in the technical and operational issues (these are part of the product). Any piece of information or insight you may have will be greatly appreciated. Also if you know of any documentation/articles on the subject I would appreciate hearing about them. Thanks, in advance, for any info you send. If you would like to call me, my phone number is (403) 483-8759 (5pm-11pm MST) or you can e-mail me. :-) Regards, Doug McKeen dmckeen@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #252 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa07350; 26 May 94 16:17 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA02625; Thu, 26 May 94 12:51:06 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA02616; Thu, 26 May 94 12:51:04 CDT Date: Thu, 26 May 94 12:51:04 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9405261751.AA02616@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #253 TELECOM Digest Thu, 26 May 94 12:51:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 253 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Phone/FAX/Data Calls (Summary/On-Site Experience) (Peter Leif Rasmussen) Call For Paper: CFIP'95 (French) (Jean-Marc Jezequel) Mandatory 1+ Dialing Coming to Area Code 516 (Dave Niebuhr) Micro Portable Suggestions (Bill Verry) How Smart is Call-Forwarding? (Shag Aristotelis) Large Norstar Systems (John Warne) Trans-Atlantic Fiber Operators (US Based) (Stu Jeffery) Looking for Used Panasonic 308KSU (Al Cohan) Directory Assistance Companies (Eric Maillet) Re: Annoyance Calls From Answering Machine (quixote@eskimo.com) Rude Not to Leave Answering Machine Messages? (Joe Harrison) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 May 94 14:48:00 JST From: plr@ichigo.os.nasu.toshiba.co.jp (Peter Leif Rasmussen (SY-Gi)) Subject: Phone/FAX/Data Calls (Summary/On-Site Experience) Long time ago (no, this is not an adventure :-) I asked some questions here in the TELECOM Digest about getting my telephone connected in a way that would make it possible for me to receive FAX and data calls, unattended. I got some answers with the most useful (for me) being from Stuart Whitmore (whitmore@tahoma.cwu.edu) about a share ware program called BGFAX, now v.1.21, made by B.J. Guillot (st1R8@jetson.uh.edu), anonymous FTP://csn.org/Computech Being just a private hobby among several it took me a while to put it together, but I promised to post a summary if I got something useful and that is what I am doing now. As I have also been succesful in setting it up to work with redirection of incomming phone calls to an answering machine, if that is what the caller want, it may also be of some use for those with interest in such matters. My PC is an IBM Notebook (Japanese model) with a plain vanilla V.22bis/V.42bis MNP4-5 FAX/modem. To effectively split voice from FAX/data I bought a FAX- switch from JDR Microdevices of $90 USD. They also have a smaller version at $60 USD, which should work as well. The only difference being an extra connection for a modem, which will be useful if you have FAX and modem on different machines (not interesting in this case). The "effective split" is dealt with this way because I don't know of any special functions implemented in the (high-tech?) Japanese telephone network, e.g. distinctive ring, ANI, CID, etc. that seems to be available anywhere else?! So, if this works in Japan it should work in most other countries. The JDR Microdevices FAX-Switch can be programmed to redirect the call upon detection of certain DTMF tones upon connection. If no tones are heard, e.g. a FAX CNG tone, for a period of four seconds it assumes it is a telephone call and connects the phone. My phone has the answering machine built in (like about 90% of all phones in Japan), but there is a connector for a stand alone answe- ring machine. This means that a normal telephone caller only hear a different ring after connection, until I or the answering machine answers the phone. A FAX will also go through with no special action, unless the caller has an old FAX machine that doesn't transmit a CNG tone. However, the data caller has to add a pause (a few commas) and then the code for the modem redirection. Having come so far BGFAX takes over, to decide whether the incomming call is a FAX or a data call. If it is a FAX call, BGFAX receives the FAX and stores it on disk in a proprietary format, which is convertible to PCX or the format used by QL2FAX (a program usually bundled with modems). Various data about the call is stored in a log-file. There is also a program with it that makes you able to transmit FAX'es. It is shareware and costs $25 USD to register. It is simple, using a no-nonsense non-GUI style userinterface. It is shipped with a document, which is also a no-nonsense type making efforts to explain the (chaotic?) world of FAX/modems. For the unexperienced user it can be hard to understand, but unless you have a very odd modem it looks like you should be able to make it work (Said by the unexperienced user ;-) If BGFAX detects that the call is not FAX but data, it attempts to load a BBS program, set to be loaded by a front end processor. This is the way I have set it up, however it seems that originally BGFAX was made to make Fido Net SysOp's able to receive FAX'es on the same line, so BGFAX can also be loaded in a another way, called Rear End Mode. I didn't try that, but if you are a Fido Net SysOp you probably already know about it. Having entered the BBS, all control is taken over by that so now the caller will be able to do whatever he/she normally would. It is because BGFAX works in the Front End Mode with Batch files calling each other, so when the BBS is up and running BGFAX is totally out and vice versa. As stated before this is just a fun hobby, so I want it to cost as little as possible. Therefore I have been searching for cheap BBS's (and still are). In the beginning I tried Executive Host, which is the BBS extension of Telix. However, I couldn't make it work and tried by FAX and email to contact the people producing it, but I never got any answer even though I wanted to register?! I also tried a totally different approach, with a program called FreeMail that works with MS Windows and should be able to receive phone and data calls by some nifty software construction? But it weren't able to use a combined FAX/modem and split those two, so I dropped that. I also got some info about using QL2FAX as it has an "auto detect" option when answering the phone. It would seem perfect to have everything in the same package, but QL2FAX does nothing else but answering the phone? There is no info on how to for example write a script to make it continue as simple BBS, and at that time I was getting quite far in making BGFAX work so I dropped that, too. I finally made a BBS program called TriTel work together with BGFAX. It is very simple, though it claims to be very powerful, but the people that made it (shareware) wants $75 USD to register, so I am still searching. Stuart Whitmore claims that Wilcat works well with it, but that is a commercial software package costing $100 USD, so that is not yet interesting. A long story about getting connected in more ways, without having to pay the (competitive?) price of $770 USD in (no-competition-land) Japan for an extra telephone line (just to get connected). You realize that a little extra sweat can save you a lot of money. A little more "bashing" will hopefully eventually bring prices down (Go for it Clinton! EU are too busy "bashing" each other ;-) If questions are asked directly to me I will do what I can to answer, at least now being able to claim that I have some experience. Peter Rasmussen ------------------------------ From: Jean-Marc.Jezequel@irisa.fr (Jean-Marc Jezequel) Subject: Call For Paper: CFIP'95 (French) Date: 26 May 1994 09:30:45 GMT Organization: Irisa, Rennes(FR) *** If you don't understand French, you wouldn't be interested in this *** Appel aux communications ##### ####### ### ###### ### ###### ####### # # # # # ### # # # # # # # # # # # # # ##### # ###### # ###### ###### # # # # # # # # # # # # ##### # ### # ####### ####### Colloque Francophone sur l'Ingenierie des Protocoles 9-12 mai 1995 - Rennes - France Comite de Programme Presidents : Claude Jard (IRISA, France) et Pierre Rolin (Telecom-Bretagne, France) Membres : Paul Amer (Universite du Delaware, Etats-Unis) Bennani Abdelfdil (ENSIAS, Maroc) J. William Atwood (Universite de Concordia, Canada) Benkiran Amine (EMI, Maroc) Mohamed Bettaz (Universite de Constantine, Algerie) Ed Brinksma (Universite de Twente, Pays-Bas) Stanislaw Budkowski (INT, France) Richard Castanet (LaBRI, France) Ana Cavalli (INT, France) Wojciech Cellary (EFP, Pologne) Andre Danthine (Universite de Liege, Belgique) Piotr Dembinski (Academie des Sciences, Pologne) Michel Diaz (LAAS, France) Rachida Dssouli (Universite de Montreal, Canada) Jean Marc Farines (UFSC, Bresil) Serge Fdida (MASI, France) Alain Finkel (ENS Cachan, France) Roland Groz (FT/CNET, France) Farouk Kamoun (ENSI, Tunisie) Jacques Labetoulle (Eurecom, France) Guy Leduc (Universite de Liege, Belgique) Francis Lepage (CRAN, France) Luigi Logrippo (Universite d'Ottawa, Canada) Gerard Michel (IMAG, France) Pascale Minet (INRIA, France) Abdellatif Obaid (Univ. du Quebec a Hull, Canada) Omar Rafiq (Universite de Pau) Behcet Sarikaya (Universite de AIZU, Japon) Andre Schiper (EPFL, Suisse) Samir Tohme (ENST, France) Gregor von Bochmann (Univ. de Montreal, Canada) L'idee du Colloque Francophone sur l'Ingenierie des Protocoles qui a deja eu lieu par trois fois (1988, 1991 et 1993), est de permettre a la communaute francophone des enseignants, chercheurs et industriels dans le domaine des protocoles et reseaux informatiques, de faire regulierement le point en langue francaise. Le colloque comprend une journee de tutoriels, suivie de trois jours de conference. Le comite de programme souhaite se voir soumettre des communications qui traitent de tout sujet relatif au developpement des protocoles de communications. La liste non exhaustive qui suit, donne quelques points qui peuvent etre traites : - Conception, mise en oeuvre et gestion de reseaux et d'architectures de communication ; - Techniques et langages de specification ; - Techniques et outils de verification et de simulation ; application de ces techniques ; - Mise au point et integration des logiciels repartis dans les systemes ; - Architectures, methodes et outils de test de conformite et d'interoperabilite ; - Methodes formelles ou pragmatiques couvrant l'ensemble des etapes de developpements des protocoles ; - Conception et developpement de protocoles a haut debit ; - Modeles, evaluation et mesure de performances des reseaux ; - Conception, developpement et application multimedia dans les reseaux - Reseaux de mobiles ; reseaux radio ; - Securite dans les reseaux ; Le comite de programme souhaite recevoir des communications de la part d'universitaires, de chercheurs et d'industriels. Des articles de syntheses didactiques, des exposes de travaux de recherches theoriques et d'experiences pratiques sont attendus, ainsi que des propositions d'exposes pour les tutoriels. Les publications emanant de jeunes chercheurs sont particulierement les bienvenues. Un prix recompensera la meilleure publication. Les meilleures publications seront publiees dans des revues. Un espace sera disponible pour des demonstrations, le comite de programme sollicite des propositions sur les themes ci-dessus. Instruction aux Auteurs ----------------------- Si vous desirez soumettre une communication (12 pages maximum) ou un tutoriel, veuillez envoyer cinq exemplaires de l'article complet, avant le 1er septembre 1994, a : Pierre Rolin (Telecom-Bretagne, France) Telecom-Bretagne Antenne de Rennes Departement RSM Rue de la Chataigneraie BP 78 35512 - Cesson - Sevigne cedex FRANCE Tel : +33 99 12 70 21 Fax : +33 99 12 70 30 email : rolin@rennes.enst-bretagne.fr Les decisions du comite de programme vous seront notifiees le 15 janvier 1995. Pour etre publiees dans les actes du colloque les versions finales des articles doivent parvenir avant le 15 fevrier 1995. Dates a retenir --------------- 1er septembre 1994 : date limite pour la reception des articles soumis. 15 janvier 1995 : notification aux auteurs de la decision du comite de programme. 15 fevrier 1995 : date limite pour la reception des textes definitifs a inclure dans les actes du colloque. Comite d'organisation --------------------- Jean-Marc Jezequel (IRISA) Sylvie Brunet (Telecom-Bretagne) Noel Plouzeau (IRISA) Elisabeth Lebret (IRISA) Joseph Fromont (CCETT) Marie-Noelle Georgeault (IRISA) Alain Leger (CCETT) Jean-Marc Jezequel, IRISA/CNRS, 35042 RENNES (FRANCE) // jezequel@irisa.fr ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 May 94 08:28:37 EDT From: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) Subject: Mandatory 1+ Dialing Coming to Area Code 516 Today's {Newsday}, 5/26/94, contained an article with the title "LI, Get Set to Dial '1'". Mandatory 1+ dialing to numbers in area codes other than 516 (Long Island) will go into effect on Sept. 24, 1994. It now is and has been optional for several years. Area code 914 is also affected by this change but I cannot say anything about the other area codes in New York with the exception of 212 (Manhattan), 718 (Brooklyn (Kings County), Bronx, Queens and Staten Island (Richmond County) and 917 (cellular, pager, etc. that is an overlay area code. Dave Niebuhr Internet: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (preferred) niebuhr@bnl.gov / Bitnet: niebuhr@bnl Senior Technical Specialist, Scientific Computing Facility Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, NY 11973 1+(516) 282-3093 FAX 1+(516) 282-7688 ------------------------------ From: billverry@aol.com (BillVerry) Subject: Micro Portable Suggestions Date: 26 May 1994 09:24:02 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) I'm in the market for a micro portable cell phone and need some advice. From what I've gathered it seems these devices are not too reliable when it comes to clarity and battery life. Most everyone I've spoken to has suggested I stay with the car phone and forget the "pocket" phone. I suspect this has to do with the low ouput of the units? If there is a manufacturer or a particular type of phone I should get I would greatly appreciate such contrasting opinion. Thank you, BV Please respond via email (billverry@aol.com) ------------------------------ From: birchall@pilot.njin.net (Shag Aristotelis) Subject: How smart is call-forwarding? Date: 26 May 94 06:39:36 GMT Organization: Screaming in Digital, the Queensryche Digest A question for those more knowledgeable than I: Being out in the sticks and not "local" to the nearest dialup, I got a line put in at a relative's house in an NXX bordering both my NXX and the net's NXX a couple years back, with call forwarding on it. Simply put, my connectivity looks like this: [Me] -- [Fwd] -- [Net] In my state (NJ) the telco (Bell Atlantic-NJ) has diligently replaced all the trunk lines with fiber, much to my delight. Most of the overhead wires are still copper, at least as far as residential lines go, though. There's a fiber shed around the corner from my house, and the transition is made at that point. Thus, we arrive at one of two scenarios: 1) If BA-NJ's switching computers are smart and simply shunt calls on to their forwarded destination: [Me] -c- [Shed] -f- [CO1] -f- [CO2] -f- [CO3] -c- [Net] 2) If BA-NJ's switching computers aren't smart, and actually route a forwarded call out to the number (over copper!) and back again(???): [Me] -c- [Shed] -f- [CO1] -f- [CO2] -c- [Fwd] -c- [CO2] -f- [CO3] -c- [Net] Recently, I've encountered _nasty_ noise. Even the latest greatest 28.8kbps modems with all the connection-holding capability in the world can't connect. If I dial _directly_ without using the forward (thus incurring big tolls) the routing is as follows, and there is no noise: [Me] -c- [Shed] -f- [C01] -f- ([C02] -f-?) [C03] -c- [Net] (Note, I'm not sure whether a direct call would pass through the CO in NXX 2.) It looks like one of two things is happening here: 1) The computers are dumb, and are routing the call out to the number and back again, and something's causing noise on the loop. 2) The computers are ok, but something's causing noise in NXX 2's CO itself. I'm going to call BA-NJ in the morning, and go through the usual process of explaining to them that I'm _absolutely certain_ it's not my inside wiring, since there _is no inside wiring_ on that line... ;) but I figured I'd toss this out, in hopes that someone out there knows more about how the computers handle call-forwarding. Shag Screaming in Digital: queensryche-request@pilot.njin.net GEOS Binary Moderator: comp-binaries-geos@pilot.njin.net ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 May 94 13:20:59 EDT From: John Warne <19064001@SBACVM.SBAC.EDU> Organization: School Board of Alachua County, FL. Subject: Large Norstar Systems We have some IWATSU IDS-128 hybrid switches that we will have to schedule for replacement soon (new North American Dialing/Numbering plan, a recently discovered method to totally defeat existing software toll restriction in the things, age, parts, etc). On option being studied (one of *many* options being studied) is to replace the systems with Norstar systems. I am comfortable with the Norstar in small configurations, but would like to chat with anyone with experience in using/supporting large configurations (20X88 or 20X104, for example). Thanks, 19064001@sbacvm.sbac.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 May 1994 15:11:43 -0800 From: stu@shell.portal.com (Stu Jeffery) Subject: Trans-Atlantic Fiber Operators (US based) I am trying to find out the names of the smaller US based companies that operate trans-Atlantic fiber cables. The ones I know of are: ATT, MCI, Sprint, Wiltel and Compuserve. Does anyone know of any others? Any pointers would be appreciated. Stu Jeffery Internet: stu@shell.portal.com 1072 Seena Ave. voice: 415-966-8199 Los Altos, CA. 94024 fax: 415-966-8199 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 May 94 16:29 EST From: Al Cohan <0004526627@mcimail.com> Subject: Looking for Used Panasonic 308KSU I have a small client that is upgrading his old *I mean OLD* 1A2 to a PBX. If anyone has a used Panasonic 308 for sale, please contact me direct. Thanks in advance, Al ------------------------------ From: maillet@delphi.com Subject: Directory Assistance Companies Date: Wed, 25 May 94 23:32:17 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Responding to josephh888@aol.com: The Alliance Network is a telecommunications consulting company that specializes in serving clients with monthly billings exceeding $1,000. Depending on your specific needs, we should be able to help you significantly reduce those $5,000 monthly directory assistance charges. If you are spending $5,000 just on directory assistance, chances are good that you are spending too much on your other telephone services as well. If this is the case, then The Alliance Network can be of considerable service to you. For details, you can contact The Alliance Network at 1-800-608-0028. Ask for Michael Nicosia. Or, if you prefer, leave us a message here on the Internet. We will get back to you promptly. Thank you for your consideration. Eric Maillet The Alliance Network ------------------------------ From: quixote@eskimo.com Subject: Re: Annoyance Calls From Answering Machine Organization: Eskimo North Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 04:55:06 GMT Somehow I missed the first article of this thread. But I assume you are talking about an answering machine that when it receives a message, it will dial a preprogrammed number to alert about the message just received. I would be interested in such a machine, either the one mentioned in this thread or similar ones in the market. Any help with brands or where to buy them, will be greatly appreciated. Carlos ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 09:22:40 +0100 From: J.Harrison@bra0112.wins.icl.co.uk Subject: Rude Not to Leave Answering Machine Messages? General view of Digest readers (except Miss Manners) seems to be that it is, on the basis that it leaves the called party with a gnawing feeling of wonderment as to who called them and why. I can't see how; do modern answering machines work differently from my fairly-old Panasonic? With mine, callers who hear the outgoing message all the way through and then hang up (before the beep) just don't activate the message counter, so I don't even know they called. The few seconds gap between the end of the outgoing message and the beep gives them plenty of time. Suits me fine, and I had assumed they all worked much the same way. Incidentally while I'm at the keyboard ... it's taken me a while to realise that US analogue cellular systems providers require you, the the phone owner and payer of the airtime bill, actually to pay for incoming calls. How the heck have they managed to convince people to go for that?!? Joe ICL Ltd. Bracknell Berkshire RG12 8SN UK (+44-344-473424) J.Harrison@bra0112.wins.icl.co.uk S=Harrison/I=J/OU1=bra0112/O=icl/P=icl/A=gold 400/C=GB ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #253 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa08183; 26 May 94 18:02 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA04990; Thu, 26 May 94 13:56:12 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA04981; Thu, 26 May 94 13:56:10 CDT Date: Thu, 26 May 94 13:56:10 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9405261856.AA04981@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #254 TELECOM Digest Thu, 26 May 94 13:56:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 254 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Bulk Call Display (Alan Leon Varney) Re: CNID and ANI - Will They Become One and the Same? (Alan Leon Varney) Re: SMDI Question (Al Farnham) Re: RBOCS & Video Remote learning in Schools? (Robert Virzi) Re: DTMF Decoding Help Needed (John Lundgren) Re: Cordless Phone Wanted With Ten Mile Range (John Lundgren) Re: Hunting Service From GTE (Jeff Hibbard) Re: Can a Unix Box Work as an Internet Router? (David Devereaux-Weber) Re: Can a Unix Box Work as an Internet Router? (Lars Poulsen) Re: Call Return (Hugh Pritchard) Re: Microsoft Telephony API (Guy Blair) Re: Internet Access from the Solomon Islands? (Don Newcomb) Re: How Can I Ring Up Myself? (Nathan N. Duehr) 57x in Old Area 312 (Carl Moore) Announcing New FCC BBS - FCC World (avb@cais.com) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 08:29:47 +0600 From: varney@uscbu.ih.att.com (Alan Leon Varney) Subject: Re: Bulk Call Display Organization: AT&T Network Systems In article Paul Robinson writes: >>> So what interface are they using to receive the Call Display data? >> I believe there is just such a bulk interface available, called >> something like SMDA (Service Message Desk Accounting?). > I think you mean "SMDF" -- Simplified Message Desk Format. Some > attendant console systems have the capability to use it in order to > route calls automatically. I know the system we have at my other > office has it as an option. From the switch perspective, it's SMSI (Simplified Message Service Interface), an early version of the Voice Messaging Interface. Both of these deliver the number of a forwarding telephone (so they will know the client or "mailbox" they are representing for voice messaging purposes) unless the call is "direct" to the VM system. Some switches offer a Bulk Calling Line ID interface -- basically the same as SMSI/VMI. In fact, both pieces of information can be delivered if the message service is configured properly. The standard interface is RS-232 asynch, up to 9600 baud. Bellcore has requirements for BRI and PRI to provide the same information. Al Varney ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 08:30:13 +0600 From: varney@uscbu.ih.att.com (Alan Leon Varney) Subject: Re: CNID and ANI - Will They Become One and the Same? Organization: AT&T Network Systems In article johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) writes: [someone wrote] >> With the FCC mandate for CNID service, is it not possible that the >> telcos will use this to drop ANI? > Considering that ANI is what they use to bill for toll calls, I would > think that such a move is, to put it mildly, unlikely. Not only that but, for many classes of calls (many PBX, forwarded calls, etc.), the CNID and ANI are different numbers. I would not like paying the toll charges when calling a local phone forwarded to China -- particularly if it was made without using my favorite INC :). >> Also it has been mentioned that "911 service requires special trunk lines >> and equipment". Clearly CNID does not and needs only a low-cost display. CNID may only need a low-cost display; 911 needs a lot of other things. Even if 911 used CNID, it's likely that a few dedicated 911 trunks would be required. At least they would after the first lawsuit claiming that congestion on "public trunks" in competition with a 911 call lead to injury/death. >> Will this make local 911 response a possibility? I'm not sure what this means -- 911 is a "local response" mechanism today. How would CNID change this???? > The hard part about 911 isn't delivering the ANI. The hard part is > creating a complete and reliable data base with accurate street > addresses in which the number can be looked up. .... > Whether the number comes from ANI or CLID is a nit. My friends down the hall (in AT&T Public Safety) would disagree. The hard part of 911 is EVERYTHING ABOUT IT. Getting it routed to the right PSAP, insuring there are adequate (but not too many) trunks from EVERY switch, getting a myriad of public agencies to cooperate, funding on an ongoing basis, providing operator HOLD or RINGBACK where needed, educating the PBX folks (and cellular), getting a myriad of TELCOs and vendors to agree on standards, receiving/making daily updates from multiple LECs, etc. So maybe the database is a problem -- but it isn't the only (or hardest) one to handle. Al Varney ------------------------------ From: AL.FARNHAM@hq.doe.gov Date: 26 May 94 09:56:00 -0400 Subject: Re: SMDI Question Here is the message format for an SMDI link between a switch and a Message Desk (Voice Mail System). The link is normally 1200bps full duplex without handshaking although some new implementations run at 9600bps. The Bell spec is TSR-TSY-000283. SMDI Message protocol: The system checks messages that it receives from the Message Desk for adherence to the following message protocols. Incoming messages - (Voice Mail System to Switch): There are two kinds of incoming messages the switch can accept from the message desk: OP:MWI(SP)nnnnnnn!(D) RMV:MWI(SP)nnnnnnn!(D) where: nnnnnnnnnn = station number (can be 7 or 10 digits) (D) = control-D (End Of Transmission) (SP) = space The first message activates the message waiting indication. The second deactivates the message waiting indication. For example, if Station B (DN 234-2000) forwards calls to the Message Desk and receives a message, the Message Desk activates message waiting indication for Station B with the following message: OP:MWI 2342000!(D) After Station B retrieves the messages from the Message Desk, the Message Desk deactivates message waiting indication for Station B with the following message: RMV:MWI 2342000!(D) Outgoing messages - (Switch to Voice Mail System) There are two groups of messages from the switch to the message desk. Call details - These message types give items of information concerning calls which the Message Desk received: (CR)(LF)MDgggmmmmannnnnnn(SP)yyyyyyy(SP)(CR)(LF)(Y) (CR)(LF)MDgggmmmmannnnnnn(SP)(SP)(CR)(LF)(Y) (CR)(LF)MDgggmmmma(SP)yyyyyyy(SP)(CR)(LF)(Y) MWI change failure - The request to change the Message Waiting Indication failed because it was either invalid (INV) or the switch unable to perform the change when requested (BLK). (CR)(LF)MWInnnnnnn(SP)INV(CR)(LF)(DL)(DL)(Y) (CR)(LF)MWInnnnnnn(SP)BLK(CR)(LF)(DL)(DL)(Y) where: (CR) = carriage return (LF) = line feed (SP) = space (DL) = delete character (ASCII value FF) (Y) = control-Y ggg = message desk number (001-063) mmmm = message desk terminal (0001-2047) nnnnnnnnnn = forwarding from station number (can be 7 or 10 digits) yyyyyyyyyy = calling station number (can be 7 or 10 digits) a = type of call where D = Direct Calls, A = Forward All Calls, B = Forward Busy Calls, N = Forward No Answer Calls For example, Station B (DN 234-2000) forwards all calls to the Message Desk. Station A (DN 678-1234) calls Station B and forwards to Message Desk number 002, terminal 009. The switch sends the following message to the Message Desk: (CR)(LF)MD0020009A2342000 6781234 (CR)(LF)(Y) Hope this information answers the question. Regards, Al ------------------------------ From: rv01@gte.com (Robert Virzi) Subject: Re: RBOCS & Video Remote learning in Schools? Date: 26 May 1994 14:54:19 GMT Organization: GTE Laboratories, Waltham, MA In article , Gerry Moersdorf wrote: > Does anyone have an opinion on what the RBOCS are trying to do by > pushing TV remote learning grants and equipment to school systems? > The schools in our district don't even have telephones in classrooms > let alone a LAN for a client server teaching tool. To me the priorities > are all turned around. What possible business could RBOCS build with the > "poor" school districts? Well, I have an *opinion*, which is probably worth what it cost you. ;-) Telcos want to get into the data highway business, whatever that means. There is much concern over the potential for creating a "data underclass" that threatens the entire enchilada. By showing a willingness (to congress, the FCC, the press) to support not just wealthy communities, the telcos could be buying a great deal of good will. The goal is to turn this good will into a multi-billion dollar business. Of course, these are only my opinions, and do not in any way relate to what my employer may or may not be doing in this arena. Bob Virzi rvirzi@gte.com Just another ascii character +1 (617) 466-2881 ------------------------------ From: jlundgre@ohlone.kn.PacBell.COM (John Lundgren) Subject: Re: DTMF Decoding Help Needed Date: 26 May 94 16:05:02 GMT Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network DANIEL FINKLER (dfinkler@world.std.com) wrote: > west_c212@orion.crc.monroecc.edu writes: >> I am writing a program that needs to decode telephone touch tone >> signals. The problem is that I am having trouble finding a DTMF >> decoder. If anyone know where I can get ahold of one I would >> appreciate it. > You can use USRobotics courier modems' touch tone recognition feature. > They can recognize DTMF tones, including A,B,C,D. Also, ZyXEL modems can recognize DTMF. There is a ZyXEL FAQ at nctuccca.edu.tw. Under /pc/zyxel/ directory. There are other sites also. John Lundgren - Elec Tech - Info Tech Svcs Rancho Santiago Community College District 17th St. at Bristol \ Santa Ana, CA 92706 VOI (714) JOHN GAB \ FAX (714) JOHN FRY jlundgre@kn.pacbell.com \ jlundgr@eis.calstate.edu ------------------------------ From: jlundgre@ohlone.kn.PacBell.COM (John Lundgren) Subject: Re: Cordless Phone Wanted With Ten Mile Range Date: 26 May 94 16:11:55 GMT Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network Guorong Roger (hu_g@isis.cs.odu.edu) wrote: > Is there any kind of CORDLESS PHONE which can be used for ten to > twenty miles distance (not a cellular phone, not the regular cordless > phone which can only be used within the house). The telephone should > still use the regular telephone switching system. The master piece of > the phone should be installed at home, and the handset could be bring > ten to twenty miles away from the home but be still access the phone > at home. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There are, but they are not legal for use > in the USA. About the closest you can come to this legally in the USA is > to use a manual phone patch attached to a CB radio or some other type of > legal radio service. I have a phone patch here for example which I have [stuff deleted] > and hard to find here in the USA. If you've got the money, you might con- > sider setting up a little two meter arrangement of your own with a private > phone line attached, etc. PAT] The important point here is that the amateur radio service is for recreational non-commerial use only, and the hams tend to police themselves fairly well, especially in metro areas where the bands are crowded. And, naturally, the phonempany co doesn't want people to bypass their cellular service. So getting a legal ten mile phone is not easy. John Lundgren - Elec Tech - Info Tech Svcs Rancho Santiago Community College District 17th St. at Bristol \ Santa Ana, CA 92706 VOI (714) JOHN GAB \ FAX (714) JOHN FRY jlundgre@kn.pacbell.com \ jlundgr@eis.calstate.edu ------------------------------ From: jeff@bradley.bradley.edu (Jeff Hibbard) Subject: Re: Hunting Service From GTE Date: 26 May 1994 10:18:25 -0500 Organization: Bradley University stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) writes: > In many states, GTE does not offer hunting to residential customers > at any price (here in Washington State is an example), even though the > RBOC in the same area does. Both are also true in Illinois. GTE here doesn't offer hunting on residential lines at any price; Ameritech lets you have it for free. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 May 94 10:15:18 CDT From: David Devereaux-Weber Reply-To: David Devereaux-Weber Subject: Re: Can a Unix Box Work as an Internet Router? Most routers _are_ UNIX computers. However, the routing software within them is not trivial. The purpose of requiring a router is to prevent traffic from going to or coming from the outside network. A router looks at each packet, examining the protocol and destination. Only packets whose protocols and addresses are OK are forwarded. This reduces unnecessary traffic from the Internet to your network, and from your network to the Internet. Despite the cost of a router, you will be better off in the long run to buy it. Further, using a commercial router will reassure your Internet provider -- they may even require it. However, on lines slower than T1, many network implementors are using lower cost bridges from companies like Combinet instead of routers. Internet access can be provided on a 56 KBPS line, but that is slow. ISDN is better, T1 is better than that, and so on. It depends on how may schools and computers you intend to connect, how many users will be using the network, and how much the schools can afford. Explore any benefits which may acrue to you because of your status as an educational institution. Is Ameritech your local telephone provider? They may be willing to set up a pilot ISDN project. They may be offering fiber to the schools as a deregulatory incentive to state legislators. If a router will be required, give several vendors a call. They may be able to give you some pointers to foundations who may be able to help out. Who is your local cable television provider? You might want to explore connectivity through them. Who are you thinking of using for your provider? Are they local to Terre Haute? If so, a cable television connection may be feasible. David Devereaux-Weber, P.E. weberdd@macc.wisc.edu (Internet) The University of Wisconsin - Madison (608)262-3584 (voice) Division of Information Technology (608)262-4679 (FAX) Network Engineering ------------------------------ From: lars@Eskimo.CPH.CMC.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: Can a Unix Box Work as an Internet Router? Organization: CMC Network Products, Copenhagen DENMARK Date: Thu, 26 May 94 11:35:48 GMT In article xxmcleis@indsvax1.indstate. edu writes: > can a computer (ie Unix) function as an Internet router, Certain UNIX systems include enough routing code that they can be configured as routers. In general, however, this requires you to install add-on hardware and software to drive multiple line interfaces. This complicates both the network setup and the system management of the unix system. In particular, I suspect that since you are emphasizing your lack of money, the UNIX system in question is a PC-based unix system, for which you do not have source code for the system itself. > or must we buy one of these routers like CISCO or WellFleet? > If so, what's the *cheapest* router available? Routers come in all sizes and price classes, depending on what you want to connect to. One of the least expensive is the Rockwell NetHopper, which is designed to connect a local area network to the Internet over a dial-up modem connection. Including the built-in V.32bis/V.42bis modem, the list price is $1695. > Can a Unix box connect to a digital comm line (56k)? Starting in August, we will be shipping a version of the NetHopper with a synchronous line interface. This can be connected to either a leased DDS-56 line, a switched-56 line, or an ISDN BRI line running at up to 112 Kbps. I don't think pricing has been set yet. These units can also be used to connect two LANs at different locations using either Internet Protocol or Novell IPX or both. Where the other options that you have mentioned require significant investment in learning how to set them up, the NetHopper is very simple to install and configure. The initial configuration asks you a few simple questions (name of this box, management password, IP address, remote IP address, remote phone number, and the like) and leaves you with a working system, which you can then tune if you want to. Before I get accused of too blatant advertising, I hasten to mention that there are other, similar products. The May 31 issue of {PC Magazine} has a comparative test of several routers in this class. Claimer: I am one of the engineers working on the NetHopper products. Lars Poulsen Internet E-mail: lars@RNS.COM Rockwell Network Systems Internets: designed and built while you wait Hvidovre Strandvej 72 B Phone: (011-) +45-31 49 81 08 DK-2650 Hvidovre, DENMARK Telefax: +45-31 49 83 08 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 May 94 10:38 EST From: Hugh Pritchard <0006348214@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: Call Return I used Call Return once. It didn't quite work as advertised. I was at home, and just missed a call which I was sure had been from my wife at work. Instead of using our speed-dial, I chose to dial *69, Call Return. I reached the firm in the basement of her building! The building's owner has his own offices in the basement, and apparently Call Return saw the "main" number for the building -- even though each firm in that three-level building has its own phone system (not quite -- there's an intercom capability between floors, possibly meaning a single PBX for the entire building). I re-placed the call, using the speed-dial. The original call I'd missed had indeed been from my wife at work; moreover, she was annoyed that I'd "wasted" 75 cents trying Call Return. Hugh Pritchard, Hugh_Pritchard@MCImail.com ------------------------------ From: blair@salem.intel.com (Guy Blair) Subject: Re: Microsoft Telephony API Date: 25 May 1994 23:57:48 GMT Organization: Intel Corporation In mpinones@netmon.mty.itesm.mx (Marco A. Pinones) writes: > I would like to know if there is any advance on Microsoft efforts to > provide a "standard" programming interface for PBXs and telephony > services. I sent mail to people at Ericcsson about this and they told > me they are working on it. Does somebody know if other companies are > working on it? Marco, THere are over 40 vendors developing Service Providers for the Telephony API (TAPI) developed by Intel and Microsoft. There is a list of companies in in a Technical Note included with the TAPI SDK you can get (free of charge) off CompuServe (GO WINEXT) or via anonymous ftp from ftp.microsoft.com \devtools\tapi. The list includes products, estimated release dates and contact names/phone numbers/email addresses. Service providers from PBX vendors, analog add-in board vendors, isoethernet, switch to host link, client server, ISDN, etc. have been announced and demonstrated this year. If you have specific questions, either post them on GO WINEXT or send to telephon@microsoft.com. I can try to help you as well. Regards, Guy Blair Intel Architecture Labs ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 10:19:29 -0500 From: don newcomb Subject: Re: Internet Access from the Solomon Islands? Organization: Naval Oceanographic Office In article TELECOM Digest Editor notes: > In response to your side note, I certainly hope your comments were not > driven by any cannibalphobic attitudes on your part. If the Solomon Islands > do join the Internet and get a news feed, will someone issue a Call For > Votes on a newsgroup devoted to cannibalism? I wonder where such a news- > group would go in the Usenet hierarchy? Probably under rec.food.cannibalism. Pat, how dare you?! Don't you know it's not called "cannibalism" any more; that is a term of oppression! The Politically Correct term is "human recycling." Have a nice day. Donald R. Newcomb * newcomb@pops.navo.navy.mil Naval Oceanographic Office * drn@fiddle.noo.navy.mil Stennis Space Center, MS 39522 * Voice: (601) 688-5998 FAX: (601) 688-5485 * DSN: 485-5998 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You have a nice day also, and thank you for sharing. PAT] ------------------------------ From: nduehr@netcom.com (Nathan N. Duehr) Subject: Re: How Can I Ring Up Myself? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Wed, 25 May 1994 10:21:50 GMT Joseph Herl (jherl@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu) wrote: > Our family is moving to a new house next week, and we will have the > same telephone number at both places for several days. How can I call > between them? Pat replied with information regarding how to ring back a phone in the Illinois area. For the the information of others on the net, in the Denver, Colorado area use the same technique described by Pat except with a 99x prefix and do not dial a 1 before the prefix. I live in the North Glenn/Westminster area and 996 works here. It appears that it works in exactly the way as Pat described his to work. Regards, Nate Duehr nduehr@netcom.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 May 94 6:07:50 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: 57x in Old Area 312 In old area 312, I found all 57x in use and all of them moving to 708. And you mention 1-57x (with that leading 1)? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, in the old, old, old days of 312, it was just 571, get new dial tone, click, get high pitched tone, dial 6, hang up, get ringback, go off hook, end ring back. Needless to say, we had no 312-571 exchange in those days. No matter what your number was, that did it. In the more recent 'old 312' times, even though we had a 312-571 prefix, doing it as 1-571 (and as per above) worked. Then finally it changed to the present scheme where it became 1-57x-last four, etc. Another excursion into weird numbers here are the 'prefix-1-prefix' num- bers. I don't know if those are around in other than Illinois Bell terri- tory or not. For example, 708-329-1329 or 708-677-1677; and there are lots more. After the area code (312 or 708) dial the prefix, then a one, and the prefix again. Quite a few respond with a high-pitched tone, and others respond with a rapid busy or reorder tone. All the old 9954/9955 loop-arounds are dead though; they were all killed after that scandal several years ago. PAT] ------------------------------ From: avb@cais.com (FCC World) Subject: Announcing New FCC BBS - FCC World Date: 26 May 1994 17:57:39 GMT Organization: Capital Area Internet Service The Washington, DC telecommunications law firm of Smithwick & Belendiuk proudly announces the launch of a new BBS -- FCC WORLD -- featuring information on the Federal Communications Commission. We feature FCC documents on-line (many you cannot find on Internet), texts of important FCC Reports and decisions (IVDS, PCS Auction info -- on-line now!), Forums on hot FCC issues, free Classified ads and more! The best thing -- its free and without a daily time limit. Give it a try at 202-887-5718 (14.4 baud)! ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #254 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa08537; 26 May 94 18:40 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA07648; Thu, 26 May 94 14:55:02 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA07639; Thu, 26 May 94 14:55:00 CDT Date: Thu, 26 May 94 14:55:00 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9405261955.AA07639@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #255 TELECOM Digest Thu, 26 May 94 14:55:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 255 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Caller ID With Serial Port (John Harris) VIVE Caller ID Device Problems (Evan Gamblin) Even More on VIVE Caller ID Box (Dan Lanciani) Need Distinctive Ring Line Splitter (Al Cohan) Re: Replace POST-MAIL by FAX (Timothy L. Kay) Re: What Kind of Capacity is in VBI? (Robert Berger) Re: "Erlang" the Programming Language (Steven King) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 May 94 17:43 WET From: joharris@io.org (John Harris) Subject: Re: Caller ID With Serial Port ddl@das.harvard.edu wrote: > joharris@io.org (John Harris) wrote: >> Try contacting Vive Synergies Inc., >> 30 West Beaver Creek Road, Unit 2, >> Richmond Hill, Ontario L4B 3K1 >> (905) 882-6107 Fax (905) 882-6238 >> This manufacturer advertises in the local paper as having a "CALL >> EDITOR II" for $199.00 > Beware of this device. The design is seriously flawed and Vive isn't > interested in fixing it. Here is something I wrote about it a while > back when I (foolishly) bought one from HAL. (HAL sells Vive's Call > Editor II, obviously ...) > The HAL box also has a fairly severe bug. When a call comes in, you > see a lot of garbage characters on the RS-232 interface before the > actual CNID string. Worse, what you are seeing is the box's echo > of garbage characters that it thinks came in over the RS-232 > interface. /* text deleted */ > The third person said that it is the fault of the CNID chip that they > use and cannot be fixed. He insisted that all I needed to do was > write a ``software filter'' to ignore the garbage. He did not seem to > understand that their command interpreter was seeing the garbage and > could generate spurious dial commands (or who knows what else). He > also said that this isn't a problem with telephones in Canada (where > they are). It's true. In Bell Canada territory, we are almost exclusively DMS-100 switches; and there are fewer problems than elsewhere. I thought I recognized a problem typical of the GTD-5 switch with a Motorola MC145447 Caller ID chip. So I forwarded Dan's comments to VIVE Synergies. > An ``engineer'' is supposed to get back to me sometime so I > can tell him how to fix the firmware... > (Needless to say, the engineer never called back.) I will concede to Dan that some companies are hard to get hold of; but having Carl's extension number makes a big difference. The following comes from VIVE. For point number 3, I confess. It was I that didn't read the ad close enough to see that software was included, too. John Harris BEL-Tronics Ltd, 2422 Dunwin Drive Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1J9 joharris@io.org (905) 828-1002 Fax (905) 828-2951 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The letter from John Harris included a reply from VIVE, but that letter was also forwarded directly to me by Evan Gamblin ... so I have deleted it here and present it as a stand- alone message on its own immediatly following this one. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 May 1994 22:20:59 -0400 From: egamblin@ott.hookup.net (Evan Gamblin) Subject: VIVE Caller ID Device Problems In an earlier message, Dan Lanciani (ddl@harvard.*) wrote: >> Try contacting Vive Synergies Inc., >> 30 West Beaver Creek Road, Unit 2, >> Richmond Hill, Ontario L4B 3K1 >> (905) 882-6107 Fax (905) 882-6238 In the interests of getting Dan an answer, and maybe getting this fixed, I forwarded the above to Vive (with whom I have no other connection). The president, Carl K.S. Too, replies as follows: 1. Call Editor II is a product that we supply: i. as part of a package consisting of Call Editor II + WindowsHinge, an interfacing software for use with all Windows applications in general and with ACT! For Windows in particular, ii. as part of a package consisting of Call Editor II + VIVE Vision, contact management software running under DOS and published by us, or iii. as a hardware component with Caller ID capability for bundling with specific applications software (as in the case of HAL). We supplied Call Editor II to Home Automation Laboratories (HAL) for use with its Dynasty software. 2. The Caller ID decoder used in Call Editor made by Sierra has some inherent limitation in that it does not lend itself to noise filtering to eliminate the noises that occur on the telephone line. As such we have to implement noise-filtering function in the software for use with Call Editor II. Both WindowsHinge and VIVE Vision have such noise filters implemented in the software. I believe Dynasty software has it as well. Dan Lanciani should have been advised of the limitation of use. In any event HAL should not have offered Call Editor II for sale to people who are not prepared or who do not have the knowledge to develop the noise-filtering programs in their application software. 3. It was wrongly quoted in the previous message that "this mfr advertises in the local paper as having a Call Editor II for $199". The fact is Call Editor II + WindowsHinge as a package is offered at C$199 in Canada and at US$149 in USA. 4. Dan Lanciani is only partially correct in his surmise about the circuit design of Call Editor II. While we do not wish to discuss details of our design, we would comment that the suggestion detailed by Dan Lanciani for improvement to the hardware firmware is a valid one, but our engineers believed that such modification would not be sufficient to overcome the inherent weakness of the Caller ID decoder used, with repect to the noises and the resultant stray characters. An engineer would have contacted Dan Lanciani to discuss the technical aspects of the proposed modifications with him if not for the fact that unfortunately the telephone number given by Dan Lanciani was inadvertently misplaced and lost. However, readers should know that Dan Lanciani's experience with Call Editor II is at least 6 months old. In our industry 6 months is a long time. We have made many improvements to the product and have introduced some other products for Caller ID applications in this period. Dan Lanciani is invited to call me to discuss our current products or provide us with his mailing address so that we may mail him current product information on our Caller ID products, including a multi-line adaptor known as Concentrator (for use with multiple telephone lines in a LAN environment) and a recent release known as TeleServer. 5. Call Editor II works very well with WindowsHinge and VIVE Vision as they are designed to do. 6. Readers may be interested to know that we make another product known as Call Editor RSA which uses a different Caller ID decoder that enables it to output decoded data without "garbage" characters. However, unlike Call Editor II it is not capable of standalone operation, and must be used with a computer. Dan Lanciani is advised to use Call Editor RSA for his application instead of Call Editor II. With Call Editor RSA, he would not have to worry about any noise interference. Call Editor RSA + WindowsHinge as a package is being offered at C$119.99 in Canada and at US$89.99 in USA. Call Editor RSA (as a separate unit) is offered at US$80 in USA and C$100 in Canada. Carl K.S. Too President VIVE Synergies Inc. 30 West Beaver Creek Rd, Unit 2, Richmond Hill, Ont L4B 3K1. Tel 905 882-8107, ext 11. Fax: 905 882-8238 -------------------- Evan Gamblin The Halifax Group 903-275 Sparks St Ottawa, Ont K1R 7X9 Canada [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In the next message in this issue, Dan gives his response to the comments by Carl Too. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 25 May 94 20:22:18 EDT From: ddl@das.harvard.edu (Dan Lanciani) Subject: Even More on VIVE CNID Box I'm sorry, but I can't let this pass without further comment: From joharris@io.org Wed May 25 17:43:56 1994 > ddl@das.harvard.edu wrote: >> joharris@io.org (John Harris) wrote: >>> Try contacting Vive Synergies Inc., >>> 30 West Beaver Creek Road, Unit 2, >>> Richmond Hill, Ontario L4B 3K1 >>> (905) 882-6107 Fax (905) 882-6238 >>> This manufacturer advertises in the local paper as having a "CALL >>> EDITOR II" for $199.00 >> Beware of this device. The design is seriously flawed and Vive isn't >> interested in fixing it. Here is something I wrote about it a while >> back when I (foolishly) bought one from HAL. (HAL sells Vive's Call >> Editor II, obviously ...) >> The HAL box also has a fairly severe bug. When a call comes in, you >> see a lot of garbage characters on the RS-232 interface before the >> actual CNID string. Worse, what you are seeing is the box's echo >> of garbage characters that it thinks came in over the RS-232 >> interface. [my original technical description deleted] Let me try once more to describe the problem. I think maybe it's so simple that some people are missing the forest for the trees looking for a more subtle/complicated interpretation. The device in question connects to the phone line and to an RS-232 serial interface. The RS-232 interface presents a very simple command interpreter "shell" to the user. There are a few commands that the user can type at this shell, including a Dial and a List command. The microcontroller within the device has a single, built-in, bi-directional serial port. The output side of this port is routed directly to the RS-232 interface. The input side of this port is switched between the RS-232 interface and a caller ID chip's serial output. In other words, some of the time the microcontroller is receiving user keystrokes and sometimes it is receiving the output of the caller ID chip -- all through a single serial port. The microcontroller uses one of its parallel output bits to switch between the two uses of the serial port. Most of the time the port is connected to the RS-232 interface. However, when a call is detected, the port is switched to the caller ID chip. The problem is that the microcontroller takes some bytes from the caller ID chip as "shell" input. That is, it thinks the user typed these bytes at the RS-232 interface. This may be caused by a failure to clear the serial buffers after switching usage or perhaps by setting usage flags at the wrong time. The net result is that the simple "shell" believes that the user (or program) has sent it these bytes as commands. Being an interactive ``shell,'' it echos the garbage bytes back out the RS-232 interface AND ACTS ON THEM. In just a few minutes of trials I saw the box generate several unknown-command messages when the garbage bytes managed to include a return character. It is just a matter of time until the bytes include a "D" and a return ... all the "filter" software in the world isn't going to prevent this since it happens entirely within the unit. If anybody is interested in examining the device, I'd be happy to make mine available for loan. (It certainly isn't going to be connected to my phone line. :) Just cover the postage. I suggest this might be a good idea for anyone considering purchase. [...] > It's true. In Bell Canada territory, we are almost exclusively DMS-100 > switches; and there are fewer problems than elsewhere. This is not a switch problem. > I thought I recognized a problem typical of the GTD-5 switch with a > Motorola MC145447 Caller ID chip. So I forwarded Dan's comments to > VIVE Synergies. I don't see how you could have concluded this from my comments. The problem is not with the caller ID chip. It is with the incorrect manipulation of the microcontroller's serial port. Please re-read my original explanation or the new one above. [...] > The following comes from VIVE. For point number 3, I confess. It was > I that didn't read the ad close enough to see that software was included, > too. > Response to Dan Lanciani's statements (surmises) on Call Editor II [Comments following are from Too's response] > 2. The Caller ID decoder used in Call Editor made by Sierra, has > some inherent limitation in that it does not lend itself to noise > filtering to eliminate the noises that occur on the telephone > line.As such we have to implement noise-filtering function in the > software for use with Call Editor II. Both WindowsHinge and VIVE > Vision have such noise filters implemented in the softwares. I > believe Dynasty software has it as well. This is obfuscation. You are confusing the interface of the caller id chip (which is a component of your product) with the external interface of the product itself. You have a microcontroller in between these two interfaces. > Dan Lanciani should have been advised of the limitation of use. Indeed. The limitation is that it cannot be used reliably. > In any event HAL should not have offered for Call Editor II for sale > to people who are not prepared or do not have the knowledge to develop > the noise-filtering programs in their application software. This is more obfuscation combined with an almost-clever insult. No "noise-filtering programs" will help since the "noise" is being seen and processed by the command interpreter of the product before it ever gets to the external interface! > 4. Dan Lanciani is only partially correct in his surmise about the > circuit design of Call Editor II. Enlighten us! As I mentioned, my analysis was based on only a few minutes with a logic probe, and some of the ICs have their part numbers obscured. Still, it's hard to hide the functioning of such a simple circuit. A few years ago I would have fixed the firmware myself just for an exercise. Now, time has become too valuable. Besides, there are plenty of competitive solutions that work out of the box. > While we do not wish to discuss details of our design, If it were my design, I'd be embarrassed to discuss the details too. > we would comment that the suggestion detailed by Dan Lanciani for > improvement to the hardware firmware is a valid one but our engineers > believed that such modification would not be sufficient to overcome > the inherent weakness of the Caller ID decoder used with respect to > the noises and the resultant stray characters. Sorry, wrong answer. The problem isn't with the caller ID decoder chip. It's how you use it. Regardless of what "noise" the chip puts out on its serial line, there is simply no excuse for sending those bytes into your command interpreter. You _know_ when the serial input of the microcontroller is switched to the caller ID chip. You should not be treating caller-ID-chip-generated bytes (be they garbage or valid characters) as user keyboard input. > An engineer would have contacted Dan Lanciani to discuss the > technical aspects of the proposed modifications with him if not for > the fact that, unfortunately, the telephone number given by Dan > Lanciani for contact was inadvertently misplaced and lost. No comment. > However, the readers should know that Dan Lanciani's experience > with Call Editor II is at least 6 months old. In our industry 6 > months is a long time. We have made many improvements to the product ... So, exactly what changes have you made and do they fix the problem? Are you sending out firmware updates? If, as you say above, you didn't implement my suggestions, then how did you improve the situation? > and have introduced some other products for Caller ID applications in > this period. [remainder of advertisement deleted] > 5. Call Editor II works very well with WindowsHinge and VIVE Vision > as they are designed to do. I truly look forward to the day when just the right combination of "noise" has one of these units repeatedly generating hang-up calls to a nice, litigious subscriber. :) Seriously, though, it's devices like this that contribute to the growing problem of "flakey" systems. They work a lot of the time and we are expected to simply tolerate the glitches as long as nothing too bad happens. We build bigger systems around them and then try to patch the problems with "filters" (otherwise known as quick hacks). Eventually, circumstances conspire to make the whole fail in an unpleasant way. Then we start talking about software engineering and project management and ... (Well, this is turning into a RISKS posting.) > Dan Lanciani is advised to use Call Editor RSA for his application > instead of Call Editor II. With Call Editor RSA, he would not have > to worry about any noise interference. Gee, thanks, but no thanks. I'm perfectly happy with the simple, direct caller ID<->RS232 interface I'm now using. It generates plenty of garbage characters, but it doesn't have a microcontroller trying to act on them to dial my phone. In any case, I think this answers my question about whether the Call Editor II was fixed ... > Carl K.S. Teo > President,VIVE Synergies Inc., 30 West Beaver Creek Road, Unit 2, > Richmond Hill, Ontario L4B 3K1. > Tel: 905-882-6107 Ext.11, Fax: 905-882-6238 [address left for reference] Dan Lanciani ddl@harvard.* ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 May 94 12:32 EST From: Al Cohan <0004526627@mcimail.com> Subject: Need Distinctive Ring Line Splitter I purchased a device from Lynx Automation, Inc. in Washington State and the device is purported to sense the incoming ring cadence an forward the call to either a phone system or fax. This unit is available in two and four line versions corresponding to the four distinct industry standard cadences available. We now come to find out that the company says "Oh, it sometimes doesn't work with 1A2 and some PBX's. It seems to work okay with the newer electronic key systems". Well I am steamed! MY client is not about to upgrade to a new system nor pay the $100 installation charge for a residential line plus about $26.00 per month for low fax usage. The select-a-ring option only cost $9 to install and $4 - $5 per month for the second number on the line. Now, what do I do? My client thinks I'm a damn fool and don't know what I'm doing -- and isn't about to get a separate fax line. Does anyone on the net know of another company or companies that manufacture a ring decoder that actually *works*? Thanks in advance, Al Cohan ------------------------------ From: timkay@netcom.com (Timothy L. Kay) Subject: Re: Replace POST-MAIL by FAX Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 18:30:27 GMT Herb Effron (herb@halcyon.com) wrote: > I have never had a fax machine. Instead, I use a 14.4 fax modem (which is > New way #1: > I now send a "Quick Fax" -- when I want to ask a brief question or > New way #2: > I now send _only_ fax correspondence (in place of 'paper') whenever I agree that the concept of using a fax modem to handle my correspondences seems a good idea. Unfortunately, I find that technology is letting me down. Unlike Herb, I am trapped in the world of Microsoft Windows, and I have been unable make fax software work reliably. I have tried Delrina (the market leader) Winfax Pro 3.0 and 4.0 and Sofnet Faxworks Pro 3.0. None of these packages will reliably receive faxes. Winfax Pro 3.0 was by far the best, but it has a very poor user interface. The other two packages are quite unreliable at receiving faxes. And the upgrade to Winfax 4.0 disables version 3.0. I'm finally so disgusted that I now leave my old, dusty, curly-paper fax machine turned on to receive faxes. Details: I am using a Supra Fax Modem V.32bis which is on the approved list from both Delrina and Sofnet. I upgraded to Supra's latest ROM to make sure that the modem wasn't at fault. My testing consists of trying to receive a fax-back catalog from various companies. The testing is repeatable, and invariably fails with Winfax Pro 4.0. It is slightly less unreliable with Faxworks Pro 3.0 but still fails frequently. As I said, I can no longer test Winfax Pro 3.0. My dusty fax machine has no trouble receving any faxes. I tried faxing a question to Delrina. My note was very explicit, and mentioned all relevant information. I received back from them a fax stating that, if I am to receive help from them via fax, then I must fill out the attached form. They then also included a ten page document of troubleshooting tips which was completely inappropriate for the problems I was experiencing. To make matters worse, they had problems sending the fax to me and kept trying, so I ended up with about 50 pages of curly paper. I have as yet been unable to get an answer from Delrina. For those of you familiar with the software, I will also mention that I have applied the latest Winfax Pro 4.0 patches from Delrina. Their patch program took an hour to run! And it didn't fix any problems. D E L R I N A, are you out there?? All indications are that you have many unhappy (want-to-be) users out here. And I know it isn't my modem. I talked to another user of Winfax Pro 4.0 who has a completely different modem, and he was having identical problems. We had to revert from the nifty concept of computer-to-computer- communications-via-fax-modems to the (relatively) old-fashioned paper-to- paper-via-fax-machines. As for the matter of sending faxes, all of the programs work flawlessly. And I paste a scanned signature, and nobody ever complain. Personally, I would never accept a faxed signature, but that is a different matter. Tim ------------------------------ From: rwb@alexander.alias.cs.cmu.edu (Robert Berger) Subject: Re: What Kind of Capacity is in VBI? Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 19:07:57 GMT > A question I have is, for a U.S. signal, which I believe the Vertical > Blanking Interval also exists, how much capacity is available on a > single TV channel and at what speed can the data be sent? Is this > related to closed captioning? If not, what type equipment is needed > to decode VBI data and what kind of costs are involved to build it? The WST standard for NTSC puts 32 bytes on a VBI line. These lines are per field, so with one VBI line you get: 32 bytes x 8 bits/byte * 60 fields/second = 15 kbps If you use all 10 available data VBI lines, you can get 150 kbps. ------------------------------ From: king@wildebeest.cig.mot.com (Steven King) Subject: Re: "Erlang" the Programming Language Date: 26 May 1994 19:13:52 GMT Organization: Motorola Cellular Infrastructure Group Reply-To: king@wildebeest.cig.mot.com king@wildebeest.cig.mot.com publicly declared: > Does anyone have any information on a programming language called > "Erlang"? Minutes after sending this inquiry I remembered that we have a very nice technical library just upstairs from me. In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, "Doh!" In any case, our library had the book. In there I found contact information for the authors. One of the authors responded to my query with a pointer to their ftp site. Now I have *tons* of information on the language, as well as a compiler for MS-DOS. (Would have prefered a Unix version, but hey ...) Thanks to everyone else who responded to me as well! The email contact is erlang@erix.ericsson.se; the ftp location is euagate.eua.ericsson.se (directory /pub/eua/erlang). Here's the short blurb I pulled from the site. I'll let interested parties grab the rest of the docs (mostly PostScript) themselves. Erlang - "Concurrent Programming in Erlang", J. Armstrong, M. Williams & R. Virding, P-H 1993. Classification: Concurrent functional programming language for large industrial real-time systems. Untyped. Pattern matching syntax. Recursion equations. Explicit concurrency, asynchronous message passing. Relatively free from side effects. Transparent cross-platform distribution. Primitives for detecting run-time errors. Real-time GC. Modules. Dynamic code replacement (change code in running real-time system, without stopping system). Foreign language interface. Availability: Free version (subject to non-commercial licence) with no support. Commercial versions with support are available (Erlang Systems AB). The language looks very interesting to me. I'd still like to hear from people who have direct experience with it. Steven King -- Motorola Cellular Infrastructure Group ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #255 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa13378; 27 May 94 6:39 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA25313; Fri, 27 May 94 02:22:05 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA25304; Fri, 27 May 94 02:22:03 CDT Date: Fri, 27 May 94 02:22:03 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9405270722.AA25304@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #256 TELECOM Digest Fri, 27 May 94 02:22:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 256 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: "NetWare for Dummies" by Tittel (Rob Slade) Need Information on "Microcel" Technology/Products/Company (Jeff Miller) Lower Domestic Telephone Rates (National Information Systems) Average Data Speed of Wire Telegraphy Wanted (Steve Chafe) DTMF Decoding via SoundBlaster Card? (Eric L. Hinson) Two Line/LED 'In Use' Mod (Eric L. Hinson) NYNEX Announces Mandatory 1+NPA (Stan Schwartz) Reverse Directory FAQ Wanted (Lloyd Matthews) Un*x Based SS7 Decoders (Mark Gallion) NH E911 (was Re: No 911 Available as Tot Drowns) (Paul S. Sawyer) Name and Address -> Long Distance Companies (Jonathan Loo) FCC World BBS Now Distributes TELECOM Digest (TELECOM Digest Editor) National BBS Numbers Available (David Smith) Re: Government Regulates Modem Redial Attempts (Paul Lee) Re: Internet Access at Home? (Dave Mausner) Re: Internet Access at Home? (K. M. Peterson) Re: No 911 Available as Tot Drowns (Carl Moore) Re: No 911 Available as Tot Drowns (Jonathan) What Did You Have For Dinner Today? (was Re: Solomon Islands) (Carl Moore) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 13:23:48 MDT From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "NetWare for Dummies" by Tittel BKNTWDUM.RVW 940208 IDG Books Worldwide, Inc. 155 Bovet Road, Suite 310 San Mateo, CA 94402 "Netware for Dummies", Tittel, 1993, 1-56884-003-9, U$19.95/C$26.95 Dummies are not supposed to run networks. This was probably not a terribly good concept. A computer network is a complicated object. There are many factors to consider in planning, building and running a network. Given the complexity, the topic is not a good candidate for an easy reading manual. In addition, the network operating system chosen is Novell NetWare, which is not only complex in terms of the feature set, but also in terms of incompatible versions. The "... For Dummies" breezy and light-minded style does not suit the topic. Too many topics are opened simply to be discarded when the going gets tough. An example is security rights, one of the areas that many administrators have problems with. Combinations of attribute rights, trustee rights, and rights masks contribute to effective rights. All of the various rights and attributes are mentioned, but no formula is given for calculating effective rights and there is only a single example. The content is presented in an organized and amusing manner. If you are faced with getting up a Novell network and are terrified of the prospect, you may find this easier to read through than the NetWare documentation. It will also help you consider some aspects, such as cabling (although there is not much detail here, either). This may, therefore be a helpful starting guide -- but no more. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKNTWDUM.RVW 940208. Distribution is permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated newsgroups/mailing lists. Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca Institute for Robert_Slade@sfu.ca Research into rslade@cue.bc.ca User p1@CyberStore.ca Security Canada V7K 2G6 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 17:26:09 -0700 From: cornhead@netcom.com (Jeff Miller) Subject: Need Information on "Microcel" Technology/Products/Company Hi, a surplus dealer friend of mine has stumbled onto some "Microcel" equipment and I'd like to know if it would be usefull to me. If it simply can be used as a decent cordless phone I'd be happy! The system consists of three rechargeable handsets that seem at least as fancy as the typical cellular phone, an ~15 pound "control unit" and another plastic unit which I would guess is an antenna/receiver unit. The control and "antenna" are joined by an ~25 conductor DIN cable. A photocopy stuffed in with the antenna indicates minimum clearance figures. A quick glance at the owner's manual for the handset (the only manual available) indicates the handsets can intercom to each other and what not. A modular cord is boxed with the control unit, so I guess you can plug it into a standard telephone outlet. With luck it has modest PBX funtionality, too. Pawing over the system, I remembered a press release I read about a year ago about a "new" type of cellular phone with 1/4 mile radius blah blah blah ... I wonder if this system might be related. This surplus dealer friend suggested the system might not work out of the box, that the phones might somehow be (hmmm, what's the phrase?) node locked or some such. I myself wondered if the whole affair might have been a test-bed or demo system and might not have proper FCC approval at this point. So I am looking for any hints or information on this system. If you are familiar with these systems, deos it sound complete? Will it work out of the box, and is it feasible for me to get it working without any technical docs? What is its status in the eyes of the FCC? I'm suspicious of the whole thing because I've never heard of anything quite like it being generally available. But it sure deos seem cool and I can probably get it cheap so I'd like to know. The only model number I gleaned from the system was "2400". I'd be glad for any information via e-mail. Thanks! cornhead@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: nis@netcom.com (National Information Systems) Subject: Lower Domestic Telephone Rates Organization: NIS, San Jose CA Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 21:44:02 GMT Does anyone know of a company that shops for low telephone rates for you? For the last five years, we've changed phone companies every year. Each time we sign up for low rates in one area we're calling to but the other areas are very expensive. We use the telephones for tele-sales and heavy outgoing FAXes. I've heard there are small, independent telephone consultants that can mix and match the best rates into a coherent package deal. We're looking for something customized to us. Has anyone ever heard of this? Please respond in this group -- don't email me, ok? dave (dave@nis.com) ------------------------------ From: itstevec@rocky.ucdavis.edu (Steve Chafe) Subject: Average Data Speed of Wire Telegraphy Wanted Organization: Information Resources, UC Davis Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 21:58:45 GMT Hello, Does anyone know what the average speed (in characters per minute, or whatever is appropriate) of a professional telegrapher would have been when wire telegraphy was the main mode of electronic communication? I'm trying to do a comparison of data communication speed then and now, so I'd love to hear any thoughts that people can offer. Thanks, Steve Chafe itstevec@hamlet.ucdavis.edu ------------------------------ From: ehinson@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Eric L. Hinson) Subject: DTMF Decoding via SoundBlaster Card? Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 20:42:47 MDT I would like to be able to call up my computer from a remote phone, dial in a code and then have the system transfer me to various places. For this I would need a line controlling device of some sort (could just use a modem) and a way to link the SoundBlaster to the phone line. Any information/suggestions on this will be greatly appreciated. Eric L. Hinson (kb4rzf) / 'finger -l ehinson@satelnet.org' for PGP Public Key Internet: ehinson@nyx.cs.du.edu (finger this address for more info about me) Snail Mail: 69 Sanford St, St. Augustine, FL 32084 USA / Phone: (904)823-8668 Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above may not be those of the sys admin(s) ------------------------------ From: ehinson@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Eric L. Hinson) Subject: Two Line/LED 'In Use' Mod? Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 20:51:07 MDT I have an old Western Electric desk phone that I would like to modify for two-line use. If possible I would like to have the ability to determine which lines are in use before picking up the phone. Does such a modification exist already? If so, how is it done? Thanks, Eric L. Hinson (kb4rzf) / 'finger -l ehinson@satelnet.org' for PGP Public Key Internet: ehinson@nyx.cs.du.edu (finger this address for more info about me) Snail Mail: 69 Sanford St, St. Augustine, FL 32084 USA / Phone: (904)823-8668 Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above may not be those of the sys admin(s) ------------------------------ From: stans@panix.com (Stan Schwartz) Subject: NYNEX Announces Mandatory 1+NPA Date: 27 May 1994 00:54:32 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC NYNEX announced yesterday that they will close the last gap and make 1+NPA dialing mandatory for inter-NPA calls from the 516 and 914 area codes, effective 9/24/94. Until now (as far as 516 was concerned), we were able to use the old-style ten-digit dialing method. In related news, the new Suffolk County (516) phone book instructs callers to dial 0+516+XXX+XXXX for INTRA-NPA operator-assisted/calling card calls. I assume this will also be mandatory on 9/24/94. Stan ------------------------------ From: lloyd@pebbles.esl.com (Lloyd Matthews) Subject: Reverse Directory FAQ Wanted Date: 26 May 1994 21:21:57 GMT Organization: TTC - ESL, Inc. Is there a Reverse Directory FAQ available? From the comments in the Digest, it seems that a Reverse Directory with consistently up-to-date telco databases would be welcomed. I am new to commercial telecom applications, and have found this group fascinating and educational. I would welcome any information that would help me put one together. (And also whether I could actually make any money operating one!) ------------------------------ From: bellcore!iscp.bellcore.com!gark@uunet.UU.NET (Mark Gallion) Subject: Un*x Based SS7 Decoders? Organization: Bellcore Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 19:23:08 GMT Does anyone know of any Un*x based software that might convert binary SS7 data to a "pretty print" format. I'm trying to find something that isn't unlike a protocol analyzer, but would just format and display the binary data that I already have access to and not be a separate hardware device. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Mark S. Gallion Bell Communications Research Piscataway, NJ gark@iscp.bellcore.com ------------------------------ From: paul@senex.unh.edu (Paul S. Sawyer) Subject: NH E911 (was Re: No 911 Available as Tot Drowns) Date: 26 May 1994 20:13:05 GMT Organization: UNH Telecommunications and Network Services In article rlvd_cif@uhura.cc.rochester. edu (Rob Levandowski) writes: > [article about child drowning because parents dialed '911' in an area > with no '911' service deleted] > In any case, I'm sure the following bit of information is as true in > other rural non-911 areas as it is in Cheshire County: If you can't > get through to 911, you should try dialing 0 for the operator. The > operator can connect you more quickly than it would take you to look > up the number in a phone book or try to dredge it out of memory when > you're in a panic. Most N.H. towns, especially the non-911 ones, have nice fluorescent stickers which they hand out so that the number can be handy on each of your phones. A few years ago, my town, on the other side of the state, had six or seven numbers on that sticker under "to report a fire ..." These were the home numbers of the volunteer firefighters which would likely have someone there to answer most of the time. If the first one did not answer, just go down the list until someone answers (or the fire burns itself out ... :-) Of course, we have just one number (not 911) now, and that is to a 24-hour dispatch center; and soon, > The gossip I've heard is that Cheshire County will jump directly to > Enhanced 911 once all of the local offices install modern switches. > Since virtually all emergency calls are handled out of the Mutual Aid > center in Keene as it is, the political-boundaries question Pat > mentioned is already resolved. The statewide E911 system is more than gossip. At this point, it is a "done deal" with NYNEX, to be up and running mid-1995. This of course cuts through the petty bureaucracies by imposing a much larger one and adds a level of complexety or more. Your parents, and all the rest of us are already paying for it through a monthly charge on our phone bills. By the way, the center you speak of (S.W.N.H.) has been operating for many years as a good example of a coordinated regional dispatch center, thanks in a large part to its first chief/coordinator, Bob Callahan. Paul S. Sawyer - University of New Hampshire CIS - Paul.Sawyer@UNH.Edu Telecommunications and Network Services VOX: +1 603 862 3262 50 College Road FAX: +1 603 862 2030 Durham, New Hampshire 03824-3523 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 20:39:06 -0400 From: Jonathan Subject: Name and Address -> Long Distance Companies In a recent TELECOM Digest Editor's Note, Pat Townson wrote: > the rules currently say that local telcos may not withhold > name and address information from long distance carriers -- even if > the number is otherwise non-published -- for billing purposes. This is a security problem. Customers should be allowed to block the delivery of their name and address information if they have non-published telephone numbers or non-listed addresses. If a customer does this, then the telephone company should either act as billing agent for the long distance companies, or billing-block all calls placed through long-distance companies that the customer doesn't want. This won't affect COCOT equal access; users should still be able to place calls from the COCOT over whatever company that they choose; but the customer may request a BILLING block for all companies except those designated by the customer. This would prevent excessive dissemination of customer name and address information. Also, the customer name and address information should be confidential by law. Jonathan D. Loo [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Fancy that; customer name and address information should be confidential by law; I guess under such a law only criminals would publish, distribute or possess telephone directories. Jonathan, how do you suppose R.L. Polk, Haines, and the other directory publishers all did business back in the 1920's? (Yes, they have been around that long compiling their 'criss-cross' books ...) They had dozens of women sitting at the machines of those days each with pages taken from local telephone books, sitting there keying in the data by hand. When punch cards became the norm, the same women sat at keypunch machines and punched cards with the data right off the pages of the phone book. They'd then take those cards to the IBM machine (was it a 1401 that sorted cards out to the ten pockets based on the punches in each column?) and sort them by phone number, then by street number and name, etc ... off it went to the printer. Until you outlaw phone books you will not be able to outlaw the dissemination of customer names and addresses. And there is *already* a law in place which says long distance companies can use CNA for one purpose, and one purpose only: billing for calls. Already, they are unable to get the names of subscribers who are not their customers. Why add another layer? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 18:30:58 CDT From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: FCC World BBS Now Distributes TELECOM Digest I am pleased to welcome FCC World, a new BBS operating in Washington, DC to the network of independent systems on which this Digest is distributed on a regular basis. Effective in the next few days, each issue of the Digest will be made available to read or download in a section of the Library files on FCC World, and our readers in the Washington, DC metro area may find it more convenient to use this new service than reading through Usenet and comp.dcom.telecom. The choice of course is yours, and I hope you will join me in thanking attorney Shaun A. Maher (sysop of FCC World) for making this option available. They are also inviting TELECOM Digest readers to open a user account on the BBS if you want up-to-date news from the Federal Communications Commission as it occurs. In addition to the email address 'avb@cais.com' you can contact these folks as follows: Shaun A. Maher, Esq. Smithwick & Belendiuk, P.C. Sysop of FCC WORLD Voice - 202-785-2800 Fax - 202-785-2804 BBS - 202-887-5718 The BBS is multi-line, but I am told it has been quite busy in the past week with new subscribers coming on board, so be patient in trying to get in. Thanks again to Shaun Maher for agreeing to make TELECOM Digest available on a regular basis to the FCC World subscribers. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ From: David Smith Subject: National BBS Numbers Date: Thu, 26 May 94 23:15:45 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) This is an invitation to join DJSA Bulletin Board. You can call DJSA BBS in one of two ways. You can either call us direct at (305) 749-6458 or you can call your local Tymenet or Telenet number and connect through Global Access. DJSA Bulletin Board has been online since April 21, 1989. We are a multi-node BBS specializing in SHAREWARE and PUBLIC DOMAIN software. We publish the National BBS Directory which contains a list of over 2,000 BBS numbers throughout the USA. The directory is released quarterly in March, June, September and December. You can gain immediate membership to DJSA BBS by calling our Telephone Access Billing System (TABS). TABS will allow you to call our 1-900 numbers from any touch tone telephone, 24 hours per day. This phone call is not made with your computer modem, it is made by voice. A computer automated voice will ask you to input the number of our BBS. You enter the following phone number ... <749-6458>. Have a pen handy so that you can write down the access code that you are given by the computer automated voice. You need this access code to gain entry to DJSA BBS. Then, call DJSA Bulletin Board and enter the access code when you log in. You have two choices of subscriptions at DJSA BBS. You can pay $10.00 for one month of access by calling TABS at (900) 622-8227. You can pay $25.00 for four months of access by calling TABS at (900) 622-5225. The cost of this call will be on your next telephone bill. Customers under the age of 18 must get their parents permission before they call TABS. TABS is a service of True Media Inc. If you would like more information,then please call customer service toll free number at (800) 889-DJSA. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 23:30:00 CDT From: Paul A. Lee Organization: Woolworth Corporation Subject: Re: Government Regulates Modem Redial Attempts In TELECOM Digest Volume 14 Issue 250, Steven Bradley wrote: > if you are a developer, do NOT use the internal redial option in the > faxmodem, use the BUSY, VOICE, NO ANSWER result codes to re-dial it using > the software command to ... allow unlimited and unregulated re-dialing Indeed, most of the communications software I've encountered uses the modem result (either numeric code or verbose text string) to determine the result of a dial attempt. The software can keep track of "BUSY" results and redial up to a preset number of attempts. Why, though, would one want to redial upon encountering a "VOICE" or a "NO ANSWER" result? A "VOICE" result would typically indicate that the modem's dial attempt has reached either an intercept message or a live body at the dialed number, indicating that a wrong number is being dialed (for legitimate purposes, at least). A "NO ANSWER" result on a valid number typically results from a problem with the modem or fax machine that should have answered at the other end. I can understand making numerous redial attempts on a "BUSY" condition, but what would be the purpose of redialing on a "VOICE" or "NO ANSWER" result, other than to harass (whether innocently, ignorantly, or maliciously) the recipient of the call? And our esteemed and unflappable editor admonishes Mr. Bradley: > I hope you are the next victim of someone's 'unregulated and > unlimited redialing' rather than me. And no, I do not think 'it is > about time we fired the FCC ...'. I think it is time we gave the > agency even greater enforcement powers in a few instances that I will > not go into here at this minute. If I may presume to interpret and amplify Mr. Townson's sentiment: Much of the basis for the existence of the FCC and most government regulatory agencies is the trouble and frustration brought about by careless, thoughtless, malicious, or brazenly stupid actions taken by a relatively small percentage of society. The irony in this, of course, is that many actions taken by those very agencies (that is, the people who constitute those agencies) are, themselves, careless, thoughtless, malicious, or brazenly stupid. I cannot determine which of those four categories might describe Mr. Bradley's desire to provide for "unregulated and unlimited redialing", but I would like to point out to him, and to others who might engage in such a practice, that they and their actions comprise a part of the *reason* for the existence of the FCC and other regulators of telephone equipment and services. Bearing that in mind, Mr. Bradley's sentiment concerning it being "about time we fired the FCC" seems disturbingly hypocritical, self-righteous, and irresponsible. The irresponsibility is manifested by proposing the demise of an agency, while promoting practices that serve to justify the existence of that same agency. That's like an organized crime boss proposing to do away with the FBI, or a drug lord advocating the demise of the DEA. It smacks of thugism, and it annihilates credibility. It's an argument that proves itself false. Paul A. Lee Voice 414 357-1409 Telecommunications Analyst FAX 414 357-1450 Woolworth Corporation CompuServe 70353,566 INTERNET , WOLVERINE@ASU.Edu says: > I am interested in getting a internet link to my home. I'm not > talking about a call up service, but am referring to an actual link to > my house. I am thinking of setting up a server. I need to know where > to start. How does one go about getting a line set up and what > hardware is required? Any response will be appreciated. Start here: 1. Contact the system or network manager at the nearest college or university, either by phone, or by mail. Engage this person in the above discussion. By offering a bottle of booze or other spiffs, you might obtain help in connecting to the backbone; if not, at least you will have a new friend. You will have to pay for your telco line. 2. Obtain a list of internet service providers near you (the guys who offer dialup access). One example I can think of is PSI, Inc. (Telephone 1-800-82-PSI-82). They usually offer higher-cost direct-line services, such as ISDN connections to their routers. 3. There are often bedroom sysops running public unix systems who already have net connections, and they will either offer you a feed, or put you in touch with their upstream connection. Continue swimming upstream until the costs are beyond your reach. Warning: Don't be surprised by costs starting at several hundred bucks per month. the faster your connection, the more you will pay for termination gear and phone charges. Still think the internet is free? Suggestion: let the group know how your quest progresses. Dave Mausner, Sr Consultant, Braun Technology Group, Chicago. ------------------------------ From: kmp@tiac.net (K. M. Peterson) Subject: Re: Internet Access at Home? Date: 26 May 1994 21:01:42 GMT Organization: KMPeterson/Boston In article TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to an WOLVERINE@ASU.Edu and articles by others: > They're very typical of what I get in the mail, and hopefully > answers from readers will be seen by many others who are asking the > same thing. PAT 1) Monitor alt.internet.access.wanted to find out what questions are currently being posed and how they are being answered. 2) Purchase the book "Connecting to the Internet" ($15.95 from O'Reilly & Associates 800-889-8969, ISBN 1-56592-061-9). 3) Call the network support people at ASU and ask _them_. Ask them who their regional provider is. Ask them about whether they would sell you the service. A pointer: getting a dedicated line is probably going to be _very_ expensive, depending on the provider that you settle on and the distance to their point of presence (POP). You really may not need that kind of access ... try finding a provider who can provide dialup PPP and try that first. You didn't say much about what kind of setup you want and why. You may be under the (mistaken) impression that the only dialup access is to a Un*x box, and running Un*x commands in a shell. This isn't true: running PPP on my Mac, InterNews, Eudora (for mail), and a collection of other utilities gives me _identical_ access as if I were connected to an Ethernet connected to the 'Net, except for the speed of the connection. And you pay for speed, eh PAT? K. M. Peterson email: KMP@TIAC.NET phone: +1 617 731 6177 voice +1 617 730 5969 fax [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You sure do ... then you pay some more. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 May 94 17:18:15 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: No 911 Available as Tot Drowns There are lots of cases where a phone prefix crosses county lines. Near me: 1. Extreme southern New Castle County (Delaware) is served by the Smyrna CO, whose service is mostly in Kent County. 2. A tiny portion of eastern Baltimore County (Md.) is served by the Edgewood exchange, in Harford County. 3. A tiny portion of the 610-388 Mendenhall exchange (Chester County, Pa.) is across the Brandywine creek in Delaware County. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 May 1994 21:16:51 -0400 From: Jonathan Subject: Re: No 911 Available as Tot Drowns The Editor wrote: > The trouble is, no one seems willing to let some other town > handle their emergency calls. I think that it would be a good idea to coordinate 911 so that each 911 center can transfer calls to any emergency agency that serves nearby areas; and 911 centers within each state should be able to handle calls throughout the state. This would allow the telephone company to re-route calls more flexibly around network congestion, and also would keep people from being bounced from agency to agency or being told to call a seven-digit number. In addition, many areas have several emergency response agencies serving them; for example, some places are served by state, county and city police at the same time. 911 should be able to dispatch the nearest available unit, regardless of agency. If E911 is not available then 911 should route calls to some nearby emergency agency, such as the state police, or to the operator, or somebody who can provide emergency dispatch. People who call the emergency number should get intercept only when the system is hopelessly malfunctioning. Just my suggestions, for the record. Jonathan D. Loo ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 May 94 16:25:56 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: What Did You Have For Dinner Today? (was Re: Solomon Islands) How could you write about cannibalism and forget Alfred E. Packer? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Alfred Packer is probably the most famous (or infamous) cannibal in the history of these United States, or at least he was until Mr. Dahmer's naughty behavior became known to the police officers who opened the door of his refrigerator and looked inside. Packer, a resident of Colorado in the middle to late 19th century found himself stuck in the Rocky Mountains one cold, very extreme winter with nothing to eat but his associates in the party of six persons who were on the expedition. So he did just that ... killed the other five and ate them. With the warm spring weather, a rescue party was able to traipse up the mountain to bring all concerned back to safety. Shocked at finding a healthy and well-fed Mr. Packer and but the bones and unedible remains of the others they arrested Alfred and held him over for trial on charges of cannibalism. (Oops, pardon me, there goes my politcal incorrectness again, I mean 'human recycling'.) At his trial, he was found guilty and sentenced to the peniteniary for the remainder of his natural life to be served at hard labor. At the time of his sentencing, a furious judge remarked, "there were only seven Republicans in the entire county, and you, you son of a bitch, you had to kill and eat five of them!" To honor his memory after his death in the late 1800's, a university there (I believe in Boulder but I am not certain) named its student dining hall after him. The Alfred E. Packer Memorial Cafeteria in the Student Union Building at the university served nutricious and delicious meals to students for many years. For all I know it may still be in operation. Seriously ... some historians contend that naming the student dining hall after Packer was not done to glorify his cannibalism but rather to remember him as an individual persecuted by the government for doing, well, what he had to do under the circum- stances in order to survive all winter in the rugged mountains. In other correctional industry news, the {World Weekly News}, one of the few journals which Tells the Truth About Things -- other than this Digest of course -- reported in a recent issue that Jeff Dahmer has been placed in solitary confinement at the maximum security mental hospital where he is being cared for after he killed five other inmates in their sleep and was caught eating them. My thanks to Carl Moore for reminding me of Alfred Packer and suggesting this commentary which many of you will read during your breakfast on Friday! ... PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #256 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa21512; 28 May 94 3:30 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA17139; Sat, 28 May 94 00:17:06 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA17130; Sat, 28 May 94 00:17:04 CDT Date: Sat, 28 May 94 00:17:04 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9405280517.AA17130@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #257 TELECOM Digest Sat, 28 May 94 00:17:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 257 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Annoying COCOT Problem (Darren Alex Griffiths) Performance of L.A. Cellular System (Dan Matte) Book Review: "Networks" by Ramteke (Rob Slade) Countries Using GSM? (Stephane Bausson) DS3 to Fiber Optic Convertor (Multimode) (Chuck Ludinsky) Interactive "Voice Mail" System For PC? (Axel Cleeremans) Anyone Using SwiftCall in the UK? (Dinesh Rehani) Security of a Code? (Andy La Varre) Hexadecimal Uuencode??? (Andy La Varre) Re: Nice Job, if You Can Get it! (Rich Greenberg) Re: Nice Job, if You Can Get it! (Tony Pelliccio) Re: SMS Messages on ORANGE (Richard Cox) Re: Distinctive Ring Line Effects? (Steven Bradley) Re: Need Distinctive Ring Line Splitter (Paul Mokey) Telecommunications Management (Jose Luis Sanchez) Need Site Name For Bellcore Standards (Kevin Hanson) Re: What Did You Have For Dinner Today? (Cole Keirsey) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: dag@ossi.com (Darren Alex Griffiths) Subject: Annoying COCOT Problem Date: 27 May 1994 15:49:02 -0700 Organization: Fujitsu Open Systems Solutions, Inc. The area I live in (the Mission District of San Francisco) has a number of COCOTs provided by a company called T.D. Rowe. They also make jukeboxes and various vending machines. I've had a number of problems with the phones and would dearly love to stop using them, but they are so prevalent that I frequently don't have a choice. Besides over charging, poor maintenance and seemingly random assignment of long distance provider there has been one problem that is extremely annoying. Basically, if I call my voice mail system to check for messages the phone frequently cuts out the keypad, disabling DTMF tones, before I'm finished with the call. I've given up using my calling card since the extra digits allow me to only check two or three messages; without the calling card I can get through a few more messages but using the pause or rewind functions are not advised. Misdialing of the password essenti- ally makes the call useless since I have to redial it and by that time I wasted most of my precious digits. I believe that the company is only allowing a certain number of digits be pressed to limit your choices of other long disance companies, I've never counted the number of digits but it appears to be less than 25. I have called their service line but they don't seem to want to help. Does anyone happen to know if the CPUC requires complete operation of the keypad? If they do then I can start to get a little meaner with them. If they don't I suppose I'll have to live with the problem. Thanks, Alex Griffiths dag@ossi.com Senior Software Engineer Fujitsu Open Systems Solutions, Inc. 408-456-7815 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Why not consider getting a cellular phone and putting an end to the hassle once and for all? I think you will find that on short (one or two minute) calls, the cost on cellular will be almost equal with what the COCOT is charging, particularly if you are getting a surcharge for the call due to using your calling card. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Reon_Can@mindlink.bc.ca (Dan Matte) Subject: Performance of L.A. Cellular System Date: Fri, 27 May 94 16:21:10 PDT Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada I am working on a proposal for an email system that will operate exclusively over cellular in case of disaster resulting in land line failure. Essentially, remote offices will dial-up over cellular to the central office and retrieve messages in case of emergency. The system will operate independently of land lines. There is one technical issue for which I need some additional information. In British Columbia the cellular provider that we will be using deploys "Class-A" service only in case of emergency so that cell phones that have been registered with the Provincial Emergency Program will still have access to the cellular system while non-Class-A subscribers will be denied access. This is accomplished by front end control access channels that validate the calls and determine whether or not to allow access to actual communication channels. The idea is that there should be enough capacity in the control access channels that the front end won't be a bottleneck to Class-A subscribers' ability to access the actual communication channels. As there hasn't been an event that triggered Class-A only service on a wide scale (such as an earthquake), I have no data showing if or how access for Class-A subscribers would be affected given that non-Class-A subscribers will make many attempts to access the system. If anyone can provide information on the performance of the cellular system in L.A. after the recent earthquake or direct me to where I can find information pertinent to my project, I would be greatly appreciative. Dan Matte reon_can@mindlink.bc.ca ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 May 1994 09:39:06 MDT From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Networks" by Ramteke BKNTWRKS.RVW 940209 Prentice Hall/Brady/Ellis Horwood/Simon and Schuster/New Riders/Digital Press 113 Sylvan Avenue Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 (515) 284-6751 FAX (515) 284-2607 phyllis@prenhall.com 70621.2737@CompuServe.COM Alan Apt Beth Mullen-Hespe beth_hespe@prenhall.com "Networks," Ramteke, 1994, 0-13-958059-X ramteke@pilot.njin.net The task of a reviewer is not necessarily an easy one. The hours involved in doing the actual reviews are not overwhelming when set against the tracking down and requesting of materials. So, when an author asks if you want a copy of his book, you generally jump at the chance. There is, however, a danger here. When the book arrives not from the publisher, but directly from the author, with a covering letter, personally autographed, you tend to feel a sense of obligation. One may be dismayed at the possibilities of a book said to cover both voice and data communications technologies. To have the book then arrive with the singular title of "Networks" is bemusing. What does it cover? More on TCP/IP? LANs? WANs? Public switched telephone networks? Yes. And very well, too. When a book less than 500 pages long attempts to cover concepts of networks, OSI, fiber optics, telephony, voice processing, SNA, X.25, SONET, Ethernet, NetWare, ATM and much, much more, something has to be left out. Ramteke, though, seems to be able to keep the most practical aspects of everything he covers. I have often bemoaned the inability of NetWare specific books to clarify Novell's security structure. Here, it is set out clearly in one page and a single illustration. Can't recall the minimum transceiver distance on Ethernet? It's here. (Unfortunately the "half wave length"; the reason for the transceiver distance; isn't.) Want to know how AT&T differs from MCI and Sprint -- technically? This is your book. (And I am not just saying this from any sense of obligation.) In the Preface, and more so in the covering letter, Ramteke makes it clear that he sees this as an introductory networking text. An outline is included which sets forth four different course streams for digital transmission, voice, WANs, and LANs. Questions are included at the end of each chapter. This, however, may sell the book short. With the convergence of all forms of communications and networking, the computer and systems professional may have a need for such a book to cover gaps in the spectrum of knowledge. The technical manager, or even executive, will very likely have a use for the diverse information contained herein. Ramteke requests readers to comment on the work to improve it. I would heartily recommend that experts in the various fields do so. This has the potential to become a technical classic. It isn't perfect. The chapter questions are very simplistic and probably only of use as a check to make sure the reader hasn't skipped anything. The historical sections, while containing interesting tidbits, really don't contribute to an analytical understanding of what is involved. (Note to authors: when outlining the history of X.25, don't forget to mention Datapac and the Canadian contribution. Particularly if you are sending the book to a Canadian reviewer.) I can, however, forgive a lot to someone who entitles his glossary of acronyms, "Last Call for Soup." copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKNTWRKS.RVW 940209. Publication permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated newsgroups/mailing lists. Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca Institute for Robert_Slade@sfu.ca Research into rslade@cue.bc.ca User p1@CyberStore.ca Security Canada V7K 2G6 ------------------------------ From: sbausson@ensem.u-nancy.fr (Stephane BAUSSON) Subject: Countries Using GSM? Date: 27 May 1994 19:45:48 GMT Organization: Ensem, Nancy, France Hello, Does anyone have the list of countries using GSM? Thanks, Stephane BAUSSON Engineering student at ENSEM (Nancy - France) Smail: 4, Rue de Grand, F-88630 CHERMISEY, France Email: sbausson@ensem.u-nancy.fr ------------------------------ From: cjl@mitre.org Subject: DS3 to Fiber Optic Convertor (Multimode) Date: 27 May 1994 20:03:40 GMT Organization: The MITRE Corporation Reply-To: cjl@mitre.org Does anyone know of a DS3 to fiber optic (multimode) converter? That is a device that extends a T3 line over multimode optical fiber> Chuck Ludinsky ------------------------------ From: axcleer@ulb.ac.be (Axel Cleeremans) Subject: Interactive "Voice Mail" System For PC? Date: 27 May 1994 08:10:19 GMT Organization: ULB - Laboratoire de Psychologie Industrielle Hello, A friend of mine would like to set up an interactive voice-mail system based on a PC for a small business, and was wondering about what kind of solutions are available. The basic requirement is that callers, who would interact with the remote PC through a touch-tone phone, should be able to receive different kinds of information by working their way through a hierarchy of "menu" selections. The system should also allow users to input strings of digits, for instance to order an item or to request that specific information be mailed to them. I am not sure how such a system is called but we have all interacted with something like that while communicating with banks or mail-order businesses. The specific question I have to this group is whether there exists a hardware device that will perform these functions, or a subset of them, when hooked up to or put inside a PC. If so, I would greatly appreciate receiving pointers to who would be selling such devices, and some indication of their cost. Thanks, Axel Cleeremans - NFSR Research Associate - Psychology Internet: axcleer@ulb.ac.be - Voice: +322 6503296 ULB CP122 - Ave FD Roosevelt 50 - 1050 Brussels Belgium ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 May 94 12:31:18 GMT From: rehani@utcdsv.SINet.SLB.COM (Dinesh Rehani +44 400 81999) Subject: Anyone Using SwiftCall in the UK? I am looking for comments from TELECOM Digest readers who might be subscribers to the SwiftCall service, especially in the UK. How good is their service? Are the advertised savings for real or are there hidden charges? How does Swift compare to TP and other callback services available? dinesh rehani@utcdsv.sinet.slb.com ------------------------------ From: alavarre@ids.net Subject: Security of a Code? Date: Fri, 27 May 94 15:59:46 EST Organization: IDS World Network Internet Access Service, (401) 884-9002 GUEST Any cryptology/code gurus out there that could help? What is the basic measure of the security of a code? What is the "bible" on the topic? The problem at hand is to assess the "security" of some encoding/encryption techniques. Where does one go to get smart about the basic measure of security in this context -- presumably the probability of cracking the code within X hours given a PRN sequence of length Y, etc. etc. Just a quick and dirty table of relative securities of different types of codes and ciphers would help me get started in the right direction. Email if you prefer, and Thanks in advance Andy La Varre alavarre@ids.net ------------------------------ From: alavarre@ids.net Subject: Hexadecimal Uuencode? Date: Fri, 27 May 94 16:04:35 EST Organization: IDS World Network Internet Access Service, (401) 884-9002 GUEST We're having a problem properly recieving attachments from a remote site. The administrator claims the remote site has a "binary to hexadecimal" encoder, implying that hex is being transmitted. The remote site is using CC:Mail. The users we're working with haven't got a clue ... Sounds like hogwash to me, I've never heard of such, and all my docs on three different sets of uuxxcode only talk about binary to ASCII and back. But before I jump down their throat I thought I'd ask somebody that *really* knows what's happening ... TIA, Andy La Varre alavarre@ids.net ------------------------------ From: richgr@netcom.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: Re: Nice Job, if You Can Get it! Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) Date: Fri, 27 May 1994 18:12:10 GMT In article BROWN.GERRY@AppleLink.Apple. COM (Gerry Brown Assoc, Gerry Brown,PAS) writes: > While reporting the problem, the service tech told me that effective > June 1, 1994, PacBell will be charging for a service call WHETHER THE > PROBLEM IS INSIDE OR OUTSIDE. The only way around the charge is to > subscribe to their Wire Service Plan. > Not a bad scam, heh! I pay for service no matter who is at fault. > The PacBell repair service claimed that the California PUC forced them > to implement this plan. Boy am I glad that the telephone industry has > been deregulated. Imagine what we would have to pay if that hadn't > happened. Pat, I had a problem believing this so I called the CPUC to try and get the answer from "the Horses Mouth" so to speak. Its not correct. If the problem is outside the NIJ, its still no cost to the user. What has changed is that previously, some PaBell techs were coming out, finding the problem was inside, and just telling the customer they had an inside problem and leaving without charging them if the customer assumed responsibility for the repair. They would only charge if they actually did the inside repair (assuming the customer didn't have the inside wire repair ripoff). Now, they have been instructed to enter a charge in any case if the problem is inside from the NIJ. Rich Greenberg Work: ETi Solutions, Oceanside & L.A. CA 310-348-7677 N6LRT TinselTown, USA Play: richgr@netcom.com 310-649-0238 Pacific time. I speak for myself and my dogs only. Canines: Chinook & Husky ------------------------------ From: Anthony_Pelliccio@brown.edu (Tony Pelliccio) Subject: Re: Nice Job, if You Can Get it! Date: 27 May 1994 19:14:25 GMT Organization: Brown University ADIR In article , BROWN.GERRY@AppleLink.Apple. COM (Gerry Brown Assoc, Gerry Brown,PAS) wrote: > While reporting the problem, the service tech told me that effective > June 1, 1994, PacBell will be charging for a service call WHETHER THE > PROBLEM IS INSIDE OR OUTSIDE. The only way around the charge is to > subscribe to their Wire Service Plan. > Not a bad scam, heh! I pay for service no matter who is at fault. > The PacBell repair service claimed that the California PUC forced them > to implement this plan. Boy am I glad that the telephone industry has > been deregulated. Imagine what we would have to pay if that hadn't > happened. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would double check the source on > this. Do you mean to tell me that if there is a problem in the CO > that *you* are going to have to pay for the repair? If the problem > is on the pole in the alley behind your house *you* will have to pay? > Gimme a break. PAT] Hey, I kind of like that. By their logic it means you now have free-run of the cable right through to the CO, and then on the switch itself. So next time a pair goes south on you, just go on up and swap it yourself. Let the phone company figure out the rest. Then again, it's not like telcos records of cable pair are all that accurate anyhow. I agree with Pat though, if they're going to charge for service wether or not it's your fault then rates should go down. Tony Pelliccio, KD1NR Anthony_Pelliccio@brown.edu, Tel. (401) 863-1880 Fax. (401) 863-2269 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But see Rich Greenberg's response earlier in this issue. Apparently all that is changing is they are cracking down on charging for visits made by technicians; if a technician is dispatched to your premises you will pay for it whether the tech does the work or you do the work. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 May 1994 15:48:14 -0700 From: richard@mandarin.com Subject: Re: SMS Messages on ORANGE d92-sam@nada.kth.se (Sam Spens Clason) wrote: >> Yes, but wouldn't 0956700111@orange.uk be nicer?! No ... my ORANGE number (when I publish it) will be a lot nicer than that ! >> Is there any such service out there? It will be coming soon. However there are some VERY long mail messages on the 'net ... you wouldn't even get the header of some in 160 characters! >>> It will become possible to send text messages from the handset (or >>> computer) to any other GSM/PCN system, to any of the old analogue >>> paging networks, or as an X400 message or a facsimile document. >> I am pretty sure that what you are talkin about is ordinary datatransfer >> that occupies a 9600 bit voice channel. Actually the rate of transfer is >> sligtly higher but I've never heard of a 11.4kbit modem :-) Data transfer will indeed be available, but SMS 160-character messages can be converted into fax format, and then sent as such *directly* from SMS. >> Like if your voice-mailbox or fax-mailbox sent you an SMS every time >> it receives a message. Yes, all ORANGE phones have voicemailboxes. They are *free* ... calls diverting to them are *free* (for anyone outside the UK, can I add that free access to voicemail is for from being the norm here. In some cases on cellular the calls are surcharged (33p/min for calls that were diverted to voicemail as opposed to 25p/min for ordinary calls). On ORANGE you only pay for retrieving messages from voicemail (and then it's only 7.5p/minute) The voicemailbox does indeed use SMS notification, as you suggest. However there are even quicker ways to respond to a voicemail notification. Clever people, these Finns !!! Richard D G Cox Mandarin Technology, P.O. Box 111, Penarth, South Glamorgan, Wales: CF64 3YG Voice: 0956 700111 Fax: 0956 700110 VoiceMail: 0941 151515 Pager 0941 115555 E-mail address: richard@mandarin.com - PGP2.3 public key available on request ------------------------------ From: steven@sgb.oau.org (Steven Bradley) Subject: Re: Distinctive Ring Line Effects? Organization: The Forest City Exchange, Forest City, Florida Date: Fri, 27 May 1994 01:30:01 GMT Rattlesnake Stu (whitmore@tahoma.cwu.edu) wrote: > 1. I recently had distinctive ringing enabled on a phone line that > leads to my BBS. Since then, I've had a significant increase in > handshake problems when receiving BBS calls. (The modem itself > determines the ring, and seems to be 100% accurate in doing so. I use I have a four line multi-user Unix system. Three lines on an inward rotary and a fourth line outward only. There are five phone numbers total. Two numbers go to the third line in the rotary. I use a Ring Decipher made by Command Communications ($70) box which decodes the ring pattern and sends to correct line. Such a box may help you if you feel the modem is having problems doing both tasks. The main number is for voice, the special ring number is for data, and it's accessed with fwd on busy from preceding line. Works well everytime. It does need two rings before it will answer though. > 2. Is there a way to boost a signal between the wall and the modem, > or would I even want to? I'm running an extension cord about 200' > that distance -- should I even worry about it? Should not be a problem normally, line voltage should be between 48 and 52v DC. If its less, you have a problem, if its a little more, do not worry about it. Ringing voltage is around 90v AC as I recall. Normally, the larger problem is the number of phones on a single line making a load, this measurement is listed with the FCC ID data. Your modem should have come with instructions that explained what the load number means and how many devices you can have (based on these values) on one line. I doubt you need to boost the signal. You may need a 16550 UART though to handle the throughput. You also may have handshake problems by not having configured it correctly. Normally you use RTS/CTS flow control, through hardware, but this requires the modem to be set up properly. Try looking in comp.dcom.modems. Internet: steven@sgb.oau.org Steven G. Bradley steven@gate.net GEnie: s.bradley6@genie.geis.com CompuServe: 73232.505@compuserve.com America Online: sgbradley@aol.com ------------------------------ From: bkron@netcom.com (Paul Mokey) Subject: Re: Need Distinctive Ring Line Splitter Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Fri, 27 May 1994 05:49:44 GMT Al Cohan <0004526627@mcimail.com> writes: > Does anyone on the net know of another company or companies that > manufacture a ring decoder that actually *works*? I've been using a Multi-Link SR3 for just such a purpose for years without a single problem. They're located in Lexington, KY; but their products are sold in telephone specialty shops everywhere. Call 'em for a dealer near you or look in the Yellow Pages under Telephone Equipment & Systems. I bought mine retail for under $100. ------------------------------ From: josel@vms.ucc.okstate.edu Subject: Telecommunications Management Organization: Oklahoma State University Computer Center Date: Fri, 27 May 1994 15:29:19 GMT Hello, I am looking for special events or seminars (one or two weeks) related to Management, Marketing, Strategic Planning, and Privatization in Telecommunications. People selected for these events are managers of several telecommunications areas with no technical background. Would you please let me know if you have some information about that. I want to thank you kindly, before hand, for your prompt response. Jose Luis Sanchez josel@vms.ucc.okstate.edu Electrical and Computer Eng. Oklahoma State University [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I suggest you simply keep on reading here. This Digest publishes a large number of seminar announcements, training class notices and related matter on the subjects you mention. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 May 1994 12:37:31 -0500 From: Kevin Hanson Subject: Need Site Name for Bellcore Standards Organization: Texas Metronet, Internet for the Individual 214-705-2917 (info) Does anyone know if there is an ftp site where I can find Bellcore documents? Specifically I am looking for the Common Language Code set (CLLI, CLFI, etc) plus any TL-1 documentation that may be available. Kevin Hanson kevinh@feenix.metronet.com ------------------------------ From: cole@advtech.uswest.com (Cole Keirsey) Subject: Re: What Did You Have For Dinner Today? (was Re: Solomon Islands) Date: 27 May 1994 17:29:39 GMT Organization: U S WEST Advanced Technologies Yes, the cafeteria in the student center at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is still called the Packer Grill. If memory serves, the folks Packer ate, and the judge who sentenced him, were Democrats (not Republicans as the previous article said). Honestly, now, who do you think would make a better meal -- Senator Dole or President Clinton? Packer did not serve out his life sentence, but was released after a few years. I believe that he became a personal body guard for the editor of a Denver newspaper, who had lobbied for Packer's release. Bon apetite. C. C. Keirsey cole@advtech.uswest.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #257 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa00675; 29 May 94 21:25 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA06935; Sun, 29 May 94 11:06:34 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA06902; Sun, 29 May 94 11:05:03 CDT Date: Sun, 29 May 94 11:05:03 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9405291605.AA06902@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #258 TELECOM Digest Sun, 29 May 94 11:05:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 258 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Telegraph Wires [Transcript of American Numismatic Broadcast] (N. Allen) Re: How Smart is Call-forwarding? (Brett Frankenberger) Re: How Smart is Call-forwarding? (John Lundgren) Re: Average Data Speed of Wire Telegraphy Wanted (Fred Blonder) Re: Government Regulates Modem Redial Attempts (Aaron Leonard) Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Call Routing (Gordon Burditt) Book Review: "The Internet Message" by Rose (Rob Slade) Re: Hunting Service From GTE (Paul Lee) Re: Cordless Phone Wanted With Ten Mile Range (John Lundgren) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 28 May 1994 14:06:47 -0400 From: ae446@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Nigel Allen) Subject: Telegraph Wires [Transcript of American Numismatic Assn Broadcast] Organization: 52 Manchester Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Reply-To: ae446@FreeNet.Carleton.CA The American Numismatic Association, a long-established group of collectors of coins and other types of money, prepares a daily radio broadcast about some aspect of collecting and posts it to the rec.collecting newsgroup. The following transcript was posted by ana@athena.csdco.com (ANA), and will be of particular interest to readers of the TELECOM Digest. Transcript No. 427 May 24, 1994 TELEGRAPH WIRES By Lee F. McKenzie Along the roadside, a determined tourist trips over a cactus. She struggles up an embankment and through sagebrush to get past telephone poles and wires. Finally, with camera in hand, she has an unobstructed view of Jenny Lake and the beautiful Teton Mountains. How often have you struggled to get just the right picture -- a photo without telephone wires to ruin a beautiful scene? This is "A-N-A's Money Talks." Many years ago, an artist sat at his workbench carefully engraving metal plates. He was an employee of the American Bank Note Company. The work before him was a vignette, or small picture, which would be used on checks issued by a bank in Elmira, New York. In the 1870s, banks prided themselves on the beautiful art work that adorned their checks. The vignettes often reflected achievements of society or the ambitions of local people. When the new checks for the Elmira bank were completed, a small vignette showed a country scene with cows in a quiet meadow, a distant bridge, and poles with a pair of wires connected between them. How odd that an artist would "ruin" a beautiful country scene with telegraph wires! What you and I would find annoying in our photos, was somehow important to an artist in 1878. Today marks the 150th anniversary of Samuel Morse's first telegraph message. In 1844, that message was sent 40 miles between Washington D.C. and Baltimore. The message Morse sent was, "What God Hath Wrought." These simple words reflected the inventor's own humble awe at a miracle. Suddenly, the pioneers of America had a fast way of hearing from home. Loved ones no longer seemed so far away. Business decisions that once took weeks now took a couple of days or less. In so many ways the art and history in old coins and paper money speak to us. When we see telegraph wires carefully engraved on an old check, we're reminded that money truly does talk. This has been "Money Talks." Today's program was written by Lee McKenzie and underwritten by Heritage Rare Coin Galleries, the world's largest rare coin firm. This is a production of the American Numismatic Association, America's coin club for over a century. For a transcript and a free ancient Egyptian coin, be the first to call 1-800-367-9723 with your local station's call letters. Request program 427. Nigel Allen ae446@freenet.carleton.ca ------------------------------ From: brettf@netcom.com (Brett Frankenberger) Subject: Re: How Smart is Call-forwarding? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Sat, 28 May 1994 20:39:54 GMT birchall@pilot.njin.net (Shag Aristotelis) writes: [ SUMMARY: The author has obtained a standard residential line with call forwarding in a town half way between the author's residence and a number that the author wishes to call frequently. Author has programmed the call forwarding on the 'middle' number to forward to the number he wishes to call frequently, for the purpose of eliminating toll charges. Author wants to know if, when he calls the middle number from his residence if it routed from the author phone to the author's CO, to the 'middle' CO, to the terminating CO, then to the number he is calling, or if it router from the author's phone to the authors CO to the middle CO, to the telephone terminating the 'middle' line, back from that telephone to the middle CO (presumably on a separate pair?), then to the terminating CO, and to the terminating number. (Obviously I'm not mentioning any intermediate Tandams between COs here). Author also notes that all inter-CO trunks are fiber.] The answer is that the CO handles it ... it doesn't go out and back. There isn't any means for it to do so, as the path between the CO and the 'middle' telephone can only carry one call. (Some people get two lines and have a forwarding device that they buy perform a rudimentary type of forwarding whereby when line one rings, line two automatically calls another number and the lines are connected, and they would send the call out and back ... also, large businesses sometimes program forwarding on their PBX's to take an incoming call and route it back out somewhere else, and that would also send the call out and back ... but in both cases there are *2* lines going to user's location, not one ... and in both cases, the telco is not invloved with the forwarding ... in the case you mention where you are buying the call forwarding feature from the telco (*72 or whatever it is), it doesn't go out to the 'middle number's' telephone and back. > Recently, I've encountered _nasty_ noise. Even the latest greatest > 28.8kbps modems with all the connection-holding capability in the > world can't connect. If I dial _directly_ without using the forward > (thus incurring big tolls) the routing is as follows, and there is no > noise: [ NOTE : In a part of the original msg that I deleted, author defines CO1 as his CO, CO2 as the CO of the middle line, and CO3 as the CO of the terminating connection, and [Net] as the number he is seeking to avoid toll charges to. ] > [Me] -c- [Shed] -f- [C01] -f- ([C02] -f-?) [C03] -c- [Net] > > (Note, I'm not sure whether a direct call would pass through the CO > in NXX 2.) It may or may not, depending on how the telco has set up the routing for calls from CO1 to CO3. > It looks like one of two things is happening here: > > 1) The computers are dumb, and are routing the call out to the number and > back again, and something's causing noise on the loop. That's not an issue ... it couldn't do that ... the wires just ain't there ... > 2) The computers are ok, but something's causing noise in NXX 2's CO > itself. Unless you *know* what the routing of your call is, don't assume you do. The routing for the toll versus the non-toll version of the call could be *completely different* ... Also, don't assume the routing is 100% fiber unless you *know* it is ... the routing could be completely different ... > I'm going to call BA-NJ in the morning, and go through the usual > process of explaining to them that I'm _absolutely certain_ it's not > my inside wiring, since there _is no inside wiring_ on that line... ;) Most telco types will immediately know that of course it doesn't involve the wiring on the middle line since the switch handles the forwarding ... (I'm not saying *you* are an idiot for not knowing that, but for someone in the telephone industry, they should know it immediately). > but I figured I'd toss this out, in hopes that someone out there knows > more about how the computers handle call-forwarding. So ... to address the issue of what is it ... if the only place it is analog is between your home and your CO and the terminating CO and the terminating number, then the problem has to be digital, since those same analog lines are used for the toll and the forwarded way of calling. Do you know if it is digital all the way. (i.e. are all the intermediate switches digital, or they converting the fiber back to analog to route through some kind of mechanical switch?) If it is digital all the way, they probably are taking frame-slips somewhere between the two COs ... make data calls from CO2 to CO3 and CO1 to CO2 and see which one fails ... (Ovviously, it's the telco's responsibility to do that, not you, but if there is anything compliated about the problem at all, they will probably be confused ...) If it is analog, then somewhere, there is something noisy ... it might be in CO1 or CO3, but just on trunks to CO2 ... who knows ... Good luck. Brett (brettf@netcom.com) Brett Frankenberger ------------------------------ From: sgiblab!news.kn.PacBell.COM!jlundgre@uucp-gw-2.pa.dec.com (John Lundgren) Subject: Re: How Smart is call-forwarding? Date: 28 May 94 18:18:54 GMT Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network Maybe something in the carrier plant is causing the trouble. Something like a ADPCM or whatever circuit that doesn't recognize the modem and tries to compress what it thinks is voice. jlundgre@kn.pacbell.com \ jlundgr@eis.calstate.edu ------------------------------ From: fred@nasirc.hq.nasa.gov (Fred Blonder) Subject: Re: Average Data Speed of Wire Telegraphy Wanted Date: 28 May 1994 23:30:49 GMT Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center -- InterNetNews site > Does anyone know what the average speed (in characters per > minute, or whatever is appropriate) of a professional > telegrapher would have been when wire telegraphy was the main > mode of electronic communication? . . . I don't know, but I've got a funny story: One of my C.S. professors at the University of Maryland was a ham radio operator, and was always trying to combine his hobbies. He wanted to transmit ASCII, but at the time the FCC didn't allow ASCII on the ham bands. (I've no idea if that's changed.) He and his friends settled on transmitting computer-generated and decoded Morse Code. The funny part is when they decided that nothing in the regs set a maximum rate for morse code, so they cranked it up to the equivalent of about 1200 baud. It was completely unintelligible to the human ear, but it was proper morse, and the FCC never gave them a hard time about it. If you want more info on archaic transmission methods, about four months ago, {Scientific American} ran a good article about semaphore telegraph systems. Fred Blonder fred@nasirc.hq.nasa.gov Hughes STX Corp. (301) 441-4079 7701 Greenbelt Rd. Greenbelt, Md. 20770 ------------------------------ From: leonard@telcom.arizona.edu (Aaron Leonard) Subject: Re: Government Regulates Modem Redial Attempts Date: 28 May 1994 17:26:34 GMT Organization: University of Arizona Telecommunications Reply-To: Leonard@Arizona.EDU In article , Paul A. Lee writes: > In TELECOM Digest Volume 14 Issue 250, Steven Bradley org> wrote: >> if you are a developer, do NOT use the internal redial option in the >> faxmodem, use the BUSY, VOICE, NO ANSWER result codes to re-dial it using >> the software command to ... allow unlimited and unregulated re-dialing > Indeed, most of the communications software I've encountered uses the > modem result (either numeric code or verbose text string) to determine > the result of a dial attempt. The software can keep track of "BUSY" > results and redial up to a preset number of attempts. > Why, though, would one want to redial upon encountering a "VOICE" or a > "NO ANSWER" result? A "VOICE" result would typically indicate that the > modem's dial attempt has reached either an intercept message or a live > body at the dialed number, indicating that a wrong number is being > dialed (for legitimate purposes, at least). A "NO ANSWER" result on a > valid number typically results from a problem with the modem or fax > machine that should have answered at the other end. > I can understand making numerous redial attempts on a "BUSY" > condition, but what would be the purpose of redialing on a "VOICE" or > "NO ANSWER" result, other than to harass (whether innocently, > gnorantly, or maliciously) the recipient of the call? I agree that redialing on voice would seem to be a rude and useless thing to do. However, redialing on NO ANSWER can make some sense. For example, assume that you are dialing into a pool of hundreds of modems (for example, the one we run). At any given time, it's likely that a small number of these modems will fail to answer, due to some malfunction. However, the odds are great, in such a case, that a successive dialin to the same pool, will succeed (because we've configured our rotary to "walk thru" the lines.) Aaron Leonard (AL104), University of Arizona Network Operations, Tucson AZ 85721 ------------------------------ From: gordon@sneaky.lonestar.org (Gordon Burditt) Subject: Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Call Routing Date: Sat, 28 May 1994 08:56:24 GMT > Currently, 0+ calls are sent to the operator services provider > (OSP) to which the premises owner or payphone provider presubscribes. > Under BPP, calls would be routed automatically to the OSP preferred by > the party being billed for the call. For example, a calling card call > would be routed to the cardholder's preferred OSP. A collect call > would be routed to the called party's preferred OSP. A call billed to > a third party would be routed to the OSP to which that third party had > presubscribed. Interesting. It's a good way to avoid AOS rates that approach those of 900 numbers. But what happens if: - The called party's preferred long distance carrier is "none of the above"? (This is a valid choice, and it does not prevent making LD calls using 10XXX codes.) - The called party's preferred long distance carrier has no presence in the area the caller is calling from? (E.g. how many areas of the USA DON'T have service from Vartec Telecom (10811)? If I selected them, could someone call me collect from one of these areas?) - The called party's preferred long distance carrier doesn't handle collect calls (yet, or has no plans to)? Does the call not complete? Does the carrier used fall back to the dialed prefix or the carrier of the originating phone? Gordon L. Burditt sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 May 1994 11:03:36 MDT From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "The Internet Message" by Rose BKINTMSG.RVW 940309 Prentice Hall 113 Sylvan Avenue Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 (515) 284-6751 FAX (515) 284-2607 phyllis@prenhall.com 70621.2737@CompuServe.COM Alan Apt Beth Mullen-Hespe beth_hespe@prenhall.com "The Internet Message", Rose, 1993, 0-13-092941-7 mrose@dbc.mtview.ca.us Could there be some connection between a cover design strongly reminiscent of Douglas Adam's, "Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" and a banner stating that this is the fourth book in Marshall Rose's trilogy? For those wanting to know how to use Internet mail, this is not your book. This is a technical work examining the design aspects of electronic mail systems. The Internet RFC822 and OSI's (Open System Interconnection) MHS (Message Handling System), aka X.400, are the two major examples used in the review. Those who know Rose's views of OSI will know which comes off better. In spite of the strong (and readily admitted) bias, this is a thorough analysis of a frequently bypassed field. For those who need to build or design messaging systems, this is required reading. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKINTMSG.RVW 940309. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated newsgroups/mailing lists. Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca Institute for Robert_Slade@sfu.ca Research into rslade@cue.bc.ca User p1@CyberStore.ca Security Canada V7K 2G6 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 May 1994 12:57:31 -0400 From: Paul A. Lee Organization: Woolworth Corporation Subject: Re: Hunting Service From GTE Since this thread seems to have expanded into a general comparison of GTE service offerings compared to other LECs, I'll offer a few pieces of my experience with GTE: About two years ago, I moved from a GTE area in Pennsylvania to Ameritech territory in Wisconsin. I now have two residential lines (with hunting), instead of one, and make about three times as many calls in a local service area that's about eight times as large, for about the same money. My company has two major sites that are served by GTE -- one in California and one in Florida. Digital (T-1) trunking is agony to get installed and running. DID trunks cost $350-$415 per month from GTE, compared to $45-$120 per month from NYNEX, Bell Atlantic, Ameritech, PacTel, etc. I can almost rely on GTE to be anywhere from several hours to a few *days* late -- or sometimes *early*, just to keep it interesting -- on installs and changes of service. On the other hand, GTE people seem to go out of their way to try and be helpful in case of a problem -- that is, beyond professional, to downright friendly. I've had GTE technicians give me their home phone numbers. I've been able to talk directly with OP crew leaders about coordinating their work with our contractors' work. I've been given phone numbers to directly reach test boards and central offices. That kind of stuff has been rather rare in the Baby Bells. Overall, I guess I'd have to chalk it up to "cultural diversity". Paul A. Lee Voice 414 357-1409 Telecommunications Analyst FAX 414 357-1450 Woolworth Corporation CompuServe 70353,566 INTERNET ------------------------------ From: sgiblab!news.kn.PacBell.COM!jlundgre@uucp-gw-2.pa.dec.com (John Lundgren) Subject: Re: Cordless Phone Wanted With Ten Mile Range Date: 28 May 94 16:11:55 GMT Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network Guorong Roger (hu_g@isis.cs.odu.edu) wrote: > Is there any kind of CORDLESS PHONE which can be used for ten to > twenty miles distance (not a cellular phone, not the regular cordless > phone which can only be used within the house). The telephone should > still use the regular telephone switching system. The master piece of > the phone should be installed at home, and the handset could be bring > ten to twenty miles away from the home but be still access the phone > at home. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There are, but they are not legal for use > in the USA. About the closest you can come to this legally in the USA is > to use a manual phone patch attached to a CB radio or some other type of > legal radio service. I have a phone patch here for example which I have The important point here is that the amateur radio service is for recreational non-commerial use only, and the hams tend to police themselves fairly well, especially in metro areas where the bands are crowded. And, naturally, the phone co doesn't want people to bypass their cellular service. So getting a legal ten mile phone is not easy. John Lundgren - Elec Tech - Info Tech Svcs Rancho Santiago Community College District 17th St. at Bristol \ Santa Ana, CA 92706 VOI (714) JOHN GAB \ FAX (714) JOHN FRY jlundgre@kn.pacbell.com \ jlundgr@eis.calstate.edu ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #258 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa17049; 31 May 94 22:53 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA23171; Tue, 31 May 94 07:07:10 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA23141; Tue, 31 May 94 07:07:07 CDT Date: Tue, 31 May 94 07:07:07 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9405311207.AA23141@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #259 TELECOM Digest Tue, 31 Jun 94 07:07:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 259 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Some D-Day Telecom History (Donald E. Kimberlin) Book Review: "Exploring the Internet" by Malamud (Rob Slade) Communication Courses at Berkeley This Summer (Richard V. Tsina) Dialing Changes For West Virginia and Connecticut (Carl Moore) Pac*Bell Plans to Become Internet Provider? (Robert L. McMillin) Current List of Areacodes Wanted (Michael Conley) How do You Simulate Telco Battery Voltage? (Kevin Centanni) ETSI Contact (Joao Perdigoto) Why Does Long Distance Cost Extra? (James Baker) Cost of Caller ID in PA (Greg Vaeth) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 30 May 94 15:56 EST From: Donald E. Kimberlin <0004133373@mcimail.com> Subject: Some D-Day Telecom History As the 50th anniversary of D-Day nears, here are a couple of sntaches of an incomplete story about the parts radio people played in the largest invasion so far accomplished by man. There were at least two relatively unpublished items of interest to the technically-inclined about radio in that era: First, there are lots of recordings of bits of Edward R. Murrow from London during the blitz, as well as other correspondents like Richard C. Hottelet dating back to before D-Day. Bear in mind we are speaking here of a time before telephone cables crossed the Atlantic (although 21 telegraph cables had been laid dating back to 1866, so "cablegrams," competing with RCA's "radiograms" were the business communications norm of the era for civilians). There was telephone connectivity available, dating back to 1927. In addition to the one (ever) low-frequency telephone circuit between New York and London (50 kHz USB eastbound; 60 kHz USB westbound), HF radio links that operated ISB with channel shifters to produce two 3 kHz speech channels on each sideband had been put into operation between various capital cities. Within the limits of the selective fading and noise of HF radio, broadcasters could order, in general, either a 3 kHz "message grade" channel or a 6 kHz "program channel," by special arrangement, occupying the space of two telephone circuits and using program-equalized channels linking the HF radio plants and the broadcasters. The cost was rather high for those, of course. There was strain on the capacity of the total installed plant, however, and in fact, a different mode of operation called "EB circuits" for "Emergency Bandwidth" was put into place as the U.S. entered the European war and Eisenhower's SHAPE settled into the buildup of the invasion force in England. "EB" used the channel filtering abilities of the Type A "band-splitting" Privacy units developed in the late 1930's. A Type A Privacy was a beastly affair containing iron/copper speech channel filters and modulators that could split a 3 kHz voice channel into five sub-bands, and shift each sub-band to a different range for transmission, while restoring the proper sequence at the receiver. Type A Privacies were beastly things, each one for a typical four-channel HF link occupying THREE 30-inch-wide, eleven-foot high relay racks. In addition to shifting sub-bands around, the Type A Privacy also contained a motor-driven cam switch that could change the shifting pattern every few seconds. However, maintaining sync between the transmitting and recieving Type A's was so difficult that after only a few years, they were generally operated in a fixed pattern, perhaps changing the code once a day at most. (By the early 1960's, they were largely disused, but maintained, as technical operators would use them for an adjustable band-stop filter when needed to knock out one sub-band to get rid of QRM by plugging out one filter.) But, at the time of D-Day, the Type A Privacies, with some minor modifications, were pressed into service, to split the nominal 3 kHz channels into two "Emergency Band" telephone circuits, effectively doubling the number of circuits by producing telephone circuits of around 1700 Hz bandwidth. Thus, if you hear some WWII actualties from HF radio that sound rather muffled and lacking any sibilance or fricatives in the speech, it's likely they were on EB circuits. That's one aspect, fine for public communications where on the U.S. end, it was AT&T connecting into the telephone network, met on the U.K. (or in later cases, other country's) government-owned telephone "Adminstration," as they are called in ITU lingo. But another, far-less published aspect has to do with the actual invasion of Normandy and the rush across Europe to end the war in just eleven months -- that of the people of a firm called Press Wireless in its support of actualities from the moving Allied Expeditionary Force. No small part of operating a full-bore war effort and keeping the "folks at home" at maximum interest and production was to provide them news actualities, in an time after "no radio" (WWI) and the Satellite Era (Vietnam). The scheme drawn up was to have mobile HF broadcast transmitting facilities landed as soon as possible after a beachhead was established, and make origination facilities available to radio journalists as close to the front as possible. Fortunately, although sunspot counts were nearing their eleven-year cyclic minimum in 1944, solar disturbances were also relatively minor, so HF radio across the Atlantic was rather reliable. To accomplish this, the services of a firm called Press Wireless were engaged. Few people know much about "Pree-Wee," jargon that grew out of its telegraphic route address of PreWi, but it actually dated back to the earliest days of HF radio, PreWi was established in the time when RCA, Westinghouse and GE tied up purchase of HF radio gear, by setting conditions under which you effectively had to purchase a complete transmitter from RCA using the patented high-power vacuum tubes of GE or Westinghouse, or nothing. This was tied to a strong suggestion that "you might as well rent channels from RCA rather than do so." Well, that was fine, except then getting RCA to run channels where the press wanted them was not always realistic. So, the press associations formed Press Wireless, to purchase high-powered tubes from Brown-Boveri in Switzerland, and develop its own HF links. And, develop a lot, PreWi did. if you ever get into those musty old textbooks and IRE Proceedings of the 1920's and 1930's, many of the studies of HF propagation can be found to be of PreWi origin. Although not well known to the public, PreWi was well known in the HF radio community and the press establishment. And, its people had built any number of prioneering and/or one-time HF links to connect sites around the world; places that the public telephone or telegraph establishments weren't prepared to handle. D-Day was an event tailor-made for PreWi to make its largest single effort ever, as well. The PreWi engineers built up 50 kW HF transmitter plants into sets of trailers, complete with an AC power trailer and a studio trailer, and staffed them with "war correspondents" who were, in fact civilian radio broadcast engineers seconded to PreWi for the job. They landed right behind the troops on the firing line, and were in operation back to the PreWi receivers at Southampton, Long Island by the night of June 6, with German bullets still whizzing close by, providing program channels back to the States for radio journalists of the several networks from a war-torn Normandy. When you hear actualities from HF radio during this week that originated in Normandy, they were on those PreWi HF links, received at Southampton, then carried into New York on phoneco facilities to the several radio networks. (Similarly, PreWi trailer-mounted links were operating from Juno and Gold Beaches back to England for the BBC to get its feeds, when you hear British actualities of the events of D-Day.) The entire operation continued, moving with the Allied Expeditionary Force, providing Eisenhower his HF radiotelephone links back to the telephone networks of England and the U.S. once he moved onto the continent, and until the war was over and the regular facilities of the government-owned PTTs were rebuilt in each nation. You'll likely hear snatches about the heroics of the journalists and even the Army Signal Corps, which went about placing AM broadcast transmitters (sometimes jammers) in carious cities as the armies moved across the Continent, but you're not likely to hear anuything about the civilians who supported the Allies in war as PreWi provided the news to "back home." I know I wouldn't, if I had never had the privilege of working for Gene Rider, who had been Chief Engineer of WQAM and later WIOD at Miami, who had himself been one of those "civilian war correspondents" on loan to PreWi at the time. Gene never spoke about it, and only tipped his hand to me a while after I went to work for ITT, and sent him a postcard from the rather famous Westbury Hotel in London. His only real comment, in a reply card was, "The Westbury" Oh, yeah, I know that place!" Only then did some of his comments made over the years fall into place. (epilogue) PreWi went on after the war to continue its pioneering work, and was purchased by ITT. ITT merged PreWi into ITT's World Communications operations, which took over the PreWi transmitters at Brentwood and receivers at Southampton. One of its later innovations that never flew was a proposal to put HF radiotelephones onto Captain Eddie Rickenbacker's Constellations that flew passengers to Latin America. Regrettably, Captain Eddie declined, saying there was not sufficient payload space on the Connies to accommodate the function. I have a copy of Rickenbacker's letter to the president of PreWi declining the offer. So, I hope that little story gives you some interesting insight into a little-published portion of the D-Day Story. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As always Don, thanks for another very interesting history lesson. An organization here in Chicago is planning a complete historical re-inactment of D-Day for later this month. They are going to be using the Lake Michigan beach around Montrose Avenue for anyone interested in attending. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 12:44:28 MDT From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Exploring the Internet" by Malamud BKEXPINT.RVW 940310 Prentice Hall 113 Sylvan Avenue Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 (515) 284-6751 FAX (515) 284-2607 phyllis@prenhall.com 70621.2737@CompuServe.COM Alan Apt Beth Mullen-Hespe beth_hespe@prenhall.com "Exploring the InterNet", Malamud, 1993, 0-13-296898-3, U$26.95 carl@malamud.com The naive reader might be forgiven for thinking that this book is about the Internet and how to use it. The author seems to think that this book has something to do with the ITU's initial interest in, and later refusal of, publishing the "Blue Book" of telecommunications standards on the Internet. The phrase, "technical travelogue," gets bandied about as if it had some meaning. (It is interesting that on the fourth or fifth visit to Paris the author is unable to explain to anyone, including his aunt, what the phrase means.) Dan Lynch reports as Malamud's proposal a statement that makes as much sense as anything: "Buy my airplane tickets and I'll try to get into as much trouble as I can. Then, I'll write a book." After reading the cover blurbs, one suspects that if you were to try to design a project antithetical to the aims and workings of the Internet, one couldn't get much closer than a six- month trip circling the globe a few times, dropping in on a number of people engaged in esoteric projects for interviews. It isn't a travelogue, since that would imply some sort of logical plan behind the route travelled or the places visited. It isn't all that technical, except that the majority of people discussed work in technical fields. Some of it has to do with the Internet; much of it doesn't. What it is, is hilarious. While novice users looking for documentation on ftp will be mystified, net gurus, particularly those with some knowledge of the players mentioned, will be laughing their socks off. Even the net-illiterate will get some chuckles out of it -- Malamud has a dry wit and a keen eye for the absurd. I can readily sympathize with his tale of a story killed by a marketing department. I still haven't got the slightest idea what the book is supposed to be *about*, but it's a lot of fun. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKEXPINT.RVW 940310. Distribution per- mitted in TELECOM Digest and associated mailing lists/newsgroups. PAT] Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca Institute for Robert_Slade@sfu.ca Research into rslade@cue.bc.ca User p1@CyberStore.ca Security Canada V7K 2G6 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 03:45:47 GMT From: rtsina1@uclink.berkeley.edu (Richard V Tsina) Subject: Communication Courses at Berkeley this Summer Organization: University of California, Berkeley U.C. BERKELEY Continuing Education in Engineering Announces 2 short courses on Communication Technology: 1. WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS (July 26-27, 1994) There are technical bottlenecks to developing a ubiquitous wireless multimedia environment: the capacity of the radio link, its unreliability due to the adverse multipath propagation channel, and severe interference from other channels. This course covers the principles and fundamental concepts engineers need to tackle these limitations (e.g., a thorough treatment of channel impairments such as fading and multipath dispersion and their effect on link and network performance). Topics include: Introduction to Wireless Channels, Cellular Telephone Networks, Analog and Digital Transmission and Wireless Data Networks. Comprehensive course notes will be provided. Lecturer: JEAN-PAUL M.G. LINNARTZ, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley. His work on traffic analysis in mobile radio networks received the Veder Prize, an innovative research in telecommunications award in the Netherlands. At Berkeley he works on communications for intelligent vehicle highway systems and multimedia communications. Professor Linnartz is the author of numerous publications and the book "Narrow Land-Mobile Radio Networks" (Artech House, 1993), the text for the course. 2. COMMUNICATION NETWORKS: FROM FDDI TO ATM (August 9-10), 1994) This course provides an overview of the operating principles and design guidelines for communication networks, and includes a description of the popular current networks and a discussion of major industry trends. Topics include: History and Operating Principles, Open System Interconnection, Overview of High-Speed Networks, Physical Layer, Switching, Trends in Data Networks (FDDI, DQDB, Frame Relay, SMDS), Trends in Telecommunication Networks (SONET, Fiber to the home, ISDN, Intelligent Networks, ATM), Topological Design of Networks, Control of ATM Networks. Comprehensive course notes will be provided. Lecturers: PRAVIN VARAIYA, Ph.D., Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley he works on stochastic systems, communication networks, power systems and urban economics. He is the author of "Stochastic Systems: Estimation, Identification, and Adaptive Control" (Prentice-Hall, 1986) and coeditor of "Discrete Event Systems: Models and Applications" (Springer, 1988). He is a fellow of the IEEE. JEAN WALRAND, Ph.D., Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of "An Introduction to Queuing Networks" (Prentice-Hall, 1988) and "Communication Networks: A First Course" (Irwin/Aksen, 1991). For more information (complete course descriptions, outlines, instructor bios, etc.,) contact: Richard Tsina U.C. Berkeley Extension Continuing Education in Engineering 2223 Fulton St. Berkeley, CA 94720 Tel: (510) 642-4151 Fax: (510) 643-8683 email: course@garnet.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 May 94 20:29:40 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Dialing Changes For West Virginia and Connecticut The Huntington (W.Va.) and Cumberland (Md.) directories have dialing changes for West Virginia (area 304): 16 or 30 April 1994 -- 1 + NPA + 7D for local to other area codes; 7D for long distance within 304 is permissive April 30 and mandatory October 1. There is at least one case of a local prefix outside of 304 duplicating something in 304: 722 at St. Albans (W.Va.) and Cumberland (Md.), and I wrote earlier of local calls from Ridgeley (W.Va.) to Cumberland, Md. For Connecticut, I found Southern New England Telephone directories whose effective date is 25 April, and they have 1 + 203 + 7D for long distance within Connecticut. Notice that the southwestern corner (Greenwich and vicinity) is served by NYNEX, not by SNET. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 May 94 19:02 PDT From: rlm@helen.surfcty.com (Robert L. McMillin) Subject: Pac*Bell Plans to Become Internet Provider? Has anyone heard anything about Pac*Bell's plans to become an Internet provider? It seems perfectly logical that they would do so -- after all, they *do* own a lot of the physical "plant". I have heard rumblings from a couple of sources, and wondered if anyone on this forum may have heard of something. ------------------------------ From: MICHAEL.CONLEY@mogur.com (MICHAEL CONLEY) Subject: Current List of Areacodes Wanted Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 03:14:00 GMT Organization: The MOG-UR'S EMS/TGT Technologies, Los Angeles, CA Does anyone happen to know where I might acquire an ASCII text listing of current telephone area codes including the communities that they serve? Any replies should be addressed to michael.conley@cabin.com Thanks! The MOG-UR'S EMS, Granada Hills, CA: 818-366-1238/8929, @mogur.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You might check out the Telecom Archives for a general summary of area codes and the territories they serve. In addition, Carl Moore and David Leibold are our resident area code archivists here, and they may have more complete lists. In fact, I am sure they do. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kpc@panix.com (Kevin Centanni) Subject: How Do You Simulate Telco Battery Voltage? Date: 30 May 1994 13:48:11 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC I have some voice mail cards for PC's such as Watson, BigMouth, and the NSC TyIn2000. Each of these cards has two modular jacks -- one for 'phone' and one for 'line'. I'd like to be able to send audio into the telephone and send and receive touch-tones WITHOUT being connected to an actual working teleco line. None of these cards provides the appropriate voltage to power the telephone. I've tried to just hook a 12V supply directly to the TIP and RING on my phone ... the phone works (I can hear touch-tones in the receiver) -- but I cannot decode those tones with the voice mail cards ... additionally, there is a very annoying hum (60 Hz?) in the earpiece of the telephone. Does someone sell a box that provides the right voltage? Is this a simple circuit that I can construct? Thanks. kpc@panix.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You need to wire the voicemail card in series to the telephone through the battery -- not in parallel. That is, the tip of the telephone to the ring of the card, the tip of the card to the negative of the power supply, and the positive of the power supply to the ring of the phone. If you have the phone and the voicemail card wired in parallel to the power supply, they (phone and card) won't be able to hear or talk to each other. For example, I have a Dialogic card here which I trip by applying ringing voltage to the circuit *while the phone is on hook*, thus no open path and potentially high voltage to harm the card's innards. Press the momentary switch to apply the ringing voltage; the phone rings, the card sees the ringing voltage and responds. I take the phone off hook immediatly to create the series loop the card is looking for to stay off hook and use it to do what I want to do with the card. The ringing voltage will wake up the card, but upon waking if it does not find that current from the series loop on there it will disconnect and go back to sleep. So remem- ber, all devices (phones, etc) on one side of the power supply have to be in series -- not parallel -- with whatever is on the other side (voice mail card, etc). And the way to get rid of that hum is by rectifying the direct current. It has to be clean. You can't just use any old power supply with the right voltage. Try one of the 13.8 volt DC supplies from Radio Shack. I have one and it works fine for intercom use with a couple phones here. Then get a separate supply for the ringing voltage and wire it in parallel with the 'clean' DC talk battery. Break the circuit through a little minature push-button you build into the phone. Superimpose ringing current on the line by depressing the little button for a second. Listen to the phone itself ring (at the same time the voicemail card is being tickled). Let go of that button and lift the phone receiver immediatly; you should be in business. I use the yellow/black second pair for this. Green/red first pair operates the phone as always; they are the two wires that are in series through the Dialogic card and the power supply. The negative of my ringing current supply is in parallel with the negative of the talk battery. I bring the positive of the ringing voltage up to the phone through the yellow wire, break it at the press-switch, and take it back down through the black wire to be in parallel to the positive of the talking battery. **As long as the phone is not off hook when you press the button for the ringing voltage** the loop will not be completed and no harm will come to the voicemail card or the talk-battery. Now if you find yourself accidentally pressing the button supplying the ring current while the phone is off hook (and looped in series to the card), you can eliminate ugly accidents (like blowing up the card) by using the 'normally closed' contact in the phone itself. (I am speaking now of a standard 500 desk set type phone). While most contacts in the phone 'network' (or innards) are 'normally open' and close only when the phone is off hook, there is one in there which functions the other way around. It is not used for anything else that I know of, so I take that ringing current and break it not only at the push button I installed, but also through the 'normally closed' contact in the phone itself. This way, when the phone is off hook, you can press the button all you like, but the ringing voltage will go nowhere because you have that loop cut off. Of course it never hurts to add a couple fuses in the line to prevent other short circuits, etc from playing nasty games. PAT] ------------------------------ From: perdigot@hp_1.dee.uc.pt (Joao Perdigoto) Subject: ETSI contact Date: 30 May 1994 08:54:08 GMT Organization: Dep. de Matematica da Univ. de Coimbra Hi, Does anyone knows if ETSI has an ftp site available? joao perdigoto ------------------------------ From: jbaker@halcyon.com (James Baker) Subject: Why Does Long Distance Cost Extra? Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 18:13:22 -0800 Organization: Northwest Nexus Inc. As I understand it, 90 percent of the cost phone service is for the 'last mile', ie the local loops. So 10 percent or less is for long distance. Yet we pay dearly for the use of this 10 percent. I also understand it costs more to track and bill for long distance than to provide the service. Is this correct? And somebody has to pay for those TV ads ... or do they? I know the historical reasons for charging extra for what years ago was technically difficult (sendind undistorted signals over long wires). And how business users were thought to be bigger users and better able to afford long distance. That's not what I'm asking here. I'm wanting more technical info for a possible article. Does anybody know how much the national long distance plant cost to build? And what would it cost if useage doubled or increased five times because long distance was "free"? In case you can't guess I think it would be great for the economy and the country as a whole to have one nationwide calling zone. But is it technically feasable? Comments? James Baker Seattle, WA jbaker@halcyon.com ------------------------------ From: gvaeth@netcom.com (Greg Vaeth at Jerrold Communications) Subject: Cost of Caller ID in PA Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 00:48:37 GMT Hi, An insert in my latest bill contained a notice that Bell Atlantic will offer Caller ID in Pennsylvania in August. The cost for residential customers is $6.50/month, business is $8.50. Call blocking and anonymous call rejection are free. This charge seem outrageous considering that the equipment to do it is already there, right? How else does return call, repeat call and all that stuff work. How does this rate compare to other states? Regards, Gregory Vaeth General Instrument internet: gvaeth@netcom.com Communications Division voicenet: (215) 956-6488 2200 Byberry Road faxnet: (215) 675-4059 Hatboro, PA 19040 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #259 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa17210; 31 May 94 23:04 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA02830; Tue, 31 May 94 07:46:03 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA02800; Tue, 31 May 94 07:46:01 CDT Date: Tue, 31 May 94 07:46:01 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9405311246.AA02800@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #260 TELECOM Digest Tue, 31 May 94 07:46:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 260 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Help Needed: Fax/Answering Machine/Phone (Kathy Vincent) x.25 and Internet (Min Hu) Help: Bad Phone Lines in San Jose (Terry Greenlee) Re: Need Distinctive Ring Line Splitter (puma@netcom.com) Re: Hexadecimal Uuencode? (Glen C. Hoag) Re: Hexadecimal Uuencode? (Rob Levandowski) Re: Hexadecimal Uuencode? (John Gardiner Myers) Re: Average Data Speed of Wire Telegraphy Wanted (John Lundgren) Re: Average Data Speed of Wire Telegraphy Wanted (Evan Gamblin) Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Call Routing (safer@delphi.com) Re: Annoying COCOT Problem (Stu Jeffery) Re: Annoying COCOT Problem (safer@delphi.com) Re: DTMF Decoding Help Needed (John Lundgren) Re: Can a Unix Box Work as an Internet Router? (John R Levine) Re: Using Call Forwarding to Avoid Tolls (Shag Aristotelis) Re: Sprint "Combined Billing" Error (Mark E Daniel) Re: Equal Access is Not Available Here (David Devereaux-Weber) Re: Rude Not to Leave Answering Machine Messages? (Ole Hellevik) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: vincentk@ac.wfunet.wfu.edu (Kathy Vincent) Subject: Help Needed: Fax/Answering Machine/Phone Date: 31 May 1994 03:23:49 GMT Organization: Wake Forest University A friend of mine is having problems on her business telephone line with a combination FAX machine, answering machine, and two-line cordless telephone. Description of the setup: She has two telephone lines -- two separate jacks, one for the business line and one for the personal line. (Both are voice lines.) The business line has three pieces of equipment on it, connected in the following order: WALL ----> FAX -------> Answering ----> Cordless Machine Machine Telephone The answering machine has to come after the FAX machine on the line so that if the answering machine picks up and a FAX tone is coming in, the FAX machine will hear the tone and pick up the line. The personal line is also connected to the same cordless telephone -- from the wall directly to the telephone (a two-line phone). The equipment is: FAX machine: Sharp GQ-60 (5 yrs old) Answering machine: Sony digital TAM-1000 (3 mos old) Telephone: Panasonic 2-line phone system KX-T3980H (1 mo old) (cordless) Description of the problem: Anytime the line is open for 120 seconds, the FAX machine cuts in. Even if my friend is talking on the phone, even if she is just calling in remotely to pick up messages from her answering machine. The only way to stop the FAX machine from cutting in is to turn it off -- which defeats the purpose of having the machine. Also, my friend spends a lot of time out of the office as part of her work, so she's not there to turn off the machine -- and, furthermore, needs the whole collection of equipment to be working precisely BECAUSE she's not there. Request for help/suggestions/anythingelseuseful: 1. Does anyone have any ideas how my friend might be able to get all that equipment to work together -- and keep the FAX machine from interrupting after any and every 120 seconds of open line? Any useful tricks to try? Might there be some piece of not-too-expensive (<$100) equipment that could solve the problem? 2. Can anyone recommend integrated equipment -- a 3-in-one combination in which all THREE elements are quality? She says she's found some combinations, but the answering machine is usually junk. She would prefer a digital answering machine (i.e., no tapes). Can anyone recommend anything that might do the job -- especially anything <=$500? Thanks for any help, via follow-up or email. If anyone else is interested, I'll summarize any email responses on the net. Kathy Vincent vincentk@ac.wfunet.wfu.edu ------------------------------ Subject: x.25 and Internet From: Min Hu Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 02:24:32 -0400 I am wondering if there is any free gateway between X.25 network and Internet. Specifically speaking, a friend of mine has account in the X.25 network -- DATAPAC, a X.25 network in Canada. I have an account on an Internet machine. I want to transfer some files to him, but do not know if there is a gateway between DATAPAC and the Internet so that he can log into my system. Thanks, MIN ------------------------------ From: terry@hh.sbay.org (Terry Greenlee) Subject: Help: Bad Phone Lines in San Jose Date: 30 May 94 20:44:36 GMT Organization: Hip-Hop BBS I am having trouble with my phone lines at home and I was wondering if anyone else had this same thing happen to them? My existing two lines in my home work fine at 14.4. The phone company brought in more lines to add a third line. The third line will only connect at 7200 bd at best and usually 4800 bd. I tested them at the box beside the house to make sure it was not my inside wires. The phone company tested it from the main office and found no problem. Monday a Bell tech will come out to test. I have this same problem in Modesto on a fax line also. Does anyone at Pacific Bell know how to fix these problems? Can you point my in the right direction? Thank you for any help. Terry terry@hh.sbay.org ------------------------------ From: puma@netcom.com (puma) Subject: Re: Need Distinctive Ring Line Splitter Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 01:07:21 GMT In article , Al Cohan <0004526627@mcimail. com> wrote: > I purchased a device from Lynx Automation, Inc. in Washington State > and the device is purported to sense the incoming ring cadence an > forward the call to either a phone system or fax. This unit is > available in two and four line versions corresponding to the four > distinct industry standard cadences available. > We now come to find out that the company says "Oh, it sometimes > doesn't work with 1A2 and some PBX's. It seems to work okay with the > newer electronic key systems". Well I am steamed! MY client is not > about to upgrade to a new system nor pay the $100 installation charge > for a residential line plus about $26.00 per month for low fax usage. I would think, provided that your PBX or 1A2 has individually numbered trunk lines coming in (as opposed to a DID scheme where telco passes the number dialed to you on common trunk lines) that you could install a distinctive ring type switch on the line BEFORE the PBX/1A2. In other words, the incoming line would go to the switch, and the normal single ring output would go to the PBX/1A2, the double ring output would go directly to the FAX. The problem I still see is with hunt groups. The fax line would have to be a separate line not part of a hunt group, otherwise you could not tell which trunk the calls would come in on. I wouldn't think you could get distinctive ring in that situation anyway. puma@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: Glen C. Hoag Subject: Re: Hexadecimal Uuencode? Date: Mon, 30 May 94 10:46:07 CDT Organization: Lamir Software Corp. Reply-To: glenhoag@banana-9000.nuance.com In article , alavarre@ids.net writes: > We're having a problem properly recieving attachments from a remote > site. The administrator claims the remote site has a "binary to > hexadecimal" encoder, implying that hex is being transmitted. The > remote site is using CC:Mail. The users we're working with haven't > got a clue ... > Sounds like hogwash to me, I've never heard of such, and all my docs > on three different sets of uuxxcode only talk about binary to ASCII > and back. > But before I jump down their throat I thought I'd ask somebody that > *really* knows what's happening ... Is it possible that the site in question is Mac-based and using BinHex? BinHex is a standard encoding for Macintosh files over "foreign" systems. I'm not familiar with the encoding choices that cc:Mail offers, but many Mac <-> SMTP/UUCP gateways support BinHex and UUencoded AppleSingle (which is yet another can of worms). The actual standard for BinHex is available at the usual Macintosh archives, such as sumex-aim.stanford.edu and mac.archive.umich.edu. There are BinHex decoders for other platforms, as well. ------------------------------ From: rlvd_cif@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Rob Levandowski) Subject: Re: Hexadecimal Uuencode? Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York Date: Mon, 30 May 94 17:46:52 GMT In alavarre@ids.net writes: > We're having a problem properly recieving attachments from a remote > site. The administrator claims the remote site has a "binary to > hexadecimal" encoder, implying that hex is being transmitted. The > remote site is using CC:Mail. The users we're working with haven't > got a clue ... Could it be "BinHex", the Macintosh file converter? Mac files are usually run through this program for UNIX emailing; the Mac file structure is difficult to convert to a binary format that other computers can deal with. BinHex, and its workalikes, convert the Mac file to an ASCII representation (which, I believe, is in hexadecimal code). Such files are normally suffixed ".hqx". Rob Levandowski macwhiz@cif.rochester.edu Computer Interest Floor associate / University of Rochester ------------------------------ From: John Gardiner Myers Subject: Re: Hexadecimal Uuencode? Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 16:48:39 -0400 Organization: Systems Group 97, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Well, it would help to see a sample of the message to determine what format it might be in. One possibility might be that it is in MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) format, a relatively new but increasingly popular standard for encoding non-text things in messages. The base64 encoding of MIME, which is usually used for the encoding of binary objects, looks something like: WW91IGhhdmUgdG9vIG11Y2ggdGltZSBvbiB5b3VyIGhhbmRzLCB0byByZWFkIHRoaXMuICAg There is also an encoding called quoted-printable, which looks like normal text with a bunch of = signs in it, especially at the ends of lines. Assuming you don't have any existing MIME-aware software, the easiest way to be able to decode MIME is to get mpack/munpack, via anonymous FTP to ftp.andrew.cmu.edu, in directory pub/mpack. Versions are available for Unix, MS-DOS, Macintosh, and the Amiga. The software can also decode uuencoded messages. If munpack does not produce any results on a particular MIME message, it might help to try again using the "-t" switch (or on the Macintosh, by checking the "Extract Text Parts" box under Preferences). John G. Myers Internet: jgm+@CMU.EDU LoseNet: ...!seismo!ihnp4!wiscvm.wisc.edu!give!up ------------------------------ From: jlundgre@ohlone.kn.PacBell.COM (John Lundgren) Subject: Re: Average Data Speed of Wire Telegraphy Wanted Date: 31 May 94 00:49:44 GMT Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network Steve Chafe (itstevec@rocky.ucdavis.edu) wrote: > Does anyone know what the average speed (in characters per minute, or > whatever is appropriate) of a professional telegrapher would have been > when wire telegraphy was the main mode of electronic communication? > I'm trying to do a comparison of data communication speed then and > now, so I'd love to hear any thoughts that people can offer. The biography of Thos. A. Edison had some stuff about how fast Edison was at the key. But he was at least twice as fast as an average telegrapher, maybe more. My guess would be about twenty words per minute. BTW You could ask the hams on rec.radio.amateur.misc for an answer. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 20:23:03 -0400 From: egamblin@ott.hookup.net (Evan Gamblin) Subject: Re Average Data Speed of Wire Telegraphy Wanted > Does anyone know what the average speed (in characters per minute, > or whatever is appropriate) of a professional telegrapher would have > been when wire telegraphy was the main mode of electronic > communication? "A top operator could bang out 40-50 words a minute; 25-35 words was competent". This was the situation in the mid-1850s, according to A Voice From Afar (The History of Telecommunications in Canada), ISBN 0-07-082867-9. Were these five-letter words, as in typing? Evan Gamblin The Halifax Group 903-275 Sparks St Ottawa, Ont K1R 7X9 Canada ------------------------------ From: safer@delphi.com Subject: Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Call Routing Date: Mon, 30 May 94 18:12:20 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Gordon Burditt writes: >> Currently, 0+ calls are sent to the operator services provider >> (OSP) to which the premises owner or payphone provider presubscribes. >> Under BPP, calls would be routed automatically to the OSP preferred by >> the party being billed for the call. For example, a calling card call >> would be routed to the cardholder's preferred OSP. A collect call >> would be routed to the called party's preferred OSP. A call billed to >> a third party would be routed to the OSP to which that third party had >> presubscribed. That just great, lay off thousands from OSP companies. Destroy an entire inudstry, just because a couple of people can't figure out 10xxx? Plus we the consumer will have to come up with millions to fund Bill Party Preference. Then as consumers were going to have to subsidize it too. If you want my opion it's just simplier to dial 1-800-COLLECT or 1-800-CALL-ATT. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 05:30:47 -0800 From: stu@shell.portal.com (Stu Jeffery) Subject: Re Annoying COCOT Problem In TELECOM Digest V14 #257, Darren Griffitsh writes: > Basically, if I call my voice mail system to check for messages the > phone frequently cuts out the keypad, disabling DTMF tones ... Why don't you try a pocket dialer from Radio Shack, etc. Stu Jeffery Internet: stu@shell.portal.com 1072 Seena Ave. voice: 415-966-8199 Los Altos, CA. 94024 fax: 415-966-8199 ------------------------------ From: safer@delphi.com Subject: Re: Annoying COCOT Problem Date: Tue, 31 May 94 07:02:16 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Darren Alex Griffiths writes: > Basically, if I call my voice mail system to check for messages the > phone frequently cuts out the keypad, disabling DTMF tones, before I'm > finished with the call. I've given up using my calling card since the > extra digits allow me to only check two or three messages; without the > calling card I can get through a few more messages but using the pause > or rewind functions are not advised. Misdialing of the password essenti- > ally makes the call useless since I have to redial it and by that time > I wasted most of my precious digits. As a owner of 2000 COCOTS I like to say in defense that we lock out our keypads after connection for protection against fraud because the LEC splashes back dial tone sometimes after a disconnect. NEPTUNEZ@MCIMAIL.COM [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Why don't *you* resolve that problem by registering with telco to get a coin line then? With telco's assistance and using call supervision, you could eliminate most of the fraud problems you encounter while not making it so rough on your honest customers. PAT] ------------------------------ From: sgiblab!news.kn.PacBell.COM!jlundgre@uucp-gw-2.pa.dec.com (John Lundgren) Subject: Re: DTMF Decoding Help Needed Date: 30 May 94 16:05:02 GMT Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network DANIEL FINKLER (dfinkler@world.std.com) wrote: > west_c212@orion.crc.monroecc.edu writes: >> I am writing a program that needs to decode telephone touch tone >> signals. The problem is that I am having trouble finding a DTMF >> decoder. If anyone know where I can get ahold of one I would >> appreciate it. > You can use USRobotics courier modems' touch tone recognition feature. > They can recognize DTMF tones, including A,B,C,D. Also, ZyXEL modems can recognize DTMF. There is a ZyXEL FAQ at nctuccca.edu.tw. Under /pc/zyxel/ directory. There are other sites also. John Lundgren - Elec Tech - Info Tech Svcs Rancho Santiago Community College District 17th St. at Bristol \ Santa Ana, CA 92706 VOI (714) JOHN GAB \ FAX (714) JOHN FRY jlundgre@kn.pacbell.com \ jlundgr@eis.calstate.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 May 94 12:37 EDT From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Can a Unix Box Work as an Internet Router? Organization: I.E.C.C., Cambridge, Mass. > If so, what's the *cheapest* router available? Can a Unix box > connect to a digital comm line (56k)? The answer to the first question is an old 286, which costs about $300, running PCROUTE, which is free. You need to add in an Ethernet card, about $60, and the DDS interface. The leased line FAQ just posted includes, a reference for a DDS interface with packet driver software that will let it work under PCROUTE. It's true, PCROUTE has been around for a while. But fortunately IP routing (other than at the highest performance backbone sites) hasn't changed for years, so it works just fine. I use a pair of 286es with Wavelan wireless Ethernet cards to hook to the Internet and it works great. Hard to beat the price. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, jlevine@delphi.com, 1037498@mcimail.com ------------------------------ From: birchall@pilot.njin.net (Shag Aristotelis) Subject: Re: Using Call Forwarding to Avoid Tolls Date: 31 May 94 00:42:52 GMT Organization: Screaming in Digital, the Queensryche Digest I can offer some practical experience and information concerning the legality of this practice. Two years ago, I put in a forwarding line at a relative's house to avoid tolls on calls to the 'net. At the time, I talked quite a bit to multiple people at the RBOC, and established that it was legal (if, perhaps, not very ethical) since I was paying for all the services involved. Since that time, I have paid $15/month for the line with forwarding, and have as a result had unlimited access to the 'net. The dialin I use has 48 modems on it, in a hunt group, so I also let other net-users from my county (a fairly rural area) dial in through that number and through the data line here, which now also has forwarding on it, pointing to the original forwarding line. This effectively provides free dialins to the state universities for users in two dozen townships. The maximum distance possible from a user through the two forwards to the university dialup is currently approximately 35 to 40 miles. I have developed diagrams covering the entire RBOC territory in this state, and at least one other similar (one-hop) system is in place in the next area code. In the coming months, there's a possibility that an internet access provider will be established in my county, using forwarding lines (set up by guess who) to connect to a higher-level service provider near the city. Shag Screaming in Digital: queensryche-request@pilot.njin.net GEOS Binary Moderator: comp-binaries-geos@pilot.njin.net ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30May 1994 16:53:04 EST From: mark@legend.akron.oh.us (Mark E Daniel) Subject: Re: Sprint "Combined Billing" Error In article is written: > pheel@panix.com (Mike Pollock) writes: >> Sprint recently changed me over from direct billing to "combined >> billing" on my NYNEX local telephone bill. Simple, right? Wrong. > One solution is simply to not pay the NYNEX bill, call Sprint, and The thing I really dislike about combined billing is that it takes so damn long to be billed for a call. If I make an Ameritech Calling Card today I will be billed for it on my June 1, 94 bill. But if I make a 1+ or a FONCARD call with Sprint (my default carrier) I won't be billed until 7/1. I suppose I ought to call Sprint and say I want a seperate bill as it *used* to be. Either that or switch back. AT&T doesn't suffer from this slowness. Mark E Daniel (Loving SysOp of The Legend BBS) Inet: mark@legend.akron.oh.us medaniel@delphi.com (Direct INet) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 May 94 14:47:45 CDT From: David Devereaux-Weber Reply-To: David Devereaux-Weber Subject: Re: Equal Access is Not Available Here Jeff.Shaver@f615.n14.z1.fidonet.org asked about equal access. Jeff, you don't say where this is. Equal Access depends on "generic" software in the telephone central office switch. If their switch doesn't support it, they can't do it untill they put in a new CO switch. Switches costs continue to rise. The increase of technical complexity and cost is making it increasingly difficult for small independents. Public Service Commissions regulate telephone service within their state, and the Federal Communications Commission regulates telephone companies at the federal level. If you want to get the phone company's attention, send them a letter asking them to let you know when they intend to implement equal access. Let them know that if you don't get a response, your next letter will be copied to the PSC and the FCC. David Devereaux-Weber, P.E. weberdd@macc.wisc.edu (Internet) The University of Wisconsin - Madison (608)262-3584 (voice) Division of Information Technology (608)262-4679 (FAX) Network Engineering ------------------------------ From: oleh@eskimo.com (Ole Hellevik) Subject: Re: Rude Not to Leave Answering Machine Messages? Organization: Eskimo North (206) For-Ever Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 21:26:02 GMT J.Harrison@bra0112.wins.icl.co.uk wrote: [ stuff about answering machines deleted ] > Incidentally while I'm at the keyboard ... it's taken me a while to > realise that US analogue cellular systems providers require you, the > the phone owner and payer of the airtime bill, actually to pay for > incoming calls. How the heck have they managed to convince people to > go for that?!? By making the other cost of calling to and from a cellular phone the same as a land line phone, i.e.: no charge (except airtime) if you're in the same city. I don't know how it works in the UK, but I know that in Norway, there is always a toll charge equivalent to the most expensive LD call no matter how close (or far away) the cellphone is. Ole C. Hellevik linqdev!oleh@ole.cdac.com oleh@eskimo.com 74151.1136@compuserve.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #260 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa26565; 1 Jun 94 23:14 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA12624; Wed, 1 Jun 94 12:34:37 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA12601; Wed, 1 Jun 94 12:34:35 CDT Date: Wed, 1 Jun 94 12:34:35 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406011734.AA12601@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #262 TELECOM Digest Wed, 1 Jun 94 12:34:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 262 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Annoying COCOT Problem (Mark E. Daniel) Re: Annoying COCOT Problem (Steve Kass) Re: How Do You Simulate Telco Battery Voltage? (Paul Jonathan E. Go) Re: How Do You Simulate Telco Battery Voltage? (David B. Thomas) Re: DTMF Decoding Help Needed (David B. Thomas) Re: RBOCS & Video Remote Learning in Schools? (Bob Schwartz) Re: Cordless Phone Wanted With Ten Mile Range (David B. Thomas) Re: Cordless Phone Wanted With Ten Mile Range (Tawfig Al-Rabiah) Re: Book Review: "Internet: Mailing Lists" by Hardie/Neou (Nick Sayer) Re: DS3 to Fiber Optic Convertor (Paul J. Zawada) Re: Average Data Speed of Wire Telegraphy Wanted (Bill Mayhew) Re: Misdialed Numbers (Mike Pollock) Re: Sprint "Combined Billing" Error (Mike Pollock) Re: Annoyance Calls From Answering Machine (animallib@aol.com) Re: Annoyance Calls From Answering Machine (Gary D. Shapiro) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 04:16:06 EST From: mark@legend.akron.oh.us (Mark E Daniel) Subject: Re: Annoying COCOT Problem You could just use an external tone dialer. They don't disable the mouth piece. :) I believe this is done to stop hackers and the like. But all it really does is annoy honest people since a hacker is probably going to have a tone dialer or a tape recorder anyway. I also find it annoying that the COCOT (what does that stand for anyway) phones have these little computers in them that verify what I'm dialing. Only problem is that they are not kept up-to-date. And what's the point of verifing my dialing anyway ... I've never had it deny an 800 number. But then I've never tried a 900 number. :) Maybe that's it. Also within the last ten months GTE made a deal with Ameritech to allow me to use my Ameritech calling card in GTE-land for local calls except that I get billed 10 cents extra plus three cents tax for that one call. :). Oh, I HATE non-Ameritech payphones. I stick my tounge out at them and run ... :) Mark E Daniel (Loving SysOp of The Legend BBS) Inet: mark@legend.akron.oh.us [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: COCOT = 'Customer Owned, Coin Operated Telephone'. Or perhaps the correct phrase is 'Coin Operated, Customer Owned Telephone'. For all the rotten things people have had to say about the Telephone Company over the years, you sure can't beat their coin phone service, eh? At least not when compared to the others. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Annoying COCOT Problem From: skass@drunivac.drew.edu (Steve Kass) Date: 1 Jun 94 11:25:52 EDT Organization: Drew Univ Academic Computing In TELECOM Digest Volume 14 : Issue 260 Stu Jeffery writes: > In TELECOM Digest V14 #257, Darren Griffitsh writes: >> Basically, if I call my voice mail system to check for messages the >> phone frequently cuts out the keypad, disabling DTMF tones ... > Why don't you try a pocket dialer from Radio Shack, etc. A pocket dialer may not work. The technology is in place to detect DTMF whether or not it is generated by the instrument. This is not solely a COCOT problem, either. NYTel and many other BOCs routinely disable the keypad, and even disconnect calls, after some "excessive" number of tones, under the guise of the war against drugs. My belief from hazy information provided me by AT&T, NYTel, and various regulatory organizations is that local law enforcement officials work with the telcos to discourage the use of voice mail and beeper services in certain parts of certain cities at certain times. So far as I have been able to gather, the telcos are free to do this, or at least no regulatory agency seems to care that they do this. I do wonder, however, how they can get away with detecting DTMF generated outside the instrument and disconnecting a call as a result. Is this any different from disconnecting a call when vulgar words are spoken? Anyone care to speculate? For now, the best solution is to ask your long distance carrier to remove the charges for calls that have been disconnected. AT&T will do so, and perhaps if this happens often enough, they will get annoyed enough to help put pressure on the BOCs to stop this nonsense. Steve Kass/ Math & CS/ Drew U/ Madison NJ 07940/ 201-514-1187 skass@drunivac.drew.edu ------------------------------ From: pj@ugcs.caltech.edu (Paul Jonathan E. Go) Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 23:21:22 -0700 Subject: Re: How Do You Simulate Telco Battery Voltage? Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA > ... The ringing voltage will wake up the card, but upon waking if it > does not find that current from the series loop on there it will > disconnect and go back to sleep ... Pat -- Would you know how the card detects the series loop current? I'm building a patch through box, and it would be nice if the box could hang up when everyone else has hung up. Paul Jonathan E. Go Caltech MSC 1028 213 344 7275 Pasadena CA 91126 pj@cco.caltech.edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Off hand I do not know the technical aspects of the card itself; only what it will and won't do. Remove the current from the line and the card quits. That's one reason why in my opinion anyone using such a card in a public voicemail applica- tion is advised to get ground start lines from telco. That way once the calling party hangs up, the current is gone; no risk of (for example) the card getting hung somehow, coming back into service and finding dialtone on the line and doing something ugly you don't want it to do, like making outgoing 900 calls for someone hanging on the other side of it. To answer your question, the easy answer would be just make sure the current is not there between calls. No current, no action. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dt@yenta.abq.nm.us (David B. Thomas) Subject: Re: How Do You Simulate Telco Battery Voltage? Organization: Yenta public access, Albuquerque, NM Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1994 00:53:26 GMT I have a schematic for a loop simulator that offers short and long line simulation as well as ring and backward polarity. It's pretty simple to build. I have the schematic only in paper form but I am willing to snailmail it to anyone who is interested. (I have built myself one of these and I use it all the time. You can even plug two phones in and have them talk to each other, or one phone and one answering machine, for offline testing.) David ------------------------------ From: dt@yenta.abq.nm.us (David B. Thomas) Subject: Re: DTMF Decoding Help Needed Organization: Yenta public access, Albuquerque, NM Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1994 00:55:32 GMT If you're an electronics hobbyist, you can get a DTMF receiver chip that never fails for under five bucks. Then you can interface it with a display and/or memory (to make your own standalone device) or with a serial line, for attaching to your computer or a terminal. I can get you part numbers, supply houses, even example circuits. Also try on sci.electronics. Nuts&Volts magazine has ads for kits and also ready-made DTMF readers. David ------------------------------ Subject: Re: RBOCS & Video Remote Learning in Schools? From: bob@bci.nbn.com (Bob Schwartz) Date: Tue, 31 May 94 18:08:59 PDT Organization: Bill Correctors, Inc., Marin County, California rv01@gte.com (Robert Virzi) writes: > In article , Gerry Moersdorf com> wrote: >> Does anyone have an opinion on what the RBOCS are trying to do by >> pushing TV remote learning grants and equipment to school systems? >> The schools in our district don't even have telephones in classrooms >> let alone a LAN for a client server teaching tool. To me the priorities >> are all turned around. What possible business could RBOCS build with the >> "poor" school districts? Consider that such "video lines" would allow teachers of special subjects to "travel" to schools telephonically. Advantage: One teacher could instruct more students in the course of a day. Disadvantage: The quality of instruction and the impact on jobs for teachers. This represents financial benefit to a school which must either bus the student to the teacher or get the teacher to be on campus. Stickey wicket with very broad ramifications 'eh? Education via television ... who else could benefit by turning teachers into TV proctors? Oh yes, let's not forget the absent mechanisms protecting children from commercial advertisment when they're a captive audience. Bob Schwartz bob@bci.nbn.com Bill Correctors, Inc. +1 415 488 9000 Marin County, California [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Wasn't that the complaint about a company called 'Channel One' which was going to give a bunch of video equipement free to any schools that wanted it? In return, all the schools had to do was tune in the broadcast Channel One presented every day to students with news reports, etc. Of course, there would be messages from the sponsor as well. But really, I can't get too worked up about that scenario. Life in the real world -- a place not frequented by very many Usenetters it seems -- :) calls for *money*, the root of all evil/good, to accomplish certain things. To me, its a trade off which if kept in the proper balance is a good one. For example, the schools in Chicago are in such terrible condition that anything -- anything at all -- would help. But they turned down Channel One's offer here; after all, there might be a commercial for some product and all the little children and their stupid teachers might somehow be unduly influenced. I suggest taking all those free offers being made to the schools, etc. After all, with the general condition of public education in the United States today, what possible harm could it do? Oh, I am sure the teacher's union would not like it, but phooey to them. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dt@yenta.yenta.abq.nm.us (David B. Thomas) Subject: Re: Cordless Phone Wanted With Ten Mile Range Organization: Yenta public access, Albuquerque, NM Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1994 01:07:40 GMT I used to belong to a ham radio club and we had a repeater up on a nearby mountain (sandia crest, for those who know new mexico). It has a phone patch on it and of course the range is in the hundreds of miles. Unfortunately, ham radio people in Albuquerque being what they are, anyone under 50 years of age is subtly discouraged from using it, with whatever lame excuses are handy at the time. Naturally, I quit paying the dues! But the technical part worked great, and I came really close to establishing my own club and repeater. I still own the phone patch and repeater hardware (wanna buy it??). I ended up setting up a simplex autopatch for my own use (which I'm also trying to get rid of). This is not as cool as a full duplex unit, as you cannot interrupt each other. It relies on timeouts and pauses during conversation. Actually I found that how well it works is a good indicator of the intelligence of the person on the other end. It definitely stopped me from dating some real bimbos. ;^) My grandma, a relative technophobe, handled it magnificently. Perhaps she comes from the old school where you wait till the other person stops speaking before you start. :-/ My setup wasn't strictly legal because the base station lacked an automatic station identifier. But those are cheap. (So was I.) I lived in a suburb of Albuquerque and beamed my signal into the city. It covered the whole city just fine, plus several miles outside in all directions. I had a nice high antenna on high terrain, though. So if you have a ham license or don't mind getting one, and are willing to spend some money up front on radios and the like, you can set yourself up pretty well. It's true that you're not allowed to conduct business transactions over the amateur radio service. This has never stopped me from ordering a pizza but it should be borne in mind! David occasionally admitting to call sign N5IZU ------------------------------ From: tawfig@cs.pitt.edu (Tawfig Al-Rabiah) Subject: Re: Cordless Phone Wanted With Ten Mile Range Date: 31 May 1994 18:24:01 GMT Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh Computer Science Do you know who sells this type of phones? I need to get one to use overseas. Tawfig [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, we understand, for export only. (Loud guffaws heard coming from audience). I suggest you buy one overseas in whatever country you plan to use it in. If it is legal in that country, I'm sure there are radio and telephone sales places that will gladly part with one in exchange for money. PAT] ------------------------------ From: nsayer@quack.kfu.com (Nick Sayer) Subject: Re: Book Review: "Internet: Mailing Lists" by Hardie/Neou Organization: The Duck Pond public unix: +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest'. Date: 31 May 1994 18:02:40 UTC Rob Slade writes: > "Most of the book is a listing of a number of mailing lists. NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! It's bad enough that electronic sources for lists of mailing lists are so out of date. Now we have it all carved in stone so that generations of newbies yet to come will send mail to obsolete addresses that died eons ago. I don't suppose the authors asked before they put lists in their book. I don't suppose they _even_ _checked_ _up_ to see if the list was still alive. Will someone who has the book please look and see if 'catv@quack.kfu.com' or 'catv@quack.sac.ca.us' is in there and please put a contract out on the author(s) if so? > You can get similar lists on the net, but this includes lists from a > number of sources, as well as more detail than you might get from a > simple listing. They also have probably done some editing to get rid > of some deadwood. More than deadwood, actually. NETTRAIN doesn't > make it." > "So you could get all this free? Why buy the book?" > "Oh, you could get all the info, and more up to date stuff as well. That's the understatement of the year. I bet the rough draft was obsolete before it even got to the editor's. > But you'd have to grab yourself three or four huge files. Even then, > you wouldn't have all the info that is listed here. You'd also have > to check it out different ways, search all the synonyms for what you > want, and that sort of thing. If you are just a hobby user, maybe you > don't want this, but if you are serious about the Internet, then you > probably do. If you are acting as an Internet resource or trainer you > *definitely* want this book." NOT! They really want us to believe that a book is easier to search than a file? Barnum was right. Nick Sayer N6QQQ @ N0ARY.#NOCAL.CA.USA.NOAM +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest' PGP 2.2 key and geek code via finger ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 16:26:32 -0500 From: Paul J Zawada Subject: Re: DS3 to Fiber Optic Convertor In article is written: > Does anyone know of a DS3 to fiber optic (multimode) converter? That > is a device that extends a T3 line over multimode optical fiber> Canoga-Perkins (818-718-6300) make T3-to-fiber converters in both multi- and single-mode varieties. Canoga-Perkins sells direct. Telco Systems makes a single-mode version but I don't know about multi-mode. (You can make single-mode optics work over multi-mode fiber over short distances.) Telco Systems equipment can be obtained through one of the big telecom distributors like Anixter. These things are pretty expensive. You can expect to pay about US$10,000 for a pair of multi-mode T3 extenders; US$15,000 for a pair of single-mode extenders. Paul J. Zawada KB9FMN NCSAnet Network Engineer zawada@ncsa.uiuc.edu National Center for Supercomputing Applications [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I though Anixter was more in the wire and cable business. Their headquarters is a block away from me over on Golf Road; in fact I applied for a job there once. PAT] ------------------------------ From: wtm@uhura.neoucom.EDU (Bill Mayhew) Subject: Re: Average Data Speed of Wire Telegraphy Wanted Organization: Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine Date: Wed, 01 Jun 1994 02:48:29 GMT That would be a good question to refer to the rec.ham-radio. There were some pretty good articles on the subject posted there within the last year. From my faulty recollection, unassisted human send and receive speed records are in the 70 WPM range. That is five character words separated by a space. International Morse Code is a bit strange in that the symbol length is variable. Common letters such are encoded with short symbols. For instance, E is a single "dit". J is di-dah-dah-dah. ... and you thoght that the ideas behind LHZ compression were born in the 20th century? It isn't too difficult with a little practice to send and receive about 20 WPM without special equipment. That is about my level, and I don't particularly like brass-pounding on the radio. Several of my friends can hear 40 WPM, but use electronic keyers that have separate dit and dah paddles to make sending easier. I've never really gotten the hand of an electronic keyer ... it seems a little like defeating the purpose of sending Morse Code to use a keyer. Purists like to think of Morse Code transmission in religious terms. I don't really care too much, but code sending has the great advatage of being able to send a message around the world with just a few watts of power. A five watt Morse Code rig can probably send just as copyable, albeit slower, message as a 1500 watt single sideband voice rig in many situations. For Morse transmissions, the bandwidth necessary is approximately the WPM * 4. 60 WPM code only needs 240 Hz of bandwidth to prevent intersymbol interferece at the receiving end. On the shortwave bands, a voice signal might use as much as 2,300 Hz bandwidth and probably won't be able to do any better than 60 WPM spoken without error. For 8-bit radio telegraphy, ASCII for instance, the necessary bandwith is approximated by BW = ISHIFT * 1.2 * BAUD. To answer the prvious posting, yes, ASCII coded transmissions are now allowable. I forget when ASCII was adopted, but it's been in the ham radio hobby for 15 years or so. Before ASCII, the FCC permitted 5-level Baudot coded transmissions. A lot of Teletype brand and Kleinschmidt gear filtered out of the Bell system into ham radio in the 1960s. I still have a Teleype model 19 that first went into bell system service in 1932 sitting in my basement. The poroblem is that I can't find any easy way to get rid of it. Hams typically used 60 WPM transmission, but 72 was common in some nets. Some military machines were geared for 45.45 baud. I worked at Ft. Meade as late as 1980, and 45.45 baud maritime service was still common them. Such low speeds seemed ridiculous even then, but there was still a huge infrastructure of model 28 TTYs still around. 60 mA current loop operation was common for ham equipment. Government stuff operated at 60 uA with special magnets and contacts to minimize RF emissions for keyboards, perfs and trnamsmitter-distributor equipment. Ham radio has come a long way. 10.55 GHz links running tcp/ip at two Mb/s are in use. There are national infrasctructures running 9600 bps backbones AX.25 packet on VHF links scattered around the globe. Most local traffic is still relatively slow 1200 bps AX.25, but 9600 is gaining in popularity. HF links use multitone CLOVER systems now, with 300 baud the defacto standard, but 1200 baud and even higher tieing the continents together. Hams have even launched quite a few low earth orbit satelites with packet store and forward capabilities in an assortment of HF, VHF and UHF link and speed combinations. Bill Mayhew NEOUCOM Computer Services Department Rootstown, OH 44272-0095 USA phone: 216-325-2511 wtm@uhura.neoucom.edu amateur radio 146.58: N8WED ------------------------------ From: pheel@panix.com (Mike Pollock) Subject: Re: Misdialed Numbers Date: 31 May 1994 14:40:32 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC About a year ago I got a call on my personal 800 number from a southern- accented guy. Apparently some friends of his at a truckstop had told him about the personal 800 numbers they use to keep in touch with loved-ones back home. He, it turned out, was simply trying to call his sister, who did NOT have an 800 number, by putting 800 in front of her seven-digit local number, which was the same as the last seven digits of my 800 number. I found all this out only after getting two confused-sounding hang-ups on my answering machine (I was screening). I answered the third call with "customer service?" at which point the gentleman explained his plight. I politely explained that, unless his sister subscribed to an 800 service, he couldn't just call her by adding 800 to her local number. ------------------------------ From: pheel@panix.com (Mike Pollock) Subject: Re: Sprint "Combined Billing" Error Date: 31 May 1994 14:45:49 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC Robert M. Hamer (hamer@gandalf.rutgers.edu) wrote: > One solution is simply to not pay the NYNEX bill, call Sprint, and > tell them you don't want "combined billing." They didn't kick when I > did that. If they did kick, tell them you'll feel free to change to > another long distance company. You ought to be able to get rates > similar to Sprint's from lots of places. I subsequently did change back from combined to direct billing, but that was mostly because, as a combined subscriber, I could no longer get automated account information from the Sprint 800 number. Mike ------------------------------ From: animallib@aol.com (Animal Lib) Subject: Re: Annoyance Calls From Answering Machine Date: 31 May 1994 17:32:02 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) In article , quixote@eskimo.com writes: One other solution is to get the "CALL BLOCK" service from your local telco. This service, at least in Florida, allows you to enter a code to block the last number called. Since you don't have Caller ID you don't know the number anyway, but the call block service will permanently stop the machine from calling you. Also, Carlos, the SONY A3000 has call transfer. It lets you enter up to 32 digits so you can program it to call a beeper or whatever. Peace ... ------------------------------ From: gshapiro@rain.org (Gary D. Shapiro) Subject: Re: Annoyance Calls From Answering Machine Date: 01 Jun 1994 01:08:40 -0700 quixote@eskimo.com wrote: > Somehow I missed the first article of this thread. But I assume you > are talking about an answering machine that when it receives a > message, it will dial a preprogrammed number to alert about the > message just received. > I would be interested in such a machine, either the one mentioned in > this thread or similar ones in the market. Any help with brands or > where to buy them, will be greatly appreciated. Panasonic has more than one model that will forward messages. Mine, a KXT2634, is currently in a box in the closet. Its audio quality, both for the digital announcement and the microcassette messages is poor. Hopefully, this model is no longer available. Gary D. Shapiro Santa Barbara, California +1 805 682-5523 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #262 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa26785; 1 Jun 94 23:49 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA01419; Wed, 1 Jun 94 11:26:05 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA01391; Wed, 1 Jun 94 11:23:15 CDT Date: Wed, 1 Jun 94 11:23:15 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406011623.AA01391@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #261 TELECOM Digest Wed, 1 Jun 94 11:23:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 261 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway (Nigel Allen) Canadian Telcos and Access Awareness Week (Dave Leibold) New Bellcore Documents (Dave Leibold) Firewall FAQ and Products Wanted (Thomas Hinders) S-s-s-stuttering Dial Tone Detection (K.M. Peterson) Out-Going Call Blocking to Local Numbers (thssamj@iitmax.iit.edu) Information Wanted on IVPN (Gerard Carat) CLID Information on Trunks Needed (Tom Ridgeway) Ground-Start Trunk Line Sharing Product? (Rod Regier) Could SLC-96 Cause Low Volume? (Michael D. Corbett) Bellcore Specifications of AIN/1 and Later (David D'Lima) Information Wanted on AMIS (Rob Schmersel) Information Wanted on Cyclone (Gerard Carat) New Kinds of Inmarsat Service (Dave Leibold) Help: Program For Cumulative Normal Function (Wei-Tyng Hong) Software Information Mailing List Being Compiled (Peter Bruce) Remote Access to the 'Net (Lynne Gregg) Re: Announcing New FCC BBS - FCC World (Ted Timar) Bibliography of Telecom Periodicals Wanted (Bruce Roberts) Re: Trans-Atlantic Fiber Operators (US Based) (Kevin McConnaughey) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 17:25:16 -0400 From: ae446@freenet.carleton.ca (Nigel Allen) Subject: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway Organization: 52 Manchester Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M6G 1V3, Canada Reply-To: ae446@freenet.carleton.ca The following article appeared in the alt.snail-mail newsgroup. It was originally posted by jackson@igs.cviog.uga.edu (Ed Jackson). Usenet Philatelic New Service Release 94-44 May 30, 1994 Runyon Sees Role for the USPS on Information Highway Once a national electronic communications infrastructure is fully defined, Postmaster General and CEO Marvin Runyon sees an opportunity for the Postal Service to help the American public gain access. "The Postal Service is America's first 'information superhighway' with 123 million information channels as close as the mailbox," Runyon said in his annual report to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. "None of us should lose sight of the fact that the residents and businesses of our nation depend on us to communicate and do business." Change is having a dramatic effect on the Postal Service and on the communications industry as a whole. The PMG said the USPS needs to remain competitive in a communications market that continues to evolve. "The mail remains the most pervasive means of communication and commerce available to our nation, but technology and other companies continue to challenge us with new alternatives," he noted. "As far as I am concern, the competition is good. It is pushing us to improve, and to look ahead to the next century and the next generation of communications products our customers will need." As technology evolves and an electronic infrastructure provides greater access for interaction among individuals, business, and government the Postal Service is particularly well placed to participate, he noted. "We can and should make a contribution to this effort," Runyon said. "After more than two centuries of service to the American people, we are a trusted third party for millions of businesses and residents. We have a strong technological base, with expertise in high-speed electronic recognition, message interchange, material handling, and infrastructure maintenance." The National Performance Review team established by President Clinton and overseen by Vice President Al Gore has asked the Postal Service to deliver electronic information available from the federal agencies to the public using interactive kiosks in post office lobbies. "There may be other ways we can contribute," Runyon said. "Perhaps post office lobbies could serve as on-ramps providing access to anyone who wants to be on the electronic highway. "Or, maybe we can help certify electronic messages and safeguard their privacy, securing one company's market-sensitive information from the intruding eyes of its competitors," he said. Runyon told the senators he looks forward to returning to the committee with ideas approved by its Board of Governors. "In the meantime, we will be working to improve the information superhighway that we have, by focusing on listening to and satisfying the needs of our customers, improving our finances, and demonstrating our commitment to employees," he said. "We see a continuing need for a nationwide hard-copy mail system well into the future. The better the job we do, the more value the mail will represent, and the more likely people will continue to use the trusted, reliable, and economical mail." (This article appeared in the may 1994 issue of "memo to mailers," a non-copyrighted monthly publication of the U.S. Postal Service distributed to mail center managers. For more information on UPNS, contact Ed Jackson at .) Nigel Allen ae446@freenet.carleton.ca [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Despite what Runyan may say, the United States Postal Service is in very bad condition. Over the past three months there have been major upheavals in the USPS here in Chicago, as Runyan himself can attest. Several top officials of the post office here have been replaced; several local mail carriers have been discovered stealing mail -- thousands of pieces of mail each -- and local postal operations in some of the branch stations here are in complete dissarray. There is a considerable amount of personal unhappieness among USPS employees over the entire country. What other organization has had three instances of employees turning into mass-murderers on the job and killing several co-workers on the spot, ie, Highland Park, Michigan a few years ago and Enid, Oklahoma a few years ago to name two examples? Although we here in Chicago have not had the violence seen in the two post offices named above, it was necessary for Runyan to come here to visit a month or so ago and try to sort out the several problems with our mail which have been occurring with an alarming frequency over the past few years. He found mail carriers with *tons* of undelivered mail stashed in the base- ment of their homes. One guy had over ten thousand undelivered letters in his home; it was discovered only when his house caught fire and the firemen were sorting through the basement making sure the fire was out. The best thing the USPS could do at this point is gracefully go out of business and turn things over to private companies like Federal Express and Emory. But oh no, instead of that, not only are they not willing to simply admit their defeat and get out of business, they *refuse* to allow any competition! You've probably read in the papers recently about how they are hassling people who are using private courier services. If you use a private courier service to deliver first class mail in the USA on a *non-emergency basis* (they do allow that much latitude), then if the Post Office finds out about it, you can be (a) fined, and (b) forced to pay the amount of money the post office *would have charged* had they been the ones to deliver (or mis-deliver, or not deliver at all) your mail. But try suing the USPS for their malfeasance; for losing your very important documents, or for stealing cash they find in the mail. (Tell me about it! The sorting room employees at 60690 hit me up for thousands of dollars over the years once they learned my box got cash money in the mail) ... *they* are immune, like all other government agencies in these rotten United States; you can't sue them. I say close it down completely and let the private companies take it over. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.fidonet.org (Dave Leibold) Date: 31 May 94 01:01:04 -0500 Subject: Canadian Telcos and Access Awareness Week Organization: FidoNet Nameserver/Gateway [from Bell News, 30 May 1994] National Access Awareness Week aims to show "Access is Working" As an official sponsor of National Access Awareness Week (NAAW), the Stentor alliance is kicking off the event today May 30 in Calgary with Prime Minister Jean Chretien assisting in a demonstration of the 711 Relay Service. The service allows hearing people and persons who are deaf, hard-of-hearing or speech-impaired to communicate through a TTY/TTD - Teletypewriter/ Telecommunications Device for the Deaf. Following Rick Hansen's Man in Motion Tour in 1987, NAAW was established to sensitize Canadians to creating and supporting equal access for persons with disabilities in the areas of transportation, housing, recreation, education and employement. Further east, Bell Canada, for the sixth consecutive year, is showing its commitment to workforce diversity through direct involvement in NAAW. ------------------------------ From: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.fidonet.org (Dave Leibold) Date: 31 May 94 01:01:16 -0500 Subject: New Bellcore Documents Organization: FidoNet Nameserver/Gateway From Bellcore's list of New Releases: - a new edition of the famous "Notes" book is out: BOC Notes on the LEC Networks - 1994 (SR-TSV-002275 Issue 2, April 1994) ... cost is only USD$395.00 (the same cost as the previous issue, if I recall correctly) ... this is an overview of technologies and topics of the phone network - Telephone Area Code Directory (TACD) Issue 9, January 1994 (TR-EOP-000093) is also available, with list of dialable locations, NPAs (ie. area codes), and a bonus list of Carrier Identification Codes for USA use. Price is USD$49,(I remember the 1991 edition of TACD selling for USD$30) - a National ISDN-3 document, going for USD$70, that describes and defines the latest ISDN standards (SR-NWT-002457, Issue 1, December 1993) ------------------------------ Date: 31 May 1994 10:47:10 EDT From: Hinders, Thomas Subject: Firewall FAQ and Products Wanted I am looking for a FAQ on Internet firewalls and products ... any leads. Please reply directly; I will summerize and repost. Tom Hinders/Soft-Switch +1 610 640 7487 (v/vm) +1 610 640 7511 (f) Internet: thinder@SSW.COM X.400: C=US A=Telemail P=Softswitch S=Hinders G=Thomas ------------------------------ From: kmp@tiac.net (K. M. Peterson) Subject: S-s-s-stuttering Dial Tone Detection Date: 31 May 1994 15:22:35 GMT Organization: KMPeterson/Boston Hi, Stretching my one phone line ever further, I'm considering getting voicemail from our local telco. My problem: I don't want to have to lift the handset to find out if I have messages. Has someone come up with a box to sit on one's line and detect this (and flash a lamp or something)? Thanks for any pointers! K. M. Peterson email: KMP@TIAC.NET phone: +1 617 731 6177 voice +1 617 730 5969 fax ------------------------------ From: thssamj@iitmax.iit.edu (jani) Subject: Out-Going Call Blocking to Local Numbers Organization: Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago Date: Tue, 31 May 94 15:32:38 GMT Is it possible to block outgoing calls to selected local numbers? Ameritech says they do not have such a service. Only kind of outgoing call blocking they offer is to 1-900 numbers and total blocking to long distance service. They suggested I should check out if there was such a device available from a third party. Is there such a thing? I would prefer if the phone company could do it at their end as it would be more secure. (The device can not be unplugged and disabled.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Telco does have classes of service which allow total blocking to local calls; blocking of long distance calls (toll restriction); service which allows direct dial only with the subscriber blocked from reaching the operator; or in reverse, no DDD with all calls going through the operator and denial of third number billing, i.e. collect calls only, but not for selected local calls that I know of. Some of these very specialized classes of service are primarily used in correctional institution settings. The classes of service I know about are: Unrestricted (just regular service, call anywhere, get collect calls, etc); No long distance (1+ is blocked, operator cannot complete on 0+); No local calls (but long distance allowed, 1+ only, or 0+ only or both); No calls to any number on a given exchange (exchange entirely blocked out); 900/976 restrictions (no DDD to these and operator cannot complete calls); Directory assistance blocked (no calls to '411' or '555-1212'); No incoming service (outgoing only, with or without above restrictions); No outgoing service (incoming only, with or without collect, third number); No incoming or outgoing service (intercom only, from within customer premises); No coin calls allowed from 'payphone' (calls must be collect or calling card); No DDD service (calls can only be made to operator who completes or denies); There are customer-maintained toll restrictors which do a pretty good job and are quite secure. You might check into the one offered by Radio Shack or the one from Hello Direct (1-800-HI-HELLO). Both can be programmed for the usual connections along with a dozen or so local numbers; really whatever you want to put in them, but it is against the law to block 911 calls. Both of these have the components in a secure plastic case which screws together and can be secreted in an out-of-the-way place on your premises. A detirmined person could get into them, but they do the job in most cases. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 May 94 15:08:31 GMT From: news@dispatch.demon.co.uk From: Gerard Carat Subject: Information Wanted on IVPN Organization: aiit Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 14:08:29 GMT Can anyone explain how an international VPN works? ------------------------------ From: Tom.Ridgeway@UC.Edu Subject: CLID Information on Trunks Needed Date: 31 May 94 10:27:36 EST Organization: University of Cincinnati Could someone please refresh my memory on Caller ID? We have a large switch with hundreds of outbound local trunks and all calls out show the actual line number of the trunk on caller I.D. displays. This causes lots of confusion for the receiver of calls from our campus - users don't understand about trunk lines and DID numbers. I think I remember someone posting here that they had the local telco set the line ID for all their outbounds to show the lead/billing number. We have requested this from Cincinnati Bell and they don't know how to do this for us, although they agree it would be handy. I do know that our C.O. was recently upgraded to an ESS5 and can tell you that all of our ourbound locals are ground starts. If you have had your lines set to all show a specific number or know how to program this on a "5", please drop me a line with at least the name of your telco so I can let Cinti. Bell who to contact for more specifics. And if I'm dreaming, I'm sure you'll let me know that as well! :-) Tom Ridgeway Ridgewte@UC.edu University of Cincinnati V. 513-558-2580 Telecommunications F. 513-558-0999 ------------------------------ From: Rod Regier Reply-To: RRegier@dymaxion.ns.ca Subject: Ground-start trunk line sharing product? Date: 31 May 94 15:20:11 AST Organization: Dymaxion Research Limited, NS, Canada Background: My organization is currently using a Mitel SX-100 PBX. The incoming TELCO trunk lines are ground-start trunks. I have no "free" locals remaining on the PBX. I do not want to purchase any more line cards to add locals. If I invest in any more PBX equipment, it will be to install a new system, not to upgrade my existing system. I have a two-line "rotary" pool coming from a Telco electro-mechanical exchange as part of the over-all PBX trunk pool. These two lines are used for both incoming and outgoing calls. The two line-pool is used during the day to accept incoming sales calls using our old published number. They are corrently not being used in any significant way at night. Problem: I would like to use the two-line pool at night to add to my dialup modem pool without adding any additional (expensive, $C1000/yr) telco lines. If the two-line pool used normal loop lines, I could use a product like the Cardinal Communications Comshare 550 to support both incoming voice and data calls, as well as outgoing PBX calls. There doesn't seem to be a product or combination of products that will offer the same solution for the ground-start trunks. Can anyone suggest an inexpensive solution to this apparent dilemma without investing money in PBX components? TIA, Rod Regier, Software Development bus: (902)422-1973 x108 Dymaxion Research Ltd., 5515 Cogswell St., fax: (902)421-1267 Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3J 1R2 Canada Internet: rr@dymaxion.ns.ca ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 12:13:31 -0700 From: Michael D. Corbett Subject: Could SLC-96 Cause Low Volume? Greetings, I seem to recall some discussion in this group about SLC-96 and it's associated peculiarities. I can't find anything in the archives on this subject. In a nutshell, is there a situation where one would encounter low volumes using SLC-96 trunks? My understanding of SLC-96 is where the CO doesn't have enough copper, they multipelx 96 Subscriber Loop Circuits on something like three or four pairs. Am I correct? Anyway, the end coustomer is complaining of "low volume" and "chopped" voice mail messages from one of our systems which is fed trunks off of a SLC-96. Any help or pointers would be appreciated. Regards, Mike Corbett Internet: mcorbett@halcyon.com Applied Voice Technology Voice: +1 206 820 6000 P.O. Box 97025 Fax: +1 206 820 4040 Kirkland WA 98083 AVT has never taken me seriously, either should you. ------------------------------ Subject: Bellcore Specifications of AIN/1 and Later Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 08:49:25 IST From: David D'Lima Pat: I wonder whether I can pick up the Bellcore AIN/1 and later specs off an anon-ftp site. If so, can you let me know the hostname? Thanks in advance, David D'Lima dlima@tcsernet.tcs.ernet.in ------------------------------ From: etmrosc@crosby.ericsson.se (Rob Schmersel) Subject: Information Wanted on AMIS Reply-To: etmrosc@crosby.ericsson.se Organization: Ericsson Telecommunication Rijen (ETM) Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 13:19:39 GMT Hello, Anybody ever heard about AMIS (Audio Messaging Interchange Specification) and know where I can find any documentation about this protocol? Thanks in advance, Rob ------------------------------ From: Gerard Carat Subject: Information Wanted on Cyclone Organization: aiit Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1994 13:49:29 GMT Following the FCC's green light to Newco (the BT-MCI venture), has anyone got ideas on Cyclone's development? ------------------------------ From: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.fidonet.org (Dave Leibold) Date: 31 May 94 23:37:06 -0500 Subject: New Kinds of Inmarsat Service Organization: FidoNet Nameserver/Gateway [from Infocom (Bell Canada), April 1994] Inmarsat Service - Reduced Rates Effective 1994 04 27, customers will pay less for outbound Inmarsat calls with two new options, Inmarsat B and M. Inmarsat is a mobile service that uses satellite facilities to provide two- way voice and data communications from Canada to remote locations virtually anywhere in the world. Using Inmarsat, a customer can call (direct dial or via an operator) a mobile terminal on an off-shore base, aircraft, ship, or in countries where terrestrial communications cannot always be relied on. Inmarsat B and M are established as alternative mobile systems which also provide calling to Inmarsat Service destinations. Service Description: Inmarsat B: Enables customers to place voice grade digital communications (voice, fax, data) at transmission speeds up to 16 kbps. Per minute rate is $11.95 Inmarsat M: Enables customers to place voice grade digital communications (voice, fax, data) at transmission speeds up to 2.4 kbps. Per minute rate is $10.20. By comparison with Inmarsat A (previously known as Inmarsat Maritime Service), Inmarsat M & B offer improved voice and data transmission quality through digital technology, as well as service charges that are lower by 33% to 43%. With rates as low as $9.20 per minute for Advantage Preferred users, Inmarsat B and M are the most cost effective solutions to communicate with travellers in remote areas as well as operators of marine vessels or oil rigs. In the past, the main users of Inmarsat Service have been shipping, mining and oil companies, as well as government departments. However, with the establishment of Inmarsat B & M, business travellers to remote areas where telecommunications infrastructures are not fully developed can now also take advantage of these new offerings and place Inmarsat calls at less cost. Coupled with the fact that new portable terminals are more compact, reliable and a lot less expensive, Inmarsat Service B & M can be attractive alternative choices in these special situations. For further information, please contact your sales representative. ------------------------------ From: u8213801@cc.nctu.edu.tw (Jeff) Subject: Help: Program For Cumulative Normal Function Date: 1 Jun 1994 08:10:10 GMT Organization: Computer Sci. & Information Eng. Chiao Tung Univ. Taiwan, R.O.C Hello, I need a program to calc. the C(x) (the cumulative normal function). C(x)=prob(X Subject: Software Information Mailing List Being Compiled Would you like to receive information via email about commercially available statistical software? We're compiling a list of people who would like such information, and another list of people who do not want such information. ____ Yes, want info ____ No, do not want info Thanks! Attn: Peter Bruce resample@cais.com Resampling Stats, Inc. ------------------------------ From: Lynne Gregg Subject: Remote Access to the 'Net Date: Tue, 31 May 94 13:01:00 PDT Jarlath Lyons asked for suggestions on accessing Internet from remote locales. I highly recommend the use of a VAN like Compuserve. All your pal needs is a dial tone to reach CIS. It's unlikely that any of the major networks have local access nodes in such far-flung corners, but there's always one accessible by long distance call. Best of luck to your adventurous friend. There's a lot to be said for vegetarianism! Regards, Lynne [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Lynne's last paragraph is of course in response to last week's discourse here on cannibalism and whether or not it is still practiced in the Solomon Islands and/or Boulder, Colorado and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tmatimar@isgtec.com (Ted Timar) Subject: Re: Announcing New FCC BBS - FCC World Reply-To: tmatimar@isgtec.com Organization: ISG Technologies, Inc Date: Wed, 01 Jun 1994 08:59:22 -0400 In article , avb@cais.com (FCC World) writes about a new BBS, "FCC WORLD" which features info on the FCC, and is free to anyone with a 14.4 baud modem. Two questions: 1) Is there going to be a tax on using this bulletin board? :-) 2) Where do I get a 14.4 baud modem? Who in their right mind would use one? Most modems I know of only go down to 110 baud. Is the FCC going to call for a tax on all modems faster than 14.4 baud? :-) (For those who don't know, one longtime Usenet Urban Legend is that the FCC is about to start taxing modems.) Ted Timar tmatimar@isgtec.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Just to remind our Washington, DC readers about the new availability of this Digest on a local connection, I reprint an excerpt from the original message: > The Washington, DC telecommunications law firm of Smithwick & > Belendiuk proudly announces the launch of a new BBS -- FCC WORLD -- > featuring information on the Federal Communications Commission. We > feature FCC documents on-line (many you cannot find on Internet), > texts of important FCC Reports and decisions (IVDS, PCS Auction info -- > on-line now!), Forums on hot FCC issues, free Classified ads and more! > The best thing -- its free and without a daily time limit. Give it a > try at 202-887-5718 (14.4 baud)! Your favorite telecommunications e-journal (I hope!) is also available as each issue is published in a special file section on the FCC World BBS. Check it out. PAT] ------------------------------ From: bruce.roberts@greatesc.com (Bruce Roberts) Subject: Bibliography of Telecom Periodicals Wanted Date: Wed, 01 Jun 1994 05:35:00 GMT Organization: The Great Escape - Gardena, CA - (310) 676-3534 Hello all. I'm currently subscribing to {Telephony Magazine} and find it fascinating but primarily marketing/business oriented. I'm looking for a periodical that is more technical in nature and covers the same PSTN, Information Infrastructure, ISDN, Sonet, ATM sort of stuff. This is not my line of work so but rather something I find interesting (and something that will affect all of us soon) so it will be an educational experience. Suggestions and subscribing information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Bruce Roberts, bruce.roberts@greatesc.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: {Telephony} is the grandfather of all telecom industry publications. It has been around since sometime in the 1920's. It was the only publication of its kind in an era when there was but one phone company. The two were closely intertwined and there was a point at which subscriptions to the magazine were restricted to persons who were employed somewhere in the Bell System. It used to be much more technically oriented. I've always considered it sort of dry and boring compared to (for example) Harry Newton's {Teleconnect}, a more recent arrival on the scene. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Trans-Atlantic Fiber Operators (US based) From: kevin@realtyme.com (Kevin McConnaughey) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 94 09:24:59 EDT Organization: Retrograde Motion BBS - Oakton, VA. stu@shell.portal.com (Stu Jeffery) writes: > I am trying to find out the names of the smaller US based companies > that operate trans-Atlantic fiber cables. The ones I know of are: ATT, > MCI, Sprint, Wiltel and Compuserve. Stu: I assume that you mean companies that *own* capacity in trans-Atlantic fiber cables, not operate. If you do mean operate then the list you have is not correct. AT&T is a cable operator of numerous US cables landing on the US East coast. Sprint is the operator of PTAT-1 with C&W the operator on the UK end. MCI is not a cable operator in the US to my knowledge nor is Wiltel or Compuserve. On the Pacific side, Pacific Telecom operates the North Pacific Cable and all others connecting to CONUS are operated, I believe, by AT&T. I have heard that Wiltel has applied for permission to build and operate a cable to Cuba but this would still be in the planning stages. One might also include in your list BT, C&W, and possibly other PTTs that have operations here in the US and that are cable operators on the Western side of the Atlantic. I am not sure what your purpose is, but I would not want to limit myself to looking at just the US. There are trans-Atlantic cables that terminate in Canada too. These are (I am assuming since I have not actually checked) operated by Teleglobe. I hope this is helpful. kevin@realtyme.com (Kevin McConnaughey) Retrograde Motion BBS - Oakton, Virginia +1-703-758-9084 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #261 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa27312; 2 Jun 94 1:57 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA27197; Wed, 1 Jun 94 15:35:47 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA27168; Wed, 1 Jun 94 15:35:45 CDT Date: Wed, 1 Jun 94 15:35:45 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406012035.AA27168@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #264 TELECOM Digest Wed, 1 Jun 94 15:35:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 264 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Geographical Boundaries of COE's Reference Needed (semnet@gate.net) CALTEL Membership Questions (Russell Bunge) Box to Add Digits When Dialing (Marco A. Pinones) British Call Forwarding in 1960s (Randy Gellens) Re: Itemized Billing in UK (Richard Barry) Re: Itemized Billing in UK (Carl Moore) Recommendation For AlphaNumeric Paging Software (David Dodell) Re: Frame Relay SVC Specs Wanted (Dick Rawson) Re: How Smart is Call-Forwarding? (John Lundgren) Re: Performance of L.A. Cellular System (Steven H. Lichter) Re: Performance of L.A. Cellular System (John Nagle) Correction: Re: VIVE Caller ID Device Problems (Evan Gamblin) Re: SMS Messages on ORANGE (Sam Spens Clason) Re: Nice Job, if You Can Get it! (Rich Greenberg) Re: RBOCS & Video Remote learning in Schools? (Michael Chui) Re: Lower Domestic Telephone Rates (Chris Barr) Re: Leased Line Internet Access (Joseph J. Gerber) Re: Help: Bad Phone Lines in San Jose (Rob Levandowski) Re: No 911 Available as Tot Drowns (Ry Jones) Re: What's a 1A3B? (Alan Leon Varney) Re: What Did You Have For Dinner Today? (Dave Thompson) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: semnet@inca.gate.net (Seminar Network) Subject: Geographical Boundaries of COE's Reference Needed Date: 1 Jun 1994 11:29:07 -0400 Is there a book or set of maps that contain the Central Office Exchanges corresponding with geographical boundaries? For example, if I would like to know what physical boundary belongs to 617-753-0000, where 753 is the COE, is there a resource for that type of information. That is, I'm looking to know where all the subscribers who are in the 753 exchange are located. An analogy to this is the zip code maps where a certain zip code has a defined physical boundary. The bounday may overlap a couple of cities however. Just to re-iterate, a MAP is what I'm looking for, not a criss-cross directory that has street names or anything like that. Perhaps Bellcore has a set of publications for each LATA or NPA, I don't know. Thank you, semnet@gate.net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I suggest you begin by speaking with Carl Moore (cmoore@brl.mil). He maintains those things in great detail. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rbunge@callamer.com (Russell Bunge) Subject: CALTEL Membership Questions Organization: SLONET Community Access System Date: Wed, 01 Jun 1994 18:00:16 GMT I'm looking for membership information on an association called CALTEL. I understand that CALTEL is an organization of Independent Long Distance providers in California, but I can't seem to find out where they are headquartered nor which companies belong. I've checked the Encyclopedia of Associations, no luck. I'd appreciate any information on this organization readers of this newsgroup can provide. Thanks, Russell Bunge rbunge@slonet.org ------------------------------ From: mpinones@netmon.mty.itesm.mx (Marco A. Pinones I.) Subject: Box to Add Digits When Dialing Date: 1 Jun 1994 18:14:16 GMT Organization: ITESM, Campus Monterrey I am looking for a box that could detect when digits are being dialed and add some digits at the very beginning. This is because we have a Vsats arrangement and the NEC equipment can only identify the links with two to four digits. To be compatible with our actual numbering, we need the vsat stations to be able to dial between them and to the rest of the net (with four digit extensions). The equipment at the vsat nodes is a Panasonic 1232. There is a link group on the NEC box that handles 16 channels to the voice net, asigned to a number that my vsat stations need to dial. I want this to be transparent to the user at each end, so I am thinking about a box that could read the digits when being dialed from vsat stations and can add the digits for the NEC equipment to select the 16 channels and the pass the other digits. Does such equipment exist? Greetings and thanks for any help. ------------------------------ From: RANDY@MPA15AB.mv-oc.Unisys.COM Date: 01 JUN 94 00:55:00 GMT Subject: British Call Forwarding in 1960s On an episode of _The_Avengers_ shown the other day (this British series from, I think, the 1960s is probably always in re-runs somewhere -- I see it on the A&E Network), the central character is about to go on holiday. He puts his luggage down, and runs through a checklist (plants, lights, windows, etc.) On reaching 'phone,' he pick up his phone (black, rotary desk set of course) and dials three digits. He says "Operator? This is WHitehall xxxx. My name is John Steed. I will be away for the next three weeks. Please forward my calls to the usual number." (He might have used 'direct' or a similar word instead of 'forward.') What sort of call-forwarding was offered by British Telecom in the 1960s? Randall Gellens randy@mv-oc.unisys.com (714) 380-6350 fax (714) 380-5912 Mail Stop MV 237 Net**2 656-6350 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think they had the same kind of 'call forwarding' that we had here in the USA in the 1930's: (pick up the receiver and wait for operator) ... "Beulah? This is Mr. Smith. I am going down to my office for a few hours so if any calls come in put them on that line instead" ... And how did Caller-ID work here in the USA back in the same era? (pick up the receiver and wait for operator) ... "Gertrude, is that you? Hi Gert ... listen the phone was ringing when I was coming in the door with my three bags of groceries (unspoken: which I got from Safeway for five dollars) ... who was calling me? Would you get them back on the line please?" PAT] ------------------------------ From: Richard Barry Subject: Re: Itemized Billing in UK Date: 01 Jun 1994 09:42:20 +0100 Organization: Ireland On-Line In article telecom14.250.3@eecs.nwu.edu, John Slater (johns@scroff. uk) wrote: > First of all, East End and West End are areas of London, so it's a > local call. (I believe Greater London is the largest geographic > calling area in the world). ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ While Greater London might have the largest population of any local calling area, it is not geographically the largest. The longest distance local call in London would be about 50km. In many parts of Ireland you can call up to 100kms away at the local call rate. And at weekends the entire country is a 1p/min "local call" area (including calls *from* IRL to Northern Ireland. Using the weekend tariff you can call points up to 400kms distant between 0h SAT - 24h SUN for the equivalent of 1.4 US c/min. One suspects that there are even larger local calling areas in Australia, Greenland, etc? Richard Barry rbarry@iol.ie ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 01 Jun 94 12:07:45 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: Itemized Billing in UK So in summary: In the UK, over a certain cost gets itemized (and this can include a very long local call on measured service). In the U.S., all calls beyond my local calling area are itemized. In my case, I opted for no local-call allowance, so any local calls I make are lumped into local-message-unit charge item on my phone bill. ------------------------------ Subject: Recommendation For AlphaNumeric Paging Software From: david@stat.com (David Dodell) Reply-To: david@stat.com (David Dodell) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 94 06:38:47 MST Organization: Stat Gateway Service, WB7TPY I'm always seeing inquiries about alpha numeric paging software for PC's and would like to recommend a company that I have no connection with. The software is called PopPage and sells for $19.95 The software is DOS based, will run under Window. It handles IXO/TAP, and will load high as a TSR if desired. Statistical Control Systems can be reached at 1-813-954-8816 voice, 1-813-954-8624 fax. They also make something called Interceptor - Digital Paging System Analyzer but I do not know anything about this product. I'm just a happy user of PopPage. David Dodell Editor, HICNet Medical Newsletter Internet: david@stat.com FAX: +1 (602) 451-1165 Bitnet: ATW1H@ASUACAD ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 May 94 15:22:31 PDT From: drawson@Tymnet.COM (Dick Rawson) Subject: Re: Frame Relay SVC Specs Wanted Recently? You want ANSI T1.617-1991, with the Supplement T1.617a-1993. Maybe it was the supplement that was "recent". Dick ------------------------------ From: jlundgre@ohlone.kn.PacBell.COM (John Lundgren) Subject: Re: How Smart is Call-Forwarding? Date: 31 May 94 18:18:54 GMT Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network Maybe something in the carrier plant is causing the trouble. Something like a ADPCM or whatever circuit that doesn't recognize the modem and tries to compress what it thinks is voice. jlundgre@kn.pacbell.com \ jlundgr@eis.calstate.edu ------------------------------ From: co057@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Steven H. Lichter) Subject: Re: Performance of L.A. Cellular System Date: 01 Jun 1994 13:22:23 GMT Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA) Right after the earthquake I was able to reach my father on his cellular phone which is on LA Cellular. I have PacBell (Air Touch) and used it to call him since all wire lines were blocked. Since his is A and mine was B it seemed to work fine. Also arn't most cellular phones switchable, I know mine witll go A or B or both. Sysop: Apple Elite II -=- an Ogg-Net Hub BBS (909) 359-5338 12/24/96/14.4 V32/V42bis ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: Re: Performance of L.A. Cellular System Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Wed, 01 Jun 1994 16:41:47 GMT Reon_Can@mindlink.bc.ca (Dan Matte) writes: > I am working on a proposal for an email system that will operate > exclusively over cellular in case of disaster resulting in land line > failure. Essentially, remote offices will dial-up over cellular to > the central office and retrieve messages in case of emergency. The > system will operate independently of land lines. Er, cell sites are typically linked by land line to a central site that controls the system. Only the last hop to the mobile phone is radio. If you lose the link to the central site, even two phones in the same cell can't talk. It's not a distributed system at all. John Nagle ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 01 Jun 1994 06:29:59 -0400 From: egamblin@ott.hookup.net (Evan Gamblin) Subject: Correction Re: VIVE Caller ID Device Problems [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Carl Moore wrote to inquire about an error in a previous posting, and Evan Gamblin responded. PAT] > I notice there are inconsistencies in the spelling of the > following Carl's last name, and there is also an inconsistency > in the fax number. > Carl K.S. Too > President > VIVE Synergies Inc. 30 West Beaver Creek Rd, Unit 2, Richmond Hill, Ont > L4B 3K1. Tel 905 882-8107, ext 11. Fax: 905 882-8238 > Carl K.S. Teo > President,VIVE Synergies Inc., 30 West Beaver Creek Road, Unit 2, > Richmond Hill, Ontario L4B 3K1. > Tel: 905-882-6107 Ext.11, Fax: 905-882-6238 Thanks for pointing those out, Carl. I don't know what type of fax VIVE uses, but it compresses characters vertically. Makes it tricky to decide whether a letter is a, o, or e, and whether nos. are 0, 6, or 8. Cheers, Evan Gamblin The Halifax Group 903-275 Sparks St Ottawa, Ont K1R 7X9 Canada ------------------------------ From: d92-sam@nada.kth.se (Sam Spens Clason) Subject: Re: SMS Messages on ORANGE Date: 01 Jun 1994 13:48:44 GMT Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden In article , richard@mandarin.com writes: > d92-sam@nada.kth.se (Sam Spens Clason) wrote: Richard: >> It will become possible to send text messages from the handset (or >> computer) to any other GSM/PCN system, to any of the old analogue >> paging networks, or as an X400 message or a facsimile document. Me: >> I am pretty sure that what you are talking about is >> ordinary datatransfer that occupies a 9600 bit voice >> channel. Actually the rate of transfer is sligtly >> higher but I've never heard of a 11.4kbit modem Oops, since no one else has either corrected nor flamed me I guess I'll have to do it myself :-) It should say 13kbit (22.8 including overhead), I was sligtly ahead of my time as 11.4kbit is the data-transfer in future halfrate encoding systems. Related question: When can we expect halfrate encoding being in use?! Sam Spens Clason, Web ------------------------------ From: richgr@netcom.com (Rich Greenberg) Subject: Re: Nice Job, if You Can Get it! Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 23:50:21 GMT In article TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Anthony_Pelliccio@brown.edu: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But see Rich Greenberg's response earlier > in this issue. Apparently all that is changing is they are cracking down > on charging for visits made by technicians; if a technician is dispatched > to your premises you will pay for it whether the tech does the work or > you do the work. PAT] That is only partly correct Pat. It would be correct if you add: ... you do the work if the trouble is found to be on the customer side of the demark. Rich Greenberg Work: ETi Solutions, Oceanside & L.A. CA 310-348-7677 N6LRT TinselTown, USA Play: richgr@netcom.com 310-649-0238 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 21:34:38 -0500 From: Michael Chui Subject: Re: RBOCS & Video Remote learning in Schools? Organization: Computer Science, Indiana University In article , Gerry Moersdorf wrote: > Does anyone have an opinion on what the RBOCS are trying to do by > pushing TV remote learning grants and equipment to school systems? > The schools in our district don't even have telephones in classrooms > let alone a LAN for a client server teaching tool. To me the priorities > are all turned around. What possible business could RBOCS build with the > "poor" school districts? Ameritech has installed their Genius Theater distance learning system in some of the local schools here gratis, but with a commitment only for two years. I'm sure they wouldn't complain if the schools found it an *indispensable* tool (even if only as a symbol of commitment to using technology in the school), and were willing to start paying for it when the two years is up. Others might suggest that some cheap local bitpipe would be a much more effective contribution to learning. Michael Chui mchui@cs.indiana.edu ------------------------------ From: cbarr@world.std.com (Chris Barr) Subject: Re: Lower Domestic Telephone Rates Organization: Entrepreneur's Source Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 15:36:18 GMT > Does anyone know of a company that shops for low telephone rates for > you? > We use the telephones for tele-sales and heavy outgoing FAXes. I've > heard there are small, independent telephone consultants that can mix > and match the best rates into a coherent package deal. We're looking > for something customized to us. At least a few long distance providers read this newsgroup regularly -- why don't you post your current rates and usage and ask for responses? Chris ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 01 Jun 1994 05:05:01 PDT From: Joseph_J._Gerber.Henr801e@xerox.com Subject: Re: Leased Line Internet Access Very interesting and informative article. Would like to obtain FAQ on modems. Is this available? We have a Help Desk at Xerox and we are running into every strange and wonderful modem man ever built. Having an FAQ might strengthen our training program on subject. Thanks, Joe Gerber [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well you might also try subscribing to the Usenet newsgroup 'comp.dcom.modems'. A lot of readers there will be able to assist you from time to time with questions and answers also. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rlvd_cif@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Rob Levandowski) Subject: Re: Help: Bad Phone Lines in San Jose Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York Date: Wed, 01 Jun 94 15:55:14 GMT In terry@hh.sbay.org (Terry Greenlee) writes: > The third line will only connect at 7200 bd at best and usually 4800 > bd. I tested them at the box beside the house to make sure it was not > my inside wires. The phone company tested it from the main office and > found no problem. Monday a Bell tech will come out to test. I have had similar problems with phone companies out here. Often, their test equipment says "perfect" when that is not the case. I had a phone line in Geneseo, New York, that tested perfect but had audible crosstalk from a ringer in the CO. Because of that, my modem was very unhappy. Finally, I called the unresolved-complaints line, and spoke to a very pleasant person there. I kindly asked if they could swap the line from my apartment to the CO with a new pair, and she said it would be no problem. They came and swapped the line, and everything was fine. My modem was happy. So, I guess that telco "perfect" isn't always modem "perfect" :) Rob Levandowski macwhiz@cif.rochester.edu Computer Interest Floor associate / University of Rochester ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 01 Jun 1994 09:39:09 -0700 From: Ry Jones Subject: Re: No 911 Available as Tot Drowns - comp.dcom.telecom #1701 In article , Andrew C. Green wrote: > Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.fidonet.org (Dave Leibold) writes: >> {The Toronto Star} reports of a 14-month-old boy in Barrie, Ontario >> who drowned while his mother attempted to dial 911. Unlike many >> centres in Canada, Barrie does not have a 911 service, thus calls to >> 911 are usually completed to a not-in-service recording. > I have encountered this myself occasionally in the past when I had to > call 911 from some unfamiliar location, and precious seconds would be > wasted slamming down the phone and redialing for the Operator. This > sort of begs the question, naive though this may be: Instead of > routing the call to an intercept, can't it be routed to an operator > instead? Any operator anywhere would probably be better than a > recorded intercept telling the caller to hang up and guess again. In Terre Haute, IN, before we got 911 (the tariff was passed but the service wasn't turned up), dialing 911 generated a GTE intercept. The operators would forward your call to the local police. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This goes back a number of years, but here in Chicago in the month or so prior to 911 starting (when we were still dialing 'POlice 5-1313' and 'FIre 7-1313' there was a special intercept in place. Someone called 'Chicago Special Operator' answered by asking what was the number you were calling from, then dialed into the proper number. Under the old arrangement, every CO took calls to PO-5-1313 or FI-7-1313 and translated them into 'other.things-1313' so that the police and fire dispatchers could see the *general location* from which the call was orig- inating. For example, where I lived, calls to PO-5-1313 were actually translated in the central office to HAymarket 1-1313. When the HAymarket phone rang at police headquarters, they knew it was a call from my area of the city. It speeded up dispatching even if they did not know the exact address until the caller told them. Then, when 911 was turned on, for about two months after that the PO-5 and FI-7 numbers were routed into 911 with a very quick recorded intercept message tossed in as the call was being forwarded: "In the future please dial 911 for emergencies." PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 01 Jun 1994 11:39:29 +0600 From: varney@uscbu.ih.att.com (Alan Leon Varney) Subject: Re: What's a 1A3B? Organization: AT&T Network Systems In article stans@panix.com (Stan Schwartz) writes: > Here in downstate NYNEXland if an exchange has not been "taken over" > by a pager or cellular company, you can dial the NNX and 9901 to find > out what kind of switch is in that C/O. For example, dialing > (516)694-9901 will tell you that you have reached the Farmingdale 5ESS > test number, serving the following prefixes ... (you get the idea). > When dialing (516) 352-9901, however, I am told that I have reached > the Floral Park 1A3B, the only one of it's kind in Nassau County. Now > I have heard of 5ESS's and DMS-100's, but what is a 1A3B, and why is > it such a distinction to have one? It's no distinction, except in areas quickly going to digital COs. The "1A3B" is really a 1A ESS(tm) switch with an Attached Processor System (APS) controlled by a 3B20 Duplex(tm) processor. The 3B20D supplies the switch with backup disk storage, and possibily other services such as SS7. There are several hundred such analog COs deployed across the USA. Al Varney ------------------------------ From: Thompson, Dave Subject: RE: What Did You Have For Dinner Today? Date: Wed, 01 Jun 94 11:58:00 PDT In TELECOM Digest 14.256, Thu, 26 May 94 16:25:56 EDT Carl Moore wrote: > How could you write about cannibalism and forget Alfred E. > Packer? [explanation by PAT deleted that we might still have an appetite for dinner tonight ...] Coincidentally, CNN sometime late this past Memorial weekend had a filler item (sorry!), which I only caught part of while surfing, about some city (I *think* they said in CO) which has an annual "manburger" coooking contest in memory of Packer. The (female) anchors were, or acted, stumped for innocuous patter on this one. Dave Thompson, davet@fpg.logica.com Logica North America, +1 617-890-7730 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, every year or so the folks there have a 'memorial service' to honor Mr. Packer. 'Manburgers' are served as part of the occassion. Not content to let this thread die peacefully, a regular Digest contributor (who must remain unnamed since his comments were sent to me not for publication under his name) had an additional query: > Regarding the Alfred Packer thread you were reminiscing about, isn't > there another old celebrity a bit closer to home? I am referring here > to Ed Gein -- if memory serves, didn't he do much the same thing in > Wisconsin back around 1957? I don't recall the details myself ... Ah yes, Ed Gein. When Ed made the cover of {Time Magazine} back in 1957 I was a sophomore in high school. The news reports were certain to point out that his name was pronounced 'Gein, as in fiend, not Gyne as in fine.' Why the two most recent well-known cannibals in the USA both came from Wisconsin -- within fifty miles or so of each other -- I do not know. Maybe it is something in the atomosphere. Dahmer was from Milwaukee and Gein was from a little rural village maybe fifty miles from there. Of course we had John Gacy and Larry Eyler both here in Chicago and they lived only five miles apart but never knew each other. Alfred Hitchcock was so inspired by Ed Gein that he produced his most famous movie ever ("Psycho") based on Ed's true story. Ed was a bachelor farmer about fifty years of age living in rural Wisconsin. He had this hangup about his mother who had died a few years earlier. He missed her so much one night he went out to the old cemetery and dug her up and brought her back home with him. He sat her in her favorite rocking chair in the living room and left her there for a couple more years. But that's not all! Two children in the nearby village disappeared and no one ever knew what happened to them; except Ed, that is ... he ate them. He killed another woman and kept only her hair and her skin, tossing out the remainder. He would wear the skin on himself along with the hair. There were other disturbances at the old cemetery outside the village but the townspeople always attributed the problem to animals. Then one day Ed killed Mrs. Wharton, the proprietor of Wharton's Hardware Store in the village. He slipped up; he was seen by her son in the store a few minutes before she disappeared. Knowing his mom would never leave the store in the middle of the day, abandoned and unlocked, he notified the police. The country bumpkins they were, it took them a couple days to get around to deciding maybe Ed had something to do with it (everyone in town knew him; they knew he was mentally retarded but never suspected anything of this magnitude). When the police went to his house they found Mrs. Wharton in the barn, completely disemboweled and hung upside down from a rafter; the way one would go about slaughtering and preparing a deer or a cow. Her intestines and the rest of her organs were in a large galvanized tub nearby, still steaming in the chilly fall air in Wisconsin. The police on the scene told Ed they wanted to go look inside his house, and he had no objections to that at all; he proudly let the way. Inside they found the preserved skin and hair of the other victim; they found evidence of the two children Ed had kidnapped (he preserved some body parts in jars) and a few other things. But the best was yet to come: the police walked into the living room and there sat Mrs. Gein -- Eddie's mother -- right in the rocking chair where he had left her all this time. Over the next two months, Ed Gein was questioned at length (when the police were able to make any sense out of what he was talking about at all) about other unsolved crimes in recent years. Of particular interest to the authorities were the mutilation murders of three young boys in Chicago in September, 1955. Anton and Robert Schuessler, brothers aged 11 and 13,and their friend Robert Peterson, age 12 had been murdered with their nude and mutilated bodies left in a wooded area on the northwest side of Chicago. Ed Gein had been in Chicago that day. He would not confess to that crime despite having knowledge known otherwise only to the police. That crime has never been solved or closed off the books. After a mental examination, Ed Gein was found to be totally insane. When the results of his mental examination were entered in evidence at his trial, the state of Wisconsin dismissed the charges against him (in this country we do not prosecute or punish persons who are incompetent or unable to understand that what they did was wrong) and he was placed in the protective custody of the state hospital for criminally insane people. About ten years later he attempted to be granted parole from the hospital but it was not given to him. He died in the maximum security unit of the state hospital after twenty years there in the middle 1970's. Poor Ed Gein ... {Time Magazine} called him a hideous monster. Alfred Hitchcock called him 'my biggest money maker ever' ... you do remember Norman Bates' mother in the rocking chair in the cellar in 'Psycho' don't you? And it was Ed who spoke the words said later by Norman Bates as he was in jail awaiting trial: "My son is a good boy! Why, he would not even harm a fly ..." PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #264 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa28859; 2 Jun 94 3:27 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA29706; Wed, 1 Jun 94 13:21:08 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA29684; Wed, 1 Jun 94 13:21:06 CDT Date: Wed, 1 Jun 94 13:21:06 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406011821.AA29684@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #263 TELECOM Digest Wed, 1 Jun 94 13:21:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 263 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Billed Party Preference (Doug Reuben) Re: Some D-Day Telecom History (Andrew C. Green) Re: DID Loophole or I'm Screwed up? (Alan Leon Varney) Re: Cordless Phone Wanted With Ten Mile Range (Ken Thompson) Re: Cordless Phone Wanted With Ten Mile Range (Ed Ellers) Re: Cellular Billing (John R. Levine) Re: Name and Address -> Long Distance Companies (Mike King) Re: Internet Access at Home? (Laurence Chiu) Re: Replace POST-MAIL by FAX (Chris Barr) Re: Money Talks (Daryl R. Gibson) Re: LD Carrier's Message Delivery Service (Mark E. Daniel) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: dreuben@netcom.com (Cid Technologies) Subject: Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Billed Party Preference Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 14:32:21 PDT On Mon May 30, 1994, safer@delphi.com writes: [post about how the FCC wants to implement a system where your calling card is linked to your default Long Distance carrier for 0+ calls from payphones, hotels, other phones, etc. omitted] > That just great, lay off thousands from OSP companies. Destroy an > entire inudstry, just because a couple of people can't figure out > 10xxx? This reminds me of a windshield wiper guy I "met" upon driving into NYC one day. He came to my car, attempted to "clean" my windshield, and when I indicated that it was not in his best interests to do so, he said something like "Hey, if I didn't do this I'd be stealing and robbing people". Now I don't mean to equate AOS firms and what the poster calls OSP firms with the guy in the above example (much...;) ), but come on! Does the poster mean to assert that AOSs should be allowed to continue ripping off the general public just so we can continue to employ their (not all too friendly) employees? The main reason the industry exists is because most people (rightly or wrongly) just don't have the technical background, desire, or even the time to try to figure out how to use 10XXX dialing or 800 access methods prior to getting burned by a $5 local call billed to a Bell Calling Card. This is how most AOS firms make money -- they "service" a generally captive audience at private payphones, hotels, colleges, etc., and rake up an outrageous surcharge because the caller didn't know to use a 10xxx code or an 800# to access his or her preferred LD carrier. There are many COCOTs and hotels which either totally block 10XXX access, or do things like disable the keypad after "X" digits to make it difficult to use another carrier. (Yes, I know, blocking is illegal, yet it's still done. Many COCOTs also block 800-321-0288, etc ...) I'm not going to go into the problems with most AOS firms; they've been discussed widely here in the Digest. What I will say is that when you subscribe to an LD carrier at home or at your office, you or your company probably wants to use that same LD carrier on the road, etc. If not, there are plenty of OSPs which provide VERY reasonable Calling Card service through both 0+ and 800 access, many without any surcharge at all. What most people probably DON'T want is to be billed by a company which they don't normally do business with, at a rate which they are not used to paying, just because some AOS or OSP agreed to pay the owner of a given phone a kickback for using them. What I and I think (hope?) other Calling Card users want to know is exactly what they will pay before making a call. We also do not want to be forced to go through some silly procedure (which can vary from phone to phone, adding to the confusion) in order to assure that we will get billed by the correct company. > Plus we the consumer will have to come up with millions to fund > Bill Party Preference. Then as consumers were going to have to > subsidize it too. If you want my opion it's just simplier to dial > 1-800-COLLECT or 1-800-CALL-ATT. I have seen no figures on the cost of BPP, so I can't comment on that, but whatever it is I'm sure it's considerably less than what AOS firms rip off from American consumers over the period of a year. If OSPs and AOSs are so great, then why fear BBP? I'm sure *SO* many people will all of a sudden notice a great void in their lives (yet no longer in their wallets!) that they will all rush out to get the 10XXX codes for their favorite AOS and OSP so they can use them instead of their preferred carrier. So you AOs have nothing to fear, of course, because you all provide such a great service that everyone will just go out of their way to start using you once BBP comes into effect! Let me make myself clear: I think that AOSs, and to a lesser extent OSPs like Sprint (who has (had?) a 0+ system in place ONLY to get AT&T/Bell card calls and which doesn't service their OWN customers) are illegitimate business, and need to be removed. They prey on the ignorance of the general public, and charge a large markup for unquestionably inferior service. In the case of Sprint, MCI, et. al. who have 0+ service just to capture AT&T/Bell traffic, they migrate customers who normally use AT&T to use *their* service, causing billing confusion and reducing the number of calls which an AT&T customer can apply to his or her savings plan (or business WATS Calling Card plan). Billed Party Preference is an EXCELLENT idea -- it will force slimey AOS firms out of business, and make MCI, Sprint, AT&T and anyone else who wants to play compete more aggressively for your business. If they want your business, they will have to provide you with something better than your preferred carrier (lower rates, lower surcharge, etc.) in order to get you to use them. Who knows, it may even bring into the market a 0+ OSP with no calling card surcharge and rates in line with standard direct dial rates. But whatever the case may be, anything which lessens consumer confusion in the industry and removes the "hold" which AOSs still seem to have over many calling card users will be a positive step. I am sympathetic to the actual people who will lose their jobs at AOS firms as a result of this, but as for the AOSs themselves, well, the sooner we are rid of these outfits the better. Doug CID Technologies (203) 499-5221 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 17:52:11 CDT From: Andrew C. Green Subject: Re: Some D-Day Telecom History Donald E. Kimberlin <0004133373@mcimail.com> writes: > First, there are lots of recordings of bits of Edward R. Murrow from > London during the blitz, as well as other correspondents like Richard > C. Hottelet dating back to before D-Day. ... and our Moderator notes: > An organization here in Chicago is planning a complete historical > re-inactment of D-Day for later this month. This might be a good time to mention the rebroadcasts of news bulletins from D-Day and days following it, planned for upcoming Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts of "Those Were the Days", hosted by Chuck Schaden on WNIB-FM 97.1 here in Chicago, each Saturday afternoon from 1 to 5 p.m. A large portion of the material is also syndicated nationwide, so it may be available in other cities on or around the same dates. (I believe the syndicated programs are hosted by Art Fleming, but I can't swear to that.) For some time now, Chuck has been rebroadcasting the CBS World News from fifty years ago each Saturday afternoon, almost to the day. These braodcasts give a good impression of the state of radio at that time, and how reports were assembled, recorded, transmitted or shipped. The broadcast itself, uncut and with wartime commercials for Admiral radio, appears to have been recorded on transcription discs, basically really big records. The majority of each broadcast is concerned with the war effort, of course, and almost always features interviews with the troops. These interviews are presumably genuine, but it is painfully obvious that both reporter and subject are reading their comments from a printed script; presumably the interview had to be written down and approved by a censor for broadcast, at which point the two people would sit at a microphone and read their remarks all over again. Again just guessing here, I get the distinct impression that those man-in-the-trench recordings were made in Europe on disc, then shipped to the states for broadcast, since in some programs they have run what sound like phoned-in reports, usually from the Pacific. These reports are always introduced with the cautionary phrase, "Following a short delay, we will take you to" (so-and-so reporting from somewhere). And sure enough, there is a pregnant pause of five seconds or so before the on-site correspondent gets going. I have no idea what the pause was for; I have visions of engineers at a cord board somewhere madly yanking on plugs and switching phone lines as fast as they can ... Andrew C. Green (312) 266-4431 Datalogics, Inc. Internet: acg@dlogics.com 441 W. Huron Chicago, IL 60610-3498 FAX: (312) 266-4473 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 11:38:59 +0600 From: varney@uscbu.ih.att.com (Alan Leon Varney) Subject: Re: DID Loophole or I'm Screwed up? Organization: AT&T Network Systems In article Paul Robinson writes: [I originally wrote] >>> Per FCC Part 68 and TELCo tariffs, anything other than audible >>> ring and busy tone (with some exceptions) is "meaningful" -- and >>> the call must be supervised (answered). >> I thought it was OK for a PBX to issue an intercept without >> returning supervision. For example, "The extension you dialed >> does not exist. Please call xyx-xxyy for assistance." Do these >> messages have to be supervised? "... have to be ..." is an interesting phrase in a world of standards, requirements, regulations, tariffs and shady PBX operators. > My office has Centrex service. As lines are not used, they return > exactly that type of message, referring people to our main switchboard. > I would assume that it is permitted to provide an unsupervised announcement > since I believe the message does not supervise. I hesitate to quote old material, but if everyone keeps in mind that it is from 1992 (and that I am not a lawyer or FCC lackey) I'll proceed ... From 10-1-92 Edition of 47 CFR (FCC), Part 68: Section 68.314 Billing protection (a) Call Duration Requirements.... (no data for 2 seconds after answer) (b) ... on-hook power ... (no on-hook transmission) (c) ... loop current on answer ... (maintain current for 5 seconds) (d) ... signaling interference ... (no blue-boxing) (e) ... AIOD ... (no lying about numbers) (f) ... on-hook signals for digital connections (no on-hook transmission) (g) ... off-hook signals for digital connections (hold off-hook for 5 seconds) (h) DID requirements (1) Answer supervision for DID calls ... through a PBX or similar system shall be returned ... on all calls: (i) Answered by called DID station (ii) Answered by attendant (iii) Routed to an announcement, except for "number invalid", "not in service" or "not assigned" recordings (iv) Routed to a dialing prompt, or (v) Routed back to the public switched network by the PBX, including calls routed to [above announcements]. (2) DID calls which do not require the PBX to return answer supervision are those: (i) Which are not routed back to the public switched network and, in addition, are: (A) Unanswered (the called DID station is alerted and does not answer, or the DID station o which the call is forwarded is alerted but does not answer) (B) Routed to busy signal (C) Routed to a reorder signal, or (D) Routed to [above mentioned announcements] and those (ii) Which are routed back to the public switched network and, in addition, are: (A) Unanswered (called or forwarded station) (B) Routed to busy signal (C) Routed to a reorder signal. (3) Answer supervision on DID calls shall be provided in accordance with industry engineering standards [EIA RS-464, for example] (4) PBX and similar systems built after 1990 shall comply. Earlier systems shall comply if newly installed or relocated by mid-1992. Such equipment must be reregistered if previously not compliant with paragraph (h). Compliance ... shall require that ... it will return answer supervision in conformity with this rule in a manner which cannot be readily altered by software control or other user controlled media. (5) "similar systems" means key equipment, multifunction systems, multiplexers, and any equipment for which adopted industry standard signaling is the standard mode of returning answer supervision. [Originally written in 1980, amended in March 1982, Sept. 1982, again in Sept. 1982, Dec. 1984, July 1985, Jan. 1986, May 1986 and Nov. 1990.] As CPE "users" try other means of avoiding being charged for completed calls, I'm sure the regulations will evolve. The PBX interface extends the public network into the PBX, and relys on it to be "honest". Those manufacturers and/or users who abused this interface in the past caused many of the above regulations to be spelled out -- perhaps limiting other legitimate uses of withholding answer supervision. Unfortunately, the good users and applications are saddled with the fruits of the shady ones. And I still can't believe the FCC ruling regarding international call-back services, which are receiving a "free" service. Al Varney ------------------------------ From: Ken Thompson Subject: Re: Cordless Phone Wanted With Ten Mile Range Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1994 08:27:38 Organization: AT&T Global Information Solutions > Guorong Roger (hu_g@isis.cs.odu.edu) wrote: >> Is there any kind of CORDLESS PHONE which can be used for ten to >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There are, but they are not legal for use >> in the USA. About the closest you can come to this legally in the USA is >> to use a manual phone patch attached to a CB radio or some other type of >> legal radio service. I have a phone patch here for example which I have > The important point here is that the amateur radio service is for > recreational non-commerial use only, and the hams tend to police > themselves fairly well, especially in metro areas where the bands are > crowded. And, naturally, the phone co doesn't want people to bypass > their cellular service. So getting a legal ten mile phone is not > easy. Another note. It is very illegal to use CB with phone patches. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It most certainly is *NOT* illegal to use a phone patch with Citizen's Band radios. To be sure, there are lots of more effecient ways of doing it these days, but it is not illegal. The rules say in the case of CB, the process has to include an operator at the base station to physically make the connection and key/unkey the microphone. It cannot be an automated process. Where it gets to be a real pain is due to the ignorance of the party receiving the call. Generally they do not realize until it has been explained to them three or four times that unlike a 'regular' phone call they are not on a full duplex connection. It is useless for them to speak while the party on the radio end is speaking or when they hear 'hash' or static in their ear. They are only to speak when the base station operator tells them to speak. Unlike a regular phone call, there have to be short, precise sentences by the speakers on each end followed by a pause in speaking, otherwise the base operator goes crazy trying to anticipate when to key and unkey the microphone. Twenty years ago I used to do this to help the expressway motorists in distress but I haven't fooled with CB for many years other than my own personal handheld I use for fun sometimes. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: Cordless Phone Wanted With Ten Mile Range Date: Wed, 01 Jun 94 00:43:04 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) sohl,william h writes: > While that is possible, it can only be done legally within the > constraints of the FCC regulations as per my comments above. > Additionally, there is a frequency coordination process that must be > followed to obtain a fixed set of assigned two meter frequencies to > establish a permanent repeater which is the only way this could be > done and still be legal on the amateur two meter band. A minor correction to what Bill's saying -- it's no longer MANDATORY to get coordination for an amateur repeater. If you can find a frequency pair you can use it, BUT if you cause interference to a coordinated repeater you'll have to move or shut down. Also, 2m isn't the only repeater band -- a ham who wants to set up his own autopatch badly enough can do it on a higher band where open frequency pairs are more likely to exist. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 01 Jun 94 12:02:00 EDT From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Cellular Billing Organization: I.E.C.C., Cambridge, Mass. > Incidentally while I'm at the keyboard ... it's taken me a while to > realise that US analogue cellular systems providers require you, the > the phone owner and payer of the airtime bill, actually to pay for > incoming calls. How the heck have they managed to convince people to > go for that?!? Given the way that billing works here, there isn't much choice. We don't have billing pulses, we record call detail information and compute the charges at the time the bill is printed based on the originating and terminating numbers, time of day, and any of the 15,000 special billing plans now available. Our cellular numbers are integrated into the regular dialing plan, so for example my car phone's numbers in Boston and Vermont are as far as callers can tell regular local phone numbers. The number in Vermont is in 802-296, a prefix shared with wireline phones. This means there's no way for billing software to distinguish between calls to cellular and calls to wireline numbers, so the cellular customer has to pick up any extra charges beyond the normal call charge to his number. In a few places, the local phone company has a special prefix for caller-pays cellular. But there's no way to charge back the surcharge to long distance callers. (Remember, long distance and local service are provided by separate companies, and the long distance company pays a flat per-minute access charge to the local telco.) Long distance companies block calls to other surcharged numbers such as 976-XXXX audio programs, so I expect that you won't be able to call a caller-pays cellular number from out of the local area. Depending on the cellular customer's needs, this may be either an advantage or a disadvantage. The 500 NPA is apparently being allocated to new wireless services, and it may be possible that national caller-pays cellular numbers could reside there. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, jlevine@delphi.com, 1037498@mcimail.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: However John, why aren't cellular carriers treated like any other telco or long distance carrier for the purpose of intercompany billings and settlements. When we call between a telco one place and some other telco elsewhere via a long distance carrier, the whole thing is very transparent to the caller/called party. As we have discussed in the 'combined billing' thread recently, you can write one check to the telco and be done with it for all anyone cares. Why are the cellular companies not part of the process as a routine thing? PAT] ------------------------------ From: mk@TFS.COM (Mike King) Subject: Re: Name and Address -> Long Distance Companies Date: Wed, 01 Jun 1994 06:33:07 PDT In TELECOM Digest, V14, #256, TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to Jonathan : >> the rules currently say that local telcos may not withhold >> name and address information from long distance carriers -- even if >> the number is otherwise non-published -- for billing purposes. They can now. Someone else said: > This is a security problem. Customers should be allowed to block the > delivery of their name and address information if they have non-published > telephone numbers or non-listed addresses. If a customer does this, The FCC has decreed this. Because a friend here in CA is being harrassed by Integratel over a call he did not make, I'm not about to allow that to happen to me. I have a non-published number. When P*B announced that I can prevent my billing name and address from being released, I immediately signed for the plan. P*B's requirements include (1) a non-published number, (2) collect and 3rd-party blocking, and (3) no P*B calling cards. [Darn! ] Should I wish to remove the restriction, I have to inform them in writing. I realize that I can call Integratel and ask to be added to their blocking database, but I don't think it should be my responsibility to search for every potential OCC to have my number added to their blocking database. Mike King mk@tfs.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It isn't your responsibility, and in fact historically -- back in the days when we had the Bell *System* (my emphasis) -- you did do business with just one place, the local telco business office. But the rules are different now. The carriers do not cooperate with each other except when they feel it is in their best interest to do so. The first rule in telephony these days is the customer be damned! I speak purely from a pragmatic approach: go around and tell each of them what you want. It will get done that way (usually) and with a minimum of effort on your part cleaning up messes later. PAT] ------------------------------ From: lchiu@crl.com (Laurence Chiu) Subject: Re: Internet Access at Home? Date: 01 Jun 1994 11:55:17 -0700 Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access In article , K. M. Peterson wrote: > You didn't say much about what kind of setup you want and why. You > may be under the (mistaken) impression that the only dialup access is > to a Un*x box, and running Un*x commands in a shell. This isn't true: > running PPP on my Mac, InterNews, Eudora (for mail), and a collection > of other utilities gives me _identical_ access as if I were connected > to an Ethernet connected to the 'Net, except for the speed of the > connection. And you pay for speed, eh PAT? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You sure do ... then you pay some > more. PAT] Well I have a SLIP connection to an Internet provider for which I pay $30/month for 30 hrs and $1/hr over that. I chose to go with 14.4 modems even though the provider offers 28.8. I think if I got 28.8 working okay, then SLIP at that speed would be quite acceptable since if you're using Mosaic or Cello to access WWW, much of the stuff coming down is plain text which should benefit from modem data compression. Mosaic at 14.4 is okay apart from the embedded GIF files and trying to play those 900K MPEG movies :-) As an aside I could get 24x7 SLIP for $90 I think. Laurence Chiu Walnut Creek, California Tel: 510-215-3730 (work) Internet: lchiu@crl.com ------------------------------ From: cbarr@world.std.com (Chris Barr) Subject: Re: Replace POST-MAIL by FAX Organization: Entrepreneur's Source Date: Wed, 01 Jun 1994 15:55:45 GMT > ... I have been unable make fax software work reliably. I have > tried Delrina (the market leader) Winfax Pro 3.0 and 4.0 and Sofnet > Faxworks Pro 3.0. None of these packages will reliably receive faxes. Well, are the sends comparable to the receives? i.e. as long and numerous and to/from similar end points? If so -- well, what's different? You might try using a lower speed, for starters. Also I'd look at Delrina's modem initialization string. Is the phone line good? Some 2nd phone lines use yellow & black wires in a bundle with wires for the 1st line - crosstalk can disturb data calls. > Details: I am using a Supra Fax Modem V.32bis which is on the approved > list from both Delrina and Sofnet. I upgraded to Supra's latest ROM > to make sure that the modem wasn't at fault. Supra has a nice reputation but still they're based on the Rockwell chipset which has poorer line noise handling than US Robotics, Hayes or Microcom. See the modem newsgroup -- some users at sites with multiple brands of modem report that Supras fail under noisy line conditions which other brands can handle. > I tried faxing a question to Delrina. ... You sound like a glutton for punishment :-) I've gotten good help by mailing/posting a problem on their Compuserve newsgroup (go delrina). No BS about long descriptions of my situation, but I did include some key details. Please let us know how it turns out! Chris ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 01 Jun 1994 10:38:11 (MST) From: Daryl R. Gibson Subject: Re: Money Talks > Along the roadside, a determined tourist trips over a cactus. > She struggles up an embankment and through sagebrush to get past > telephone poles and wires. Finally, with camera in hand, she has an > unobstructed view of Jenny Lake and the beautiful Teton Mountains. > How often have you struggled to get just the right picture -- a photo > without telephone wires to ruin a beautiful scene? > This is "A-N-A's Money Talks." All right. I'm being picky, but while money may talk, it's not too accurate a conversationalist. This was obviously written by someone who has never been to Jenny Lake. I can't think of more than a couple of exposed wires inside the park. There are a few, but by and large, everything's buried underground. I've yet to see cactus there, and since Grand Teton's at an altitude of around 7,000 feet, temperatures in the winter drop down to -20F and lower, and the area's covered by several feet of snow through March. I was there once on January 1, and the snow banks were much higher than I was. As someone who intentionally photographs telephone and power wires and structures occasionally, I know there are many ways to shoot a photo without getting a wire in it. Of course, that hasn't kept me from finding one in a frame, without realizing it was there when I shot it. But there's nothing like a row of telephone poles paralleling a country road at sunset, glass insulators shimmering in the sun to set a mood. Admittedly, there aren't too many of those around anymore ... Daryl (801)378- 2950 (801)489-6348 drg@du1.byu.edu 71171.2036@compuserve.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 01 Jun 1994 04:13:46 EST From: mark@legend.akron.oh.us (Mark E Daniel) Subject: Re: LD Carrier's Message Delivery Service In article is written: > MCI is offering one of these services via their calling cards, and in > the three occasions I have tried it, all three parties have not > received their messages. In one case, the party may not have been > home within the allotted eight hour time frame in which the call must I just tried delievering a message on my voice line which has an answering machine on it using Sprint's service. It was in the middle of the message by the time the machine started recording. It did however repeat the message from the begining after completeing it. So as long as the greeting isn't LOOOOONG you should have no problems. Mine runs about ~20 seconds. I guess they figure we're all capible of leaving messages on answering machines ourselves. :) And they're right. But it would be nicew if they did it intellegently enough to wait until the answeree stoped speaking before they delievered the message. Mark E Daniel (Loving SysOp of The Legend BBS) Inet: mark@legend.akron.oh.us medaniel@delphi.com (Direct INet) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #263 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa06855; 3 Jun 94 0:35 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA10949; Thu, 2 Jun 94 09:35:05 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA10910; Thu, 2 Jun 94 09:29:19 CDT Date: Thu, 2 Jun 94 09:29:19 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406021429.AA10910@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #265 TELECOM Digest Thu, 2 Jun 94 09:29:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 265 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson TAP-INFO Memo to NSF on Internet Access (Bill Blum) 716 Now Split Between 7D and 1 + 716 + 7D (Scott D. Fybush) OSP's Aren't the Only Ones (A. Padgett Peterson) Question About OO-CHILL (Hwan Wook Sohn) Internet Through Local Cable TV Provider (Jeff Lin) Telephone Switch Vendors - Read This (Scott Sanbeg) Does MCI Transmit CNID? (Eric R. Sandeen) Interactive "Voice Mail" System For PC? (Paul A. Lee) Re: Rude Not to Leave Answering Machine Messages? (Robert Casey) Re: E911 Portland OR Has Problems (Robert Casey) Re: 800 Number Billback (Paul S. Sawyer) Re: Micro Portable Suggestions (Steve Wood) Re: Cost of Caller ID in PA (Stephen Denny) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 01 Jun 94 16:44:48 EDT From: Bill Blum Subject: TAP-INFO Memo to NSF on Internet Access Subject: Metered Usage of the Internet: JSN In the future, you might have to pay a charge for every E-mail message you send or receive, every Usenet article you read, every kilobyte of data you transfer with ftp, every hypertext link you follow with NCSA Mosaic or Gopher ... Hopefully this frightens you as much as it does me. But it will happen, unless YOU do something about it. Please read the attached, fill out the requested info, and mail it back to mike@essential.org. It also wouldn't hurt to forward a copy of this to everyone you know on the Internet. Thanks for your support. Craig Smith, Organization: Woolworth Corporation Subject: Interactive "Voice Mail" System For PC? In {TELECOM Digest} Volume 14 Issue 257, Axel Cleeremans wrote: > A friend of mine would like to set up an interactive voice-mail > system based on a PC ... is ... there ... a hardware device that will > perform these functions ... when hooked up to or put inside a PC. The basic hardware device that meets these requirements is typically referred to as a "voice board" or a "voice port board". Most such boards contain a telephone line interface, a telephone-bandwidth audio signal coder/decoder (CODEC), and a DTMF (touch tone) receiver-decoder, for one or more ports, and sometimes an external audio interface and foreplane interfaces to adjunct boards. Following are some North America-based manufacturers of such boards; many of these companies also make European versions and have European sales and support operations: Dialogic +1 201 334 8450 Brooktrout +1 617 449 4100 New Voice +1 703 448 0570 Rhetorex +1 408 370 0881 Natural MicroSystems +1 508 650 1300 SpeechSoft +1 609 466 1100 Pika Technologies +1 613 591 1555 Each of these manufacturers provides some degree of software support, from basic hardware drivers and development kits, to more sophisticated voice mail or IVR (interactive voice response) applications. The manufacturers can also refer you to developers and system integrators using their hardware. A typical voice port board will cost from US$500 to US$1500. A typical four port voice response system, including the PC and application software, ready to be loaded with your data and programmed for your application, will cost between US$5000 and US$10000. There are thousands of companies (and individuals) writing applications and assembling systems based on voice boards and PCs. You will have to do quite a bit of shopping to find the best product for your needs at the best price. You may also be able to adapt one of the "shrink-wrapped" single port voice mail/modem boards to your application. National Semiconductor, Intel, and Boca Research are among the US manufacturers, and there are certainly others. Check with a full-line PC communications products dealer in your part of the world. These devices should cost under US$800 -- some as low as US$200. Paul A. Lee Voice +1 414 357-1409 Telecommunications Analyst FAX +1 414 357-1450 Woolworth Corporation CompuServe 70353,566 INTERNET ------------------------------ From: wa2ise@netcom.com (Robert Casey) Subject: Re: Rude Not to Leave Answering Machine Messages? Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 17:09:12 GMT In article J.Harrison@bra0112.wins.icl.co. uk writes: > General view of Digest readers (except Miss Manners) seems to be that > it is, on the basis that it leaves the called party with a gnawing > feeling of wonderment as to who called them and why. I can't see how; > do modern answering machines work differently from my fairly-old > Panasonic? > With mine, callers who hear the outgoing message all the way through > and then hang up (before the beep) just don't activate the message > counter, so I don't even know they called. The few seconds gap between > the end of the outgoing message and the beep gives them plenty of > time. Suits me fine, and I had assumed they all worked much the same > way. My answering machine (a Code-a-phone) puts short beeps to indicate that someone called but left no message. Sometimes, when I'm trying to reach someone to actually talk with, I'll get their machine several times before they're there, so I don't leave a message each time (why waste the tape on their machine?). Except for one friend who gets annoyed if I don't leave a message every time, then I'll leave a short message. Other times, I just called to say the equivalent of "Hey, how's it goin'", in which case, a message on the machine is somewhat pointless. ------------------------------ From: wa2ise@netcom.com (Robert Casey) Subject: E911 Portland OR Has Problems Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 17:20:42 GMT Read in the local paper (Oregonian) last week about how Portland's 911 system has some serious problems and poor morale. Mentioned about the Fire Department didn't like the use of "civilians" for the 911 call takers, and that they didn't like having to deal with some elements of the police methods. (Note: I'm not familiar with the details of such work). Portland installed new 911 equipment a few months ago, (same stuff that San Diego, CA has, according to the paper) and has had many problems. People on hold for like 15 minutes on 911. Wrong locations given to ambulances and such. Portland got rid of their old emergency director, and appointed a new one. ------------------------------ From: paul@senex.unh.edu (Paul S. Sawyer) Subject: Re: 800 Number Billback Date: 31 May 1994 19:31:56 GMT Organization: UNH Telecommunications and Network Services > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: [...] Add to that requiring PINS > on outgoing 'long distance' calls -- even 800 numbers -- for the purpose > of identifying who made what calls, and your trouble should be greatly > reduced if not eliminated entirely. PAT] There is no problem identifying "who made what calls" -- but the way they are billed usually has no relation to how they are made. The dialed number looks nothing like the billed number, the time and length may not match, and misleading terms like "credit card" and "collect call" appear when the only call is an outgoing 800- call. We don't need to require authorization codes for 800 - numbers, since we can bill to the extension for such calls, and to "punish" the users of legitimate 800- numbers by having them dial extra digits would not be favorably met by our customers. Most of these bogus charges can be tracked and/or denied, but the problem is definitely bigger than it needs to be. Paul S. Sawyer - University of New Hampshire CIS - Paul.Sawyer@UNH.Edu Telecommunications and Network Services VOX: +1 603 862 3262 50 College Road FAX: +1 603 862 2030 Durham, New Hampshire 03824-3523 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, another solution is sort of rough and dirty, but it would work. How many outgoing trunks do you have that those 800 calls would be routed on? If you have some way to insure that calls to 800 numbers get routed over some minimum number of trunks, and always the same trunks then get some el-cheapo call restrictors and add them to those outgoing lines. For example, Radio Shack has some nifty little units which allow restricting specific numbers, local or long distance. I think maybe you can program up to 30 numbers you don't want dialed in them. Get one for each outgoing trunk handling 800 calls, and again, if you can fix things so the 'toll-free' calls are all wedged into a group of maybe a half-dozen to a dozen trunks you will minimize your expense. Get as many of the toll restrictors as needed. Load them with the dozen or two dozen most commonly (ab)used 800 numbers, as noted in your personal copy of {Rolling Stone} and/or {Penthouse} magazine. No one else will even see the difference, but boy, will those kids trying to reach the selected 800 numbers be frustrated! :). They'll dial those numbers, your switch will process normally and send them out on the appropriate trunks. The toll restrictors will see them coming and dump them. Your users hear dial tone, click, click, clunk! Dead line, switch dial tone returned to them. Total investment, maybe a thousand dollars for several toll restrictors. Start by loading them with the 800 numbers you have been able to match up from your last couple phone bills. Each time you get your phone bill for a couple months, add the newest discoveries. You watch ... after two or three months it will drop to zero or almost zero. The best part of all will be the nitwits who come to you to report that their phone (or your lines) must be 'out of order'. ... you will innocently ask them what number they were attempting to reach so that you can investigate the problem ... they'll tell you (or if they have a few brains they will try to avoid telling you the exact number) and you'll clean them out right on the spot. ... PAT] ------------------------------ From: Steve Wood Subject: Re: Micro Portable Suggestions Date: Tue, 31 May 94 14:11:00 PDT Bill Verry writes: > I'm in the market for a micro portable cell phone and need some > advice. From what I've gathered it seems these devices are not too > reliable when it comes to clarity and battery life. Most everyone I've > spoken to has suggested I stay with the car phone and forget the > "pocket" phone. I suspect this has to do with the low ouput of the > units? If there is a manufacturer or a particular type of phone I > should get I would greatly appreciate such contrasting opinion. I suggest getting a portable with a hands-free adaptor kit for the car. At McCaw I get to try out lots of phones, and that is the setup I use. I've got a Motorola digital flip phone with the hands-free kit. Most car kits offer a three watt amplifier for use in the car, so you get the best of both worlds. Steve Wood (steve.wood@mccaw.com) ------------------------------ From: sdenny@spd.dsccc.com (Stephen Denny) Subject: Re: Cost of Caller ID in PA Date: 1 Jun 1994 03:55:31 GMT Organization: DSC Communications Corporation, Plano, Texas USA In article , Greg Vaeth at Jerrold Communications wrote: > An insert in my latest bill contained a notice that Bell Atlantic will > offer Caller ID in Pennsylvania in August. The cost for residential > customers is $6.50/month, business is $8.50. Call blocking and > anonymous call rejection are free. This charge seem outrageous > considering that the equipment to do it is already there, right? How > else does return call, repeat call and all that stuff work. How does > this rate compare to other states? I can't remember the exact Southwestern Bell charges for Caller ID but they were in the same range for Caller ID number, perhaps more to include the Caller ID name. I'd love to have it, but I don't know if it's worth that much to me. As far as the equipment, I can't really speak for the Central Office equipment, but assuming the info is to be carried via SS7 (as the number is now), adding a name look-up adds a significant load to the SS7 signaling network, if this is to be done for most every call. To support this additional load, I would expect the regionals as well as long distance carriers to add additional SS7 links, processing capacity and database lookup support (which may be billed by a separate supplier). This additional SS7 capacity *don't come cheap*. Stephen Denny sdenny@spd.dsccc.com DSC Communications Corp. Plano, TX **Standard Disclaimer** ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #265 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa07434; 3 Jun 94 2:35 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA07359; Thu, 2 Jun 94 11:22:22 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA07325; Thu, 2 Jun 94 11:22:19 CDT Date: Thu, 2 Jun 94 11:22:19 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406021622.AA07325@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #267 TELECOM Digest Thu, 2 Jun 94 11:22:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 267 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FCC Fact Sheet on Future Changes in Telephone Numbering (Bob Keller) 2nd Radio Montreux (June 9-11) (Alfredo E. Cotroneo) NYNEX Bill Insert - Rate Changes (Jonathan Welch) Spread Spectrum Video (Charbel Tannous) ATT/MCI Numbering War (Rick Watson) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 11:40:10 EDT From: Bob Keller Subject: FCC Fact Sheet on Future Changes in Telephone Numbering nrcc4029.txt ==> from ftp.fcc.gov FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION INDUSTRY ANALYSIS DIVISION FACT SHEET MAY 1994 Future Changes in Telephone Numbering Several important changes will affect the North American Numbering Plan during the next few years. These changes will require telephone companies to modify their network switches. They will also require some users to modify their customer premises equipment. The equipment affected includes payphones and privately owned switchboards (generically known as private branch exchanges or PBXs). This Fact Sheet has been prepared to answer the most frequently asked questions about upcoming changes in telephone numbers. It also provides sources of further information and assistance. Interchangeable Area Codes Currently, the second digit of an area code is always "0" or "1". All usable three-digit numbers in this format have been assigned as area codes. Beginning in 1995, new area codes will have numbers other than "0" or "1" as the second digit. As a result, area codes will have the same format as the central office codes that appear at the beginning of local telephone numbers -- hence, the term "interchangeable" codes. Three interchangeable area codes have been assigned for service during early 1995. These new area codes will be placed in service in Alabama (334), Washington State (360), and Arizona (520). Some parts of the telephone network -- including both telephone company switches and customer equipment -- were not designed to handle interchangeable codes. When a call to an interchangeable area code is attempted from such equipment, the call will not be routed correctly. Therefore, this equipment must be reprogrammed, modified, or replaced in order to handle the dialing of interchangeable area codes. New Dialing Procedures Dialing procedures have traditionally been determined by local telephone companies and state public utility commissions. Consequently, they are not uniform, especially for toll calls that originate and terminate within the same area code. Over a period of many years, three basic dialing procedures have evolved for toll calls that do not cross an area code boundary. In some states, such calls are made simply by dialing a seven-digit number. In other states, these calls are placed by dialing "1" as a toll indicator, followed by the seven-digit number. In still other states, toll calls within the same area code are placed by dialing "1" plus ten digits (the local area code plus the seven digit number). When interchangeable codes are activated in 1995, the prefix "1" will be used to indicate that the call is longer than seven digits. This means that the "1 plus 7" method of dialing toll calls within the same area code will no longer be feasible. Each state that used "1 plus 7" dialing has selected one of the other two dialing options. Some states have already completed the change and others are in the process of doing so. The use of "1" as an indicator of ten-digit calls means that, in most areas, systems cannot rely on a leading "1" as a toll indicator. PBXs or other switches that have been programmed to block toll calls based on the use of "1" as a toll indicator will need to be altered. Conversion to 101XXXX Access Codes Callers sometimes reach long distance carriers by dialing carrier access numbers in the format 10XXX (where "XXX" represents a carrier's three-digit identification code). AT&T's code is 288, MCI's is 222, etc. Thus, customers can reach AT&T by dialing 10288, reach MCI by dialing 10222, etc. Because almost all three-digit identification codes have been assigned, four-digit identification codes will be assigned in 1995. Carriers with four-digit identification codes will be reached by dialing 101XXXX. Under current law, new equipment manufactured for use by aggregators (PBXs or key systems used by hotels, motels, hospitals, universities, payphones, and others that provide telephones for "transient" users) must be capable of processing 10XXX access code dialing. Newly manufactured equipment should have the capability of processing 101XXXX dialing, but some payphones and other older equipment will not be able to complete calls to 101XXXX numbers. During a transition period, both 10XXX and 101XXXX access codes will be used. At the end of the transition period, all access codes will use the 101XXXX format. The transition period will provide owners of non-conforming equipment with time to modify, reprogram, or replace that equipment. However, users of such equipment will not be able to reach carriers with the new four-digit identification codes until modifications are made. The FCC has proposed a transition period of six years. Thus, users may have several years to make the necessary changes. The date when such changes will become mandatory has not yet been established. Longer International Telephone Numbers Under international agreements, international telephone numbers are now limited to 12 digits. Beginning in 1997, the maximum permissible length will be increased to 15 digits. Although there are no plans to increase the length of telephone numbers in the United States, Germany has announced its intention to lengthen its numbers. Several other countries are also likely to do so. When the length of international telephone numbers is increased, customer premises equipment will have to store and process the longer numbers. Where to Go for More Help For questions regarding specific customer premises equipment and what must be done to ensure readiness to process the new numbers, users should first consult the manufacturers or equipment suppliers. Additional information is also available from the following sources: *** The North American Numbering Plan is administered by Bell Communications Research. The administrator has prepared a report, Status of Numbering in the NANP Served Area, that provides more detail on each of the coming changes and includes the dialing plan in each state. The report is available without charge from: Claudette Keith North American Numbering Plan Administration Bell Communications Research Room 1E240 290 West Mt. Pleasant Avenue Livingston, New Jersey 07039-2798 201 740-6792 201 740-6860 (FAX) Questions on interchangeable area codes, dialing plans, and international telephone numbers can be addressed to: Garry Benoit North American Numbering Plan Administration Bell Communications Research Room 1B227 290 West Mt. Pleasant Avenue Livingston, New Jersey 07039-2798 201 740-4592 201 740-6860 (FAX) Questions on the expansion of carrier identification codes can be addressed to: Jim Deak North American Numbering Plan Administration Bell Communications Research Room 1B227 290 West Mt. Pleasant Avenue Livingston, New Jersey 07039-2798 201 740-4594 201 740-6860 (FAX) *** The vast amount of information necessary for routing calls throughout the telephone network is maintained by Bellcore's Traffic Routing Administration. The information is contained in large data bases and most can be reached through on-line computer access. Much of the information can also be purchased in a variety of formats (paper, tape, microfiche, and CD-ROM). A catalog describing the products available can be obtained from the Traffic Routing Administration Hotline at 201 740-7500. For more information, contact: Donald Baechler Traffic Routing Administration Bell Communications Research Room 1E235 290 W. Mt. Pleasant Ave Livingston, N.J. 07039-2798 201 740-7575 201 740-6999 (FAX) *** Local telephone companies and long distance carriers have been preparing for the coming changes. The United States Telephone Association has prepared several information bulletins that are available without charge. These publications can be obtained from, and questions about the telephone network can be addressed to: Dennis Byrne Executive Director Operations and Engineering United States Telephone Association Suite 600 1401 H Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20005-2136 202 326-7296 202 326-7333 (FAX) *** The North American Telecommunications Association represents both suppliers and users of telecommunications equipment. They have prepared a publication called The North American Numbering Plan: A Guide to Preparing for the New Number Formats. This publication can be obtained for a charge of $25.00 by calling 800 538-6282, Ext. 260. Questions can be addressed to: Mary Bradshaw Director, Industry Relations North American Telecommunications Association Suite 550 2000 M Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 202 296-9800, Ext. 210 202 296-4993 (FAX) *** All of the publications referred to above are available in the Public Reference Room operated by the Commission's Industry Analysis Division. Questions may be addressed to the Commission's staff at: Industry Analysis Division Federal Communications Commission 1250 23rd Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20554 202 632-0745 202 632-1411 (FAX) -FCC- Bob Keller Robert J. Keller, P.C. Tel +1 301 229 5208 rjk@telcomlaw.com Federal Telecommunications Law Fax +1 301 229 6875 finger me for daily FCC info + see ftp.clark.net:/pub/rjk/ for other files ------------------------------ From: 100020.1013@CompuServe.COM (Alfredo E. Cotroneo) Subject: 2nd Radio Montreux (June 9-11) Date: 2 Jun 1994 09:51:15 -0500 Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway From Thursday June 9, 1994, till Saturday June 11 Montreux will host the 2nd Radio Montreux, with an interesting Symposium and Technical Exibition for those who are interested in Radio Broadcasting, especially in Europe. Montreux is one hour drive/train from Geneva, on the Lake of Geneva (Switzerland). There will be three parallel sessions during the three days, divided on topics related to Radio Station Management, Programming, and Engineering. Below I am transcribing the titles of the sessions, as they appear on the official program: * THURSDAY JUNE 9, 1994 * 10:30 Opening Ceremony 12:00 Highlight Session: The future of Radio, followed by Wine Reception Management: THURSDAY JUNE 9, 1994 14:30-16:00 The Co-existence of Public and Private Radio - The rules of the Game (The Funding of Radio) 16:30-18:00 Open Discussion 18:00-19:00 Traffic and service information Programming: THURSDAY JUNE 9, 1994 09:00-10:30 Continuity and Broadcast Operations (also Automation, and RDS in BBC Radio Networks) * FRIDAY JUNE 10, 1994 * Management: FRIDAY JUNE 10, 1994 08:00-09:00 Workshop: Methods of Audience Rating 09:00-10:30 Who will pay for new technologies? 11:00-12:30 What will DAB change in Broadacsting Life? 14:30-18:00 Maximising Advertising, Sponsorship and Sales Income Programming: FRIDAY JUNE 10, 1994 08:00-09:00 Workshop: Human Resources, How to Save your Job? 09:00-10:30 Changes in Musical Formats 11:00-12:30 The Future of International Programme Exchange 14:30-16:00 Is the Format Model Still Valid in Europe? 16:30-18:00 Is Automation Killing the Spirit of Radio? Engineering: FRIDAY JUNE 10, 1994 09:00-10:30 Training 11:00-12:30 Transmission and Reception (Excluding Digital Radio) 14:30-18:00 Digital Radio 18:00-19:30 Workshop- Additional Data Services for DAB: Dynamic Range Control (DRC) * SATURDAY JUNE 11,1994 * Management: SATURDAY JUNE 11,1994 08:00-09:00 Workshop - The Future of International Radio Services 09:00-10:30 The Regulation of Radio in the Year 2000 11:00-12:30 Marketing and Promotion Programming: SATURDAY JUNE 11,1994 08:00-09:00 Breakfast Session - New Tools and Applications for Integrated Research 09:00-10:30 Planning and Positioning the Station 11:00-12:30 Winning with Consultants Engineering: SATURDAY JUNE 11,1994 09:00-12:30 Production Environment and Acoustic Developements and, to end, on Saturday: FAREWELL EVENING: Concert and Buffet reception at the Auditorium Starvinski, Montreux. The technical Exhibition is open daily between 10:00-18:00. Any error or omission is mine, so check the source, and do not trust me :) FINAL NOTE, AND DISCLAIMER: Needless to say that I have no relation with the organizers, and for any details you have better to check with them: Phone: +41-21-963 3220 or fax: +41-21-963 88 51. They can take care of Hotel reservation as they did for me, as well as for travel, and Conference registration. I will be there, so if you plan to be there as well you may leave me a message at the desk, if you want. Please contact the 2nd Radio Montreux organizers for more information, *NOT* ME, please. Alfredo E. Cotroneo, NEXUS-Int'l Broadcasting Associaton PO BOX 10980, I-20110 Milano, Italy phone: +39-337-297788 / +39-2-266 6971 Fax: +39-2-706 38 151 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Jun 1994 11:51:44 -0500 From: Jonathan_Welch Subject: NYNEX Bill Insert - Rate Changes April 1994 bill insert on rate changes: On April 14, 1994 new rates became effective for our customers in Massachusetts. The new rates are reflected in this bill. These rate changes are part of a series of changes designed to gradually move the prices of NYNEX services closer to the actual costs of providing the services. NYNEX receives no additional revenue as a result of the new rates. Increases in prices of some services have been offset by decreases in prices of other services. RATE CHANGES AT A GLANCE Residence Services New Service: A new calling service is introduced for residence service cus- tomers in the 413 area code. The new optional calling plan is called CallAround 413 Plus Service and it allows unlimited calling within the 413 area code for a single monthly rate of $29.80, including the dial tone line rate. Exchange Service: Residence unlimited basic exchange service is increased by an average of $1.96. The residence measured service dial tone line rate is increased by $2.49 to $9.91. Circle Calling, a Residence Premium exchange service, is increased by an average of $4.57. Until now, residence unlimited exchange service had five sep- arate rates and Circle Calling Service had three, depending upon the exchange in which the service was provided. Now, there is a single statewide rate for each of these services. The applicable charges are: Residence unlimited one-party service - $16.85; Circle Calling Service - $34.24. Service Rates: The residence Temporary Suspension of Service charge equals the residential dial tone line rate. It increases by $2.49 to $9.91. Business Services Until now, business unlimited exchange line service and Private Branch Exchange (PBX) trunk service had four sepa- rate rates depending upon the exchange in which those ser- vices were provided. Now, there is a single statewide rate of $38.42 for each business unlimited exchange line and $57.63 for each unlimited PBX trunk. The 800 Service dial tone line monthly rate is reduced from $25.00 to $20.00. Operator-Handled Business, Residence and Coin Calls Operator-handled surcharges will continue to apply to opera- tor-assisted calls. Other Changes Rates for various analog private line services will be increased; the prices for some digital private line services will be decreased. Rates for Direct Inward Dialing Service for business Private Branch Exchange (PBX) trunks and stations are reduced. RESIDENCE SERVICE OPTIONS** Service Description Rates Measured Provides per-call charging on $9.91 all local calls Unlimited Provides unlimited calling within $16.85 the local calling area Two Party $11.75 Circle Calling Provides unlimited local calling $34.24 and toll-free calling within 20 miles CallAround 413 Provides unlimited calling within $29.80 Plus Service the 413 area code. **Not all services are available in all locations. Please consult the introductory pages of your NYNEX telephone directory for detailed information, or call your service representative at the telephone number on page 1 on the NYNEX Itemization of Account section of your bill. If you want or need to change your local service, there is no charge to change from Circle Calling to Basic Unlimited or Measured Service. HOW TO CONTACT US If you want more information or if vou have any questions about these changes, please call our Customer Response Center at 1 800 555-5000, weekdays between 7:30 am and 8:00 pm and Saturday between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm. If you are calling from outside Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island or Vermont, please call a NYNEX Service Representative at the telephone number on page 1 of the NYNEX Itemization of Account section of your bill. Customers with disabilities should contact us at our Customer Contact Center for Individuals with Disabilities by calling 1 800 974-6006 (V/TTY). ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 01 Jun 1994 20:51:44 GMT From: Charbel_Tannous@engr.usask.ca (Charbel Tannous) Subject: Spread Spectrum Video Organization: University of Saskatchewan SPREAD SPECTRUM FOR INDOOR WIRELESS COMMUNICATION by Dr. Eric J. Salt, Dr. Surinder Kumar and Prof. David Dodds 250 page manual included $395. A comprehensive 3 cassette program for engineers and researchers wanting to achieve a thorough understanding of the principles of Spread Spectrum. [Six hours]. Description Principles of Spread Spectrum in a single path setting: Spreading with PN sequences. Effects of Broad-band Noise & Simultaneous users. Types of PN sequences. Receiver performance in the presence of Co-users. The In-Building channel: The effect of absorbers and scatterers. A ray model of the Channel. Delay power spectrum. Doppler spreading. Distance dependent loss. Statistical model of the Channel. The principles of Spread Spectrum in a Multiple Path Setting: Performance of a RAKE receiver. Effects of a Co-user on the decision variable. Performance calculation. Issues in Synchronization: Single user- Single path. Multiple Access- Single path. Multiple Access- Multiple path. SAW and RAKE Receivers in an in-building CDMA system: Matched Filter concepts. SAW devices for implementing Matched Filters. Receiver Structure using a SAW matched filter. System performance with a RAKE receiver. TABLE OF CONTENTS SECTION PAGES 1.Principles of Spread Spectrum in a Single Path Setting (Eric Salt) (a) Mechanisms for Spread and Despreading 1- 12 (b) Effects of a Co-User 13- 17 (c) Spreading Codes 18- 42 (d) Receiver Performance 46- 67 (e) System Performance Example 68- 72 2.The In-Building Channel (Eric Salt) (a) The Channel Viewed as a Collection of Scatters 73- 85 (b) Delay Spread & Coherence Bandwidth 86- 91 (c) Doppler Spread 92- 94 (d) Odds & Ends 95- 105 3.Principles of Spread Spectrum in a Multiple Path Setting (Eric Salt) (a) Simple Receiver in a Two-Path Channel 106- 112 (b) Two-Tap RAKE Receiver 113- 134 (c) Increasing the Capacity with Forward Error Correction & Sectorization 135- 148 (d) Pedagogical Example 148- 164 4.Issues in Synchronization (David Dodds) (a) Single User - Path 165- 169 (b) Multiple Access - Single Path 170- 174 (c) Search Strategies 175- 182 (d) Multiple Access - Multiple Path 183- 188 5.SAW and RAKE Receivers for In-Building CDMA Systems (Surinder Kumar) (a) Matched Filter Concepts 189- 200 (b) SAW Devices for CDMA Systems 201- 208 (c) CDMA Receiver Using SAW Devices 209- 220 (d) RAKE Receiver 221- 222 (e) Computer Simulation Results 223- 244 ** ORDER FORM ** To order: telephone, FAX or mail to: TRLabs, Suite 108- 15 Innovation Boulevard, Saskatoon, SK CANADA S7N 2X8 Tel: (306)-668-8200 FAX: (306) 668-1944 Please send me one (1) @ 395 Candian Funds $ _______________ Please send me additional sets @ $160.0 each $ _______________ Please send me additional manuals @ $180.0 each $ _______________ Please send me additional cassettes @ $80.0 each $ _______________ (Prices do not include shipping and handling) TOTAL $ _______________ Payment options: My cheque is enclosed _____ Please bill me _____ Purchase order # ____ Please charge my credit card: Visa _____ American Express _____ Card # _____________Exp. Date_______ Signature:________________________ PLEASE SHIP MY ORDER TO: Name:__________________________________ Title:__________________ Company Name:__________________________ Street:_________________ City:__________________________________ Province/State:________ Postal code/ZIP:_____________ Telephone:( )_______________ Fax:( )______________ About TRLabs: TRLabs is a non-profit joint Industry-University-Government collaboration in applied telecommunications research with the aim of contributing trained people and innovative technology to industry. TRLabs Sponsors: AGT Limited Digital Equipment Corp. QCC Communication Corp. Alberta Government Digital Systems Group Inc. Saskatchewan Government AT&T MTS Manitoba Government Bell Northern Research EDTel SaskTel Communications Canada LSI Logic Corp. SED Systems Inc. NovAtel Communications University of Alberta SMART Technologies University of Calgary University of Saskatchewan University of Manitoba WaveCom Electronics Inc. Develcon Electronics Ltd. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Jun 94 12:06:27 EDT From: Rick Watson Subject: ATT/MCI Numbering War > In an effort to snag more long distance telephone calls (charged to > a credit card or a third number), AT&T reserved the toll-free number > 1-800-OPERATOR. Not to be outdone, and perhaps knowing the public > better, MCI reserved the number 1-800-OPERATER and has been scooping > up calls intended for its arch-rival. Is this why AT&T is switching from 1-800-OPERATOR to 1-800-CALL-ATT? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: AT&T had the latter of the two numbers in > service for quite awhile prior to starting 'OPERATOR'. I would not be > surprised to hear there was a lot of confusion between OPERATOR and > OPERATER however. PAT] You think thats where it ends? Try dialing 1-800-ATT-CALL. (You get MCI!) Rick Watson Telecomm Analyst/NYU Computer Center ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #267 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa07610; 3 Jun 94 2:50 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA27318; Thu, 2 Jun 94 11:05:03 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA27287; Thu, 2 Jun 94 11:05:01 CDT Date: Thu, 2 Jun 94 11:05:01 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406021605.AA27287@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #266 TELECOM Digest Thu, 2 Jun 94 11:05:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 266 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Help: Bad Phone Lines in San Jose (John R. Haggis) Re: Help Needed: Fax/Answering Machine/Phone (Steve Cogorno) Re: Security of a Code? (Mark Brukhartz) Re: Ground-start trunk line sharing product? (Dave Ptasnik) Re: S-s-s-stuttering Dial Tone Detection (Dave Ptasnik) Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway (Dave O'Shea) Re: Out-Going Call Blocking to Local Numbers (thssamj@iitmax.iit.edu) Re: Average Data Speed of Wire Telegraphy (Wes Leatherock) Re: Average Data Speed of Wire Telegraphy (Dick St.Peters) Re: Cost of Caller ID in PA (Fred Linton) Re: Cost of Caller ID in PA (Robert G. Schaffrath) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: haggis@netcom.com (John R. Haggis) Subject: Re: Help: Bad Phone Lines in San Jose Organization: Millennium Research Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1994 12:21:03 GMT In article terry@hh.sbay.org (Terry Greenlee) writes: > I am having trouble with my phone lines at home and I was wondering if > anyone else had this same thing happen to them? Terry, I've had bad phone lines all over the place, including the rusty, musty lines up in Boulder creek. > Monday a Bell tech will come out to test. Yeah, and he'll say, "We don't guarantee lines for more than 4800 baud. You have to get a leased line to do better." This is their mantra. Don't accept it for a second. > Does anyone at Pacific Bell know how to fix these problems? No. That's the problem. Short of replacing all the lines, everywhere. Maybe we should get phone service over the cable TV lines ... Seriously, here's how you deal with them. To the "not rated over 4800 baud" mantra, just insist that everybody else has better operation, and keep insisting that it's your individual lines. Keep insisting that they change drops or incoming trunk lines until it works. Tell them it worked before for you at another house (it has for me, both the strategy and the mechanics). Above all, keep calling and going over peoples' heads. The people at Pac Bell, while regular, nice people on the outside, become flaming assholes when at work under the strain of a job they have no concept or understanding of. Give 'em h*ll. John (haggis@netcom.com) ------------------------------ From: cogorno@netcom.com (Steve Cogorno) Subject: Re: Help Needed: Fax/Answering Machine/Phone Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1994 11:14:56 PDT Said by: Kathy Vincent > 2. Can anyone recommend integrated equipment -- a three-in-one > combination in which all THREE elements are quality? > She says she's found some combinations, but the answering > machine is usually junk. She would prefer a digital answering > machine (i.e., no tapes). Can anyone recommend anything that might > do the job -- especially anything <=$500? Does she have a computer? I have a modem that is made by Promethus Products, called the Ultima Home Office. It integrates 14,400 bps DATA, 14,400 Send/Receive Fax, and Voice mail with up to 100 mailboxes. It will only handle one line, and it has a few quirks, but once you get the hang of it, it works wonderfully. There are PC and Macintosh versions availible for around $390. One caveat: for voice mail, the computer must be on, and running the MaxFax software (it can be in the background; the modem will automatically bring it to the front). If she has a Macintosh with Solid-State power (All of the Macintosh II series, Quadra 700, 800, 840, 900) there is an adated availible for about $30 that will turn on the computer on the first detected ring. For other models, you can get a similar adapter, but more expensive (around $150) which is like a power strip: you plug the computer into it, and it turns the power on after the first ring. Steve cogorno@netcom.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Jun 94 14:12:25 -0500 From: mark_brukhartz@il.us.swissbank.com (Mark Brukhartz) Subject: Re: Security of a Code? The basic measure of cipher strength is key length. If a cipher has no other weaknesses (a major point), it can still be broken by trying every key until one produces recognizable data. This is known as a "brute force attack." Each bit of key length doubles the time needed for a brute force attack. Assume that an attacker has a million CPUs, each capable of trying a thousand keys per second. (I believe that those are reasonable figures for a well financed opponent attacking a typical cipher.) Here are the average times to break a cipher by brute force for several key lengths: 40 bits 9 minutes 48 bits 40 hours 56 bits 1 year 64 bits 300 years 72 bits 7 thousand years 80 bits 20 million years These times will shrink as computers get faster. For data which must remain secure for several decades, extraordinarily long keys are warranted. Ciphers based upon typical pseudo-random number generators are weak, and can be broken quickly by a professional cryptographer regardless of key length. Such ciphers are all too common, often built in to applications such as word processors and spreadsheets. Academic cryptographers publish new ciphers which have passed analysis by their immediate colleagues. Many of these ciphers, if not most of them, are still broken within a few years. Beware of proprietary ciphers, because they have not been subjected to such scrutiny. For moderate data security, the old US Data Encryption Standard (DES) is still a decent algorithm. In over fifteen years of academic analysis, no serious weakness has been revealed. Unfortunately, its 56 bit key is small by today's standards. It is widely speculated that government spy bureaus have built specialized DES cracking hardware which can complete a brute force attack within minutes. DES still provides excellent security from ordinary hackers and nosy employees, though. Mark Brukhartz mdb@il.us.swissbank.com ------------------------------ From: davep@u.washington.edu (Dave Ptasnik) Subject: Re: Ground-Start Trunk Line Sharing Product? Date: 1 Jun 1994 19:16:42 GMT Organization: University of Washington Rod Regier writes: > Background: > My organization is currently using a Mitel SX-100 PBX. The incoming > TELCO trunk lines are ground-start trunks. I have no "free" locals > I would like to use the two-line pool at night to add to my dialup > modem pool without adding any additional (expensive, $C1000/yr) telco > lines. > If the two-line pool used normal loop lines, I could use a product > like the Cardinal Communications Comshare 550 to support both incoming > voice and data calls, as well as outgoing PBX calls. One of the Mitel family of SMar-T dialers includes a loop/ground start converter. Placet this on the line and you can use any 2500 equivalent on a ground start trunk. Ask you Mitel dealer for details. A 4 line unit probably costs less than $300. Dave Ptasnik davep@u.washington.edu ------------------------------ From: davep@u.washington.edu (Dave Ptasnik) Subject: Re: S-s-s-stuttering Dial Tone Detection Date: 1 Jun 1994 19:26:00 GMT Organization: University of Washington kmp@tiac.net (K. M. Peterson) writes: > My problem: I don't want to have to lift the handset to find out if I > have messages. Has someone come up with a box to sit on one's line > and detect this (and flash a lamp or something)? A Canadian company called Xinex Networks, Inc. makes an amazing telephone called the mindSET. It periodically samples the line looking for stutter dial tone, and turns on a big message light when it finds it. There is a nice display that shows Caller-ID information. It also has a whole bunch of speed dial keys and function keys, or you can enter in bunches of names and scroll through them on the display, like a Rolodex. Naturally it has a speakerphone. It also passes through the ring provided by the phone company, so if you have custom ringing, you can hear the different patterns. All in all a very nice unit. Don't know the price, just got to play with a demo unit for a while. Dave Ptasnik davep@u.washington.edu ------------------------------ From: dos@spam.wdns.wiltel.com (Dave O'Shea) Subject: Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway Date: 1 Jun 1994 20:04:27 GMT Organization: WilTel Reply-To: dave_oshea@wiltel.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Despite what Runyan may say, the United > States Postal Service is in very bad condition. Over the past three months > there have been major upheavals in the USPS here in Chicago, as Runyan > himself can attest. Several top officials of the post office here have There is value in the post office, though: Much like New York City's subways, where "I took the subway" is excuse for any lateness at all, "it's in the mail" is a wonderful, irrefutable excuse for whatever kind of misbehavior you feel like. If I forget to send my car loan payment in, I just say "the check's in the mail" when they call. End of case, I have two weeks to do whatever I want. Now, If I was dumb enough to use someone like Fedex, the bank could simply ask for an airbill number, and in 30 seconds, I'd be hanging my head in shame, admitting that I blew the car payment on a new 500mb drive. (Sarcasm intended. I drop by the post office weekly to give them the mail that has been delivered to me, though it is addressed to people sometimes near, sometimes far. And exchanging mis-delivered mail is a great way to meet the neighbors.) Dave O'Shea dave_oshea@wiltel.com Sr. Network Support Engineer 201.236.3730 WilTel Data NelzNitwork Services [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do the same thing at my post office box downtown. Whenever I go in, I'll find several items in my Box 1570, Chicago, IL 60690 (intended for me) with a rubber stamp endorsement on the front of the envelope saying 'opened in error by First National Bank of Chicago'. As well, there will be a few items in my box not for me, but either for a nearby box or as often as not, someone who lives at 1570 (some street) or Apartment 1570 (at some address), Chicago 60609, or Buffalo Grove, IL 60090. I used to simply take them to the call counter and leave them with the clerk, but sometimes the very same letter would be in my box *again the next day*. Now I have a little rubber stamp which reads "Not For Box 1570 at Chicago 60690" and I stamp that on the envelope before giving it back. If I still get the same letter back a couple times more (it has happened) then I take a pen and completely obliterate the zip code the writer put on the envelope forcing the 'nixies clerk' to seek it out manually. One little kid sent a postcard to WGN-TV at their box, which is 10003 (note the extra zero in the middle), Chicago, IL 60610. He wanted his free prize offered on some television show for little folks. I got that damn postcard *three times* recycled to my box. Finally I penciled in a note on the front by the address saying 'Try Fort Dearborn Station at 606-one-oh'. When it arrived a fourth time (yes!) at my box the next day with my 'try Fort Dearborn' notation scratched out I took the card with me and dropped it off with the receptionist at the front desk at WGN's offices, 2301 W. Bradley Place on my way home. But the best one of all was printed in {Pravda} several years ago. It seems some Soviet school children had been given the assignment of writing letters to the leaders of different countries asking them about their country and encouraging them to work for peace among nations. One little guy named Ivan had written to President Reagan. The picture in {Pravda} showed this kid about ten years old with a very bewildered look on his face and an envelope in front of him addressed to "President Reagan, United States of America". On the envelope, a rubber stamp endorsement quite plain for everyone to read, "Moved, left no forwarding address, return to sender" with indicia of the Washington, DC post office. (He was president at the time.) The newspaper's caption to the picture read, "Postal Service says cannot locate President". The picture and accompanying story was on the employees bulletin board at 60690 for several months. It was taken down finally when it had accumulated quite a bit of graffiti written on it, no doubt by disgruntled postal workers and/or customers who saw it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: thssamj@iitmax.iit.edu (jani) Subject: Re: Out-Going Call Blocking to Local Numbers Organization: Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago Date: Wed, 1 Jun 94 20:08:28 GMT In article thssamj@iitmax.iit.edu (jani) writes: > Is it possible to block outgoing calls to selected local numbers? > Ameritech says they do not have such a service. Only kind of outgoing > call blocking they offer is to 1-900 numbers and total blocking to > long distance service. > They suggested I should check out if there was such a device available > from a third party. Is there such a thing? > I would prefer if the phone company could do it at their end as it > would be more secure. (The device can not be unplugged and disabled.) > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Telco does have classes of service which > allow total blocking to local calls; blocking of long distance calls [deleted...] > and can be secreted in an out-of-the-way place on your premises. A > detirmined person could get into them, but they do the job in most > cases. PAT] The phone company, Ameritech in Illinois says they do not offer the class of service that blocks all local calls as they are in the business of getting people to make more calls -- not restrict calls. Are they saying this because it is not technically possible or is it because they have marketing considerations in mind? Is it possible to change to a phone company that offers such a service. The line is located in a apartment building. Is there another local phone company in the area (Chicago) that would offer such a service? amj [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There is, for all intents and purposes, no alternative to Illinois Bell (Ameritech) in your case. Your volume of business does not warrant it. If your phone bill was like that of University of Chicago, or City of Chicago, or Amoco, or Rush-Presbyterian and around five hundred thousand dollars per *month* and you had a service representative at telco assigned exclusively to your account, who worked on nothing but 'amj' business eight hours a day like the above accounts, then telco would be coming around asking you what you wanted. *Yes*, they do offer a class of service which restricts all local calls and only allows long distance. And when you called and asked about it, the rep who dealt with you probably wrote you off as a crackpot and let it go at that. They won't give it to you, so forget it. For quite a few years I had a part time job reconciling the phone bill and making service changes for a large company downtown with centrex. A phone on my desk was for long distance only. If I dialed seven digits to anywhere it went to intercept (call cannot be completed as dialed). It did accept 1+ ten digits; it did not accept 0+ dialing. I think the bill there was only about sixty thousand dollars per month, making it one of the smaller 'larger' accounts. If you want to do business with the 'competition' at Teleport (or whoever it is that moved in on Ameritech's territory), plan to show them where you can give them at least several thousand dollars per month in business. They do not handle residence stuff. You are not in Central Telephone's territory (I assume you are not in the little sliver of land they control on the northwest side) so you cannot go to them unless you want foreign exchange service and believe me you, when you see the bill for FX you'll wish you had stayed with IBT and a few unauthorized local calls from time to time. Do as you were told here yesterday and visit the local Radio Shack store in your neighborhood. Be creative and find a way to secrete the device on your premises, under lock and key if necessary. You will get along just fine. PAT] ------------------------------ From: wes.leatherock@oubbs.telecom.uoknor.edu Date: Wed, 01 Jun 94 08:50:22 Organization: [ OU BBS University Of Oklahoma (405)325-6128 TBBS ] Subject: Re: Average Data Speed of Wire Telegraphy Wanted Quoting itstevec@rocky.ucdavis.edu (Steve Chafe) > Does anyone know what the average speed (in characters per minute, > or whatever is appropriate) of a professional telegrapher would > have been when wire telegraphy was the main mode of electronic > communication? I'm trying to do a comparison of data communication > speed then and now, so I'd love to hear any thoughts that people > can offer. I can't give a numeric figure, but I can provide some anecdotal information. In the 1950s, I was a reporter and editor for United Press in Dallas. Our circuits serving clients (newspapers and radio stations, primarily) were 60-speed Teletype circuits fed by ASR machines (punched tape run through a distributor so that full throughput could be obtained, unlike hand keying which is not more than two-thirds as fast effectively, and often much less.) On Saturday afternoons during the football season, many of the accounts of football games came in on Western Union short period leased circuits. (At that time, Western Union had exclusive contracts with virtually all stadiums, including college stadiums.) We would have several such games coming in over Western Union circuits, most of them set up on teletypewriters which were apparently hand cranked at the stadium end by Western Union operators drawn from their regular pool. However, occasionally we had the pleasure of seeing a real live operator show up with his key and sounder. This was always a pleasure. The stories that came in by Western Union teletypewriter were always slow and frequently had errors that had to be questioned. (Press copy uses full text, full punctuation, etc., and a story about a football game is naturally full of figures and statistics, all of which seem to be foreign to what Western Union operators usually handled.) But the Morse operator with his key was something different. (Some used bugs, some straight keys.) And obviously his counterpart at the game was similarly competent. You could start a story moving on the wire as soon as the Morse operator gave you a couple of paragraphs. He would stay ahead of the 60-speed Teletype circuit without any difficulty. If there was a question, he would break the sending operator and get the matter straightened out immediately, even if the operator at the game had to ask the writer. (Often, if there was something questionable, the receiving operator had already noticed and asked the sending operator.) They were real professionals and it was always a pleasure to deal with them. And their real output was a whole lot faster than the hand cranked teletypewriter copy of the other circuits, and much more accurate. Of course, these were operators with real press experience and used the Phillips code, understood what the press requirements were, and I think got real pleasure out of exercising their skills, and incidentally drawing our admiration. A few years before, I had been writing play-by-play (newspapers used that in early editions in the 1940s) for University of Oklahoma games, and I had a Western Union operator sitting beside me, sending each paragraph as I wrote it. He, too, was similarly good and not infrequently caught me in mistakes (in a friendly, helpful manner, too). Press operators were, I think probably the elite of operators sending in the wire telegraph days. Perhaps those working for brokerage wire houses could also put in a claim to this, but I'm not sufficiently familiar with them to be able to judge. Wes Leatherock wes@obelisk.pillar.com wes.leatherock@oubbs.telecom.uoknor.edu ------------------------------ From: stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com (Dick St.Peters) Subject: Re: Average Data Speed of Wire Telegraphy Reply-To: stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com Organization: GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1994 22:54:12 GMT What a bunch of old memories this question brings up! 30 years ago I used to run very high speed machine-keyed transmissions for people to practice listening to, out of W1MX, the MIT student ham radio station. W1AW, the ARRL station, used to tranmit practice transmissions at speeds up to 35 wpm. We started there and ran up to 65 wpm. How fast someone can copy depends a LOT on the nature of what is being sent. Simple text that makes sense is an awful lot easier than the random letters and numbers taken from the tables of vacuum tube characteristics that were sent for a latter portion of the transmission at each speed. Nobody can copy that at the higher speeds, because of the way people hear code. At very low speeds, you hear individual dits and dahs. Somewhere around 5 wpm there's a barrier where you can't go higher until you learn to hear whole letters. Get past that barrier, and you can run up to 20+ wpm pretty quickly, where there's another barrier where you have to start hearing whole syllables, even whole words. Once through that, you can again progress rapidly (with practice) up to 60 wpm or so, where you max out. At these speeds, code essentially has become another language. If the transmission has a spelling error, you "hear" the error as a sort of dissonance ... you still get the meaning, but it doesn't sound right in the same way a basic grammar error doesn't sound right in language. That changed way of perceiving code at ca. 20+ wpm makes it very hard to transcribe code at higher speeds. Up to the character-at-a-time barrier, you can learn to type the characters as they come in with a kind of brain bypass ... code character to finger keystroke. Once you hear whole words, you can no longer do this. Also, someone who can hear the 60 wpm language with no sweat can have a problem copying very slow transmission. Ah well, 'twas a looong time ago. Dick St.Peters, Gatekeeper, Pearly Gateway; currently at: GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com ------------------------------ From: flinton@wesleyan.edu Subject: Re: Cost of Caller ID in PA Date: Wed, 1 Jun 1994 20:41:25 GMT Organization: Wesleyan University In article gvaeth@netcom.com (Greg Vaeth at Jerrold Communications) writes: > Caller ID in Pennsylvania ... for residential customers is > $6.50/month, business is $8.50. How does this rate compare to other > states? Caller ID for SNET residential customers in Connecticut is also $6.50/mo., where available. Calls to New Haven (203 776 xxxx) often get reported as "out of area" or, more bluntly, "error", or even just " ------ " whenever the routing utilizes a non-caller-ID-aware switch (even on calls known independently to originate in the same 776 exchange (!)). So a "perfect privacy filter" Caller ID is certainly not. But, at $0.20 per day, it's good cheap fun, anyway, to see whether SNET got it right this time, or muffed it yet again. Fred [E.J. Linton : FLinton@eagle.Wesleyan.EDU : fejlinton@mcimail.com] ------------------------------ From: gfimda!rgs@uunet.UU.NET (Robert G. Schaffrath) Subject: Re: Cost of Caller ID in PA Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 01:09:40 GMT Organization: Kraft General Foods > An insert in my latest bill contained a notice that Bell Atlantic will > offer Caller ID in Pennsylvania in August. The cost for residential > customers is $6.50/month, business is $8.50. Call blocking and > anonymous call rejection are free. This charge seem outrageous > considering that the equipment to do it is already there, right? How > else does return call, repeat call and all that stuff work. How does > this rate compare to other states? New York Telephone, uh NYNEX, also charges $6.50. It's a rip off but I really wanted the technology. I got even though. I was carrying custom calling feature (forwarding and call waiting) which totalled more than the $6.50. I dropped them so my bill actually went down! Robert G. Schaffrath, N2JTX Internet: rgs%wpmax2%gfimda@uunet.uu.net Systems Engineer CompuServe: 76330,1057 Maxwell House Coffee Company Phone: 914-335-2777 Kraft General Foods Corp. Slogan: "ervice is ur mott" ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #266 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa14833; 3 Jun 94 23:32 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA01711; Fri, 3 Jun 94 12:15:54 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA01682; Fri, 3 Jun 94 12:13:16 CDT Date: Fri, 3 Jun 94 12:13:16 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406031713.AA01682@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #268 TELECOM Digest Fri, 3 Jun 94 12:13:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 268 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson NYNEX Bill Insert on DA Changes (Jonathan Welch) NYNEX April 1994 Bill Insert on Maintenance Changes (Jonathan Welch) Gathering Cellular Statistics (Richard L. Shapiro) Splitting Newswires (RS-232) (Marty Lyons) How to Get White pages Data From GTE? (Frank Dziuba) Replacement Wanted For Bogen Friday (Robert La Ferla) Pointers Wanted to TDD Specifications Please (Joseph Chiu) Need Book Recommendations For CTI (Paul Kendall) Positions Available: Telecommunications Senior Engineers (John F. Nymark) Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" (Michael L. Judson) German Telephone Equipment in France (Niedner) Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Call Routing (Steve Brack) Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Call Routing (James Payton) Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Call Routing (Karl Johnson) Re: Performance of L.A. Cellular System (Thomas N. Harding) Re: Performance of L.A. Cellular System (Jim Burks) Re: Recommendation For AlphaNumeric Paging Software (Rob Lockhart) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 02 Jun 1994 11:55:50 -0500 From: Jonathan_Welch Subject: NYNEX Bill Insert on DA Changes April 1994 bill insert on DA changes: During June, NYNEX will begin the introduction of a new service in selected telephone exchanges in Massachusetts. This service will enable you to complete a call within the 617, 508 or 413 Area Codes to a telephone number which you have requested from Directory Assistance without having to hang up and dial the number. How does new the service work? After receiving the telephone number you have requested from Directory Assistance, you will hear a brief recorded announcement. Simply press "1" from any touch-tone phone any time during the special announcement, or say "yes" after the tone at the end of the announcement and the number you received will then be automatically dialed. How much will it cost? Each completed call will cost 35 cents plus the applicable usage and directory assistance charges. If there is no answer or the line is busy, there is no charge. How do I get this service? NYNEX will add the ability to use this service to all residence and business lines served by telephone switching offices that are equipped to provide it. What if I don't want to use this service? If you want the telephone number from Directory Assistance but do not want the call completed automatically, simply hang up after you receive the requested number. Can I block this service from my telephone? Yes. If you decide that you do not want to have access to this new service, please advise us and this option will be removed from your line(s) at no charge. To make these arrangements, customers with residential telephone service should call 1 800 555-5000, ext. 80. Business telephone service customers should call their account representative, or call a service representative at the number following the words "to order or change your service call" listed at the top of page 1 of your monthly bill. Can I still get two numbers on one call to Directory Assistance? Yes, you can continue to get two numbers from Directory Assistance on one call. Just ask the Directory Assistance operator at the beginning of the call. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Jun 1994 11:59:11 -0500 From: Jonathan_Welch Subject: NYNEX April 1994 Bill Insert on Maintenance Changes April 1994 bill insert on maintenance changes: NYNEX is making changes in the optional TeleSure Basic maintenance plan for residence and business customers. The changes are effective July 1, 1994 and affect the TeleSure Basic maintenance plan only. The TeleSure PLUS maintenance plan is not affected. The rate for the residence TeleSure Basic maintenance plan is increased from $0.45 to $0.95 per month. The business TeleSure Basic maintenance plan is eliminated. The TeleSure Basic maintenance plan covers inside jack and wire repairs only. If, after diagnosis, the problem is determined to be in your equipment or telephone, residence telephone service customers will be charged a visit charge of $25.00 plus a minimum time charge of $13.75, a total of $38.75 for the first 15 minutes of the visit. Each additional 15 minutes will be billed at $13.75, and charges apply for materials used. The minimum repair visit charge for business customers is $49.95 plus a minimum time charge of $13.75, a total of $63.70 for the first 15 minutes. Additional 15 minute increments will be billed at $13.75 each. Also, charges apply for materials used. In addition to the above changes in the Telesure maintenance plans, the changes include the introduction of visit charges for time and material installation service for both residence and business customers. For residence customers, the installation visit charge of $39.95 is coupled with the minimum time charge of $13.75 for a total of $53.70 for the first 15 minutes. The charge for each additional 15 minute increment is $13.75, and charges apply for materials used. The installation visit charge for business customers is $49.95. This charge, coupled witll the minimum time charge of $13.75 adds to a total of $63.70 for the first 15 minutes. The charge for each additional 15 minute increment is $13.75, and charges apply for materials used. Residence customers with questions about the changes or rates should call the NYNEX Customer Response Center at 1 800 555-5000 between 8:30 am and 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday. Business customers with questions about the changes or rates should call the NYNEX Direct Marketing Center at 1 800 343-4343, ext. 687, between 8:30 am and 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday. ------------------------------ From: rshapiro@interaccess.com (Richard L. Shapiro) Subject: Gathering Cellular Statistics Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 11:57:39 Organization: InterAccess,Chicagoland's Full Service Internet Provider Good Day, My name is Richard Shapiro with Sprint Cellular and we are trying to locate some data related to cellular services through Internet. For about the past month I have been exploring Internet as a way to make other contacts in the Cellular Industry. But we have a specific piece of information we are seeking and I thought someone might know where I could look or who I could speak to thru an e-mail. I am trying to find the growth rate of the top 10-15 Cellular carriers in the U.S. for the past year including the 1st quarter of this year. Does anyone has any idea where I might look. Thanks for your help in advance. Richard V J Enterprises - Joshua Shapiro - Niles, IL Internet:rshapiro@interaccess.com ------------------------------ From: marty@nic.cerf.net (Marty Lyons) Subject: Splitting newswires (RS-232) Date: 2 Jun 1994 17:30:13 GMT Organization: CERFnet I have a need to split a newswire feed (UPI, Reuters, etc), which is one way RS-232 traffic, out to several devices. Has anyone ever gotten a general purpose device such as: - Telebit Netblazer - Xylogics Annex - Gandalf - Equinox to take an input stream (call in I) and generate multiple outbound streams (call them O1 ... On). Ideally, I'd rather use something off the shelf than making custom cables (which we've done, for one of these splits, and it is a pain). Kinda looks like: +----- O1 | I ---->---------+----- O2 dataflow | . . +----- On Thanks in advance! Marty Lyons * Sprocket Labs, Inc. * marty@sprocket.com 1030 East El Camino Real, Suite 450, Sunnyvale, CA 94087, USA +1 408 245 9600 ------------------------------ From: fjd@rain.org (Frank Dziuba) Subject: How to Get White pages Data From GTE? Date: 2 Jun 1994 14:08:52 -0700 Organization: Regional Access Information Network Hi, I would like to get the White Pages listings for my area from GTE in a computer-readable format. I know that there are cd-roms of the US phone books available, but they have heavy copyrights on them and I want to put a searchable phone book on my BBS. I called GTE who said they don't sell that data, but how did ProPhone get it? I heard that they scanned the phonebooks and OCR'ed them. Is that legal? Aren't they breaking some kind of copyright law? What is the copyright on the phone book information anyway? Any info would be greatly appreciated. Frank Dziuba MS-Windows Consulting fjd@rain.org ------------------------------ From: Robert La Ferla Subject: Replacement Wanted For Bogen Friday Reply-To: Robert La Ferla Organization: Hot Technologies Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 04:34:54 GMT Anyone know of a better product (and $300-500) than the Bogen two-line Friday voicemail system? I am having quite a few problems with it. Robert ------------------------------ From: josephc@cco.caltech.edu (Joseph Chiu) Subject: Pointers Wanted to TDD Specifications Please Date: 2 Jun 1994 09:05:29 GMT Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena After looking through various journals and computer-rags (all the way back to mid-80's!), and looking around at FAQ's and such, I'm still stumped in my search for technical information on TDD's. In particular, I'd like to know what the mark/space frequencies are, the data format, and what the character codes are. As I recall, it was a 5-bit encoding system, and (obviously) non-ASCII ... *sigh* If I had only saved those _really_ _old_ manuals! :-> So, this is my last-ditch effort for help. If TELECOM Digest can't help, I dunno who can! Thanks in advance! Joseph Chiu If America On-Line is truly America on-line, then I MSC 380 - Caltech am worried about the future of America... Pasadena, CA 91126 +1 818 449 5457 josephc@cco.caltech.edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Now, now ... don't have thoughts like that about the folks at aol.com. A lot of them are just a bunch of kids having a good time. They're okay. Not terribly bright perhaps, but the same is true of any commercial online service of that genre, i.e. Compuserve and Prodigy. What you see there is a picture of the USA painted with a rather broad brush. Americans generally are not quite as well-bred as people in other parts of the world. You should hear the young guys on Compuserve talk about 'getting an account on the Internet' ... to them, that would be the thrill of a lifetime. To answer your question about TDD specs, why not check out the Telecom Archives (anonymous ftp lcs.mit.edu, then cd telecom-archives). We might have some of what you want there. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jfrank@netcom.com (J Frank and Associates) Subject: Need Book Recommendations For CTI Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 21:30:33 GMT I'm an Open Systems software developer just getting started on a Computer Telephone Integration project and need literature to get me up to speed. I'm mostly interested in the "big picture" view at this point; that is, how all the various pieces of equipment connect, what protocols are involved, etc. (specifically, literature that explains what switches do, what SS7 is used for, that sort of thing). In addition, I'm interested in who's doing development on telephony APIs to tie ACDs and VRUs together, like that. (I have the Microsoft TAPI stuff.) So, any book reviews out there? Thanks, Paul Kendall J. Frank Consulting Palo Alto, CA Paul.Kendall@jfrank.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Our resident book reviewer here in the Digest is Rob Slade (roberts@decus.ca). He sends in a lot of review material; you might ask him about your topic of interest. PAT] ------------------------------ Reply-To: jnymark@nycor.win.net (John F. Nymark) Date: Thu, 02 Jun 1994 15:47:50 Subject: Positions Available: Telecommunications Senior Engineers From: jnymark@nycor.win.net (John F. Nymark) TELECOMMUNICATIONS/TELEPHONY MULTIPLE OPPORTUNIITES SOFTWARE & HARDWARE ENGINEERS Positions require bachelor's degree in CS,EE or equivalent and a minimum of three (3) years INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE. SOFTWARE: Experience in software and systems development with an emphasis on embedded systems. Direct experience with telephony systems, real-time systems applications and "C" language needed. Senior Software Project Engineer - Develop the system strategies for fault tolerance including performance monitoring, fault detection, isolation, recovery with protection switching, logging and distributed processing. Senior Software Design Engineer - Develop the detailed operation for Network Element Management implementation. HARDWARE: Design methodologies will employ HP UNIX workstations with Mentor 8.25 software. Requires knowledge in the following areas: * ASIC/FPGA Design * PCB and Micro Controller Design * Collision Based Protocols * Telecommunication Standards These opportunities are in Minneapolis, MN. with a company that offers offers a REAL opportunity to expand your career and in a community that sets standards for QUALITY OF LIFE!!!!! PLease contact Michael Wagner @ NYCOR 4930 West 77th Street, Suite #300, Minneapolis, MN. 55435 Phone (612) 831-6444 FAX (612) 835-2883 ------------------------------ From: judson%linex@uunet.UU.NET (Michael L Judson) Subject: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" Organization: North Bay Network Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 22:47:34 GMT I saw in a news report about a new service from Pacific Bell called "ISDN Anywhere." When I called up Pac Bell, they had no idea what I was talking about. The news report didn't give much more information other than they would start offering it in about a month. Does anybody else have any ideas about what is so different about "ISDN Anywhere?" [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So typical, isn't it, of the telcos that they run big full page advertisements on new services they are going to offer, then don't bother to tell any of their front line people what it is about, leaving them completely ignorant where customer questions are concerned. It is almost as big a waste of money as those American firms which take out full page ads in European publications then only give an 800 number for contact. PAT] ------------------------------ From: niedner@petrus.cribx1.u-bordeaux.fr (Niedner) Subject: German Telephone Equipment in France Date: 2 Jun 1994 14:27:51 GMT Organization: CRIBX1 , Universite de Bordeaux I , France Hello, everyone! Is there anyone reading this who has experience with German (or any other European) phone equipment connected to the network of France Telecom? What happened: I bought an adapter and changed the western plug (1234 -> 2143). Now the phone works, but I cannot end the communication. Any help? Please sent answers as e-mail as well: niedner@petrus.lcab.u-bordeaux.fr Thanks, Sven ------------------------------ From: sbrack@esserv01.utnetw.utoledo.edu (Steve Brack) Subject: Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Call Routing Organization: University of Toledo Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 19:17:00 GMT safer@delphi.com wrote: > That just great, lay off thousands from OSP companies. Destroy an > entire inudstry, just because a couple of people can't figure out > 10xxx? Plus we the consumer will have to come up with millions to fund > Bill Party Preference. Then as consumers were going to have to > subsidize it too. If you want my opion it's just simplier to dial > 1-800-COLLECT or 1-800-CALL-ATT. In almost every other area of business I can think of, the greatest latitude in billing arrangements is given to the person paying for the service, rather than the person using it. All BPP will do is bring telephone billing in line with standard commercial practice. Steven S. Brack sbrack@esserv01.eng.utoledo.edu Toledo, OH 43613-1605 STU0061@UOFT01.BITNET MY OWN OPINIONS sbrack@jupiter.cse.utoledo.edu ------------------------------ From: payton@ins.infonet.net Subject: Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Call Routing Date: 3 Jun 1994 04:36:02 GMT Organization: INS Info Services, Des Moines, IA USA Reply-To: payton@ins.infonet.net In article , dreuben@netcom.com (Cid Technologies) writes: > Billed Party Preference is an EXCELLENT idea -- it will force slimey > AOS firms out of business, and make MCI, Sprint, AT&T and anyone else > who wants to play compete more aggressively for your business. If they > want your business, they will have to provide you with something > better than your preferred carrier (lower rates, lower surcharge, > etc.) in order to get you to use them. Who knows, it may even bring > into the market a 0+ OSP with no calling card surcharge and rates in > line with standard direct dial rates. First of all, I don't think you should lump OSPs like MCI and Sprint in with the rest of the AOS firms. It was MCI who first offered 1-800-COLLECT as a way to make cheaper collect calls. Sure AT&T offered a similar product a short time later, but do you think they would have done so without the competition from MCI? It's true that people are being ripped off by some AOS companies. But that is the reality of a free marketplace. Uneducated consumers get ripped off on everything from toasters to automobiles all the time. Like it or not, the old Bell System goals of universal pricing and service are long gone. And even with a BPP system in place, there are *still* going to be problems for consumers. Example: A caller is making an AT&T CC call to an MCI customer. Caller dials 0+ but fails to enter the card number correctly. The local telco (who has the called number but not the CC number) routes the call to an MCI operator. The MCI operator cannot bill the proprietary AT&T card and refers the caller to 1-800-321-0288. This is similar to what happens today, *without* BPP. Example: A caller is making a third party call from a public phone. Dials 0+ and holds for an operator. The called party has AT&T, so the call routes to an AT&T operator. The caller requests a third party call and gives the billed number. The billed number's "preference" is Sprint. Would the AT&T operator be able to tell this? If so, does the AT&T operator process the call anyway, somehow hand it off to a Sprint operator, or refer the caller to 10333 + 0? To my knowledge there is no transfer system in place among IXC operators. Billed Party Preference wouldn't really solve all the problems, and it would obviously be expensive to implement. And *everyone* would end up paying for it (even those who never make 0+ calls) through increases in their local phone service. I'm sorry that some people are being ripped off by AOSs, but *I* don't want to be forced to pay higher rates because they are unwilling to educate themselves about the phone system. I think BPP is a BAD idea. James Payton payton@ins.infonet.net ------------------------------ Date: 03 Jun 94 08:28:58 EDT From: Karl Johnson Subject: Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Call Routing safer@delphi.com writes: > Gordon Burditt writes: >> Currently, 0+ calls are sent to the operator services provider >> (OSP) to which the premises owner or payphone provider presubscribes. >> Under BPP, calls would be routed automatically to the OSP preferred by >> the party being billed for the call. For example, a calling card call >> would be routed to the cardholder's preferred OSP. A collect call >> would be routed to the called party's preferred OSP. A call billed to >> a third party would be routed to the OSP to which that third party had >> presubscribed. > That just great, lay off thousands from OSP companies. Destroy an > entire inudstry, just because a couple of people can't figure out > 10xxx? Plus we the consumer will have to come up with millions to fund > Bill Party Preference. Then as consumers were going to have to > subsidize it too. If you want my opion it's just simplier to dial > 1-800-COLLECT or 1-800-CALL-ATT. I disagree with what you are said here. The rates at COTs will go down as the result of this as the which carrier is PICed for each COT on the basis of who gives the owner of the phone the highest commission. Where as under the new rules it will be who ever gives the consumer (the one who pays the bill) the best price. The OSP companies will then lower their prices to truly compete or go out of business IMO any company that makes the latter choice does not belong in business anyway. I think that when TPC was broken up and Equal Access was set up that all payphones should have been required to have their PIC set to none so that the consumer would have to make the choice. This would be true competition. ------------------------------ From: harding@wombat.cig.mot.com (Thomas N. Harding) Subject: Re: Performance of L.A. Cellular System Date: 3 Jun 1994 13:24:46 GMT Organization: Cellular Infrastructure Group, Motorola In regards to a cellular based email system for disaster use, remember that during disasters the priority of things like email is pretty low. Some systems can invoke emergency priority calling which prioritizes fire and police calls. As far as system stability goes I believe that cellular holds its own in emergencies due to backup power systems which are not feasible for distributed land line systems. San Francisco cellular service was the only thing up after their big quake. TH ------------------------------ From: Jim Burks Subject: Re: Performance of L.A. Cellular System Date: 3 Jun 1994 15:13:28 GMT Organization: The Promus Companies, Inc. In article , nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) says: > Er, cell sites are typically linked by land line to a central > site that controls the system. Only the last hop to the mobile phone > is radio. If you lose the link to the central site, even two phones > in the same cell can't talk. It's not a distributed system at all. Here in the Memphis area, most carriers link their cells with microwave links. Each tower has a horn pointed at another cell's tower, and the central site has horns going off in many directions. That still wouldn't replace the link from the central cell switch to the wireline telco. Jim Burks jburks@promus.com Database Administrator / Systems Engineer The Promus Companies, Inc. Memphis, TN USA http://stargate.promus.com/public/jbb.html ------------------------------ From: rlockhart@aol.com (RLockhart) Subject: Re: Recommendation For AlphaNumeric Paging Software Date: 1 Jun 1994 22:43:01 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) In article , david@stat.com (David Dodell) writes: > I'm always seeing inquiries about alpha numeric paging software for > PC's and would like to recommend a company that I have no connection > with. The software is called PopPage and sells for $19.95 SCSC's PopPage certainly works in a DOS environment, but there are quite a few other DOS alpha paging apps available ... and Windows ones and OS/2 ones and Mac ones and Unix ones and HP100 ones and Newton ones (hmm, those aren't shipping yet ... scratch that one ) and ... well, quite a few. If you're looking to compare what's in the market- place for alpha paging apps, app enablers, vertical market apps, information service providers, Internet paging gateways, and the like, try taking a look at our freebie Motorola Third Party Referral Guide to Alpha and Data Paging. It's available on some of the commercial services (e.g., CIS, AOL, AppleLink) in a Stuffed MacWord 5.1 file format. > They also make something called Interceptor - Digital Paging System > Analyzer but I do not know anything about this product. Interceptor is a bundled, PC-based hardware/software package that monitors the paging channel and decodes all the numeric and alpha paging information on the channel in real time. The purpose in using such an animal is to allow frame/channel optimization. Rob Lockhart, Resource Manager, Interactive Data Systems Paging Products Group, Motorola, Inc. Desktop I'net: lockhart-epag06_rob@email.mot.com Wireless I'net (<32K characters): rob_lockhart-erl003e@email.mot.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #268 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa15039; 4 Jun 94 0:15 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA02712; Fri, 3 Jun 94 13:35:25 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA02684; Fri, 3 Jun 94 13:35:22 CDT Date: Fri, 3 Jun 94 13:35:22 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406031835.AA02684@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #269 TELECOM Digest Fri, 3 Jun 94 13:35:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 269 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: 800 Number Billback (Paul S. Sawyer) Re: 800 Number Billback (Jonathan Loo) Re: Need Criteria for Choosing a Phone Number (Jack Brand) Re: Help With Northern Telecom Meridian System (budkafes@delphi.com) Re: Name and Address -> Long Distance Companies (Jonathan Loo) Re: Announcing New FCC BBS - FCC World (James Holland) Re: Box to Add Digits When Dialing (Russell Nelson) Largest Calling Areas (was Re: Itemized Billing in UK) (Brendan Jones) Re: Internet Through Local Cable TV Provider (Mike Perry) Re: S-s-s-stuttering Dial Tone Detection (John Costello) Re: Does MCI Transmit CNID? (Glen Roberts) Re: Help Needed: Fax/Answering Machine/Phone (Kathy Vincent) Re: Cordless Phone Wanted With Ten Mile Range (Les Reeves) Re: Internet Access at Home (Noel Moss) Re: British Call Forwarding in 1960s (Andrew C. Green) Re: Performance of L.A. Cellular System (Gerald Serviss) Seeking Bellcore CID Specifications (ivansoh@solomon.technet.sg) Re: Need Site Name for Bellcore Standards (Marty Lawlor) Re: Cellular Billing (Gregory Youngblood) Re: 716 Now Split Between 7D and 1 + 716 + 7D (Carl Moore) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: paul@senex.unh.edu (Paul S. Sawyer) Subject: Re: 800 Number Billback Date: 2 Jun 1994 15:49:29 GMT Organization: UNH Telecommunications and Network Services > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, another solution [...] > [...] If you have some way to insure that calls > to 800 numbers get routed over some minimum number of trunks, and always > the same trunks then get some el-cheapo call restrictors and add them to > those outgoing lines. [...] Load them with the dozen or two dozen > most commonly (ab)used 800 numbers, as noted in your personal copy of > {Rolling Stone} and/or {Penthouse} magazine. [...] > The best part of all will be the nitwits who come to you to report that > their phone (or your lines) must be 'out of order'. ... you will > innocently ask them what number they were attempting to reach so that > you can investigate the problem ... they'll tell you (or if they have > a few brains they will try to avoid telling you the exact number) and > you'll clean them out right on the spot. ... PAT] This is almost exactly how we operate, except that our switch handles the restrictions directly. New numbers keep appearing, though ... By the way, when someone calls one of these numbers belonging to an IP that HAS restricted our numbers (as we ask all of them), the message says something like "BECAUSE OF NON PAYMENT (or at your request) the number you have dialed can not be connected. Please try again from another phone". Paul S. Sawyer - University of New Hampshire CIS - Paul.Sawyer@UNH.Edu Telecommunications and Network Services VOX: +1 603 862 3262 50 College Road FAX: +1 603 862 2030 Durham, New Hampshire 03824-3523 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Jun 1994 20:42:57 -0400 From: Jonathan Subject: Re: 800 Number Billback If you call an 800 number with billback from a pay phone, then either the local telephone company or the owner of the property on which the telephone is located will have to pay for the call. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is generally correct. In cases of 'Genuine Bell' payphones, if the phone is installed on a 'semi-public' basis (meaning the proprietor of the establishment pays a fee for the phone to be there and gets no commission on calls made) then he is the subscriber; he gets stuck with those billback charges. On the other hand if the phone is 'public' (rather than 'semi-') the person on whose premises the phone is located receives a commission on usage and pays nothing for it to be there. In those cases, telco itself is technically the 'subscriber', and yes, they get the billback charges. But this only happens if somehow the phone was not listed in the database. When telco as the 'subscriber' in this instance refuses to pay the billback (and they always refuse to pay), then the phone is quickly added to the OAS's list of phones to which service is to be refused. PAT] ------------------------------ From: uswnvg!jlbrand@uunet.UU.NET (Jack Brand) Subject: Re: Need Criteria for Choosing a Phone Number Date: 02 Jun 94 23:46:46 GMT Organization: US West NewVector, Inc., Bellevue, WA In barry.s.rein@jpl.nasa.gov (Barry S. Rein) writes: > I'm looking for criteria on what makes a telephone number easy to > remember. Restaurants are supposedly willing to kill for a memorable > phone number, so I wonder if there is any research or recommendations > on how to select one, ie what combinations are remembered; what > combinations are most often mis-dialed, etc. One idea that works nicely is if your street address happens to be four digits long, get your last four digits of your phone number to match. Very convenient, especially for small children in the household who need to memorize their address/phone number. (We did, however, have to straighten them out when we realized they thought *everyone's* phone number was their address :-} ). jb ------------------------------ From: budkafes@delphi.com Subject: Re: Help With Northern Telecom Meridian System Date: Fri, 03 Jun 94 08:34:19 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Lance Ware writes: > 800 number into our system. Currently the line terminates at one > phone, and goes unanswered if the desk where the phone sits is vacant. Just input the CO line that goes to that phone into an unused if you have one CO port on your meridian systgem. You need to program that line to ring at the answering position. I'd be glad to help, how far are you from Baltimore, MD? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 15:33:45 -0400 From: Jonathan Subject: Re: Name and Address -> Long Distance Companies The editor of the TELECOM Digest wrote a note to the effect that my proposal to make customer name and address information confidential would prevent the publishing and use of telephone directories. I would like to clarify my point. I want to prohibit the publication of the names and addresses of customers with non-published numbers, and the addresses of customers with unlisted addresses. If the name and address are in the telephone book, then anybody can have access to them. I hope that people will also respect (and enforce) existing privacy laws. This should make my point clearer. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes it does make it clearer, however you must bear in mind that the criss-cross directory publishers rarely have non-pub numbers listed anyway. All they have to work with is what appears in the regular phone book, plus whatever they are able to pick up from other sources. Generally if you have a non-pub number you need not worry about being listed in a criss-cross book. Of course your neighbors *will* be listed, and it is the easiest thing in the world for someone to call your neighbors, claim to have an important reason to get in touch with you and have the neighbors inadvertently spill the beans by giving out your number to whoever asks on the phone. It happens all the time. PAT] ------------------------------ From: holland@perot.mtsu.edu (Mr. James Holland) Subject: Re: Announcing New FCC BBS - FCC World Date: 2 Jun 1994 19:26:04 -0500 Organization: Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee In avb@cais.com (FCC World) writes: > The Washington, DC telecommunications law firm of Smithwick & > Belendiuk proudly announces the launch of a new BBS -- FCC WORLD -- > featuring information on the Federal Communications Commission. We > feature FCC documents on-line (many you cannot find on Internet), > texts of important FCC Reports and decisions (IVDS, PCS Auction info -- > on-line now!), Forums on hot FCC issues, free Classified ads and more! > The best thing -- its free and without a daily time limit. Give it a > try at 202-887-5718 (14.4 baud)! Is there not a (modem reachable) service ran by the FCC where you can punch up a FCC ID number from a FCC Class B item and find out some info about it. I'd like to check on some off-shore PC's that I suspect aren't quite legit as far FCC Class B is concerned ... Thanks, James Holland holland@knuth.mtsu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Jun 94 23:10 EDT From: nelson@crynwr.com (Russell Nelson) Subject: Re: Box to Add Digits When Dialing mpinones@netmon.mty.itesm.mx (Marco A. Pinones) wrote: > I am looking for a box that could detect when digits are being dialed > and add some digits at the very beginning. You want a Mitel PAV+. You can call Mitel at +1-315-393-8000 and ask for the list of dialer distributors, or buy it from Dale Waton at 404-978-3426 with Hollis Group, cost me about $130. russ ftp.msen.com:pub/vendor/crynwr/crynwr.wav Crynwr Software 11 Grant St. +1 315 268 1925 (9201 FAX) Potsdam, NY 13676 ------------------------------ From: brendan@macadam.mpce.mq.edu.au (Brendan Jones) Subject: Largest Calling Areas (was Re: Itemized Billing in UK) Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 15:35:57 EST In article telecom14.250.3@eecs.nwu.edu, johns@scroff.UK (John Slater) wrote: > I believe Greater London is the largest geographic calling area in the world. Then you believe mistakenly! Australia has many calling areas larger than this. Much *much* larger! The largest calling area in Australia is the (089) zone which covers all of the Northern Territory and then some. It is about 1700 km N-S and about 900 km E-W in size, and has an area of approximately 1.55 *million* square kilometres, hence is about 6.5 times the size of the entire United Kingdom. The next largest is the (091) calling area in Western Australia, centred on Derby and occupying the northern 40% of that State. It has an area just over one million square kilometres. Despite these impressive sizes, they still may not be the largest in the World. If Greenland is one calling area, it would be larger still at about 2.2 million square kilometres. And what about possibly huge calling areas in the north of Canada? However, Australia should beat all of these by 1997. The current dialing plan reorganization in Australia will introduce eight digit local numbers and reduce the number of area codes from 54 to 4. These new area codes will dwarf the old ones in size. A new calling area will be created covering all of Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory, an area of 4.9 million square kilometres. *20* times the area of the United Kingdom or nearly 60% of the area of the United States. Brendan Jones (PhD Student) Email: brendan@mpce.mq.edu.au Electronics Department Voice: +61 2 850 9072 School of MPC&E Fax : +61 2 850 9128 Macquarie University Snail: +NSW 2109 AUSTRALIA ------------------------------ From: discover@halcyon.com (Mike Perry) Subject: Re: Internet Through Local Cable TV Provider Date: Fri, 03 Jun 1994 08:11:40 -0900 Organization: Discovery Institute, Seattle In article , linj@Texaco.COM (Jeff Lin) wrote: > Is it possible to get Internet connectivity through a local cable TV > provider? Has any cable TV provider around the country started (or > planned) this kind of service? > If this is possible, how does the bandwidth privided by a typical > local cable TV media compare with T1 and other media types? Technically, it's easy if the cable is two-way. Just use a chunk of unused spectrum. I believe there is a cable company on the east coast that has been providing HP employees with an ethernet connection to work this way. Intel and several other companies are also in the process of developing cable-tv modems that initially sell for about $500 but should quickly drop to under $200. That could give you an up to 10 megahertz connection. ------------------------------ From: jpc@mtrac.com Subject: Re: S-s-s-stuttering Dial Tone Detection Date: Fri, 03 Jun 94 11:32:43 PDT Organization: The Internet Access Company > Stretching my one phone line ever further, I'm considering getting > voicemail from our local telco. > My problem: I don't want to have to lift the handset to find out if I > have messages. Has someone come up with a box to sit on one's line > and detect this (and flash a lamp or something)? I believe the BelTronics Caller-ID unit also has a "MSG" display on the unit. You can get this unit at Lechmere. John Costello jpc@restrac.com ------------------------------ From: glr@ripco.com (Glen Roberts) Subject: Re: Does MCI Transmit CNID? Organization: RCI, Chicago, IL Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 16:16:54 GMT Eric R Sandeen (sandeen@kazoo.cecer.army.mil) wrote: > Does MCI transmit CNID? > I call from Champaign (IL) to Austin via MCI, and in Austin it says > "out of area." Anyone else have this problem? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It is not just MCI. I don't think any long > distance carrier at the present time would provide the CLID between those > points. PAT] I get CNID from Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, from people who, in those locations use WilTel as their long distance carrier. I am in Northern Illinois. (Remember, California is not even a caller-id state). Also, *67 before the number, does not block it from appearing on my box. I have get CNID from numerous other locations, but have not tracked it down as to carrier specifics. Dialing to Michigan from here, via WilTel, DOES NOT pass CNID. Glen L. Roberts, Publisher, Directory of Elect Surv Equip Suppliers Host Full Disclosure Live (WWCR 5,810 khz - Sundays 7pm central) Box 734, Antioch, Illinois 60002 Fax: (708) 838-0316 Surveillance Hotline: (708) 356-9646 Bust the Bureaucrats: (708) 356-6726 ------------------------------ From: vincentk@ac.wfunet.wfu.edu (Kathy Vincent) Subject: Re: Help Needed: Fax/Answering Machine/Phone Date: 3 Jun 1994 16:36:47 GMT Organization: Wake Forest University Steve Cogorno (cogorno@netcom.com) wrote: > Said by: Kathy Vincent >> 2. Can anyone recommend integrated equipment -- a three-in-one >> combination in which all THREE elements are quality? > Does she have a computer? I have a modem that is made by Promethus > Products, called the Ultima Home Office. It integrates 14,400 bps Alas, the computer is otherwise occupied in another room in the house. She's been thinking about getting a computer of her own, though, so that's one approach to consider. Thanks, Kathy ------------------------------ From: lreeves@crl.com (Les Reeves) Subject: Re: Cordless Phone Wanted With Ten Mile Range Date: 2 Jun 1994 09:53:26 -0700 Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access (415) 705-6060 [login: guest] Tawfig Al-Rabiah (tawfig@cs.pitt.edu) wrote: > Do you know who sells this type of phones? I need to get one to use > overseas. If you really are going to use it overseas, you should get in touch with TeleDynamics in Austin, TX. 800 847 5629 or 512 928 1533 They carry the SuperFone long range cordless by Tamagawa. They show various models with ranges of 4 km to 70 km. BTW, the TeleDynamics catalog has lots of really cool stuff, at very good prices. Les lreeves@crl.com Atlanta,GA 404.874.7806 ------------------------------ From: nmoss@slacc.com Subject: Re: Internet Access at Home Organization: SLACC STACK BBS - St. Louis, Missouri Date: Fri, 03 Jun 94 11:58:38 CST In V14, #263, Laurence Chiu wrote about his cost for SLIP access at 14.4 Kbps dialup. He estimates a cost of about $90/month for 7x24 service. This is realistic. Washington University in St. Louis has 7X24 dialup SLIP access in the $1200 - $1500 per year range, if I recall their rate schedule correctly. The system on which I access Internet uses the university's 7x24 dialup UUCP access at $360 per year. Best regards, Noel Moss ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 12:24:22 CDT From: Andrew C. Green Subject: Re: British Call Forwarding in 1960s Randall Gellens (RANDY@MPA15AB.mv-oc.Unisys.COM) writes: > He picks up his phone [...] and dials three digits. He says > "Operator? This is WHitehall xxxx. My name is John Steed. I will > be away for the next three weeks. Please forward my calls to the > usual number." > What sort of call-forwarding was offered by British Telecom in the > 1960s? At the risk of over-analyzing a fictional scene, I get the impression he wasn't speaking to the telephone company operator, but to some sort of government operator at the other end of a private line. I base this conclusion on the fact that he dialed only three digits (I would have expected contemporary numbers in the London area to be at least five), and referred to his own number as "Whitehall", an inspired (if not fictitious) choice for a British government phone network prefix. Had he called whatever the local equivalent of 611 was (for repair or some other service), I don't think he would have addressed the other party as "Operator". Just my tuppence, of course ... Andrew C. Green (312) 266-4431 Datalogics, Inc. Internet: acg@dlogics.com 441 W. Huron Chicago, IL 60610-3498 FAX: (312) 266-4473 ------------------------------ From: serviss@tazdevil.cig.mot.com (Gerald Serviss) Subject: Re: Performance of L.A. Cellular System Date: 3 Jun 1994 17:35:12 GMT Organization: Cellular Infrastructure Group, Motorola In article (John Nagle) writes: > Er, cell sites are typically linked by land line to a central > site that controls the system. Only the last hop to the mobile phone > is radio. If you lose the link to the central site, even two phones > in the same cell can't talk. It's not a distributed system at all. Some of what you say is true but, we have many customers that exclusively use microwave systems to haul the cell to switch traffic. In addition we have customers that use a combination of microwave and leased land circuits to haul the traffic. Both of these methods can provide improved reliability in the event of an outage and are fairly common. It is of course possible for an earthquake to take out the microwave towers and then you are sunk. Most cellular systems are distributed computing systems, there are processors and databases in the cells and the switches. This is my definition of a distributed system You are correct in the assertion that two mobiles in the same cell do not make a path connect thru the cell. That is what the switch is for :). I am not aware of any commercial cellular system that has a distributed switching architecture. Jerry Serviss Motorola Inc serviss@cig.mot.com ------------------------------ From: ivansoh@solomon.technet.sg Subject: Bellcore CID Specifications Wanted Date: 3 Jun 1994 17:47:18 GMT Organization: Technet, Singapore Can anyone tell me the document number for the specs. for Caller ID protocol and how I can obtain them from Bellcore (Fax/Tel and Address please). Thanks, Ivan ------------------------------ From: mel@cci.com (Marty Lawlor) Subject: Re: Need Site Name for Bellcore Standards Organization: Northern Telecom Inc., NAS Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 16:21:01 GMT In article , Kevin Hanson wrote: > Does anyone know if there is an ftp site where I can find Bellcore > documents? Specifically I am looking for the Common Language Code set > (CLLI, CLFI, etc) plus any TL-1 documentation that may be available. Bellcore does not offer an ftp site of fulltext documents; they do allow telnet access to a database of document abstracts. Once you find the documents, you need to order them from Bellcore. To access the abstracts database, telnet to "info.bellcore.com" and login as "cat10". To order docs, call 800-521-CORE. Marty Lawlor Northern Telecom mel@cci.com ------------------------------ From: zeta@tcscs.com (Gregory Youngblood) Subject: Re: Cellular Billing Date: Fri, 03 Jun 1994 08:20:00 PST Organization: The Complete Solution > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: However John, why aren't cellular carriers > treated like any other telco or long distance carrier for the purpose of > intercompany billings and settlements. When we call between a telco one > place and some other telco elsewhere via a long distance carrier, the > whole thing is very transparent to the caller/called party. As we have > discussed in the 'combined billing' thread recently, you can write one > check to the telco and be done with it for all anyone cares. Why are > the cellular companies not part of the process as a routine thing? PAT] Specifically because the cellular carriers are not connected with the telcos in such a way to allow that to happen. For the most part, each cellular carrier has their own switch, which ties into a telco at some point to process calls into the landline phone system. There is no data communication between cellular switches and telco switches. There is work being done on connecting cellular switches together nationwide, and it is coming, and from what I understand some are also working on connecting into the landline phone system in a similar way. The problem stems from how calls are processed. For instance, incoming calls might come over a T1 span, a circuit is selected, the appropriate signalling starts and MF or DTMF (usually MF) tones are sent down the circuit with the terminating number (in this case, a cellular phone). The originating number (the land line) is never identified. _IF_ the billing were setup to allow for this, an agreement was reached with landline telco to work this way, and the originating party were identified, then it would seem possible to run off a billing tape for the telco for incoming calls, much the same way that tapes are run off for roaming partners ... but that's a lot of IFs. As to why ... the cellular carrier (in its infancy) was making money on airtime. It was easier to set up and maintain the system so that the cellular user paid for his airtime, whether incoming or outgoing. Some carriers have various programs where calls to certain numbers are free, or calls forwarded to another number don't receive charges, or calls to voice mail aren't charged. Some don't. It depends on where you're located. I know at one place, Omaha I believe it was, they had a great deal (expensive, for it could have been a great deal ... it was for the taxi driver). $239 for as much airtime as you wanted ... no per minute charges. He had one number ... his cellular, and forwarded it to wherever he was. I know of other people that do similar things because forwarded calls are not charged (except for LD if they are LD). Have the phone in the car (or in the shirt pocket) when they got to the office, they'd forward it to their office. When they got home, they'd forward it to home. Since forwarded calls were not charged any incoming/outgoing minutes it didn't cost them any extra, and their business cards were much simpler. Phone and Fax. :) By the same token, I know of some carriers that used to (I don't know if they still do) charge forwarded calls double. Incoming AND outgoing minutes. Greg ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Jun 94 20:57:42 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: 716 Now Split Between 7D and 1 + 716 + 7D I have been assuming statewide uniformity in these dialing changes, and this is the first I have heard of a split of this nature. Before there were N0X/N1X prefixes or NNX area codes to consider, there were indeed some splits in dialing methods, including in Maryland, where I am now. A Maryland motel I stayed in even had a card on the telephone stand saying that all of Maryland now (it was referring to late 1987 and afterwards) was dialing its long distance the same way; N0X/N1X prefixes had become necessary due to DC area shortage. The idea does indeed exist that 1 + NPA + 7D should be useable for any call within country code 1. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #269 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa15199; 4 Jun 94 0:30 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA00546; Fri, 3 Jun 94 15:45:50 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA00459; Fri, 3 Jun 94 15:45:47 CDT Date: Fri, 3 Jun 94 15:45:47 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406032045.AA00459@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #270 TELECOM Digest Fri, 3 Jun 94 15:45:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 270 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Lower Domestic Telephone Rates (Todd Anderson) Re: Training Needed on AT&T PBX Architecture (rkprkp@aol.com) Re: AT&T Divestiture Comments Wanted (rkprkp@aol.com) Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway (Daryl R. Gibson) Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway (David H. Close) Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway (Carl Moore) Re: LD Carrier's Message Delivery Service (Jonathan Loo) Re: Cost of Caller ID in PA (Steven Bradley) Seeking Switching Classes For Employees (Robin Griswold) Re: ETSI Contact (Bob Shaw) Re: Performance of L.A. Cellular System (Sam Spens Clason) Re: 716 Now Split Between 7D and 1 + 716 + 7D (James H. Cloos Jr.) Re: Interactive "Voice Mail" System For PC? (David H. Close) How Are 800 Numbers Billed? (David Wuertele) Personal 800 Number Availbility (William Y. Lai) Re: What's a 1A3B? (John Zambito) Last Laugh! Re: Please Explain Term 'Steaming Terminal' (rkprkp@aol.com) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: tjaiz@char.vnet.net (Todd Anderson) Subject: Re: Lower Domestic Telephone Rates Date: 3 Jun 1994 10:57:28 -0400 Organization: Vnet Internet Access, Inc. - Charlotte, NC. (704) 374-0779 National Information Systems (nis@netcom.com) wrote: > Does anyone know of a company that shops for low telephone rates for > you? > For the last five years, we've changed phone companies every year. > Each time we sign up for low rates in one area we're calling to but > the other areas are very expensive. > We use the telephones for tele-sales and heavy outgoing FAXes. I've > heard there are small, independent telephone consultants that can mix > and match the best rates into a coherent package deal. We're looking > for something customized to us. > Has anyone ever heard of this? Dave, From your post I would guess that your company has switched phone companies yearly amongst the big three [AT&T, MCI, Sprint] perhaps in response to their intense telemarketing market share battle. They advertise and give you one low rate on interstate, intrastate, intraLATA, or 800+ traffic, and stick it to you in other areas. There are utility bill audit consultants that check your phone or electricity bill for incorrect tariff assignments to services, overbilling, etc. and split the savings with you for their fee. They usually don't sell alternative long distance services. You should definitely consider a full service Long Distance Reseller. In the wake of deregulation of the telephone industry, long distance has effectively become commoditized. There are a wide spectrum of long distance providers, some solely purchase large blocks of long distance time and resell them to smaller users, some companies are regional providers in that they have hardware [switches, fiberoptics, microwave lines] that augment their service to national coverage by purchasing long distance minutes from the big three and other regional providers. There are legions of independent sales agents reselling long distance for these resellers, untold MLM schemes, and many competitive legitimate viable resellers. Check out Discount Long Distance Digest by emailing Van Hefner, moderator at vantek@aol.com as an excellent resource. The big three have engaged in such an expensive advertising war to capture business as of late requiring them to raise prices in an lock-step oligarchical fashion- 3.6% rate hike in January; AT&T and MCI just imposed another 4% rate hike June 1. Choosing an appropriate reseller for you phone services can definitely save you money. I am researching a start-up of reselling long-distance services in NC/SC and see a definite niche of opportunity to provide discount LD to small-medium companies with phone bills insufficient to garnish much attention from the big three. We aim to provide a comprehensive line of quality long distance products from the major providers coupled with the attentive customer service of small company. Email me if you have other questions. Regards, Todd Anderson ------------------------------ From: rkprkp@aol.com (RKPRKP) Subject: Re: Training Needed on AT&T PBX Architecture Date: 3 Jun 1994 12:11:02 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Sorry no help but I do sympathize. We sell Northern Telecom PBXs and NT makes all its architecture, installation, and maintenance courses available to customers. Keep hammering on AT&T and maybe they will too. Maybe someday when you start replacing switches ...? ------------------------------ From: rkprkp@aol.com (RKPRKP) Subject: Re: AT&T Divestiture Comments Wanted Date: 3 Jun 1994 12:24:04 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) I lived through it and survived! If you want a great book on the subject, I recommend "The Deal of the Century" by Steve Coll. The chapter on "bloody limbs" is incredible. It is a behind the scenes story of all the wheeling and dealing that went on behind the scenes at ATT and DOJ leading to the divestiture agreement. Great reading for anyone interested. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 03 Jun 1994 10:28:31 -0700 (MST) From: Daryl R. Gibson Subject: Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway Ah, but Pat, if you reform the postal service, you're going to have to find some other jobs for the illiterate ... I guess "postal service" is an oxymoron, isn't it? Daryl (801) 478-2950 (801) 489-6348 drg@du1.byu.edu 71171.2036@compuserve.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, I think it was more appropriate when the agency was called the "Post Office". PAT] ------------------------------ From: dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu (David H. Close) Subject: Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway Date: 3 Jun 1994 05:02:17 GMT Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena dos@spam.wdns.wiltel.com (Dave O'Shea) writes: > (Sarcasm intended. I drop by the post office weekly to give them the > mail that has been delivered to me, though it is addressed to people > sometimes near, sometimes far. And exchanging mis-delivered mail is a > great way to meet the neighbors.) We all get mis-delivered mail; the more valid mail I get, the more likely other pieces get included. It does sometimes help to complain to the local supervisor about a particularly inept carrier. My complaint lately is about the USPS inability to interpret its own addresses. I sent a letter last week to XXX, CA 917XX-YYYY. This was one of those PO boxes which have their own unique zip code. The address could have been PO BOX XXYYYY, CCC, CA 917XX-YYYY, but obviously the PO BOX line is totally redundant and I omitted it. The letter was returned marked "insufficient address". When I complained to the local supervisor, his response was "you didn't include the box number; I don't see it." Sometimes this does work, though. Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa you dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu dave@compata.ccss.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I've received letters addressed to me only as '60690-1570' and nothing else on the envelope. It should work, but as you point out, some postal workers will contend that the box number is missing. :) PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jun 94 9:47:35 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway What sort of mixup would cause something to PO box 10003 in zipcode 60610 to be delivered to PO box 1570, zipcode 60690? Common arguments against privatization of the mail: the private firms would snap up the most profitable routes, and leave the rest to the public agency. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, I left out part of the story I guess. In addition to Box 1570 I also have Box 1003 at the same post office. The one is more personal mail while the other is more business stuff. Most post offices use the last two digits of the zip code as the first two digits of the box numbers; therefore boxes at Ft. Dearborn Station (60610) are really 10xxx or 10xxxx, with zeros used as filler when needed. So Box 3 there becomes Box 10003 when writing to it. The only exceptions to this here are 60680/60690. These are the real old, original post offices here; they still use box numbers without reference to the zip code on the front. I used to see the guy who had Box 1 at 60690 all the time when I went to get my mail. He had the box for fifty years or so and his correct address was , Box 1, Chicago 60690. Now whenever any very low number boxes become available -- not often, because the box holders hang on to them -- usually some worker at the post office grabs it for himself and his personal mail. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 15:51:32 -0400 From: Jonathan Subject: Re: LD Carrier's Message Delivery Service C&P Telephone, a Bell Atlantic Company, used to have a service called Send-A-Call that worked like a message-delivery service. It worked from pay phones and cost 50 cents. The service sometimes did not work as intended, and would activate when it was not supposed to and interfere with people's conversations. It also lost money. Bell Atlantic is now in the process of removing Send-A-Call. ------------------------------ From: steven@sgb.oau.org (Steven Bradley) Subject: Re: Cost of Caller ID in PA Organization: The Forest City Exchange, Forest City, Florida Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 00:00:26 GMT Greg Vaeth at Jerrold Communications (gvaeth@netcom.com) wrote: > An insert in my latest bill contained a notice that Bell Atlantic will > offer Caller ID in Pennsylvania in August. The cost for residential > customers is $6.50/month, business is $8.50. Call blocking and > anonymous call rejection are free. This charge seem outrageous > considering that the equipment to do it is already there, right? How > else does return call, repeat call and all that stuff work. How does > this rate compare to other states? For residences ... In Central Florida it's $7/month in Southern Bell territory (with same option as you listed) if you also want name delivery as well as number. Also in Southern Bell territory you can have it for $5/month without name (number only) and without the extras you listed above (available at extra cost, so high it's cheaper to take name delivery and not use it). In Sprint/United (yes, that is a long distance carrier OWNing a local telephone company, you are NOT seeing things!), it's $7/month, number only, name supposed to be available in the future, in FEW areas it is already available. No difference in costs without name. No anonymous call blocking unless you buy a box that automatically does it for you (non phone company supplied). As per fee, you forgot the cost of the card they have to install which includes a 1200 bps modem on it to delivery the service. That modem section is NOT needed on the other services you mentioned. Its good to see they finally had common sense in PA. Internet: steven@sgb.oau.org Steven G. Bradley steven@gate.net Forest City, Florida GEnie: s.bradley6@genie.geis.com CompuServe: 73232.505@compuserve.com Phone: 407/862-7226 America Online: sgbradley@aol.com Modem: 407/862-8088 ------------------------------ From: iphase!iex.iex.com!robin@uunet.UU.NET Subject: Seeking Switching Classes For Employees Organization: IEX Corporation Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 17:36:16 GMT I am posting this for a friend who is interested in her company attending classes on switching or indepth telecommunications. I was not sure where to post this but we do not know of any classes and didn't know if anyone might be aware of any being offered for attending by people not associated with any vendors. If you have any information please email me or call Sherry Dotson at 214-550-0900. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Robin Griswold [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Robin, I know that Berkeley has a large number of continuing education classes on telecommunications stuff. Their announcements about these classes appear all the time here in the Digest. Jane Frazer in Ohio also used to send quite a bit of stuff about continuing education classes at the University there. Maybe someone in Texas or near you will submit information about this in your area. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 03 Jun 1994 13:55:10 CET From: SHAW +41 22 730 5338 Subject: Re: ETSI Contact perdigot@hp_1.dee.uc.pt (Joao Perdigoto) wrote: > Does anyone knows if ETSI has an ftp site available? ETSI does not have an FTP site. Currently you can contact them electronically only via X.400 but SMTP mail support is planned for the near future. Their email address is: S=helpdesk; P=etsi; A=atlas; C=fr Insert the surname of anyone you know at ETSI in place of 'helpdesk' above to reach ETSI staff. ETSI's other contact info is: European Telecommunications Standards Institute Route des Lucioles Bote postale 152 Sophia Antipolis 06561 VALBONNE CEDEX France Telephone +33 92 94 42 00 Telex 042 470040 f Fax +33 93 65 47 16 et +33 93 65 28 17 Hope this helps, Bob Shaw Information Services Department ITU [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is just a quick reminder to our readers that ITU partially funds this Digest with a generous monthly stipend as part of their information services. If you have not yet sent them a note of thanks for their support, I wish you would do so today. See the masthead of this issue for details. PAT] ------------------------------ From: d92-sam@dront.nada.kth.se (Sam Spens Clason) Subject: Re: Performance of L.A. Cellular System Date: 3 Jun 1994 17:25:58 GMT Organization: The Royal Institute of Technology In nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) writes: > Er, cell sites are typically linked by land line to a central > site that controls the system. Only the last hop to the mobile phone > is radio. If you lose the link to the central site, even two phones > in the same cell can't talk. It's not a distributed system at all. Not necessarily, it might run on microwave radiolinks. The advantage to landlines is that you don't have to rely on a (sometimes) competitor. But as John says, if a base station isn't connected with the net, it wont work. Sam Spens Clason, Web ------------------------------ From: James.Cloos@Rahul.NET (James H. Cloos Jr.) Subject: Re: 716 Now Split Between 7D and 1 + 716 + 7D Organization: a2i network Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 06:37:04 GMT "ScottF" == Scott D Fybush writes: > NYNEX/NY announced today that its portion of 716 in Western NY > will use 1 + 716 + 7D for LD within the area code. This is > apparently a change from the previously-announced 7D dialing. > It is also in conflict with the Rochester Tel half of 716, > which as far as I know is sticking with 7D. > Are any other NPAs split in dialing methods like this? In the Buffalo LATA, Dunkirk & Fredonia Tel has announced 7D for Intra-NPA dialing. As I recall, the announcement indicated that 1 + 716 + 7D will not be supported. Previously 1 + 7D was standard, and 1 + 716 + 7D at least used to work, bypassing the checks for toll blocking in the process. (Unintentionally discovered. I'd forgotten that inter- LATA was 1 + 7D and when my mother asked me why she couldn't get thru to a hospital in Buffalo to check on her aunt, I replied something to the effect of: `You have to dial the area code when calling LD.' :-) I've heard that the other independents in the Buffalo LATA also announced 7D, but cannot I cannot confirm this. (There are at least two or three other independents, although D&F may be the only one in Chautauqua county to still be locally owned.) James H. Cloos, Jr. James.Cloos@Rahul.NET (cloos@io.com) Snail: POBox 1111, Amherst, NY 14226-1111 Finger for pgp pub key. Phone: +1 716 673-1250 (machine now; fax eventually) ------------------------------ From: dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu (David H. Close) Subject: Re: Interactive "Voice Mail" System For PC? Date: 3 Jun 1994 04:52:44 GMT Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena Paul A. Lee writes: > A typical voice port board will cost from US$500 to US$1500. You can also buy an ZyXEL modem with built-in codec and DTMF decoder. With it you get, no charge but no support, source code for a PC-voice mailbox system. Try info@zyxel.com or tech@zyxel.com. Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu dave@compata.ccss.com ------------------------------ From: dave@sparc4-5.gctech.co.jp (Dave) Subject: How Are 800 Numbers Billed? Organization: Graphic Communications Laboratories (GCL) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 06:59:24 GMT I am interested in finding out how much 800 numbers cost, and how they are installed. I'm contemplating a voicemail application that users would use 1-800-something to access, and I'm trying to get an idea how these systems are set up. 1. How much does the 800 service cost per call received? 2. How does zone (local or long-distance) of call affect price? 3. How many calls can be received at once? (Is there even a limit?) 4. If a single 800 number is receiving 20-100 calls per minute, what kind of PBX <-> Telco connection is necessary? And most importantly, 5. Is there a book or something where I can read about all this? Thanks, David Wuertele ------------------------------ From: William Y. Lai Subject: Personal 800 Number Availbility Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 14:55:25 EDT A while back I remember that several LD companies were offering plans for personal 800 numbers. Does anyone know of availaibility/details of these plans today? Thanks, email: lai@seas.gwu.edu Dept. of Electrical Eng. George Washington Univ. Washington, D.C. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: They are all over the place. Almost every carrier I can think of offers some form of 800 service for small users such as in residential settings. Some have much better deals than others in my opinion. Cable and Wireless is one of the best. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jvz@pt.com (John Zambito) Subject: Re: What's a 1A3B? Organization: Performance Technologies, Incorporated Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 18:35:17 GMT varney@uscbu.ih.att.com (Alan Leon Varney) writes: > It's no distinction, except in areas quickly going to digital COs. > The "1A3B" is really a 1A ESS(tm) switch with an Attached Processor > System (APS) controlled by a 3B20 Duplex(tm) processor. The 3B20D > supplies the switch with backup disk storage, and possibily other > services such as SS7. Ya gotta love this Internet! Since you're "in the know," how about giving us a summary of the switches AT&T has offered over the years. How about starting with a simple question. What does ESS stand for? John Zambito, Performance Technologies Incorporated jvz@pt.com 315 Science Parkway, Rochester, New York 14620 uupsi!ptsys1!jvz [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: ESS = Electronic Switching System. So named because the telephone exchanges of the past were electro-mechanical in operation. This acronym along with lots of others which puzzle readers from time to time can be looked up in our interative glossary program at the Telecom Archives. If you can use anonymous ftp, then access the archives and pull the glossary files to your site. If you don't have anonymous ftp (or prefer to just look up single entries) you can do so using the Telecom Archives Email Information Service. You need to get the help file for this (just write and ask if you need a copy) and the command to use is GLOSSARY , where is the abbreviation or acronym you are inquiring about. If you send email to the archives in the required format (see the help file) you will get back email giving the definition or meaning of the term(s) you specified. It is fun to use, even if I do say so myself having written the script used to process GLOSSARY and SEARCH requests. Oh yes, you can also search for subject titles and author names in back issues of the Digest, going back to 1989 using the SEARCH command in the same way. Just write and ask for the help file if you do not already have a copy. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rkprkp@aol.com (RKPRKP) Subject: Last Laugh! Re: Please Explain the Term 'Steaming Terminal' Date: 3 Jun 1994 11:59:05 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) In article , dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) writes: Steaming Terminal is a common term for the situation which arises when a terminal user spills their coffee or coke into the ventilating slits on top of the terminal casing. In such an instance, there is usually a large "ssssspppppppphhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiittttttzzzzzzzing" sound followed by a cloud of steam which is formed as the liquid beverage finds it's way to the power supply of the terminal. This phenoma has also occured in several fraternity houses when a drunken greek has attempted to urinate on live terminal or PC. In many cases, the "steaming terminal" will be accompanied by a "screaming frat rat" as the electricity races up the urine stream and into the student's private parts. Hope this helps. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It is an urban legend, and nothing but an urban legend that a homeless man here in Chicago once died from electrocution after urinating on the third (electrified) rail of the subway tracks. According to the legend, police found his body in the subway tunnel, mangled after having been struck by a moving train and with 'electrical burn marks' in the aforementioned area, leading the police to speculate on exactly what must have taken place. However it is true that liquids hot and cold can and do get spilled in awkward places. I am reminded of what happened to me long ago. Readers of several years here know that when I was in high school I had a part-time job working at the University of Chicago in the telephone room. I worked weekend afternoons and a couple of evenings per week. During the summer I worked full time hours. I guess I was 16 years old; this was in the summer between my junior and senior years in high school. A hot -- very hot -- Sunday afternoon in August, 1959, about three in the afternoon. I came sashaying into the phone room, annoyed at having to leave the beach to come to work. With a package of Pall Mall cigarettes in one hand and a large container of Pepsi-Cola in the other, I sat down at the position where I usually worked. The woman I relieved was glad to see me, said "hi" and "bye" in the same breath and split. During the summer when school was out, and especially on weekends in the summer the campus was deserted so only one person was needed in the phone room on the afternoon/evening shift. I had been working maybe ten minutes when I reached across the switchboard to grab a pad of paper I needed to use and splash! Over went the large, half-full container of Pepsi ... all down through the keys in the switch- board ... phzzzz ... fizzz ... pop ... all of a sudden the switchboard was lighting up all over, no one was on any lines, the cross talk was something else to hear ... I grabbed some rags and started furiously cleaning up what I could but by that time much of the liquid had dribbled down inside the operator's console with the switchboard continuing to buzz and hiss at me, lights flashing off and on everywhere in front of me. I evacuated myself at that point to a position further down the line (in those days U of C had a sixteen-position manual cord board) and resumed handling calls, and I also put in a call to repair service on '611'. All I told the repair clerk was that 'something seems to have gone wrong with the switchboard ...' and the clerk put me on hold a couple minutes. A man came on the line and said he would be out there in a few minutes. Well sure enough, about fifteen minutes later a man from IBT repair at the 'Kenwood Bell' office came in. I was working at the other end of the room at that point trying hard to act as innocent as I could. The guy sat there at the switchboard, opened it up and looked inside the console. Giving a sigh, he went and got an electric heater, sat it there and started drying out the insides. As that was going on he had a little tool of some kind and was picking at the wires and the connections, using a cloth to dry things out. This guy sat there for two hours, from about 4:30 on Sunday afternoon until about 6:30 .. and he never said a word to me ... just sat there with his little metal picking tool, his rag, a brush and other stuff. I thought it wise to keep my distance and sit elsewhere *without* anything to drink in my vicinity. Finally he put the whole thing back together and packed up his stuff and he asked me what happened. "I dunno," I told him, "I guess 'something' must have gotten spilled in there,". "Well, whatever it was," he said, "it had sugar in it. I wish it had been a glass of water instead of all that sticky stuff." He said nothing for a minute as he reflected on it, then he said, "You know, if I were to call Mrs. Leyden (the phone room supervisor) tomorrow and tell her about this, *someone* would probably get fired ...". Well, bless him, he never did say anything to Mrs. Leyden or anyone else about it for that matter, but that particular switchboard position never did work right after that. It worked, but the action was always a little funny compared to the other positions, and cross-talk on the extensions served from that position was sometimes present. A day or two later, another operator who sat at that position most of the time complained she did not like it any longer and moved somewhere else. Yes, remember to always keep beverages out of reach. Trouble is most of us have to learn the hard way; I know I did. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #270 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa16933; 4 Jun 94 3:24 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA22816; Sat, 4 Jun 94 00:28:06 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA22807; Sat, 4 Jun 94 00:28:04 CDT Date: Sat, 4 Jun 94 00:28:04 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406040528.AA22807@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #271 TELECOM Digest Sat, 4 Jun 94 00:28:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 271 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: "A DOS User's Guide to the Internet" by Gardner (Rob Slade) ISDN PRI Problem (Matt Monsoor) Bell Science Series (Ken Jongsma) Need Book of Standard Telco Symbols and Icons (James D. Murray) Answering Machine Recommendations? (John O'Shaughnessy) Country and Area Codes on PC Software (J.J. Fai) Call Progress Modems (Bob Heath) Seeking Answering Machine With Voice Mail (Norman R. Nithman) Re: Cellular Privacy? (Steven Bradley) Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" (Ken Stone) Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" (bluewtr!tom@orca.mbari.org) Re: 716 Now Split Between 7D and 1 + 716 + 7D (John Robert Grout) Re: Help: Bad Phone Lines in San Jose (Terry Greenlee) Re: How to Get White Pages Data From GTE? (bkron@netcom.com) Re: Performance of L.A. Cellular System (Dan Matte) Re: Government Regulates Modem Redial Attempts (Gordon Burditt) Re: What Did You Have For Dinner Today? (Paul A. Lee) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 03 Jun 1994 13:49:46 MDT From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "A DOS User's Guide to the Internet" by Gardner BKDOSINT.RVW 940308 Prentice Hall 113 Sylvan Avenue Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 (515) 284-6751 FAX (515) 284-2607 phyllis@prenhall.com 70621.2737@CompuServe.COM Alan Apt Beth Mullen-Hespe beth_hespe@prenhall.com Mortice Kern Systems Inc. 35 King Street North Waterloo, Ontario N2J 2W9 (519) 884-2251 inquiry@mks.com 73260.1043@compuserve.com Fax: (519) 884-8861 "A DOS User's Guide to the Internet", Gardner, 1994, 0-13-106873-3, This title is almost completely misleading. This book is not for DOS users, except that you must be running DOS to run the MKS UUCP for DOS programs for which this book is a manual. This book is also not about the Internet, as such. Both the specifics and the concepts refer to UUCP rather than the Internet. The text of the book does point out that there are differences, but the examples given relate to UUCP. That said, for those who are interested in making their first move to a direct Internet connection, this could be an excellent choice. UUCP was designed to be quite comfortable with dialup connections, and this book, and associated programs, help to automate a number of the connection functions while freeing the user from much of the technical detail that TCP/IP requires. Mail and news are basically the same and file transfer can be explored later when a dedicated connection is available or desirable. Given the author's residence in Canada, the US-centrism of the Internet Provider/Service supplier list is all the more disappointing. In truth, any Internet connected UNIX site should do you. (Perhaps even a fellow DOS user running MKS UUCP.) There could also be a bit more detail on how to configure the remote site, although someone at the remote system should be able to help you. This is not an Internet book: it is a niche market, plug and manual for MKS software. However, given the current interest in the Internet and the limited supply of "plug and play" connectivity solutions, this is worth serious consideration. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKDOSINT.RVW 940303. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated news groups/mailing lists. Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca Institute for Robert_Slade@sfu.ca Research into rslade@cue.bc.ca User p1@CyberStore.ca Security Canada V7K 2G6 ------------------------------ From: monsoor@nextnet.ccs.csus.edu (Matt Monsoor) Subject: ISDN PRI Problem Date: 3 Jun 1994 23:44:45 GMT Organization: California State University Sacramento We have an AT&T Definity Switch, G3RV2.2, and are trying to connect an Ascend Communications, Inc., Ascend "Classic" Multiband using ISDN PRI. The Ascend "Classic" work's using it on a normal T1 with inband signaling, etc but when we set up both the AT&T Switch and the Ascend to ESF, B8ZS, with the D-Channel set for channel 24 it fails. What we see is a level 3 failure. The Switch does not see the D-Channel from the Multiband and the Multiband does not see the Switch's D-Channel. If anyone has a AT&T G3R Switch, access to Switch administration, is using an Ascend Multiband, and ISDN PRI We would like to compare notes. Email me at monsoor@csus.edu with a phone number and I will contact you as soon as I can. Thanks in advance. Matthew G. Monsoor USMAIL: 6000 J st., Sacramento, Ca 95819-6091 (916) 278-6288 Internet: monsoor@csus.edu pager: (916) 328-8913 Packet: n6zsk@km6px.#NOCAL.CA.USA.NA ------------------------------ From: Jongsma, Ken Subject: Bell Science Series Date: Fri, 03 Jun 94 16:07:00 PDT A while back, we were discussing the old Bell Science Series movies that many of us watched in grade and high school science class some years ago. I recently received a video catalog that has four of these movies listed! Hemo the Magnificent Our Mr. Sun About Time and Gateway to the Mind are all available from Time Warner Viewer's Edge for $9.49 each. Each movie is about 1 hour long. The first two were written, directed and produced by Frank Capra. The catalog does not list a non 800 voice number, but it does have a FAX number: Time Warner Viewer's Edge PO Box 3925 Milford, CT 06460 (800) 224-9944 (Voice) (203) 876-8234 (FAX) Enjoy! ------------------------------ From: jdm@netcom.com (James D. Murray) Subject: Need Book of Standard Telco Symbols and Icons Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 22:00:03 GMT I need a book that lists commonly used/understood symbols found in the telco and telecommunications world. I've been thumbing through Bellcore's Catalog of Technical Information, but haven't found such reference yet. A source at Alcatel indicated to me that an AT&T document containing such information, but could give me no leads. Any references would be greatly appreciated, James D. Murray, Software Engineer PairGain Technologies Cerritos, CA Voice: 310.404.8811 x540 Fax: 310.407.5274 James D. Murray POB 70 Tel: 714.288.0141 jdm@netcom.com Orange, CA 92666 USA Fax: 310.407.5274 ------------------------------ From: John O'Shaughnessy Subject: Answering Machine Recommendations Wanted Date: Fri, 3 Jun 94 17:22:47 CDT Our four year old AT&T answering machine seems to have spun it's last capstan into the dirt. I assume that a machine that was purchased for $70.00 would cost more than $50.00 to have repaired, so I'm in the market for a new answering machine. The features I'm looking for include: * Time & Date stamp * Remote access * VOX activated/unlimited incoming call length * High Quality What machines would TELECOM Digest readers recommend? Which machines/ brands should be avoided? Thanks, John O'Shaughnessy ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 20:45:30 -0400 From: JJ Fai Subject: Country and Area Codes on PC Software PC's, the great communicators, don't even provide us with basic information that we can use, such as country codes and area codes for leading cities around the world. As a new subscriber, I wonder whether there is a .DBF, .CSV, .TXT or other generally compatible databse available that lists this vital information. Even my little Psion 3A palmtop has country and area codes built-in, yet the leading PIM's and database programs for DOS and Windows ignore them. If such a database has not yet been compiled and been made widely available, it's about time that we fill the glaring gap. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Check out the country.codes directory in the Telecom Archives, and also the areacodes directory. You should find quite a bit of information there. Anonymous ftp lcs.mit.edu. PAT] ------------------------------ From: bobheath@aol.com (BobHeath) Subject: Call Progress Modems Date: 3 Jun 1994 19:27:07 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Does anyone know of any modems that provides call progress features? Thanks, Bob ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jun 94 13:09:05 CDT From: clampett!nrn@uunet.uu.net (Norman R. Nithman) Subject: Seeking Answering Machine With Voice Mail I'm looking for an answering machine with at least two voice mailboxes in the $100 range. Any suggestions will be helpful. Norm nrn@sgwoi.com ------------------------------ From: steven@sgb.oau.org (Steven Bradley) Subject: Re: Cellular Privacy? Organization: The Forest City Exchange, Forest City, Florida Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 18:38:37 GMT > About form 740, I was told that form 740 could not be used to get > around the law. Again, maybe not enforcable, but still illegal. Why not? It is for any non certified device in quantities up to three for non commercial purposes. >> the 800 mhz band), no re-tuning is needed. In theory, if they made >> the EPROM replacable for purpose of field upgrades, and sold the >> cellular full access EPROM as an after-market item, it would certainly >> get around the dumb restriction. It does not stop you from getting >> the scanners, nor does it stop the modifications, merely makes it more >> difficult, but does not stop it. > I doubt that this would work as the ready availability of plug-in > parts to reenable cellular on the radio would render the radio "easily > modifiable" and, therefore, supposedly illegal to import/manufacture. Ok, then I think it is time that they (the scanning industry) included a serial port on every unit, with the limitations in frequencies covered being locked out in the MPU for internal keypad operation, and have code on the computer to do the actual loading and scanning -- such that under serial control, the microcomputer (ibmpc) software would be under full control, this would meet the language of the law and still permit it to be scannable under computer control, since the serial interface accessory would "not yet be available" at time of testing, therefore the FCC would find it meeting the requirements. It would be the same as a Pro 2006 with builtin Opto 456 controller. I wonder what the cellular industry and FCC think of that situation! It is a fact they can NOT touch it. Internet: steven@sgb.oau.org Steven G. Bradley steven@gate.net GEnie: s.bradley6@genie.geis.com Don't you think it's about CompuServe: 73232.505@compuserve.com time we FIRED the Federal America Online: sgbradley@aol.com Communications Commission? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 15:28:17 -0700 From: Ken Stone Subject: Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" Organization: Hewlett Packard, San Diego Division In article is written: > I saw in a news report about a new service from Pacific Bell called > "ISDN Anywhere." When I called up Pac Bell, they had no idea what I > was talking about. The news report didn't give much more information > other than they would start offering it in about a month. > Does anybody else have any ideas about what is so different about "ISDN > Anywhere?" Well it does exist and it is different and it does work!! Up until recently, we here in PacBell land had two tariff's. One for Centrex which was no repeaters (ie 18k ft from CO), but no message units within the Centrex and one called SDS/IS (I believe) that had repeaters included but no Centrex capability. Either of these >required< your CO to be ISDN ready. With ISDN Anywhere, you get just what they say. Right now, I am having a repeatered Centrex line installed that I could not get before. I also have several people that we could not serve due to non ISDN ready COs that I should be able to get lines to now ... how they do it is their problem. I am assuming that they will back haul to a CO that is capable. Ken Stone Hewlett Packard, San Diego Site Telecomm ------------------------------ From: bluewtr!tom@orca.mbari.org Subject: Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" Date: Fri, Jun 3 21:07:35 1994 GMT ISDN Anywhere means that you can have ISDN anywhere in the Pacbell area for the price of local ISDN. If your serving CO does not offer ISDN Pacbell will provide the FX for free. Part of what Pacbell is pushing as: POTS to PANS Plain Old Telephone Service to Pretty Advanced Network Stuff ... T3 ------------------------------ From: jg2560@cesn4.cen.uiuc.edu (John Robert Grout) Subject: Re: 716 Now Split Between 7D and 1 + 716 + 7D Date: 03 Jun 1994 19:22:44 GMT Organization: U of I College of Engineering Workstations In article Carl Moore writes: > I have been assuming statewide uniformity in these dialing changes, > and this is the first I have heard of a split of this nature. If a state's PSC didn't enforce uniformity (probably forcing 1+AC+7D), setting a "de facto" standard within a LATA would usually fall to the "Baby Bell" providing service within it. So, the most reasonable explanation for substantive nonuniformity within a state is the existence of a LATA (in a multi-LATA state) which has all local service provided by non-Baby Bell companies. So, if one ignores the corner of Greenwich, CT which is not in the CT LATA, the Rochester (NY) LATA is the only one I know which meets this test. I expect that New York's PSC will eventually bully Rochester Telephone into uniformity with NYNEX. John R. Grout INTERNET: j-grout@uiuc.edu ------------------------------ From: sgiblab!hh.sbay.org!terry@uucp-gw-2.pa.dec.com (Terry Greenlee) Subject: Re: Help: Bad Phone Lines in San Jose Date: 3 Jun 94 05:38:17 GMT Organization: Hip-Hop BBS In an article to comp.dcom.telecom I wrote: > I am having trouble with my phone lines at home and I was wondering > if anyone else had this same thing happen to them? My existing two > lines in my home work fine at 14.4. The phone company brought in more > lines to add a third line. > The third line will only connect at 7200 bd at best and usually > 4800 bd. I tested them at the box beside the house to make sure > it was not my inside wires. The phone company tested it from > the main office and found no problem. Well, when Pacific Bell came out, I had my laptop and a 14.4 modem on the side of the house to demonstrate the problem. I did stress that the bad line was for a fax and the modem was for debugging. A good friend did suggest that I be extra polite but insistent. If they did not fix this line, they would have dug up two front yards for nothing. What the repair man found was that the two good lines went to the main connection box (many blocks away) thought a 27 pair line and the new bad line used a 30 pair line. He changed it so all three lines went through the 27 pair trunk line. The change took 1.5 hours and then the problem was fixed. The modem connected at 14.4 and all that 'bis' stuff. The main logic is not that anything was wrong with the 30 pair trunk, just that the other lines worked great through the 27 pair and why do anything different. Always stick to what you know works, first. I want to thank everyone that sent me advice on this. It all helped. And a special thanks to Pacific Bell. AIX/UNIX Systems Administration AIXadmin@hh.sbay.org ------------------------------ From: bkron@netcom.com (Krusty) Subject: Re: How to Get White pages Data From GTE? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Sat, 4 Jun 1994 00:34:01 GMT fjd@rain.org (Frank Dziuba) writes: > I would like to get the White Pages listings for my area from GTE in a > computer-readable format. I know that there are cd-roms of the US > phone books available, ... > ... GTE said they don't sell that data, but how did ProPhone get it? When I looked at ProPhone about a year or so ago, it didn't contain any GTE listings -- only Baby Bell listings. In fact, I have yet to find a CD-ROM product which contains GTE listings (unless, of course, the GTE subscriber has purchased a listing in a Baby Bell directory). Also, discussions about these products which I've had with their manufacturers has confirmed that they don't contain GTE directory data. ------------------------------ From: Reon_Can@mindlink.bc.ca (Dan Matte) Subject: Re: Performance of L.A. Cellular System Date: Fri, 03 Jun 94 17:37:09 PDT Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada True, priority for email is low in general. This particular application will have an organization that will be directly involved in emergency response using the cellular email setup for internal communication. We are fairly certain that any cell numbers would be deemed as Class-A (priority service). The part of the solution that has caused the most concern is Reverse Control Channel Occupancy rates that would result in call blocking. Forward Control Channel Occupancy Rates a less of a concern as the wireline carrier would also impose Class-A service in case of a major disaster. This would drastically reduce the number of wireline to cell calls made and reduce the Forward Control Channel Occupancy rate. As we have not had a wide scale disaster in British Columbia that would require Class-A only service, I have been looking for call blocking statistics for the L.A. Earthquake. I know that some cellular carriers' philosophy is not to implement Class-A service only and give the highest level of access to all subscribers. Despite this difference, blocking rates would be useful in order for us to determine if cellular email is really the most effective solution for this application. If anyone has any insight to these statistics(load, blocking rate etc), I would be greatful. I would be happy to post any relevant info that I find. Dan Matte REON Corp reon_can@mindlink.bc.ca ------------------------------ From: gordon@sneaky.lonestar.org (Gordon Burditt) Subject: Re: Government Regulates Modem Redial Attempts Organization: /usr/lib/news/organi[sz]ation Date: Fri, 3 Jun 1994 11:24:58 GMT > Why, though, would one want to redial upon encountering a "VOICE" or a > "NO ANSWER" result? A "VOICE" result would typically indicate that the > modem's dial attempt has reached either an intercept message or a live > body at the dialed number, indicating that a wrong number is being > dialed (for legitimate purposes, at least). A "NO ANSWER" result on a > valid number typically results from a problem with the modem or fax > machine that should have answered at the other end. You would want to redial (eventually) on a "NO ANSWER" result because: 1. Call waiting generally makes sure you never see a "BUSY". 2. Systems occasionally go down and sometimes for short periods of time. 3. You might get a "NO ANSWER" as a result of a collision of the recipient picking up the phone to dial out, answering your call. Gordon L. Burditt sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 June 1994 15:08:00 GMT Name: Paul A. Lee Organization: Woolworth Corporation Subject: Re: What Did You Have for Dinner Today? In TELECOM Digest Volume 14 Issue 264, our Editor wrote (in part): > Why the two most recent well-known cannibals in the USA both came from > Wisconsin -- within fifty miles or so of each other -- I do not > know. Maybe it is something in the atomosphere. As a relatively recent transplant to the Milwaukee area, I'm prompted to offer this hypothesis: Maybe these two guys were driven mad by the *taxes* here in Wisconsin (the highest in the country, according to a 1992 survey). Perhaps the "ultimate eating disorder" could be one of the results of the high tax rate. After all, I've seen widespread sociopathic behavior in the way people here _drive_ ... (I hope I can forfend being flamed by hundreds of Wisconsin natives by emphasizing that most of the folks here are as genial, friendly, and helpful as any I've met anywhere ... as long as you keep them out of their cars!) Paul A. Lee Voice 414 357-1409 Telecommunications Analyst FAX 414 357-1450 Woolworth Corporation CompuServe 70353,566 INTERNET [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Funny you should mention it. The way it is usually explained around here, it is the people in California who 'drive crazy'. Maybe a lot of them were originally from Wisconsin. Speaking of good, wholesome things to eat, I've always liked the lunch counters at Woolworth's stores here in Chicago. The two big stores on State Street downtown both have nice, inexpensive food. The little Woolworth's near where I used to live did not have a lunch counter, but I still liked shopping there. When they closed for good last year they still had the old red colored 5/10 cent sign over their front door even though there was nothing left there which cost five cents any longer except possibly the individual pieces of bubble gum. The 'dime store' was there for years and years and years -- as long as anyone in the neighborhood could remember; then last year right after Christmas I went past one day and the signs were gone, everything was boarded up and another neighborhood institution was gone. The two stores downtown are still in business, even if not exactly thriving. Now let's forget about the cannibals, eh, unless someone has something further to add. Have a nice weekend, one and all! PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #271 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa24836; 5 Jun 94 14:38 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA13463; Sun, 5 Jun 94 11:06:04 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA13454; Sun, 5 Jun 94 11:06:02 CDT Date: Sun, 5 Jun 94 11:06:02 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406051606.AA13454@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #272 TELECOM Digest Sun, 5 Jun 94 11:06:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 272 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: SSC Command References (Rob Slade) Bills Online, Action Needed Now (TAP-Info via James D. Wilson) 800 Traffic Query (Judith Oppenheimer) Second Phone Line: How Can I Do it Myself (Edgar Estrada) How Does the Telephone Work? (Chua Tai Wei) New Book: The Electronic Traveler (Marcus L. Endicott) AT&T to be Held Accountable? (Ken Kopin) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 04 Jun 1994 18:01:11 MDT From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: SSC Command References BKSSCREF.RVW 940318 Specialized Systems Consultants Inc. P.O. Box 55549 Seattle, WA 98155 (206) 527-3385 Fax: (206) 527-2806 bel@ssc.com "UNIX System Command Summary", 1993, 0-916151-61-1 Specialized Systems Consultants publish a series of tutorial and reference cards and booklets. The standard "tri-fold page" size of 8.5" by 3.5" is a bit difficult to fit on a bookshelf. While a bit awkward, it will fit in a shirt pocket or, opened, in a file folder. It fits quite nicely in a suit jacket inside pocket for those going out on service calls. I received an ANSI C reference card, five UNIX (Beginning Commands, System 4 and 4.2 Command Summaries, and Bourne and Korn shell) references, an Emacs reference, a vi tutorial and reference, an MS-DOS Command Summary and an RS-232 reference card. Most prices appear to range between three and ten dollars. The material is generally well chosen and useful. For most quick reference these will be much handier than full documentation. The layout is good, with logical divisions between boxed groups of commands or information tables. Unfortunately, there are oddities, vagaries and outright errors. The RS-232 card gives pinouts for DB25 and DB9 connectors but not the Macintosh's DIN-8. The MS-DOS summary lists CON only as the console screen, PRN only as LPT1 and fails to mention that a .COM file is executable. The Bourne shell tutorial gives a brief introduction to wild cards: it will probably surprise novice users when they find that other UNIX documentation refers to these patterns as regular expressions (or regexp). The UNIX references fare somewhat better, particularly since they are primarily command listings. The tutorials are probably a lot less intimidating for new users than some of the bulkier texts. (And cheaper, too.) The reference cards are handy and reasonably valuable. Likely, their list of titles is growing fairly rapidly. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKSSCREF.RVW 940318. Distribution is permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated newsgroups/mailing lists. Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca Institute for Robert_Slade@sfu.ca Research into rslade@cue.bc.ca User p1@CyberStore.ca Security Canada V7K 2G6 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Jun 1994 00:23:11 HST From: NetSurfer Subject: Bills Online, Action Needed Now Message forwarded FYI from TAP. James D. Wilson P. O. Box 15432 Honolulu, HI 96830 Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 23:32:54 -0400 From: email list server To: cpsr-announce@sunnyside.com Subject: Bills Online, Action Needed Now Distributed to TAP-INFO, a free Internet Distribution List (subscription requests to listserver@essential.org) TAXPAYER ASSETS PROJECT - INFORMATION POLICY NOTE (please distribute freely) Crown Jewels Campaign - LEGIS June 2, 1994 - SPECIAL TASK FORCE OF HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TO TAKE ACTION ON INTERNET ISSUES - ACTION NEEDED (NOW) TO GET COPIES OF CONGRESSIONAL BILLS ONLINE THROUGH THE INTERNET - QUICK ACTION CAN MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE by: Mike Ward (mike@essential.org), TAP Jamie Love (love@essential.org), TAP A special 60 day "Task Force on the Internet," has been created within the House of Representatives Committee on House Administration. This Task Force will be issuing a report (possibly the week of June 6-10) on the use of the Internet by the House of Representatives. Among the issues that the Task Force should address is the dissemination of bills being considered by the House. It is critically important to alert Task Force members to your interest in accessing bills before Congress through the Internet. TAP recommends that you email and fax the following House members, telling them that the House of Representatives should make available all bills pending before Congress through ftp, email ftp and gopher. Members of the TASK FORCE ON THE INTERNET are: Thomas Manton (D-NY) ph. 202-225-3965 fax 202-225-1909 NO EMAIL Sam Gejdenson (D-CT) ph. 202-225-3965 fax 202-225-2076 bozrah@hr.house.gov Dale Kildee (D-MI) ph. 202-25-3611 fax 202-225-6393 NO EMAIL Bill Thomas (R-CA), Ranking Minority Member Comm. on House Admin. ph. 202-225-2915 fax 202-225-8798 NO EMAIL Jennifer Dunn (R-WA) ph. 202-225-7761 fax 202-225-8673 NO EMAIL Also important is: Pat Roberts (R-KS), Ranking minority member of the Joint Committee on Printing ph. 202-225-2715 fax 202-225-5375 ----------------------------------- Our letter reads as follows: Representative Sam Gejdenson, et. al Task Force on the Internet U.S. House of Representatives Dear Representative: We are writing to urge you to make all pending bills available on the Internet. We have been asking for online access to congressional bills for three years. It is our understanding that the principal opposition to this has come from a handful of commercial data vendors. We think that the time has come for Congress to think in terms of how it can make democracy work better for the public, rather than find ways to enrich a few commercial interests. If Congress can find millions of dollars for Congressional franking privileges, sending out thinly disguised campaign literature, it can find a few thousand dollars to put copies of pending legislation online so that ordinary citizens can better monitor the activities of Congress. Thank you. Sincerely James Love Mike Ward Taxpayer Assets Project ------------------------------------ GPO Access Program Announcement on "enrolled bills" Several readers wrote us in regards to a post circulated on the Internet announcing the Government Printing Office's plan to make bills accessible through the Internet on June 8th. The announcement about the GPO Access Program only pertained to bills already passed by both the House and Senate, "enrolled bills", that are awaiting the President's signature. These bills are of little use for citizen participation in the democratic process since they have already been passed by congress. mike -------------------------- letter from Representative Charlie Rose Attached is a letter from Rep. Charlie Rose (crose@hr.house.gov), Chairman of the Committee on House Administration, responding to those who wrote him in regards to the May 9th TAP-INFO, "Zimmer Urges House Legislation Be Accessible on the Internet." Dear Interested Network Citizen: Thank you for your recent interest and thoughtful comments regarding the availability of proposed legislation on the Internet. As you may know, the Committee on House Administration, which I Chair, and House Information Systems have been working hard to make Member and Committee offices accessible to the Internet. Currently, twenty-five Members and several committees have established Internet mail boxes. In March I announced the availability to all Member offices public electronic mail services using the Internet. We are also providing access for Member offices directly to the Internet for staff research. As part of these efforts, House Information Systems has also established a server on the Internet which uses the University of Minnesota GOPHER software to provide a wide variety of information about the House of Representatives, its Members, and committees. This server is accessible on the Internet, and is named GOPHER.HOUSE.GOV. Information regarding the public electronic mail system, which provides a mail box for constituents to send electronic mail messages to their Member of Congress, can be obtained by sending an electronic mail message to: CONGRESS@HR.HOUSE.GOV. The Committee on House Administration is currently considering various policy alternatives regarding the release of the electronic version of congressional documents printed by the Government Printing Office. In fact I have created a task force, which conducted a hearing this past Wednesday, May 5, to explore those alternatives. After receiving input from the task force, the Committee will direct House Information Systems to add the electronic data base version of printed documents that can be economically and accurately made available. I would also encourage you to write Bill Thomas of California, the Ranking Minority Member of the Committee on House Administration and Pat Roberts of Kansas, the Ranking Minority Member of the Joint Committee on Printing. It is important that they know your views of this important subject. Once again, thank you for your interest and please watch for additional announcements regarding the availability of on-line congressional information. With my very best wishes, Sincerely, Charlie Rose Chairman -------------- TAP-INFO is an Internet Distribution List provided by the Taxpayer Assets Project (TAP). TAP was founded by Ralph Nader to monitor the management of government property, including information systems and data, government funded R&D, spectrum allocation and other government assets. TAP-INFO reports on TAP activities relating to federal information policy. tap-info is archived at ftp.cpsr.org; gopher.cpsr.org and wais.cpsr.org Subscription requests to tap-info to listserver@essential.org with the message: subscribe tap-info your name. Taxpayer Assets Project; P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036 v. 202/387-8030; f. 202/234-5176; internet: tap@essential.org ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 4 Jun 1994 12:41:21 -0400 From: Judith Oppenheimer Subject: 800 Traffic Query I have a client who plans on retaining an inbound telephone center/fulfillment house for an advertising campaign. My client wants to use one of his existing 800 numbers for this campaign. How can he transfer service of the 800 number from his business location to an adequately equipped and staffed telemarketing center, without losing ownership of his number? We assume this is done all the time, but have no idea how. Can anyone advise? Please respond by email to Producer@pipeline.com. Judith Oppenheimer Producer@pipeline.com ------------------------------ From: ab503@lafn.org (Edgar Estrada) Subject: Second Phone Line: How Can I Do it Myself Organization: Los Angeles Free-Net Date: Sat, 4 Jun 1994 19:45:24 GMT I'd like to add a second phoneline in my apartment. I called the local phone company and they want $100 just to install the jack. I suspect that I can probably do it myself. I remember reading somewhere that most new aparments have been wired for two lines so all I would have to buy is a phone panel with two jacks and connect the right wires. Would this be right? If so what are the right wire? Does anybody know of a how to book that will tell me how to do it? Thanks, Edgar ------------------------------ From: taiwei@solomon.technet.sg Subject: How Does the Telephone Work? Date: 5 Jun 1994 01:16:00 GMT Organization: Technet, Singapore I am looking for information on how normal telephones (POTS) work. I am particularly interested to know: 1. How are signals sent into the network? 2 How are signals received from the network? 3 How will loop current affect 1 & 2? 4 Are there any differences between POTs of various countries? 5 Technical Specifications for POTs (eg. Ringing voltages, Return Loss, Call Progress Tones) 6. How the telephone network will affect modems (eg. Phase distortions, Amplitude Distortions, etc) Any pointers to technical documentations (FCC, BELL, ITU, BT, etc), FTPable documents or any other sources would be most appreciated. 7. During a recent trip to the US, I note that many hotel phones are digital types and do not work with normal modems... I also read somewhere that there are special converters that can adapt modems to work on such systems. Where can I find more technical information on such systems? Are all digital systems (PABX) the same? 8. I understand that in Europe, there are special requirements to 'seize' the telephone line, something about ground start and mute relays ... any idea what these refer to? Thanks, Chua Tai Wei MediaCom Technologies Tel: 65 299 4808 287, Beach Road, #03-00 Fax: 65 299 4828 Singapore 0719 Internet: taiwei@solomon.technet.sg Republic of Singapore t.chua@ieee.org ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 5 Jun 1994 05:05:20 -0700 From: Marcus L. Endicott Subject: New Book: The Electronic Traveler THE ELECTRONIC TRAVELER: DIRECTORY OF TOURISM INFORMATION SOURCES copyright 1994 M. L. Endicott all rights reserved worldwide With a Forward by Steven K. Roberts of Nomadic Research Labs as the title says, The Electronic Traveler is a directory of tourism information available to everyone with a computer and a telephone: it is a guidebook to travel information sources on the emerging information superhighway. Although the much touted "information superhighway" is under construction, its principal components are already in evidence and many lanes are open for use. As this historic technological convergence and social restructuring takes place right before our eyes, The Electronic Traveler provides signposts, empowering you to participate in this process. It explains exactly what travel and tourism information is available on the information highway and how to access it. It covers the vast Internet, popular proprietary interactive systems, Computer Reservation Systems (CRSs), independent bulletin board systems (BBSs), and commercial fulltext databases. It is for everyone who loves travel and the world: from the traveling public to the industry that provides them with services and products. The Electronic Traveler will help you learn of and about destinations and how best to get there, including buying transportation and accommodation. It will help you find people and places, organizations and events, restaurants and stores, museums and libraries, historic sites and scenic vistas, entertainment and adventure to satisfy your individual needs and desires. It will help you amuse yourself in transit, as well as keep you in better contact with home while away. It will help you connect with travel partners. The Electronic Traveler will not only do all this and more but will also help you get the best value for your time and money. ORDER FORM: The Electronic Traveler: Directory of Tourism Information Sources Publication Date: June 1, 1994 Format: Spiral Bound, approx. 130 pages Cost: U.S. $50.00, postpaid (priority mail U.S., airmail outside U.S.) Enclose check or money order payable to M. L. Endicott with order form and mail to: M. L. Endicott, P.O. Box 20837, Saint Simons Island, Georgia 31522-0437, USA Number of Copies: Amount Enclosed: Your Name: Street Address or P.O. Box: City and State: Postal Code and Country: TABLE OF CONTENTS 0.0 Introduction 0.1 Origins Of The Information Superhighway 0.2 Origins Of This Book 0.3 What To Expect From This Book 0.4 What To Bring To This Book 0.5 Short List Of Useful Books And Periodicals 0.6 Overview Of The Matrix 0.7 About The Internet 0.8 Some Major Online Functions 0.9 Information Technology In Travel And Tourism Today 1.0 Internet/Usenet/Bitnet 1.1 Newsgroups 1.2 Mailing Lists 1.3 F.A.Q.s: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS FILES/GOPHER/WORLDWIDE WEB 1.4 List of Travel Related Worldwide Web and Gophers on the Internet 2.0 Proprietary Systems 2.1 America Online (AOL.COM) 2.2 CompuServe (CompuServe.COM) 2.3 Delphi (Delphi.COM) 2.4 eWorld (eWorld.COM) 2.5 GEnie (genie.geis.com) 2.6 Institute for Global Communications (IGC.APC.ORG) 2.7 National Videotex Network (NVN.COM) 2.8 Prodigy (prodigy.com) 2.9 TogetherNet (together.org) 2.10 Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (well.com) 3.0 Computer Reservation Systems/Consumer CRS 3.1 Eaasy Sabre 3.2 OAG Electronic Edition 3.3 WORLDSPAN Travelshopper 3.4 TravelFile/ORG 4.0 Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) 4.1 BBS Software Support BBS 4.2 List of Travel-Related BBS Listkeepers 4.3 BBS Networks 4.4 Travel BBS List - Short 4.5 Travel BBS List - Long 5.0 Commercial Fulltext Databases 5.1 General Fulltext Databases 5.2 Travel Periodicals Online 5.3 Travel Databases 6.0 International Telephony/Connectivity 6.1 Where-To 6.2 How-To 6.3 What-To 7.0 Travel Information Technology Trade Organizations 7.1 HEDNA 7.2 ITTA 7.3 CASMA 8.0 Bibliography 8.1 Travel Information Technology Books 8.2 Internet Books 8.3 Travel Information Technology Periodicals 4.4 Travel BBS List - Short Active as of April 1994: Access America 918-747-2542 Alaska Information Cache 907-373-3205 American Travel Network 704-567-0893 Back Lounge of the Tour Bus 908-637-6336 Backpacker's Wilderness 305-245-7601 CABB (Consular Affairs Bulletin Board) 202-647-9225 Cave God BBS 513-890-6261 ChicAAgo Hanger & The Eagles Nest BBS 708-980-1613 Colorado TravelBank 303-671-7669 Digital Inn 303-296-1300 DirectLink subscriber-only Europe Through The Back Door(ETBD)BBS 206-771-1902 Export-Import (ExIm) Bank BBS 202-566-4699 FAA Headquarters BBS 202-267-5697 FedWorld Gateway 703-321-8020 Fountain Travel BBS 0273 584827 Gaia Passage 912-265-0784 Hawaii DBED BBS 808-586-2496 Home Exchange Network 407-869-5956 Immigration Law BBS 718-463-1091 Independent Travel Technology Association (ITTA) BBS (c/o ARINC BBS) 410-573-3244 LeisureTyme Free Travel Club 401-943-7093 Modern Traveller 7-0562-425901 National Park Service 215-597-2710 OSSN BBS subscriber-only Outdoor Almanac 206-363-0195 Outdoor Education BBS 216-374-8850 Outdoors BBS 317-887-9466 PCTravel 919-831-4848 Sun Vacation & World Travel 914-758-2485 Time Traveler BBS 886-4-276-0160 Travel Connection 415-691-0954 Travel Friends Information Service 800-328-2427 (Interspan) 303-573-1800 (US West) Travel Info Net 519-428-9287 Travel Mates BBS 708-928-0281 Travel Online (St. Louis Online) 314-973-4073 314-625-3874 314-625-4045 Travel Online Recreation Info System 708-830-4BBS Travel Search BBS 914-358-0480 Traveller-Box 49-7664-95185 Travelmatic 39-11-502423 USCS BBS (U.S. Customs Service) 703-440-6155 Vacation Source 800-868-7555 303-738-0972 Vacationland (New Hampshire) 603-444-0701 World Travel Online 212-717-5922 Worldwide Brochures 218-847-3027 Apparently defunct: Airline BBS/DFW (System One) 817-540-2794 Alexair Travel 513-836-8170 AlpineTrail Source 206-882-0110 Belize Tourism 011501233711 Boundary Waters BBS 218-365-6907 Game & Travel BBS 415-221-6456 International Travel Briefing Service n.a. ModemCity/Europe-On-Line n.a. Premier Vacations & Travel BBS 619-741-2392 The Traveler BBS 804-420-9573 The Traveler 305-944-4394 US Information Agency Bulletin Service (USIA) BBS n.a. ------------------------------ From: aa377@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ken Kopin) Subject: AT&T to be Held Accountable? Date: 5 Jun 1994 06:19:13 GMT Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA) Reply-To: aa377@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ken Kopin) I just witnessed a commercial from AT&T which implies that we will all soon have Personal AI assistants! Cute little Doggies, even! (I guess they didn't think a gopher would interest most 'regular people') Don't believe it?? YOU WILL. And the Company that will bring it to you? AT&T Now, either I have fallen farther behind in my reading than I think I have or that kind of interactive AI assistant isn't going to make it here in time to see The Simpsons' 20th Aniversary Special :-) Can AT&T actually get away with this kind of misleading advertising? Now granted, they never laid out any kind of time table for this stuff, but I think it's safe to imply from "YOU WILL" that they intend to get ALL THIS STUFF to market within one lifetime. **Dramatization** Have you ever ordered Earl Gray Tea ... from a hole in the wall? Have you ever called your shipmates ... by talking into your jewelry? Have you ever climbed a mountain ... 10^7 lightyears from the nearest planet? Have you ever seen a commercial that was SO outlandish in it's claims ... ... You expected to see a pink bunny with a drum wander in? YOU WILL! ... (eventually) It's just so annoying ... Thank you for your bandwidth. I feel much better now. Internet: aa377@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Just this morning I heard a radio commercial saying AT&T was now actively competing with Ameritech/Illinois Bell for local traffic between the 312/708 area codes. If local calls here are to points (relative to the calling party) in the 'C' or 'D' bands (the most expensive of the local intra-lata calls here) then according to the message on the radio, AT&T will be less expensive. The commercial said one will save 'up to twenty percent' on those calls by prepending 10288 (or actually 'one-oh-ATT' was the way it was phrased in the commercial) to the dialing string. This will be interesting to test out. If any Digest readers in the 312/708 area routinely make calls to far-away local points (what would be a 'C' or 'D' band call for you) then you might want to test out AT&T's claims. Please note that 1+ from/to 312/708 still defaults to local service via Illinois Bell. You need to do it 10288 + 1 +. Let us know. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #272 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa04681; 6 Jun 94 16:43 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA02873; Mon, 6 Jun 94 12:41:01 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA02863; Mon, 6 Jun 94 12:40:59 CDT Date: Mon, 6 Jun 94 12:40:59 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406061740.AA02863@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #273 TELECOM Digest Mon, 6 Jun 94 12:41:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 273 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Introducing Incombank and ISKRA-2 (Ibankcom@ustar.msk.su) GSM Question: Power Controllers (Robert Jansen) Unix to Alpha-Numeric Pager (Lester Knutsen) Information Wanted on Satellite BBS (Gary E. Chidester) Re: 716 Now Split Between 7D and 1 + 716 +7D (Dave Niebuhr) Re: Personal 800 Number Availability (Glenn McComb) Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" (Kevin Martinez) Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" (Jeremie Kass) Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" (John R. Haggis) Re: How Can I Ring Up Myself? (Randy Gellens) Re: What's a 1A3B? (David Wuertele) Re: Annoying COCOT Problem (Mark E. Daniel) Re: British Call Forwarding in 1960s (Steve McKinty) Re: British Call Forwarding in 1960s (Clive D.W. Feather) Re: British Call Forwarding in 1960s (Peter Campbell Smith) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: InBankCom Subject: Introducing Incombank and ISKRA-2 Date: Mon, 6 Jun 94 14:14:36 +0400 Organization: USTAR Moscow Reply-To: IBANKCOM@ustar.msk.su [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The following message was received today in my mail but due to technical problems in the transmission it had to be reconstructed somewhat. I hope I got it all correct. PAT] "InBankCom" (IBC): InComBank (Bank Communications) is a commercial satellite telecommunica- tion systems Company which services the whole territory of Russia, Europe and Asia. International Bank Communications Moscow, is a telecommunications company that services all banking needs of Russia, Europe and Asia. "Inbankcom" System of operations is based on Central Satellite Communications (HUB) Moscow and the system of remote terminal stations (VSAT) distributed throughout the territory of Russia and Community of Independent States. "Inbankcom" offers their customers the following services: digital data satellite communication, telephone, fax and Teleconferencing communication channels in all regions of Russia. - Design, deliver build and operate all equipment in satellite telecommunication service; - "Inbankcom" system uses and operates very sophisticated, modern technical equipment made in USA and Russia that, ensures high quality of communication service and reliability with minimum costs, and rapid connection to the system. - "Inbankcom" offers to reserve capacities at the Moscow HUB Station. Application for survey and service is available. ------------------------------ From: rjansen@rc1.vub.ac.be (Robert Jansen) Subject: GSM Question: Power Controllers Date: 5 Jun 1994 17:49:55 GMT Organization: Brussels Free Universities (VUB/ULB), Belgium After visiting several dealers of GSM phones, I finally found one with the technical know-how about GSM. He told me things like: "Well, I don't recommend booster kits in a car." Probably everyone now goes "HEY, WHAT ??$%#$$". The story is quite simple: He told me that when 8W phones are near a groundstation, the transmit power is trottled by the groundstation, in order to allow the nearby 2W devices to "enter" the groundstation's receiver. This is what he called "GSM phones with a build-in POWER CONTROLLER" (8W phones have this feature, so don't panic :) ) The problem arises when a normal handheld with a car kit is fitted (afterwards) with a normal antenna signal booster. It's a straightforward amplifier, which HAS NO way of being power controlled by the groundstation, nor the 2W handheld. Result: the groundstation kicks you of the net if you get to close to the groundstation and are blasting the full 8W to it's antenna, because you are surpressing the signals from the handheld 2W phones. Many will now ask themselves: why are they selling such boosters? Well, it works fine if the net operator doesn't have very intelligent groundstations. If for some reason or another a net operator implements Power Control in their groundstations, you are out of luck with your antenna signal booster. Q: And what about a handheld with a booster from the same manufacturer? A: well ... that's the point here, I getting the idea that NOT ONE!!! manufacturer of GSM phones (which have a booster kit for their phones) implemented Power Control when you have your handheld in the car, connected to it's booster. The handhelds don't have the control over the booster. Questions arise: 1) Does anyone have more information on this matter? 2) Are there manufactures who have a "handheld booster" which is Power Controlled whenever you have your handheld in the car? (The handheld communicates with the booster.) Thanks for any replies at all, I'm still puzzled on what I should buy. Robert Jansen Computer Center VUB/ULB Brussels Belgium (Europe) VUBnet email: rjansen@vnet3.vub.ac.be Tel: +32-2-650.37.29 Secr: +32-2-650.37.38 Fax: +32-2-650.37.40 ------------------------------ From: lester@access.digex.net (Lester Knutsen) Subject: Unix to Alpha-Numeric Pager Date: 6 Jun 1994 00:39:39 -0400 Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA Is there any Unix software that can send messages through a modem to an alpha-numeric pager? Does anyone have recommendations on set-ups and paging services that work well? Thanks for any information. Lester ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 10:49:48 -0700 From: GARYC@cc.snow.edu (Gary E. Chidester) Subject: Information Wanted on Satellite BBS? I read an article the other day about BBS via satellite and how it would be cheaper because there would be no long distance charges accrued. How is this possible? I can see how you could receive information via satellite, but unless there is two-way communication how can you request the information you want? Is there somewhere that I can get more information? Gary Chidester Instructor of Broadcasting Snow College ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Jun 94 06:56:20 EDT From: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) Subject: Re: 716 Now Split Between 7D and 1 + 716 +7D In TELECOM Digest V14 #269 Carl Moore writes: > I have been assuming statewide uniformity in these dialing changes, > and this is the first I have heard of a split of this nature. That is because area code 716 is split between NYNEX and Rochester Telephone and each may (and probably does) have different tariffs for the same thing as well as dialing plans. I don't know how this will be affected in 1995 when the changeover occurs in dialing local vs. long distance starts. This could also affect another area code that is split between two companies: NYNEX (516) and Fisher's Island Telco which gets its feed from Connecticut (probably SNET). Fisher's Island is strange: closer to CT than Long Island but part of Long Island and therefore New York. In TELECOM Digest V14 #271 jg2560@cesn4.cen.uiuc.edu (John Robert Grout) wrote: > If a state's PSC didn't enforce uniformity (probably forcing 1+AC+7D), > setting a "de facto" standard within a LATA would usually fall to the > "Baby Bell" providing service within it. > I expect that New York's PSC will eventually bully Rochester Telephone > into uniformity with NYNEX. Nah. It's more busy approving outlandish rate hikes for the Long Island Lighting Company and it's exeutives ($41k+ bonus for the Chairman in 1993) plus the defunct Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant (we, the ratepayers had to pay for it to be built). It never was put into use and now the fuel is being transported to Pennsylvania. The PSC allowed the plant to be sold to the state for $1.00 (US) and the ratepayers have to pay to dismantle it in addition to bulding it. For that we pay $.22 (US) for basic kilowatt usage up to a little over 800. What makes anyone think that the PSC will be harsher on NYNEX than it is with LILCO? Dave Niebuhr Internet: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (preferred) niebuhr@bnl.gov / Bitnet: niebuhr@bnl Senior Technical Specialist, Scientific Computing Facility Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, NY 11973 1+(516) 282-3093 FAX 1+(516) 282-7688 ------------------------------ From: gmccomb@netcom.com (Glenn McComb) Subject: Re: Personal 800 Number Availability Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 06:58:55 GMT William Y. Lai (lai@seas.gwu.edu) wrote: > A while back I remember that several LD companies were offering plans > for personal 800 numbers. Does anyone know of availaibility/details > of these plans today? I've been using AT&T's 800 Starter Line service, which recently dropped from $6/mo + 0.31/min to $5/mo + 0.26/min, billed in six-second increments. Just the other day, I added 800 call forwarding, which lets me point my 800 number to any other number from any phone in the world. Cost was $20 setup, plus $1.00 for every change. I needed the portability primarily because AT&T wouldn't point my 800 number without me giving them the street address where the phone is located. Since I wanted my personal (800) number to point to my pager company's voicemail number, I didn't know the street address, and neither did the pager company! So, I'll point the number myself and give the goobers $20 for the privilege. Since they charge $10 for any service change anyway, it works out pretty good. Glenn McComb +1-408-725-1448 | McComb Research Fax +1-408-725-0222 | 10440 Mann Drive Internet gm @ mccomb.com | PO Box 220 Compuserve MHS:gm@mccomb | Cupertino, CA 95015 ------------------------------ From: lps@rahul.net (Kevin Martinez) Subject: Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" Organization: a2i network Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 08:06:29 GMT judson%linex@uunet.UU.NET (Michael L Judson) writes: > I saw in a news report about a new service from Pacific Bell called > "ISDN Anywhere." When I called up Pac Bell, they had no idea what I > was talking about. The news report didn't give much more information > other than they would start offering it in about a month. > Does anybody else have any ideas about what is so different about "ISDN > Anywhere?" Same Old Stuff: Marketing Hype. When I finally found a Pac Bell representative that knew what ISDN was and the procedures for having it installed, I was told it was not available in my exchange (Milpitas, Ca., near the heart of Pac Bell). It appears that whatever switching mechanism they have is not up to the claims of their Marketing, Advertising and Sales force. Maybe next year ... Still waiting for the '90s, Kevin Martinez lps@rahul.net Work: 1 800 50 SATAN Home: 1 510 676 1111 ------------------------------ From: kass@tacout.army.mil (Jeremie Kass) Subject: Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" Date: Mon, 6 Jun 94 7:25:27 EDT What that service does is that Pac Bell will provide ISDN to any customer whose switch doesn't provide ISDN itself via foreign exchange, or FX. This involves running a T1 type line to the nearest switch that supports ISDN and can get quite pricey. Ameritech, in the metro Detroit area, will do all FX'ing for free as they will upgrading all the switches in the near future. But, for a client that I have who is 25 miles from an ISDN capable switch, it will cost around $700 to install the FX, and a mileage charge of $25.75/month that will be add to the regular $147 install and $35/month ISDN charges. Hope this helps! Jeremie Kass Internet: kass@tacout.army.mil Information Systems jk914s2187@sycom.mi.org Consultant jkass@cati.CSUfresno.edu JPK Computer Consulting jkass@jpkcomp.detroit.mi.us Huntington Woods, MI, U.S.A. ------------------------------ From: haggis@netcom.com (John R. Haggis) Subject: Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" Organization: Millennium Research Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 11:28:21 GMT In article bluewtr!tom@orca.mbari.org writes: > ISDN Anywhere means that you can have ISDN anywhere in the Pacbell > area for the price of local ISDN. If your serving CO does not offer > ISDN Pacbell will provide the FX for free. Could've fooled me. I've been trying to get straight talk out of PacBell for months about ISDN. Latest word is that they can't even take it out to my house because it's greater than 15K (or 18K?) network feet away from the CO (measured by a hand-meter). They hinted that if I twisted arms I might be able to get them to put in repeaters and stuff but I would really have to stroke people to do this special thing just for me ... And what about the basic service? I can't get anyone there to tell me in plain English what I get. It's all acronym-soup, and PB speaks one language and all the Internet providers speak a totally different one! Tower of Babel here we come (those who do not learn from history ...). For you PacBell flame afficionados: I tried to call in last week and find out what their BBS number was (hinted in a post about Scott Adams of Dilbert fame). I called 15 times, got rerouted 23 times, and got absolutely nobody who even knew what a BBS was. Sheesh ... this is the future? JohnR (haggis@netcom.com) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What you describe is quite common. Telco will run an advertisement on television or the radio, or maybe in the newspaper for some new and advanced service, then when you call any of the front line people for more information, none of them have the foggiest idea what you are talking about or what you want, etc. Too bad their advertising people don't send memos to the Business Office people telling them the kinds of things the public will be asking about. PAT] ------------------------------ From: RANDY@MPA15AB.mv-oc.Unisys.COM Date: 06 JUN 94 02:35:00 GMT Subject: Re: How Can I Ring Up Myself? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: After dialing do you get a busy signal or some special tone? If we here dial our own number, in some exchanges we get a busy signal and in other exchanges get an intercept that 'your call cannot be completed as dialed, please check the number and dial again, etc ..." Even if we have call waiting installed, dialing our own number produces a busy signal or the above recording. PAT] In most GTE areas, when you dial your own number you hear a soft beeping. Hanging up causes the phone to ring. Two people in a house can talk to each other this way. It is free. I understand it is a carry-over from the party line days. PacBell offers a functionally equivalent service as part of their home Centrex service (I think that is the name. I just checked the new phone books, and the several pages that used to be there on these features have been replaced by information on their automated information lines (which don't mention this service) and the Message Center). Randall Gellens randy@mv-oc.unisys.com (714) 380-6350 fax (714) 380-5912 Mail Stop MV 237 Net**2 656-6350 ------------------------------ From: dave@sparc4-5.gctech.co.jp (Dave) Subject: Re: What's a 1A3B? Organization: Graphic Communications Laboratories (GCL) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 10:17:39 GMT In article jvz@pt.com (John Zambito) writes: [question about an acronym] And the TELECOM Digest Editor appends: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: ESS = Electronic Switching System. So > named because the telephone exchanges of the past were electro-mechanical > in operation. This acronym along with lots of others which puzzle > readers from time to time can be looked up in our interative glossary > program at the Telecom Archives. If you can use anonymous ftp, then > access the archives and pull the glossary files to your site. You did not mention where the Telecom Archives are. I looked for the glossary files on rtfm.mit.edu, but did not find them there. David Wuertele [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well I nearly always do mention where to find the archives. Try anonymous ftp lcs.mit.edu. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 00:30:52 EST From: mark@legend.akron.oh.us (Mark E Daniel) Subject: Re: Annoying COCOT Problem In TELECOM Digest Volume 14 : Issue 260 Stu Jeffery writes: > do wonder, however, how they can get away with detecting DTMF generated > outside the instrument and disconnecting a call as a result. Is this > any different from disconnecting a call when vulgar words are spoken? Since COCOT = Customer Owned perhaps the FCC and or has not set any regula tions on what a Customer can do with the service they are providing. I've seen evverything. Most COCOTs have fake everything. The tones you dial are generated for the benifit of the user only. For that matter a COCOT dial tone is even generated for the benifit of the user. I have the ability to identify touch tones based upon the sounds I'm hearing. I recently used a CO: COT which I have no idea how it works unless it just mutes everything. This COCOT used touch tones but the tones did not equal what I dialed. In this case service calls had a code. Repair (you were told to dial 211 by the card on the phone) produced "#21" when dialed. That's easy. It just routes to a preprogrammed number when it hears. #21. But for things like calling card calls it truly *was* one digit behind me. Ditto for local calls which produced # + phone number digit -1 yet still went through. The only logical thing to conclude then is that it just uses a contacting system to know which buttons (as in electronic circuit or something; I don't know too much about this) are being pressed and cares noting about what they are really supposed to sound like, yet still produces "tone" sounds because pushbutton phones are supposed to beep when you hit the button. The tone patterns likely have nothing to do with how this phone routes calls. Then it mutes the sound and dials it on the real line (another oddity is that the phone number printed on the phone could not have been it's real "line". That CO serves the a much farther south part of town that where this phone is located. Plus the number on the phone rings and rings when dialed. Perhaps they paid big bucks or use some kind of leased line to route outbound calls on that number. And when you make a 0 + call the phone "clicks" and instantly you get "Telecall USA" and a non-standard bong. Almost too instantly to be produced externally. His COCOT has my curiosity poised. I wonder if I am absolutely incorrect about the way it works ... :) Mark E Daniel (Loving SysOp of The Legend BBS) Inet: mark@legend.akron.oh.us ------------------------------ From: smckinty@sunicnc.France.Sun.COM (Steve McKinty - SunConnect ICNC) Subject: Re: British Call Forwarding in 1960s Date: 6 Jun 1994 11:08:05 GMT Organization: SunConnect In article , Andrew C. Green writes: > Randall Gellens (RANDY@MPA15AB.mv-oc.Unisys.COM) writes: >> He picks up his phone [...] and dials three digits. He says >> "Operator? This is WHitehall xxxx. My name is John Steed. I will >> be away for the next three weeks. Please forward my calls to the >> usual number." >> What sort of call-forwarding was offered by British Telecom in the >> 1960s? > At the risk of over-analyzing a fictional scene, I get the impression > he wasn't speaking to the telephone company operator, but to some sort > of government operator at the other end of a private line. I base this > conclusion on the fact that he dialed only three digits (I would have > expected contemporary numbers in the London area to be at least five), Except the public operator, for whom you dial 100 in the UK > and referred to his own number as "Whitehall", an inspired (if not > fictitious) choice for a British government phone network prefix. Could be a genuine one, the phone number for Scotland Yard was WHItehall 1212, and I believe the present day New Scotland Yard still has the equivalent all-numeric number. It still doesn't, of course, explain how such call forwarding would have worked. Prior to direct dialing asking the Operator to forward calls manually would be the thing to do, but the mid-60s seems late for that. Steve McKinty Sun Microsystems ICNC 38240 Meylan, France email: smckinty@france.sun.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: British Call Forwarding in 1960s Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 12:56:00 BST From: Clive D.W. Feather >> He picks up his phone [...] and dials three digits. He says >> "Operator? This is WHitehall xxxx. My name is John Steed. I will >> be away for the next three weeks. Please forward my calls to the >> usual number." > At the risk of over-analyzing a fictional scene, I get the impression > he wasn't speaking to the telephone company operator, but to some sort > of government operator at the other end of a private line. I base this > conclusion on the fact that he dialed only three digits (I would have > expected contemporary numbers in the London area to be at least five), > and referred to his own number as "Whitehall", an inspired (if not > fictitious) choice for a British government phone network prefix. WHItehall (note the capitalization) was indeed the exchange for much of the Civil Service, and many government offices still have 071-944-XXXX numbers. At the time in question, local dialing would have been seven digits. On the other hand, to reach the Post Office (this pre-dates BT by a long way) operator would only be three digits: 100. On the other other hand, I can't quite see this being real either way. If it was a PBX operator, then they would have had no control over the routing of directly dialed calls (this was before the days of DDI; a person's phone was either a direct line or via a switchboard, and if necessary you had two phones on your desk). If it was the GPO operator, then she would have had a major effort to organise a redirection (WHItehall was almost certainly a Strowger exchange). Clive D.W. Feather Santa Cruz Operation clive@sco.com Croxley Centre Phone: +44 923 816 344 Hatters Lane, Watford Fax: +44 923 210 352 WD1 8YN, United Kingdom ------------------------------ From: campbellsm@lish.logica.com (Peter Campbell Smith) Subject: Re: British Call Forwarding in 1960s Organization: Logica, London Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 13:59:46 GMT In article , Andrew C. Green wrote: > Randall Gellens (RANDY@MPA15AB.mv-oc.Unisys.COM) writes: >> He picks up his phone [...] and dials three digits. He says >> "Operator? This is WHitehall xxxx. My name is John Steed. I will >> be away for the next three weeks. Please forward my calls to the >> usual number." > At the risk of over-analyzing a fictional scene, I get the impression > he wasn't speaking to the telephone company operator, but to some sort > of government operator at the other end of a private line. I base this > conclusion on the fact that he dialed only three digits (I would have > expected contemporary numbers in the London area to be at least five), > and referred to his own number as "Whitehall", an inspired (if not > fictitious) choice for a British government phone network prefix. Had > he called whatever the local equivalent of 611 was (for repair or some > other service), I don't think he would have addressed the other party > as "Operator". A sort of call forwarding was offered by BT - or rather Post Office Telecommunications - in the 1960s. You had to set it up in advance, ie tell them what 'the usual number' was, and then you called the operator (by dialing 100 or maybe 151, which was and is the repairs number) to have it turned on or off. Or, you could have it turned on and off at fixed times of the day. The number you forwarded to had to be in the same exchange. The service was mainly used by doctors and was not cheap, and I imagine it was implemented by plugging and unplugging a hardwired connection between the two outgoing subscriber loops. Whitehall was indeed a real exchange. Most of us over the age of 40 remember that Scotland Yard's number was Whitehall 1212 (dialed as WHI 1212), much more memorable than the current 230 1212. But judging by the scenery around Steed's pad I'd say he was in BELgravia or KENsington rather than WHItehall. Peter Campbell Smith, Logica plc, London. Voice: +44 71 637 9111 Fax: +44 71 344 3638 Internet: campbellsm@lish.logica.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A curious coincidence discussed in the Digest in the past involved a demented fellow here in the United States about thirty years ago who was fond of making lewd and threatening telephone calls to Queen Elizabeth. After authorities in the UK traced the calls back to overseas circuits to the USA and asked AT&T to help with the investigation, the calls were found to originate here in Chicago on a north side phone exchange then known as WHItehall. As Mr. Smith points out, the investigators in the UK were using WHItehall 1212 and the offender here in the States was calling from WHItehall 6211, then and now (944-6211) the switchboard at the Lawson YMCA. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #273 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa05473; 6 Jun 94 18:21 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA06006; Mon, 6 Jun 94 14:40:12 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA05997; Mon, 6 Jun 94 14:40:09 CDT Date: Mon, 6 Jun 94 14:40:09 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406061940.AA05997@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #274 TELECOM Digest Mon, 6 Jun 94 14:40:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 274 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Calling Card Suggestion (Bob Maccione) Fast Packet Switch-Based Networks (Pedro Ramalho Carlos) Is Meridian 1 Option 11 Current? (Paul Havinden) Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? (Keith Knipschild) What Do I Get When Dialing 311? (Keith Knipschild) Bell Canada Joins the 700 Club (Dave Leibold) Re: DTMF-Tones: Alternating or Overlayed? (John Lundgren) Re: Piping Sound From a Stereo to a Telephone Line (John Lundgren) Re: Second Phone Line: How Can I Do it Myself (Carl Oppedahl) Re: Answering Machine Recommendations Wanted (Steve Gibons) Re: Book Review: "Internet: Mailing Lists" by Hardie/Neou (Peter M. Weiss) Re: Help: Bad Phone Lines in San Jose (Ronald L. Wright) Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Call Routing (Samuel A. Simon) Re: Country and Area Codes on PC Software (Les Reeves) Re: Can a Unix Box Work as an Internet Router? (Paul Begley) Re: What is a New Activation? (Ed Ellers) Re: Current List of Areacodes Wanted (Mark E. Daniel) Re: LD Carrier's Message Delivery Service (Nathan N. Duehr) Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway (Wes Leatherock) Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway (Carl Moore) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bob Maccione Subject: Calling Card Suggestion Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 08:34:18 Organization: The Promus Companies, Inc. (Memphis, TN) With all of the calling card fraud going on out there I'm curious as to why the card companies don't issue cards that can't be used for international calls. It should be easy enough and if the user really needs to have access to international numbers they can add a level of country restrictions. So since all I call is the US I wouldn't have to worry about someone abusing my card (at least from the international level of abuse). Reasons? Bob Maccione bmaccion@world.std.com PS: MCI and AT&T can send me 1% of the savings and I'll finally afford to get ISDN into my house ... [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As a matter of fact, even though their policy is not stated in writing -- they refuse to state it in writing for obvious reasons -- AT&T routinely redlines the use of their calling card to selected international points from payphones in inner city areas where ethnic populations reside. For instance, try calling Pakistan or Iran using an AT&T Calling Card from some communities on the north side of Chicago. The call will always be rejected, and the operator will pro- fess an inability to put it through on the card. When you scream and get really obnoxious about it, a supervisor at the Pittsburgh International Operating Center will give you this rap about how 'the telephone company in Iran does not honor AT&T cards ...'. The first time I heard that it was hard to keep from snickering while talking to her. They must take their customers for a bunch of fools, which may not be too far off base in a few cases. There are a lot of places where AT&T will not honor their own calling card if they do not like the combination of where you are calling to and calling from using a payphone. Of course if you are in a mostly white, relatively well-off suburban community calling a nice anglo-saxon part of the world such as the UK or France or Australia, well ... no problem! Your call goes right through. If you are a student from India or Pakistan or Iran attending the University of Illinois at Chicago, don't bother trying to call your parents using the AT&T card however. And AT&T is not the only long distance company placing illegal restrict- ions on their card. Sprint (at least they were for several years) was refusing to honor its own calling card from payphones at the Port Authority terminal as well as other poor, ethnic neighborhoods in New York to call anywhere. The classic case came up several years ago when Sprint sent out a promotion to people on a list of parents of older teenagers likely to be going away to college or traveling during the summer, etc. The promotion said this bit about 'keeping in touch with your kids when they are away from home' and inviting the parents to get a Sprint calling card for the kids to use to call home. One mother did just that; got her eighteen year old son a Sprint card when he went on his own to visit NYC with a friend during the summer. Despite the omnipresence of discrete and pleasant poster signs in Port Authority (and the Greyhound station here in Chicago) showing the silhouette of a young kid walking with his luggage and a caption which read "Teenage travelers: Please don't rely on strangers!" he did just that. He wound up minus most of his possessions and money, but he still had his Sprint card ... guess what! Sprint would not accept it for a call back home to his mother. The Traveler's and Immigrant's Aid social worker at Port Authority got the kid back home, and the mother sued Sprint for false advertising, etc. The kid may have been an idiot or simply naive, but that is not the point. Sprint settled with her on it. Both Sprint and AT&T have been sued many times for their discriminatory credit practices where calling cards are concerned; it does not phase them. They blame it all on fraud, and that, to them, is a sufficient response. It apparently is easier to pay off complainers with a bunch of free 'pay to the order of the telephone company' gift certificates than to change their routine. PAT] ------------------------------ From: prc@avila.inesc.pt (Pedro Ramalho Carlos) Subject: Fast Packet Switch-Based Networks Organization: INESC (Inst. Eng. Sistemas e Computadores) -LISBOA -PORTUGAL Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 15:16:00 GMT Hi all, Does any one around have experience with pre-ATM cell based networks (normally referred as Fast Packet Switching, I guess), allowing voice and data integration with slow links? I'm specially interested in your experience regarding the reliability of the switches, to compare with the info the vendors provide. Data on MTBF, Uptime, and even qualitative information on your experience will be greatly appreciated. The main objective I have is to find out whether this technology is stable enough to be used in an environment where a very high availability is needed (> 99.995%) without additional redundancy regarding the switches (i'm refering to external redundancy, since I believe that most FP Switches have quite a lot of internal redundancy). In my model I assume that comms interfaces can have smaller availability as long as the core cell switch remains operational. Please email any info, and I'll summarize. Thanks a lot in advance. Cheers, pedro ramalho carlos email: prc@inesc.pt INESC tel: +351-1-3100050 Av. Duque de Avila, 23 fax: +351-1-3100008 1017 Lisboa Codex - PORTUGAL ------------------------------ From: root@arc.ug.eds.com Subject: Is Meridian 1 Option 11 Current? Date: 6 Jun 1994 16:00:37 GMT Organization: Graphics Data Systems Ltd, Cambridge, UK We are about to purchase a new phone system and have decided on the Northern Telelcom Meridian 1 option 11 system. However we now here that this is about to be discontinued. Can anyone confirm this, and if so what has/is replacing it? We are in the UK and buying this system through British Telecom, who are unable to confirm that this system is still current. Paul Havinden (paulh@arc.ug.eds.com) Graphic Data Systems, Cambridge, UK ------------------------------ From: keith.knipschild@asb.com Organization: America's Suggestion Box - BBS (516) 471-8625 Date: Mon, 06 Jun 94 18:22:26 Subject: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? Is it true that you can have your local telephone company BLOCK ANI, So that when you call a 800 number they can't know who you are? I am not talking about Caller ID. I know the difference. Any help would be great. Keith.knipschild@asb.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No it is not true. You cannot prevent the person or company paying for your call from knowing who called. And why would you want to force someone else to pay for your call while you remained anonymous? If you don't see any problem with it, I have a few calls here I need to make that I will have billed to you under the condition telco promises not to reveal my name or number to you. PAT] ------------------------------ From: keith.knipschild@asb.com Organization: America's Suggestion Box - BBS (516) 471-8625 Date: Mon, 06 Jun 94 18:22:26 Subject: What Do I Get When Dialing 311? When I dial 311 (I live on LI.N.Y -NYNEX-) I get connected to a TELETYPE sounding device. Does anyone know what this is? In the past 311 would announce the telephone number you were calling from, like 958 does. Keith.knipschild@asb.com ------------------------------ From: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.fidonet.org (Dave Leibold) Date: 06 Jun 94 14:01:30 -0500 Subject: Bell Canada Joins the 700 Club Organization: FidoNet Nameserver/Gateway From tests on Friday night, it seems Bell Canada recently activated certain aspects of the equal access system. 1+ dialing with other default carriers is expected to be set up around 1st July (though thousands of carrier cutovers will take several days to complete). When 1 700 555 4141 is dialed from a Toronto phone, the following recording is heard: "Your provider of long distance service is Bell Canada. Thank you for choosing us. This is a recording... 416 11" Looks like casual calling format 10XXX + 1 700 555 4141 doesn't work at this point, so that one can check out what other carriers are announcing. From a Millennium type payphone, 1 700 555 4141 does not complete, but rather gets a "restricted" number error. From an older type Centurion payphone, the 700 number gets to an operator who starts off announcing a cost for the call, then falls silent in bewilderment as there is apparently no cost information for the call. ------------------------------ From: jlundgre@ohlone.kn.PacBell.COM (John Lundgren) Subject: Re: DTMF-Tones: Alternating or Overlayed? Date: 06 Jun 94 15:54:25 GMT Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network Christian Kral (ch@auto.tuwien.ac.at) wrote: > I would like to know if DTMF tones are alternating (i.e. 10ms low tone, 10ms > high tone, 10ms low tone, ....) or if they are overlayed? > I have alredy got the frequency table, but I don't know how they appear. I'm not sure what you mean by overlayed. If you mean are they simultaneous, then the answer is yes. They are dual tone multi-frequency. Over on alt.2600 newsgroup, someone uploaded a .UUE of a program called BOX, i believe. If you have a sound card, it generates all the tones, including A,B,C,D. It also (I think) generates the ones used in the trunks. ------------------------------ From: jlundgre@ohlone.kn.PacBell.COM (John Lundgren) Subject: Re: Piping sound from a stereo to a telephone line. Date: 6 Jun 94 15:08:41 GMT Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network Homer J. Simpson (squonk@kaiwan.com) wrote: > I am curious is finding a way to pipe music into a phone line (for > example hold music). I know that a phone line uses 50 Volts AC. Can > someone send me plans or a electronic device that will allow me to do this. > I am not interested in purchasing commercial hold music equipment. I > would like to make this a project for myself. Anyone with info on this, > please email me at squonk@kaiwan.com. Oops. It's 48 to 54 volts DC, not AC. Also about 100 volts AC at 20 Hz for ringing current. The audio is much weaker than that. In the U.S., the device has to meet FCC part 68 rules to be connected to the phone line. There are manufacturers such as Cermetek that make part 68 accepted DAAs. There are devices called phone patches that the hams use to connect their gear to the phone line. It's a circuit called a hybrid. Ask the guys in the rec.amateur.equipment or .misc about them. The Radio Amateurs Handbook usually has some circuits for phone patches. The transformer that can be used is the 600 ohm 1:1 audio job from Radio Shack. They also had a 10K to 2K C.T. but it's no longer available. Another place to check for info is comp.dcom.telecom and alt.dcom.telecom. John Lundgren - Elec Tech - Info Tech Svcs Rancho Santiago Community College District 17th St. at Bristol \ Santa Ana, CA 92706 Voice (714) JOHN GAB \ FAX (714) JOHN FRY jlundgre@pop.rancho.cc.ca.us\jlundgr@eis.calstate.edu ------------------------------ From: oppedahl@panix.com (Carl Oppedahl) Subject: Re: Second Phone Line: How Can I Do it Myself Date: 6 Jun 1994 14:28:37 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC In ab503@lafn.org (Edgar Estrada) writes: > I'd like to add a second phone line in my apartment. I called the local > phone company and they want $100 just to install the jack. I suspect > that I can probably do it myself. I remember reading somewhere that > most new aparments have been wired for two lines so all I would have > to buy is a phone panel with two jacks and connect the right wires. > Would this be right? If so what are the right wire? Does anybody know > of a how to book that will tell me how to do it? Your header suggests you are writing from California. If so, you should know you are in a "renter beware" state, as defined on page 51 of The Phone Book. It means that before you sign a lease in California it would be smart to find out these things. Otherwise you may end up paying a lot of money for an improvement that the landlord gets to keep when you move out. Not to mention, the cost to install your second line may include the telco charging as much as the whim of the day leads to, for the portion of the work that goes from the basement of your building to your apartment. But from your posting I gather you have probably figured this out already. Since you have already signed the lease, here's what you do. Follow the instructions in chapter 2 (ordering new telephone service), chapter 7 (two-line telephone service) and chapter 14 (doing your own two-line wiring). The book should be at your local bookstore (ISBN 0-89043-364-X). If it is not, then maybe if you ask they will order a hundred copies. :) :) Or, call Consumer Reports Books at 1-800-272-0722. Carl Oppedahl AA2KW Oppedahl & Larson (patent lawyers) Yorktown Heights, NY voice 212-777-1330 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For readers who have not figured it out, Carl wrote The Phone Book. Not the one you find in the payphone stall with half the pages missing and other half scribbed on ... his book about phones -- which should be required reading for all Digest people -- is called The Phone Book. Look for it at your local bookstore. PAT] ------------------------------ From: steve@xochi.tezcat.com (Steve Gibons) Subject: Re: Answering Machine Recommendations Wanted Date: 6 Jun 1994 10:23:36 -0500 Organization: TEZCAT - Wicker Park's Own Internet Services 312-850-0181 John O'Shaughnessy (osh@a00308.cray.com) wrote: > Our four year old AT&T answering machine seems to have spun it's last > capstan into the dirt. I assume that a machine that was purchased for > $70.00 would cost more than $50.00 to have repaired, so I'm in the > market for a new answering machine. I heartily recommend the Panasonic Easa-phone line, I own the KX-T1920. It has never failed in any way. Older models of a similar unit are still working after six or seven years. I don't know if you can find one that supports time stamp. Steve Gibons steve@xochi.tezcat.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Radio Shack has an answering machine which does time and date stamp. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 06 Jun 1994 11:23:26 EDT From: Peter M. Weiss Subject: Re: Book Review: "Internet: Mailing Lists" by Hardie/Neou Organization: Penn State University For an authoratative document on how to search for lists, e-mail listserv@vm1.nodak.edu and include the single line of text: get listsof lists This was editted by Marty Hoag. It contains a LISTSERV script, which one edits and mails back to the LISTSERV and will do a search for you. (General LISTSERV search techniques are discussed via another list called LDBASE-L.) co-owner INFOSYS, TQM-L, CPARK-L, ERAPPA-L, JANITORS, -> LDBASE-L Pete-Weiss@psu.edu +1 814 863 1843 31 Shields Bldg. -- Penn State Univ -- University Park, PA 16802-1202 USA ------------------------------ From: ronwrigh@hebron.connected.com (Ronald L. Wright) Subject: Re: Help: Bad Phone Lines in San Jose Date: 6 Jun 1994 08:58:12 -0700 Organization: Connected INC -- Internet Services That is very true. I am a Network Technician for US West Communications in Washington State, and have seen that happen a few times. Using our state of the art test gear, there will be no physical trouble at all, and noise and transmission readings will be picture perfect. The difficulty is that there has really been very little training on data communications problems, so the average technician uses his equipment and tells you that everything is fine, while you are only getting 2600 bps out of a 28.8 modem :( I'm really not sure what the answer is aside from cutting the line to a new cable pair. I heard once that heavy power influence (from power company lines) could also be a source of difficluties, but I have no real verification of that. I am real interested in the information that gets posted from this thread, and will keep an eye out for any info that I may be able to pass along to the techs up here. See Ya! Ron Wright ronwrigh@hebron.connected.com ------------------------------ From: ssimon@idi.net (Samuel A. Simon) Subject: Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Call Routing Date: 6 Jun 1994 16:14:33 GMT Organization: Capital Area Internet Service In my view, the FCC should have actd to make AOS service illegal as not being in the public interest to begin with. The ONLY reason they developed, and the only reason they now succeed, is that they have what has been referred to as a "situational monopoly." But for the fact that consumers either did not hve a choice or did not know the rates, they were in effect forced to use the AOS associated with the pay phone. The rates were and are non-competitive. If one assumes consumers would NEVER pick a service that charges more than either (a) their own standard service or (b) the prevailing rate (AT&T) for the same call if made from home or at "stnadard" rates, then they would never have an AOS business. AOS serivces are essentially legal rip-offs of consumers. There is no business of just operator services, it is the long distance business to begin with. The only reason it exists is consumers are either captive or uninformed of choices. What a sham. SSIMON@idi.net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Except something you are forgetting is that there are many locations where a payphone would NOT be installed by the phone company otherwise which now have them because the COCOT owner was willing to put one in at a somewhat higher cost to the end user. There are many cases where merchants can not get a *commissioned* coin phone on the premises because telco won't give them one unless the traffic volume is as high as telco wants it to be. Telco would give the merchant a 'semi- public' coin phone but the merchant not only gets no commission from those but he has to pay a monthly fee as well for the convenience of a phone for his customers to use. So COCOTS do sometimes fill a gap in areas where telco will not otherwise provide a payphone yet one is needed. Unlike private residential service where telco MUST provide service to any qual- ified customer (a 'qualified customer' is any person who requests service and demonstrates both the ability and willingness to pay for the service), telco has no legal obligation to put payphones anywhere. Whether or not to install payphones, and under what terms are purely a business decision by telco. the COCOT people do fill a need, but regulation is very important as well. PAT] ------------------------------ From: lreeves@crl.com (Les Reeves) Subject: Re: Country and Area Codes on PC Software Date: 6 Jun 1994 09:59:45 -0700 Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access (415) 705-6060 [login: guest] JJ Fai (jjfai@pipeline.com) wrote: > PC's, the great communicators, don't even provide us with basic > information that we can use, such as country codes and area codes for > leading cities around the world. > As a new subscriber, I wonder whether there is a .DBF, .CSV, .TXT or other > generally compatible databse available that lists this vital information. > Even my little Psion 3A palmtop has country and area codes built-in, > yet the leading PIM's and database programs for DOS and Windows ignore > them. > If such a database has not yet been compiled and been made widely > available, it's about time that we fill the glaring gap. Below is the first page of the documentation of an excellent shareware program called NPA. My copy is almost a year old, but perhaps the author has released a newer version. - NPA - Numbering Plan Area The Comprehensive Area Code and Exchange Locator <06Sep93> (C) Copyright 1991-93 The PC Consultant P.O. Box 42086 Houston TX 77242-2086 Ph. 713/826-2629 (v-mail no answer) CIS 73670,1164 What does NPA do? ----------------- NPA is a comprehensive area code and prefix locator. NPA stands for Numbering Plan Area which is telephone company jargon for "area code". NPA contains information for over 20,000 cities in the United States and Canada. Such information includes: * area code (NPA) * state in USA or province in Canada * local exchange or prefix (NXX) * the city that NXX belongs to * county that city resides in * population of county * pravelent zip code within NXX * central office latitude and longitude of record for NXX (plus a feature for instantly calculating mileage) Les lreeves@crl.com Atlanta,GA 404.874.7806 ------------------------------ From: peb@netaxs.com (Paul Begley) Subject: Re: Can a Unix Box Work as an Internet Router? Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 14:57:57 Organization: Net Access - Philadelphia's Internet Connection In article johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) writes: >> If so, what's the *cheapest* router available? Can a Unix box >> connect to a digital comm line (56k)? > The answer to the first question is an old 286, which costs about > $300, running PCROUTE, which is free. You need to add in an Ethernet > card, about $60, and the DDS interface. The leased line FAQ just > posted includes, a reference for a DDS interface with packet driver > software that will let it work under PCROUTE. This is true, but the performance is pretty poor. If you only require a connection and don't need the performance, PCROUTE is fine. If you have a UNIX box available (particularly a RISC box), you can use it as a router no problem. Most UNIX's have it built in (SUN, HP, (even) IBM if you use AIX 3.2.x). ------------------------------ From: Ed Ellers Subject: Re: What is a New Activation? Date: Mon, 6 Jun 94 22:53:56 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Bob Berger writes: > In most states buying a cellular phone is much cheaper with a new > activation; the carrier essentially subsidizes the purchase. > Now, just how do they define "new"? Let's say I have an old, clunky > cellular phone, and I want one of those whizbang pocket models. If I > cancel my old service on May 31st, can I get a "New Activation" from > the same company on June 1st? Or must I switch carriers to get a good > deal on the phone purchase? It worked out better than that when a fellow I know bought a new Cadillac a while back. He had a factory cellular phone in the car he was trading in, and the dealer was giving away a free phone with every new car -- with a one-year contract with BellSouth Mobility. It turned out that BellSouth let the guy simply extend his existing service for a year to get the deal. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 14:46:54 EST From: mark@legend.akron.oh.us (Mark E Daniel) Subject: Re: Current List of Areacodes Wanted Speaking of area code lists .... there used to be a lot of services offered by Bell Labs? in NJ (Morristown to be exact) which were done with a computer generated voice. The whole system was rather nifty, but just as usual with anything that's nifty hackers abused the crap out of the entire system and it went away ... they had literally everything. Even a radio that could be controlled via touchtones! :) (I've always wanted that for call waiting and the like ... entertain your friends while they wait and let them pick the station! Or give me a hook up to my stereo ... :)) But anyway one of these services was an area code listing by NPA-XXX. Does anyone know of a similar service that exists today? Mark E Daniel (Loving SysOp of The Legend BBS) Inet: mark@legend.akron.oh.us [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There was a discussion at one point about adding 'music on hold' as an auxilliary service to 'call-waiting'. If you put a call on hold via call-waiting, the CO would dump background music to the caller while he was sitting there. I think the monthly fee was going to be something like 95 cents or one dollar. Every so often a recorded voice would tell the caller he was still on hold waiting for his party to flash and reconnect. Anyone know whatever happened to that proposal for a service enhancement, or if it ever got off the ground? PAT] ------------------------------ From: nduehr@netcom.com (Nathan N. Duehr) Subject: Re: LD Carrier's Message Delivery Service Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 06:56:21 GMT Mark E Daniel (mark@legend.akron.oh.us) wrote: > In article is written: > I just tried delivering a message on my voice line which has an > answering machine on it using Sprint's service. It was in the middle > of the message by the time the machine started recording. It did > however repeat the message from the beginning after completing it. So > as long as the greeting isn't LOOOOONG you should have no problems. > Mine runs about ~20 seconds. I guess they figure we're all capable of > leaving messages on answering machines ourselves. :) And they're > right. But it would be nice if they did it intelligently enough to > wait until the answeree stopped speaking before they delivered the > message. Even better would be to require the callee to press a digit on a touch tone phone before the system were to play the message to them. This might be a problem for those without touch tone phones, (ahem, excuse me ... DTMF phone to keep the folks at AT&T happy ...) but there aren't too many people who don't have them anymore. This would make it a positive and cheap way to assure that the message was being delivered to a live human being. Regards, Nate Duehr nduehr@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: Wes.Leatherock@tranquil.nova.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: 06 Jun 94 21:45:18 -0600 Subject: Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway Organization: Fidonet > There is a considerable amount of personal > unhappieness among USPS employees over the entire country. What other > organization has had three instances of employees turning into > mass-murderers on the job and killing several co-workers on the spot, > ie, Highland Park, Michigan a few years ago and Enid, Oklahoma a few > years ago to name two examples? It was Edmond, Oklahoma (not Enid, Oklahoma). Edmond is a suburb of Oklahoma City, and a co-worker was driving by the post office to work when a wounded and bleeding man staggered into the street. She loaded him into her car and drove him to the hospital. The shooting was still going on and she may have been in considerable danger. She was certainly shook up when she came to the office several hours later, or maybe it was the next day. She became friends with the wounded man and his family (he recovered). As I recall, she was awarded a Vail Medal. Wes Leatherock wes.leatherock@tranquil.nova.com wes.leatherock@oubbs.telecom.uoknor.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Jun 94 13:34:25 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway I also normally get mail addressed this way: my name PO box number city, state, zipcode (-xxx) where the xxxx includes the PO box number. I do have some Postal Service work experience, and in cases of a mistake and/or illegible writing, it helps to have some redundancy in the name and address so that a context exists in which the correct address can be figured out. I have lived in an apartment where it and about five other apartments had the same nine-digit zipcode, and another nine-digit zipcode was available for ANYWHERE in that complex. I can understand mail headed for someone in one of those nine-digit zipcodes getting bounced for insufficient address; the carrier doesn't necessarily know what apartment to send it to. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This is true, however in the case that the nine-digit zip (that's the acronym for one mprovement

lan by the way) code is unique, then why not just deliver as addressed? If it is undeliverable as addressed then return it to the sender. That would not be the fault of the carrier. By the way Carl, when you were working for the post office did you notice or experience the anger and disenchantment that seems to be so pervasive there? I won't ask you if you ever woke up one morning angry and went to work with a gun and shot everyone you saw. :) I assume you did not do that ... :) In the case in Highland Park, Michigan that was just a young kid, somewhere in his late teens who had just started working for USPS I think. He had worked there about a month and they fired him. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #274 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa05694; 6 Jun 94 18:42 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA07360; Mon, 6 Jun 94 15:25:26 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA07351; Mon, 6 Jun 94 15:25:24 CDT Date: Mon, 6 Jun 94 15:25:24 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406062025.AA07351@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #275 TELECOM Digest Mon, 6 Jun 94 15:25:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 275 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: AT&T to be Held Accountable? (bkron@netcom.com) Re: AT&T to be Held Accountable? (Clifton T. Sharp) Re: British Call Forwarding in 1960s (Alan Wright) Re: British Call Forwarding in 1960s (Philip J. Tait) Re: Largest Calling Areas (Bob Goudreau) Re: Largest Calling Areas (Dave O'Heare) Re: Largest Calling Areas (Peter Campbell Smith) Re: S-s-s-stuttering Dial Tone Detection (B.J. Guillot) Re: S-s-s-stuttering Dial Tone Detection (Steven Bradley) Re: S-s-s-stuttering Dial Tone Detection (John Harris) Re: "Line in use" Circuit For Phone (John Lundgren) Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Call Routing (Wes Leatherock) Best Way to Get Many (~50) Phone Lines? (Dick St.Peters) 711 in Atlanta (Les Reeves) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bkron@netcom.com (Kronos) Subject: Re: AT&T to be Held Accountable? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 03:33:03 GMT aa377@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ken Kopin) writes: > Can AT&T actually get away with this kind of misleading advertising? I always consider such advertising as "image advertising" - like those ads by the Plastic Manufacturers saying how much better it is to use paper plates and throw them away in the National Park's "recycling dumpster." If you spend enough for television ads, then the networks become dependent on the income and are less likely to run stories which portray you in a negative light. > ... AT&T ... now actively competing with Ameritech/Illinois Bell for > local traffic between the 312/708 area codes. When I was talking to our AT&T Account Executive here in Seattle last week, she informed me that, as of about six months ago, they could now provide intralata toll here in LATA 674. The rates she quoted me were slightly less than what the LEC, US West, charges. But when I tried to verify her figures by calling the AT&T "00" operator, I found the toll guides the operator had showed substantially higher rates! I presumed that, since I hadn't heard any advertising about this new alternative to local toll traffic by AT&T (or any other IEC, for that matter), the operator was probably right and the AE was ... wrong. By the way, she said the same thing about having to prepend AT&T's 10288 access code. ------------------------------ From: clifto@indep1.chi.il.us (Clifton T. Sharp) Subject: Re: AT&T to be Held Accountable? Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 17:24:25 GMT In article PAT writes: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Just this morning I heard a radio commercial > saying AT&T was now actively competing with Ameritech/Illinois Bell for > local traffic between the 312/708 area codes. If local calls here are to > points (relative to the calling party) in the 'C' or 'D' bands (the most > expensive of the local intra-lata calls here) then according to the message > on the radio, AT&T will be less expensive. The commercial said one will > save 'up to twenty percent' on those calls by prepending 10288 (or actually > 'one-oh-ATT' was the way it was phrased in the commercial) to the dialing > string. This will be interesting to test out. If any Digest readers in > the 312/708 area routinely make calls to far-away local points (what would > be a 'C' or 'D' band call for you) then you might want to test out AT&T's > claims. Please note that 1+ from/to 312/708 still defaults to local service > via Illinois Bell. You need to do it 10288 + 1 +. Let us know. PAT] I've heard the commercial myself (and think I saw one on TV), and it raises a little curiosity in my mind. I've been trying hard to figure out what actually happens, WRT billing, when I make a long-distance call. My copy of the V-H coordinates in hand from the current Illinois Commerce Commission tariff filing, I see two tables, one called "V and H coordinates of S.A. Centers" and the other "V and H Coordinates of Exchange Rate Centers". The former (in Part 6, Section 1, "Series Channel Service") lists all the various CO names in Chicago (e.g., Pullman, Irving, Lawndale, even one called "105"); the latter (in Part 4, "Long Distance Telecommunications Service") lists one V-H set for Chicago, apparently at Canal. I get the impression that that one item on the latter list is the LD gateway for the entire city of Chicago, which makes me wonder whether someone calling from Pullman to Irving (which looks enough like a "C" band call that I'll treat it as such for this discussion) wouldn't be paying MORE for the call by calling through AT&T, or any LD carrier for that matter; seems to me they'd be charged "message units" for the B (or C?) call to Canal, plus the AT&T charge for the call itself. This, of course, wouldn't be visible to anyone who's not monitoring every call and every second spent on the phone and tabulating "message units"; all we'd find out is whether the AT&T charge (not counting the Pullman-Canal connection) would be cheaper than the Pullman- Irving connection. Of course, it could be that the LD call is routed through the Calumet City "Exchange Rate Center", which is closer and (without doing the math) looks like an A call. But we all know that if Chicago is tariffed through Canal, they probably wouldn't do a thing like that. Or, it could even be that the tariff specifies that LD access is not billed by Ameritech ... naaaaah. (I don't have and can't afford a copy of the entire tariff; all I got was the V-H tables and a page on mileage measurement.) Cliff Sharp WA9PDM clifto@indep1.chi.il.us ------------------------------ From: awright@gucis.cit.gu.edu.au (Alan Wright) Subject: Re: British Call Forwarding in 1960s Organization: Griffith University, CIT. Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 04:03:04 GMT Andrew C. Green writes: > Randall Gellens (RANDY@MPA15AB.mv-oc.Unisys.COM) writes: >> He picks up his phone [...] and dials three digits. He says >> "Operator? This is WHitehall xxxx. My name is John Steed. I will >> be away for the next three weeks. Please forward my calls to the >> usual number." >> What sort of call-forwarding was offered by British Telecom in the >> 1960s? > At the risk of over-analyzing a fictional scene, I get the impression > he wasn't speaking to the telephone company operator, but to some sort > of government operator at the other end of a private line. I base this > conclusion on the fact that he dialed only three digits (I would have > expected contemporary numbers in the London area to be at least five), > and referred to his own number as "Whitehall", an inspired (if not > fictitious) choice for a British government phone network prefix. Had > he called whatever the local equivalent of 611 was (for repair or some > other service), I don't think he would have addressed the other party > as "Operator". The UK equivalent of 611 is 192. All UK numbers in the big cities, (London, Manchester, etc.), were made up of an exchange name, followed by four digits. You dialed the first three letters followed by the four digits, (eg CHO 1234, for Chorlton 1234), Only local calls were self dialed then. Later the letters were replaced by numbers, (eg CHO was replaced by 881). The Operator was obtained by dialing 0, (later changed to 100); this change happened during the late 60's/early 70's. However London, (as the capital), was always the first to get the new technology, (dial 100), and therefore the operator would offer the govenment, (as their boss), special MANUAL call forwarding for long distance (trunk) calls. In those days the Post Office ran the telephone system, not British Telecom, (which was invented to allow the option of selling off the phone system, and this was done in the 1980's). Al ------------------------------ From: pjt@pelab.allied.com (Philip J. Tait) Subject: Re: British Call Forwarding in 1960s Date: 6 Jun 1994 19:42:55 GMT Organization: AlliedSignal Engines Reply-To: pjt@pelab.allied.com (Philip J. Tait) 100 was the number to reach the operator after STD was introduced in the 1960s. > and referred to his own number as "Whitehall", an inspired (if not > fictitious) choice for a British government phone network prefix. WHItehall was a valid London "exchange", as I recall. Philip J. Tait AlliedSignal Engines, Phoenix, Az +1 602 231 7104 GED::B12635 pjt@pelab.allied.com tait@venus.research.allied.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 12:02:34 -0400 From: goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) Subject: Re: Largest Calling Areas brendan@mpce.mq.edu.au (Brendan Jones) writes: > In article telecom14.250.3@eecs.nwu.edu, johns@scroff.UK (John Slater) > wrote: >> I believe Greater London is the largest geographic calling area in >> the world. > Then you believe mistakenly! Australia has many calling areas larger > than this. Much *much* larger! > The largest calling area in Australia is the (089) zone which covers > all of the Northern Territory and then some.... Unless I'm mistaken about how Australian calls are billed, you're completely missing John's point. He's not bragging about the size of *area codes* (indeed, Greater London is the densest node of population in the UK and requires two area codes now). Rather, I infer that by "calling areas" he means "the geographic area to which one can make those calls billed at the lowest rate". In the US, we would probably say "local calling area" -- the region in which residential customers can make free calls (for most of the US) or calls metered at the cheapest rate (for those unfortunate areas that have local measured service). The bragging rights for largest local calling area in the US have been debated before in TELECOM Digest, although I don't recall who won. (I do remember someone saying that the local calling area for the Atlanta, Georgia region was something like 50 to 80 miles [80 to 130 km] in diameter.) Of course, most North American area codes are much larger than local calling areas; sparsely populated western states and Canadian provinces usually have but a single area code each. Indeed, Alaska (area code 907) is geographically larger than the NT. Area codes 413 and 819 together cover Canada's vast Northwest and Yukon Territories, not to mention all of Alberta and a chunk of Quebec. And there are probably Russian area codes in eastern and northern Siberia that dwarf even these examples. Now, is it really true that a call from anywhere in the Northern Territory to anywhere else in the NT is always billed at anything close to the same rate? I.e., that a call down the block within Darwin costs the about the same as a call from Darwin to some deep outback town? If so, I'll concede that you are indeed comparing apples to apples. Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 11:31:03 -0400 From: doheare@jetform.com (Dave O'Heare) Subject: Re: Largest Calling Areas You know, I would have thought that Inmarsat was the largest single calling area :-) Dave O'Heare doheare@jetform.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Your humor is noted, but see the earlier letter in this issue as to the way we are defining things. I suppose to use your criteria, 'area code' 800 would be the largest area. PAT] ------------------------------ From: campbellsm@lish.logica.com (Peter Campbell Smith) Subject: Re: Largest Calling Areas Organization: Logica, London Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 14:20:52 GMT In article , brendan@macadam.mpce.mq.edu.au (Brendan Jones) wrote: > In article telecom14.250.3@eecs.nwu.edu, johns@scroff.UK (John Slater) > wrote: >> I believe Greater London is the largest geographic calling area in the world. > Then you believe mistakenly! Australia has many calling areas > larger than this. Much *much* larger! I presume the original writer meant the largest number of people or phones in a local calling area defined by a geographical area. By 'local' he meant (referring to the original post) the area within which all calls are charged at the local rate, which may not be the same as those having the same dialling code. The resident population of the local calling area in London must be around eight million. I don't know, but I would doubt that this is a record, since several third world cities have much larger populations and I might guess that they do not all have phone systems which divide the city into several charging zones. London might win, however, on number of phones or exchange lines, though I wouldn't bank on possibly Tokyo or New York City (212) beating it. Does anyone have the facts? Around 20 years ago Atlanta claimed to have the largest local calling area in the US, though I'm not sure I believed it even then. Peter Campbell Smith, Logica plc, London. Voice: +44 71 637 9111 Fax: +44 71 344 3638 Internet: campbellsm@lish.logica.com ------------------------------ From: st1r8@elroy.uh.edu (B.J. Guillot) Subject: Re: S-s-s-stuttering Dial Tone Detection Date: 6 Jun 1994 12:47 CDT Organization: University of Houston In article , davep@u.washington.edu (Dave Ptasnik) writes... > kmp@tiac.net (K. M. Peterson) writes: >> My problem: I don't want to have to lift the handset to find out if I >> have messages. Has someone come up with a box to sit on one's line >> and detect this (and flash a lamp or something)? > A Canadian company called Xinex Networks, Inc. makes an amazing > telephone called the mindSET. It periodically samples the line > looking for stutter dial tone, and turns on a big message light when Speaking of "stutter dial tone", I called SW Bell the other day to get information on their voice mail service (Call Notes), and the rep guy said "When you lift up the handset, you will hear a SPECIAL noise that indicates a message is waiting." I then asked him, you mean "stutter dialtone?" He replied "Exactly! But it's politically incorrect for us to use that term now, or we could get fired." Well, I thought it was interesting. :-)... Regards, B.J. Guillot ... Houston, Texas USA ------------------------------ From: steven@sgb.oau.org (Steven Bradley) Subject: Re: S-s-s-stuttering Dial Tone Detection Organization: The Forest City Exchange, Forest City, Florida Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 18:52:26 GMT > I believe the BelTronics Caller-ID unit also has a "MSG" display on > the unit. You can get this unit at Lechmere. ^^^^^^^^ Do you have an address or phone number for this company? Internet: steven@sgb.oau.org Steven G. Bradley steven@gate.net Forest City, Florida GEnie: s.bradley6@genie.geis.com CompuServe: 73232.505@compuserve.com Phone: 407/862-7226 America Online: sgbradley@aol.com Modem: 407/862-8088 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Jun 94 15:45 WET From: joharris@io.org (John Harris) Subject: Re: S-s-s-stuttering Dial Tone Detection Jpc@mtrac.com wrote: >> Stretching my one phone line ever further, I'm considering getting >> voicemail from our local telco. >> My problem: I don't want to have to lift the handset to find out if I >> have messages. Has someone come up with a box to sit on one's line >> and detect this (and flash a lamp or something)? > I believe the BelTronics Caller-ID unit also has a "MSG" display on > the unit. You can get this unit at Lechmere. Beware. The message waiting feature on the BEL-Tronics Caller ID unit, which is not an advertized feature, will only work in specific instances. The telephone company must deliver a Caller ID message waiting signal as specified by Bell Canada ID-0008. Multiple Data Message Format, paramater code 11, status 255 to turn ON, status 0 to turn OFF. The telephone company must deliver a ring signal before the Visual message waiting signal; since the Caller ID unit is battery powered and goes to sleep except for 28 seconds after a ring. In words of one sylable. Don't expect it to work unless you live in Toronto or Montreal. John Harris BEL-Tronics Ltd, Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1J9 joharris@io.org (905) 828-1002 Fax (905) 828-2951 ------------------------------ From: jlundgre@ohlone.kn.PacBell.COM (John Lundgren) Subject: Re: "Line in use" Circuit For Phone Date: 6 Jun 94 17:14:57 GMT Organization: Pacific Bell Knowledge Network Re: Phone in use indicator LED. Some of the enquiries are for something to prevent the abort of the modem session when another phone is picked up. There is another, better way around this. The decent quality modems have two jacks, one for line and one for phone. The phone jack is disconnected from the line when there is a session in progress. Some cheap modems don't because the two jacks are just in parallel. If you have a direct two pair line from your modem to the phone line entrance point, you can use this method. Connect the second pair to a modular plug that connects to the 'phone' jack on the modem. Then run this line clear back to the entrance point, and connect all the other phone lines to it. When your modem is off-hook, the other phones won't get any dial tone. Connect green to black and red to yellow. You have to make up a jumper block to use when you've got the modem unplugged. Take a regular modular block with two jacks and connect the green and red wires together. Then when you have the modem unplugged, plug both lines into the two jacks, so that others have dial tone. People say that this isn't a very realistic way to do it, but it's the ONLY way that will guarantee that the session won't be aborted by someone picking up a phone ... because blinking LEDs won't! John Lundgren - Elec Tech - Info Tech Svcs Rancho Santiago Community College District 17th St. at Bristol \ Santa Ana, CA 92706 Voice (714) JOHN GAB \ FAX (714) JOHN FRY jlundgre@pop.rancho.cc.ca.us\jlundgr@eis.calstate.edu ------------------------------ From: Wes.Leatherock@tranquil.nova.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: 05 Jun 94 21:46:00 -0600 Subject: Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Call Routing Organization: Fidonet -=> Quoting sbrack@esserv01.utnetw.utoledo.edu (Steve Brack) <=- > In almost every other area of business I can think of, the greatest > latitude in billing arrangements is given to the person paying for the > service, rather than the person using it. All BPP will do is bring > telephone billing in line with standard commercial practice. This is definitely not true in anything when you are sending something to someone else. The sender decides whether to send something by regular U.S. mail, Express Mail, Federal Express (three different levels of service), UPS (numerous levels of service), Roadway Package Systems, Airborne Express, Emery Airfreight, a large number of common carrier truck lines, contract truck lines and independents, railroads (numerous different routings). Many of these offer "collect" service that works just like it does for a telephone call. And in every case the carrier that the shipper tenders the shipment to will take the shipment to its destination, or give it to a connection that takes it to its destination, and will collect for the charges. (And there are some- times difficulties when the consignee wants the shipment sent one way and the shipper sends all its shipments some other way. But nobody has suggested a government regulation ought to cover this, even though they all use the same public streets and highways to pick up and deliver.) When there were separate telegraph companies, if you sent a telegraph by Postal Telegraph it would be delivered by Postal Telegraph, which would collect the charges if the message was sent collect. If you sent it by Western Union, Western Union would carry it and collect for it. And Postal did not deliver over Western Union's tielines ("WUX") to the customer, nor did Western Union deliver over Postal's tielines. The same thing was true of international record carriers. If you sent your message by RCA Communications, it would be delivered (and collected for) by RCA Communications. If you sent it by Mackay Communications that carrier would carry it and collect for the charges from the received. Same thing was true if you sent it by the French cable company (I forget their exact name), or one of several other carriers that served various parts of the world. In all these similar cases in the past and into the present, it has been up to the intended receiver of the shipment or communication to get -- or try to get -- the sender to send it by the way preferred by the receiver. Why shouldn't the same be true of telephone calls? The FCC proposal was in its formative stages at least three years ago, and it seems a very expensive project, especially as it is at variance with the common custom. Wes Leatherock wes.leatherock@tranquil.nova.com wes.leatherock@oubbs.telecom.uoknor.edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What you say is true, but you must remember that the recipient has the right to refuse the collect shipment or telegram or whatever. If Federal Express shows up at my door with a package I did not order and it was sent collect, do you think I am going to pay for it? I just tell the man to take it back wherever it came from; then when the recipient gets it back he *has* to pay, even for the non-delivery since he caused the freight company to carry the package both ways, etc. Likewise if I get a collect phone call announced by the operator, I refuse it rather than risk a very high surcharge, etc. If you want me to pay for something (package or phone call, etc) then you deliver it according to my instructions or it does not get delivered. If you pay, then you make those decisions. PAT] ------------------------------ From: stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com (Dick St.Peters) Subject: Best Way to Get Many (~50) Phone Lines? Reply-To: stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com Organization: GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 19:24:04 GMT Hi. I'm new to telecom things and need help. (Lots of it ...) I'm becoming an Internet provider -- dialup PPP/SLIP, so I need a lot of phone lines. NYNEX says it wants a ten-year contract (with a bond) before it will install a lot of pairs to my house. They will gladly sell me several T1s, but even though I'm less than a mile from my CO, this is more than twice the cost per line ... without even including costs of the equipment to demux the T1s. Further, they tell me that all 24 lines on a T1 must be used for voice lines ... I can't use any of them as 56k DDS local loops ... no tariff, they say. (I forgot to ask about 3002 leased voice lines.) NYNEX would be happier about stringing lots of pairs to a real office, but I'd have to rent the office, so the costs actually work out sort of similar unless the demux equipment is really expensive. How expensive is it? What is it? NYNEX says I need a PBX. Do I really need one if I only want to tie each line to a modem and/or terminal server? Finally, what am I not asking that I should be? Dick St.Peters, Gatekeeper, Pearly Gateway; currently at: GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com soon: stpeters@NetHeaven.com ------------------------------ From: lreeves@crl.com (Les Reeves) Subject: 711 in Atlanta Date: 6 Jun 1994 12:52:43 -0700 Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access (415) 705-6060 [login: guest] The second N11 service sold by BellSouth to the highest bidder gets off the ground this week. Williams' 711 service is working in most parts of the city now. The official start-up is June 15. Some of the services are free, others are $ 0.25 or more per call. According to the 711 operator, the pay services will not be charging for the next week or so. Unlike Cox's 511 service, 711 will have both free and pay-per-call programs. The time, weather, and lottery info is free. Dial #5 to get connected to WAGA's free time, weather, and lottery info. Les lreeves@crl.com Atlanta, GA 404.874.7806 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #275 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa16599; 7 Jun 94 19:18 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA03874; Tue, 7 Jun 94 15:22:17 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA03865; Tue, 7 Jun 94 15:22:15 CDT Date: Tue, 7 Jun 94 15:22:15 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406072022.AA03865@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #276 TELECOM Digest Tue, 7 Jun 94 15:22:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 276 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson New Player in the 800 Game (TELECOM Digest Editor) Does MCI Have Answer Supervision? (Philip J. Tait) High-Speed Serial Boards For PC's Wanted (Joseph Kruckenberg) Digiboard Takes the Place of PBX? (David Wuertele) Motorola Offers Baseball Pager (Dave Leibold) Advanced Features for Lesotho's Phones (Dave Leibold) v.35 Interface For PC Wanted (Joseph Kruckenberg) Moving to DC From the UK (David Wigglesworth) LAMA Equipped Exchange (Dimitri Vekris) Cellular ESN Change (Robert S. Helfman) Looking For a Voice Mail/Auto Attendant System (Eduardo Tribaldos) Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" (Mike Wilcox) Re: British Call Forwarding in 1960s (Richard Cox) Re: Help: Bad Phone Lines in San Jose (dsd@aol.com) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: New Player in the 800 Game Date: Tue, 07 Jun 1994 14:50:00 CDT I had a very pleasant conversation earlier today with Steve Betterly about a new 800 service available to small and medium size users. It sounds so exciting in fact, I thought I would discuss it here and let the readers know about it. There are residential and small business 800 services aplenty. They are all over the place, and of course the Big Three also offer various toll free inbound calling plans. The only one until now which offered *immediate* call forwarding of 800 numbers was to the best of my knowledge the service from Cable & Wireless. The company is called Call America and the 800 service is called 'My Line'. Like the others, you get your own 800 number which is set up as a DID (direct inward dial) number on the Call America switch in San Luis Obispo, CA. Now the fun begins: At anytime you wish, you control where the number is routed to. Your caller hears a precorded message in your own voice which says, "Hi this is Patrick, please hold while your call is transferred to me" (or whatever phrase you wish to use). The call is then redirected to wherever you have indicated, and that could be your cell phone, your home phone, your office, a payphone at the bus station or whatever. If you prefer, you can route calls to a pager or to voicemail. If you are staying in a hotel, your greeting might say "Hi this is Patrick, I am at the Hilton Hotel, when the operator answers ask for room 3212." You control where the calls are forwarded by calling your own 800 number and punching in a security code while the greeting is being played. Entering your code take you out of the greeting and into a menu on the Call America switch where you then manipulate things as you want them. Likewise, there is a method where your caller can enter a priority code during the greeting (if he has been tipped off to do so) and his call will be transferred to your 'priority number'. For example maybe you are forwarding all calls to voicemail, but the caller who enters a priority code will be routed to your cell phone instead. Changes in where calls are routed take place right away; there are no delays. You can use 'My Line' as a calling card for outgoing calls also. You dial your 800 number, enter your private code and are then extended to dial tone. The rates are much cheaper than calling cards. Speed dialing is part of the package (for example your repretoire of numbers where you would be routing your calls from time to time can be put on speed dial). Also, wake up and reminder service is available along with time and charges notification. Here is the pricing structure: Basic service is $8.50 per month. That gets you: A personal 800 number; Unlimited call forwarding to wherever you route it; Priority call screening (take some calls direct if the caller knows to enter the priority code during the voice greeting, otherwise call is sent to 'regular' number or voicemail); Calling card features; Wake up/reminder calls; Time and charges when requested on outcalls, etc; Date and time. If you want voicemail from Call America, add another $9.50 per month. Additional options at this time include an expanded speed dialing arrangement (more numbers can be stored) and scheduled call forwarding. What this does is automatically routes calls to your home or your office or wherever at the times you specify on a daily basis, etc. These extra features are $2.00 per month each. You can also have a DID number in San Luis Obispo if desired. I do not have all the details on that service. So monthly, figure $8.50 plus $9.50 if you want their voicemail. Per minute usage charges: Calls forwarded to you are 25 cents per minute. Calls forwarded to your voicemail are 15 cents per minute. Calls *from* you to retrieve voicemail or change the forwarding, etc are 15 cents per minute. If you use 'My Line' as your calling card arrangement on outgoing calls the rate is 55 cents for the first minute and 25 cents for each additional minute on your outgoing calls. After the first minute minimum, additional minutes are in six-second intervals. For this you dial your 800 number, override the voice greeting with your PIN, get dial tone and dial your number. One other kink: *at any time* in a conversation forwarded to you, hit the pound key and some other digit (as per the literature they will send you) and the call is plucked away and transfered to voice mail or transferred to some other number. What this means, as an example, is let's say you have the 800 number set to ring your home. But you are out with your cellphone and your roomate answers. Instead of taking a message, he can tell the caller, "just a minute, I will transfer you to voicemail (or transfer you to where he is at)" and press certain keys on the phone ... poof, the call is lifted back by the switch and transferred to (a) voicemail or (b) your 'priority number' or whatever ... Calls that are not answered after a certain number of rings are automatically defaulted to voicemail if you have it set that way, or you can skip their voicemail entirely and arrange for it on your own so that if you have voicemail on your home phone now or your cell phone or whatever, calls routed to that phone will eventually fall into your own voicemail if you prefer. Overall, this looks like an excellent and very flexible 800 service even though the price is a little higher than the others we have bandied about in our discussions here. Contacts: Call America 'My Line' Customer Service 800-549-3500 879 Morro Street San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 Digest readers should contact: Steve Betterly betterly@callamer.com 800-549-3500 or 805-547-6464 fax Tell him you read about the 'My Line' service in TELECOM Digest. Experiences will be welcomed; we can open a discussion here on it once a few of you have had a chance to try it out. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ From: pjt@pelab.allied.com (Philip J. Tait) Subject: Does MCI Have Answer Supervision? Date: 7 Jun 1994 19:27:33 GMT Organization: AlliedSignal Engines Reply-To: pjt@pelab.allied.com (Philip J. Tait) My latest phone bill seems to indicate that unanswered LD and International calls that are allowed to ring for > one minute get billed as a one minute call. I call elderly relatives, who get a little upset if I hang up just as they answer :-), so I let it ring a good while. When I used to be with Sprint, I got tired of calling Customer Service for refunds -- when I changed to AT&T, I was gratified to see the problem cease. An MCI rep. mumble-spoke about not getting the proper signals back from the other telco (BT in this case). He could not explain why AT&T never had the problem, and it doesn't explain why this recently happened on some domestic LD calls. Is this one more reason to change back to AT&T? Philip J. Tait AlliedSignal Engines, Phoenix, Az +1 602 231 7104 GED::B12635 pjt@pelab.allied.com tait@venus.research.allied.com ------------------------------ From: kruckenb@sal.cs.utah.edu (Joseph Kruckenberg) Subject: High-Speed Serial Boards For PC's Wanted Date: 7 Jun 1994 16:15:48 GMT Organization: University of Utah I am trying to connect a high-speed (56kb - 115.2kb) serial port to a PC (running Linux) from a partial-T1 DSU/CSU, and I'm wondering what options I have. I know we could go with a 16550-based board, but is the 16550 going to be able to handle this kind of speed without dropping characters or seriously loading down the CPU? Is anyone using Linux for high-speed connections like this? If so, what are you using? Does Linux support the Hayes ESP board in its enhanced (non-16550- emulation mode), or is there a similar board that supports these high-speed rates and is supported by Linux? Thanks for your help. Pete Kruckenberg kruckenb@sal.cs.utah.edu ------------------------------ From: dave@sparc4-5.gctech.co.jp (Dave) Subject: Digiboard Takes the Place of PBX? Organization: Graphic Communications Laboratories (GCL) Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 03:01:18 GMT I recently heard (from a friend who heard from...) that a peripheral called the "Digiboard" can take the place of a PBX for large voicemail projects. The rumor is that the Digiboard plugs into your WS/PC and allows you to receive and drive up to 100 simultaneous DTMF voicemail calls. Has anybody heard of this product? It sounds too good to be true, from both a load perspective and a communications perspective. First of all, timesharing a workstation between 100 users even for as simple a task as reading mail can render the workstation useless. Secondly, can you really fit the electronics to interface with multiple T1 lines on a single thing called a "board?" I would be grateful if someone could provide me with details about this product (or others like it). Most importantly, 1. Who makes it, and what's their phone number? 2. What platforms does it work with? 3. Can it handle even a single T1 connection? Thanks a bunch, David Wuertele ------------------------------ From: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.fidonet.org (Dave Leibold) Date: 07 Jun 94 01:51:41 -0500 Subject: Motorola Offers Baseball Pager Organization: FidoNet Nameserver/Gateway Motorola is selling a form of display pager that can track baseball games as they are being played. The Sports Trax units will indicate the teams involved, score, outs, which bases have runners, which team is at bat, and even the start time of the next game. The pager unit will even make noises according to game activity (runs, start of game, end of inning, etc). The units are being sold in Canada, and will cover all games played by the Toronto Blue Jays of the American League. The service costs $149 for three years. This includes capability to receive Sports Trax data throughout Canada in areas covered by Motorola paging. Too bad the Jays seem to be having minor league results so far this year :-( [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I cannot imagine anyone bothering to purchase one to follow the Chicago Cubs this year! PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.fidonet.org (Dave Leibold) Date: 07 Jun 94 01:30:23 -0500 Subject: Advanced Features For Lesotho's Phones Organization: FidoNet Nameserver/Gateway I had a chance to look through a 1990 phone book for the nation of Lesotho yesterday. There appeared to be extensive deployment of digital switching, as of that edition (no doubt things have improved even more during the past four years). Some areas require manual, or at least less than automatic access, though. International dialing was also available to many subscribers, using 00 plus country code and national number format. Strangely enough, they listed such places as Tillsonburg, Ontario and Tilney, Saskatchewan (Tillsonburg has a but few thousand residents; Tilney is a place I'm not familiar with, but it is certainly not one of the major Saskatchewan centres like Saskatoon). They also have familiar digital exchange calling features such as call forward, which are activated by commands that resemble those used with the AXE switches. The most interesting feature is a "lock" feature that can disable a telephone from placing calls, such as during a vacation. Dialing *33*# locks the phone, and will only unlock it when the password is dialed in the sequence #33*#. This means of preventing phone misuse is not too common in North America (if any telcos offer such a feature at all). ------------------------------ From: kruckenb@sal.cs.utah.edu (Joseph Kruckenberg) Subject: v.35 Interface For PC Wanted Date: 7 Jun 1994 14:48:53 GMT Organization: University of Utah I'm trying to find out how I can connect the v.35 output of our Codex box to a PC so we can gateway TCP/IP through our T1 to the Internet. If you know of an interface that would do this, especially one that will work with the freeware Unix version, Linux, I'd love to hear from you. Pete Kruckenberg kruckenb@sal.cs.utah.edu ------------------------------ From: David Wigglesworth Date: Tue, 7 Jun 94 09:03:03 GMT Subject: Moving to DC From the UK I will be moving from the UK to Washington DC in a couple of months. Please could someone tell me what my options for phones are? My requirements are quite simple, I want cheap and reliable service, I won't be making many long distance US calls although I will probably be making a few to the UK and possibly Hong Kong. Thanks, David Wigglesworth Offshore & International Telecommunications Conoco (UK) LTD N2 Conoco Centre Gallows Hill Warwick CV34 6DB. UK Internet wigd00@wrksun1.wrk.dupont.com Voice +44 926 404863 ------------------------------ From: Dimitri Vekris Subject: LAMA Equipped Exchange Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 19:30:00 -0400 My situation is this. I have the use of an (800) voice mailbox number. On my telephone line at home, I also have call forwarding with the intent that when I am not home, I can forward or divert those calling me to my voice mailbox so that they can leave me a message. The advatage to this is that if I am travelling (or on holidays) and I wish to retrieve my messages, I can do so toll-free. The problem I run into is this: Those calling me from a local number (either seven or ten digit number) will be forwarded with no problem. However, those calling my home telephone number from a long distance number (or a local cellular phone oddly enough) will get a recording that says "The number you have dialed is out of service. Please check the number and dial again or ask your operator for assistance". When I called the phone company about this (Bell Canada), they were hesitant to describe or explain the reason behind this, most likely because they person at the other end didn't know. After a lengthy hold, she came back to me to say that the reason behind this is that my exchange is not LAMA equipped. What does this mean and why should it make a difference whether someone calls me from Texas or from down the street? [)imitri Vekris ------------------------------ From: helfman@aerospace.aero.org (Robert S. Helfman) Subject: Cellular ESN Change Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 15:22:51 -0700 Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA I recently purchased a Motorola PC-550 flip phone. Since I was already a PacTel cellular customer (using a transportable Motorola), this was a very easy switch. I just called PacTel Cellular, gave them some personal identification and the new ESN, and in 20 minutes they had made the switch. My question is (and I suspect this has been answered before): In what form is the ESN stored in the Motorola phones? Is it a removable ROM? A PROM? What would be involved in changing it? I clearly understand the prohibition of two phones with the same phone number being on the system at the same time. But being single, and having no reason whatever to use both phones at the SAME time, there ARE times when I would like to use the transportable (say, while driving on a long trip where the added range and battery life would be useful). PacTel's central folks said there is no problem switching ESN's any time I want to. They have no company policy that discourages this, and it only takes a phone call and about 20 minutes to an hour to make the switch. BUT, it would be a lot easier if I could diddle the ESN on my transportable to match my flip phone. Then, whichever one happens to be powered up will be the one that the systems 'sees'. Just how big a job is this? Does anyone have the technical details? [Yeh, PAT, I know YOU have probably seen this before, and I'm sure you think it's some kind of mortal sin to consider the possibility.] I am sure that some of the 'gangster' cellular phone stores along Crenshaw Blvd would be delighted to do this for me, but I feel certain that when they were through, half the cellular phones in the area would be charging to my account. ------------------------------ From: etribald@mtecv2.mty.itesm.mx (Eduardo Tribaldos P) Subject: Looking for a Voice Mail/Auto Attendant System Date: 6 Jun 1994 23:58:56 GMT Organization: ITESM Chihuahua Hello, I am looking for a Voice Mail/Auto Attendant System that can run with a Mitel SX-200 (analog) PBX. There is one I know of called COMPASS that looks pretty good, but it is also very expensive, so I wonder if somebody in the NET knows of another such system that we can use in our PBX. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Eduardo Tribaldos ITESM - Campus Chihuahua Mexico ------------------------------ From: mwilcox@frx401.fm.intel.com (Mike Wilcox ) Subject: Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" Date: 6 Jun 1994 23:27:55 GMT Organization: Intel Corporation , Folsom In article Ken Stone writes: > In article is written: >> I saw in a news report about a new service from Pacific Bell called >> "ISDN Anywhere." When I called up Pac Bell, they had no idea what I >> Does anybody else have any ideas about what is so different about "ISDN >> Anywhere?" > Well it does exist and it is different and it does work!! > With ISDN Anywhere, you get just what they say. Right now, I am > having a repeatered Centrex line installed that I could not get > before. I also have several people that we could not serve due to non However you cannot get ISDN Anywhere everywhere. Tried to order an ISDN line for one of my customers. Pacific Bell said they couldn't do it. I said "What about ISDN Anywhere?" They said that it isn't everywhere yet. Try again in late July. But hey, at least they don't have a little girl in a black outfit spouting off about a road that goes Anywhere but not everywhere. Mike Wilcox mwilcox@pcocd2.fm.intel.com Intel Corp. Folsom Information Technology Telecomm and Network Services [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Aren't they precious! Anywhere but not everywhere. Any other company would be slapped with a false advertising suit ... as usual, telco's advertising gurus and front line business office people are not in contact with each other. Each is in their own orbit and like Haley's Comet maybe once every 71 years they pass in proximity of the other. But hey, Mike ... you are lucky you found someone in the business office to talk to about it. Usually when there is something they have not heard about (as often as not) they just write the customer off as some sort of crackpot or dingbat and let it go at that. I'll bet when you used the phrase 'ISDN Anywhere' the person you were talking to had to put you on hold and go inquire about that from a supervisor of supervisors or something. Next time you talk to them ask if they know what the phrase 'competition in local dialtone' means. Most of them have heard of that and don't like it at all. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 16:32:09 -0700 From: richard@mandarin.com Subject: Re: British Call Forwarding in 1960s Clive said: > WHItehall (note the capitalization) was indeed the exchange for much > of the Civil Service, and many government offices still have > 071-944-XXXX numbers. Aarrgghh ! There are no 071-944 numbers. WHItehall numbers moved to 071-930, with the exception of New Scotland Yard (Metropolitan Police HQ) which changed to 071-230 to get the necessary capacity to handle their Direct-Dialing-In to extensions. In fact "The Met" had been using 071-230 prior to conversion of the all-figure numbers: 230 translated to WHItehall exchange but the charging signals were suppressed when 230 was dialled. That facility has gone now - it was believed to be the first (primitive) example of automatic 800 service in the UK - but there are, ahem, a few other codes outside London that behave similarly. Other famous-named exchanges in WHItehall area are: TRAfalgar (now 071 839) and ABBey (now 071-222). WHItehall exchange did in fact have quite a few out-of-area (translated: FX service) lines on it so the scenario is not implausible. > this was before the days of DDI DDI was *just* beginning to appear around this time; apart from the Post Office's own systems, which were really modified non-director exchanges, I clearly remember calling DDI numbers on TABard exchange (01-822, as it then was - now 071-822) in the late sixties. Even if telling you that does reveal more about my age than I would like. > the GPO operator, then she would have had a major effort to organise > a redirection (WHItehall was almost certainly a Strowger exchange). On any other exchange this would have been true. Facilities on the WHItehall AMB (Auto-Manual Board) were, perhaps, slightly non-standard. campbellsm@lish.logica.com (Peter Campbell Smith) added: > you called the operator (by dialing 100 or maybe 151, which was and > is the repairs number) to have it turned on or off. You would have called 191, the "enquiries" or "supervisor" number. This would have also served as the fault report number until the separate 151 was introduced a few years later. >> I imagine it was implemented by plugging and unplugging a hardwired >> connection between the two outgoing subscriber loops. In fact it was a complex relay set, remotely activated. It was important that restoring the diversion should not interrupt any calls in progress at that time: and so the system had to hold if there was an incoming call that had been diverted, but release if the incoming call at that time was dialled direct to the receiving number without being diverted. Heavy stuff in terms of the technology of the day. Full details are of course in copies of the "Post Office Electrical Engineering Journal" published at that time. And the TELECOM Digest Editor noted, in connection with a case of nuisance calls to Queen Elizabeth: >> investigators in the UK were using WHItehall 1212 and the offender in >> the States was calling from WHItehall 6211, then and now (944-6211) Whereas Her Majesty was, and still is, on WHItehall 4832. The number has always been published under "Buckingham Palace" in the London Phone Book. When the London phone book was split into "business" and "residential", the Buckingham Palace number was moved across into the "business" section. That did always strike me as a little odd! Richard D G Cox Mandarin Technology, P.O. Box 111, Penarth, South Glamorgan, Wales: CF64 3YG Voice: 0956 700111 Fax: 0956 700110 VoiceMail: 0941 151515 Pager 0941 115555 E-mail address: richard@mandarin.com - PGP2.6 public key available on request [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That's because I think Her Majesty's residence is actually Windsor Castle, not Buckingham Palace. What a tragic fire that was which destroyed so much of Windsor. You might check the Windsor listings and see how things are listed there, i.e. business or residence. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dsd@aol.com (DSD) Subject: Re: Help: Bad Phone Lines in San Jose Date: 6 Jun 1994 22:46:02 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) In article , ronwrigh@hebron.connected. com (Ronald L. Wright) writes: > That is very true. I am a Network Technician for US West Communications > in Washington State, and have seen that happen a few times. Using our > state of the art test gear, there will be no physical trouble at all, and > noise and transmission readings will be picture perfect. The difficulty is > that there has really been very little training on data communications > problems, so the average technician uses his equipment and tells you > that everything is fine, while you are only getting 2600 bps out of a > 28.8 modem :( Ron, I'm a Customer Service Tech over here in Spokane and I'll try and shed some light on this subject. I'm not an expert, but learning more on my own every day. First off DATA usually runs at 1200 HZ - 1800HZ. I deal primarily with data and voice circuits over carrier; hence we do what is called a 3 tone slope. 400, 1000 and 2800 HZ tones are sent each direction over a 2 wire or a 4 wire circuit. The reading are taken in DB's and are based upon a 4.0 db at 1000 hz. 2800 Hz levels can go as low as -6.0 db from the 1000 hz reading. This is based over carrier from one C.O. to another and then to the subscriber. You'll notice we never take reading at the critical data freq's. I don't know why! The reason these reading are crucial is that in a perfect telephone pots world every thing is designed and built correctly. Voice transmission will allow so many digressions in the telco plant. Missing loads, customers placed between loads and end section too long, or too much bridge tap. Doing a freq run is the only way to find these things. Sending tones from 400hz to 3200hz at 100hz increments will allow you to see how the cable is made up. NORMAL properly loaded cable will result in almost flat db respone from 300-3000 hz, then it will take a dive to the cellar after 3000 hz. Normal UNLOADED cable will take a gradual drop from 300-3000hz. It will start at anywhere from 2.0 db upto 8.0 db and fall gradually in the minus column upto the 3000 hz level. If it falls suddedly and then starts back up there is a problem. And if the valleys are at the 1200 or 1800 hz level, well it doesn't take a rocket scientest to figure out what happens to the data! :) I don't remember the USOC code, but the name of this test is called "Transmission Analysis Test". I've done this twice so far this year on a pots line and a centrex line over carrier. Unfortuanetly, the test came out good for US and bad for the customer. I'm not saying this is the resolution to every situation, but it does point out a possibilty of an item overlooked by far too many companies. One other item I thought I'd point out was a trouble call I once took from a Net Tech. Customer would get this woderful music over his internal mode speaker every morning at 10 am and it would go away at 10 pm. SAme time this AM station down the road would keep broadcast hours. I checked the bonding and such, looked for physical trouble; nothing clicked. I removed the yellows from the ground connection, but no go. Last thing I tried was disconnecting the yellow black at the jack. Voila! Seems the modem uses all 4 wires in the jack and the yellow-black were just a perfect antenna. Obviously, the modem is the culprit here and by just changing the line cord from a 4 wire to a 2 wire would have solved the problem as well without me having to climb under and around his desk. Just a little food for thought. Scott ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #276 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa27180; 8 Jun 94 18:43 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA02344; Wed, 8 Jun 94 15:11:33 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA02334; Wed, 8 Jun 94 15:11:31 CDT Date: Wed, 8 Jun 94 15:11:31 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406082011.AA02334@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #277 TELECOM Digest Wed, 8 Jun 94 15:11:30 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 277 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: S-s-s-stuttering Dial Tone Detection (Dave Ptasnik) Re: S-s-s-stuttering Dial Tone Detection (Howard Wharton) Re: Interactive "Voice Mail" System For PC? (John R. Haggis) Re: Answering Machine Recommendations Wanted (John R. Haggis) Re: Largest Calling Areas (Bob Goudreau) Re: Largest Calling Areas (Carl Moore) Re: AT&T to be Held Accountable? (Anthony Campbell) Re: Calling Card Suggestion (Sam Spens Clason) Re: Calling Card Suggestion (Nathan N. Duehr) Re: Calling Card Suggestion (Harbir Singh Kohli) Re: Replacement Wanted For Bogen Friday (Bob Rankin) Re: Bibliography of Telecom Periodicals Wanted (Bob Schwartz) Re: What Do I Get When Dialing 311? (Dave Niebuhr) Re: Help: Bad Phone Lines in San Jose (Bob Schwartz) Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway (Steven Grevemeyer) Re: How to Get White pages Data From GTE? (Carl A. Wright) Re: Best Way to Get Many (~50) Phone Lines? (Les Reeves) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: davep@u.washington.edu (Dave Ptasnik) Subject: Re: S-s-s-stuttering Dial Tone Detection Date: 7 Jun 1994 15:43:29 GMT Organization: University of Washington st1r8@elroy.uh.edu (B.Jsig. Guillot) writes: > Speaking of "stutter dial tone", I called SW Bell the other day to get > information on their voice mail service (Call Notes), and the rep guy > said "When you lift up the handset, you will hear a SPECIAL noise that > indicates a message is waiting." > I then asked him, you mean "stutter dialtone?" > He replied "Exactly! But it's politically incorrect for us to use > that term now, or we could get fired." The politically correct term appears to be "interrupted dialtone". At least that is what the local hearing impaired support group has told our telecommunications department. Dave Ptasnik davep@u.washington.edu ------------------------------ From: yhshowie@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Howard Wharton) Subject: Re: S-s-s-stuttering Dial Tone Detection Organization: University at Buffalo Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 21:25:00 GMT > Speaking of "stutter dial tone", I called SW Bell the other day to get > information on their voice mail service (Call Notes), and the rep guy > said "When you lift up the handset, you will hear a SPECIAL noise that > indicates a message is waiting." > I then asked him, you mean "stutter dialtone?" > He replied "Exactly! But it's politically incorrect for us to use > that term now, or we could get fired." New York Telephone (opps-NYNEX) calls the "stutter" dialtone an "interrupted" dialtone for its voice mail service which they call Residence Call Answering. Howard S. Wharton Fire Safety Technician Office of Environmental Health and Safety State University of New York at Buffalo ------------------------------ From: haggis@netcom.com (John R. Haggis) Subject: Re: Interactive "Voice Mail" System For PC? Organization: Millennium Research Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 11:37:16 GMT In article dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu (David H. Close) writes: > Paul A. Lee writes: >> A typical voice port board will cost from US$500 to US$1500. > You can also buy an ZyXEL modem with built-in codec and DTMF decoder. > With it you get, no charge but no support, source code for a PC-voice > mailbox system. Try info@zyxel.com or tech@zyxel.com. $500-$1500? I didn't read the original post, but I've seen several modest packages for < $100 at local computer stores (ZyXEL modems are > $250 and software has no support). If you just want voice mailboxes on a single line without a lot of customization, and can dedicate a machine, any of these packages would work. They all seem to have ponderous TSR's that render the PC useless for anything else, so beware. (Tho' they claim to be "windoze", or run in the "background" ...) 1. National Semi "Tyin" 2. Complete PC "Complete Communicator?" 3. Boca Research has one also but it may be a buyout deal to/from Complete PC. 4. Computer Peripherals, Inc: "Viva Message Center" modem. None of them come anywhere near the quality of the ZyXEL, but they have productized software that has mailboxes, forwarding, paging, etc. Good luck. JohnR (haggis@netcom.com) ------------------------------ From: haggis@netcom.com (John R. Haggis) Subject: Re: Answering Machine Recommendations Wanted Organization: Millennium Research Date: Mon, 6 Jun 1994 11:44:23 GMT In article John O'Shaughnessy writes: > Our four year old AT&T answering machine seems to have spun it's last > capstan into the dirt. I assume that a machine that was purchased for > $70.00 would cost more than $50.00 to have repaired, so I'm in the > market for a new answering machine. > The features I'm looking for include: > * Time & Date stamp > * Remote access > * VOX activated/unlimited incoming call length > * High Quality > What machines would TELECOM Digest readers recommend? Which machines/ > brands should be avoided? All my friends seem to like the new ATT fully digital gizmo. I like the idea, but I won't personally buy any product or service from a company who's logo is the "DeathStar". All digital would be a good thing to look for in general. Anything with moving parts, or anything from a company that sells washing machines should be avoided. No matter how lonely they are. On the serious side, Sony has a cool all-digital model that has variable-speed playback without changing the pitch of the voice ... This seems really neat to me. Above all, go to a place that has a no-questions-asked return policy and don't be afraid to try 'em out. I use a computerized system with some dastardly custom mods (and I'm getting a Panasonic switch in my house ... five incoming lines and growing) so I don't have a whole lot to offer in my personal experience. Good luck. JohnR (haggis@netcom.com) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 12:07:03 -0400 From: goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) Subject: Re: Largest Calling Areas Carl Moore writes: > When you were referring to the Canadian Northwest Territories, you > made use of area code 413. That is in western Massachusetts; I > think you meant 403, which also serves Alberta. Right you are. 'Twas a slip of the fingers or brain. NPA 413 is like the remote western and northern areas in having a very small population, but on the geographical size scale, it's at the opposite end of the spectrum. Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive +1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 7 Jun 94 1:10:42 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: Largest Calling Areas campbellsm@lish.logica.com refers to New York City (212). 212 used to cover all of NYC until 1984. 718 was formed then, to include Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, and later, because of continuing upward pressure on 212, the Bronx. Also, 917 was set up as cellular/pager overlay. ------------------------------ Subject: Re: AT&T to be Held Accountable? From: tonyc@cryo.cryogenic.com (Anthony Campbell) Date: Mon, 6 Jun 94 14:23:53 Organization: Cryogenic Software - Portland, OR aa377@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ken Kopin) writes: > I just witnessed a commercial from AT&T which implies that we will all > soon have Personal AI assistants! Cute little Doggies, even! (I guess > they didn't think a gopher would interest most 'regular people') > Don't believe it?? YOU WILL. And the Company that will bring it to > you? AT&T > Can AT&T actually get away with this kind of misleading advertising? Is this really any different from being shown prototypes of flat screen TVs for the last couple decades or longer? Did this keep you from buying a TV now? :) Or how about 'concept cars' shown at auto shows? Did this cause you to put off buying a vehicle that were really for sale at the show? > Now granted, they never laid out any kind of time table for this stuff, > but I think it's safe to imply from "YOU WILL" that they intend to get > ALL THIS STUFF to market within one lifetime. I hope so. I think ... tonyc@cryo.cryogenic.com R.I.P. C=/Amiga 1985-1994 ------------------------------ From: d92-sam@misfits.nada.kth.se (Sam Spens Clason) Subject: Re: Calling Card Suggestion Date: 7 Jun 1994 13:47:37 GMT Organization: The Royal Institute of Technology In Bob Maccione writes: > With all of the calling card fraud going on out there I'm curious as > to why the card companies don't issue cards that can't be used for > international calls. It should be easy enough and if the user really > needs to have access to international numbers they can add a level of > country restrictions. So since all I call is the US I wouldn't have > to worry about someone abusing my card (at least from the international > level of abuse). How big a part of all calling card frauds could be avoided if the PIN wasn't actually printed on the card?! Apart from AT&T and MCI I also have a swedish calling card, not very good for calling in the US but it works the same way and hasn't got the PIN printed all over it. The calling card business is rather new here in Sweden (two years), but still, we haven't had any frauds worth mentioning. I think it's because of better security. So, stop printing the PIN on calling cards, that would not make them as easely used if stolen or just glimpsed at. Sam Spens Clason, Web ------------------------------ From: nduehr@netcom.com (Nathan N. Duehr) Subject: Re: Calling Card Suggestion Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 10:09:48 GMT Bob Maccione (bmaccion@promus.com) wrote: > With all of the calling card fraud going on out there I'm curious as > to why the card companies don't issue cards that can't be used for > international calls. It should be easy enough and if the user really > needs to have access to international numbers they can add a level of > country restrictions. So since all I call is the US I wouldn't have > to worry about someone abusing my card (at least from the international > level of abuse). (snip huge reply from Pat about AT&T and Sprint's illegal blocking of card calls from "poor" or ethnic areas... :) ) I work for a teleconferencing company that contracts out to a medium-sized long-dist and value-added services provider to do their conference calls on our equipment using their lines. One of our funnier experiences with them is that we use THEIR customer's calling card numbers to place these calls, therefore billing their customer for the long-distance incurred automatically and we invoice the l-d company we contract to for the actual bridge time. (I don't know what they charge their customers for the actual conference service...?) Anyway, one of their customers called on the reservations line one day to set up a call. We checked the list of countries that this l-d provider's lines would access, and Puerto Rico was included. We booked the call in our reservations system, and proceeded to tell the customer that his call would take place momentarily and the operator would call him back shortly. (Normal procedure.) Our operator starts dialing these people (including the customer who ordered the call) and gets intercepted by an operator from the l-d company when she dials Puerto Rico. Now realize that the customer has no idea that we are a middle man doing the conferencing, and that according to all of their literature and the lists we had, Puerto Rico was a valid call. Our operator tries to explain that she is a conference operator working for basically the same company and that this call needs to be put through in order for the entire conference to begin. The operator at the l-d provider tells our operator that the party that wishes the call to Puerto Rico MUST dial the line directly in order to have the call and that they are "cracking down" on unauthorized calling card use. You'd think that they would know who we are by now, and what services they offer, but nooooo! :) So finally after letting the l-d operator talk privately with the chairperson of the conference call about his billing address, mother's maiden name, etc etc ... she finally put the call through. All the while, this customer was paying for l-d time to all the other participants who were listening to music hold. Sad. He never did find out that we were a middle man, though, and that's the way our contract is set up ... they aren't to know that we do this. I'm glad we don't treat *our* customers this poorly, but we couldn't tell him to switch to us, now could we? :) Just a medium-sized anecdote for this thread. Regards, Nate Duehr nduehr@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: harbirk@ifi.uio.no (Harbir Singh Kohli) Subject: Re: Calling Card Suggestion Date: 7 Jun 1994 23:44:01 +0200 Organization: Dept. of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway Nice piece of information posted by Patrick ... In Norway the calling card comes with a four-digit code which makes it a lot safer to use for both the customer and the telephone company. Though it does produce a hell of lot of digits to dial. I feel safe carrying it instead of my ATT, MCI and Sprint cards. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Jun 94 10:08:08 EDT From: r3@VNET.IBM.COM (Bob Rankin) Subject: Re: Replacement Wanted For Bogen Friday In TELECOM Digest V14 No. 268 (item 6) Robert La Ferla writes: > Anyone know of a better product (and $300-500) than the Bogen two-line > Friday voicemail system? I am having quite a few problems with it. A good PC-based solution would be one of Talking Technologies multi-line products. Call 800-info for the toll-free number, get all the tech inform- ation you need, then contact Central Computer Products (see ads in Computer Shopper or get the 800 number) for a good price. :-) Bob Rankin (r3@vnet.ibm.com) ------------------------------ Subject: Bibliography of Telecom Periodicals Wanted From: bob@bci.nbn.com (Bob Schwartz) Date: Wed, 08 Jun 94 11:07:28 PDT Organization: Bill Correctors, Inc., Marin County, California bruce.roberts@greatesc.com (Bruce Roberts) writes: > Hello all. I'm currently subscribing to {Telephony Magazine} and find > it fascinating but primarily marketing/business oriented. I'm looking > for a periodical that is more technical in nature and covers the same > PSTN, Information Infrastructure, ISDN, Sonet, ATM sort of stuff. > This is not my line of work so but rather something I find interesting > (and something that will affect all of us soon) so it will be an > educational experience. Suggestions and subscribing information would > be greatly appreciated. Your local public library may well have "The Reader's Guide to Periodicals Published in the USA" or the international Guide. It has listings for well over 50,000 magazines and does have a heading for Telecommunications. Bob Schwartz bob@bci.nbn.com Bill Correctors, Inc. +1 415 488 9000 Marin County, California ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Jun 94 12:57:30 EDT From: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (Dave Niebuhr) Subject: Re: What Do I Get When Dialing 311? In TELECOM Digest V14 #274 keith.knipschild@asb.com > When I dial 311 (I live on LI.N.Y -NYNEX-) I get connected to a > TELETYPE sounding device. Does anyone know what this is? In the past > 311 would announce the telephone number you were calling from, like > 958 does. I posted an article about this not too long ago in TELECOM Digest. 311 is used by NYNEX in its service area for hearing impaired people to be able contact emergency services in a similar manner as normally hearing people do by dialing 911. The sound is a TTY device, the same one as heard when dialing a hearing impaired person. Dave Niebuhr Internet: dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov (preferred) niebuhr@bnl.gov / Bitnet: niebuhr@bnl Senior Technical Specialist, Scientific Computing Facility Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, NY 11973 1+(516) 282-3093 FAX 1+(516) 282-7688 ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Help: Bad Phone Lines in San Jose From: bob@bci.nbn.com (Bob Schwartz) Date: Wed, 08 Jun 94 11:07:13 PDT Organization: Bill Correctors, Inc., Marin County, California > Above all, keep calling and going over peoples' heads. The people at > Pac Bell, while regular, nice people on the outside, become flaming > assholes when at work under the strain of a job they have no concept > or understanding of. Maybe there is another element ... management. It was Upton Sinclair that said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Regards, Bob Schwartz bob@bci.nbn.com Bill Correctors, Inc. +1 415 488 9000 Marin County, California ------------------------------ From: grevemes@VTC.TACOM.Army.Mil (Steven Grevemeyer) Subject: Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway Date: 8 Jun 1994 08:39:46 -0400 Organization: Vetronics Technology Center,US Army TACOM,Warren, Michigan USA What you see in the post office is indicative of the entire government workforce. An acquaintance of mine put a name to this phenonmenom: "The Non-Profit Mentality". This is the attitude of people who work for organizations that are not accountable for their actions, outcomes, or policies. Government work is characterized by "doing your time" for promotions and the like. Job satisfaction is low due to the leveling of the personell. Everyone is equal, no differentiation is allowed. Much like the current liberal mentality being espoused by the Clinton Administration over items like health care, etc. Attempting to actually accomplish anything is like shoving manure up a pipe -- you'll go pretty good for a while but eventually it will all end up on you. 8-) Other entities with this mentality are: city government, education, welfare, etc. With the removal of accountability comes the removal of responsibility. With the removal of compensation (financial or otherwise) comes the removal of initative. The organization stagnates --- the Post Office has just stagnated for longer than most anywhere else. Steven E. Grevemeyer Phone: (810)574-5106 FAX: -5008 Software Enginnering Division (AMSTA-OS) US Army Tank-Automotive RD&E Center Vetronics Technology Center Email: grevemes@vtc.tacom.army.mil Warren, MI 48397-5000 ------------------------------ From: wright@LAA.COM Subject: Re: How to Get White pages Data From GTE? Date: 8 Jun 1994 13:56:19 GMT Organization: Lynn-Arthur Associates, Ann Arbor, MI Reply-To: wright@LAA.COM In article , fjd@rain.org (Frank Dziuba) writes: > I would like to get the White Pages listings for my area from GTE in a > computer-readable format. I know that there are cd-roms of the US > phone books available, but they have heavy copyrights on them and I > want to put a searchable phone book on my BBS. I called GTE who said > they don't sell that data, but how did ProPhone get it? I heard that > they scanned the phonebooks and OCR'ed them. Is that legal? Aren't > they breaking some kind of copyright law? What is the copyright on the > phone book information anyway? Any info would be greatly appreciated. Frank, The federal court decided a couple years ago that white pages data was only copyrightable in its specific compilation form. Contact a lawyer to get the exact details, but in general it means that you can't xerox the phone books and then sell them, but you can type in the information and then produce your own document and sell it. See lawyers for more details. I understood from a sales promotion from Pro_phone that they have the white pages typed in at some location in China. Thus they should also be able to include GTE data. I'm waiting for my own copy of Pro-phone so I can see about GTE in the database. Carl A. Wright Lynn-Arthur Associates, Inc. +1 313 995 5590 wright@laa.com Operations Support Systems +1 313 995 5989 (fax) 2350 Green Road Suite 160 Ann Arbor, MI, 48105 USA ------------------------------ From: lreeves@crl.com (Les Reeves) Subject: Re: Best Way to Get Many (~50) Phone Lines? Date: 8 Jun 1994 07:09:19 -0700 Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access (415) 705-6060 [login: guest] Dick St.Peters (stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com) wrote: > Hi. I'm new to telecom things and need help. (Lots of it ...) > I'm becoming an Internet provider -- dialup PPP/SLIP, so I need a lot > of phone lines. NYNEX says it wants a ten-year contract (with a bond) > before it will install a lot of pairs to my house. That's amazing! Ask for a copy of the part of the tariff that applies to deposits and residences. Southern Bell put 50 pairs into my residence in 1987 with a three-year ESSX contract. Have you considered asking them about Centrex? In some places it is a more economic way to get a bunch of lines. They may be easier to deal with too since it has contracts and a slightly higher one-time charge. > They will gladly sell me several T1s, but even though I'm less than a > mile from my CO, this is more than twice the cost per line ... without > even including costs of the equipment to demux the T1s. Further, they > tell me that all 24 lines on a T1 must be used for voice lines ... I > can't use any of them as 56k DDS local loops ... no tariff, they say. > (I forgot to ask about 3002 leased voice lines.) A T1 mux (aka channel bank) bought on the secondary market may be the best way to go. If you are willing to shop, learn a little channel bank terminology, and do part of the installation work, you can save yourself a lot of money. An excellent magazine for the secondary market is {Telecom Gear}; (214) 233 5131. It's free to qualified subscribers. There is a good book on T-1 available from Telecom Library, (212) 691 8215 or 800 LIBRARY. The book is called "The Guide to T-1 Networking". > NYNEX would be happier about stringing lots of pairs to a real office, > but I'd have to rent the office, so the costs actually work out sort > of similar unless the demux equipment is really expensive. How expensive > is it? What is it? > NYNEX says I need a PBX. Do I really need one if I only want to tie > each line to a modem and/or terminal server? It's none of their business what you are connecting each line to. All they should be asking is whether you want the demark on RJ11 or a 66 block. They *are* allowed to ask the FCC registration number of your telephone equipment. > Finally, what am I not asking that I should be? Ask them why they are being such weasels. Les lreeves@crl.com Atlanta,GA 404.874.7806 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #277 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa01054; 9 Jun 94 2:52 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA12827; Wed, 8 Jun 94 23:32:08 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA12818; Wed, 8 Jun 94 23:32:06 CDT Date: Wed, 8 Jun 94 23:32:06 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406090432.AA12818@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #278 TELECOM Digest Wed, 8 Jun 94 23:32:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 278 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Calling Card Suggestion (Haakon Styri) Re: Calling Card Suggestion (Andrew McLeod) Re: Calling Card Suggestion (Jeffrey W. McKeough) Re: S-s-s-stuttering Dial Tone Detection (Jeffrey W. McKeough) Re: GSM Question: Power Controllers (Nathan N. Duehr) Re: Information Wanted on Satellite BBS? (Nathan N. Duehr) Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? (Ry Jones) Re: Personal 800 Number Availability (Steve Forrette) Re: Best Way to Get Many (~50) Phone Lines? (Barton F. Bruce) Re: Cost of Caller ID in PA (Steve Atlas) Re: Cellular in Emergencies (Lynne Gregg) Re: Cellular in Emergencies (Mike Borsetti) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: styri@balder.nta.no Subject: Re: Calling Card Suggestion Date: Wed, 08 Jun 1994 21:00:00 GMT Bob Maccione writes (in Volume 14, Issue 274) > With all of the calling card fraud going on out there I'm curious as > to why the card companies don't issue cards that can't be used for > international calls. It should be easy enough and if the user really > needs to have access to international numbers they can add a level of > country restrictions. [...] Well, I just had visitors from the US and while helping them to place a call using their calling cards I noticed that at least one of them did have different card numbers. Quite funny in fact, because it was kind of hard for the card holder proper to realize that she had to use the _domestic_ card number to place a call from Norway to the US using a US Country Direct service. (Another thing was that she had no information about how to reach that service from other countries ...) Guess it's simple to say, cancel the international card number and only keep the domestic. Different operators have different systems, and I know there are systems allowing you to block all but a short list of phone numbers to call to. Great when you want to give your kids a card in order to make them call home every now and then. Wrt to the PIN being printed on the card, I believe that some operators don't do this, and some make it an option. I've been told so through the TELECOM Digest, so it may be the truth. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As a matter of fact, even though their > policy is not stated in writing -- they refuse to state it in writing > for obvious reasons -- AT&T routinely redlines the use of their calling > card to selected international points from payphones in inner city areas > where ethnic populations reside. [...] The call will always be rejected, > and the operator will profess an inability to put it through on the card. > [...] Now, that's probably stupid because by the time you've given up placing that call you've keyed in your card number and PIN more than once in addition to spelling out every digit to the operator. Guess anyone shoulder surfing just love this ... (Why not just block that 800 number from public phones in that area?) Anyway, things like this is done in a number of countries. Guess it's a pain when you add it to all them hotels either blocking 800 numbers or adding a surcharge on 800 calls. Haakon Styri ------------------------------ From: aj141@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Andrew McLeod) Subject: Re: Calling Card Suggestion Organization: The National Capital FreeNet, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 02:50:44 GMT Unitel (a Canadian LD company) has a card which allows the user to request restriction on overseas calls. If this option is chosen, then the card can only be used between points in Canada and the USA. (Unitel is 20% owned by AT&T, and calls made in the US go through the AT&T network). Andrew ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Jun 1994 20:40:05 -0400 From: jwm@student.umass.edu (Jeffrey W. McKeough) Subject: Re: Calling Card Suggestion Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst In article , Harbir Singh Kohli wrote: > In Norway the calling card comes with a four-digit code which makes it > a lot safer to use for both the customer and the telephone company. > Though it does produce a hell of lot of digits to dial. I feel safe > carrying it instead of my ATT, MCI and Sprint cards. I just ordered an AT&T "True Choice" calling card, which allowed me to pick my own card number. I was offered (and accepted) the option of omitting my PIN from the card. I think it's a good security measure, and I don't know why it wasn't done sooner. BTW, there was a thread a while back (I believe it was here) about Telcos using a checksum digit method to verify the authenticity of a calling card number. It would seem that this is not the case with my card, as I chose the number and PIN myself without a whole lot of thought about checksums. So is there some other lookup method? Jeffrey W. McKeough jwm@student.umass.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Jun 1994 20:51:21 -0400 From: jwm@student.umass.edu (Jeffrey W. McKeough) Subject: Re: S-s-s-stuttering Dial Tone Detection Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst In article , John Harris wrote: [snip] > The telephone company must deliver a Caller ID message waiting signal as > specified by Bell Canada ID-0008. Multiple Data Message Format, paramater > code 11, status 255 to turn ON, status 0 to turn OFF. I just purchased a Radio Shack Caller ID System 320. According to the manual, it will provide message waiting notification "if you subscribe to the telephone company's message waiting service." A NYNEX rep said she hadn't heard of the feature, but that it might be included in a future software upgrade. (How she knew that if she never heard of the feature ...) Since we just got Caller-ID, Call Trace, Repeat Call and Return Call, (in 413-549 land) I don't expect an upgrade anytime soon. Does anyone else know of an area that offers message waiting? | "After going through a rather difficult time, I Jeffrey W. McKeough | consider myself comparatively sane. I am proud jwm@student.umass.edu | of that." --Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I deliberatly left Jeffrey's signature file intact ... and for my digression today I will be unusually brief: she was a wonderful lady who for most Americans including myself will remain part of our fondest memories for many years to come. After JFK was murdered in Dallas, *she* did not owe this country a damn thing; yet for all these years afterward she maintained a tremendous amount of dignity and graciousness. She was a wonderful person. PAT] ------------------------------ From: nduehr@netcom.com (Nathan N. Duehr) Subject: Re: GSM Question: Power Controllers Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 09:48:27 GMT Robert Jansen (rjansen@rc1.vub.ac.be) wrote: > After visiting several dealers of GSM phones, I finally found one with > the technical know-how about GSM. (snip) > He told me that when 8W phones are near a groundstation, the transmit > power is throttled by the groundstation, in order to allow the nearby > 2W devices to "enter" the groundstation's receiver. Actually since all the phones are using separate frequencies (I assume ...) then the presence of an 8W phone near a groundstation should have no effect at all on incoming RF from other lower-power phones, unless the receivers at the groundstation's site are very poor in selectivity. > This is what he called "GSM phones with a build-in POWER CONTROLLER" > (8W phones have this feature, so don't panic :) ) > The problem arises when a normal handheld with a car kit is fitted > (afterwards) with a normal antenna signal booster. It's a > straightforward amplifier, which HAS NO way of being power controlled > by the groundstation, nor the 2W handheld. Why not? Amplifiers only put out the other side a multiple (not always linear as far as I know) of their input wattage. If the groundstation tells your phone to switch to miliwatts, the output of the amplifier hooked to your phone reduces accordingly too. The groundstation may ask your phone to continue down to it's lowest output which *might* not be enough wattage to drive your amplifier at all, depending on design, which could cause the below-mentioned to happen. > Result: the groundstation kicks you of the net if you get to close to > the groundstation and are blasting the full 8W to it's antenna, > because you are surpressing the signals from the handheld 2W phones. > booster. (snip) > Q: And what about a handheld with a booster from the same manufacturer? > A: well ... that's the point here, I getting the idea that NOT ONE!!! > manufacturer of GSM phones (which have a booster kit for their phones) > implemented Power Control when you have your handheld in the car, > connected to it's booster. The handhelds don't have the control over the > booster. I disagree due to the reasoning above ... any manufacturer's booster is automatically a part of the power control scheme by basic RF amplifier design. If the amp is designed in a manner in which any RF input comes out at a particular level (i.e. 2w in gets 8w out and so does 150mw in get 8w out) then your comments about power control being a problem are valid, but most amplifiers (at least cost effective ones) are not built in this fashion. Disclaimer: In case I have no idea what I am talking about, ignore me! :) Regards, Nate Duehr nduehr@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: nduehr@netcom.com (Nathan N. Duehr) Subject: Re: Information Wanted on Satellite BBS? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 10:21:39 GMT Gary E. Chidester (GARYC@cc.snow.edu) wrote: > I read an article the other day about BBS via satellite and how it > would be cheaper because there would be no long distance charges > accrued. How is this possible? I can see how you could receive > information via satellite, but unless there is two-way communication > how can you request the information you want? Is there somewhere that > I can get more information? You may have read an article about the newest generation of ham-radio, packet radio, low orbit satellites. PacSat's as they are called by ham radio operators. These statellites are very small lightweight satellites that are usually launched by piggybacking them for a ride on a commercial payload. They usually contain packet radio store-and- forward BBS's. Ham's around the world can place messages in the RAM of the satellite by radio (and expensive radios, at that!) and others can retrieve them on the other side of the globe. For more info, check the ham-radio newsgroups for messages about AMSAT, PacSat, and Packet radio. Regards, Nate Duehr nduehr@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: rjones@coho.halcyon.com (Ry Jones) Subject: Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? Date: 8 Jun 1994 20:40:58 GMT Organization: Northwest Nexus Inc. keith.knipschild@asb.com wrote: > Is it true that you can have your local telephone company BLOCK ANI, > So that when you call a 800 number they can't know who you are? > I am not talking about Caller ID. I know the difference. To which our Esteemed Moderator replied: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No it is not true. You cannot prevent the > person or company paying for your call from knowing who called. And why > would you want to force someone else to pay for your call while you > remained anonymous? If you don't see any problem with it, I have a few > calls here I need to make that I will have billed to you under the > condition telco promises not to reveal my name or number to you. PAT] Pat, Wrong. You are so dead wrong it is not even funny. To defeat ANI (everyone, now, try this, it works all over the US but your milage may vary) have your 0 operator dial 1 800 THN HAHA. (800 ANI demo). If you get your number read back, ok, it passed ANI. However, people all over the US report that ANI fails (returns the ANI of the operator) when you have the 0 operator dial it. Also, try having your 0 operator dial 1 800 COLLECT or OPERATOR or whatever. The service will generate an intercept and the operator will ask for the number you're calling from. Works for me all the time. Ry rjones@halcyon.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But you are discussing a technical and/or logistics problem. Things are *not supposed* to happen the way you describe. When placing an 800 call through the operator, your number is *supposed* to appear on the operator's console and be passed the same as usual. If your number does not appear on the operator's console then she is *supposed* to inquire about your number and bubble it in in the process of releasing the call. I think if you zero plus the 800 number it will appear on the console and in further billing records. If you simply dial zero, and pass the number verbally, she is supposed to refer you to the double-zero (or long distance carrier's) operator. Now granted, many operators do not bother to follow the rules on this. They are supposed to handle it the same way they (are supposed to) handle calls to 911 placed through the operator: take the caller's number -- if it is not already in the system for some reason -- and pass it along. For instance with 911, the operator is supposed to stay on the line until 911 answers and pass the calling party's number so the 911 dispatcher can key it in manually. So I think when you are not receiving ANI as a result of a call being placed through the operator it is the exception rather than the rule. And I believe that when you do this, many times you *just think* the ANI is not getting passed when in fact the operator bubbles or forces it into the network without specifically telling you that is what she is doing. The general rule though is correct: if you call an 800 number in the normal and usual way, with 1+800+ then there are no secrets. By the way, will zero plussing an 800 number work in your location? One person said to me once that 0+800+ always went to intercept in his switch. PAT] ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: Personal 800 Number Availability Date: 8 Jun 1994 00:33:49 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc. Reply-To: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) In , gmccomb@netcom.com (Glenn McComb) writes: > I've been using AT&T's 800 Starter Line service... > I needed the portability primarily because AT&T wouldn't point my 800 > number without me giving them the street address where the phone is > located. Since I wanted my personal (800) number to point to my pager > company's voicemail number, I didn't know the street address, and > neither did the pager company! Yes, AT&T is very particular about knowing the physical service address of all 800 terminations. At one point, I had my 800 ReadyLine pointed to my cellular number, and the rep didn't know what to do when I told him that there was no physical address for the service. We settled for the address of the cellular MTSO. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think the new 800 service discussed here yesterday called 'My Line' from Call America is going to become very popular given that it is the only one other than Cable and Wireless which offers call-forwarding, and to three different numbers at the same time at that (priority calls, routine calls, and no answer/busy transfer). For $8.50 per month and 25 cents per minute that is not a bad deal. If you using the outbound call option (dial into your personal 800 number then dial outbound at 25 cents per minute (after 55 cent first minute) it becomes an even better bargain. If you missed yesterday's message on this you can contact Steve Betterly at betterly.callamer.com for details and to sign up. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Barton.Bruce@camb.com Subject: Re: Best Way to Get Many (~50) Phone Lines? Organization: Digital Equipment Computer Users Society Date: 8 Jun 94 21:27:09 -0400 In article , stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com (Dick St.Peters) writes: > Hi. I'm new to telecom things and need help. (Lots of it ...) > I'm becoming an Internet provider -- dialup PPP/SLIP, so I need a lot > of phone lines. NYNEX says it wants a ten-year contract (with a bond) > before it will install a lot of pairs to my house. > They will gladly sell me several T1s, but even though I'm less than a > mile from my CO, this is more than twice the cost per line ... without > even including costs of the equipment to demux the T1s. Further, they > tell me that all 24 lines on a T1 must be used for voice lines ... I > can't use any of them as 56k DDS local loops ... no tariff, they say. > (I forgot to ask about 3002 leased voice lines.) You DON'T want to mix these. Well you DO, but you want them to stay working. Technically, you CAN do it. Order their NRS service (you get to juggle your own DS0s in THEIR DACS!!!). Order the T1s from wherever to ALL terminate in the DACS based NRS service, and configure as you please. You just spent more money than you saved, probably. DON'T even dream of 3002 lines. USE DDS-II. Its the same price in NY for 2.4kb or 56kb with or without secondary channel. Get cute with a QUALITY DSU/CSU that has a scrambler, and you probably can run 64kb DDS on a line ordered as 56kb w/secondary. The scrambler prevents accidentally sending codes that loop the far end! But instead, don't be that cute. Just use innexpensive CSU/DSUs (the 56kb SYNC ones I use cost WAY less that $200 wholesale), and for a few $s more you can get ones that do 38.4kb on a 56kb sync line. Ones that do 57.6kb async on 56kb sync do cost more -- for a while at least. > NYNEX would be happier about stringing lots of pairs to a real office, > but I'd have to rent the office, so the costs actually work out sort > of similar unless the demux equipment is really expensive. How expensive > is it? What is it? Use quality equipment that you don't need to visit often. Rent rack space from Met Fiber. Get local dialtone and all your IXC connections from them. Basically ignore NYNEX -- didn't they just ask you to! Then show up at DPU hearing and say the state isn't doing a very slick job of regulating. Bring your reporter buddies from the local bar with you. Buy ASCEND's MAX box and **NO** modems. have your customers use ISDN to get to you:-) The MAX replaces the modem and terminal server and costs you ~$250 a port for 56/64kb digital service. No ISDN PRI? Just use T1 Flexpath DID trunks! Will probably limit you to 56kb and, if like here in MA, limit you to free residential access in 'voice' mode rather than 64kb in data mode (which costs even from the home by the minute). > NYNEX says I need a PBX. Do I really need one if I only want to tie > each line to a modem and/or terminal server? > Finally, what am I not asking that I should be? Ask whether Met Fiber or Teleport is selling local dial tone up there yet. They certainly ARE in NYC. Ask when NYNEX's next filing is with the DPU/PUC and where the public hearings are being held. Ask which elected officials Nynex has been hosting at tropical islands. (The {Boston Globe} caught our neighborhood state senator on one of their junkets). Ask which tariffs apply for ANYTHING they say that seems unreasonable. As an IAP, much of what your order (at least under the leased line stuff), can and should be ordered under FCC not DPU/PUC tariffs. DON'T order through NYNEX DROIDS. Find one of their 'authorised agents' (aka $profitable$ businesses started by former NYNEX brass 'retired' to making $S$S beyond regulatory or union clutches). Don't get me wrong! These **ARE** the folks you need! They are 'wired' into NYNEX, but are quite independant. We sell Internet access using Nynex frame relay, and DEFINITELY use an authorised agent. Get as far past the local business offices as you can. Get product management folks names. Use the 'executive-appeals' consumer complaint hotline Nynex offers. Join the just starting Internet trade association. And last but not least, don't totally give up on NYNEX. It is getting a LOT better. They are learning and adapting. There is some very good young blood in management. They old is slowly retiring. Find the right folks (not in the local business office!) and you can get excellent support without most of the hassles you are seeing. ------------------------------ From: atlas@newshost.pictel.com (Steve Atlas) Subject: Re: Cost of Caller ID in PA Organization: PictureTel Corporation Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 03:13:33 GMT In article gvaeth@netcom.com (Greg Vaeth at Jerrold Communications) writes: > An insert in my latest bill contained a notice that Bell Atlantic will > offer Caller ID in Pennsylvania in August. The cost for residential > customers is $6.50/month, business is $8.50. Call blocking and > anonymous call rejection are free. This charge seem outrageous > considering that the equipment to do it is already there, right? How > else does return call, repeat call and all that stuff work. How does > this rate compare to other states? That does seem a bit high. In the Boston area (NyNex) it's $4.95/month. Call blocking is free, but I don't think that anonymous call rejection is available. It's ironic that call waiting, call forwarding, three-way calling, and voice mail ("Call Answering" in NyNex-speak) are all available free (except for airtime charges) from Cellular One in this area. You can get a free-night-and-weekend plan for $29. I may throw away my home phone ;-). Unfortunately, Caller-ID is not available on cellular, although it doesn't seem as though it would be a major technical hurdle to provide it. Steve Atlas atlas@pictel.com ------------------------------ From: Lynne Gregg Subject: Re: Cellular in Emergencies Date: Wed, 08 Jun 94 16:35:00 PDT In response to harding@wombat.cig.mot.com (Thomas N. Harding) > Some systems can invoke emergency priority calling which prioritizes > fire and police calls. In an emergency, an emergency call is an emergency call. I'm unaware of any U.S. carrier's "prioritizing" calls. > As far as system stability goes I believe that cellular holds its > own in emergencies due to backup power systems which are not feasible > for distributed land line systems. San Francisco cellular service was > the only thing up after their big quake. You are correct, the L.A. Cellular system ran without a hiccup during the recent (big) quake. Cellular can be used to carry voice and data (as well as fax) communication during emergencies and ANY time wireline service is unavailable or inaccess- ible. Regards, Lynne ------------------------------ From: Mike Borsetti Subject: Re: Cellular in Emergencies Reply-To: mike.borsetti@bactc.com Date: Wed, 08 Jun 1994 12:50:21 PDT In TELECOM Digest V14 #268 harding@wombat.cig.mot.com (Thomas N. Harding) writes: > As far as system stability goes I believe that cellular holds its > own in emergencies due to backup power systems which are not feasible > for distributed land line systems. San Francisco cellular service was > the only thing up after their big quake. Correct. We spend quite a lot of money to guarantee that the system survives any major disaster as intact as possible. Besides power backup, we: * operate a backup microwave system to provide redundant double-feed to many cellsites; * perform maintenance on cellsites no longer in use, so that they can quickly be recomissioned in case of need; * operate a private SONET ring between switches to provide redundant interconnection; * configure the system so that we can operate even if a switch is lost; * have multiple redundant interconnection sites with PacBell's tandems and with IXCs; * have detailed emergency plans; Given the proven reliability of cellular, and our efforts in making sure that the system survives any major disaster, it would be very difficult for any telecom manager to justify NOT to have any cellular backup (for example using rack-mounted trunk-simulating cellular equipment in the PBX room). Mike.Borsetti@bactc.com Cellular One/San Francisco ++++ oO)) Digital Network ++++ ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #278 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa05378; 9 Jun 94 12:15 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA17882; Thu, 9 Jun 94 08:11:07 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA17872; Thu, 9 Jun 94 08:11:05 CDT Date: Thu, 9 Jun 94 08:11:05 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406091311.AA17872@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #279 TELECOM Digest Thu, 9 Jun 94 08:11:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 279 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Internet Access From Cuba (Bob King) Dual PPI-14.4Kbaud -- Can't Talk! (Dave Spensley) Looking for Cheap, Portable Terminal (Tim Nyce) Historical Private Line Price Compression (Scott Pope) Position: Sr. Software Engineer - Telecom/Telephony - MN (John F. Nymark) PacBell "California Calling Plan" (Lloyd Matthews) 1-800-CALL-ATT x 21 Returns! (Paul Robinson) Which Court Case Decided Phone Records Were (Almost) Public? (D. Burstein) Help Needed With Meridian Trunks (Paul Samuelson) Toll-Charge 800 Numbers (Richard King) Re: Average Data Speed of Wire Telegraphy Wanted (Nathan N. Duehr) Re: Help: Bad Phone Lines in San Jose (John R. Haggis) Re: Seeking Answering Machine With Voice Mail (John R. Haggis) Re: Bills Online, Action Needed Now (James D. Wilson) Re: New Book: The Electronic Traveler (Carl Moore) Re: Geographical Boundaries of COE's Reference Needed (Carl Moore) Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? (K. M. Peterson) Re: Call Waiting (Carl Oppedahl) Re: What Do I Get When Dialing 311? (S.H. Schwartz) Re: What Do I Get When Dialing 311? (Les Reeves) Re: Is Meridian 1 Option 11 Current? (rpkrpk@aol.com) Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" (Dee Hardiman) Re: Bellcore CID Specifications Wanted (Lynne Gregg) Question About FCC FTP (defantom@aol.com) Cisco Mail List (defantom@aol.com) Help - Telecommuting Information Needed (szfast@chip.ucdavis.edu) Re: Last Laugh! Please Explain the Term 'Steaming Terminal' (puma@netcom) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bking120@news.delphi.com (BKING120@DELPHI.COM) Subject: Internet Access From Cuba Date: 9 Jun 1994 04:28:02 -0000 Organization: Delphi Internet Services Corporation Some friends of mine are traveling to Cuba later this month on journalists' visas and are seeking a convenient way of sending articles back to the United States. Does anyone know if Internet access is available in Cuba -- and if so, how easily available? Much thanks! Bob King Sarasota, FL bking120@delphi.com ------------------------------ From: davesp@comm.mot.com (Dave Spensley) Subject: Dual PPI-14.4Kbaud -- Can't Talk! Organization: Motorola Land Mobile Products Sector Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 03:29:17 GMT Gentlepeople, A friend and I are having trouble connecting two PPI 14.4K baud modems together! Even though we use the same modem settings, we get major CRC errors, limiting our transfer rate to <800 cps. We are both using Procomm for Windows. One modem is internal, one is external. Are Procomm settings interfering with modem efficiency? Any clues will be appreciated. moc.tom.mmoc@psevad \ yelsnepS evaD | Dave Spensley / davesp@comm.mot.com ------------------------------ From: tnyce@netcom.com (Tim Nyce) Subject: Looking for Cheap, Portable Terminal Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1994 19:24:13 GMT I have a friend who needs an inexpensive terminal that can be attatched to a modem or has one built in. Not particularly fancy, just cheap with a decent-sized display. He wants to be able to check mail, read news, etc. If you have any reccomendations, sources, or units for sale, please reply or mail me and I will pass it on to him. Thanks, Tim Nyce tnyce@netcom.com TRA# 2492 Dallas Hi-Power 214-783-4563 NAR# 58591 ------------------------------ From: scott_pope@wiltel.com Subject: Historical Private Line Price Compression Date: Wed, 08 Jun 94 16:03:58 PDT Organization: WilTel Does anyone know where I could find a study showing compression of private line prices from 1984 or 1985 to present? ------------------------------ From: jnymark@nycor.win.net (John F. Nymark) Date: Wed, 08 Jun 1994 10:50:58 Subject: Position: Sr. Software Engineer - Telecom/Telephony - MN Reply-To: jnymark@nycor.win.net (John F. Nymark) SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER TELECOMMUNICATIONS TELEPHONY Here's an opportunity to have your contributions greatly impact a company's growth and success. Rapidly growing, telecommunications company in beautiful, Minnetonka, Minnesota needs strong C/UNIX software engineer with 7+ years software cycle development experience, 3+ years experience working on designing wide and local area networks and 4+ years in a lead or management role. Will be working on products geared to interactive voice response and recognition, faxcimile on demand, and many other telephony products. Ideal candidate should have a software development background out of the telecommunications/telephony industry, have lead development teams and/or have been in a management role. Should also have a strong business/market savvy to be able to cater to market trends in research and development. Salary and bonus commensurate with experience. To learn more, contact Julie O'Connell The NYCOR Group 4930 West 77th Street Suite 300 Minneapolis, MN 55435 (612) 831-6444 (612) 835-2883 FAX Please send E-Mail to jnymark@nycor.win.net ATTN: Julie. Please let your friends know of this opportunity. WE LOVE REFERRALS. ------------------------------ From: lloyd@pebbles.esl.com (Lloyd Matthews) Subject: PacBell "California Calling Plan" Date: 8 Jun 1994 23:01:39 GMT Organization: TTC - ESL, Inc. My boss has heard at nth-hand of a business service offered by PacBell called the "California Calling Plan", that's supposed to be cheaper than an 800 number. The salestypes at PB don't have a clue what it is. Do any TELECOM Digest readers know if this service exists? Thanks, Lloyd Matthews (Lloyd_Matthews@SMTP.esl.com) ------------------------------ From: Paul Robinson Reply-To: Paul Robinson Subject: 1-800-CALL-ATT x 21 Returns! Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 19:25:15 EDT Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA About a year and a half or so ago, I posted a notice here that AT&T had announced that their 1-800-CALL-ATT, then dial 2-1 to get to AT&T's switch computer to place calls using a Local Exchange Company or AT&T Calling Card had been discontinued in favor of 1-800-32-10ATT. Now, AT&T's 1-800-CALL-ATT number has been returned to service for this purpose, with the announcement saying to press "1" to make a call. But the interesting thing is that the old "2-1" (e.g. extension 21) dialing will *ALSO* work! Oh, and the 1-800-32-10ATT number still works. It does the same thing as 1-800-CALL-ATT but without having to dial 1 or 21 first. What goes around, comes around ... Paul Robinson ------------------------------ From: dannyb@panix.com (danny burstein) Subject: Which Court Case Decided Phone Records Were (Almost) Public? Date: 8 Jun 1994 19:13:00 -0400 Reference has been made numerous times in this Digest that a person's telephone billing records are business records of the phone company, and are not personal or private. As I recall the thread, since these records belonged to the telco, the phone company could cheerfully hand them over to the local gendarmes (among others) without a warrant. Being an ordinary mortal wihout access to Lexis or other legal data bases, if I tried searching blindly for this case it would take me forever. Could some kind soul out there in net-land extend a gentle hand and guide me along? Thanks muchly, Danny Burstein dannyb@panix.com (or dburstein@mcimail.com) ------------------------------ From: pss@aol.com (PSS) Subject: Help With Meridian Trunks Date: 8 Jun 1994 21:07:06 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) I am having a problem programming an analog trunk card. I need to be able to program CO Call Forward Variable (72# XXX-XXXX and 73#) on a 1FB (I guess it might not be a 1FB if I run it through the switch, but I will worry about that later). I would like to run the line thru an analog trunk to be able to program the forwarding from any phone on the switch. My problem is when I seize the trunk with the trunk access code, I cannot send DTMF directly to the trunk. The PBX seems to be absorbing digits or not sending them directly. I can seize the trunk and dial a local number, but not change the CFV. Any tips? Thanks, Paul Samuelson ------------------------------ From: rpk@watson.ibm.com (Richard King) Subject: Toll-Charge 800 numbers Date: 8 Jun 1994 17:39:51 GMT Organization: IBM T. J. Watson Research I just read in my local paper that there is such a thing as toll- CHARGE, rather than toll-FREE, 800 numbers. This struck me as so completely outrageous and bizarre that I was wondering if any of you folks out there could confirm or deny the existence of such things. Richard [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes indeed, we do know about these things. Actually, you are not paying for the call to the 800 number; you are paying for the 'information' passed over the phone line to you as part of the call. Consider it like calling an 800 number to make airline reservations or some mail order purchase. In those instances you call the number, then make your purchase and give your credit card number for payment. In the cases you mention however, the charge for the services rendered (but not the call into the information provider in and of itself!) is billed to your telephone bill in the same way 900/976 calls are billed. Since we just finished a thread on this during the past couple weeks it seems premature to start the discussion all over again so I refer you to the back issues of this Digest during the last part of May and the start of June for more details. The consensus here seems to be most of those operations are sleazy, however they are legal, and a perfect work-around to the 'problem' many information providers were encountering with 900 of being unable to collect their fees. PAT] ------------------------------ From: nduehr@netcom.com (Nathan N. Duehr) Subject: Re: Average Data Speed of Wire Telegraphy Wanted Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 03:06:27 GMT wes.leatherock@oubbs.telecom.uoknor.edu wrote: > Press operators were, I think probably the elite of operators sending > in the wire telegraph days. Perhaps those working for brokerage wire > houses could also put in a claim to this, but I'm not sufficiently > familiar with them to be able to judge. Don't forget the railroad ops ... they had their fair share of traffic as well! Regards, Nate Duehr nduehr@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: haggis@netcom.com (John R. Haggis) Subject: Re: Help: Bad Phone Lines in San Jose Organization: Millennium Research Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 01:07:50 GMT In article sgiblab!hh.sbay.org!terry@ uucp-gw-2.pa.dec.com (Terry Greenlee) writes: > And a special thanks to Pacific Bell. Yeah, but they were finally just doing their job. Days/weeks later ... JohnR (haggis@netcom.com) ------------------------------ From: haggis@netcom.com (John R. Haggis) Subject: Re: Seeking Answering Machine With Voice Mail Organization: Millennium Research Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 01:49:07 GMT In article clampett!nrn@uunet.uu.net (Norman R. Nithman) writes: > I'm looking for an answering machine with at least two voice mailboxes > in the $100 range. Any suggestions will be helpful. Norm, There are several available <= $100, with caveats. See my post in this group with the title: "Re: interactive Voice Mail system for PC". In summary, National Semi Tyin, Complete PC Communicator EZ, Computer Peripherals Viva Message Center. Go to a good computer store. JohnR (haggis@netcom.com) ------------------------------ From: NetSurfer Subject: Correction Re: Bills Online, Action Needed Now Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 21:03:35 HST On Mon, 6 Jun 1994, Carl Moore wrote: > Your message to telecom includes: > >Dale Kildee (D-MI) > >ph. 202-25-3611 fax 202-225-6393 NO EMAIL > Is the first phone number supposed to be 202-225-3611? > Apparently a digit is missing from it. Yep - put it to good use ... James D. Wilson V.PGP 2.4: 512/E12FCD 1994/03/17 P. O. Box 15432 finger for key / Viacrypt Reseller Honolulu, HI 96830 Serendipitous Solutions Also NetSurfer@sersol.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 8 Jun 94 14:38:23 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: New Book: The Electronic Traveler I'd suggest using "+", the country code, the city code, and the local number. > Fountain Travel BBS 0273 584827 What country? > Modern Traveller 7-0562-425901 > Time Traveler BBS 886-4-276-0160 > Traveller-Box 49-7664-95185 > Travelmatic 39-11-502423 Each of these is the complete telephone number, including the country code? > Belize Tourism 011501233711 Should use + instead of the leading 011? ------------------------------ From: Carl Moore Subject: Re: Geographical Boundaries of COE's Reference Needed Date: Wed, 8 Jun 94 15:12:34 EDT I vaguely recall hearing that the correlation between telephone exchange and location was telephone-company proprietary information. In that case, what I know (largely -- not all -- being near me) is just a case of reverse engineering. I noticed 508-753 in Worcester, Mass., so if that 617-753 is an actual prefix, it came in after the 617/508 split was fully cut over. I do correlate telephone exchange and zipcode if possible, but some phone-company place names turn out to be nonpostal. And I am even less familiar with such correlations occurring outside the United States. Pilot Books on Long Island (in New York) does publish a zipcode- areacode correlation. ------------------------------ From: kmp@tiac.net (K. M. Peterson) Subject: Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? Date: 8 Jun 1994 14:53:23 GMT Organization: KMPeterson/Boston In article keith.knipschild@asb.com writes: > Is it true that you can have your local telephone company BLOCK ANI, > So that when you call a 800 number they can't know who you are? > I am not talking about Caller ID. I know the difference. Speaking of which: There was a shooting here in Boston a couple of days ago. I noticed that the telephone number that our TeeVee stations are advertising to call information into the Boston Police is an 800- number. I wonder if the ability to get ANI has anything to do with having an 800-number rather than a local number. By the way, in Massachusetts, local calls on [non-COCOT] payphones are still $.10 . K. M. Peterson email: KMP@TIAC.NET phone: +1 617 731 6177 voice +1 617 730 5969 fax [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You betcha it does! They are not so much interested in making sure poor people can call them for free to provide theories on the crime as they are in getting the phone number of the people who choose to call for whatever reason. Be extremely careful of calling those 800 numbers given to 'help the police' as shown on the shows like 'Unsolved Mysteries' and 'FBI Most Wanted'. PAT] ------------------------------ From: oppedahl@panix.com (Carl Oppedahl) Subject: Re: Call Waiting Date: 9 Jun 1994 01:12:30 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC In hal9001@panix.com (Robert A. Rosenberg) writes: > In Article <2su4jt$bel@panix.com>, andrewk@panix.com (Andrew Taeyon Kim) wrote: >> Is there a way to temporarily disable call waiting so that I wouldn't get >> disconnected in the middle of the download? > Yes - prefix your number with *70W (or *70,, or, if you have a dial phone, > 1170,,). Thus *70W1-212-787-3100. On the central offices I have used, there is quite a noticable stutter of the dial tone after I dial *70, giving the impression that one must wait until the dial tone is steady again to dial the rest of the telephone number. Contrary to this impression, however, I found I could leave out the W or the commas. This saves quite a bit of time in dialing if it works. YMMV. Carl Oppedahl AA2KW Oppedahl & Larson (patent lawyers) Yorktown Heights, NY voice 212-777-1330 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes Carl, this is quite true. Any of the service codes which can be prepended to the dialing string will produce the stutter tone, such as *70 or *67 for ID blocking, etc. I've found you can dial straight through them without any pause at all. PAT] ------------------------------ From: schwartz@nynexst.com (S. H. Schwartz) Subject: Re: What Do I Get When Dialing 311? Date: 8 Jun 1994 17:58:45 GMT Organization: NYNEX Science & Technology, Inc Reply-To: schwartz@nynexst.com In article 5@eecs.nwu.edu, keith.knipschild@asb.com () writes: > When I dial 311 (I live on LI.N.Y -NYNEX-) I get connected to a > TELETYPE sounding device. Does anyone know what this is? In the past > 311 would announce the telephone number you were calling from, like > 958 does. THIS RESPONSE IS NOT AN OFFICIAL MESSAGE OF THE NYNEX CORPORATION OR ANY OF ITS SUBSIDIARIES. Just covering my rear. :-) 311 is now set up by NYNEX-New York to handle TDD calls for emergency services, whether or not 911 is configured in that local area. TDD = Telecom. device for the deaf Steven H. Schwartz Network Operations Laboratory schwartz@nynexst.com NYNEX Science and Technology Center PROFS: SCHWARTZ@UNIX 400 Westchester Avenue 914-644-2960 White Plains NY 10604 ------------------------------ From: lreeves@crl.com (Les Reeves) Subject: Re: What Do I Get When Dialing 311? Date: 8 Jun 1994 17:26:23 -0700 Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access (415) 705-6060 [login: guest] Dave Niebuhr (dwn@dwn.ccd.bnl.gov) wrote: > In TELECOM Digest V14 #274 keith.knipschild@asb.com >> When I dial 311 (I live on LI.N.Y -NYNEX-) I get connected to a >> TELETYPE sounding device. Does anyone know what this is? In the past >> 311 would announce the telephone number you were calling from, like >> 958 does. > I posted an article about this not too long ago in TELECOM Digest. > 311 is used by NYNEX in its service area for hearing impaired people > to be able contact emergency services in a similar manner as normally > hearing people do by dialing 911. > The sound is a TTY device, the same one as heard when dialing a > hearing impaired person. Is this the code which the Telecommunications Relay will use nation-wide? I heard they had lobbied for a standard national access number to the relay service. FWIW, 311 has been going to something which does not answer here in Atlanta for the past two months. Les lreeves@crl.com Atlanta,GA 404.874.7806 ------------------------------ From: rkprkp@aol.com (RKPRKP) Subject: Re: Is Meridian 1 Option 11 Current? Date: 8 Jun 1994 14:56:01 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) In article , root@arc.ug.eds.com writes: Option 11 is current and there are plans in place to continue to expand and enhance the product. I would feel very comfortable recommending an Option 11 to anyone in the appropriate size range. If you have any specific questions, feel free to e-mail me. I'm with Southwestern Bell Telecom and we distribute the Northern Telecom product. One thing that may be a bit confusing is that the Option 11 has lagged the other Meridian 1 systems by 1 release level in software. For example, most Meridian 1's are at release 19, while Option 11 is at Release 18. By the end of this year that discrepancy should go away. The Option 11 is a great system. ------------------------------ From: hardiman@cbnewst.att.com Date: 8 Jun 94 20:04:00 GMT Subject: Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" Organization: AT&T Helpful info: PacBell runs an ISDN BBS. 510-277-1037 for pokey old modems. 510-823-4888 for speedy new BRI or SDS 56/64K access The sysop is Scott Adams and can be e-mailed at sradams@pacbell.com Please understand that the LEC sales teams, like many telco sales reps spend most of their time selling 800 type service, and that data is a small part of their bag. Hence the field training is sometimes thin. PacBell happens to be one of the better LECs wrt getting information out to the field and the customers. dee hardiman (AT&T isdn sales support for N. CA & pacific nw) ------------------------------ From: Lynne Gregg Subject: Re: Bellcore CID Specifications Wanted Date: Wed, 08 Jun 94 16:50:00 PDT Bellcore Customer Service 800/521-CORE in U.S. or 908/699-5800 for outside U.S. TR-TSY-000860 ISDN Calling Number ID Services (and Supplement 1). TR-NWT-000031 LSSGR CLASS Feature Deliv. Calling Number Delivery. Regards, Lynne ------------------------------ From: DeFantom@aol.com Date: Wed, 08 Jun 94 20:48:53 EDT Subject: Question About FCC FTP Hello all. I seem to recall that the FCC began requiring long distance carriers to file outage reports with the FCC if the outage resulted in the blockage of over 90,000 calls. (This was in the wake of 'the' AT&T outage a couple of years ago. Remember when their CCS7 crashed?) Anyway does anyone know if these outage reports are available thru a FCC FTP? I'd appreciate any info! defantom@aol.com ------------------------------ From: DeFantom@aol.com Date: Wed, 08 Jun 94 20:56:58 EDT Subject: Cisco Mail List Another question, (figured I would make use of a great resource). Has anyone ever heard of an Internet distribution list for Cisco? I saw it listed in the Internet yellow pages but I have not received any kind of response back. (This was two weeks ago.) If anyone knows please drop a note. From what I read about the list it sounds like a good one to get on to. Thanks! defantom@aol.com ------------------------------ From: szfast@chip.ucdavis.edu Subject: Help - Telecommuting Information Needed Organization: University of California, Davis Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 02:36:36 GMT Hi everyone - I'm trying to put together a proposal for work to convince the boss to let a few of us telecommute. I'm looking for information to present which shows telecommuting in a positive light. Can anyone recommend some good sources, either on the net or magazine articles/books/organi- zations where I might find this type of information? Thanks in advance! ------------------------------ From: puma@netcom.com (puma) Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Re: Please Explain the Term 'Steaming Terminal' Date: Thu, 09 Jun 1994 10:00:00 GMT > is a common term for the situation which arises when > a terminarwl user spills their coffee or coke into the ventilating slits > on top of the terminal casing. In such an instance, there is usually > a large "ssssspppppppphhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiittttttzzzzzzzing" sound And TELECOM Digest Editor partially noted in respose: > Yes, remember to always keep beverages out of reach. Trouble is most > of us have to learn the hard way; I know I did. PAT] Folks are always spilling drinks into keyboards here. Some can't be disassembled or are designed in such a way that they never work again. The funniest story I have was when a professor spilled a cup of coffee into the vents of the lower portion of a WYSE computer terminal, where the circuit board is located. He then proceeded to try and dry it out (without cleaning it first) with a heat gun, and melted the plastic case down on top of the circuit card. puma@netcom.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #279 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa06309; 9 Jun 94 13:28 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA19314; Thu, 9 Jun 94 09:15:42 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA19305; Thu, 9 Jun 94 09:15:40 CDT Date: Thu, 9 Jun 94 09:15:40 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406091415.AA19305@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #280 TELECOM Digest Thu, 9 Jun 94 09:15:30 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 280 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" (Bob Larribeau) Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Call Routing (Steve Howard) Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? (Ry Jones) Re: Cellular ESN Change (Joseph Renda) Re: Bell Canada Joins the 700 Club (Mark Brader) Re: Does MCI Have Answer Supervision? (Philip J. Tait) 1+ 804 + 7D in Virginia (Carl Moore) Re: 716 Now Split Between 7D and 1 + 716 + 7D (Stan Schwartz) Four-wire to Five-wire Adapter to Use US Modem in England? (Will Dye) 800 Number Statistics (Dave Leibold) 35 Residential Lines, and Pac*Bell Tariffs (Christopher Ambler) Can I Use Deactivated Cellular Phone in Emergency? (Shawn Gordhamer) Sources Wanted: Telemedicine and Telecommuting (dboomstein@aol.com) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: blarrib@netcom.com (Bob Larribeau) Subject: Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" Organization: Consultant Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 14:51:21 GMT In article lps@rahul.net (Kevin Martinez) writes: > judson%linex@uunet.UU.NET (Michael L Judson) writes: >> I saw in a news report about a new service from Pacific Bell called >> "ISDN Anywhere." When I called up Pac Bell, they had no idea what I >> was talking about. The news report didn't give much more information >> other than they would start offering it in about a month. >> Does anybody else have any ideas about what is so different about "ISDN >> Anywhere?" > Same Old Stuff: Marketing Hype. > When I finally found a Pac Bell representative that knew what ISDN was > and the procedures for having it installed, I was told it was not > available in my exchange (Milpitas, Ca., near the heart of Pac Bell). > It appears that whatever switching mechanism they have is not up to > the claims of their Marketing, Advertising and Sales force. Maybe next > year ... Call Pac Bell at 1-800-4PB-ISDN and they should be able to give you the straight story. The ISDN Anywhere program does not go into effect until mid-July. They are setting up this 800 number to handle orders. Bob Larribeau Consultant San Francisco ------------------------------ Subject: Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Call Routing Date: Wed, 8 Jun 94 17:17:02 MDT From: Steve Howard In-reply-to: your article > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Except something you are forgetting is that > there are many locations where a payphone would NOT be installed by the > phone company otherwise which now have them because the COCOT owner was > willing to put one in at a somewhat higher cost to the end user. There are > many cases where merchants can not get a *commissioned* coin phone on the > premises because telco won't give them one unless the traffic volume is > as high as telco wants it to be ..... [snip] This is a *major* benefit of COCOTs that the FCC must seriously look at! Our LEC (US West) will not install a public/coin phone unless they are fairly sure that it will make plenty of money. (Can you blame them?). I think that they are just too conservative in their revenue estimates. Due to seasonal nature of our business (skiing!), they don't like to install their phones at most of our locations :-(. Here (and at a previous employer) we have been forced to install COCOTs becuase their owners are *very* willing to install them at the locations deemed "undesirable" by US West. We insist that the rates "mirror" AT&T rates so that we don't gouge our guests. (Additionally, they also offer $1 for four minutes anywhere in the US -- which is cheaper than residential rates for IntraLATA!). The COCOTs have been installed at ~10 locations that US West wouldn't touch. Those same phones would cost $474.10/month (~$5,690 annually) if they were owned by US West. We could not justify the cost of LEC pubilc phones -- if it weren't for the COCOTs those locations would not have any public phones. If the AOSs were eliminated (via FCC ruling or whatever making them unprofitable) there would only be LEC phones available for public use in this and other "rural" parts of the country. When your car breaks down/or you are involved in an accident in the middle of nowhere you will be very pleased to find that the walk to the nearest LEC phone will only take a day or two! :-( (BTW, don't think that you could just pick up your cellphone in the above scenario -- many, many, areas of this country still do not have cell coverage). I think that the current proposal of "looking up" the receiving persons IXC (for collect calls) and then handing off the call to that IXC has some problems: (1) Prohibitively expensive; (2) I have BNS - I will never use this collect/3rd party lookup -- will I have to share the cost? I bet that I will :-( (3) What if I subscribed to one of the regional carriers and someone tried to call me collect from outside the service area? Or worse, placed a third party call billed to my number where neither party to the conversation was in the service area of my IXC? How about a different solution? Here is one that I have been thinking about: Why not require all public phones manufactured after date X to have several carrier select buttons? (similair to the ones at Stapleton and other airports). The customer could simply choose the carrier of his/her choice before placing the call. The IXCs could pay a "rent" charge to the public phone owners (i.e. $0.10/call or whatever) for each call placed by their "button". This way the (generally untrainable) American public would have the choice of several carriers without the need to memorize any codes and the public phone owners could get reimbursed for the IXCs use of their phone and thus would be encouraged to install more phones at convenient locations! The LEC could even be required to have the carrier select buttons -- they could then earn the "rent" from the IXC buttons (as well as FGD charges). Hopefully this would encourage the LECs to install more phones and encourage them and the COCOTs to compete directly. One of the major problems with this idea: How do you keep all of the IXC select buttons from being occupied by scummy AOS companies? Limit to companies whose rates are in the lowest X%? Limit to the companies who don't have a calling card surchage :-) ? Steve Howard Town of Breckenridge, Colorado steveh@ci.breckenridge.co.us ------------------------------ From: Ry Jones Subject: Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 23:37:39 PDT In article TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But you are discussing a technical > and/or logistics problem. Things are *not supposed* to happen the way > you describe. When placing an 800 call through the operator, your > number is *supposed* to appear on the operator's console and be passed > the same as usual. This is true. Emphasis on *supposed*. The 0+ operators are failing, true, but since they always fail ... the system is broken. > console then she is *supposed* to inquire about your number and bubble > it in in the process of releasing the call. I think if you zero plus > the 800 number it will appear on the console and in further billing 0+800 fails for me. > records. If you simply dial zero, and pass the number verbally, she is Here's a transcript of a typical call: RJ: 0 USW: (bong) USWEST USWest, how can I help you? RJ: My 8 key is broken, can you please dial a number for me? USW: Yes, may I have the number, area code first, please? RJ: 1 800 265 5328, please. USW: Please wait... ATT: Number you are dialing from please? RJ: 206 xxx xxxx ATT: Number you would like to call? RJ: 812 xxx xxxx ATT: What is your name please? RJ: Ry. ATT: Thank you. IP : Hello? ATT: This is AT&T, I have a collect call from Ry. Will you accept the charges? IP: Yeah. ATT: Thank you. The number that comes out on the bill of IP is whatever I told ATT. ATT does *not* get the number from the USW operator. Period. I know they *should*, they are *supposed* to, but they *don't*. > supposed to refer you to the double-zero (or long distance carrier's) > operator. Now granted, many operators do not bother to follow the > rules on this. They are supposed to handle it the same way they (are There you go. Lazy operators. > supposed to) handle calls to 911 placed through the operator: take the > caller's number -- if it is not already in the system for some reason > -- and pass it along. For instance with 911, the operator is supposed > to stay on the line until 911 answers and pass the calling party's > number so the 911 dispatcher can key it in manually. So I think when you I have not had to call 911 in 206, and if I did, I sure wouldn't try to defeat ANI or anything. But the theory is interesting. > are not receiving ANI as a result of a call being placed through the > operator it is the exception rather than the rule. And I believe that > when you do this, many times you *just think* the ANI is not getting > passed when in fact the operator bubbles or forces it into the network > without specifically telling you that is what she is doing. However, evidence suggests this is not true. I place collect calls all the time in this manner and the 800 collect operator asks for my number. By calling 800 ANI demos from the 0 operator, I get the INWARD DID number. (If the INWARD dialed it). If I direct dial an 800 demo, boom, ANI in full form. If I have the 0+ operator do it, no ANI is passed. I agree this is a failure of US West's, but this technique works in PacBell, Ameritech, SWBell, NyNex ... everywhere. > The general rule though is correct: if you call an 800 number in the > normal and usual way, with 1+800+ then there are no secrets. By the Correct. But I have never had a problem calling 1 800 collect from the 0 operator and hiding the calling number. Every time I do so, I am asked for my number. > way, will zero plussing an 800 number work in your location? One person > said to me once that 0+800+ always went to intercept in his switch. PAT] This is true. I cannot 0+800, it intercepts before I finish dialing. rjones@halcyon.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Whenever I zero plus anything (although like you, my zero plus 800 fails to complete) the operator always has my number available without asking me anything. When I call collect, using zero plus which is rare, she merely asks my name. Even just dialing zero to get the operator produces my number on her console. I know this since I dialed zero and asked to speak to a supervisor. When my call was passed the operator advised the supervisor that 'subscriber wishes to speak with the supervisor, he is calling from 708-xxx-xxxx.' I certainly hope you are not giving a phalse number to the operator when she asks for it. The reason is, even if you are calling collect, should the called party later refuse to pay for the call, it will be bounced back to the 'caller' for payment, which would be whatever number you had given. Billing options such as collect and third-party are courtesies extended by telco and not absolute. That is, the rule that you are responsible for the use of your instrument still applies. If other methods of collection fail, then it is your problem; you placed the call and used the network. I guess this comes down to whether or not the operators are (1) equipped to see the calling number or not and (2) if they are doing their job correctly. PAT] ------------------------------ From: joseph@CAM.ORG (Joseph Renda) Subject: Re: Cellular ESN Change Date: 8 Jun 1994 19:30:06 -0400 Organization: Communications Accessibles Montreal, Quebec Canada In article , Robert S. Helfman wrote: > I recently purchased a Motorola PC-550 flip phone. Since I was already > a PacTel cellular customer (using a transportable Motorola), this was > a very easy switch. I just called PacTel Cellular, gave them some > personal identification and the new ESN, and in 20 minutes they had > made the switch. > My question is (and I suspect this has been answered before): > In what form is the ESN stored in the Motorola phones? Is it a > removable ROM? A PROM? What would be involved in changing it? I > clearly understand the prohibition of two phones with the same phone > number being on the system at the same time. But being single, and > having no reason whatever to use both phones at the SAME time, there > ARE times when I would like to use the transportable (say, while > driving on a long trip where the added range and battery life would be > useful). Many times this is a simple bi-polar Prom. usually a 32x8 bit. Newer phones have ESN & NAM inside some VLSI chips ... > PacTel's central folks said there is no problem switching ESN's any > time I want to. They have no company policy that discourages this, and > it only takes a phone call and about 20 minutes to an hour to make the > switch. BUT, it would be a lot easier if I could diddle the ESN on my > transportable to match my flip phone. Then, whichever one happens to > be powered up will be the one that the systems 'sees'. > Just how big a job is this? Does anyone have the technical details? > [Yeh, PAT, I know YOU have probably seen this before, and I'm sure you > think it's some kind of mortal sin to consider the possibility.] > I am sure that some of the 'gangster' cellular phone stores along > Crenshaw Blvd would be delighted to do this for me, but I feel certain > that when they were through, half the cellular phones in the area > would be charging to my account. This is a "very" big possiblity. I know, that when I recieve cellular phones for repairs, I tend to look the phone "totally" over. But once I have your ESN the NAM isn't real hard; it can be accessed via the keypad. Its the ESN that really needs to be "protected". All you really need to commit fraud is your ESN and NAM. The NAME is nothing but your cellular phone number. Joseph Renda N.K.E. Computer Development Internet: joseph@cam.org ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 04:35:25 -0400 From: msb@sq.com Subject: Re: Bell Canada Joins the 700 Club > When 1 700 555 4141 is dialed from a Toronto phone, the following > recording is heard: > "Your provider of long distance service is Bell Canada. Thank you for > choosing us. This is a recording... 416 11" Not when I tried it just now from my home phone (416-488-XXXX). I got as far as 1-700-5554 and at this point heard one ring followed by "We're sorry. Your call cannot be completed as dialed ...". This is particularly interesting since we haven't had 1 + seven digit dialing in this area for several years now. Mark Brader, msb@sq.com SoftQuad Inc., Toronto ------------------------------ From: pjt@pelab.allied.com (Philip J. Tait) Subject: Re: Does MCI Have Answer Supervision? Date: 8 Jun 1994 22:51:01 GMT Organization: AlliedSignal Engines Reply-To: pjt@pelab.allied.com (Philip J. Tait) Summary: Various people replied, with various viewpoints. An ex-MCI employee said that MCI does have answer-supervision, whereas an "AT&T dweeb" stated that only AT&T has it. One person claimed to have had a substantial number of answer supervision failures with AT&T. I plan to gather evidence of incorrectly-charged calls, and pursue the matter. Philip J. Tait AlliedSignal Engines, Phoenix, Az +1 602 231 7104 GED::B12635 pjt@pelab.allied.com tait@venus.research.allied.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Jun 94 00:43:03 EDT From: Carl Moore Subject: 1 + 804 + 7D in Virginia As of May 16, area 804 in Virginia has permissive 1 + 804 + 7D for long distance within it. This becomes mandatory on Nov. 16. ------------------------------ From: stans@panix.com (Stan Schwartz) Subject: Re: 716 Now Split Between 7D and 1 + 716 + 7D Date: 8 Jun 1994 20:05:04 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC It seems like it would just be simpler to split the 716 NPA into a new NPA for NYNEX and non-NYNEX LATAs. This would force uniform dialing requirements. Stan ------------------------------ From: willdye@helios.unl.edu (Will Dye) Subject: Four-wire to Five-wire Adapter to Use US Modem in England? Date: 9 Jun 1994 05:08:49 GMT Organization: University of Nebraska--Lincoln I'm shipping out a modem to a customer in England. The customer tells me that his phone jack, I think they're called RJ11 adapters or something like that, has five wires in it. But the jacks I normally plug into a modem have four wires. I've seen some with six wires in a PBX phone, but never five wires. The local electronics stores don't know what I'm talking about, and say they've never heard of a four-wire to five-wire adapter. Am I nuts? Did my customer count wrong? Does such an adapter exist? If so, I'd like to have the address and phone number of the store that carries them. Will Non-disclaimer: Well whaddaya know?! This time I AM speaking for my employer! ------------------------------ From: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.fidonet.org (Dave Leibold) Date: 08 Jun 94 23:35:39 -0500 Subject: 800 Number Statistics Organization: FidoNet Nameserver/Gateway {Washington Post} (as reported in {The Toronto Star}) had an item on the growth of toll-free "800" number services. An AT&T service marketing executive gave the following stats: - approximately 3 million U.S. 800 numbers in use in the U.S. - a prediction of another million numbers in service this year (which, assuming 8 million possible 800 numbers of NXX.XXXX form, and assuming current growth, means 800 number capacity would be exhausted by 1998) - of 160 million AT&T network calls, more than 40% are for the 800 service. - 22 billion 800 calls made in 1993; AT&T's market share of that is 60% The continued popularity of 800 is partly due to lower monthly costs and competitive provision of service. ------------------------------ From: cambler@zeus.aix.calpoly.edu (Christopher Ambler) Subject: 35 Residential Lines, and Pac*Bell Tariffs Organization: The Phishtank Date: Thu, 09 Jun 1994 06:40:39 GMT I recently ordered an engineering report to have 35 POTS residential measured-service lines installed for a network we're installing (we're, as in myself, and 32 friends. A real live cooperative Internet setup using 28.8KBPS modems to run PPP. But I digress :-)). The engineer told me okay, and that they'd be in touch with me within a week or so, but also mentioned that if there was construction that had to be done in order to get us that many lines, I might have to pay for part of it. Can anyone quote me the tariffs in this case, or tell me where to find them? Must I drive to Monterey to look at them at Pac*Bell's office? I hope not. Thanks in advance! ++Christopher(); // Christopher J. Ambler (chris@toys.fubarsys.com) The above verbosity is strictly the opinion of the author, his dogs, various AI, an ISDN Internet connection, and the occasional Ozric Tentacles CD. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Say, whatever happened with that lawsuit you guys -- you and roomates? -- were going to file against Sprint for cheating you out of all those fax modems you allege you were entitled to as a result of switching all your phone lines over? Did that ever get resolved? You never did give us the final summary. PAT] ------------------------------ From: shawnlg@netcom.com (Shawn Gordhamer) Subject: Can I Use Deactivated Cellular Phone in Emergency? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 12:17:05 GMT I'd like to get my mom a cheap bag cellular phone at a pawn shop to stash in the glove box. Even though it is not connected, I am hoping 911 will still work. I think it will, because I can change my cell phone to the B setting where I am not registered, and when I dial a number, an operator comes on asking for my ESN, a credit card, the name of my first-born son, etc. I haven't tried 911, but I assume it will work or at least give me an operator who would connect me to Emergency. Is this assumption correct? Can any cellular phone be used for calls to Emergency even if they are not registered? If so, this would be a good thing for people to stash in their cars and should be encouraged for those who have no plans to establish cellular service. Shawn Gordhamer shawnlg@netcom.com Rochester, Minnesota USA ------------------------------ From: teleconxiv@aol.com (TeleConXIV) Subject: Sources Wanted: Telemedicine and Telecommuting Date: 9 Jun 1994 08:59:04 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) We're looking for people currently using desktop video conferencing or collaborative computing systems for telemedicine or telecommuting. Please e-mail information on your application, locations, numer of people involved, duration of use, systems and networks being used. Include your name, title, organization, address, phone and fax numbers so we may contact you. Indicate if you wopuld be willing to speak in October at TeleCon XIV - Anaheim, CA about your work. We also want to write an article of applications for {TeleConference Magazine}. E-mail info to: dboomstein@aol.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #280 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa18255; 10 Jun 94 17:14 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA21470; Fri, 10 Jun 94 13:49:48 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA21461; Fri, 10 Jun 94 13:49:46 CDT Date: Fri, 10 Jun 94 13:49:46 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406101849.AA21461@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #282 TELECOM Digest Fri, 10 Jun 94 13:49:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 282 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: "The Instant Internet Guide" by Heslop/Angell (Rob Slade) Information Wanted on SMDI (Bill McMullin) "Re-readiating" Car Cellular Antennas (Greg Vaeth) Infomation WAN's Requested (Matthew Scott Weisberg) Optical to Electrical Converters? (Carl Silva) Caller ID With a New Twist (Kevin Bluml) Emergency Services Without Dialing (Josh Backon) Forwarding and PacBell (Steve Cogorno) CellularOne/Detroit Announces Rate Change (Matthew Scott Weisberg) Ericsson on the Information Superhighway (Ken Ryan) Slamproofing Your Phone Line (Jeffrey W. McKeough) Summer Course in Berkeley (Richard Tsina) Network Tech Course in Berkeley This Summer (Richard Tsina) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "The Instant Internet Guide" by Heslop/Angell Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 12:10:00 MDT BKINSINT.RVW 940324 Addison-Wesley Publishing Company Heather Rignanesi, Marketing, x340, 73171.657@Compuserve.com P.O. Box 520 26 Prince Andrew Place Don Mills, Ontario M3C 2T8 416-447-5101 fax: 416-443-0948 or Tiffany Moore, Publicity tiffanym@aw.com Bob Donegon bobd@aw.com John Wait, Editor, Corporate and Professional Publishing johnw@aw.com Tom Stone, Editor, Higher Education Division tomsto@aw.com Philip Sutherland, Schulman Series 74640.2405@compuserve.com 1 Jacob Way Reading, MA 01867-9984 800-822-6339 617-944-3700 Fax: (617) 944-7273 5851 Guion Road Indianapolis, IN 46254 800-447-2226 "The Instant Internet Guide", Heslop/Angell, 1994, 0-201-62707-8, U$14.95/C$18.95 bheslop@shell.portal.com dangell@shell.portal.com This is an easy, step-by-step, keystroke-by-keystroke, guide that will get you onto the Internet instantly -- providing you are using (1) a dial-up UNIX based Internet provider; (2) pine; and, (3) tin. (It also helps if you already know your way around a modem, but let's not quibble.) With few exceptions, the content is readable and aimed at the newcomer getting onto the net. There is never any overload with technical details, but it would be hard to say that any basic information is missing. Certain simplifications may lead to misconceptions. The phrase, "logging on to the Internet," is used to refer to logging on to the access provider or host. The concept of the Internet as a multi-faceted entity, rather than a single entity, can be important to activities such as telnet, gopher and World Wide Web. Chapters two and three give an introduction to pine and tin. They also introduce email and Usenet news. For those who are using only pine and tin, this presents no problems, but for those, probably a majority, who are using mail agents and news readers other than pine or tin, the general concepts are interwoven with the program specifics. This is not to say that the chapters are useless if you are using other programs. The material is clearly presented and logical. This one major flaw is perhaps the result of relying on experience from only a single system, and it is too bad it degrades from what is otherwise a generally logical and "friendly" presentation. Two minor oddities are the discussing of mail lists under news, rather than mail, and the lack of any discussion of finding email addresses either in chapter two or chapter six (which covers search tools). Chapter four is perhaps more telnet than beginners really need, with an odd digression into IRC. Chapter five is a very solid presentation of ftp, including the various types of archiving and compression programs, but silent on unencode. Most of the general searching and resource tools, such as archie, gopher, WAIS and World Wide Web are logically grouped in chapter six. Chapter seven is "UNIX in About an Hour." It may take a bit longer than that if you want to try things out, but the basics are there, and the placement in the book is appropriate. There is one appendix giving contact info for (again, mostly US) Internet service providers. With the noted exceptions, the book is well put together and tightly crafted. One senses, however, a lack of feeling for the Internet which pervades, say, a "Zen (BKZENINT.RVW) or "Whole Internet" (BKKROL.RVW). This is a professional book, greatly useful to some, potentially more useful to a number of others if the system specificity can be corrected. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKINSINT.RVW 940324. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated newsgroups/mailing lists. DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca, RSlade@sfu.ca, Rob Slade at 1:153/733 BCVAXLUG ConVAXtion, Vancouver, BC, Oct. 13 & 14, 1994 contact vernc@decus.ca ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 12:25:14 -0500 From: bmcmulli@fox.nstn.ns.ca (Bill McMullin) Subject: Information Wanted on SMDI Patrick, I am trying to find articles and technical information on SMDI. Is there some place in the Telecom Archives where I might look? Also I want to find out what the physical connection is between a telco switch (DMS, AT&T etc) and their voice mail systems such as those provided by Octel. Is there some standard connection such as PRI or SMDI that handles the signalling which tells the voice mail system that a call was forwarded from a residence or business. Since there are typically two proprietary systems (switch & voice mail) the voice mail companies such as Octel must receive the DNIS before the call is answered. How do they get this information? Any help appreciated. Bill McMullin InterActive Telecom Ph: 902-832-1014 1550 Bedford Hwy. Fx: 902-832-1015 Sun Tower Suite 304 Em: bmcmulli@fox.nstn.ns.ca Bedford, Nova Scotia B4A 1E6 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The Archives is getting to be so large I don't always know myself what all is there from day to day. A new index to the archives is being prepared now and will be circulated on the net probably over the weekend. In addition, the author/subject index to the Digest for the first part of this year (through issue 250) is also being organized and probably will be available using the SEARCH command via the Email Information Service in a few days. Watch for the summer, 1994 index in this newsgroup soon. PAT] ------------------------------ From: gvaeth@netcom.com (Greg Vaeth at General Instrument) Subject: "Re-readiating" Car Cellular Antennas Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 15:24:42 GMT Does anyone have any experience with the car antennas that are to be used with a hand-held or luggable cell phone? I mean the type that does not actually connect to the phone, but looks like a normal cell antenna on the outside, and has a little stub on the inside. The guy at Radio Shack said they work great, but I would like "independent" confirmation. Thanks. Regards, Gregory Vaeth General Instrument internet: gvaeth@netcom.com Communications Division voicenet: (215) 956-6488 2200 Byberry Road faxnet: (215) 675-4059 Hatboro, PA 19040 ------------------------------ From: moodyblu@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Matthew Scott Weisberg) Subject: Infomation WAN's Requested Date: 9 Jun 1994 12:29:52 -0400 Organization: UMCC, Ann Arbor, MI Hello. I am currently seeking advice/information on metropolitan WANs. I am currently serving on a computer advisory committee to my local city council. While I am quite informed on LANs, I have little or no experience in the area of WANs. We are looking at linking the City Hall, Police Department, Library and four Fire Departments on a City Wide WAN. City Hall currently has a Novell Netware Network running 10BASET Ethernet with Synoptics concentrators. No other buildings have networks. We are planning on Netware LANs in the other locations. We may also connect the city's engineering firm into the WAN. Specific uses are for a City-Wide Database of information, electronic mail, and other data sharing (i.e. AutoCAD drawings, voter-reg. info, etc.). From what I have gathered on the net and other sources, I was thinking about doing the following: Using 56K leased lines to connect the various locations. I assume I would need a CSU/DSU and Bridge in each location. My questions are as follows: 1) Ameritech is the RBOC here. I will call them for pricing info, but are there competitors? Can they offer the same services as the RBOC? Or am I best off staying with Ameritech? 2) The Police Department, City Hall and Library are all within walking distance of one another. Is there another better solution then leasing lines for those short distances? Is it common to string up cable on the telco poles? 3) Is 56k the correct type of service, both speed and cost wise? 4) Is there a definitive book on How-To-Do WANs? Not something glossed over, I mean the nitty-gritty down to what type of CSU/DSU, bridge, router etc ... Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated. Matt Weisberg, CNE MILLIWAYS - Computer and Network Consulting PP-ASEL 21650 West Eleven Mile Road #202 Amateur Radio: KF8OH Southfield, MI 48076 Internet: moodyblu@umcc.umich.edu (810)350-0503 Fax:(810)350-0504 ------------------------------ From: Carl Silva Subject: Optical to Electrical Converters Wanted Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 12:00:00 GMT Is anyone aware of who provides optical to electrical converters? I am interested to locate manufacturers in this area to desing a video distribution network, whwre the backbone is fiber optic and the connections to the subscribers is a passive cable network. Carl ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Jun 94 10:37:38 CDT From: kevin@gath.cray.com (Kevin Bluml) Subject: Caller ID With a New Twist US West in Minneapolis/St. Paul area has a interesting version of the Caller ID bag of services. It seems to handle many of the previously noted concerns fairly well - Here is a synopsis: Caller ID - Name and number - $5.95 Number only - $5.50 Note that Caller ID includes the "Anonymous Call Rejection" feature. (Sounds like they assume you want that whether you ask or not, it doesn't say whether they can be separated) Last Call Return - $2.95 (Calls last caller if not blocked) Call Rejection - $4.50 (the list of numbers you don't want to hear from) Priority Call - $3.50 (Special ring for certain group of #s) Continuos Redial - $3.50 (redials busy numbers for you) Selective Call Forwarding - $3.50 (Forwarding version of Priority Call) Call Trace - $1.00/use (For Harassing/Obscene calls - Info forwarded to US West Security for future use - Can't be blocked) The interesting and new (at least to me) area is how they handle Call Blocking - Per Call Blocking - Free (*67 prevents name/number from being delivered, also prevents Last Call Return) Per Line Blocking - Free (Functions the same as above w/o having to do it for each call) Per Line Blocking Unblocking - Free (*82 Unblocks the blocking in place - Notice that this eliminates the *67 toggle problem) Checking the status of your blocking -- they provide a number to call that will tell you whether blocking is active on your line or not. I can't tell you for sure how they all interact -- since it isn't starting for a few weeks, and I won't be getting many of them anyway, but I do like the blocking/unblocking combination they came up with. All in all seems to be a good combination of features. Kevin V. Bluml - Cray Research Inc. 612-683-3036 USMail - 655 - Lone Oak Drive, Eagan, MN 55121 Internet - kevin.bluml@cray.com UUCP - uunet!cray!kevin ------------------------------ From: BACKON@vms.huji.ac.il Subject: Emergency Services Without Dialing Date: 9 Jun 94 15:33:15 GMT Organization: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem BEZEK, the Israeli PTT will soon offer a service that will connect subscribers to an emergency center if they lift the phone receiver for ten seconds without dialing. The service is aimed primarily at the elderly and those convalescing at home. The service will automatically link subscribers in distress to one of seven emergency centers. The person on duty will call an ambulance, the police, fire department, or even an electrician or plumber depending on the problem. This service may be of value to those who are unable to dial the usual emergency number (e.g. 911). Josh backon@VMS.HUJI.AC.IL [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The local telephone company for Park Ridge/ Des Plaines, Illinois and part of Chicago-Newcastle (Centel) has offered this service for quite a few years. They call it 'warm line', and it works just as you describe it. A phone off hook with nothing dialed after a few seconds is automatically routed to whatever number was pre-programmed at the central office switch. It need not be to the police; it can be wherever the suscriber told telco to forward it. The subscriber is not able to remotely change the forwarding however; it has to be done on an order through the business office. I think they get a couple dollars per month for it. Illinois Bell never has offered it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: cogorno@netcom.com (Steve Cogorno) Subject: Forwarding and PacBell Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 17:22:54 PDT Well, I think I finally got my phone service hooked up correctly after two weeks and several hours on the phone of nagging Pac Bell. It really irks me that the reps *assume* that I really don't know what I want. I wish I could have written the original order myself! Call 1) Added new line 459-xxxx and should busy/delay call forward to 457-yyyy. But it didn't work. Call 2) Order was typed wrong, 459-xxxx calls were being sent to 459-xxxx. (Yes - I know, the same number) This time the representative said it would be fixed. But it wasn't. Call 3) After several mysterious wrong numbers for "Linda" I called Pac Bell AGAIN - it turns out they were forwarding my calls from 457-xxxx, which isn't my number, to 457-yyyy which IS my number. The last four digits are mine, but the prefix isn't. Somehow this got into my file because the first rep suggested I get hunting which required the same prefix (I didn't want hunting - I needed delay forwarding too) They re-issued the order, and corrected it to be 459-xxxx -> 457-yyyy. Will definately be fixed by 5 today. It's 5, and it isn't. Call 4) Turns out that they forgot to enter the AREA CODE on the order, and it was programmed to forward calls to 415 457-yyyy instead of 408 457-yyyy. Supposedly, my calls from Santa Cruz, were being sent to Marin (north of San Francisco), some 100 miles away. New estimate, working in two hours MAX. We'll see. Steve cogorno@netcom.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, two hours has passed. Heck, a full day has passed by the time this is in circulation on the net. Got any followup report for us? PAT] ------------------------------ From: moodyblu@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Matthew Scott Weisberg) Subject: CellularOne/Detroit Announces Rate Change Date: 9 Jun 1994 23:36:09 -0400 Organization: UMCC, Ann Arbor, MI For those of use who use the Cellular Phone Call Forwarding Feature to avoid local toll calls, there was some bad news today, at least in Detroit ... I received the following in the mail: "RATE CHANGE ANNOUNCEMENT Effective July 1, 1994, there will be a $.15/minute usage charge applied to all Call Forwarding, Busy Transfer and No-Answer Transfer calls. Local, toll or long-distance charges may apply. Feature usage does not count toward minutes included in rate plans or usage tiers." I wonder if Ameritech, the RBOC here and CellOne's competition here, is doing the same thing? Also, is this being done specifically because of people doing the "Call Forwarding Scam?" It sounds to me like they are just trying to find another way to make even more money (I guess it IS why they are in business ... heh). Since my phone was stolen, and I have no phone right now, I'd be tempted to switch to Ameritech if they haven't done the same! Matt Weisberg, CNE MILLIWAYS - Computer and Network Consulting PP-ASEL 21650 West Eleven Mile Road #202 Amateur Radio: KF8OH Southfield, MI 48076 Internet: moodyblu@umcc.umich.edu (810)350-0503 Fax:(810)350-0504 ------------------------------ From: LME.LMEDISTR Subject: Ericsson on the Information Superhighway Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 09:37:00 +0100 PRESS RELEASE 1994-06-10 ERICSSON ON THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY Ericsson has opened a public information service in the Internet, one of the 'information superhighways'. The new service provides information about Ericsson's systems and activities to a broad international audience. Internet is an interconnected group of computer networks linking roughly 2.5 million computers. Each computer typically serves a number of people; the Internet has an estimated 25 million users. About two-thirds of the networks connected to Internet are owned by companies, the remainder are academic and government owned. It is also possible for individuals to connect through public service providers. The technology behind Ericsson's system was originated at CERN in Switzerland. It allows reading and transfer of texts, color graphics, software and even sound from central computers to remote workstations and PC's connected anywhere in the network. The information presented to users can be located on any number of interlinked computers, and the reader can follow a thread from one text or picture to another without knowing where the information is physically stored. The concept is known as the world wide web. Ericsson's information base will contain press releases, texts extracted from Ericsson's customer, technical and internal periodicals, systems information and job openings. It also provides bi-directional links for reader feedback, and will be developed in response to user reactions. The service can be accessed at Internet address www.ericsson.nl Ericsson's 70,000 employees are active in more than 100 countries. Their combined expertise in switching, radio and networking makes Ericsson a world leader in telecommunications. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: Ken Ryan, International Press Officer, Ericsson Tel. +46 8 719 4787, e-mail: lme.lmekr at memo.ericsson.se ------------------------------ From: jwm@student.umass.edu (Jeffrey W. McKeough) Subject: Slamproofing Your Phone Line Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 09:10:00 EDT I called NYNEX today to have comprehensive premium service blocking (900, 976, 550, etc.) activated on my new line. My conversation with the rep drifted from 900 horror stories to LD companies practicing slamming. She informed me that NYNEX will now "freeze" a customer's account, denying requests for presubscription changes unless the customer requests the change directly through NYNEX. The freeze was free of charge. It's good to know that the next time my father sics the Friends and Family police on me, I don't have to worry about any potential confusion. The rep also told me that NYNEX will bill any carrier who slams a non-freezed customer for the $10 in fees ($5 to switch to the slamming carrier, $5 to switch back to the customer's preferred carrier), unless the company can provide NYNEX with a signed request from the customer. She said she's noticed a bit of a decline in certain companies' slamming practices. Jeffrey W. McKeough jwm@student.umass.edu [TD Editor's Note: The writer adds his own postcript. PAT] [Signature snipped to spare Pat some editing. Jackie Kennedy was a wonderful symbol for our nation, and a wonderful role model for anyone who has dealt with tragedy and persevered. Even people in my generation (I'm 24) felt a sense of loss, despite having been born after the Camelot era. Rest in peace, Mrs. Onassis.] ------------------------------ From: course@garnet.berkeley.edu Subject: Summer Course in Berkeley Date: 10 Jun 1994 17:57:03 GMT Organization: University of California, Berkeley U.C. BERKELEY Continuing Education in Engineering Announces a short course on Wireless Technology: WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS (July 26-27, 1994) There are technical bottlenecks to developing a ubiquitous wireless multimedia environment: the capacity of the radio link, its unreliability due to the adverse multipath propagation channel, and severe interference from other channels. This course covers the principles and fundamental concepts engineers need to tackle these limitations (e.g., a thorough treatment of channel impairments such as fading and multipath dispersion and their effect on link and network performance). Topics include: Introduction to Wireless Channels, Cellular Telephone Networks, Analog and Digital Transmission and Wireless Data Networks. Comprehensive course notes will be provided. Lecturer: JEAN-PAUL M.G. LINNARTZ, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley. His work on traffic analysis in mobile radio networks received the Veder Prize, an innovative research in telecommunications award in the Netherlands. At Berkeley he works on communications for intelligent vehicle highway systems and multimedia communications. Professor Linnartz is the author of numerous publications and the book "Narrow Land-Mobile Radio Networks" (Artech House, 1993), the text for the course. For more information (brochure with complete course descriptions, outlines, instructor bios, etc.,) send your postal address to: Richard Tsina U.C. Berkeley Extension Continuing Education in Engineering 2223 Fulton St. Berkeley, CA 94720 Tel: (510) 642-4151 Fax: (510) 643-8683 email: course@garnet.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ From: course@garnet.berkeley.edu Subject: Network Tech Course in Berkeley this Summer Date: 10 Jun 1994 18:04:45 GMT Organization: University of California, Berkeley U.C. BERKELEY Continuing Education in Engineering Announces a short course on Communication Networks: COMMUNICATION NETWORKS: FROM FDDI TO ATM (August 9-10, 1994) This course provides an overview of the operating principles and design guidelines for communication networks, and includes a description of the popular current networks and a discussion of major industry trends. Topics include: History and Operating Principles, Open System Interconnection, Overview of High-Speed Networks, Physical Layer, Switching, Trends in Data Networks (FDDI, DQDB, Frame Relay, SMDS), Trends in Telecommunication Networks (SONET, Fiber to the home, ISDN, Intelligent Networks, ATM) , Topological Design of Networks, Control of ATM Networks. Comprehensive course notes will be provided. Lecturers: PRAVIN VARAIYA, Ph.D., Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley he works on stochastic systems, communication networks, power systems and urban economics. He is the author of "Stochastic Systems: Estimation, Identification, and Adaptive Control" (Prentice-Hall, 1986) and coeditor of "Discrete Event Systems: Models and Applications" (Springer, 1988). He is a fellow of the IEEE. JEAN WALRAND, Ph.D., Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of "An Introduction to Queuing Networks" (Prentice-Hall, 1988) and "Communication Networks: A First Course" (Irwin/Aksen, 1991). For more information (brochure with complete course descriptions, outlines,instructor bios, etc.,) send your postal address to: Richard Tsina U.C. Berkeley Extension Continuing Education in Engineering 2223 Fulton St. Berkeley, CA 94720 Tel: (510) 642-4151 Fax: (510) 643-8683 email: course@garnet.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #282 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa19112; 10 Jun 94 19:17 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA24739; Fri, 10 Jun 94 15:46:13 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA24728; Fri, 10 Jun 94 15:46:10 CDT Date: Fri, 10 Jun 94 15:46:10 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406102046.AA24728@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #283 TELECOM Digest Fri, 10 Jun 94 15:46:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 283 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Calling Card Suggestion (Jonathan Haruni) Re: Calling Card Suggestion (John Adams) Re: Calling Card Suggestion (Supak Lailert) Re: Bell Canada Joins the 700 Club (Mark S. Brader) Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Call Routing (Wes Leatherock) Re: Does MCI Transmit CNID? (Darren Alex Griffiths) Re: Cost of Caller ID in PA (Really Cell One Features) (Dan Lanciani) Re: Average Data Speed of Wire Telegraphy Wanted (Michael Covington) Re: Government Regulates Modem Redial Attempts (Jan Ceuleers) Re: Sources Wanted: Telemedicine and Telecommuting (Linda Garross) Re: Sources Wanted: Telemedicine and Telecommuting (rpkrpk@aol.com) Re: Can I Use Deactivated Cellular Phone in Emergency? (nx7u@aol.com) Re: Help - Telecommuting Information Needed (Peter M. Weiss) v.35 (T1) Board for Linux Available Soon (Joseph Kruckenberg) International Callback Services (Ed Swenson) Re: Call Waiting (Brett Frankenberger) Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? (Les Reeves) The Jargon File (was Re: 'Steaming Terminal') (Andrew C. Green) Re: Last Laugh! Please Explain the Term 'Steaming Terminal' (A. Shapiro) How Many Readers Are There of This Digest? (Lynne Gregg) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jharuni@london.micrognosis.com (Jonathan Haruni) Subject: Re: Calling Card Suggestion Date: 10 Jun 1994 15:54:50 GMT Organization: Micrognosis, a division of CSK(UK) Bob Maccione wrote: > With all of the calling card fraud going on out there I'm curious as > to why the card companies don't issue cards that can't be used for > international calls. In the UK, when you order a card from British Telecom you can request one of three options: - unrestricted - International and operator-assisted calls barred - calls only to one preselected number If you choose the third option, you don't even have to dial the number when you use the card, and even if you don't choose the third option, you get to attach one "quick dial" number to the card. The third option is advertised as ideal for getting extra cards for your kids, so that they will never have an excuse not to have phoned home. If you get multiple cards they can have different restrictions and different quick-dial numbers. And the PIN is not on the card. Jon ------------------------------ From: jmadams@freenet.scri.fsu.edu (John Adams) Subject: Re: Calling Card Suggestion Date: 10 Jun 1994 18:06:30 GMT Organization: Tallahassee Free-Net Sam Spens Clason (d92-sam@misfits.nada.kth.se) wrote: > How big a part of all calling card frauds could be avoided if the PIN > wasn't actually printed on the card?! > So, stop printing the PIN on calling cards, that would not make them > as easely used if stolen or just glimpsed at. IMHO, not printing the PIN on the card wouldn't make a big difference. Everyone I know has their card number memorized and does not carry their card. The problem, or angle, is that a crook can stand at one payphone and simply watch what numbers you press on the keypad. Perhaps this easy tactic is the reason for the wave of "voice cards" (a la Sprint) where you speak the name of a preprogrammed voice sample/digit sequence to place a call? John M. Adams -*- Vax Systems Manager, NADEP Pensacola FL Inet: jmadams@freenet.fsu.edu *or* adamsj@narfpns.navy.mil Sysop of the Beachside - 1.904.492.2305 28.8k DS (Fidonet) ------------------------------ From: lailert@ucssun1.sdsu.edu (Supak Lailert "spk") Subject: Re: Calling Card Suggestion Date: 10 Jun 1994 08:45:28 GMT Organization: San Diego State University Computing Services Sam Spens Clason (d92-sam@misfits.nada.kth.se) wrote: > How big a part of all calling card frauds could be avoided if the PIN > wasn't actually printed on the card?! > So, stop printing the PIN on calling cards, that would not make them > as easely used if stolen or just glimpsed at. As I called MCI early this week to request for a new calling card, they give me an option not to have the PIN printed on my card. Nice move, MCI. Supak Lailert -- MBA (Information System) Program, San Diego State University lailert@ucssun1.sdsu.edu lailert@aol.com ------------------------------ From: msb@sq.com Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 14:02:26 -0400 Subject: Re: Bell Canada Joins the 700 Club >>> "Your provider of long distance service is Bell Canada. Thank you for >>> choosing us. This is a recording... 416 11" >> Not when I tried it just now from my home phone (416-488-XXXX). > Bizarre. Works fine from my home number (416 486-). I think there > are two DMS100s in the 50 Eglinton building; perhaps 488 and 486 > are not on the same one. ... Or they're still experimenting somehow or other and we just tried it at different times. > Do you subscribe to a non-Bell LD service that perhaps has already > PIC'd you ? No. However, my office (416-239-XXXX) has LD service from Fonarola. We dial local or operator-assisted calls with 9, and Fonarola calls with 81. 9-1 produces a busy signal, so I can't try 9-1-700-555-4141. 9-0-700-5554 produces the "must dial 1 or 0 message" you mentioned. And 81-1-700 or 81-700 (the 1 is optional on normal calls through them for us) is intercepted at *that* point and produces: Fonarola. 4 1 6 10 3. We're sorry, you're call cannot be completed as dialed. Please dial the number with the area code first. This is a recording. We dial international calls with 81-011-, so 81-0 works, but 81-07 apparently puts the system into an error state, just giving rapid clicking on the line. ------------------------------ From: Wes.Leatherock@tranquil.nova.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: 10 Jun 94 10:18:07 -0600 Subject: Re: FCC Seeks Further Comments on 0+ Call Routing Organization: Fidonet: The Tranquility Grille > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What you say is true, but you must > remember that the recipient has the right to refuse the collect > shipment or telegram or whatever. If Federal Express shows up at my > door with a package I did not order and it was sent collect, do you > think I am going to pay for it? I just tell the man to take it back > wherever it came from; then when the recipient gets it back he *has* to > pay, even for the non-delivery since he caused the freight company to > carry the package both ways, etc......] This called up a memory of when I used to have need to read freight tariffs and the phrase in the tariff that covers this on returned shipments: "...earning freight both ways." Wes Leatherock wes.leatherock@tranquil.nova.com wes.leatherock@oubbs.telecom.uoknor.edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, and a lot of the freight companies are adamant about this point: "we hauled it one way; we hauled it back; that's two trips, so you pay twice ..." although most will settle for being paid once. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dag@ossi.com (Darren Alex Griffiths) Subject: Re: Does MCI Transmit CNID? Date: 10 Jun 1994 12:01:30 -0700 Organization: Fujitsu Open Systems Solutions, Inc. glr@ripco.com (Glen Roberts) writes: > I get CNID from Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, from people who, in > those locations use WilTel as their long distance carrier. I am in > Northern Illinois. (Remember, California is not even a caller-id > state). Also, *67 before the number, does not block it from appearing > on my box. This is really annoying; it seems that if Caller-ID is not allowed in California then long distance companies should be prohibited from sending it out of state. Unfortunately I don't believe it's that easy, first the CPUC did allow some form of Caller-ID, the LECs just decided that the restrictions were to strict for them to do a decent business. Also it's unclear whether inter-state calls can be regulated by the CPUC. The different restrictions for each state are quite confusing, does anyone know if the recent FCC rulings will simplify this, and more importantly will they overrule the CPUC rulings allowing those of us who live in California to finally get Caller-ID? Cheers, Alex Griffiths Senior Software Engineer Fujitsu Open Systems Solutions, Inc. dag@ossi.com 408-456-7815 ------------------------------ From: ddl@das.harvard.edu (Dan Lanciani) Subject: Re: Cost of Caller ID in PA (really Cell One features) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 94 22:28:08 EDT From atlas@newshost.pictel.com Tue Jun 7 23:13:33 1994: > It's ironic that call waiting, call forwarding, three-way calling, and > voice mail ("Call Answering" in NyNex-speak) are all available free > (except for airtime charges) from Cellular One in this area. Ironic? Are you kidding? They love for you to use these services. They cost nothing to provide and let them rack up air time charges (two for one with call waiting or three-way; one for nothing with forwarding) for channel capacity that is never actually in use. I have always subscribed to forwarding and three-way since I might possibly want to use them on rare occasions. I never subscribed to call waiting since, among other reasons, I hate it. :) Just last week I received a notice from Cellular One saying that I would now have this popular service at no charge! Whether I wanted it or not. The wording of the notice would cause anyone who didn't know otherwise to assume that they were changing from an extra-cost option to a free feature. In fact, they were changing from a free option to a mandatory (or at least default -- I haven't called yet to see if I can have it disabled) setting. Dan Lanciani ddl@harvard.* ------------------------------ From: mcovingt@aisun3.ai.uga.edu (Michael Covington) Subject: Re: Average Data Speed of Wire Telegraphy Wanted Date: 10 Jun 1994 03:31:34 GMT Organization: AI Programs, University of Georgia, Athens I can only speak for present-day radio telegraphy, but 20 words per minute is considered the minimum professional speed, and a network of experienced operators could probably do twice that. Remember that both operators have to be equally fast for the system to work. Michael A. Covington, Assc Rsch Scientist, Artificial Intelligence Center The University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-7415 USA mcovingt@ai.uga.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 May 94 10:49:06 PST From: Jan.Ceuleers@f857.n292.z2.fidonet.org (Jan Ceuleers) Subject: Government Regulates Modem Redial Attempts I quote John Harris: > My understanding is that the Canadian requirement (CS-03) is > 10 redial attempts, the American (FCC Part 68) requirement > is 15 redial attempts; and the harmonized requirement coming > out of the Free Trade Agreement will be two redial attempts. In Belgium, the limit is three unsuccessful redials (that's four attempts in all) within a period of one hour. This limit must be enforced by auto-dialing devices (modems, fax machines etc.) for them to be approved for use in this country. This rule is apparently intended to protect the network from unprofitable traffic, not to protect the public from misprogrammed auto-dialers (the point being that it's perfectly legal for a fax machine to continuously try to deliver a fax every 15 minutes for days on end). Jan Origin: Experimenter Board, Antwerp, Belgium (2:292/857) uucp: uunet!m2xenix!puddle!2!292!857!Jan.Ceuleers Internet: Jan.Ceuleers@f857.n292.z2.fidonet.org ------------------------------ From: lgarross@halcyon.com (Linda Garross) Subject: Re: Sources Wanted: Telemedicine and Telecommuting Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 05:13:53 GMT Organization: Northwest Nexus Inc. In article teleconxiv@aol.com (TeleConXIV) writes: > We're looking for people currently using desktop video conferencing or > collaborative computing systems for telemedicine or telecommuting. You might want to post this message to sci.med.telemedicine, too. Linda Garross Voice: 206-788-8389 Garross & Associates Fax: 206-788-6479 Government Contracts Consultants Email: lgarross@halcyon.com ------------------------------ From: rkprkp@aol.com Subject: Re: Sources Wanted: Telemedicine and Telecommuting Date: 9 Jun 1994 14:23:02 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) I met a guy at Austin Radialogical Associates @ 512/795-5100 who said they're doing remote image transfer for X-ray, etc. They are planning to move toward ISDN services in the near future to speed it up even more. Don't have a good contact but it's a start. ------------------------------ From: nx7u@aol.com Subject: Re: Can I Use Deactivated Cellular Phone in Emergency? Date: 10 Jun 1994 01:43:01 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) In article , shawnlg@netcom.com (Shawn Gordhamer) writes: > Can any cellular phone be used for calls to Emergency even if they > are not registered? They can on our system. I would think everyone else's too. Unfortunately, the penalty for finding out by experiment is quite high ... [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The way to do this would be to install the phone in your car *but not rely on it for emergency purposes* until after a test or two had been made. DO NOT call 911 (or *999 or the zero operator as the case may be in your community) just to test the phone. Wait until in the course of your driving around that you spot something minor which does not affect you personally; maybe a fender-bender on the expressway or a stop and go light out of order or a railroad crossing gate stuck in the down position. Then see if you can call that in successfully. In other words have a reason -- even a minor one -- before contacting 911. If it works, then you know you are all set. If it does not, then junk the phone when you get back home. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 14:54:23 EDT From: Peter M. Weiss Subject: Re: Help - Telecommuting Information Needed Organization: Penn State University Check the notebook archives of FLEXWORK on the listserv@psuhmc.hmc.psu. edu. At the moment, you MUST be a subscriber (which is opened to anyone) to fetch/search the notebook archives. For those of you who join, you may e-mail the following to that LISTSERV: /* --------------------- clip and save ---------------- */ //ListSrch JOB Echo=no Database Search DD=Rules OUTLIM=3000 f=mail //Rules DD * s proposal in flexwork index print /* // EOJ /* --------------------- clip and save ---------------- */ Pete-Weiss@psu.edu "Are you an infomaniac?" +1 814 863 1843 31 Shields Bldg. -- Penn State Univ -- University Park, PA 16802-1202 USA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That word is starting to make the rounds and with the expected ramifications. On the Compuserve CB Simulator (or Stimulator as it is sometimes known) I was logged in the other day using just 'Pat' as my handle. Although a convenient, gender-neutral handle, it does prompt a lot of the 'are you m/f how old?' questions. Some guy who simply assumed I was 'f' and (hopefully) not that old propositioned me to go into chat with him. I told him I'd be glad to go into chat with him since I was an infomaniac and never could get 'enough'. His response was " ... my last girlfriend was the same way ...". I never did respond directly to his implied assertion about my gender until a few minutes later when he asked me directly, and I told him I was an 'm' in the f/m question. "Hey, you are not playing by the rules around here!," he typed back angrily to me as he broke the connection. Infomaniac indeed! PAT] ------------------------------ From: kruckenb@sal.cs.utah.edu (Joseph Kruckenberg) Subject: v.35 (T1) Board for Linux Available Soon Date: 9 Jun 1994 15:49:14 GMT Organization: University of Utah A company called SDL develops a single- and dual-port v.35 interface board for the PC, which supports bit rates up to 1.44MB (T1 speeds). Currently they are only supporting UnixWare, SCO Unix, and BSDI Unix. They expressed great interest in supporting Linux, and I am currently negotiating with them to help write the drivers (see my post to comp.os.linux.development on v.35 Driver Development). SDL would like to get an idea of how many people would be interested in this board for use on Linux machines. I would also be very interested in this information, to help me find potential testers for the driver I'm working on, and just out of personal curiosity. The prices are $540 for the single-port, and $585 for the dual-port. If you would consider buying either of these within the next year or two (after the driver is available), please send me email (kruckenb@sal.cs.utah.edu) telling me which one and how many, and approximately how soon you'd buy them. I'll pass the votes on to SDL, and summarize them to comp.os.linux.misc. If you'd like more information on SDL's products, you may send mail to sdl@world.std.com, or FTP to ftp.sdl.com. Files are in the pub/sdl/N1 (single-port) and pub/sdl/N2 (dual-port) directories. Pete Kruckenberg kruckenb@sal.cs.utah.edu ------------------------------ From: edswen@netcom.com (Ed Swenson) Subject: International Callback Services Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 20:12:15 GMT I had a friend ask me recently about a service I think I've seen discussed here before -- international callback services that take advantage of lower rates when calling from the US. I think the way they usually work is that one subscribes, calls a number in the US from anywhere in the world, enters a code and waits for a callback. They then receive a callback, and after entering a code, receive a dial tone and can call and be charged US rates. As I've said, I'm pretty sure I've seen this type of service mentioned here before, but didn't save the discussion. I'm mainly interested in finding out how to subscribe, who offers such services, how they work, what they charge, etc. They are legal, right? Although I'm sure some PTT's don't like them too much ;-). Email is ok, or a pointer to an old telecom digest. I can summarize if there is interest. Ed [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The legality of the callback services is a gray-area. Maybe, maybe not. In any event, what Telepassport started several others have come to imitate with various degress of success. Now in addition to several callback service providers, the international telcos have caught on (or perhaps they found out that telephone users caught on) and they reduced thier rates to the point that the difference between their rates and the callback rates are very marginal. The latest addition to this is one I discussed here the other day without mentioning this aspect of their service. The Call America/My Line people also offer international callback service using your personal 800 number. You dial into your 800 number (they will also give you a local AC 805 number in San Luis Obispo if needed and you cannot reach the 800 number) and ask for a callback anywhere in the world. When you get the callback you then dial wherever you want to call. By the way, I signed up for My Line and I must say that for $8.50 er month and 25 cents per minute of usage (when receiving a call) or 15 cents per minute when administering my account at the switch, it is a pretty good deal. Some come cheaper; some are more expensive but none except Cable and Wireless offer user programmable call forwarding, a very desirable feature with an 800 number. If you did not see my earlier message on this, contact betterly@callamer.com for details. PAT] ------------------------------ From: brettf@netcom.com (Brett Frankenberger) Subject: Re: Call Waiting Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 17:44:15 GMT > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes Carl, this is quite true. Any of the > service codes which can be prepended to the dialing string will produce > the stutter tone, such as *70 or *67 for ID blocking, etc. I've found > you can dial straight through them without any pause at all. PAT] Depends on the switch ... Of the two major digital switches (DMS and 5ESS), one of the two (and I can't recall which one) allows you to dial through the stutter dial tone and the other does not ... Brett (brettf@netcom.com) ------------------------------ From: lreeves@crl.com (Les Reeves) Subject: Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? Date: 10 Jun 1994 10:32:57 -0700 Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access (415) 705-6060 [login: guest] . > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Whenever I zero plus anything (although > like you, my zero plus 800 fails to complete) Hasn't it always been this way? I thought 0+ was not allowed for 800 service by tariff. Les lreeves@crl.com Atlanta,GA 404.874.7806 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think that is true. The reason is, there is not supposed to be operator assistance on 800 calls. Strictly speaking, when we require assistance with dialing a call, we are to zero plus the number and wait for operator intervention. Since no tariff allows the operator to handle 800, therefore no 0+800. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Andrew C. Green Subject: The Jargon File Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 10:31:58 CDT Our Moderator Notes: > And I believe that when you do this, many times you *just think* the > ANI is not getting passed when in fact the operator bubbles or forces > it into the network without specifically telling you that is what she > is doing. I *think* I know what you mean by bubbling operators (they probably work at steaming terminals), but you don't come right out and explain the term anywhere. I'm sure that this industry, like any other, is absolutely awash in clever jargon, but I have yet to see a good compilation of it, such as the little "Buzzwords" feature in {Newsweek} magazine which spotlights the strange, funny and (usually) behind-the-scenes slang of a different industry each week. I'm not referring to terminology that has official meaning but just looks strange; I'm know that's covered in the Telecom Archives. I'm thinking of the jargon we use as a polite label for obnoxious truths, and funny language that just, well, appears one day from nowhere. I believe we can compile a good list of the bizarre verbal shorthands we use these days. Andrew C. Green Datalogics, Inc. Internet: acg@dlogics.com 441 W. Huron Chicago, IL 60610-3498 ------------------------------ From: ARTHUR%MPA15C@MPA15AB.mv-oc.Unisys.COM Date: 10 Jun 94 13:42 Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Please Explain the Term 'Steaming Terminal' I think I can top the story of the melted terminal, although it's straying a bit from telephony. A few years ago my wife overwatered a plant which resided on top of the television (not my idea), a unit with a large sloping back with ventilation slits. Oddly enough, a few seconds later, the expected effluvium of smoke and odor was wafting from the television. So she did what any sane, thinking person would do under like circumstances: she called the cable company! Happily, the poor soul at the other end suggested that she Rapidly Unplug The Television, Please! I came home to hear the sad story, and started removing the ridiculous number of screws holding the back onto the set as she insisted that nary a drop had spilled from the plant in question. I was amazed how much water flowed out once the back was off the set. Amazingly, after drying out for a day or two, the set was as good as ever and lasted a few more years, finally being replaced at age 19. Art Shapiro ------------------------------ From: Lynne Gregg Subject: How Many Readers Are There of This Digest? Date: Fri, 10 Jun 94 12:32:00 PDT Patrick, Just curious. Can you tell me HOW MANY individuals subscribe to TELECOM Digest? Thanks, Lynne Gregg [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: *Subscribers* and *readers* are two different things of course. And *individuals* who subscribe directly versus people whose names are on mailing lists served elsewhere are also to be considered. On any given day, the direct mailing list which I service from here has about 2000 names. There will be four or five additions daily and three or four deletions daily, leaving a net increase on average of one or two new subscribers each day or about 40-50 new subscribers per month. I remember well when the list had only about 300 names several years ago. Now of those 2000 or so names, about 80-90 percent are individuals with the remaining 10-20 percent being 'exploder addresses' or 'expansion addresses' if you are familiar with the term. That is, I send one copy to those addresses and they in turn 'explode' on reciept and redistribute the Digest to names under their control. My best estimate is there are about 1000 more individuals serviced from the 200-300 'exploder addresses' on my main list. Some have five or ten names, some have just two or three. My single biggest drop off point on the mailing list is mcimail.com where I (yesterday) delivered the Digest to 78 names. ATT Mail is another point with multiple subsribers. America OnLine and GEnie have several names each on my list. Compuserve gets serviced in two ways: there are about a dozen names on my list who prefer to get the Digest via email, but in addition a copy goes to a special address there where it is put out on display in Library #1 of the TELECOM forum for people who use that forum or special interest group on Compuserve. There are about fifty 'independent' BBS's which have internet links for email -- but not the newsgroups -- which are on the mailing list and they put their copies of the Digest up however they wish in file areas for use by readers. I don't really have any idea how many people read the Digest through those services. Then of course there is Usenet, and the comp.dcom.telecom newsgroup. Several thousand people *read* the Digest via Usenet who are not actually *subscribers* via the mailing list or through a BBS which is subscribed via the mailing list. Over all, I believe there are about 3000 direct or indirect subscribers and about 15,000 additional readers. For several years the old PC Pursuit system distributed the Digest automatically to its subscribers via their bulletin board called the Net Exchange as well. The Telecom Archives gets about a dozen email inquiries each day and about two dozen ftp/gopher visitors. I receive about 100-150 pieces of editorial mail on any given day and another 50-75 pieces of administrative mail. Since autoreplies are generated on all mail I receive, therefore I send out 150-200 autoreplies most days. If three issues of the Digest are produced (I have done six or seven in a day, and once did ten in a single day) then there will be about 6000 copies mailed plus the administrivia mails and the autoreplies, etc. I think I am the largest user of sendmail at Northwestern, and bless them for tolerating me as long as they have. No one is required to pay anything for it. The ITU in Geneva, Switzerland assists me with a monthly grant, and like public radio I rely upon the generosity of Digest reader/subscribers to help out in ways they feel are appropriate. When I began my work with this journal, perhaps an hour or two every other day was required to keep it going; now it requires about five hours per day if the maintainence of the Archives is included. That's my problem of course, no one else's. I guess I am a victim of my own success. Have a nice weekend one and all! PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #283 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa24505; 11 Jun 94 11:51 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA06424; Sat, 11 Jun 94 08:40:17 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA06415; Sat, 11 Jun 94 08:40:15 CDT Date: Sat, 11 Jun 94 08:40:15 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406111340.AA06415@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #284 TELECOM Digest Sat, 11 Jun 94 08:40:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 284 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Pioneer Preference and Mathew 20 (himsworth@aol.com) Where's the Demarc in Hawaii (Carl Oppedahl) Centrex - Good/Bad? (David K. Bryant) My Company's Phone System Lets Me Use "Wrong" Lines (Robert Casey) Pager on a Watch? (David Lawrance) Parity vs. Apex? (dave@sparc4-5.gctech.co.jp) Does PAT Work for USWest? (Ry Jones) SS7 Management Information Wanted (Ross Mayne) Information Wanted on GSM in US (zareh@netcom.com) LEC's in LD Toll Business (Hjalmar Syversen) Calling Number ID for Cellular Users (Lynne Gregg) Re: Can I Use Deactivated Cellular Phone in Emergency? (Robert Palumbo) Re: Can I Use Deactivated Cellular Phone in Emergency? (John R. Covert) Re: 1-800-CALL-ATT x 21 Returns! (Sven Dietrich) Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? (Daryl R. Gibson) Re: GSM Question: Power Controllers (Jan Schiefer) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Himsworth@aol.com Date: Fri, 10 Jun 94 20:49:30 EDT Subject: Pioneer Preference and Mathew 20 Has Bible Study Replaced Policymaking at the FCC? The Bible may be the best selling book in the history of the world, but there may be a reason that the "Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun" became a more popular text on incentive management. Unfortunately, as is clear from Federal Communications Commission's decisions on Personal Communications Services ("PCS"), the FCC appears to have been studying the wrong book. This does not bode well for the future of telecommunications and innovation in this country. PCS is set to become a major new wireless communications service. The FCC is allocating more than two times the amount of radio spectrum to PCS than is now available to cellular telephone. Government auctions of the PCS spectrum are scheduled to start next May. But while PCS is just about to emerge as a real business, a number of technology developers and entrepreneurs have been hard at work over the past few years experimenting with the technology and preparing to bring it to market. PCS is the first major telecommunications service being developed out from under the umbrella of the old integrated Bell System. In this new more competitive environment, the development process has been highly decentralized. The FCC issued over 150 experimental PCS licenses to various companies, large and small. Many have made significant contributions to PCS. This broad scale effort is both a necessary and a positive force for telecommunications development in the United States. The issue before us now is what incentives can be provided to assure similar efforts on behalf of future services. The FCC, in its wisdom, selected as "pioneers" one each of three types of companies who had been working on PCS. Under the FCC's pioneer's preference rules, each of these three companies is to be given one of the most valuable of the more than 2,500 PCS licenses that are otherwise to be auctioned. The three companies each can legitimately claim contributions to PCS, but represent only the tip of an iceberg supported by the many other developers. The other efforts were ignored. Small companies, in particular, who have been devoting a substantial portion of their resources to PCS, are being admonished to merely join with all newcomers to bid for licenses. Dollars, not merit, will become the determining factor. Is this fair? Or is that even a reasonable question? To understand how the FCC might have reached its decision one might divine that the Commissioners have been steeped in the lessons of the Bible. Mathew 20:1-16, for example, relates the parable of the farmer who hired a group of laborers at the usual daily wage to harvest grapes in his vineyard. They started early in the morning and worked steadily throughout the long hot day. But the farmer went out later in the morning, again at noon, and twice in the afternoon, to hire additional laborers At day's end, the farmer paid everyone the same wage. To an early worker's complaint that this was not fair, the farmer replied "Friend, I am doing no wrong: did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to the last the same as I give to you ... are you envious because I am generous?" So too, the FCC Commissioners, fresh from their Bible study class, reply to the many early PCS developers, "Friends, we can think of no better approach: when did we promise that if you put your time, hearts, and money into developing PCS that you'd actually be able to get into the business? Take what you've learned; get some more money and stand in line to bid with everyone else." Now recognizing that we'd been following the wrong text, we've dug deep into Mathew 20 looking for the sequel, the second grape harvest. We can't wait to find out how many laborers showed up for work at dawn, and how many waited until it was a little cooler at 5 p.m. Fresh from our original text, we can't help wonder how Attila would have handled the harvests: he probably would have been a bit less generous the first time, but had more manpower the second. Maybe we should suggest to the FCC, that Mathew 20 should not be read literally. Perhaps it's a simple parable illustrating the generosity of the Lord when it comes to entering the Kingdom of Heaven. For most "laborers" this is a one-time event. There might not be a second "harvest." Maybe PCS will be the last telecommunications service to be developed in the U.S. Perhaps, if we don't want it to be, we should pay more attention to incentives for innovation. Somewhere in Washington -- dare we guess in one of the private law firms? -- there must be someone who could organize an Attila the Hun Study Group. ------------------------------ From: oppedahl@panix.com (Carl Oppedahl) Subject: Where's the Demarc in Hawaii? Date: 10 Jun 1994 15:25:36 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC In ktsuji@uhunix3.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Kevin Tsuji) writes: > Say, that reminds me, I talked to GTE Hawaiian Tel last week regarding > a second residential line. Aside from trying to trick me into > admitting that it was going to be used for business, the installation > price changed suddenly in mid-call. Originally, the guy told me that > installation would run me around $78. I then mentioned that I did not > need premises installation, and did not wish to pay for it. all I > needed was dialtone to their demark. He kind of got uncomfortable (do > these guys get commission!?) and said that he'll knock off the $35 > premises wiring charge. I then cheerfully mentioned that I live in a > condo (If this chump was on the ball he would have been looking at my > account info anyway ...) and hey doesn't that make the telco demark the > RJ-11 jack on my wall? > At this point all I remember was a bunch of throat-clearing and quite > a bit of snow blowing about. When the dust settled, it appeared that > instead of the $35 premises wiring fee, I would be paying a $35 > "transportation" fee. I hinted nicely that a transportation charge is > a load of crap they made up to get around the tariffs, but the only > thing I could get him to say in defense of the charge was that "it's > very complicated installing new copper in a multi-story building". > What that has to do with transportation defies me. At least (after ten > minutes of arm-twisting) I got him to fax me an itemised list of the > one-time and monthly charges for the new line, complete with his name > on it. > Is this "transportation charge" as much of a load as it sounds? Should > I complain to management at the CS department, or go to the PUC? It's actually the FCC you would go to. They, not your state regulators, are the ones who made nationwide policy back in 1982 or so, preempting state regulation, to the effect that telco cannot discriminate against those who wish to provide and/or maintain their inside phone wiring. Thus whenever the telco does something to screw someone who is providing his/her own inside wiring, it is FCC regs they are violating. The local telcos hate this, of course, for many reasons. 1, it cuts into their rate base to dedicate inside wire to the public. 2, inside wire installation and maintenance has always been a profit center. 3, the telcos saw this as a shift of control from regulation at the state level to regulation at the national level, and while utilities usually have little difficulty compromising the state regulators, it is more difficult to compromise the regulators in Washington. The one question the FCC ducked, back in 1982, was ... where exactly does the customer wire end and the telco wire start? They basically punted, leaving it to the state regulators or to the telcos themselves in the states where the regulators are weak. The consequences of this are numerous. For a single-occupancy building such as a detached private home, or a large building occupied by one company, the main issue is if the "demarc" is inside the building (safe from vandals and thieves), outside the building (at risk), or at the edge of the property (meaning one has to deal with getting the wire from the edge of the property to the building). The answer differs from state to state. For a multitenant building it is far more complicated, and the oppor- tunities to screw the customer are greater. Is the demarc in the individual apartment? In the basement? Outdoors? My book on phone service lists states that are in the various categor- ies. But I don't know where Hawaii comes out -- my book does not give the answer. Where the installation to be done is partly on the telco side of the demarc and partly on the customer side, then there are numerous opportunities to rip off the customer. The work on the telco side is generally supposed to be fixed-price -- not based on the time or materials. The work on the customer side is time and materials, generally. So suppose the new dial tone takes four hours to install. The installer arrives at your premises, introduces himself, says he is starting. Four hours later he is done and you have a dial tone. He hands you a form to sign, the contents of which will later be used to generate your bill. It says, among other things, that the guy was working four hours. Later your bill arrives with a charge for four hours of labor. But now suppose in reality the work on the telco-to-demarc side was 3.5 of the hours, and the work on the customer side was half an hour. Then telco has ripped you off for 3.5 hours' worth of money. The way to protect yourself (if you must have work done on both sides of the demarc the same day) is to ask the installer to do all the telco-side work first, and to come and find you when it is done. Then you test the network interface jack at the demarc and make sure you have a working dial tone there (you just plug in a phone). All this while you forbid the guy doing any work on your side. Then, once the network interface jack is working, you note the time and authorize the installer to do the inside work. And when you get the form to sign, make sure the only hourly amount shown is the inside work. Better yet, of course, is to order no inside work at all. (Do it yourself, or pay someone else to do it.) When you are given the form to sign it will show *no* hourly charges at all. Then just be sure you test the network interface jack by plugging in a known good phone. Place and receive some calls, that sort of thing. This is all in my book, of course. Please let us all know how it works out. Carl Oppedahl AA2KW Oppedahl & Larson (patent lawyers) Yorktown Heights, NY voice 212-777-1330 ------------------------------ From: dbryant@netcom.com (David K. Bryant) Subject: Centrex - Good/Bad? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 19:16:19 GMT The comany I work for is planning to move headquarters next summer. We now have a PBX system that is running at 95+% capacity. Rather than move the PBX to the new location or lease/buy a new one we are giving consideration to using Centrex. PacBell will be here Wednesday (6/15) to make their presentation. The good points of Centrex are well known. But what are the bad points? What are the caveats, bad experiences, etc. We have a T1 that brings us our Sprint LD, 800 and X.25 services. This is connected to our CoastCom channel bank and that is connected to our Fujitsu Focus 960 PBX. By switching to Centrex what are we going to have to give up? David Bryant dbryant@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: wa2ise@netcom.com (Robert Casey) Subject: My Company's Phone System Lets Me Use "Wrong" Lines Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) Date: Sat, 11 Jun 1994 00:11:07 GMT A few days ago, my boss told me that I ran the phone bill for my desk phone too high. (Great, just what I needed, only been here two months). :-( Today, in a meeting, he mentions about phone call procedure. "Use the "8" lines for long distance, "9" for local". I had been doing it the other way around, because other places I've worked used "9" for LD, "8" for local. Question is why the PBX here let me complete LD calls on the wrong lines? My boss said it's twice as expensive. And "Didn't they tell you at new employee orientation?". "They told us tons of stuff, like 401K's, and stock options, medical plans, and a lot of other crap". Probably fell asleep during "phone class". I had thought that, "if it works, it must be OK", as 900 doesn't go thru. (name of the company not specified, to protect the guilty. A 9000 employee place, Fortune 500 and all that. They even own themselves!) ------------------------------ From: d-lawrance@uiuc.edu (David Lawrance) Subject: Pager on a Watch? Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 21:11:18 -0600 Organization: University of Illinois At one time, Motorola and Timex were marketting a pager built into a watch. Are there still such beasts? Who sells and who supports? ------------------------------ From: dave@sparc4-5.gctech.co.jp (Dave) Subject: Parity vs. Apex? Organization: Graphic Communications Laboratories (GCL) Date: Sat, 11 Jun 1994 04:14:15 GMT I am trying to decide between two Voice Mail application developers' kits: Parity, and Apex. If anyone has any experience or comments about these two companies and/or their products, it would help me greatly. Thanks! Dave ------------------------------ From: rjones@chinook.halcyon.com (Ry Jones) Subject: Does PAT Work For USWest? Date: 10 Jun 1994 21:59:51 GMT Organization: Northwest Nexus Inc. OK ... I think PAT is a Bellcore dude! Now when I do the 0 trick to turn off ANI on collect calls, 1 800 collect functions correctly. (ANI *is* passed) ... HOWEVER, if I have the 0 operator dial the oncor 800 operator, I am still able to fool them. rjones@halcyon.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you go entirely through a manual operator you are still able to defraud them, eh? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Ross Mayne Subject: Information Wanted on SS7 Management Date: 10 Jun 1994 17:01:59 -0000 Organization: Broadcom Eireann Research Ltd, Dublin, Ireland. Hi all, Can anyone tell me what SS7 Management products are currently, or will shortly be available and what their scope is. It might be a good idea if you email the information, I will send an overview of what I receive to the list. Thanks for any help you can offer, Ross ------------------------------ From: zareh@netcom.com Subject: Inormation Wanted on GSM in US. Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 21:42:39 GMT Hi Everyone: Does anybody know if there is any activities in GSM for US? Is anyone working on implementing GSM or any Deviations of GSM in US? Rgerads zareh ------------------------------ From: hsyversen@bix.com Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 21:36:35 EDT Subject: LEC's in LD Toll Business Hi: I am looking for a list of local exchange carriers who are providing long distance toll service. Any assistance or direction would greatly be appreciated. Please respond via e-mail. Thanks, Hjalmar Syversen Bombeck/Syversen Anchorage, AK (voice) 907/258-4557 (internet) hsyversen@bix.com ------------------------------ From: Lynne Gregg Subject: Calling Number ID for Cellular Users Date: Thu, 09 Jun 94 11:41:00 PDT atlas@newshost.pictel.com (Steve Atlas) wrote: > It's ironic that call waiting, call forwarding, three-way calling, and > voice mail ("Call Answering" in NyNex-speak) are all available free > (except for airtime charges) from Cellular One in this area. You can > get a free-night-and-weekend plan for $29. I may throw away my home > phone ;-). > Unfortunately, Caller-ID is not available on cellular, although it > doesn't seem as though it would be a major technical hurdle to provide > it. Steve, I like the way you think! McCaw operations will start offering Calling Number ID Service to its Digital cellular subscribers beginning in September. When Digital was launched by Cellular One in New York, Calling Number ID was heralded as one of several enhanced services to come. CNI should be available in that area at the start of 1995. We recognize that our customers have a greater need for such a call screening tool by the very nature of present-day charging practices (airtime is charged on inbound cellular calls). CNI will permit our customers to determine whether or not they want to pay for that call. I encourage you and other Digest readers to contact me directly with your comments and questions. Best regards, Lynne Gregg lynne.gregg@mccaw.com ------------------------------ From: robert@cloud9.net (Robert Palumbo) Subject: Re: Can I Use Deactivated Cellular Phone in Emergency? Date: 10 Jun 1994 22:56:30 -0400 Organization: Cloud 9 Internet + White Plains, New York, USA Shawn Gordhamer (shawnlg@netcom.com) wrote: > Is this assumption correct? Can any cellular phone be used for calls > to Emergency even if they are not registered? If so, this would be a > good thing for people to stash in their cars and should be encouraged > for those who have no plans to establish cellular service. It is on the Nynex system in NY. I had a car phone on Nynex and later bought a pocket phone on CellOne and cancelled the Nynex account. 911 still works. ------------------------------ From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: Can I Use Deactivated Cellular Phone in Emergency? Date: Fri, 10 Jun 94 19:01:30 EDT > TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The way to do this would be to install the > phone in your car *but not rely on it for emergency purposes* until after > a test or two had been made. DO NOT call 911 (or *999 Good suggestion so far ... > or the zero operator Well, no reason not to call the zero operator and ask for an area code or something, but I can bet you that you aren't going to reach the zero operator from a deactivated phone. And even from an active phone, quite often the cellular class mark will completely prevent the zero operator from extending your call to an emergency service agency unless you come up with a calling card number. > as the case may be in your community) just to test the phone. Wait until > in the course of your driving around that you spot something minor which > does not affect you personally; maybe a fender-bender on the expressway > or a stop and go light out of order or a railroad crossing gate stuck > in the down position. Remember that in some areas 911 is STRICTLY reserved for life-and-death emergencies. Los Angeles is particularly strict about enforcing this, I'm told. In Massachusetts, 911 or *SP from cellular doesn't go to 911, it goes to 800 525-5555, the State Police emergency line, and they won't even take a report of a traffic light out of order, though they do like to know about disabled cars on the highway. Cellular 911 might change when statewide 911 goes in next year; I don't know. Last time I encountered a real emergency was last Saturday, on the Minuteman Bike Trail. Woman had fallen off her bike, no helmet, and was in and out of consciousness and bleeding. I called 911, and simply said "please tell me the Lexington, Mass., emergency rescue number. It took about 45 seconds for them to find it; I then dialled it. It probably would have been faster to call Directory Assistance; later I tried the zero operator to see if she could come up with the number faster (I knew she couldn't connect), but the only thing she would suggest was calling D.A., and she couldn't connect to that. Oh, BTW, in Boston, you can call the zero operator from NYNEX Mobile, but from Cellular One you get a stupid recording telling you that calls to the operator are not allowed. Of course, you can get to her by dialling 0+7D and then dialling 0 at the bong. You can get the AT&T operator with 10288-0, but not with 00. Both of these work on NYNEX Mobile. And of course, this all changes from month to month. > If it works, then you know you are all set. If it does not, then junk > the phone when you get back home. With a cellular phone, just because something works today doesn't mean it will work tomorrow, or work the same tomorrow. Today you might get through to an emergency operator, tomorrow you might get nothing, or might get put into the wait queue for the cellular customer service operator and never get to report your emergency. /john ------------------------------ From: spock@abraxas.adelphi.edu (Sven Dietrich) Subject: Re: 1-800-CALL-ATT x 21 Returns! Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 12:06:04 EDT Paul Robinson writes: > About a year and a half or so ago, I posted a notice here that AT&T > had announced that their 1-800-CALL-ATT, then dial 2-1 to get to > AT&T's switch computer to place calls using a Local Exchange Company > or AT&T Calling Card had been discontinued in favor of 1-800-32-10ATT. [stuff deleted] > Oh, and the 1-800-32-10ATT number still works. It does the same thing > as 1-800-CALL-ATT but without having to dial 1 or 21 first. Yes, but if I recall correctly, 1-800-CALL-ATT will not let you dial an international number, whereas 1-800-32-10ATT will. I had talked to some AT&T operator after repeatedly dialing an international number without success. She said that 1-800-CALL-ATT was not programmed to dial abroad and told me to use 1-800-32-10ATT instead. Sven Dietrich -- A/UX SysAdmin | Internet: spock@abraxas.adelphi.edu (MIME) Faculty Support Lab | Voice: +1-516-877-3332 | PGP public key Adelphi University, NY | Fax: +1-516-877-3347 | avail. via finger ------------------------------ From: Daryl R. Gibson Subject: Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 14:47:44 MST >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Whenever I zero plus anything (although >> like you, my zero plus 800 fails to complete) the operator always has >> my number available without asking me anything. When I call collect, >> using zero plus which is rare, she merely asks my name. Even just dialing >> zero to get the operator produces my number on her console. I know this >> since I dialed zero and asked to speak to a supervisor. When my call was >> passed the operator advised the supervisor that 'subscriber wishes to >> speak with the supervisor, he is calling from 708-xxx-xxxx.' > All of this is correct, and it is the same for me too. When I asked to > speak to the supervisor, he had my name and everything. Some 15 years ago, I tried making a call from a pay phone at a 7-Eleven (I was lost, and calling for directions); I called the number, but it wouldn't go through. I hung up, picked up the phone again, dialed "0", and said to the operator "I'm having difficulties placing a call from this payphone." "Oh, let me try," she said, and *immediately* I started getting a ringing tone. I almost dropped the phone. I hadn't told her (hadn't had time) the phone number I was calling, but sure enough, the party I had been trying to reach answered ... Started to make me think those conspiracy addicts might not be too far off ... As an aside, my cable system uses ANI for pay-per-view scheduling. I call an 800 number, which gives me a short announcement while it checks my credit. I never enter any information about myself. About 15 seconds later, the addressible decoder on my TV unscrambles the signal. They tell me the 800 number I call is in Atlanta, and it's unscrambled from there. Daryl (801)378- 2950 (801)489-6348 drg@du1.byu.edu 71171.2036@compuserve.com ------------------------------ From: jas@hplb.hpl.hp.com (Jan Schiefer) Subject: Re: GSM Question: Power Controllers Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 20:39:02 GMT Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, England Nathan N. Duehr (nduehr@netcom.com) wrote: > Robert Jansen (rjansen@rc1.vub.ac.be) wrote: >> He told me that when 8W phones are near a groundstation, the transmit >> power is throttled by the groundstation, in order to allow the nearby >> 2W devices to "enter" the groundstation's receiver. > Actually since all the phones are using separate frequencies (I > assume ...) then the presence of an 8W phone near a groundstation > should have no effect at all on incoming RF from other lower-power > phones, unless the receivers at the groundstation's site are very poor > in selectivity. They do not necessarily use seperate frequencies. As GSM uses a combi- nation of TDMA and FDMA, up to eight subscribers can share a channel, in different timeslots. Power control is a required feature in all terminals, in a range of 20-30dB, depending on its power class. The amplification Robert is talking about is 6dB, so it can always be compensated. >> Result: the groundstation kicks you of the net if you get to close to >> the groundstation and are blasting the full 8W to it's antenna, >> because you are surpressing the signals from the handheld 2W phones. >> booster. I doubt that there is a mechanism to do that. Who manufactures such boosters anyway? I have never seen them ad- vertised anywhere, and it is not a trivial task to build one. For example, to switch from receive to transmit, you would need to trigger on the RF level from the handset's transmitter. This costs time, and you need to get the burst shape right. If you delay the transmission signal in order to gain time to switch in your amplifier, the delay will be compensated by the timing advance mechanism, but that in turn reduces the maximum distance you can have from a base station, which is probably not what you wanted an amplifier for. The right way to do this would be to build a handset that can produce more power when car-mounted (although there might be heat dissipation problems then). Sigh. Not an easy life, is it :-). Cheers, Jan Schiefer, g0trr, jas@hplb.hpl.hp.com, HP Labs Bristol, UK. +44 272 228344 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #284 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa24813; 13 Jun 94 16:52 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA20140; Fri, 10 Jun 94 13:02:43 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA20131; Fri, 10 Jun 94 13:02:41 CDT Date: Fri, 10 Jun 94 13:02:41 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406101802.AA20131@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #281 TELECOM Digest Fri, 10 Jun 94 13:02:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 281 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? (Hugh Pritchard) Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? (Mike Neary) Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? (Philip J. Tait) Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? (Ry Jones) Re: Help With Meridian Trunks (rkprkp@aol.com) Re: GSM Question: Power Controllers (John R. Covert) Re: GSM Question: Power Controllers (Dan J. Declerck) Re: GSM Question: Power Controllers (David Hough) Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" (trenton@netcom.com) Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" (K. M. Peterson) Re: Personal 800 Number Availability (Carl Oppedahl) Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway (Bobby Krupczak) Re: Bell Canada Joins the 700 Club (David Jones) Re: 35 Residential Lines, and Pac*Bell Tariffs (Kevin Tsuji) Re: Last Laugh! Please Explain the Term 'Steaming Terminal' (R. Woodhead) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 10 Jun 94 12:29 EST From: Hugh Pritchard <0006348214@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? On 8 Jun 1994 20:40:58 GMT rjones@coho.halcyon.com (Ry Jones) of Northwest Nexus Inc. said, > keith.knipschild@asb.com wrote: >> Is it true that you can have your local telephone company BLOCK ANI, > To which our Esteemed Moderator replied: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No it is not true. > [insult deleted] To defeat ANI (everyone, now, try this, it works > all over the US but your milage may vary) have your 0 operator dial 1 > 800 THN HAHA. (800 ANI demo). Just tried 1-800-THN-HAHA, for kicks. Got a pleasant female voice informing me that "This number is not in service. Please hang up and try your call again." Is the demo dead? Perhaps on the East Coast my mileage is very bad. Hugh Pritchard Hugh_Pritchard@MCImail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 16:49:22 PDT From: MNeary.El_Segundo@xerox.com Subject: Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? In TELECOM Digest V14 #279, K. M. Peterson noted: > I wonder if the ability to get ANI has anything to do with having an > 800-number... In Los Angeles, one of the local TV channels has an 800 "tip" hotline. They repeatedly reassure viewers "you don't have do give your name". What percentage of the viewers really understand WHY they don't have to give their name? I'll bet that 99% of the population here thinks this means that their call can be anonymous. After all, we don't have "caller ID" (CNID) in California because THAT would be an invasion of privacy! ;-) Mike ------------------------------ From: pjt@pelab.allied.com (Philip J. Tait) Subject: Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? Date: 9 Jun 1994 21:40:08 GMT Organization: AlliedSignal Engines Reply-To: pjt@pelab.allied.com (Philip J. Tait) In article , rjones@coho.halcyon.com (Ry Jones) writes: > (everyone, now, try this, it works all over the US but your milage may > vary) have your 0 operator dial 1 800 THN HAHA. (800 ANI demo). If I just dialed this myself, and was told that I had reached a number that had been disconnected. Perhaps it was overwhelmed with TELECOM Digest readers trying it! Philip J. Tait AlliedSignal Engines, Phoenix, Az +1 602 231 7104 GED::B12635 pjt@pelab.allied.com tait@venus.research.allied.com ------------------------------ From: rjones@coho.halcyon.com (Ry Jones) Subject: Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? Date: 9 Jun 1994 22:19:21 GMT Organization: Northwest Nexus Inc. In article TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Whenever I zero plus anything (although > like you, my zero plus 800 fails to complete) the operator always has > my number available without asking me anything. When I call collect, > using zero plus which is rare, she merely asks my name. Even just dialing > zero to get the operator produces my number on her console. I know this > since I dialed zero and asked to speak to a supervisor. When my call was > passed the operator advised the supervisor that 'subscriber wishes to > speak with the supervisor, he is calling from 708-xxx-xxxx.' All of this is correct, and it is the same for me too. When I asked to speak to the supervisor, he had my name and everything. Also, when I got caller ID installed, I called several USWest operators and had them call me back. The typical conversation would be: RJ: 0 USWEST USW: USWest, how may I help you? RJ: Yes, I just got my caller ID box, and I'd like to test it out. Can you call me bck please? USW: Yes sir, one moment please. RJ: Thank you. (pause) RING (caller ID box lights up) RING RJ: thank you. USW: You're welcome sir... etc etc But I never had to give them my number or anything. > I certainly hope you are not giving a phalse number to the operator ^^^^^^ Does Pat have the phreak nature? > when she asks for it. The reason is, even if you are calling collect, > should the called party later refuse to pay for the call, it will be > bounced back to the 'caller' for payment, which would be whatever > number you had given. Billing options such as collect and third-party > are courtesies extended by telco and not absolute. That is, the rule > that you are responsible for the use of your instrument still applies. No, no fake numbers. I have two lines, one public, one private. When I call collect on my private (data) line, I call and give my other number as the calling number. That way my private number stays that way. > If other methods of collection fail, then it is your problem; you > placed the call and used the network. I guess this comes down to > whether or not the operators are (1) equipped to see the calling number > or not and (2) if they are doing their job correctly. PAT] Point 1: Yes, they are equipped. Point 2: No, I don't think they are. Ry rjones@halcyon.com ------------------------------ From: rkprkp@aol.com (RKPRKP) Subject: Re: Help With Meridian Trunks Date: 9 Jun 1994 14:17:07 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) In article , pss@aol.com (PSS) writes: Depends on what model PBX you have. Some older Meridian 1 switches would not allow outpulsing of DTMF unless you had a special software package called "end to end" signalling. Most of the newer Northern switches have it built in. Try seizing the trunk, then dialing a # sign. This will trip the "end of dial timer" to allow DTMF to be outpulsed immediately. However, if your switch is using BARS (Basic Automatic Route Selection) you will not be able to dial "9" and use the # technique. You are correct that the switch is absorbing digits. It does this to keep from tying up trunks while users fumble around for phone numbers. It only sends digits to the Telco when the dialing is complete. You will have to directly access that trunk with a special trunk access code or by terminating it on a button on a phone. Give it a try and e-mail me if you still have problems. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Jun 94 15:25:36 EDT From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: GSM Question: Power Controllers rjansen@rc1.vub.ac.be (Robert Jansen) wrote: > The problem arises when a normal handheld with a car kit is fitted > (afterwards) with a normal antenna signal booster. It's a > straightforward amplifier, which HAS NO way of being power controlled > by the groundstation, nor the 2W handheld. Which is why you would never use a normal antenna signal booster with GSM, AMPS, TACS or any similar system. For AMPS and TACS, most manufacturers make car kits which take over the function of the handheld and deal with the power control through all the additional power steps now available. There may be such kits available for GSM as well, but the need is not as great. Why? Well, with AMPS and TACS, with the number assignment module (NAM) being part of the phone, you need a special car kit that is compatible with the phone to interface with the NAM. With GSM, the Subscriber Information Module is contained on a removable SIM-Card. So you just purchase a separate complete phone for the car, and instead of plugging your handheld into the car kit, you pull the card out of the bottom of it and slide it into the car phone. I've used a Motorola GSM handheld; it did have the same interface plug on the bottom that my Motorola AMPS Micro-TAC-Lite uses to connect to the AMPS car booster, so it's possible that Motorola makes a similar system for Europe, but why bother? At least here in the U.S., the Motorola car booster was MUCH more expensive than a plain Motorola Car phone, and the only reason I bought the car booster was to be able to use the same number in the car and with the handheld. In Europe I could just pull the card out of the Motorola GSM handheld (it was easily accessible without opening the phone) and slide it into a slot in the car. /john ------------------------------ From: declrckd@rtsg.mot.com (Dan J. Declerck) Subject: Re: GSM Question: Power Controllers Date: 10 Jun 1994 14:25:17 GMT Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Group In article , Nathan N. Duehr wrote: > Robert Jansen (rjansen@rc1.vub.ac.be) wrote: >> After visiting several dealers of GSM phones, I finally found one with >> the technical know-how about GSM. >> He told me that when 8W phones are near a groundstation, the transmit >> power is throttled by the groundstation, in order to allow the nearby >> 2W devices to "enter" the groundstation's receiver. > Actually since all the phones are using separate frequencies (I > assume ...) then the presence of an 8W phone near a groundstation > should have no effect at all on incoming RF from other lower-power > phones, unless the receivers at the groundstation's site are very poor > in selectivity. The phones aren't necessarily the same frequency, as GSM is TDMA, with eight timeslots/4.615 ms. ETSI requires the ramp-up time of the power amplifier to be 28 microseconds and ramp down to be about 15 microseconds. What I think is happening, is that the ramp-down time is being violated, and thus affects the adjacent timeslot (other subscriber). Dan DeClerck EMAIL: declrckd@rtsg.mot.com Motorola Cellular APD Phone: (708) 632-4596 ------------------------------ From: dave@llondel.demon.co.uk (David Hough) Subject: Re: GSM Question: Power Controllers Date: Thu, 09 Jun 94 18:34:27 GMT In article it was written: > Actually since all the phones are using separate frequencies (I > assume ...) then the presence of an 8W phone near a groundstation > should have no effect at all on incoming RF from other lower-power > phones, unless the receivers at the groundstation's site are very poor > in selectivity. 8W at close range is enough to upset a receiver if the receiver frequency is anywhere close to the transmitter frequency. With phones, all the base transmitters will be fairly close in frequency and the base receivers will be fairly lcose in frequency but spaced from the transmit ones. therefore, if you bring a mobile up close, you will be transmitting close to all the receiver frequencies and so upset them. A more technical description of what goes on is available, but not sure if this is really the right group for it. Dave G4WRW @ GB7WRW.#41.GBR.EU AX25 dave@llondel.demon.co.uk Internet g4wrw@g4wrw.ampr.org Amprnet ------------------------------ From: trenton@netcom.com (The Recluse) Subject: Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" Organization: Recreational pharmaceuticals: Better living thru chemistery. Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 20:24:13 GMT In reference to Moderator's Note asking if telephone company employees are familiar with the phrase 'competition in local dial tone' ... *They* might not like it, but *I* sure do. Trenton Internet: trenton@netcom.com WWW: ftp://netcom4.netcom.com/pub/trenton/www/trentonville.html ------------------------------ From: kmp@tiac.net (K. M. Peterson) Subject: Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" Date: 9 Jun 1994 21:05:55 GMT Organization: KMPeterson/Boston In article hardiman@cbnewst.att.com writes: > PacBell runs an ISDN BBS. > 510-277-1037 for pokey old modems. > 510-823-4888 for speedy new BRI or SDS 56/64K access > The sysop is Scott Adams and can be e-mailed at sradams@pacbell.com BTW, I understand that this "Scott Adams" is one and the same the person who draws the "Dilbert" comic strip. K. M. Peterson email: KMP@TIAC.NET phone: +1 617 731 6177 voice +1 617 730 5969 fax ------------------------------ From: oppedahl@panix.com (Carl Oppedahl) Subject: Re: Personal 800 Number Availability Date: 9 Jun 1994 10:19:09 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC In stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) writes: > In , gmccomb@netcom.com (Glenn McComb) > writes: >> I've been using AT&T's 800 Starter Line service... >> I needed the portability primarily because AT&T wouldn't point my 800 >> number without me giving them the street address where the phone is >> located. Since I wanted my personal (800) number to point to my pager >> company's voicemail number, I didn't know the street address, and >> neither did the pager company! > Yes, AT&T is very particular about knowing the physical service > address of all 800 terminations. At one point, I had my 800 ReadyLine > pointed to my cellular number, and the rep didn't know what to do when > I told him that there was no physical address for the service. We > settled for the address of the cellular MTSO. I think what one must not overlook is that what AT&T (and Sprint, in my experience) is very particular about is (1) asking the question, (2) getting some sort of answer and (3) entering the answer into their computer system. I don't think that there is anything about how the 800 service works that actually requires the customer to give a correct answer. For example, I have three 800 numbers that terminate at three different telephone company central offices ... when the 800 provider asked me the address of termination I gave an answer (basically, the billing address for all three local telephone bills as I recall) that was *not* in the physical service area of any of the three central offices. In other words, if the 800 provider cared to go to the trouble, it would have taken the termination address I gave, figured out what local telco central office serves that address, and noted that the central office did not match any of the exchanges of any of the terminating telephone numbers. The most extreme case is one of my 800 numbers which terminates at a phone number in the 914 area code, and yet I gave a termination address in the 212 area code. Carl Oppedahl AA2KW Oppedahl & Larson (patent lawyers) Yorktown Heights, NY voice 212-777-1330 ------------------------------ From: rdk@cc.gatech.edu (Bobby Krupczak) Subject: Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway Date: 9 Jun 1994 10:28:41 -0400 Organization: College of Computing In article , grevemes@VTC.TACOM.Army. Mil (Steven Grevemeyer) writes: > What you see in the post office is indicative of the entire government > workforce. An acquaintance of mine put a name to this phenonmenom: > "The Non-Profit Mentality". This is the attitude of people who work > for organizations that are not accountable for their actions, > outcomes, or policies. Government work is characterized by "doing (Name withheld to protect the innocent?) > Software Enginnering Division (AMSTA-OS) > US Army Tank-Automotive RD&E Center > Vetronics Technology Center Email: grevemes@vtc.tacom.army.mil > Warren, MI 48397-5000 I love these broad sweeping generalizations of government employees, etc. This all coming from someone working for the Army of all things. Lets move the subject back to telecom oriented issues. Bobby [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Perhaps you also noticed he does not even know how to correctly spell the name of the place where he works, i.e. 'enginnering'. :) PAT] ------------------------------ From: dej@eecg.toronto.edu (David Jones) Subject: Re: Bell Canada Joins the 700 Club Organization: University of Toronto, Computer Engineering Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 11:04:24 -0400 In article msb@sq.com writes: > I got as far as 1-700-5554 and at this point heard one ring followed > by "We're sorry. Your call cannot be completed as dialed ...". This > is particularly interesting since we haven't had 1 + seven digit > dialing in this area for several years now. It's interesting you say this. I am 416-463-xxxx. I tried dialing 905-639-4xxx a few days ago, and got an intercept after the 4. Funny. I tried again, managed to dial the whole number, and it rang and rang, no answer. This has happened with at least one other 905 number. Any ideas what's going on? Was 905 a valid exchange in the 416 calling area before the split? ------------------------------ From: ktsuji@uhunix3.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Kevin Tsuji) Subject: Re: 35 Residential Lines, and Pac*Bell Tariffs Organization: University of Hawaii Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 16:55:54 GMT cambler@zeus.aix.calpoly.edu (Christopher Ambler) writes: > The engineer told me okay, and that they'd be in touch with me within > a week or so, but also mentioned that if there was construction that > had to be done in order to get us that many lines, I might have to pay > for part of it. Say, that reminds me, I talked to GTE Hawaiian Tel last week regarding a second residential line. Aside from trying to trick me into admitting that it was going to be used for business, the installation price changed suddenly in mid-call. Originally, the guy told me that installation would run me around $78. I then mentioned that I did not need premises installation, and did not wish to pay for it. all I needed was dialtone to their demark. He kind of got uncomfortable (do these guys get commission!?) and said that he'll knock off the $35 premises wiring charge. I then cheerfully mentioned that I live in a condo (If this chump was on the ball he would have been looking at my account info anyway ...) and hey doesn't that make the telco demark the RJ-11 jack on my wall? At this point all I remember was a bunch of throat-clearing and quite a bit of snow blowing about. When the dust settled, it appeared that instead of the $35 premises wiring fee, I would be paying a $35 "transportation" fee. I hinted nicely that a transportation charge is a load of crap they made up to get around the tariffs, but the only thing I could get him to say in defense of the charge was that "it's very complicated installing new copper in a multi-story building". What that has to do with transportation defies me. At least (after ten minutes of arm-twisting) I got him to fax me an itemised list of the one-time and monthly charges for the new line, complete with his name on it. Is this "transportation charge" as much of a load as it sounds? Should I complain to management at the CS department, or go to the PUC? Incedentally, I have a choice of being on either a "DMS-1000" switch or a "GTD-5" switch. He said it would be easier to change my number over to ISDN service if it was on the GTD-5. Was he correct? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Say, whatever happened with that > lawsuit you guys -- you and roomates? -- were going to file against > Sprint for cheating you out of all those fax modems you allege you > were entitled to as a result of switching all your phone lines over? > Did that ever get resolved? You never did give us the final summary. > PAT] I hope you guys reamed 'em good. The slimy lackeys. toodles! mat ------------------------------ From: trebor@foretune.co.jp (Robert J Woodhead) Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Re: Please Explain the Term 'Steaming Terminal' Date: 9 Jun 1994 23:38:21 GMT Organization: Foretune Co., Ltd. In puma@netcom.com (puma) writes: > "Steaming Terminal" > is a common term for the situation which arises when > a terminarwl user spills their coffee or coke into the ventilating slits > on top of the terminal casing. In such an instance, there is usually > a large "ssssspppppppphhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiittttttzzzzzzzing" sound This is widely referred to as "The Pepsi Syndrome." It was coined in a Saturday Night Live skit (around the time of the Three Mile Island incident) and refers to the fact that if you drop a Pepsi (or any other Cola) on the control panel of a nuclear power plant, it triggers a meltdown. Robert J. Woodhead, Biar Games / AnimEigo, Incs. trebor@forEtune.co.jp ALL GENERAL ANIMEIGO QUERIES SHOULD GO TO 72447.37@compuserve.com. PLEASE [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The boys up at Commonwealth Edison's plant in Zion, Illinois almost had a melt down the other day. It seems they were doing routine maintainence work at some point in the past and as part of the plumbing managed to uncap the wrong pipe and cap up still another wrong pipe. No harm came of it, and when the inspectors saw it they raised hell about it and corrected the problem. No hassles came from it and Edison's spokesperson said the public be damned ... ooops no, I am sorry, he said the public need not be concerned. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #281 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa05135; 14 Jun 94 10:42 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA21371; Tue, 14 Jun 94 06:46:05 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA21361; Tue, 14 Jun 94 06:46:03 CDT Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 06:46:03 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406141146.AA21361@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #285 TELECOM Digest Tue, 14 Jun 94 06:46:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 285 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Calling Midway ("Hello, Inward?") (Linc Madison) Book Review: "Mastering Serial Communications" by Gofton (Rob Slade) Remote Fax Retrieval From Telco (S. L. Lee) PageNet Pager Service in New Mexico? (Andrew Laurence) GTE California Weirdness (Gary D. Shapiro) ICASSP'94 List of Papers by Email; CDROM Available (George Vokalek) AT&T Surity 3700 Addresses Needed For Fax Security (David R. Arneke) Ten Mile Cordless Phones (Nilay Sheth) Experiences Wanted With Newbridge Equipment (Art Beckman) The True Choice Catch (Jeffrey W. McKeough) DID Question (Paul Robinson) Demand Linux Support for v.35 (56kb - T1) Interface! (Joseph Kruckenberg) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: lincmad@netcom.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Calling Midway ("Hello, Inward?") Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 16:55:32 GMT At work the other day, I had occasion to do something which is rather rare in this day and age -- I had to complete a call via the Inward operator. I was calling Midway Island in the Pacific Ocean, west of Hawaii. I don't think there's anything on Midway except for U.S. Military operations, plus a couple of temporary buildings with people from the company I was working for. The procedure: (1) Dial 00. Sprint operator informs us that they can't dial Inward, suggests dialing 10288-0. (2) Dial 102880# (I know better than to wait for a timeout!). Ask AT&T operator for International Operator for Inward to Midway, ext. XXX. (3) Lonnnnnggggg wait while operator figures out how to connect to a different operator in the same building who can connect to Inward for Midway. (4) Operator asks Inward operator to connect to Midway XXX. Inward operator says something amounting to "Huh?" I explain to Inward Operator how to dial Midway (It's dialed as 808-999-0XXX, but is only dialable by Inward). (5) Inward dials the number, but gets a "Network Failure" indication. (6) Several repeat attempts, each taking 10 to 15 minutes to complete. (7) Finally reach an Inward operator who has been doing this a while and has actually completed a call to Midway before. Discover that the numbers dialed by stations on Midway are REVERSED from the way we dial them from the outside world (we think). So we try dialing 808-999-0CBA instead of 808-999-0ABC. It rings but doesn't answer. (8) Repeat the process from the fax machine to send them a fax asking them to call us. The fax goes through, and they call, but the person they were calling was away from his desk. They don't have touch-tone phones on Midway, so they are stuck in his voicemail. (9) Reach someone in the barracks who agrees to call the lab and ask the person there to call us and to ask the receptionist to just page the person here in California without transferring to his extension. Total time involved to actually complete the call: almost 3 hours; we were relatively lucky. I got to chat a while with one of the regular operators (who didn't even know how to connect me to Inward and had to fetch a supervisor) and muse about what it must've been like in the old cord-board days. BTW, our engineers took a touch-tone phone with them this time so that they can retrieve their voicemail; they were for the first week or two giving their password to the receptionist who would transcribe it and read it back to them. No one had thought to bring a pocket tone dialer. (Surely you saw the front-page banner headline on the {New York Times}: "DTMF Comes to Midway!"!) On each attempt, it took about two minutes or more for the operator to connect to another operator, who then took maybe half a minute more to connect to Inward, who then took up to two or three minutes to set up the call attempt. Linc Madison * Oakland, California * LincMad@Netcom.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You probably knew too much for your own good. I think you would have been better off to simply ask the AT&T operator for connection to the number on Midway Island; it would have been transferred to the International Center for handling. Your use of the term 'inward' probably added confusion to the request. The call was not strictly speaking handled by an 'inward' operator. Next time see if it goes through faster by simply asking for the number. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 13:08:57 MDT From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Mastering Serial Communications" by Gofton BKMSSRCM.RVW 940323 Sybex, Inc. 2021 Challenger Drive Alameda, CA 94501 510-523-8233 800-227-2346 Fax: 510-523-2373 or Firefly Books 250 Sparks Avenue Willowdale, Ontario M2H 2S4 416-499-8412 Fax: 416-499-8313 "Mastering Serial Communications", Gofton, 1994, 0-7821-1202-1, U$26.99/C$36.95 The title overstates the case a bit here. To begin with, the serial communications are to take place only on an RS-232 port. The promise of the inclusion of LAN technology refers only to a brief discussion of the Novell NetWare Asynchronous Services Interface (NASI); a means of accessing a COM port over a LAN. The COM port had better be on an MS-DOS machine: other than mentioning that the Macintosh serial ports are not "true" RS-232, they don't rate any ink. Finally, the communications had better be with a modem or host computer. This might be the primary use of MS-DOS COM ports, but there isn't even the slightest mention of the possibility of using serial communication for process control or data collection. Within those limits, Gofton has written an interesting book. The coverage is quite distinct from other personal computer communications guides. Gofton states that he is interested in a technical resource, and does give significantly more detail in some areas than other works. On the other hand, he is surprisingly coy about some topics. The difference between band and bits per second is mentioned, but never defined. The Hayes "AT" command set explanation is possibly the best I have seen to date, but there is no help with diagnosing the most common parameter setting mistakes. The modem reference explains V.32, but not V.42, MNP levels or 14,400 bps modems. Part of this may be due to the fact that the book appears to have been hurriedly updated from the 1986 edition. All references are to the RS-232-C version, rather than the more recent D version (more properly referred to as EIA-232-D). The importance of IRQ settings is explained, and COM3 and 4 are mentioned, but there is no explanation of the means of using COM3 and 4 given that most configurations only allow you to use two IRQs. Gofton's writing style is clear and, when he gives sufficient information, is quite suitable for the end user. The communications novice, given a necessary level of interest and perseverance, should be able to obtain a lot of useful material from the first half of the book. The utility to the programmer, or more technically advanced user, is problematic. However, even the experienced programmer, if approaching serial communications for the first time, could get a lot of value from this book. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKMSSRCM.RVW 940323. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated newsgroups/mailing lists. DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca, RSlade@sfu.ca, Rob Slade at 1:153/733 BCVAXLUG ConVAXtion, Vancouver, BC, Oct. 13 & 14, 1994 contact vernc@decus.ca ------------------------------ From: sllee@bronze.coil.com (S. L. Lee) Subject: Remote Fax Retrieval From Telco? Date: 13 Jun 1994 14:18:54 -0400 Organization: Central Ohio Internet Link (614-538-8294 login: guest) Could anyone tell me if there is a way to forward faxes to a telco (AT&T, etc.) let them store it there to be retrieved from another site by dialing an 800 number? I seem to have seen that service, but forgot where. This is necessary when someone goes out of town for a while but wants to get the fax while on the road. Thanks in advance. S. L. Lee, PhD, President, InTechTra, Inc., Columbus, Ohio, USA Email: sllee@bronze.coil.com Voice: 614 326 0888 72302.1524@compuserve.com Fax: 614 451 6453 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not know about other telcos, but Ameritech offers 'fax mailbox' service. It works on the same principle as voicemail. Callers use a DID number which reaches your fax mailbox and you retrieve from anywhere you happen to be located. PAT] ------------------------------ From: laurence@netcom.com (Andrew Laurence) Subject: PageNet Pager Service in New Mexico? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 04:37:33 GMT I have a PageNet pager which covers all of Northern California, down at least as far as Fresno and at least as far north as Redding. Last month I went to Las Vegas for a few days, and they were able to add that area on for a very reasonable fee (I have since had it taken off). On Friday I am going to New Mexico (mainly Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Los Alamos), and I called PageNet to try to have that area added on, but they told me I would need to go to "nationwide" service and pay for the entire western and southern regions of the U.S. (which roughly cover the entire west coast and the southern U.S. from New Mexico to Arkansas). This service is MUCH more expensive than adding just Las Vegas, and there is a substantial setup fee. What I'm wondering is, can I purchase airtime in Albuquerque from a different vendor and simply get a (505) phone number for my pager, so that if someone dials that number, I get paged in Albuquerque (if I'm there), and if someone dials my (510) number, I get paged in northern California (if I'm there)? This would seem to solve my problem, but I'm not sure of the technical, economic, legal or logistical issues. Any advice would, therefore, be MOST appreciated. Andrew Laurence Oakland, California USA laurence@netcom.com Pacific Daylight Time (GMT-7) ------------------------------ From: gshapiro@rain.org (Gary D. Shapiro) Subject: GTE California Weirdness Date: 14 Jun 1994 00:12:51 -0700 Organization: Regional Access Information Network (RAIN) Direct-dial intra-LATA calls using an LDC are not allowed in California (or at least LECs are allowed to not allow them) but every once in a while I try just to see if it'll work. The recording I get when dialing 103331+6 of 10D is: "We're sorry. A long distance company access code is required for the number you have dialed. Please dial your call with the access code." Either I misunderstand what they mean by LDC access code or this is a recording from the Twilight Zone. Gary D. Shapiro Santa Barbara, California ------------------------------ From: causal@wattle.itd.adelaide.edu.au (Causal Systems George Vokalek) Subject: ICASSP'94 List of Papers by Email; CDROM available. Date: 14 Jun 94 08:18:40 GMT Organization: The University of Adelaide ICASSP'94 was held in April 94 in South Australia. ICASSP is an annual signal processing conference sponsored by IEEE. The conference covers the following areas: 1. audio and electroacoustics 2. underwater acoustics 3. speech processing 4. digital signal processing 5. statistical signal & array processing 6. image and multidimensional signal processing 7. VLSI for signal processing 8. neural networks for signal processing 9. fuzzy logic principles The ICASSP'94 Proceedings on CDROM are still available from my company, Causal Systems. The CDROM contains the full proceedings of the conference scanned at 300dpi. There are in excess of 3500 pages on the CDROM, which costs just a fraction of the price of the paper books. If you want an ASCII copy of the list of papers and authors presented at ICASSP'94, I can send it to you by email. Just ask. For more information, please email me. George Vokalek, Director. CAUSAL SYSTEMS PTY LTD. Phone 618 303 5473 PO BOX 100, Fax 618 303 4367 Rundle Mall 5000, South Australia. causal@guest.adelaide.edu.au ------------------------------ From: darneke@attmail.com (David R Arneke) Date: 13 Jun 94 11:31:52 GMT Subject: AT&T Surity 3700 Addresses Need For Fax Security FOR MORE INFORMATION: David Arneke, AT&T 910 279-7680 (office) 910 273-5687 (home) !darneke (ATTMAIL) david.arneke@ATT.com (Internet) FAX SECURITY A GROWING CONCERN, AT&T FINDS FOR RELEASE MONDAY, JUNE 13, 1994 GREENSBORO, North Carolina -- AT&T is finding that corporate concern over fax security is growing. The threats range from casual snooping at the office fax machine to systematic interception by competitors and foreign intelligence agencies. And as fax machines become more heavily relied upon, corporations are becoming increasingly aware of the danger. "Some of the issues are obvious, like messages sitting in the fax machine's tray," said Joe Murawski, product manager for AT&T Secure Communications Systems. "But faxes are as easy to tap as phone calls, and they can contain a much greater quantity of detailed information than many phone calls. "And even the less visible dangers, like interception by competitors or foreign intelligence agencies, are becoming more and more well known." As a result, sales of the company's advanced fax security device, the AT&T Surity (TM) 3700, have taken off. The Surity 3700 attaches easily to Group 3 fax machines to provide DES encryption. It also allows users to create a closed fax network. "Corporate customers have been telling us that fax security is a high priority, and their early reaction to the Surity 3700 bears that out," Murawski said. AT&T began delivering the product to customers in March. Early adopters of the fax encryptor are major corporations in a variety of industries, including aerospace, agriculture, automobile, banking and finance, computer, defense, engineering, oil and telecommunications. "Our customers told us transparent operation is a high priority," Murawski said. "And they wanted a robust platform that would be compatible with future products. We built the product to their requirements." The Surity 3700 series offers the most complete set of advanced features available in a fax encryptor: transparent operation, including key exchange, after initial set-up; dual-modem design for real-time transmission; a secure fax mailbox in the Model 3710; closed-network capability; and multiple encryption algorithms. Encryption is implemented through a PCMCIA card embedded in the device. That technology, Murawski said, can be extended to such other products as PCMCIA cards that can be used for fax encryption on personal computers. Surity fax encryptors sold in the United States contain both DES and a powerful 192-bit AT&T proprietary encryption algorithm. Models sold for export contain the AT&T algorithm, allowing compatibility with units used in the United States. This month, AT&T will begin delivering the Surity 3710, which adds a secure mailbox to physically safeguard messages. Faxes are automatically stored in the mailbox until an authorized user enters a valid Personal Identification Number (PIN) to retrieve them. To alert users to the receipt of a secure fax, the machine prints out a notice when faxes enter the mailbox. Mailbox storage capacity is 120 pages, upgradeable to a maximum of 720 pages. Faxes stored in the secure mailbox are unaffected by power outages. The Surity Fax Device 3700 sells for $1,995. The Surity Fax Device is available directly from AT&T Secure Communications. Customers can call the Surity Customer Service Center at 1 800 243-7883 for sales or for further information. The AT&T Surity Fax Device 3700 and 3710 are products of AT&T Secure Communications Systems, the world's largest supplier of secure communications products. AT&T SCS is a unit of AT&T Paradyne and is based in Greensboro, North Carolina. ------------------------------ From: sheth@cs.ucf.edu (Nilay Sheth) Subject: Ten Mile Cordless Phones Date: 13 Jun 1994 20:02:16 -0400 Organization: University of Central Florida Hi Netters: Has anybody used the ten mile range cordless phones? If so,could you please write me your experiences on using these?Also I would like to know about some of the good models (including typical prices for these) and what would be a good place to look for them. You could send your replies/suggestions to the Digest or mail them to me at sheth@cs.ucf.edu. Thanks a lot, Nilay jjdfouuhwddfljlwf [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As you may know, we discussed this topic here just a couple weeks ago, and the long range cordless phones are illegal for use in the United States. PAT] ------------------------------ From: abeckman@auspex.com (Art Beckman) Subject: Experiences Wanted With Newbridge Equipment Date: 14 Jun 94 04:51:21 GMT I am posting these questions for someone who doesn't have net access. Please email me your response and I will summarize if enough interest is shown. (1) Which Newbridge product do you have experience with? (2) What sort of experiences have you had with the product you are using: performance, price/performance, and reliability? (3) What are your experiences with Newbridge: technical support, service, quality focus, and ease of doing business? (4) Would you purchase from Newbridge again? Any competitors more compelling? (5) Does the company fall short in any important areas? Thanks! Arthur A. Beckman (408) 986-2328 Auspex Systems, Inc., 5200 Great America Parkway, Santa Clara, CA 95054 abeckman@auspex.com or ...!uunet!auspex!abeckman ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 05:32:08 -0400 From: jwm@student.umass.edu (Jeffrey W. McKeough) Subject: The True Choice Catch Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst I just discovered the hitch to using the AT&T True Choice calling card. Having used my former AT&T nonsubscriber calling card to place 0+ intra-LATA calls via NYNEX, I attempted to do the same using the True Choice card. The NYNEX auto attendant (the ever pleasant Joan Kenley, I believe) interpreted the card number as an attempt at third-party billing. After seven digits (out of eight digits plus PIN), Joan intercepted with "the number, as dialed, is incomplete." I was able to complete the call by prepending 10288 to the dialing string, thereby routing the call via AT&T. I should have figured that a nonstandard-length calling card would be carrier-specific. An AT&T agent argued that it was a useful feature, since it would guarantee that my calls were placed via AT&T. I would agree if it were only long-distance calls at issue. Even if, as the agent explained, I am billed the same amount by AT&T as I would be by NYNEX, dialing 10288 or 800-CALL-ATT is a bit inconvenient for a local call. I'm curious about how these cards will function under the FCC's new 0+ regulations. As it is, I have a NYNEX calling card on order, so I should be able to choose between cards depending on the situation. Although, it might make sense just to stick with the NYNEX card, or scrap the True Choice card for a standard one. I just wonder how folks who are less telephone-literate deal this kind of thing. Jeffrey W. McKeough jwm@student.umass.edu ------------------------------ From: Paul Robinson Reply-To: Paul Robinson Subject: DID Question Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 18:17:28 EDT Someone outside the US asked me privately about DID numbers. They wanted to know about a source for DID numbers if they wanted to provide local dialup service in different area codes. I explained that the service is provided locally in each area. He didn't want to tie up bandwith because he was afraid that it was a stupid question. Well, it's not and I think other people might be interested in understanding the issue. DID numbers are ordered from each telephone company in each city you want the service in. There are two parts to the order; first is the actual number of "trunks", that is, the actual number of physical connection paths you are willing to simultaneously accept transactions on, and second is the "numbers" or the actual assigned phone numbers. For example, a paging company might buy 10,000 numbers, say every number from 500-0000 to 500-9999, but only have 40 incoming trunks on the assumption that in the busiest period a maximum of 40 people will send pages during any 10-15 second period. You might very well want to reconsider this in order to figure out exactly what you want as it sounds like what you want is something else. DID service is used when you want a large number of phone numbers for a small number of actual physical lines. For example, an office with 100 people might obtain, say 15 incoming and 15 outgoing trunks, but have 200 phone numbers. Each desk has its own number, some might have two or three, four or five for fax machines, one or two for voice mail direct calls, one for the main number, some for recorded announcements, and then a conference room might have a couple, each elevator has one, one at the reception desk, one in the telephone room itself, and a group of spares so that when someone leaves the company his number can be deassigned for a while and a different number given to whoever takes that desk. If people are going to be tying up lines for long periods (such as either modem dialups or access numbers local connection for a long distance service) what you need are more trunks and fewer phone numbers. You may want to look at centrex service, foreign exchange or other services. It depends on what your phones are being set up for. A system for providing inward dialing for a modem pool (like Prodigy, Compuserve or Netcom) or a long-distance company, would require a small number of telephone numbers and a lot of trunks. A system for providing inward signalling for pagers would require a large number of telephone numbers and a small number of trunks. Your mix will depend on the application. If, on the other hand, you are going to create the equivalent of an inward dialing service, you could get a single number by obtaining a 950 number and paying the service charge for calls going into it (it works like an 800 number; the caller doesn't pay anything, not even a local charge). If you have to reduce costs, then this might not work, and you'd probably have to have a "laundry list" of local numbers in each area code and local area in each area code the way the nationally-operating providers do in order to avoid their being charged a service charge. For anyone interested in setting up this type of service, write back with an idea of what you are trying to do and I'll get you some prices locally, which you can use as a guideline, other cities will probably be different. If I have an idea of what you are trying to do, I can probably guess what is more appropriate for your needs. ------------------------------ From: kruckenb@sal.cs.utah.edu (Joseph Kruckenberg) Subject: Demand Linux Support for v.35 (56kb - T1) Interface! Date: 14 Jun 1994 00:29:11 GMT Organization: University of Utah [All follow-up's directed to comp.os.linux.misc] [This message is not an endorsement of SDL's product, only a attempt to inform and coordinate the efforts of the Linux community to help another company realize the size and potential of the Linux market. I have no interest in promoting the sale and use of this product other than that I'd like to be able to use one myself. I am in no way affiliated with SDL except as a potential customer.] [Soapbox on] Over the past few days, I've been in discussion with a company called SDL (sdl@world.std.com) which builds a v.35 board for the PC. Currently, they have drivers for UnixWare, BSDI, and SCO Unix. I've been discussing with them the Linux OS, and the demand for such a product for Linux. They've expressed interest in supporting Linux, but like any company, I assume they're hesitant to enter a new market with as little market-potential information as there is about Linux. I would ask that if you would consider purchasing such a board that you let them know of your interest. Now that gated has been ported to Linux, Linux is a very viable alternative to the traditional computer/router gateway. With a v.35 interface, you could achieve speeds of 56kb up to 3Mb/sec (with their dual-port version), while still keeping your costs below a few thousand dollars (the SDL boards are priced at about $550) by avoiding the purchase of a router. If you would like to contact SDL, please send email to sdl@world.std.com. [For more information on their products, ftp to ftp.std.com and look at the files in pub/sdl/N1 and pub/sdl/N2.] Let SDL know that there is a market for their product in the Linux community, if they will invest in a driver for Linux. I've suggested that if they don't have the resources to devote to developing a driver that they offer a free board to anyone who successfully develops the driver, and offer substantial discounts to those who purchase one and use it in alpha- and beta-testing of the driver. For those of you who use Linux as a gateway to the Internet over a conventional 14.4, 19.2, or 28.8kb modem, you know the limitations of these bandwidths. Up to now, Linux has not been able to support more than 115.2kb, and has difficulty at that speed. Let SDL know that there is a demand for higher bandwidth connections from Linux machines: send mail to sdl@world.std.com. If you could, please cc: me (kruckenb@sal.cs.utah.edu) so I can keep tabs on how many requests have been sent in. Also, if you get any replies from SDL, I'd appreciate it if you'd forward them to me. Some of you have already mailed me about my posts in linux.development and linux.admin, and I've notified SDL of your interest in a summary (just numbers, no names). You may want to mail them directly to have more impact. [Soapbox off] Thanks for your support, and here's to hoping that we'll get another company to acknowledge that free software is the best of the present and the only future! I will post any results from this effort to comp.os.linux.misc, and if SDL makes any announcements, I will be sure to put them in comp.os.linux. announce, as well as comp.dcom.modems and comp.dcom.telecom. Pete Kruckenberg kruckenb@sal.cs.utah.edu P.S. If for any reason you wouldn't feel comfortable attaching your name or email address to your message to SDL, feel free to send it to me and I will forward it to SDL after removing any such information. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #285 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa05554; 14 Jun 94 11:21 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA22317; Tue, 14 Jun 94 07:42:03 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA22308; Tue, 14 Jun 94 07:42:02 CDT Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 07:42:02 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406141242.AA22308@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #286 TELECOM Digest Tue, 14 Jun 94 07:42:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 286 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Future Changes in Telephone Numbering (FCC via Monty Solomon) Cell One/Boston <-> Maine New Connection (Doug Reuben) AT&T Mail to Charge for Internet Reception in Canada (Dave Leibold) CSPA Annual Conference - Touring the Information Superhighway (Daniel Ho) Bell Atlantic Gets More Maryland Competition (Greg Monti) BOX Software Wanted (Max Russell) Pre-CCITT G4 Compression (Alan Hawrylyshen) AT&T Calling Cards in 1982 (Shawn Gordhamer) Voice Mail/Information Front-End (PC Based) (Andrew R. D'Uva) Customer Choice With 800 Numbers (Judith Oppenheimer) Line Simulator Suggestions Wanted (Shawn Herzinger) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 01:22:49 -0500 From: monty@roscom.COM (Monty Solomon) Subject: Future Changes in Telephone Numbering FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION INDUSTRY ANALYSIS DIVISION FACT SHEET MAY 1994 Future Changes in Telephone Numbering Several important changes will affect the North American Numbering Plan during the next few years. These changes will require telephone companies to modify their network switches. They will also require some users to modify their customer premises equipment. The equipment affected includes payphones and privately owned switchboards (generically known as private branch exchanges or PBXs). This Fact Sheet has been prepared to answer the most frequently asked questions about upcoming changes in telephone numbers. It also provides sources of further information and assistance. Interchangeable Area Codes Currently, the second digit of an area code is always "0" or "1". All usable three-digit numbers in this format have been assigned as area codes. Beginning in 1995, new area codes will have numbers other than "0" or "1" as the second digit. As a result, area codes will have the same format as the central office codes that appear at the beginning of local telephone numbers -- hence, the term "interchangeable" codes. Three interchangeable area codes have been assigned for service during early 1995. These new area codes will be placed in service in Alabama (334), Washington State (360), and Arizona (520). Some parts of the telephone network -- including both telephone company switches and customer equipment -- were not designed to handle interchangeable codes. When a call to an interchangeable area code is attempted from such equipment, the call will not be routed correctly. Therefore, this equipment must be reprogrammed, modified, or replaced in order to handle the dialing of interchangeable area codes. New Dialing Procedures Dialing procedures have traditionally been determined by local telephone companies and state public utility commissions. Consequently, they are not uniform, especially for toll calls that originate and terminate within the same area code. Over a period of many years, three basic dialing procedures have evolved for toll calls that do not cross an area code boundary. In some states, such calls are made simply by dialing a seven-digit number. In other states, these calls are placed by dialing "1" as a toll indicator, followed by the seven-digit number. In still other states, toll calls within the same area code are placed by dialing "1" plus ten digits (the local area code plus the seven digit number). When interchangeable codes are activated in 1995, the prefix "1" will be used to indicate that the call is longer than seven digits. This means that the "1 plus 7" method of dialing toll calls within the same area code will no longer be feasible. Each state that used "1 plus 7" dialing has selected one of the other two dialing options. Some states have already completed the change and others are in the process of doing so. The use of "1" as an indicator of ten-digit calls means that, in most areas, systems cannot rely on a leading "1" as a toll indicator. PBXs or other switches that have been programmed to block toll calls based on the use of "1" as a toll indicator will need to be altered. Conversion to 101XXXX Access Codes Callers sometimes reach long distance carriers by dialing carrier access numbers in the format 10XXX (where "XXX" represents a carrier's three-digit identification code). AT&T's code is 288, MCI's is 222, etc. Thus, customers can reach AT&T by dialing 10288, reach MCI by dialing 10222, etc. Because almost all three-digit identification codes have been assigned, four-digit identification codes will be assigned in 1995. Carriers with four-digit identification codes will be reached by dialing 101XXXX. Under current law, new equipment manufactured for use by aggregators (PBXs or key systems used by hotels, motels, hospitals, universities, payphones, and others that provide telephones for "transient" users) must be capable of processing 10XXX access code dialing. Newly manufactured equipment should have the capability of processing 101XXXX dialing, but some payphones and other older equipment will not be able to complete calls to 101XXXX numbers. During a transition period, both 10XXX and 101XXXX access codes will be used. At the end of the transition period, all access codes will use the 101XXXX format. The transition period will provide owners of non-conforming equipment with time to modify, reprogram, or replace that equipment. However, users of such equipment will not beable to reach carriers with the new four-digit identification codes until modifications are made. The FCC has proposed a transition period of six years. Thus, users may have several years to make the necessary changes. The date when such changes will become mandatory has not yet been established. Longer International Telephone Numbers Under international agreements, international telephone numbers are now limited to 12 digits. Beginning in 1997, the maximum permissible length will be increased to 15 digits. Although there are no plans to increase the length of telephone numbers in the United States, Germany has announced its intention to lengthen its numbers. Several other countries are also likely to do so. When the length of international telephone numbers is increased, customer premises equipment will have to store and process the longer numbers. Where to Go for More Help For questions regarding specific customer premises equipment and what must be done to ensure readiness to process the new numbers, users should first consult the manufacturers or equipment suppliers. Additional information is also available from the following sources: *** The North American Numbering Plan is administered by Bell Communications Research. The administrator has prepared a report, Status of Numbering in the NANP Served Area, that provides more detail on each of the coming changes and includes the dialing plan in each state. The report is available without charge from: Claudette Keith North American Numbering Plan Administration Bell Communications Research Room 1E240 290 West Mt. Pleasant Avenue Livingston, New Jersey 07039-2798 201 740-6792 201 740-6860 (FAX) Questions on interchangeable area codes, dialing plans, and international telephone numbers can be addressed to: Garry Benoit North American Numbering Plan Administration Bell Communications Research Room 1B227 290 West Mt. Pleasant Avenue Livingston, New Jersey 07039-2798 201 740-4592 201 740-6860 (FAX) Questions on the expansion of carrier identification codes can be addressed to: Jim Deak North American Numbering Plan Administration Bell Communications Research Room 1B227 290 West Mt. Pleasant Avenue Livingston, New Jersey 07039-2798 201 740-4594 201 740-6860 (FAX) *** The vast amount of information necessary for routing calls throughout the telephone network is maintained by Bellcore's Traffic Routing Administration. The information is contained in large data bases and most can be reached through on-line computer access. Much of the information can also be purchased in a variety of formats (paper, tape, microfiche, and CD-ROM). A catalog describing the products available can be obtained from the Traffic Routing Administration Hotline at 201 740-7500. For more information, contact: Donald Baechler Traffic Routing Administration Bell Communications Research Room 1E235 290 W. Mt. Pleasant Ave Livingston, N.J. 07039-2798 201 740-7575 201 740-6999 (FAX) *** Local telephone companies and long distance carriers have been preparing for the coming changes. The United States Telephone Association has prepared several information bulletins that are available without charge. These publications can be obtained from, and questions about the telephone network can be addressed to: Dennis Byrne Executive Director Operations and Engineering United States Telephone Association Suite 600 1401 H Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20005-2136 202 326-7296 202 326-7333 (FAX) *** The North American Telecommunications Association represents both suppliers and users of telecommunications equipment. They have prepared a publication called The North American Numbering Plan: A Guide to Preparing for the New Number Formats. This publication can be obtained for a charge of $25.00 by calling 800 538-6282, Ext. 260. Questions can be addressed to: Mary Bradshaw Director, Industry Relations North American Telecommunications Association Suite 550 2000 M Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20036 202 296-9800, Ext. 210 202 296-4993 (FAX) *** All of the publications referred to above are available in the Public Reference Room operated by the Commission's Industry Analysis Division. Questions may be addressed to the Commission's staff at: Industry Analysis Division Federal Communications Commission 1250 23rd Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20554 202 632-0745 202 632-1411 (FAX) -FCC- ------------------------------ From: DREUBEN@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU Subject: Cell One/Boston <-> Maine New Connection Date: 14-JUN-1994 04:21:08 GMT Just drove up from Hampton Beach, NH to Maine for a few hours, and I noticed that Cell One/Boston (00007) customers can now use all of their features, and get calls AUTOMATICALLY in the nearby Biddeford/ Portland Maine system, SID 00501. I believe that the Biddeford system is going to come online on McCaw's NACN soon, as will Boston, so this seems like the first step along that line. Other NACN customers (like those from Cell One/NY 00025) can't use their features in Maine or Boston yet, nor can they get calls. It just seems as if they set it up locally between the Boston system and the Maine system. You need to use the NACN codes (not the *28/*29 codes) to turn call delivery on or off. The NACN refers to this as "DDN", which somehow translates into the "Do Not Disturb" feature. To get calls in Maine (or anywhere, ie, to turn your call delivery on), dial *350. In Boston, you can't (?) dial *350, and must dial the Motorola code which is *28; maybe Maine will implement this soon for CO/Boston and other customers with home systems which are Motorola based. To turn off call delivery while in Maine, dial *35. (IE, *350=*28, *35=*29. Note that in many areas, you can use the *35X and the *2X codes interchangably, yet Maine is not one of them, at least for the time being). All your Custom Calling features work VERY smoothly, and you can even set no-answer-trasnfer to your voicemail (IE, you can hit *71 #555-1212 which is how you do it from the Boston system, but for some reason you can't do this in the other Motorola-based call-delivery areas. It will work from Maine, though.) About the only thing that doesn't work is that unanswered calls do not bounce back to voicemail (no surprise here, its one of the main flaws in the NACN, although in this case DOJ rules may prevent it anyhow). As a matter of fact, unanswered calls just get dead air -- no recording or anything. Sort of weird. I suspect they may fix this soon, as customers begin to complain that their callers don't know what's going on after four rings. But other than the inane Department of Justice/MCI rules which only an IXC like MCI could love (gotta pick up those three cents from ALL those calls bouncing back to voicemail, huh? How pathetically cheap..!), the interconnectivity really works great -- it's probably "cleanest" and most user-transparent system I've seen so far! I think the Manchester 00445 system in New Hampshire is also linked up now, although the serivce was so poor I couldn't really try it. I know that hitting *28 or *29 got me dead air for two seconds, and then the switch hung up on me, as it if were processing the call but just didn't want to send confirmation tones back to me. Previously, this used to get an error recording. Doug dreuben@eagle.wesleyan.edu ------------------------------ From: Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.fidonet.org (Dave Leibold) Date: 13 Jun 94 14:45:23 -0500 Subject: AT&T Mail to Charge for Internet Reception in Canada Organization: FidoNet Nameserver/Gateway The AT&T Mail service in Canada has announced its intention to apply charges to receive Internet messages. Reportedly, such charges are already in effect for AT&T Mail subscribers in the U.S. This means receiving a 31k sized Digest will cost $0.30 + 30 * $0.05 or CAD$1.80 (before taxes) starting in August. No mention of charges for inbound x.400 networked mail, though. The following is the announcement of Internet reception charges: . . . . . Date: Fri Jun 10 12:06:42 EDT 1994 From: CUSTOMER ASSISTANCE Phone: +1-800-567-4671 Fax-Phone: +1 416 490 3633 Subject: Internet Messages Dear Valued AT&T Mail Customer, Due to increasing costs associated with the delivery of messages received from the Internet, Unitel Electronic Commerce Services will implement a new inbound Internet pricing structure beginning August 1, 1994. AT&T Mail customers in Canada will be charged to receive Internet messages at the following rate according to the message size: - 0 to 1,000 characters CA $0.30 - each additional group of 1,000 characters or less CA $0.05 Unitel is able to provide customers with the capability to REFUSE the receipt of Internet messages. Please send a message to !cndahelp/COD or contact the Customer Assistance Centre at 416-502-1740 or 1-800-567-4671 to request that your mailbox configuration be updated to reflect the desired refusal of all incoming messages from the Internet. Should you have any questions about this or any other integrated messaging service feature, please feel free to contact our Customer Assistance Centre. Sincerely, Unitel Electronic Commerce Services A Member of the AT&T EasyLink Services Global Alliance ------------------------------ From: danielho@netcom.com (Daniel Ho) Subject: CSPA Annual Conference - Touring the Information Superhighway Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 05:43:53 GMT | 1994 CSPA Annual Conference | | "A Magical Tour Down Software Superhighway 2000" | June 18, 1994 12:00 noon - 5:00 pm Registration at 11:00 am Santa Clara Marriott Fee: CSPA member : $10 Non CSPA member : $15 Speakers ======== Wei Yen, VP of Silicon Graphics Sherman Ting, VP of Oracle Corporation Patrick Lanthier, Director of Public Policy & Technology of Pacific Bell Jay Marty Tenenbaum, CEO of Enterprise Integration Technologies Dr. H.K. Huang, UCSF Vice Chairman of Radiological Information Lab Fred Greguras, Partner of Fenwick & West Topics ====== * Information Highway : Hype or Real? * Architecture and Infrastructure of Superhighway * Concerns and Strategies of the big players * Business opportunities for software developers * Demonstrations * Door Prizes Drawings at 2:30pm and 4:30pm * Members of AAMA, CBA, CINA, and Monte Jade eligible for a discounted entry fee of $10, and CSPA members who renew their '94 membership at the door receive a futher $5 discount off member registration fee. ------------------------------ From: Greg Monti Subject: Bell Atlantic gets More Maryland Competition Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 7:20:13 EDT According to the May 23, 1994, issue of {Communications Daily}, Southwestern Bell has filed an application with the Maryland Public Service Commission to offer local telephone service in Montgomery County. SWB owns Cable TV Montgomery and would use the cable operation to provide the telephone service. SWB would spend $100 million to upgrade the cable operation for telephony. It would provide competition for Bell Atlantic by late 1995. Metropolitan Fiber Systems (MFS) has also applied to offer local telephone service in (almost all of) Maryland, which means that, should both applications be approved, we will be treated to the spectacle of three, wireline, local telephone companies competing in what is in the top five wealthiest per capita income counties in America. Unlike MFS, SWB would aim to serve residential as well as business customers. Most of Montgomery County is in the Washington LATA, but a small slice of it is in the Hagerstown, MD, LATA. The story didn't note whether SWB would be applying for an MFJ waiver to serve both areas with one system (SWB is an RBOC). If I recall later announcements correctly, both SWB and Bell Atlantic will use AT&T equipment to upgrade their networks, but the equipment will be dissimilar. SWB is upgrading a coaxial plant for telephony while BA is upgrading a twisted pair plant for multimedia. The story notes that SWB's cable system has 185,000 subscribers and that the county has a population of 320,000. The latter is incorrect. There are about 800,000 people living in Montgomery County, Maryland. Perhaps 320,000 is the number of households, but that still seems low. Greg Monti, Arlington, Virginia, USA gmonti@npr.org ------------------------------ From: mrussell@calvin.stemnet.nf.ca (Max Russell) Subject: BOX Software Wanted Date: 14 Jun 1994 07:06:46 GMT Organization: Memorial University of Newfoundland In a message somewhere on this news group someone made reference to a software called BOX which made dtmf tones over a sound card. Can someone tell me where I can get BOX or maybe someone can uuencode it and send it to me. Thanks. ------------------------------ From: alan@cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Alan Hawrylyshen) Subject: Pre-CCITT G4 Compression Organization: University of Calgary Computer Science Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 17:14:08 GMT I have a question concerning something to do with CCITT group 4 compression. I have heard that there is a genre of filter that can be applied to an image that will greatly improve the compression factor of the subsequent CCITT group 4 compression. (without serious image quality loss). Does anyone have any information or pointers WRT this? Thanks, alan@cpsc.ucalgary.ca Dept. of Computer Science Alan B. Hawrylyshen University of Calgary, CANADA ------------------------------ From: shawnlg@netcom.com (Shawn Gordhamer) Subject: AT&T Calling Cards in 1982 Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 02:55:05 GMT I figured out, quite by accident, that when AT&T first came out with their calling cards, they only looked at the LAST digit of the pin number. I did this by randomly trying PIN numbers for my own number, while I waited for my card to be mailed. My first try, 612-333-xxxx-0001 worked. I knew 0001 couldn't be my pin, so I tried 0002 and it failed. Eventually, I figured out that xxx1 worked, where x is any digit. I then discovered that you could make calls using the weather number, the time of day number, etc, and you had only to guess at most ten pin numbers. Being an honest, upright citizen, I called AT&T and explained all of this to an operator who didn't have any idea what I was talking about. I told a few people at college, and soon, hundreds of "free" calls were being made. Some time in 1984 or so this trick stopped working. Shawn Gordhamer shawnlg@netcom.com Rochester, Minnesota USA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, I don't know about your formula. I do know that AT&T Calling Cards started a log time prior to 1982. I had a calling card (they were called credit cards back then) in the middle 1960's. In those times, they used a so-called 'key letter' which was based on one of the digits in the middle of the number. Usually the key letter would be tied to the fourth, fifth or sixth digit of your phone number. Therefore, a typical credit card number would look like this: (If your number was 312-555-2368) 555-2368-097-J. The last three digits were the RAO, or Regional Accounting Office Code; these started out at 001 on the east coast and worked their way up to numbers around 097 or 098 when they were assigned on the west coast. In the above example, perhaps that year the key letter was based on the 6 in the phone number with 6=J, 7=L, 8=B, etc. Although the formula worked pretty well where *honest people* were concerned, generally the key letters were common knowledge among phreaks by the second week in January each year (cards were mailed out each year the last couple weeks in December for the year to come). All the phreaks would request credit cards for their own number, then several would meet early in January and sit down to compare their numbers with each other after promising not to abuse *each other's* numbers. By a process of elimin- ation, they'd figure out which digit was being used to construct the key letters for that year, and which letters went with each digit, etc. It got so ridiculous by the late 1960's that AT&T decided to completely revamp the whole thing. The present system, using a four digit pin as part of the process began sometime in the middle 1970's. PAT] ------------------------------ From: DUVA@gunet.georgetown.edu Subject: Voice Mail/Info Front-End (PC Based) Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 19:20:13 EDT I'm looking for bibliographic sources (or actual products) which would allow me to program my own "information system" using PC-based technology. Basically, I would like to write an interface between a PC database and voice mail cards so that people calling in to the system would be offered various choices (DTMF selectable) based on what was available in the database. I'm not quite sure where to start. I know I need a PC or unix box running an appropriate database, plus a PC-based voice-mail/auto response system. What else might be required? Who sells this sort of gear? Does anyone have experience in this area? I'll be happy to compile responses and send them to TELECOM Digest. Many thanks in advance. Andrew R. D'Uva duva@gunet.georgetown.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 11:03:04 -0400 From: Judith Oppenheimer Subject: Customer Choice in Dialing 800 Numbers I have a client who's raised in interesting question. Consumers can dial a five-digit code (example: 10288 for AT&T, etc.) and chose, call by call if they wish, who to use for long distance service. Does it therefore follow that an 800 number service could design its voice mail navigation to allow callers to chose, at each call, who they want to have carry their 800 call? (Press 1 for AT&T, 2 for MCI, 3 for Sprint, etc.) Please email responses to Producer@Pipeline.com. J. Oppenheimer Producer@pipeline.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But don't forget, the 'consumer' or customer is the person *paying* for the call. When you dial an 800 number, you are *not* telco's customer ... the call recipient is the customer, and in fact the customer does get to choose which carrier he wants to use, does he not? PAT] ------------------------------ From: shawn@panix.com (Shawn Herzinger) Subject: Line Simulator Suggestions Wanted Date: 13 Jun 1994 15:01:50 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC Can anyone suggest a source for telephone line simulators that would provide a feature where when one connected phone is taken off-hook the simulator would ring a second telephone. No dialing should be required. I am aware of the 1040 CO simulator from Northeast Innovations but the cost for this unit is rather high at $399. Its a great unit but has more features than I necessarily need. I am aware of the TLS-4 from Teltone but it is also expensive. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! Thanks, Shawn M. Herzinger shawn@panix.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #286 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa20406; 15 Jun 94 17:34 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA20074; Wed, 15 Jun 94 13:04:18 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA20065; Wed, 15 Jun 94 13:04:16 CDT Date: Wed, 15 Jun 94 13:04:16 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406151804.AA20065@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #287 TELECOM Digest Wed, 15 Jun 94 13:04:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 287 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Still Another 800 Forwarding Service (TELECOM Digest Editor) Long Range Radio Modems (Dinesh Rehani) France and Germany to Buy Sprint (Clive D.W. Feather) Call Progress Tones (Scott Coleman) IXC's and InterLATA CID (Jeffrey W. McKeough) More Sneaky MCI Marketing (T. Stephen Eggleston) Oncor Slam (Rob Boudrie) Sprint, eh? (John R. Levine) Smooth Operator (Compass Voice Mail) (Eric A. Litman) Nine Track IBM Standard Labels (Aaron Jones) Assured Service (Bob Schwartz) International 900 Numbers (Joe Bowker) Problem With Telecom Archives pager.bin.uqx (Neil Weisenfeld) List of NACN Cities Wanted (Don Wegeng) Pac Bell to Offer Remote Access to Call Forwarding (Richard Kashdan) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 16:22:47 CDT From: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Still Another 800 Forwarding Service After posting that message last week about 'My Line', I got a fax from another firm offering the same service located here in the Chicago area, and I will tell you about it today. Arch Telecom is located in Northbrook, Illinois; a suburb of Chicago and just a couple miles northwest of where I live. Steven Friedlander, President of the Sales Group at Arch Telecom sent me a fax describing their 800 service, and it appears to be quite similar to 'My Line'. The major difference seems to be in the pricing, which also is quite similar to 'My Line' but handled differently. Depending on your own application it may work out better for you. Arch Telecom includes a fraud protection/cost control feature. They guarentee not to charge a customer for more than $50 if there is fraudulent usage on the account, and they allow the customer to set geographic restrictions on the outbound calling portion of their service to further guard against abuse or misuse of the service. Like 'My Line', the 800 service from Arch allows outbound calling via an inbound call to your personal 800 number. Arch also offers voicemail for incoming 800 calls, and an additional feature they offer which 'My Line' seems not to have is a toll-saver arrangement. If you call your 800 number, it will answer immediatly if there are messages in voicemail; otherwise if there are no messages calls to your number will ring two times before answering. If all you wish to do is check for messages you can hang up if you hear the ring and save yourself the cost of the call. Arch offers ANI/DNIS capture on all calls which make it as far as the voicemail system, even if no actual message is left. You can also get the time and date for any access made to voicemail via your number. I don't think 'My Line' offers this, at least as of yet. In addition to message notification, where a call is made out to a pager to to notify you of voicemail received, the Arch Telecom system offers zero transfer and voicemail transfer, meaning you can receive a call and while conversing transfer the call elsewhere, or to the voicemail if you prefer. Like 'My Line', calls to your 800 number can be forwarded instantly to wherever you choose; you control the destination by calling your own number and punching in new instructions which take effect at the same time as you enter them. For additional fraud protection, and to prevent nuisance callers from reaching you, Arch Telecom's system allows ANI blocking and passing. You can allow or deny access to your 800 number on a phone number by phone number basis. You can block specific numbers or entire area codes as desired. Arch Telecom says they can route your incoming 800 calls based on the caller's location. That is, callers from Chicago might get sent through to the Chicago office while calls in Missouri might get sent to the office in St. Louis, etc. They offer online, up to the second call detail if you have a PC and a modem ... and who among the TELECOM Digest readers woudn't have one! You can call in and view your phone activity and billings on a 'real time' basis for analysis. You need 'PC Anywhere' for windows software. MONTHLY RATES AND PER MINUTE CHARGES: Arch refers to their service as 'Vision 800'. The monthly recurring line charge is $20.00 for an Arch Telecom 800 number, but according to what I received, that charge is presently being waived, at least for new customers. For comparison, 'My Line' charges $8.50 plus $9.50 if you want voicemail. Per minute charges are rated by band, with the USA divided into six bands. Charges are further calculated by time of day and day of week. For example, the closest points (band one) are charged 23.9 cents per minute weekday business hours. Far away points (band six) are charged 28.8 cents per minute. Evening rates range from 19.7 cents per minute to 23.7 cents per minute. Night and weekend rates range from 16.8 cents per minute to 19.9 cents per minute. For comparison, 'My Line' charges 25 cents per minute, all times. So if your usage is primarily evenings and weekends, then Arch Telecom is less expensive. Bear in mind the monthly recurring charge difference between Arch and 'My Line' is only one dollar ($20 vrs. $19 per month) however if you don't want the voicemail part, 'My Line' does let you opt out and get by for $8.50 per month instead. As far as I can tell by reading what I got from Arch, voicemail is part of the package and not optional. If your usage is primarily during weekday business hours, then Arch rates are about equal to 'My Line' for many calls, and slightly higher on others. From the table they sent me and based on my own calls as an example, I think Arch would be about a penny per minute higher during the day on average. Evenings and nights are always cheaper on Arch, sometimes by as much as five cents per minute. But, Arch also gives discounts on total dollar usage per month. If you use more than $50 per month, they give a five percent discount off the total. If you use more than $350.00 per month, the discount is ten percent. This in effect would bring the cost of daytime calls down to equal 'My Line', or maybe even a little less. Overall, it looks to me like Arch Telecom is aiming for business customers with a higher volume of traffic. Whether your calling pattern is mostly days, mostly nights/weekends, etc is an applications problem you have to solve. That's not to say that 'My Line' would not like some large business customers as well, but the pricing (per month recurring without voicemail and per minute charges) probably would be a little more appealing than what Arch is asking. Again, you have to analyze your own application and if you can make Arch pay off in the long run based on your own configuration and calling patterns, then go for it. Arch has a second plan which may be more to your liking: They average out the calls at rates of: 24.5 cents per minute during the day; 20.5 cents per minute during the evening, night and weekend hours. On this plan there is no monthly charge or installation charge, but there is a $5 per month minimum usage requirement. For a very low volume user, this might be much more in line with what you want to pay; this plan certainly is better than 'My Line' but it is unclear to me if it includes all the fancy features described above which apply to 'Vision 800'. If Arch is giving automtic forwarding of calls and voicemail essentially free under this second plan (I do not know that to be the case or not), then obviously it is a better deal than 'My Line' with its $8.50 per month and optional $9.50 per month deal and per minute charges of 25 cents flat rate. One other point not touched on clearly in the fax I got from Arch was the pricing on outbound calls. 'My Line' gets 55 cents for the first minute and 25 cents each additional minute on calls outbound via your 800 number. I *assume* -- might be wrong -- that Arch charges the same rates for outgoing calls that they charge on incoming stuff per the figures shown above. If so, then the question is are you going to be making more outgoing calls via that number (eliminating the use of a conventional calling card) than you are going to receive incoming calls ... if so, Arch again is best in pricing. If not, then maybe 'My Line' is your best deal. This message has already gotten quite long, and there are parts of the Arch Telecom service I have not even touched on such as the interactive voice response service, the fax on demand, and other neat things. One thing though is certain -- this I do know: the days of the old style 800 number, good for incoming calls only are over with. Remember how here in the Digest we used to discuss the fact that (back then) only Cable and Wireless was offering 'forwardable 800' ... and remember how AT&T charged so much for their 'Ready Line', to say nothing of their more conventional, dedicated line 800 service? And what about those poor fools using the MCI shared-line, insert a PIN number after getting answered numbers? Wny would *anyone* bother with MCI, Sprint or AT&T 800 service these days when new and exciting services like Arch Telecom, 'My Line', Cable and Wireless and others are around? For more information on Arch Telecom's 800 services, you can contact them as follows: Steven Friedlander stevenf624@aol.com Arch Telecom 3330 W. Dundee Road #C-8 Northbrook, IL 60062 Phone: 800-ARCHTEL 708-509-ARCH Fax: 708-509-1182 Mention that you read about their service in TELECOM Digest. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 06:57:32 MST From: Dinesh Rehani +44 400 81999 Subject: Long Range Radio Modems I have been trying for over a year to get BT to install a 64kbps grade line (the BTspeak is KiloStream) to my office without any success so far, and without much hope for the next half year or so. I am therefore looking at alternative means of obtaining 64kbps capability. I recall having seen (not "read") a spate of articles recently regarding radio-modems. Would someone enlighten me on these please? I intend to have Cisco routers on each end, and the two nodes I need connected are about 60 miles as the crow flies ... Thanks and regards, dinesh rehani rehani@utcdsv.sinet.slb.com ------------------------------ Subject: France and Germany to buy Sprint Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 08:21:48 +0100 (BST) From: Clive D.W. Feather According to the BBC today, the France and German PTTs are to take a 20% stake in Sprint (similar to British Telecom's share in MCI). Clive D.W. Feather Santa Cruz Operation clive@sco.com Croxley Centre Phone: +44 923 816 344 Hatters Lane, Watford Fax: +44 923 210 352 WD1 8YN, United Kingdom ------------------------------ From: genghis@ilces.ag.uiuc.edu (Scott Coleman) Subject: Call Progress Tones Date: 15 Jun 94 13:57:05 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana The following chart summarizes common call progress tones as well as the DTMF frequency combinations. I asked about these earlier, but all I got were "tell me what you found" responses, so this post is for those guys. ;-) Also, if anyone spots any errors, please feel free to correct them. Pat, I'm sure this will make a good addition to the Telecom Archives. I know I wish it had been there when I looked a few weeks back. ;-) BTW, the source is the October '93 issue of Circuit Cellar INK magazine in an article on a telephone interface for a home automation system. Call Progress Tones Function Frequency On Time Off Time (Hz) (seconds) (seconds) Dial 350 + 440 continuous Busy 480 + 620 0.5 0.5 Ringback 440 + 480 2 4 No Such Number 200 to 400 continuous FM @ 1 Hz Left Off Hook 1400 + 2060 + 0.1 0.1 2450 + 2600 Congestion 480 + 620 0.2 0.3 Reorder 80 + 620 0.3 0.2 Ring Back PBX 440 + 480 1 3 DTMF Tone Combinations 697 Hz 770 Hz 852 Hz 941 Hz 1209 Hz 1 4 7 0 1336 Hz 2 5 8 * 1477 Hz 3 6 9 # 1633 Hz A B C D Scott Coleman tmkk@uiuc.edu President ASRE (American Society of Reverse Engineers) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 01:25:54 -0400 From: jwm@student.umass.edu (Jeffrey W. McKeough) Subject: IXC's and InterLATA CID Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst Having read the text of the FCC's Caller ID decision, I am curious to know if any carriers have announced their schedule for transmitting CNID between LATAs. The FCC has mandated April 12, 1995 as the effective date by which all carriers must comply, but it seems possible, especially given reports of sporadic CID delivery, that capable carriers may go nationwide before that deadline. The decision also asked for comments regarding other CID-based services, including Return Call, and Repeat Call. From the looks of the report, it would seem that the arguments that led to nationwide CID with per-call (*67/1167) blocking would tend to argue for the use of these services on a nationwide basis as well. The only difficulty that comes to mind would be the use of Return Call to numbers that had blocked CID delivery. The most sensible compromise (IMO) would be to preserve both parties' privacy by allowing Return Call on blocked numbers without revealing the actual number to the party invoking the Return feature, as NYNEX does in MA. Is this current practice in most states? (I believe that it is not true for MN.) BTW, while paging through the archives (via Gopher), I came across a post by someone who intended to switch to the first carrier that offered interLATA CID. Am I correct in believing that the IXC of the caller, and not the recipient, would be the one delivering the information? If so, such a switch would only guarantee that the individial's outgoing LD calls would deliver his CID to the recipient, and not vice versa. Jeffrey W. McKeough jwm@student.umass.edu ------------------------------ From: nuance@access.digex.net (T. Stephen Eggleston) Subject: More Sneaky MCI Marketing Date: 15 Jun 1994 03:00:06 -0400 Organization: Nuance Data Systems, Alexandria, VA 22304 Well, this one took the cake. MCI sent a "check" for 25.00, which when cashed switched my service. Nothing unusual here, but they sent it to my teenage daughter. She has NEVER had a phone in her name. She came to me and told me she was going to the bank. Someone sent me a check, and all I have to do is sign it. Again, she is a kid, living at home, and has NEVER EVER had a phone in her name. I was tempted to let her do it, and see what legal goodies I could pull, but decided I had too much of a life to play games with "The Phone Company." I did, however, call my carrier (Sprint) and told them about the "dirty trick." They said that if I would send them the entire package with a brief note explaining this, they would credit my account the 25.00. Not of great importance, but what are these folks going to stoop to next? "Hey little girl, want a piece of candy, just initial this box!" Talk about sleaze ball marketing! And people complain about Amway and Jehovah's Witnesses ... MCI, the C&S of the Phone Business! $include flameshield. But Then Again, I Could Be Wrong Steve Eggleston Internet:nuance@access.digex.net Nuance Data Systems (703)823-8963 CIS:72040,713 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note" I doubt that MCI *knew* she is only a child. I am sure there was a data entry error somewhere from some other list where they obtained her name. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rboudrie@chpc.org (Rob Boudrie) Subject: Oncor Slam Date: 14 Jun 1994 22:58:11 -0400 Organization: Center for High Performance Computing of WPI A visitor to a club I'm in recently used the coin unit to call long distqance from MA to NJ. The phone labeled AT&T, and the readback from 1-700-555-4141 confirms an AT&T connection. But, this person made two card calls and received a bill from Oncor (at $7 for the one minute call and $12 for the five minute call). Anyone know any way this could happen? Is there such a thing as slamming an individual call on a phone defaulted to AT&T? rob boudrie rboudrie@chpc.org PS: please copy reply to email as I am an intermittent reader of this group. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Read the tag on the phone carefully. All *coin calls* (which is what 1+ would be from a payphone; the caller would have to deposit coins in the box) everywhere in the USA are handled by AT&T. They are the only company set up with equipment in the telco central offices to handle coin collections. Now zero plus calls from a coin phone are a different matter. They can go to whatever carrier happens to have that pay phone assigned to them. The tag on the phone should have said something like 'operator services to this phone are provided by Oncor'. In some cases, the tag is identical to all others except after the phrase 'provided by' a tiny slice of paper with the word 'Oncor' was pasted on top of whatever had been there before. This is done when the phone starts out one way and zero plus gets defaulted elsewhere at some point in time. This sounds to me like the default was changed but the tag on the front was not. Usually this is the job of the coin collector when s/he comes around to get the money from time to time. If the phone in your club is *semi-public*, which is quite likely, then the club pays a monthly fee for it to be there even though telco gets all the coins and no commission is paid. If that is the case, then whoever in your club is responsible for the phone got to pick the carrier. I would suspect that person was approached by a sales rep for Oncor and told that they would receive a better commmission on long distance calls than what AT&T/local telco was willing to provide, so they made the switch. On the other hand, if the coin phone in your club is 'public', or commissionable, then telco is technically the 'subscriber' to the phone, and telco is required to distribute its long distance zero plus traffic from coin phones on an even-handed basis, assigning some phones to AT&T, some to Sprint, etc ... in the case of coins deposited in the box, (what would be one plus traffic) as stated above, AT&T gets that by default since they are they only company equipped to handle it. This probably explains the confusion. The tag was not correctly updated to match the realities of where the phone was assigned for zero plus calls, and a call to *1* plus 700-555-4141 will correctly yield AT&T as the carrier for those (coin paid) calls. ------------------------------ From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Sprint, eh? Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 23:17:00 EDT The current {America's Network} (formerly TE&M, a rag read by most telco engineering managers) reports that Sprint's Canadian affiliate is now cranking up an advertising campaign for Canadian customers. By a huge stroke of luck, spokesbeing Candice Bergen, who is married to French filmmaker Louis Malle, speaks fluent French and is doing both the English and French commercials. Competing carriers in Quebec sniff that there's more to capturing the Quebec market than a few commercials in French. Speaking of French, I hear that Sprint today in the wake of their failed talks with EDS announced a multi-billion dollar investment by the monopoly carriers France Telecom and Deutche Telekom. Sprint will sell 20% of the company over several years for $4.2 billion in cash. A joint Global Partnership will market combined services worldwide, and they may invite an Asian carrier or two to join. AT&T promptly complained, not without reason, that it's unfair that the European monopoly carriers can invest in U.S. carriers, but AT&T can't buy into Europe. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, jlevine@delphi.com, 1037498@mcimail.com ------------------------------ From: elitman@proxima.com (Eric A. Litman) Subject: Smooth Operator (Compass Voice Mail) Date: 14 Jun 1994 10:54:12 -0500 Organization: Proxima, Inc. Has anyone on this group used Compass Technology's Smooth Operator PC-based voice mail system? I am in the market for a system, and am going through the merits of a PC-based system as opposed to picking up an aftermarket Octel system. Apparently, Compass was purchased by Octel a few years ago, and now sells one of their products as the Call Performer. Notes on this would be welcome, as well. Eric Litman Proxima, Inc. vox: (703) 506.1661 Director, Network Services McLean, VA elitman+@proxima.com ------------------------------ From: aoj@access3.digex.net (aaronjones) Subject: Nine Track IBM Standard Labels Date: 14 Jun 1994 17:47:55 GMT Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA Hi there, I'm trying to deal with Bell Canada's SYGMA (Bell's Computer Systems Group) to exchange information on 9-track magnetic tapes. They require that the tapes that we ship to them have (drum roll please) ... "Standard IBM Labels" Bell SYGMA has said that we should contact IBM for the format of these labels. I've tried to do so and failed most miserably (sigh). I did get to talk to a rather large number of nice people at IBM, but unfortunately none of them were able to help me. BTW, these are labels written to the tape media rather than little adhesive stickers on the side of the reel. ;-) Any and all help with this would be greatly appreciated. Adv-thanks-ance, Aaron Jones Ph: (416) 213-2040 InterAccess Consulting Fax:(416) 213-5760 Toronto, Ontario Email: aoj@digex.net ------------------------------ From: bob@bci.nbn.com (Bob Schwartz) Subject: Assured Service Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 12:39:19 PDT Organization: Bill Correctors, Inc., Marin County, California According to an article in {Teleconnect Magazine} a couple of months ago Assured service is costly and often identical to Basic service. Are there ever any situations under which Assured service is necessary? Bob Schwartz bob@bci.nbn.com Bill Correctors, Inc. +1 415 488 9000 Marin County, California [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Wouldn't that (if they were identical or not) depend on who was giving the 'assurances', and whether or not a technically sophisticated person (like most Digest readers I assume) felt they could accept such guarantees and 'assurances'? PAT] ------------------------------ From: Joe Bowker Subject: International 900 Numbers Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 16:14:31 EDT I thought I was safe from my teenage sons from using 900/976 numbers, but I was wrong. I have had my 900/976 numbers blocked for my home phone for some time now. I recently got hit for about $135 worth of international calls to adult enterainment services in the Dominican Republic and Sao Tome. Although the guilty party has been caught (eleven year old son) and is being punished and I don't think he'll do it again (if he wants to see the ripe age of twelve). I would like to spread the word that these slime balls are coming up with new and inventive ways to get around the call blocking. My questions for the net are: 1. Has anyone ever succesfully had this type of charges reversed? (LD carrier is Sprint) If so how did you manage it? Sprint is stonewalling me and refuses to write them off. 2. How successfully can one get the local CO to block this sort of call, without making it impossible to use the phone for all international calls? 3. Have there been any recent court/legal cases that may be relevant? If I challenge the charges, do I have any chances of winning? Or will it be just a delaying action that annoys the LD carrier and eventually I will end up paying? Joe Bowker EMail: bowker@mse1.enet.dec.com Digital Equipment Corp 508-858-3021 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Let's repeat together the long-standing rule, expresssed time and again: each person is responsible for the use(s) made of his instruments. Period. You are legally going to have to pay. Sprint may or may not decide as a matter of goodwill to write off the charges; and a write off it will be since they have no recourse against the telco which accepted the inbound traffic. For those not in the know about this, here is what is happening: the business of international calls is a lucrative one. Although they do not cost much more than domestic long distance calls, they are priced much higher. As a result, anyone who can generate a lot of international calls (by 'a lot' I mean many, many thousands of dollars worth of them per month) can solicit and will receive -- with pleasure! -- a commission from the international carrier handling the traffic. Now, how do you stir up lots of international calls? Simple ... you advertise in the media in one nation telling the citizens there to call for something they want in another country and you tell them why it is better to do it that way. You appeal to the interests of those people. Care for a couple examples? Newspaper adver- tisements in Spain and Italy encourage those people to call a number in New Jersey, USA for consultation with an astrologer. On the flip side of the coin, newspapers in the USA, such as the {Advocate} and {Windy City Times}, to name two examples, run advertisements encouraging gay guys to meet other gay people for hot chat by dialing a number in Guyana or in Bonaire, Netherland Antilles. Now you ask, why would a person place an international call to do that? The advertisements explain why: "No premium or 900 charges! No charges on your credit card! All you pay is the regular toll!" If you have ever used a 900 service and paid three dollars per minute, or had charges like that billed on your credit card, then obviously the savings are quite apparent. The toll charge is only 50-75 cents per minute. Now your next question quite logically follows: If all the caller has to pay is the toll charge, and the telco gets that, then how does the 'information provider' -- the dude with his conference bridge setup handling all that hot chat -- get paid? How do the astrologers in New Jersey get paid? He gets paid a commission, or kickback by the international carrier. They get five or ten cents per minute of traffic sent their way. The telecom administration in the foreign country gets a piece of the action also which helps a lot in getting their outstanding balance cleaned up with AT&T. 'Everyone' benefits: the IP gets rich, the telcos make out like bandits, and the gay guys or dirty old men or whoever in the USA call those numbers get much lower phone bills. 'Everyone' that is, except the parents of eleven year old boys who are curious about life ...:) Its not just Sprint, or those hooligans at Telesphere (or whatever name they are going by now) involved. Would the Mother Company -- AT&T, the Grand Dame of telcos -- engage in such dealings? You betcha! Madam Bell runs electronic houses of ill-repute also ... what's that number in Colorado which can only be reached by using the AT&T network? Then there is that advertisement which ran in the underground newspapers for awhile showing these dudes with boots and leather, whips and chains and a caption saying, "Make new friends using AT&T ... reach out and touch the one you've been seeking ... call <10288-011-international number in Netherland Antilles> ... no premium charges! Just regular toll charges apply on your call." Hot chat over the long-distance telephone is a lucrative business, especially when an established carrier is willing to handle the mechanics for you. Your options in the future? Get one of those Radio Shack toll-restrictors and block out the individual numbers you don't want called. Either that, or take that eleven year old and slap him silly. :) PAT] ------------------------------ From: weisen@alw.nih.gov (Neil Weisenfeld) Subject: Problem With Telecom Archives pager.bin.uqx Organization: NIH Div of Comp Rsrch and Technology Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 14:41:43 GMT Has anyone successfully decoded this software from the Telecom-Archives (I think in /telecom-archives/technical)? I transferred it as text, uudecoded it, de-bin-hex-ed it, but the resulting stack just won't run under Hypercard 2.1. I've done the process a million times, making sure that the uuencoded stuff gets correctly transferred as text (and doesn't have something stupid happen like paragraph filling). It still gets "Filesystem Error -50". Has anyone had more luck (er, skill)? Regards, Neil Weisenfeld, Computer Engineer Internet: weisen@nih.gov Nat'l Insts. of Health, 12A/2033 Voice: +1 301 402 4030 Bethesda, MD 20892 Fax: +1 301 402 2867 ------------------------------ From: dlw@eng.mc.xerox.com (Don Wegeng) Subject: List of NACN Cities? Date: Tue, 14 Jun 94 16:14:31 EDT Does anyone know of an Internet accessible updated list of cellular phone systems that are members of McCaw's North American Cellular Network? In a couple weeks I plan to travel across several states via car, and I need to provide instructions on how to contact me. NACN will auto-deliver calls, but of course that only works if I'm in an NACN area. When I'm in other cities I need to provide roaming port numbers, etc. This would seem like something that the Cellular One WWW server could easily provide, but it's not there (http://www.elpress.com/cellone/cellone. html). I know that there are roaming handbooks that contain this info, or I could inquire with my local provider before I travel, but an electronic list would be easier and/or cheaper to access, and probably more up to date, too. Thanks, Don dlw.xkeys@xerox.com ------------------------------ From: rkashdan@netcom.com (Richard Kashdan) Subject: Pac Bell to Offer Remote Access to Call Forwarding Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 21:17:17 GMT Pacific Bell submitted Advice Letter 17006 to the California PUC on June 6 requesting authorization to offer the Remote Access to Call Forwarding service. They request that the tariff go into effect on July 16, 1994. This type of Advice Letter usually goes into effect automatically on the requested date without needing any formal approval process by the PUC. The only thing that might stop or delay it would be legitimate protests that the PUC staff might decide to take seriously. Remote Access to Call Forwarding already exists in some other states. The customer is given an access phone number (one per ESS switch) and a PIN. They can call that phone number from anywhere and when it answers, touch tone in their own phone number, their PIN, and a command to re-program their call-forwarding feature to either start forwarding calls to wherever they now find themselves (or any other number), or deactivate call forwarding. The price will be $1.50 per month for business service, $1.00 per month for residence. This is in addition to the normal charges for the call forwarding feature. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Illinois Bell/Ameritech offers this service for free. If you subscribe to Call Forwarding, you can request a PIN to use via a certain telephone number which allows you to remotely turn on or off call forwarding and change the destination, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #287 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa21183; 15 Jun 94 19:29 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA22818; Wed, 15 Jun 94 14:38:37 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA22809; Wed, 15 Jun 94 14:38:34 CDT Date: Wed, 15 Jun 94 14:38:34 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406151938.AA22809@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #288 TELECOM Digest Wed, 15 Jun 94 14:38:30 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 288 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Pager on a Watch? (Donald J. Miller) Re: Pager on a Watch? (Steve Cogorno) Re: Pager on a Watch? (D. Castillo) Re: Pager on a Watch? (Scott Coleman) Re: Pager on a Watch? (Leo Nederlof) Re: Pager on a Watch? (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Pager on a Watch? (Dan Reifsnyder) Re: Pager on a Watch? (Jeffrey Rhodes) Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? (Tim Gorman) Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? (Mike King) Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? (Rich Padula) Re: Calling Card Suggestion (Carl Oppedahl) Re: Caller ID With a New Twist (Ross E Mitchell) Re: Caller ID With a New Twist (Phil Bullock) Re: Caller ID With a New Twist (B.J. Guillot) Re: Does PAT Work For US West? (Hugh Pritchard) Re: Does PAT Work For US West? (Ry Jones) Correction of Attribution - Re: What Did You Have For Dinner (G. Burditt) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: dmiller@crl.com (Donald J. Miller) Subject: Re: Pager on a Watch? Date: 15 Jun 1994 08:17:45 -0700 Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access (415) 705-6060 [login: guest] David Lawrance (d-lawrance@uiuc.edu) wrote: > At one time, Motorola and Timex were marketting a pager built into a > watch. Are there still such beasts? Who sells and who supports? The Motorola/Timex watch was kind of large and klunky. Lately, however, there have been numerous commercials in the Atlanta area (and I assume elsewhere) for pager watches made by Swatch. The units displayed in the commercial, at least, look as stylish as regular Swatch watches. Don Miller Electronic System Products dmiller@crl.com ------------------------------ From: cogorno@netcom.com (Steve Cogorno) Subject: Re: Pager on a Watch? Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 14:09:22 GMT David Lawrance said: > At one time, Motorola and Timex were marketting a pager built into a > watch. Are there still such beasts? Who sells and who supports? Swatch makes watches like this; they are availible at the AT&T Phone Centers. Steve cogorno@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: castillo@unm.edu (D. Castillo) Subject: Re: Pager on a Watch? Date: 15 Jun 1994 06:26:01 -0600 Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque In article , David Lawrance wrote: > At one time, Motorola and Timex were marketting a pager built into a > watch. Are there still such beasts? Who sells and who supports? Swatch sells them. According to one of their ads, they're available at AT&T Phonecenters. (Haven't checked this myself, have yet to go to one of the ATT centers, seem awfully expensive from their ads.) castillo@hydra.unm.edu ------------------------------ From: genghis@ilces.ag.uiuc.edu (Scott Coleman) Subject: Re: Pager on a Watch? Date: 15 Jun 94 14:21:19 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana I once tried to track down the writwatch pager. It does exist, but none of the paging companies around here seems to want to carry them (I checked several). The reason is that they are apparently very fragile. One outfit was willing to try and order one for me. Since they didn't have one for me to look at, I requested a brochure and other information which I never received, promised callbacks were never made, etc. This was both from the local paging companies as well as Motorola itself, which manufactures the thing. After some time I just gave up on the idea. It's a cool idea, but if it's prone to breakage, and nobody wants to support it when it does break, the hassle of ownership would outweigh the benefits. I now own a standard Motorola display pager, which has been 100% problem fee and was less than half the price of the wristwatch model. And besides, I have a Casio Infrared controller wristwatch which I use for A/V and Home Automation equipment; I don't want to wear two wristwatches. ;-) Scott Coleman tmkk@uiuc.edu President ASRE (American Society of Reverse Engineers) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 12:48:35 +0200 From: Leo Nederlof Subject: Re: Pager on a Watch? Swatch has them. Until now I've only seen them in the shops in Switzerland, but I assume they will be marketed in other countries as well. What I've seen is only one type, black, the body slightly larger than a standard Swatch. Probably they will come up with trendy designs and coulours shortly. Unless nobody buys them of course ... Leo Nederlof Alcatel Bell Research Centre lned@rc.bel.alcatel.be Network Technology Group phone: +32 3 2407613 Francis Wellesplein 1 fax: +32 3 2409932 2018 Antwerp - Belgium ------------------------------ From: mds@access.digex.net (Michael D. Sullivan) Subject: Re: Pager on a Watch? Date: 15 Jun 1994 01:05:37 -0400 Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA Dunno about Motorola and Timex. Swatch markets several models of its "Piepser" watch/pager in conjunction with BellSouth's MobileComm paging service. Michael D. Sullivan | INTERNET E-MAIL TO: |also: avogadro@well.sf.ca.us Washington, D.C. | mds@access.digex.net | 74160.1134@compuserve.com ------------------------------ From: ryfe%interaccess@uunet.UU.NET (Dan Reifsnyder) Subject: Re: Pager on a Watch? Date: 15 Jun 1994 15:11:07 GMT Organization: IAC Reply-To: ryfe@interaccess.com I saw an advertisement on TV this weekend ... macho guy riding his huge motorcycle down the highway. His watch beeps ... a number shows up in a small lcd window on the watch ... (you see a stuffy-looking person on a phone somewhere) ... he apparently recognizes the number and ignores it. This happens two or three more times, until the person calling is a gorgeous woman ... he slams on the brakes and pulls over to a pay phone. Strange as it seems, the watch/pager seems to be made by Swatch (yep, the cheesy-colored plastic watch people). Hope this helps. Dan Reifsnyder ryfe@interaccess.com ------------------------------ From: jcr@creator.nwest.mccaw.com (Jeffrey Rhodes) Subject: Re: Pager on a Watch? Date: 15 Jun 1994 14:53:28 GMT Organization: McCaw Cellular Communications, Inc. Reply-To: jcr@creator.nwest.mccaw.com Seiko is offering the Seiko Receptor. This is an alphanumeric pager that receives messages and time adjustments from a Stratum 1 atomic clock (every thirty minutes). FM subcarriers are used, so some messages get missed while in a tunnel or basement. I get the daily stock market closing and WA lottery numbers as part of the Information services. It is offered in Seattle, Tacoma and Portland but should be in CA, NY and Washington, DC by year end. I have my cellular Voice Mail Notification call my pager number so I know when someone leaves me Voice Mail. A six month contract is $20 activation and $8 per month. Roaming is extra, but it will be neat to get off a plane in NY and have the time adjusted to local time automatically! Jeffrey Rhodes at jcr@creator.nwest.mccaw.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Except I think you are in for a slight disappointment. I think (am not positive) that the radio time adjustment only sends the seconds and minutes; those two parts of the time are the only things absolute about the time in the USA. In other words, whatever the hour may be in your time zone or mine, we still are at the same number of minutes and seconds. I think when you travel around the USA (or most of the world, if the radio signals go that far) you will still have to advance or retard your watch manually for the correct hour. If I stand corrected on this, let me know. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tim Gorman <71336.1270@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? Date: 15 Jun 94 09:50:24 EDT If you dial 0 and ask the local RBOC operator to dial an 800 number for you AND the local RBOC is off of a Northern Telecom operator system your ANI will not be passed on to the carrier the 800 number is sent to. In order to launch the 800 database query to find out which carrier gets the traffic the call must be sent out of the system and back in. The way this must be done does not pass the ANI. I have no knowledge of how AT&T's or anyone else's operator systems work. If you dial your interLATA carrier operator and ask them to dial the 800 number for you they will have your ANI. Whether this ANI is passed on to the 800 number recipient is based on the interLATA carriers switch and it's capabilities. If the call terminates back to a local RBOC the ANI is not passed on since terminating Feature Group protocols do not provide for ANI to be passed on a terminating leg. 0+800 is typically blocked from most classes of service. There is no reason for any 800 call to be dialed in this fashion from most classes of service and it needlessly ties up operator system capacity if allowed. Tim Gorman - SWBT ------------------------------ From: mk@TFS.COM (Mike King) Subject: Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 05:17:35 PDT In TELECOM Digest, V14, #280, Ry Jones wrote: > RJ: 0 > USW: (bong) USWEST USWest, how can I help you? > RJ: My 8 key is broken, can you please dial a number for me? > USW: Yes, may I have the number, area code first, please? > RJ: 1 800 265 5328, please. > USW: Please wait... > ATT: Number you are dialing from please? > RJ: 206 xxx xxxx > ATT: Number you would like to call? > RJ: 812 xxx xxxx > ATT: What is your name please? > RJ: Ry. > ATT: Thank you. > IP : Hello? > ATT: This is AT&T, I have a collect call from Ry. Will you accept the > charges? > IP: Yeah. > ATT: Thank you. > The number that comes out on the bill of IP is whatever I told ATT. > ATT does *not* get the number from the USW operator. Period. I know Are you certain that AT&T is processing this call? I'd like to know how they can snag a call to 1-800-COLLECT, an MCI number. I guess it's possible that the USWest operator might be handing the call directly to an AT&T operator without actually connecting you to 800-COLLECT, but I'd think that would be illegal. Of course, in that scenario, I'd believe the AT&T oeprator would have your ANI information. Mike King mk@tfs.com ------------------------------ From: Rpadula@aol.com Date: Wed, 15 Jun 94 00:28:34 EDT Subject: Re: Can ANI be Blocked From Call Recipient? MNeary.El_Segundo@xerox.com wrote: > In Los Angeles, one of the local TV channels has an 800 "tip" hotline. > They repeatedly reassure viewers "you don't have do give your name". > I'll bet that 99% of the population here thinks this means that their call > can be anonymous. Well, here's a better one. This Sunday's issue of {Parade Magazine} (June 12) has a big debate on decriminalizing marijuana use. Naturally, they are conducting an opinion poll on a 900 number (charge is 75 cents). However, one of the questions is "How often have you used marijuana?" Gee, I wonder where THAT data will end up? Rich ------------------------------ From: oppedahl@panix.com (Carl Oppedahl) Subject: Re: Calling Card Suggestion Date: 15 Jun 1994 18:13:13 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC In lailert@ucssun1.sdsu.edu (Supak Lailert "spk") writes: > Sam Spens Clason (d92-sam@misfits.nada.kth.se) wrote: >> How big a part of all calling card frauds could be avoided if the PIN >> wasn't actually printed on the card?! >> So, stop printing the PIN on calling cards, that would not make them >> as easely used if stolen or just glimpsed at. > As I called MCI early this week to request for a new calling card, > they give me an option not to have the PIN printed on my card. Nice > move, MCI. Huh? I memorize my card number. Then it does not matter what is or is not written on it since I don't carry the card. Why would any one carry the card around? If you feel you *must* have something with you carrying the number, why the card? Again, I don't get it. Why not write the number on something else, so at least it is not immediately recognizable as a telephone calling card number. And maybe change one of the digits or something, in a way you can easily remember to undo. In jmadams@freenet.scri.fsu.edu (John Adams) writes: > The problem, or angle, is that a crook can stand at one payphone and > simply watch what numbers you press on the keypad. Perhaps this easy > tactic is the reason for the wave of "voice cards" (a la Sprint) where > you speak the name of a preprogrammed voice sample/digit sequence to > place a call? Yes, I think you are right about Sprint's reason for this. At Pennsylvania Station in New York City, all the Nynex pay phones have a metal shroud around the keypad, making it *very* difficult for someone to shoulder-surf. I expect this will become commonplace in busy places. All the more reason to get 800 numbers that terminate at the places you call often. (You don't have to be the telephone customer at the terminating end; I have one to call my Internet provider, who has only a 212 access number, for example.) If a surfer sees the 800 number they will not get much benefit from it. Portions excerpted from The Phone Book from Consumer Reports. Carl Oppedahl AA2KW Oppedahl & Larson (patent lawyers) Yorktown Heights, NY voice 212-777-1330 ------------------------------ From: rem@world.std.com (Ross E Mitchell) Subject: Re: Caller ID With a New Twist Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 21:14:27 GMT Along with a professor from Clark University, I have written an article for MIT's Technology Review about a solution to telephone privacy issues such as those raised by Caller ID. The service to be offered by US West appears to offer all of the features we recommend under a general privacy theory which we have dubbed "Dynamic Negotiation." The guiding principle of Dynamic Negotiation is that individual users of the phone system should determine the extent to which they wish to sacrifice their privacy in a dynamic and interactive fashion. Per-line blocking is the default, with selective unblocking available. Per-call blocking is available for users desiring to change from the per-line default but retain the option to selectively block. At the same time, Anonymous Call Reject is available as a free option. Any calls which are rejected route to an instructional message on how the call can be completed. (There is no charge to the calling party and the called party's phone, of course, does not even ring.) This approach solves everyone's privacy concerns: called parties can ensure that they are not disturbed by people who do not choose to identify themselves; callers need not take any special action to protect their privacy when calling, but have the option to release their numbers at will in order to complete their call, or to change their default to release except when explicitly blocked. With the per-line blocking default, callers do not release their numbers without knowledge and consent, since they must take an affirmative action to enable number release. The message provided when calling a number which rejects blocked-number calls provides an instantaneous and effective training mechanism for the uniformed caller. We also recommend Call Trace to permit capture of harrassing caller numbers to parties who have chosen to accept all calls, regardless of privacy bit setting. In our article we call for federal regulation of Caller ID, but simply in order to permit the creation of a level playing field. In our view, government must not determine for us the appropriate level of privacy protection, but must mandate systems which permit us to do that for ourselves, just as we have always done in non-electronic interaction. I'm delighted that at least one phone company has seen the valid privacy concerns raised on both sides of this issue, and I would appreciate your comments concerning Dynamic Negotiation. Assuming I can get approval from MIT, I'd be happy to post the final article when it is ready for publication. Ross Mitchell - Systems Consultant - rem@world.std.com Newton, Massachusetts Tel: (617) 965-7010 Fax: (617) 630-0024 ------------------------------ From: pbullock@xmission.com (Phil Bullock) Subject: Re: Caller ID With a New Twist Date: 15 Jun 1994 11:07:44 -0600 Organization: XMission Public Access Internet (801-539-0900) Kevin Bluml (kevin@gath.cray.com) wrote: > US West in Minneapolis/St. Paul area has a interesting version of the > Caller ID bag of services. It seems to handle many of the previously > noted concerns fairly well - Here is a synopsis: [Deleted to conserve space; list of custom calling features was listed]. > All in all seems to be a good combination of features. This same system was turned on in Utah June 7, 1994. So far it seems to be working fine. ------------------------------ From: st1r8@elroy.uh.edu (B.J. Guillot) Subject: Re: Caller ID With a New Twist Date: 15 Jun 1994 17:31:00 CDT Organization: University of Houston In article , kevin@gath.cray.com (Kevin Bluml) writes... > Call Trace - $1.00/use (For Harassing/Obscene calls - Info > forwarded to US West Security for > future use - Can't be blocked) In Houston (SW Bell), Call Trace originally was $1/month with a charge of $8.00/use. Then, they switched it so that it was free/month but with a charge of $10.00/use. We just got Caller ID two weeks ago, so I don't know if that makes any difference or not, but it appears that Houston is being charged 10 times more than we sould be. Oh, and we actually tried using it once to see how it worked. Get this ... SW Bell said that they cannot do ANYTHING with the information obtained from Call Trace UNTIL there are at least *THREE* traces done back to the same number. In other words, it would cost you $30.00 to do what you might be able to do for $1.00 in your area. Regards, B.J. Guillot ... Houston, Texas USA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: 'Call Trace' is a complete ripoff service which is not needed at all. Furthermore, whether or not telco can legally charge you to trace and stop people harassing you is open to debate. If you are getting that type of phone call simply notify the Annoyance Call Bureau at telco. You *do* have to cooperate with them, and that usually means that prior to beginning any sort of trace or investigation you will need to sign a form which (a) agrees that the results of the trace are to be turned over directly to the police by telco, and (b) that you agree without any conditions attached to prosecute whoever is responsible, and (c) that you will not discuss the trap on your line with *anyone under any conditions* while telco is conducting the investigation. That means you do not tell co-workers, you do not tell roomates or lovers, you do not tell other family members not living there and already aware of it, etc. It is well established that most harrassing calls (ring your number and hang up without speaking, etc) are from persons you know at least casually, if not better than that. Telco will not serve as your private detective agency in this regard. If you wish to have this invasion of your privacy and the harassment stopped, they'll help you stop it alright; but no playing games in the process. My personal belief, backed by what a couple of attornies have said to me is that telco's contract with you for the service entitles you to the peaceful and undisturbed use of what you are paying for. You do not have to pay extra (ie some fee for each use of 'Call Trace') in order to have peace and quiet in your household. You are already paying telco for a service alleged to be in good working order. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Hugh Pritchard <0006348214@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: Does PAT Work for USWest? Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 12:04:00 GMT On 10 Jun 1994 21:59:51 GMT, rjones@chinook.halcyon.com (Ry Jones) wrote: > OK ... I think PAT is a Bellcore dude! Now when I do the 0 trick to > turn off ANI on collect calls, 1 800 collect functions correctly. > (ANI *is* passed) ... Pat has no time. In a response to a question from Lynne Gregg (Digest #283, "How Many Readers Are There of This Digest?"), Pat admits he spends five hours a day on the Digest, in addition to his day job. And how is Bellcore involved? Bellcore is neither an LEC nor an IXC. Pat, in that same Note, continues, "My single biggest drop-off point on the mailing list is mcimail.com, where I (yesterday) delivered the Digest to 78 names. ... Then of course there is Usenet, and the comp.dcom.telecom newsgroup." So, maybe an MCI employee or stock owner among all those thousands of readers saw Ry's posting, and brought it to the attention of the 1-800-COLLECT people. (Ry had mis-identified the 1-800-285-5328 [1-800-COLLECT] operators as "ATT"; 1-800-COLLECT is an MCI service.) > HOWEVER, if I have the 0 operator dial the oncor 800 operator, I am > still able to fool them. What is an "oncor" 800 operator? Hugh Pritchard, Smoke N' Mirrors, Inc., hugh@snm.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, for my full time job I am a shill for the telcos. My assignment is to post messages on Usenet and various BBS's and commercial services in such a way as to spread Hate and Discontent among the other participants. I post messages about measured service and stuff like that, getting the others to argue and fuss among themselves. The more they argue and fuss with me about measured service, etc, the more they stay on the phone, thus the more they pay for a phone bill each month. Once a month the telcos scrutinize the phone bills of modem users. They send the bills to some agency in the far east for review and analysis, just as that dude explained in comp.dcom.telecom.tech the other day. His technical analysis of what happens was brilliant and right on the mark. For every hour of time the subscriber spends connected to Usenet as a result of something I posted, the telcos give me a commission. The more Hate and Discontent I can spread on Usenet in a month's time, the bigger my commission for that month. I'll tell you, getting that big fight going on Usenet about a year ago regards the establishment of c.d.t.t. made me quite wealthy. They give me an extra premium if I say something that is an Outright Lie, and of course there is a yearly bonus for any technical inaccuracies which appear in the Digest itself; that's why you see so many of them here, and never see any in c.d.t.t. By the by, an Oncor 800 operator is an operator for the Oncor Long Distance Company, a fine established firm with a reputation similar to that of AT&T (back in 1905). ... PAT] ------------------------------ From: rjones@coho.halcyon.com (Ry Jones) Subject: Re: Does PAT Work For USWest? Date: 15 Jun 1994 00:29:56 GMT Organization: Northwest Nexus Inc. Ry Jones (rjones@chinook.halcyon.com) wrote: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If you go entirely through a manual > operator you are still able to defraud them, eh? PAT] Nope ... no fraud. Until 05 31 94, I worked for the uber-SB that provided Oncor with their network access, etc. Oncor is one of the biggest independents ... and still, everyone spells it "encore". No, no, Oncor. ------------------------------ From: gordon@sneaky.lonestar.org (Gordon Burditt) Subject: Correction of Attribution - Re: What Did You Have for Dinner Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 03:43:28 GMT Dear Mr. Moderator: How the heck did my name show up on the article quoted below? It seems to have been written by Paul A. Lee, and the first I heard of it was just now when I spotted my name. Gordon L. Burditt sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon In article , Gordon Burditt wrote: >In TELECOM Digest Volume 14 Issue 264, our Editor wrote (in part): > >> Why the two most recent well-known cannibals in the USA both came from >> Wisconsin -- within fifty miles or so of each other -- I do not >> know. Maybe it is something in the atomosphere. >As a relatively recent transplant to the Milwaukee area, I'm prompted >to offer this hypothesis: Maybe these two guys were driven mad by the >*taxes* here in Wisconsin (the highest in the country, according to a >1992 survey). Perhaps the "ultimate eating disorder" could be one of >the results of the high tax rate. After all, I've seen widespread >sociopathic behavior in the way people here _drive_ ... >(I hope I can forfend being flamed by hundreds of Wisconsin natives by >emphasizing that most of the folks here are as genial, friendly, and >helpful as any I've met anywhere ... as long as you keep them out of >their cars!) >Paul A. Lee Voice 414 357-1409 >Telecommunications Analyst FAX 414 357-1450 >Woolworth Corporation CompuServe 70353,566 >INTERNET [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, sorry about that! Seems those danged '>' marks got out of synch again. You had commented in this thread I think (was it the part about the Packer Grill in Boulder?) and somehow Mr. Lee was careless in his attributions when he followed up later in the thread. Then when I ran it here, the digest-making software did something inappropriate to it also. So, let this be an official apology; you did not say what was attributed to you in that thread which for some reason won't go away. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #288 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa21500; 15 Jun 94 19:53 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA24658; Wed, 15 Jun 94 15:37:34 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA24641; Wed, 15 Jun 94 15:37:30 CDT Date: Wed, 15 Jun 94 15:37:30 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406152037.AA24641@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #289 TELECOM Digest Wed, 15 Jun 94 15:37:30 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 289 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Piping Sound From a Stereo to a Telephone Line (Will Spencer) Brooks Statement on Crypto (David Banisar) Cell One/NY Question (Stan Schwartz) Current Status of TAPI? (Clint Eaker) Environmental Project Needs Telecom Help (Ben Anderson) Calling Philippines From Spain Cheaply? (Mark Maimone) Re: Bell Canada Joins the 700 Club (Jim Mercer) Re: Bell Canada Joins the 700 Club (Evan Leibovitch) Re: Bell Canada Joins the 700 Club (Fred Ennis) Re: Can I Use Deactivated Cellular Phone in Emergency? (Subodh Bapat) Re: "Re-readiating" Car Cellular Antennas (Doug Sewell) Re: "Re-readiating" Car Cellular Antennas (John Gilbert) Correction: Uniformed and Uninformed (TELECOM Digest Editor) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: will@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Will Spencer) Subject: Re: Piping Sound From a Stereo to a Telephone Line Date: 12 Jun 1994 00:47:28 GMT Organization: Free Software Foundation / Cambridge, MA USA Introducing: | |_| |_ _ _______ _____ ____ ({}) | | | |__ | \ / \ / \ | _/ ({}) _ _|_____/ | | | |_/ ({}) })({})({})({})({})({})({}) | \ | | | | \_ ({}) ({}) | \ \_____/ \____/ | \ ({}) ({}) _ _______ _____ _ _ ({}) ({}) | \ / \ \ / ({}) ({}) _ _|_____/ | | \/ ({}) ({}) | \ | | /\ ({}) ({}) _ _|_____/ \_____/ _/ \_ ({}) ({}) ({}) ({}) Created & Designed By Video Vindicator ({}) ({}) ({}) ({})({})({})({})({})({})({})({})({})({})({})({}) INTRODUCTION And now for all you basement engineers... Here's the ROCK BOX! Basicly what the Rock Box does is channel the music from the stereo out to the phone line via the headphone output. There are two models to this Box, the Basic Box and Advanced Box. I would recommend the Advanced Box for better sound quality, although the Basic one get's the job done. Well ... enough for the formalities, now for the Advanced Box! Identification Materials Specification -------------- --------- ------------- A 1 Resistor (Brown-Black-Red-Silver) B 1 Resistor (Orange-Orange-Orange-Gold) C 1 Resistor (Gold-Red-Red-Grey) D 1 Resistor (L.Green-D.Green-Brown-Gold) E 1 Resistor (Brown-Red-Red-Gold) F 3 Condensators (1070 (50v)) G 4 Condensators (1002 (40v)) H 1 Condensator (1060 (16v)) <*> (Also S) 2 Switches (2-Channel) ?#? (Also K) 1 Transformer (LUN5250B) ~o~ 1 LED Light (Optional) J Junction Wiring Diagram -Advanced Switch for Volume Hi/Lo Switch for Power On/Off _______________________________________________________________ | +---------+ | | +-----------+ C-B-A +-------+ J J +--------+ | | | S-S-S-O | | +-S-S | S--------+ +---------> > | IN | | | | | +-S+ O +-------------> >-+ | >+ | | >-+ | FROM|<| +----+ F H | STEREO>| | F-----------O-----KKK KKK | | +------D--E-+ ?#? K ?#? | |_______________________________________________________________| Wiring Diagram -Basic ___________________________________ | | | <------+ F--KKK--H +---> | | | | ?#? | +----> | OUT IN | <------*----+ +------* | | STEREO>| <------+ +---> | |___________________________________| Now some of the Benifits of this wonderful little device is that you can record conversations, at whatever volume you want, without those bothersome beeps the answering machines make. Or another fun thing is call up a Rodent Bridge and blast this thing with your stereo at full ... Wala! The bridge will most likely be clear, even they won't sit through that shit. It is a good idea to hit Radio Shack for a project box and soderless curcuit board, because this can be messy and a project box can easily make you look like a pro. One more use for it is if your computer can generate tones to match a Box of some sort, this makes a GREAT amplifier for it, with almost no loss in clearity. If you have any problems with a humm or it intercepting radio transmissions, then call up good-old Bell and get a line static clearer dealy and splice that into the box via the outgoing line, which SHOULD clear it up. If that does not seem to help, try putting a 9v battery (you know, the square ones) on the red and green phone lines, because this will make up for the power the box drains from the line. Hope you enjoy the plans and be watching for more from me! L8r... The Video Vindicator Will Spencer Unix geek PC guru ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 14:20:25 -0400 From: David Banisar Subject: Brooks Statement on Crypto The following statement by Rep. Jack Brooks (D-TX) was today entered in the Congressional Record and transmitted to the House Intelligence Committee. Rep. Brooks is Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and played a key role in the passage of the Computer Security Act of 1987 when he served as Chairman of the House Government Operations Committee. David Sobel Legal Counsel Electronic Privacy Information Center ENCRYPTION POLICY ENDANGERS U.S. COMPETITIVENESS IN GLOBAL MARKETPLACE For some time now, a debate has been raging in the media and in the halls of Congress over the Administration's intention to require U.S. corporations to use and market the Clipper Chip, an encryption device developed in secret by the National Security Agency. The Clipper Chip will provide industry and others with the ability to encode telephone and computer communications. The use of the Clipper Chip as the U.S. encryption standard is a concept promoted by both the intelligence and law enforcement communities because it is designed with a back door to make it relatively easy for these agencies to listen in on these communications. The law enforcement and intelligence communities have a legitimate concern that advances in technology will make their jobs more difficult. But the issue here is whether attempts to restrict the development, use and export of encryption amounts to closing the barn door after the horse has already escaped. The notion that we can limit encryption is just plain fanciful. Encryption technology is available worldwide -- and will become more available as time goes on. First, generally available software with encryption capabilities is sold within the U.S. at thousands of retail outlets, by mail, even, over the phone. These programs may be transferred abroad in minutes by anyone using a public telephone line and a computer modem. Second, it is estimated that over 200 products from some 22 countries -- including Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, India, and South Africa -- use some form of the encryption that the Government currently prohibits U.S. companies from exporting. According to the May 16, 1994 issue of _Fortune_, not only are U.S. companies willing to purchase foreign encryption devices, American producers of encrypted software are also moving production overseas to escape the current export controls. Third, encryption techniques and technology are well understood throughout the world. Encryption is routinely taught in computer science programs. Text books explain the underlying encryption technology. International organizations have published protocols for implementing high level encryption. Actual implementations of encryption -- programs ready to use by even computer novices -- are on the Internet. The only result of continued U.S. export controls is to threaten the continued preeminence of America's computer software and hardware companies in world markets. These restrictive policies jeopardize the health of American companies, and the jobs and revenues they generate. I support, therefore, the immediate revision of current export controls over encryption devices to comport with the reality of worldwide encryption availability. I believe law enforcement and the intelligence community would be better served by finding real, and targeted ways to deal with international terrorists and criminals rather than promoting scattershot policies, which restrict American industries' ability to design, produce and market technology. Now -- more than ever -- we cannot afford to harm our economic competitiveness and justify it in the name of national security. ------------------------------ From: stans@panix.com (Stan Schwartz) Subject: Cell One/NY Question Date: 15 Jun 1994 00:00:37 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC I'm a CO/NY customer, and I figured that someone on here would have an answer to a question that Cell One didn't. I was roaming in Montreal a few weeks ago, and before I left New York I called Cell One customer service who assured me that Montreal is a NACN city, with all the benefits that go with it. I was able to receive calls, but when attempting to dial out, I was attached to a live operator from CANTEL who said that there was some weird restriction indicator on my account (my account is current, so that's not the reason!). He said he'd never seen this situation on an American account before, and if there actually WAS a restriction on my account, I shouln't have been able to receive calls either. Weird, eh? It gets better. If I turned my phone off and dialed it from a landline, I got one of two things: A: My CO/NY voice mail. B: A French language "the cellular number you are trying to reach..." message. Upon returning to NY, I called CO/NY and the only explanation they had was that I was roaming on the wrong carrier (I hadn't changed the settings in my GE CT-700, and I had roamed without a problem in the past). If I _WAS_ roaming on the wrong side, why did I get auto-call delivery? CO/NY didn't have an answer. They did clue me in to *35/*350 to turn the feature on and off so that I could reach my voice mail, but I can't imagine what CANTEL would have done with _THAT_ code! Any ideas? Thanks! Stan ------------------------------ From: EAKER@RALVM29.VNET.IBM.COM (Clint Eaker) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 94 15:21:14 EDT Subject: Current Status of TAPI A little over a year ago, Intel/Microsoft published a preliminary spec for a Windows Telephony API (TAPI). A few months ago, they came out with a software developers kit, that was available over the net. Lately, I haven't heard a peep about TAPI. Are there any TAPI enabled applications out there yet? Are there TSPI drivers for any specific devices out there? Is there any development going on at all? I'd like to push for some TAPI development here in my area, but that's going to be hard to sell if it won't enable any existing or upcoming applications. ------------------------------ From: B.Anderson@loughborough.ac.uk Subject: Environmental Project Needs Telecom Help Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 15:21:15 GMT Reply-To: B.Anderson@loughborough.ac.uk Organization: Loughborough University of Technology Hi, I'm involved in setting up an environmental project to study Elephants and Rhino in Indonesia and we'd like the field team (way out in the forest -- nowhere near a fixed phone) to have telecoms access to the outside world. The prmary reason for this is so that the project can feed audio/video (via ???) and image/text (via email) reports from the field into the internet via a WWW server based here at LUTCHI in the UK. Eventually we'd like to try some 'live' video conferencing from here to the field team using things like Cu-SeeMe etc. I realise that this might be stretching things a bit but ...:-) So, we seem to have two options: 1. Satellite/PC (eg Inmarrsat B/M) direct to the UK or 2. Cell phone/PC feed into Inonesian telecoms structure and an Internet account somewhere. Has anyone out there tried a similar type of thing? Can TCP/IP applications be run over satellite/cell networks? Email or post here with any ideas would be gratefully appreciated. Cheers, Ben Anderson Department of Computer Studies Loughborough University Loughborough Leicestershire UK B.Anderson@lut.ac.uk ------------------------------ From: mwm+@A.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (Mark Maimone) Subject: Calling Philippines From Spain Cheaply? Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 04:45:04 GMT Can anyone recommend a service for calling the Philippines from Spain? A friend will need to make such calls (to family) many times over the summer, but unfortunately my US-based AT&T Universal Card doesn't cover calls based wholely outside the US. Thanks for any tips. Mark Maimone phone: +1 (412) 268 - 7698 Carnegie Mellon Computer Science email: mwm@cmu.edu WWW: http://www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/afs/cs/usr/mwm/ftp/www/HomePage.html ------------------------------ From: jim@reptiles.org (Jim Mercer) Subject: Re: Bell Canada Joins the 700 Club Organization: Reptilian Research, Toronto, Canada Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 13:07:55 -0400 In article , wrote: >> When 1 700 555 4141 is dialed from a Toronto phone, the following >> recording is heard: >> "Your provider of long distance service is Bell Canada. Thank you for >> choosing us. This is a recording... 416 11" > Not when I tried it just now from my home phone (416-488-XXXX). > I got as far as 1-700-5554 and at this point heard one ring followed > by "We're sorry. Your call cannot be completed as dialed ...". This > is particularly interesting since we haven't had 1 + seven digit > dialing in this area for several years now. I just tried it using our PBX in toronto. The attempt to dial using an 8 prefix (long distance) resulted in a fast busy from our PBX, probably because 700 is an invalid area code on our switch. I tried dialing 9,17005554141 and got the proper message. Jim Mercer Reptilian Research merce@iguana.reptiles.org +1 416 506-0654 ------------------------------ From: evan@telly.on.ca (Evan Leibovitch) Subject: Re: Bell Canada Joins the 700 Club Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 23:19:48 -0400 Organization: Somewhere just far enough out of Toronto Also works OK from my number, which is in 905. Reports "416 13" at the end. Evan Leibovitch, Sound Software Ltd., located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario evan@telly.on.ca / uunet!utzoo!telly!evan / (905) 452-0504 ------------------------------ From: fred@page6.pinetree.org (Fred Ennis) Subject: Re: Bell Canada Joins the 700 Club Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 09:47:23 -0400 Organization: Page 6, Ottawa, Ontario +1 613-723-5711 Dave.Leibold@f730.n250.z1.fidonet.org (Dave Leibold) writes: > When 1 700 555 4141 is dialed from a Toronto phone, the following > recording is heard: > "Your provider of long distance service is Bell Canada. Thank you for > choosing us. This is a recording... 416 11" From 613-723-xxxx I get the same recording with a 613 4 instead of the 416 11. Fred Ennis, fred@page6.pinetree.org ------------------------------ From: bapat@gate.net (Subodh Bapat) Subject: Re: Can I Use Deactivated Cellular Phone in Emergency? Date: 15 Jun 1994 03:43:43 -0400 > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The way to do this would be to install the > phone in your car *but not rely on it for emergency purposes* until after > a test or two had been made. DO NOT call 911 (or *999 or the zero operator > as the case may be in your community) just to test the phone. Just curious: in all E911 implementations, calling 911 supposedly automatic- ally and always sends the operator the calling number and physical address of the caller. What calling number would be passed if 911 were called from a *deactivated* cellular phone? Subodh Bapat bapat@gate.net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: It would send the same as it would if the phone *was* activated, namely whatever outgoing trunk was seized on the PBX-like switch of the cellular carrier. For example, although cellular calls to me report 'out of area' on a Caller-ID box, they return some weird number at the Illinois Bell central office when ANI is reported to an 800 subscriber (and I assume to 911). A cellular call to my 800 number gave ANI as a number in Bedford Park, IL. When I did a cross check of that number through 796-9600, the 'subscriber' was listed as 'Eye Bee Tee Company' at the street address where the CO is located. When I tried to call that number, it was intercepted saying the number was not in service for incoming calls. But in fact, dialing 911 from cellular here also returns an intercept that the call cannot be completed as dialed. "If this call is an emergency, please hang up and dial the operator." PAT] ------------------------------ From: doug@cc.ysu.edu (Doug Sewell) Subject: Re: "Re-readiating" Car Cellular Antennas Date: 15 Jun 1994 15:28:26 GMT Organization: Youngstown State University Greg Vaeth at General Instrument (gvaeth@netcom.com) wrote: > Does anyone have any experience with the car antennas that are to be > used with a hand-held or luggable cell phone? I mean the type that > does not actually connect to the phone, but looks like a normal cell > antenna on the outside, and has a little stub on the inside. The guy > at Radio Shack said they work great, but I would like "independent" > confirmation. I just switched from an older, starting-to-get-flaky transportable phone to a new Uniden hand-held phone. I only paid $40 for the phone, but the price of add-on options of any kind for the phone was out-of-this-world ($40 for a car power adapter ?!) I went to Radio Shack and looked at one of these antennas. I grudgingly shelled out the $45 it cost. This is as compared to roughly $30 for a wire-connect magnet base jobbie that I used for the transportable. I think it's terribly over-priced. Does it really work? I don't know. I still don't get the range I got with the transportable -- I've had long calls disconnected a few times as I moved from cell to cell, which rarely happened before. If I look at the signal strength meter, it appears to be stronger when the antenna is close to the re-radiator. One final word ... it has a tendency to want to get stuck in the window seal, staying in the top of the window even when you roll the window down partway. Your options are to put it on a window you don't open much (my back driver's side window fits this), or keep the window open "a crack" so that it doesn't get stuck. Otherwise you'll be un-sticking it and re-clipping it every time you open the window. Doug Sewell (doug@cc.ysu.edu) ------------------------------ From: johng@ecs.comm.mot.com (John Gilbert) Subject: Re: "Re-readiating" Car Cellular Antennas Organization: Motorola, LMPS Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 18:30:14 -0500 In article , gvaeth@netcom.com (Greg Vaeth at General Instrument) wrote: > Does anyone have any experience with the car antennas that are to be > used with a hand-held or luggable cell phone? I mean the type that > does not actually connect to the phone, but looks like a normal cell > antenna on the outside, and has a little stub on the inside. The guy > at Radio Shack said they work great, but I would like "independent" > confirmation. Unless your vehicle is extremly well RF shielded (a battle tank with the hatches closed), it probably won't do anything for you. High coupling losses from the phone to the inside antenna aren't compensated for by the 3 db of gain the outside antenna provides. Use a cable between the radio and the outside antenna. You will have much better results. John Gilbert johng@ecs.comm.mot.com KA4JMC ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 12:56:58 GMT From: Ross E Mitchell Subject: Correction: Uniformed and Uninformed A note from Ross Mitchell arrived shortly after he sent me the article on 'Caller-ID With a New Twist' which appeared in an issue of the Digest earlier today. He had accidentally left a typo in the article and the (correct) phrase 'uninformed caller' became 'uniformed caller' in error. He caught it in time, and I caught it in time ... but put it on the side to be fixed 'later'. Then the article got printed anyway. I feel like such an idiot some days ... and today is one of them. Errors like that get to be very annoying. So, sorry Ross, yes you caught it and told me. I then promptly forgot about it and to compound matters missed it in the proofreading. Ross also mentioned that his article for Tech Review will be published in the October, 1994 issue which will be out in mid/late September if anyone is interested. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #289 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa25568; 16 Jun 94 4:25 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA02429; Thu, 16 Jun 94 00:26:16 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA02420; Thu, 16 Jun 94 00:26:14 CDT Date: Thu, 16 Jun 94 00:26:14 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406160526.AA02420@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #290 TELECOM Digest Thu, 16 Jun 94 00:26:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 290 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Ontario Announces Support For LARG*net (Joan McCalla) CSPA Annual Conference - Software Superhighway 2000 (Daniel Ho) Automated Test Equipment Wanted (Leroy Casterline) Help Wanted With Intellepath ii (Gary Merinstein) Telecom Services in Chile (Stacy L. Millions) Where to Find Bid For Cellular Network Implementation? (Konrad Weigl) Questions About Scrambling (Stuart Whitmore) Looking For Information on E&M Tie Lines (Anthony Walker) Seeking NJ Based Telco People (AFC Chip) Help Needed With Wincomm Pro (Rob Lesan) Re: Pager on a Watch? (Matt Holdrege) Re: Pager on a Watch? (Ry Jones) Re: Pager on a Watch? (Kim Prisk) Re: Pager on a Watch? (Mark Crispin) Re: Forwarding and PacBell (Steve Cogorno) Re: Call Waiting (Jeffrey W. McKeough) Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway (Robert Casey) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: mccallj@gov.on.ca (Joan McCalla) Subject: Ontario Announces Support For LARG*net Organization: Government of Ontario Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 04:28:59 GMT June 13, 1994 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND TRADE MINISTER LANKIN ANNOUNCES $2.1 MILLION SUPPORT FOR LARG*net PROGRAM LONDON -- Ontario Economic Development and Trade Minister Frances Lankin today announced Ontario Network Infrastructure Program (ONIP) funding of $2.163 million to establish LARG*net (London and Region Global Network), a local initiative that will create a leading-edge medical image and telecommunications network and create long-term jobs in the community. The Minister was joined by Middlesex MPP Irene Mathyssen and London South MPP David Winninger and representatives from six local health care and research organizations. "This initiative, which will create at least eight new high-skill, long-term jobs in its first year, will provide shared access to a wide variety of resources, including teaching cases, patient care information and image processing, for doctors and other health care professionals as well as medical students," said Ms. Lankin. The project partners include Victoria Hospital, St. Joseph's Health Centre, University Hospital, the University of Western Ontario, the John P. Robarts Research Institute and Fanshawe College. LARG*net will establish a high speed metropolitan network linking these London-based participants. "In addition to enhancing the level of information and service available to the health care community, LARG*net will save time and money for hospitals, medical residents and graduate students," said London Centre MPP Marion Boyd. "Investing in projects like LARG*net is important for the economic well-being of the province, creating jobs for the future and putting Ontario back to work." Added Mr. Winninger: "For residents of London, this project means heightened health care services. And by working in partnership with the Ontario Government, the health care communities are demonstrating their commitment to build on London's solid reputation as an international centre for clinical care, research, teaching and medical imaging." "LARG*net will be a key entry point to the information highway for many Ontario organizations," said Mrs. Mathyssen. "At the same time, this technology, with its great international export potential, confirms the position of London as a centre for telecommunications excellence and will serve to attract increasing amounts of high tech investment to the London area." "LARG*net presents the collective expertise that London, Ontario possess in terms of telecommunications, health care delivery and education," said Dr. Trevor Cradduck, General Manager, LARG*net. "As we respond to the fiscal constraints of the 1990s it is my belief that LARG*net will provide a cohesive link between the health care and educational institutions to facilitate their collaboration. "We are witnessing the dawn of the information revolution and it is very exciting for those of us in London to be there at the forefront. There is every reason to presume the leadership displayed by London in this activity will attract high technology investment from industries who will find the concept of a networked city very valuable." Said Dr. Howard Rundle, Acting President, Fanshawe College: "Fanshawe College is pleased to be part of this project to allow us to access the usefulness of this technology in the educational process with our health care students located in various hospitals. In the longer range, we will be accessing its value in enhancing our distance education programs." "LARG*net builds upon a strong existing partnership between Bell Canada and the London medical community," said Robert Campbell, Vice President of Network Operations in Bell Ontario. "This project provides a valuable test bed for the ATM technology. The potential for multimedia applications in the health care and education sectors is significant. "Bell is working closely with the LARG*net community to develop and expand the "Virtual Hospital" environment. The demands for these types of applications are growing every day. It's exciting to be involved in this one." An initiative under the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade's Ontario Network Infrastructure Program (ONIP), LARG*net will be established over the next four years at a total cost of $5.5 million and will become self-sufficient at the end of the third year. The Ontario Government's contribution represents 40 per cent of the total project cost. A jobsONTARIO Capital program, ONIP was announced in February, 1993 as an economic renewal initiative under the province's telecommun- ications strategy, with a four-year commitment of $100 million. "Today's announcement is one of several initiatives we have undertaken to promote the future growth of many sectors of the economy, such as telecommunications and the health industry," added Ms. Lankin. "We are working with various sectors to help them become more competitive and create the high skill, long term jobs of the future. We are doing this by bringing together key players from industry, labour, government and public institutions to deal with key issues. "The sector development approach spurs ideas into action and underscores the international marketing potential of Ontario firms. It boosts innovation, raises skill levels and increases technological capabilities." Currently, the Ontario Government is working with more than 1,500 representatives from 20 sectors, including health care, aerospace, computing, retail and telecommunications, to develop strategies and implement recommendations to make each sector stronger. --------------- Contacts: Lucy Rybka-Becker, Minister's Office (416) 325-6909 John Cooper, Marketing & Public Affairs Branch (416) 325-6694 -------------- BACKGROUNDER LARG*net (LONDON AND REGION GLOBAL NETWORK) ~ LARG*net is a high speed telecommunications network that enables universities, colleges, teaching hospitals and research institutions to access and share a wide variety of medical resources, including teaching cases, patient care information and image processing. ~ LARG*net will build on London medical institutions as a global centre for excellence in medical imaging and health care delivery. ~ Total cost: $5.5 million. ~ Job creation: eight high-skill, long-term jobs in the first year of the project. ~ Ontario Government share: $2.163 million (40 per cent). ~ LARG*net is an unincorporated organization including membership from large teaching and research hospitals and institutions in London: Victoria Hospital, St. Joseph's Health Centre, University Hospital and the University of Western Ontario, the John P. Robarts Research Institute and Fanshawe College. ~ Over the life of the project, the network will be extended to other medical facilities in the region. ~ The LARG*net team members will partner with a number of vendor companies to obtain support, including Bell Ontario, Sun Microsystems and 3M. ~ LARG*net will include three major activities: ~ developing a network; ~ testing telecommunications technologies over the network; ~ testing applications which use the information technologies effectively over a network. ~ LARG*net will develop a high speed Metropolitan Area Network in London to link the participating health care facilities and research institutions so that members can share information electronically. ~ A long-term goal of LARG*net will be to provide London-area businesses, health services, educational and other organizations with world class networking services. ----------- BACKGROUNDER ONTARIO NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE PROGRAM (ONIP) BACKGROUND ~ In February 1993, the Ontario Government announced a comprehensive multi-year telecommunications strategy to promote Ontario's lead position as a place to live, work, learn, and do business through telecommunications. ~ Within this strategy, $100 million in funding was announced for the four-year Ontario Network Infrastructure program (ONIP). ~ A jobsOntario Capital program, ONIP focuses on long-term infrastructure investment to support the restructuring of the provincial economy. ~ ONIP invites applications from Ontario-based groups with established needs: users, information and telecommunication service providers, network service providers and public bodies. ~ ONIP has received more than 200 inquiries resulting in over 50 initiatives under development. Approval has been made for 14 projects with two additional projects currently under review. ASSISTANCE ~ ONIP provides funds for feasibility studies and business plans up to 75 per cent of eligible costs up to a grant maximum of $75,000. ~ ONIP also provides network implementation project assistance: up to 50 per cent of eligible costs for implementation networks and services for up to three years. PURPOSE ~ The purpose of ONIP is to accelerate long-term development and use of a modern, advanced information infrastructure. Its objectives include: ~ increasing access to an advanced information infrastructure through Ontario; ~ accelerating the development of high capacity, inter-operable networks; ~ stimulating development of network-related products and services, resulting in new business opportunities and increased exports; ~ increasing the number of network users with the knowledge and ability to obtain and use information; ~ leveraging increased investment in Ontario information infrastructure; ~ stimulating growth in Ontario expertise and knowledge in the development, management and operation of advanced networks. ~ The initial network priorities for ONIP include education and training, health care, community and advanced technology. ~ The Ontario Government's Council for an Ontario Information Infrastructure supports and promotes the provincial telecommunications strategy, including recommending ONIP priorities and reviewing ONIP applications. ------------------------------ From: danielho@netcom.com (Daniel Ho) Subject: CSPA Annual Conference - Software Superhighway 2000 Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 20:32:44 GMT ------------------------------- | 1994 CSPA Annual Conference | ------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------- | "A Magical Tour Down Software Superhighway 2000" | ---------------------------------------------------- June 18, 1994 12:00 noon - 5:00 pm Registration at 11:00 am Santa Clara Marriott Fee: CSPA member : $10 Non CSPA member : $15 Speakers ======== Wei Yen, VP of Silicon Graphics Sherman Ting, VP of Oracle Corporation Patrick Lanthier, Director of Public Policy & Technology of Pacific Bell Jay Marty Tenenbaum, CEO of Enterprise Integration Technologies Dr. H.K. Huang, UCSF Vice Chairman of Radiological Information Lab Fred Greguras, Partner of Fenwick & West Topics ====== * Information Highway : Hype or Real? * Architecture and Infrastructure of Superhighway * Concerns and Strategies of the big players * Business opportunities for software developers * Demonstrations * Door Prizes Drawings at 2:30pm and 4:30pm * Members of AAMA, CBA, CINA, and Monte Jade eligible for a discounted entry fee of $10, and CSPA members who renew their '94 membership at the door receive a futher $5 discount off Member registration fee. ------------------------------ From: casterli@csn.org (Leroy Casterline) Subject: Automated Test Equipment Wanted Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 14:47:26 -0600 Organization: Cahill Casterline Limited Reply-To: casterli@csn.org I am looking for sources for automated test equipment for the multi-line telecom products that we produce. Ideally, the equipment would be programmable from a PC via a serial connection, and would provide battery, ring voltage, standard and user-definable multi-frequency tones, DTMF generation and detection, the ability to play voice files, and support 24 to 48 ports simultaneously. I believe that such a system could be built from Dialogic (or other) boards, but would like to avoid reinventing the wheel if at all possible. I'm just beginning to think about this area of our development, and am open to any and all suggestions, and to equipment which does not meet all of the above criteria. Thanks, Leroy ------------------------------ From: gmerin@panix.com (Gary Merinstein) Subject: Help Wanted With Intellepath ii Date: 14 Jun 1994 23:23:43 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC At my new employer we have an Intellepath ii Centrex phone system (connected by RJ-45 plugs). I need to connect modems and answering machines to this system. Do I need a special device to convert between standard analog devices and this system or do I just need some custom cable (with RJ-10 and RJ-45 jacks on opposing ends)? gmm gmerin@panix.com mci: 489-6979 ci$ 74035,1232 ------------------------------ From: stacy@sobeco.com (Stacy L. Millions) Subject: Telecom Services in Chile Organization: Sobeco Ernst & Young Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 11:47:49 GMT Hello, It would seem that I may soon have to come up with a method of providing data connectivity between a company here in Canada and another in Chile. I have no idea what to expect to find in Chile in terms of telecom services, or who would provide them. Can some one shed some light on this for me? Do you know of any commercial IP providers in Chile? stacy@sobeco.com Stan Kelly-Bootle stacy@sobeco.ca sobeco!stacy ------------------------------ From: weigl@sibelius.inria.fr (Konrad Weigl) Subject: Where to Find Bid For Cellular Network Implementation? Date: 15 Jun 1994 14:19:14 GMT Organization: INRIA, Sophia-Antipolis (Fr) Title says it all. In which publication(s) would a national P.T.T. or other telecommunication agency publish an invitation to bid for the planning and implementation of a cellular phone network? For example, if Ghana decided it wanted to have a cellular phone network, where would it publish an invitation to bid, in order to reach all the companies worldwide that might be able to execute such a task? Please answer by email, since I cannot read this newsgroup regularly. Thanks in advance, Konrad Weigl Tel. +33 93 65 78 63 Projet Pastis Tel. +33 93 74 72 12 (Home, answering machine) INRIA Fax +33 93 65 76 43 B.P. 93 email weigl@sophia.inria.fr 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex France ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 11:38:49 -0700 From: whitmore@tahoma.cwu.edu (Rattlesnake Stu) Subject: Questions About Scrambling Organization: Central Washington University Has anyone used scrambler/descrambler setups? I'd like to know how well they work. Do they interfere with signal quality (could they be used on a data line)? Is the scrambled signal relatively easy for a third party (shady competing business, Big Brother, etc.) on a wiretap to descramble? Are they based on accoustic input/output or in-line? Just curious -- I have no need for such a device, but they do pique my curiosity. E-mailed replies will be summarized if appropriate. Stuart Whitmore, whitmore@tahoma.cwu.edu ------------------------------ From: ant@iaccess.za (Anthony Walker) Subject: Looking For Information on E&M Tie Lines Date: 15 Jun 1994 14:11:12 GMT Organization: Internet Access public-access service I am looking for information on E&M tie lines. Does a system exist whereby I can hook up my E&M PABX via a data line to a remote telephone line and use the remote line as if it were oin the PABX? Failing that, does anyone have any more info on how the E&M standard works? Thanks, please reply in email, robin@ilink.nis.za ------------------------------ From: afcchip@aol.com (AFC Chip) Subject: Seeking NJ Based Telco People Date: 15 Jun 1994 15:08:05 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Are there any NJ based telco people participating in this newsgroup, like AT+T, Bell Labs, etc? If so, could you please let me know here, or email me? Thanks, Chip ------------------------------ From: rob.lesan@cccbbs.cincinnati.oh.us (Rob Lesan) Subject: Help Needed With Wincomm Pro Date: Wed, 15 Jun 94 21:59:00 -0500 Organization: Cincinnati Computer Connection - Cincinnati, OH - 513-752-1055 Reply-To: rob.lesan@cccbbs.cincinnati.oh.us (Rob Lesan) Does anyone know of any neat programs for Wincomm Pro? I don't have access to Internet ftp so it would have to be on a BBS. I would also need the phone number of the BBS. Thanks in advance, Rob Lesan ------------------------------ From: Urban Surfer Subject: Re: Pager on a Watch? Reply-To: matt@phs.com Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 15:13:41 PST Organization: Pacificare_Health_Systems jcr@creator.nwest.mccaw.com (Jeffrey Rhodes) writes: > Seiko is offering the Seiko Receptor. This is an alphanumeric pager > that receives messages and time adjustments from a Stratum 1 atomic > clock (every thirty minutes). FM subcarriers are used, so some > messages get missed while in a tunnel or basement. I asked Motorola about NTP for pagers and they gave a long explanation about how they would have to redesign the transmission equipment and have fancy schemes for clock drift. They didn't make it sound doable in the near term. I hope that Seiko can push Motorola and the paging services to offer this. Matt Holdrege matt@phs.com MH235 ------------------------------ From: rjones@chinook.halcyon.com (Ry Jones) Subject: Re: Pager on a Watch? Date: 16 Jun 1994 00:55:02 GMT Organization: Northwest Nexus Inc. I don't recall who offers it, but in 206 you can buy a pager watch (I think it's a Casio) for like $140, with six months service. The downside, as mentioned, is fragility. The watch is called the Receptor. You get stock reports, etc, and it has the ability to get pages. It's available at (I think) Mervyn's. Our Esteemed Moderator noted: > I think when you travel around the USA (or most of the world, if the > radio signals go that far) you will still have to advance or retard > your watch manually for the correct hour. If I stand corrected on > this, let me know. PAT] Yes, perhaps true, but minutes and seconds would not work in the Newfoundland time zone, with is 1/2 hour off. Check it on your NPA map in your phone book; the clock over the diamond for Newfoundland it set to 1/2 hour off. rjones@halcyon.com ------------------------------ From: Kim Prisk Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 03:37:17 GMT Subject: Subject: Re: Pager on a Watch? Organization: The University of Auckland 6/15/94 - Scott Coleman wrote: > I once tried to track down the writwatch pager. It does exist, but > none of the paging companies around here seems to want to carry > them ..." I was wondering if this type of watch might also be useful for lawyers? Kim Prisk ------------------------------ From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: Pager on a Watch? Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 18:39:02 -0700 Organization: University of Washington Seiko sells their Receptor watches in the Portland and Seattle metropolitan areas. I'm not sure if they are offered in any other areas. I have one. ------------------------------ From: cogorno@netcom.com (Steve Cogorno) Subject: Re: Forwarding and PacBell Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 19:29:17 PDT Steve Cogorno said: > We'll see. TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, two hours has passed. Heck, a full > day has passed by the time this is in circulation on the net. Got any > followup report for us? PAT] Call 5) Well, a call to 611 last night revealed that I didn't even have call forwarding at all; the Repair tech couldn't pull up the history file, so there was nothing she could do. She said she would take care of it today. Call 6) Called at 11:30, and they said "We re-placed the order when you called this morning. It should be on now." I didn't call this morning. We aren't sure who, but someone wrote an order at 9:48AM this morning -- I didn't request it, so we don't know who did. Call 6.5) Then a 611 repair tech called and said "I am calling to see if we can't get your phone working for you. Hold on a sec. No it isn't working. Give me a few minutes." Last I heard from him. Call 7) Called at 3:30. Still wasn't working. The rep was very nice, and after re-explaining the WHOLE mess, she said "The order from 9:48 this morning was written correctly. I don't know why it hasn't been completed. I'll check with installation ... it seems they were having a bit of trouble down there -- all of these orders [SC: I think there were six total] were confusing them. I have a system programmer working on it right now. If it isn't working by 5, please call repair. It is finally working. When did Busy/No Answer forwarding get to be so difficult? I'm just glad that I don't have THREE lines :-) Steve cogorno@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: jwm@student.umass.edu (Jeffrey W. McKeough) Subject: Re: Call Waiting Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 17:33:41 -0400 Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst In article , Brett Frankenberger wrote: > Depends on the switch ... Of the two major digital switches (DMS and > 5ESS), one of the two (and I can't recall which one) allows you to > dial through the stutter dial tone and the other does not ... My line is on a 5ESS, and I am able to dial through the stutter dial tone. My modem refused to recognize the stutter tone as a dial tone, but I fixed that by increasing the wait-for-tone-before-dialing parameter from two to ten seconds. No problem now. Jeffrey W. McKeough jwm@student.umass.edu ------------------------------ From: wa2ise@netcom.com (Robert Casey) Subject: Re: U.S. Postal Service and the Information Highway Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 23:51:47 GMT TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > There is a considerable amount of personal unhappieness among USPS > employees over the entire country. What other organization has had > three instances of employees turning into mass-murderers on the job > and killing several co-workers on the spot, ie, Highland Park, > Michigan a few years ago and Enid, Oklahoma a few years ago to name > two examples? A few years ago, a rather nasty incident happened in the Rigdewood, NJ post office. Another mass shooting, if memory serves. Does the post office figure, that out of (what) 100 thousand or so employees, you'll get a few nuts who shoot up the place? Maybe they consider it just some random "noise" in the system? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, to hear Mr. Runyan discuss it, USPS officials are quite concerned. You may have read about the latest developments here in Chicago: On Tuesday they appointed an entirely new crew at the very top. New postmaster, new operations manager, etc. We shall see if things improve here as a result of the housecleaning. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #290 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa26081; 16 Jun 94 5:41 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA03409; Thu, 16 Jun 94 01:45:02 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA03400; Thu, 16 Jun 94 01:45:00 CDT Date: Thu, 16 Jun 94 01:45:00 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406160645.AA03400@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #291 TELECOM Digest Thu, 16 Jun 94 01:45:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 291 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Problem Reaching Emergency Services in UK (Jonathan Haruni) Motorola and Grupo Protexa (Alex Cena) Cell Service on Long Beach Island NJ (Gerry Moersdorf) Voice Mail Vendors Wanted (Paul S. Malone) Telephony Interfaces (Sean McLinden) Question About SMDS (Matthias Plass) Digital to Analog Converters (Gary Merinstein) International Long Distance Carrier Information Wanted (Umar M. Badeges) Mobile Phones and the Cancer Scare (Craig OShannessy) Re: My Company's Phone System Lets Me Use "Wrong" Lines (Paul Lee) Re: My Company's Phone System Lets Me Use "Wrong" Lines (John Navitsky) Where to Buy Telephone Line Simulators? (Mervyn Quah) Re: International Callback Services (Leroy Casterline) Re: International Callback Services (Ron Wright) Re: Calling Card Suggestion (Robert L. McMillin) Re: Personal 800 Number Availability (Rick Brown) Re: Information Wanted on GSM in US (David S. Rose) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jharuni@london.micrognosis.com (Jonathan Haruni) Subject: Problem reaching emergency services in UK Date: 15 Jun 1994 13:31:44 GMT Organization: Micrognosis International, London A couple of weeks ago I came home to find my house had been robbed. I tried calling 999 (emergency), but got a continuous tone (number unobtainable or system error). I checked to make sure I had a normal dial tone, and tried again. Then I tried 150 (operator), but got the same result. Then I looked up the number of the police station in the phone book, and tried them -- no problem. Afterwards I also called 155 (repair service) to report the problem with 999 and 150, and I got through to the repair service -- no problem. They phoned me back a day later and told me that the problem had been rectified. But I was not satisfied. Apparently normal phone service was available, with all my normal calls completed and no trouble with incoming calls. Only two numbers didn't work, and one of them was the emergency number! How am I supposed to have any faith in my ability to reach 999 if necessary? If I hear smoke alarms or intruders in the middle of the night, I'm not going to go searching for the phone book! It turns out that 150 and 999 are one and the same service in the UK. The British Telecom operator answers emergency calls, takes the details, and puts them through to the appropriate emergency service, along with the calling number ID. So I was assured by BT that if I could reach 150, I could also reach 999. But I wanted to make sure. I wanted to test a call to the emergency number. They said I could arrange this by dialing 150 and warning them. So I did, but the operators said they could not arrange such a call. I should just trust them, that if I could reach 150, I could reach 999. But I persisted, and finally, after many consultations with managers and their managers, they told me that they could not arrange anything, but if I just called 999 and explained the situation, it would be ok. So I did, and it was. But I was still not satisfied. I want to know, with full certainty, that as long as I have phone service, I can reach the emergency number. I want to know that whatever problem existed in my exchange which prevented me calling 999/150, was not just "cleared" but that the cause of the problem was removed. I doubt that is the case, but I have had no joy in pursuing this issue with BT. I suspect that the exchange technicians merely reset something or other which had gone wrong, but that the same thing could go wrong again and I would never know. Any advice on how to pursue this problem would be greatly appreciated. Jonathan Haruni ------------------------------ From: Alex Cena Subject: Motorola and Grupo Protexa Date: Thu, 16 Jun 94 00:09:34 EST A Rueters news article indicated that Motorola and Grupo Protexa have signed an agreement to create a $6 billion telecommunications firm that will offer a variety of services, including cellular, long distance, PCN, data transmission and rural telephony, subject to Mexican government approval. Does anyone know what role if any Motorola's WiLL or fixed wireless applications will play in this deployment? Thanks in advance, Alex M. Cena, Lehman Brothers, acena@lehman.com ------------------------------ From: gerry@aisun.aiinet.com (Gerry Moersdorf) Subject: Cell Service on Long Beach Island NJ? Date: 15 Jun 1994 10:45:07 -0400 Organization: Applied Innovation, Inc. Reply-To: gerry@aiinet.com Does anyone know if there is cellular telephone service on Long Beach Island, NJ? Gerry Moersdorf --- Applied Innovation Inc gerry@aiinet.com 614-798-2000 Dublin, Ohio 43017 The datacom pbx guys ------------------------------ From: Paul S Malone Reply-To: Paul S Malone Subject: Voice Mail Vendors Wanted Date: Tue, 14 Jun 1994 13:37:36 EDT I am trying to find a list of voice mail providers out in the industry. The types of vendors I am looking for are like Tigon. Tigon is a voice mail vendor which sells messaging products, like voice mail and fax mail, to anyone who wants to buy them. They are switch independant meaning you don't need a PBX or a CO which supports them. If anyone knows of a vendor like this please forward there name to me, thanks. Paul Malone pmalone@gmu.edu ------------------------------ From: Sean McLinden Subject: Telephony Interfaces Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 10:47:49 -0400 Organization: Sponsored account, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA I am looking for interface card which supports multiline (8-16-32) voice interface to a PC or Mac-based system and which has an API for programming (basically a digital dictation system). There are commercial systems out there but they are ridiculously expensive and programmatically poor. Help is appreciated. Thanks, Sean McLinden ------------------------------ From: plass@morisot.uni-paderborn.de (Matthias Plass) Subject: Question About SMDS Date: 14 Jun 1994 13:55:33 GMT Organization: Uni-GH Paderborn, Germany Hello! I have a question about SMDS (over DQDB). With DS3 you have a busbitrate of 44.736 MBit/s on BOTH busses. As I understand it, SMDS uses only ONE time 44.736 MBit/s for selling to it's subscribers. The reason for this is that else it might be, that congestion would occur, if stations with a sum of credit > 45 MBit would send in one destination. Am I right? If here is anyone, who can help me, please e-mail me! (I am not reading this group regularly.) Thanks in advance! Matthias Plass (plass@uni-paderborn.de) ------------------------------ From: gmerin@panix.com (Gary Merinstein) Subject: Digital to Analog Converters Date: 14 Jun 1994 23:26:46 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC I used to install a device called a "dees box" to connect analog devices (modems, answering machines, etc.) to digital pbx systems (eg. Northern Telecom). I now need a new source. Does anyone know of vendors (or the manufacturer's phone number) for this device? gmerin@panix.com mci: 489-6979 ci$ 74035,1232 ------------------------------ From: ubadeges@mason1.gmu.edu (Umar M Badeges) Subject: International Long Distance Carrier Information Wanted Date: 15 Jun 1994 14:50:02 GMT Organization: George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA I am new to the Internet and I need information on long distance international carriers. The questions I have: 1 How big is the industry in terms of revenue, and connect time? 2 Who are the players? Domestic and international, what are their share of the revenue and connect time. Who are the management team of these players? Company profile such as history, growth, their strength and weaknesses, and how do they meet challenges and opportunities in this industry. 3 What are the marketing strategy these players, such as what product or service is offered, promotion and advertisement policy, pricing, etc. 4 What is the customer profile of this industry? 5 What is the key success factor, what factors needed to be extremely well. 6 I am trying to look at the industry from the management's point of view. 7 If anybody can suggest book or mail me article in this subject, I will appreciate it. Please response by e-mail to ubadeges@mason1.gmu.edu. Thank you in anticipation of your response. ------------------------------ From: craigo@kralizec.zeta.org.au (Craig OShannessy) Subject: Mobile Phones and the Cancer Scare Date: 16 Jun 1994 00:24:03 +1000 Organization: Kralizec Dialup Unix Sydney: +61-2-837-1183 V.42bis Whatever happened to the scare about mobile phones and the intense microwaves giving you cancer? This was in the Australian news some time back for a few days, then it just dissapeared. Does anyone know what the latest is on this? Craig O'Shannessy >>>==================> craigo@kralizec.zeta.org.au [] ------------------------------ From: Paul A. Lee Subject: Re: My Company's Phone System Lets Me Use "Wrong" Lines Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 23:50:00 CDT Organization: Woolworth Corporation In {TELECOM Digest} Volume 14 Issue 284, Robert Casey wrote: > Today, in a meeting, he mentions about phone call procedure. "Use the '8' > lines for long distance, '9' for local". I had been doing it the other way > around, because other places I've worked used "9" for LD, "8" for local. In my own experience, I've seen the "9" for local and "8" for LD arrangement more often. Of course, that's experience from ten or fifteen years ago. Anymore, the common pattern seems to be "9" for outside, off-network, and "8" (or "8x") for (virtual) private network calls. > ... why did the PBX here let me complete LD calls on the wrong lines? Sloppy programming and/or an obsolescent switch. > "Didn't they tell you at new employee orientation?" "They told us tons > of stuff, like 401K's, and stock options, medical plans and a lot of > other crap". Phone use instructions -- when they differ from the most common "'9' for outside, extension number for inside, '0' for operator" -- should be *printed* on a phone system reference card, in a company directory, or in an office procedures manual. The writer described, but did not name, a Fortune 500 firm with 9000 employees. If all 9000 are served by the PBX being described, then I think they have a problem. They apparently do not publish a phone use guide. They also appear not to have any LCR (least-cost routing) or ARS (automatic route selection) in their switch. That could be because of an obsolescent switch, or because of poor programming due to ignorance of the features available, or because the "feature" was not "purchased" from a switch vendor that has the gall to charge an exorbitant extra cost for it. They evidently have a call accounting system, since the boss can learn how much billing accrued from a given phone. Call accounting is only one tool in telecommunications management, though. It sounds like more attention needs to be paid to other areas, like routing and carrier optimization, ARS/LCR configurations, and maybe management of the vendor/provider of the system. Of course, there's another possible explanation for the call accounting and costing capabilities coupled with the separate dialing access codes: Maybe your site has Centrex (Centranet/Centracom/Essex) service, instead of a PBX. If that's how your firm is handling a single geographic location with 9000 employees (my inference), then you really *do* have some telecommunications management problems! Paul A. Lee Voice 414 357-1409 Telecommunications Analyst FAX 414 357-1450 Woolworth Corporation CompuServe 70353,566 INTERNET ------------------------------ From: johnn@eskimo.com (John Navitsky) Subject: Re: My Company's Phone System Lets Me Use "Wrong" Lines Organization: Eskimo North (206) For-Ever Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 16:47:16 GMT Sometimes a company will have more than one long distance carrier. Typically they prefer one but have the other to access services/ numbers not available, or just in case. John Navitsky johnn@eskimo.com ------------------------------ From: mervyn@hk.net (Mervyn Quah) Subject: Where to Buy Telephone Line Simulators? Date: 15 Jun 1994 13:39:57 GMT Organization: Hong Kong Internet & Gateway Services, Wanchai, Hong Kong Hi everyone, Does anybody know where I can get equipment that will simulate regular phone connections (ie, dial tones and ring/busy signals)? We need about a dozen lines to run a suite of configuration tests on our multi-line fax server, but don't want to install 'real' phone lines just for this. Advanced features like introducing line noise and echoes would be a plus (although not necessary). Thanks in advance! Merv mervyn@hk.net ------------------------------ From: casterli@csn.org (Leroy Casterline) Subject: Re: International Callback Services Date: Mon, 13 Jun 1994 18:02:00 -0600 Organization: Cahill Casterline Limited Reply-To: casterli@csn.org In article , is written: > I had a friend ask me recently about a service I think I've seen > discussed here before -- international callback services that take > Ed Ed, One of my clients, Logotronix Communications, offers a callback service called GeoTel. Call 800/442-4887 and ask for Bill Taylor for more information. As to the legality, see my response to Pat below ... > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The legality of the callback services > is a gray-area. Maybe, maybe not. In any event, what Telepassport Actually, I believe that the FCC has ruled in favor of callback (or so the folks at Logotronix tell me). If you're interested, I can provide the text of the ruling, two pages in length. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I thought Logotronix sold and serviced the callback devices. I did not know they also offered a callback service. I got some literature from them at one point showing the devices they had for sale. Regards the FCC ruling on callback signals, yes, I would be interested in seeing it and I suspect other readers would be as well. Please send it along for publication here. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rwright@netcom.com (Ron Wright) Subject: Re: International Callback Services Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 13:43:00 PDT edswen@netcom.com (Ed Swenson) wrote: > ..... I'm mainly interested in finding out how to subscribe, > who offers such services, how they work, what they charge, etc. > They are legal, right? Although I'm sure some PTT's don't like them > too much ;-). ..... > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The legality of the callback services > is a gray-area. Maybe, maybe not. ..... I am a sales affiliate of MTC, a provider of telecommunication services which include international callback. First, to the legal question. Pat's correct. Until very recently the legallity of such services was considered by some to be questionable. However the May/June issue of {Computer TELEPHONY} carries an article by Tom Crowe which cites a recent FCC ruling -- three rulings actually -- that specifically granted applications of companies to provide "code calling" callback services. With "code calling" the customer direct dials a US number, lets it ring, then hangs up before the call is answered. The system then initiates a callback in one of two ways. Some systems assign a specific DID to each customer. Any call received on that line generates a callback to a specified number. Other systems capture the incoming ANI and return the call accordingly. "Code calling" systems were more vigorously opposed by AT&T than the other type of service, "completed-call" callback. The latter service actually answers the customer's call, prompts her to enter an account number and the number to be called back. This type service was not as offensive because someone was paying for the initial call. Usually the service provides for access through a toll-free number. How does one subscribe? There are frequent postings in the various forums related to telecom. And also an occasional posting to "biz.misc". Here are some questions you will want to ask: Rates, obviously. Ask for the specific rates for the countries you call. The rate for country A can be cheaper than the rate for country B for one service and less for another. Are the rates good 24 hours a day; if not what are the pricing periods, and are they governed by US or foreign time? Account Set Up Fees. Some services impose a fee. Others do not. And still others leave it up to the sales agent. As an example, I never charge a customer set up fees; some MTC sales reps do. Minimum Service Period. What are the limits on cancelling the service if you are displeased or if your need for that type service no longer exists? Billing Increments. Don't accept full minute billing increments. The norm these days is "six second increment" billing. This means that your charges will much more closely reflect the length of your call. You won't be billed for three minutes for a call of two minutes fifteen seconds. Detailed Statements. Most service providers bill your credit card periodically for the calls made in the billing period. They should also provide you with a detailed statement showing the particulars of each call made, date, time, number called, call duration, charges, etc. Activation Leadtime. I have seen references to some services requiring a customer to wait as long as a month to activate service. Activation should take place in days, not weeks. If a service provider does not have sufficient excess capacity to add new customers quickly, then I question whether it has sufficient capacity to handle the load of its existing customer base for peak loads. Ron Wright Technology Export Voice: +1 408 438 6076 An Authorized MTC Sales Affiliate Fax: +1 408 438 5827 113 San Augustine Way E-mail: rwright@netcom.com Scotts Valley, CA 95066 USA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: One problem that Telepassport (a division of US Fibercom and a big player in the international callback industry) had to deal with was the *huge* number of 'wrong number' and telemarketing 'blind calls' made to its DID numbers. People in the USA would call those numbers by accident and trigger a callback to an unsuspecting subscriber in Europe, sometimes in the middle of the night in Europe. Then there were the telemarketers, out to sell whatever they could to whoever they could using sequential dialing devices to ring one number after another. Maybe they were selling subscriptions to the San Jose newspaper for all I know. (John Higdon is probably grinning at that!) ... again, calls were being made to Telepassport subscribers at all sorts of odd times, and of course many subscribers blamed Telepassport for it all. Finally Telepassport tried to refine the way things were done. Since their switch generates the ringing tone heard by people calling their DID numbers, they told their subscribers to be certain to hang up during the first ring under the assumption that telemarketers and/or wrong number callers would at least let the line ring three or four times or more before giving up. That way, if it rang one time and no more, it was treated as a callback request; if it rang more than that the switch simply ignored it and forgot about it once the intruder disconnected. They also delayed the ringing tone long enough to give their subscribers a chance to disconnect as soon as they heard a couple of 'clicks' on the line, figuring most wrong number callers would be still hanging around when the ringing started. By golly, *even that was not enough* ... the number of idiots out there who dial, realize in a second or two that they dialed incorrectly and hang up -- but still generating that slight bit of one ring -- is immense. Then Telepassport tried using real obscure numbers from a very poor inner city neighborhood in a town in New Jersey (brought in to Manhattan by FX via Nynex). The assumption was probably there would be fewer wrong number calls to a 201 number, and most likely the telemarketers would have the neighborhood redlined against calls anyway. The last I heard, that approach had cut back on the spurious callbacks somewhat. Lower and central Manhattan must be a real bummer where wrong numbers are concerned. Are the other international callback providers having the same kinds of problems? PAT] ------------------------------ From: rlm@helen.surfcty.com (Robert L. McMillin) Subject: Re: Calling Card Suggestion Organization: Surf City Software/TBFW Project Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 01:17:51 GMT On 07 Jun 1994 05:47:37 PST, d92-sam@misfits.nada.kth.se (Sam Spens Clason) said: > In Bob Maccione > writes: >> With all of the calling card fraud going on out there I'm curious as >> to why the card companies don't issue cards that can't be used for >> international calls. It should be easy enough and if the user really >> needs to have access to international numbers they can add a level of >> country restrictions. So since all I call is the US I wouldn't have >> to worry about someone abusing my card (at least from the international >> level of abuse). A genuinely lame idea. Gee, you mean that I have to arrange -- in advance -- with my phone company to call Mexico? How about Canada? The UK? Minnesota? (Just kidding, Gopher State residents, just kidding ...) > How big a part of all calling card frauds could be avoided if the PIN > wasn't actually printed on the card?! A lot. But then, why bother with the card if you can't use it to make calls? I could understand not printing the number if we all had magnetic stripe readers built in to most phones, but that's not the case. > The calling card business is rather new here in Sweden (two years), > but still, we haven't had any frauds worth mentioning. I think it's > because of better security. It's probably because you have few immigrantes from El Salvador, Russia, and God-knows-where (a small island off Tierra Del Fuego :-) Seriously, this is why the telephone companies block international calling card calls: the 'call-sellers' who use stolen calling cards until they phone company gets wise and shuts down the card number and/or payphone the 'sellers' operate from. Robert L. McMillin | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Netcom: rlm@netcom.com Surf City Software | Purveying superior SCSI backup/utilities for the Mac Contact chris@surfcty.com for sales info. ------------------------------ From: rick@onramp.net (Rick Brown) Subject: Re: Personal 800 Number Availability Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 22:23:25 GMT Organization: Project Nemesis In article oppedahl@panix.com (Carl Oppedahl) writes: (Original conversation on how AT&T demands a physical address for 800 service snipped.) > I think what one must not overlook is that what AT&T (and Sprint, in > my experience) is very particular about is (1) asking the question, > (2) getting some sort of answer and (3) entering the answer into their > computer system. > I don't think that there is anything about how the 800 service works > that actually requires the customer to give a correct answer. Er, unless you consider billing you in a correct, legal manner as part of making the service work. The IXC wants to get a service address so they can calculate the state/local/etc. taxes on your bill correctly, or at least as best they can. To do the taxing correctly, you cannot assume that the billing address is the same as the service address, hence the questions. Now, if a customer wants to claim a particular place is the service address, it is not AT&T or Sprint's job to check whether you are lying. They will simply calculate the taxes based on the address you give and remit the money to the appropriate authorities. (If you say the service address is in New York, New York gets the tax money.) You could use one of the terminating physical telephone numbers the 800 number maps to do some kind of sanity checking, but even at that you are simply guessing. NPAs can cross states in border situations, and exchanges can be in multiple local jurisdictions. Not to mention "foreign exchange" lines which could conceivably be dropped anywhere. Even with your physical address, the IXC may still have to ask which county you live in since some zip codes cross county lines. I think it is fair to say that this business of determining a service address for taxing purposes is a messy one for an IXC, but it has to at least try to do it. (Otherwise auditors start asking uncomfortable questions.) Rick Brown rick@onramp.net ------------------------------ From: dsr@delphi.com Subject: Re: Inormation Wanted on GSM in US Date: Wed, 15 Jun 94 23:06:09 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) writes: > Does anybody know if there is any activities in GSM for US? Is > anyone working on implementing GSM or any Deviations of GSM in US? The US equivalent of GSM is MIRS/ESMR, the Enhanced Specialized Mobile Radio service just beginning to be rolled out by some of the major SMR carriers. The networks are based on the MIRS system by Motorola, and are to some extent interoperable with GSM. The network features include the interconnect (aka 'cellular') point to point voice, Short Message Service alphanumeric text messaging and binary packet data of GSM, plus a push-to-talk private voice service (similar to traditional SMR) for the US market. There has been an _enormous_ amount of activity in this area, with the three largest carriers covering something like 98% of the entire US. The largest of them, Nextel, just got a $1.3 billion infusion from MCI, on top of many hundreds of millions from Motorola, Northern Telcom and others. David S. Rose Ex Machina, Inc. (Developers of wireless communications software) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #291 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa26331; 16 Jun 94 6:16 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA04364; Thu, 16 Jun 94 02:42:01 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA04355; Thu, 16 Jun 94 02:41:59 CDT Date: Thu, 16 Jun 94 02:41:59 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406160741.AA04355@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #292 TELECOM Digest Thu, 16 Jun 94 02:42:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 292 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: x.25 and Internet (Lars Poulsen) Re: More Sneaky MCI Marketing (Ry Jones) Re: More Sneaky MCI Marketing (defantom@aol.com) Re: Does MCI Have Answer Supervision? (Bob Schwartz) Re: Answering Machine Recommendations Wanted (Mark E. Daniel) Re: Centrex - Good/Bad? (rkprkp@aol.com) Re: CellularOne/Detroit Announces Rate Change (Matthew Scott Weisberg) Re: How to Get White Pages Data From GTE? (Steven Bradley) Re: Calling Card Suggestion (Gordon Burditt) Re: Four-wire to Five-wire Adapter to Use US Modem in England? (M McCrohan) Re: Privacy on Rolm Switch (Kevin Mayeux) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 16 Jun 94 00:43:42 +0200 From: lars@eskimo.CPH.RNS.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: x.25 and Internet Organization: CMC Network Products, Copenhagen DENMARK In article of TELECOM Digest, Min Hu writes: > I am wondering if there is any free gateway between X.25 network and > Internet. Specifically speaking, a friend of mine has account in the > X.25 network -- DATAPAC, a X.25 network in Canada. I have an account > on an Internet machine. I want to transfer some files to him, but do > not know if there is a gateway between DATAPAC and the Internet so > that he can log into my system. The relationship between X.25 networks and the Internet are rather complex. The technologies overlap and intertwine in ways that make the question less obvious to us insiders than to the questioner. With the moderator's permission, I will take this opportunity to ramble a little about these relationships. X.25 is a protocol description for an interface between a (multi-user) computer system, and a network switch, allowing multiple independent sessions between the computer system and one or more other computer systems on the same network, or on another, similar network connected with the first through gateways (implemented according to the X.75 specification). Using the X.25 and X.75 specifications, a true internet (in the sense of a network of interconnected networks providing service between clients on different nets) was quickly established around the world on the 1978-1985 time frame. But what most people are referring to, when they talk about X.25 network access, is something else, technically called the PAD (Packet Assembly and Disassembly) function. One of the most common functions in any multiuser system is the establishment of a session for an interactive user at a terminal. Various computer manufacturers had come up with unique terminals that could only be used with computers from that manufacturer, but with the slow and steady spread of minicomputers, a less funtional, somewhat standardized class of asynchronous "ASCII" terminals became dominant in the market, and a set of adjuncts to X.25 (called X.3, X.28 and X.29) described how the sessions between such terminals and a networked computer system could be transported over X.25 connections in an interoperable way. Since the network transported packets, while the terminals dealt only with single characters, the interface function was defined as "the Packed Assembly and Disassembly function" and a specialized minicomputer that performed only this function was called a PAD (pronounced as a word). Many network operators installed such PADs equipped with a bank of dialup modems in conjunction with their packet switches, thereby allowing major customers operating centralized computer centers to use these modem banks as remote access points for their mainframe systems. About the same time as X.25 networks were being defined, it had become commonplace in the distributed computing environments of business, to share the use a single (modem) connection between multiple terminals using a concentrator device called a statistical multiplexer. This would allow the use of four to eight terminals running at 2400 bps over a single (leased) line running at 4800 bps. Or four to eight terminals running at 1200 bps over a dial-up line at 2400 bps. Such an arrangement would work quite well, by taking advantage of the ability to interleave traffic from one session in the pauses of another session. Thus the term "statistical" multiplexer: In the long run it evens out. So long as the same model of device was used at each end of the link, each manufacturer could -- and would -- use its own encoding scheme between them. It was a short leap to implement these multiplexers to use the X.29 protocol between them; this lowered the cost of PADs to the point where many companies built internal X.25 networks to carry their terminal traffic, which the added side benefit that they could simultaneously connect to the world-wide X.25 network. The Internet was being built at the same time, and as it was growing under the supervision of the US Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) it was decided that the initial host-computer interface (BBN-1822) was too expensive, because it was unique, it was decided to offer an X.25 interface as a connection option for hosts on ARPAnet and MILNET. During the critical period of growth between 1984 and 1986, hundreds of systems jointed the Internet; and most of the connections between the campus Local Area Networks, and the wide-area backbone were VAX-11/780 machines running Berkeley Unix and with an ACC ACP-6250 X.25 board installed. We watched with amusement as a few people from Stanford started a small company called Cisco which began building small machines that ONLY performed this interface function. The sites that were attached to the Internet, of course also had a need for dial-up access, but traditionally, they would use a different type of terminal server box: One that sported an Ethernet port on the back, instead of a synchronous modem connector. This would allow it to connect to any of the systems attached to the local area network, as well as to reach out to the whole Internet. Since most of the users were of the academic persuasion, when they were at work, they would be in an environment where they needed access the the local systems, and when they were travelling, they could usually borrow access from the people they were visiting. As the Internet spread outside the academic environment, and Internet based time-sharing computer centers like the WELL and the WORLD started to acquire a following outside of their local area, they too began linking up with the X.25 network operators to make use of the banks of PADs spread across the United States. Most of these access arrangements, however, are based on "collect calls" and the operator of the time-sharing system collects the network transport fee as a connect-time surcharge for sessions that come in over the X.25 network. So, with this background information in place, let us get back to the questions: > Is [there] any free gateway between X.25 network and Internet. No; very little in this world is free. However, it seems that your friend is in fact quite willing not only to pay for transport on the X.25 service, but also -- in some reasonable amount -- for the gateway function. One could hope that the X.25 operators would install a small set of X.29-to-Telnet protocol translator boxes. These are available from several vendors; you make an X.29 connection to them, and they prompt you for an Internet host name to connect to. You would do the world a favor if you could persuade DATAPAC to install one somewhere in their network. > I want to transfer some files to him, but do not know if there is > a gateway between DATAPAC and the Internet so that he can log into > my system. If this is something that happens often, the best solution is for your friend to open an account with one of the many Internet service operators that have connections to the X29/X.25 terminal access networks. From a place like Genie, WELL or WORLD, they can FTP and Telnet to your machine and then download to their own PC with Kermit or Zmodem. Lars Poulsen Internet E-mail: lars@RNS.COM Rockwell Network Systems Internets: designed and built while you wait Hvidovre Strandvej 72 B Phone: (011-) +45-31 49 81 08 DK-2650 Hvidovre, DENMARK Telefax: +45-31 49 83 08 or Santa Barbara, CA 93117, USA ...... Phone: +1-805-968-4262 ------------------------------ From: rjones@chinook.halcyon.com (Ry Jones) Subject: Re: More Sneaky MCI Marketing Date: 15 Jun 1994 19:32:38 GMT Organization: Northwest Nexus Inc. T. Stephen Eggleston (nuance@access.digex.net) wrote: > MCI sent a "check" for 25.00, which when cashed switched my service. > Nothing unusual here, but they sent it to my teenage daughter. She > has NEVER had a phone in her name. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I doubt that MCI *knew* she is only a > child. I am sure there was a data entry error somewhere from some other > list where they obtained her name. PAT] My two year old son was offered the chance to switch his phone to MCI not to long ago. :) He did. Stupid but true: AT&T sent me a $35 check to switch back to them. The same day I was called and asked to switch. I had already deposited the check. I told the lady if she sent me a $50 check, like MCI does every other month, I would switch to them. Boom. AT&T cut me a $50 check to switch. So this month, on AT&T spendings of $0 and MCI LD of $135, AT&T gave me $85 to switch and MCI gave me $35 in free LD (for this billing period). So I only paid $15 for $135 in LD. This has been going on for some time; AT&T will send me either $35 cash and $15, $25, $35 in free ld OR $50 cash to switch, then MCI sends me $50 and $35 in free LD. Whee! rjones@halcyon.com ------------------------------ From: defantom@aol.com (DeFantom) Subject: Re: More Sneaky MCI Marketing Date: 15 Jun 1994 22:14:03 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) In article , nuance@access.digex.net (T. Stephen Eggleston) writes: > She has NEVER had a phone! True, but has she ever subsribed to a magazine? MCI may, like other people who send ads in the mail, get names from a master list they have purchased from another company. I had a friend of mine who's DOG got a ton of junk mail when he, just for giggles, subscribed to TIME magazine in the DOG's name! defantom@aol.com ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Does MCI Have Answer Supervision? From: bob@bci.nbn.com (Bob Schwartz) Date: Wed, 15 Jun 94 12:46:03 PDT Organization: Bill Correctors, Inc., Marin County, California pjt@pelab.allied.com (Philip J. Tait) writes: > Summary: > Various people replied, with various viewpoints. An ex-MCI employee > said that MCI does have answer-supervision, whereas an "AT&T dweeb" > stated that only AT&T has it. One person claimed to have had a > substantial number of answer supervision failures with AT&T. > I plan to gather evidence of incorrectly-charged calls, and pursue the > matter. Ten years ago I made a living off of the lack of answer supervision. That was back when you could get credit for every one and two minute call on your OCC bill. I also supported the class actions back then. The problem that the FCC and the Cook County court had with the lack of answer supervision, as it related to billing for unanswered calls, was that the practice was not disclosed. The solution was in the fine print of the bill stuffers on page 4. It went something like this: "In order to avoid the possibility of being charged for unanswered calls, you may like to limit the amount of time a phone is allowed to ring before you disconnect". When Mr. Nader and I went on the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather in an expose' on " The Long Distance Call that Goes Nowhere" the credits began to dry up. While the Bill Correctors decision ;) at the FCC said that IXC's must have refund policies on file I've never seen the file. It was *impossible to get* . Now, keep in mind that the only problem that the regulators and courts had with the lack of answer supervision, which allowed some IXC's to build their networks i.e. profits for expansion (IMHO), was the lack of disclosure. Also keep in mind that disclosure is now made. At any rate, when you *prove* this allegation go to your District attorney and Attorney General. You'll soon see if anyone cares enough to lift a finger. Good luck. Bob Schwartz bob@bci.nbn.com Bill Correctors, Inc. +1 415 488 9000 Marin County, California ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 17:34:53 EST From: mark@legend.akron.oh.us (Mark E Daniel) Subject: Re: Answering Machine Recommendations Wanted Regarding the Raido Shack answering machine which does TIME/DATE stap, that would be the Duophone TAD-450. It does VOX with a toggleable message length of thirty seconds or three minutes. Each message is stamped in the following way "Message 1. Five twenty-nine PM. Saturday June eleven." It will also destinguish between memos and two-way (conversation) recordings. It has remote access with a voice menu and a user selectable three digit code. The remote also has a room monitor. It uses leaderless tapes for the greeting and the largest one of these I've seen is three Min, which would give you a maximum length of one minute thirty seconds. Longer might be nicer for Answer Only mode. :) I suppose you could use a leaderless "message" tape in there. :) It will talk you through set-up when you plug it in. All you do is hit SET. It also has battery backup for message count, remote code, time etc. :) I believe it first appeared in 1988. It is far ahead of its time even today. :) You can tell it's old because the cord is hard-wired into it and you'll need to buy a two-in-one jack adapter from Raido Shack. But I've had several of these on my line and had no problem. :) Mark E Daniel (Loving SysOp of The Legend BBS) Inet: mark@legend.akron.oh.us medaniel@delphi.com (Direct INet) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes indeed, this is one of the better quality answering machines available today, even six years after its first appearance. Check it out at your local Radio Shack store. But I beg to differ with you on the tape length: a three minute Mobius Loop (or endless loop) tape will allow three minutes of recording time. I have used these when operating 'announcement lines' in the past. And the leader has to be on the tape when it is an endless loop since it is the contact of the metalic foil which makes up the 'leader' between the tape head and ground which shuts down the outgoing tape once it has played out (regardless of its length). When the leader gets dirty or loses its continuity that's when you'll occassionally have to sit through the outgoing announcement two (or three or four) times before it finally is able to trip the connection and shut itself off. Remember in the real old days of answering machines when you could purchase a little roll of the metalic foil and stick it carefully over the old leader which had worn out after several dozen cycles? PAT] ------------------------------ From: rkprkp@aol.com Subject: Re: Centrex - Good/Bad? Date: 16 Jun 1994 02:01:03 GMT Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) In article , dbryant@netcom.com (David K. Bryant) writes: > 1. ANYTHING is better than a Fujitsu 960. They may provide basic > voice services but it is a WEAK pbx when compared to Northern or AT&T. > 2. Centrex comes in many flavors. Analog Plexar is basically like a 1970's version of a PBX with only 2500 type (single line) station ports. Any enhanced voice services require key systems to be installed behind the centrex, and finding a good console is the pits. Also, data will be limited to analog modem speeds. A slightly better enhancement is to get Centrex off a DMS-100 switch. This allows you to use P-phones. These are programmable multi-button sets from Northern that work directly off the switch and provide comparable voice services to most PBXs. Even better, but more pricey, is ISDN centrex. This is good if you have voice and data requirements and can offer some good enhanced services. Other questions to ask: How will you handle voice mail, call accounting, system administration, and ACD (Automatic Call Distribution)? ------------------------------ From: moodyblu@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Matthew Scott Weisberg) Subject: Re: CellularOne/Detroit Announces Rate Change Date: 15 Jun 1994 22:34:43 -0400 Organization: UMCC, Ann Arbor, MI moodyblu@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Matthew Scott Weisberg) writes: > I wonder if Ameritech, the RBOC here and CellOne's competition here, > is doing the same thing? > Also, is this being done specifically because of people doing the "Call > Forwarding Scam?" In a followup to my own note ... There was an article in the Saturday, June 11th {Detroit News/Free Press} about how the cellular phone companies in Detroit are losing lots of money on the "Call Fowarding Scam." It stated that Ameritech will be charging for all forwarded calls by the minute before the end of the year. HOWEVER, unlike Cellular One which charges a fee just to have the call forwarding service, Ameritech WILL NOT charge a monthly fee for it. The article stated that people would make calls of two hours and more and Cell One would have to pay the local phone company by the minute for them! It sure was nice while it lasted! :) Matt Weisberg, CNE MILLIWAYS - Computer and Network Consulting PP-ASEL 21650 West Eleven Mile Road #202 Amateur Radio: KF8OH Southfield, MI 48076 Internet: moodyblu@umcc.umich.edu (810)350-0503 Fax:(810)350-0504 ------------------------------ From: steven@sgb.oau.org (Steven Bradley) Subject: Re: How to Get White pages Data From GTE? Organization: The Forest City Exchange, Forest City, Florida Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 02:51:17 GMT In article , fjd@rain.org (Frank Dziuba) writes: > I understood from a sales promotion from Pro_phone that they have the > white pages typed in at some location in China. Thus they should also > be able to include GTE data. I'm waiting for my own copy of Pro-phone > so I can see about GTE in the database. You guys do NOT, I repeat N O T want ProPhone, its a lot of inaccurate shit. I had a copy for 14 hours, before returning it for a refund; it is VERY inaccurate. Very OUT OF DATE, most entries had to be at least TWO years old to make it. Try Digital Directory Assistance (DDA) for one thats GOOD! Internet: steven@sgb.oau.org Steven G. Bradley steven@gate.net Forest City, Florida steven@transquest.oe.fau.edu CompuServe: 73232.505@compuserve.com Phone: 407/862-7226 America Online: sgbradley@aol.com Modem: 407/862-8088 ------------------------------ From: gordon@sneaky.lonestar.org (Gordon Burditt) Subject: Re: Calling Card Suggestion Organization: /usr/lib/news/organi[sz]ation Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 14:35:10 GMT > With all of the calling card fraud going on out there I'm curious as > to why the card companies don't issue cards that can't be used for > international calls. Funny you should mention that. From a May 23, 1994 billing insert from Southwestern Bell: [Quote reformatted to fit line length and to not use all caps. Spelling and capitalization errors are my fault.] Fight calling card fraud with the new free SelectAmerica(sm) calling card. It can happen to you on the street, at an airport or out shopping -- while you're making a call, someone steals your calling card number and contributes to nearly $1.8 billion in long distance fraud reported annually. One key reason for this alarming statistic: illegal international operations -- like drug smuggling -- rely heavily on stolen calling card numbers. Now you can help fight back -- for free! Southwestern Bell Telephone offers a new option to protect your SelectCard(r) from fraud that provides extra security for you and helps keep telephone rates affordable. Effective April 15, you'll have the ability to block any international calls from being billed to your account. If you choose the new SelectAmerica calling card, only calls to locations in the U.S. or Canada will be charged to your card. If you are like most customers, the SelectAmerica calling card will meet all of your calling needs. You'll see no change in your service and you can continue using your existing Selectcard and four-digit PIN. If your card is ever lost or stolen, it cannot be used for illegal international calling. Your current Southwestern Bell Telephone Selectcard with your home phone number and the PIN you choose is still the easiest calling card to use. There's no long access code -- just dial "0" and the number you're calling. Your Selectcard works anywhere for local or long distance calls. And you can keep using your Selectcard no matter how often you change your long distance carrier. If you still need to make international calls, no action is necessary -- your current card will continue to work for calls worldwide. However, to order the free SelectAmerica calling card, call your local Southwestern Bell Telephone service center today. The phone number is shown on the "detail of charges" page in this bill (See the "to order" number). The phone number is also listed in the customer guide section of your white pages directory -- see the "how to reach us" page. [end quote] At least this method lets the customer have the choice. It discriminates against one fixed set of countries (everything but the USA and Canada). And they didn't pull a surprise change and insist you call to get back your ability to make international calls. Gordon L. Burditt sneaky.lonestar.org!gordon ------------------------------ From: Mike McCrohan Subject: Re: Four-wire to Five-wire Adapter to Use US Modem in England? Date: 15 Jun 1994 10:34:39 +0100 Organization: Ireland On-Line In article , Will Dye wrote: > I'm shipping out a modem to a customer in England. The customer tells > me that his phone jack, I think they're called RJ11 adapters or > something like that, has five wires in it. But the jacks I normally > plug into a modem have four wires. I've seen some with six wires in a > PBX phone, but never five wires. The BT Phone connectors are about 1/2" x 3/16" approx. I believe RJ<->BT adapters are readily available in the UK (INMAC sells an RJ45 to BT socket adapter for 45 pounds! They sell the plugs for 4.50 and you can terminate your own cable.) Have your customer look around the catalogues, etc. If worst comes to worst an adapter can be kludged from a UK and US cord splice. ------------------------------ From: raverboy@aol.com (Raverboy) Subject: Re: Privacy on Rolm Switch Date: 16 Jun 1994 06:19:02 GMT Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) I know the Rolm 9751 is mostly for ACD. Anyway, the silent monitor function that supervisors have can ONLY monitor ACD extensions that are also within certain defineable COS's. For example, I can't monitor my manager's ACD line, but she can monitor mine, and all of the CSR's extensions. The silent monitor function will not work with a non-ACD line ... for example private internal extensions. Kevin Mayeux TCI ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #292 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa26811; 16 Jun 94 7:33 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA04938; Thu, 16 Jun 94 03:29:19 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA04929; Thu, 16 Jun 94 03:29:17 CDT Date: Thu, 16 Jun 94 03:29:17 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406160829.AA04929@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #293 TELECOM Digest Thu, 16 Jun 94 03:29:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 293 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Optical to Electrical Converters Wanted (Paul A. Lee) Re: Optical to Electrical Converters Wanted (David Kirsch) Re: v.35 (T1) Board for Linux Available Soon (Jan Allbright) Re: Calling Number ID for Cellular Users (John Gilbert) Re: Demand Linux Support for v.35 (56kb - T1) Interface! (Morten Reistad) Re: Cell One/Boston <-> Manchester/Nashua New Connection (John R. Covert) Re: Nine Track IBM Standard Labels (Tony Harminc) Re: Average Data Speed of Wire Telegraphy Wanted (Wes Leatherock) Re: Calling Card Suggestion (Garrett Wollman) Re: AT&T Mail to Charge for Internet Reception in Canada (Danny Burstein) Re: Pointers Wanted to TDD Specifications Please (Jon Sreekanth) Re: Information WANS Requested (Richard Layman) Re: New Player in the 800 Game (Doug McDonald) Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" (Pete Farmer) Re: International Callback Services (Gene Retske) Re: Can I Use Deactivated Cellular Phones For Emergency Calls? (B. Roberts) Internet Access in France - State of the Art (Jean-Bernard Condat) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Paul A. Lee Subject: Optical to Electrical Converters Wanted Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 04:00:00 GMT Organization: Woolworth Corporation In TELECOM Digest Volume 14 Issue 282, Carl Silva wrote: > ...who provides optical to electrical converters? Try contacting the following firms: Opticom Corporation 5505 Morehouse Drive, #150 San Diego, CA 92121 619 450-0143 619 450-0155 FAX Math Associates Inc. 5500 New Horizons Boulevard Amityville, NY 11701 516 226-8950 516 226-8966 FAX Optelecom 9300 Gaither Road Gaithersburg, MD 20877 301 840-2121 301 948-6357 FAX Please note that I am simply aware of the product lines of these firms; I don't have any direct experience with them or their products. Paul A. Lee Voice 414 357-1409 Telecommunications Analyst FAX 414 357-1450 Woolworth Corporation CompuServe 70353,566 INTERNET ------------------------------ From: dkirsch@coolhand.East.Sun.COM (David Kirsch - SunNetworks Manager) Subject: Re: Optical to Electrical Converters Wanted Date: 15 Jun 1994 15:28:35 GMT Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. Reply-To: dkirsch@coolhand.East.Sun.COM You might try Canoga Perkins ... they have some of these type products. 21012 Lassen St. Chatsworth, CA 91311 818.718.6300 Try Paul Stennes, VP Sales/Marketing David K. ------------------------------ From: jallbrig@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Jan Allbright) Subject: Re: v.35 (T1) Board for Linux Available Soon Date: 16 Jun 1994 07:05:54 GMT Organization: Information Networks Division: Hewlett Packard Humm ... I thought T1 ran at 1.544 Mbps ... ------------------------------ From: johng@ecs.comm.mot.com (John Gilbert) Subject: Re: Calling Number ID for Cellular Users Organization: Motorola, LMPS Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 00:51:27 GMT In article , Lynne Gregg wrote: > Steve, I like the way you think! McCaw operations will start offering > Calling Number ID Service to its Digital cellular subscribers > beginning in September. When Digital was launched by Cellular One in > New York, Calling Number ID was heralded as one of several enhanced > services to come. Caller ID service is among several services that have been available to analog subscribers on narrow band AMPS (NAMPS) systems since 1991. See the April 1991 issue of {Communications} magazine for more on NAMPS. John Gilbert johng@ecs.comm.mot.com KA4JMC ------------------------------ From: mrr@Hadrian.Boers.no (Morten Reistad) Subject: Re: Demand Linux Support for v.35 (56kb - T1) Interface! Date: 16 Jun 1994 01:47:56 +0200 Organization: OBI A/S Personal employee account In article kruckenb@sal.cs.utah.edu (Joseph Kruckenberg) writes: > [Soapbox on] > Over the past few days, I've been in discussion with a company called > SDL (sdl@world.std.com) which builds a v.35 board for the PC. [clip] > you let them know of your interest. Now that gated has been ported to > Linux, Linux is a very viable alternative to the traditional > computer/router gateway. With a v.35 interface, you could achieve > speeds of 56kb up to 3Mb/sec (with their dual-port version), while > still keeping your costs below a few thousand dollars (the SDL boards > are priced at about $550) by avoiding the purchase of a router. Wow. What is so special about a synchronous, plain V.35 card? Why does it have to cost as much as the rest of the PC? All the cards I have seen are fully equipped with a processor requiring downloaded code; roms and what have you. The complexity of this is not much greater than a vanilla asynch board for a PC. OK, you have to pull forward a few extra pins and make an ugly cable for V.35, but the card should not require more than a USRT and some driver chips. After all; rather braindamaged ethernet cards run just fine at twice this speed over a plain ISA bus. And a plain sync card just has to push frames, no CSMA, transceiver, etc. These things should cost $50, not $550. Have a nice day! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jun 94 09:02:33 EDT From: John R. Covert 15-Jun-1994 0854 Subject: Re: Cell One/Boston <-> Manchester/Nashua New Connection DREUBEN@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU wrote: > I think the Manchester 00445 system in New Hampshire is also linked up > now, although the serivce was so poor I couldn't really try it. I know > that hitting *28 or *29 got me dead air for two seconds, and then the > switch hung up on me, as it if were processing the call but just > didn't want to send confirmation tones back to me. Previously, this > used to get an error recording. This just started working, with fits and starts. On the days on which *28 did not return a confirmation tone, it was not working. It started working for the first time about three weeks ago on Friday, did not work all the following week until that Friday, and then was broken again the following week for a few days but has been working since. The connection, for now, is actually only Boston->Nashua/Manchester. It is no longer possible to call a Boston customer roaming in New Hampshire via the Merrimack roamer port (345-ROAM). What seems to happen if the Boston phone is active in NH is that the roamer port goes on-hook after the number is dialled. Customer service claims this will always be the case now; it will be necessary to send all calls via Boston. /john ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jun 94 15:21:57 EDT From: Tony Harminc Subject: Re: Nine Track IBM Standard Labels aoj@access3.digex.net (aaronjones) wrote: > I'm trying to deal with Bell Canada's SYGMA (Bell's Computer Systems > Group) to exchange information on 9-track magnetic tapes. They > require that the tapes that we ship to them have (drum roll please) ... > "Standard IBM Labels" > Bell SYGMA has said that we should contact IBM for the format of these > labels. I've tried to do so and failed most miserably (sigh). I did > get to talk to a rather large number of nice people at IBM, but > unfortunately none of them were able to help me. The "official" answer is that you need a copy of the IBM publication commonly called "Tape Labels". There are several editions for the various operating systems, but the basic information in all of them is the same. A fairly recent version is "MVS/ESA Magnetic Tape Labels and File Structure Administration", publication number SC26-4511. Any IBM office should be happy to order you a copy for an appropriately outrageous price, or -- if someone is in a good mood -- copy the few relevant pages. Now it may be that you are facing a bureaucratic rather than a technical problem at Bell, and there may therefore be a bureaucratic response. It is perfectly valid not to have labels on an IBM tape. This is often loosely called "label type NL" (i.e. No Labels). So if you ship your tape to Bell, with the specifications (on paper) that it has Label Type NL, LRECL (Logical Record Length) ll (where ll is the (fixed) length of each record), BLKSIZE bb (where bb is the size of physical blocks the records are grouped into), plus the actual layout of data within each record, then you may be OK with no labels. There are operational reasons why their life is easier if you do have standard labels, so you might want to write them anyway. They are quite simple, 80-byte records. Tony Harminc ------------------------------ From: Wes.Leatherock@tranquil.nova.com (Wes Leatherock) Date: 15 Jun 94 09:52:14 -0600 Subject: Re: Average Data Speed of Wire Telegraphy Wanted Organization: Fidonet Quoting nduehr@netcom.com (Nathan N. Duehr): Quoting wes@oubbs.telecom.uoknor.edu (Wes Leatherock): WL> Press operators were, I think probably the elite of operators WL> sending in the wire telegraph days. Perhaps those working for WL> brokerage wire houses could also put in a claim to this, but WL> I'm not sufficiently familiar with them to be able to judge. nd> Don't forget the railroad ops ... they had their fair share of nd> traffic as well! I certainly didn't mean to ignore them. They were generally outstanding operators and most of them were very fast and exceptional under pressure. But I'm not sure they had the steady, continuous stream of traffic that press and probably wire house operators had. You're probably better informed on this than I am, and I'd be interested in knowing more. Wes Leatherock wes.leatherock@tranquil.nova.com wes@oubbs.telecom.uoknor.edu ------------------------------ From: wollman@ginger.lcs.mit.edu (Garrett Wollman) Subject: Re: Calling Card Suggestion Date: 15 Jun 1994 22:31:35 GMT Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science In article , Carl Oppedahl wrote: > Huh? I memorize my card number. Then it does not matter what is or > is not written on it since I don't carry the card. Why would any one > carry the card around? Well, since you asked ... I don't often have a need to use my calling card, as I am very rarely away from a free phone in circumstances where I actually would /want/ to make a phone call. So, I have a calling card account mainly for security -- that is to say, I keep the account because some day I might get lost in darkest Somerville and want to call a cab to bring me back into civilization. Under these circumstances, I'm not likely to remember the number, since I never use it, and those circumstances in which I'm likely to need it are precisely the ones that would send my memory on the fritz. Furthermore, there are a lot of people (of which I am one) who simply are unable to memorize numbers except as a process of using them. For example, when I lived in Vermont, I at one time had a calling card number ending in 2644. I can tell you that now not because I memorized the number (indeed, I don't even remember which phone it was attached to), but because I remember the hand motions involved in dialing it. (That's how I remember all of those numbers which I actually use regularly.) Garrett A. Wollman wollman@lcs.mit.edu ------------------------------ From: dannyb@panix.com (danny burstein) Subject: Re: AT&T Mail to Charge for Internet Reception in Canada Date: 15 Jun 1994 09:40:22 -0400 [good article/bad news piece about how ATT Mail in Canada will soon start charging for -reciept- of internet mail deleted] I've been waiting for this shoe to drop. I've been a long-time customer of a competitor of theirs here in the US (not on this account, but a different address) and expect it to happen there anyday. This other system charges only for the -sending- of msgs with -no- online time fee, and no charge for receiving msgs. They also have an 800 number for logging in (at no fee). In the old days, when their system was a standalone, this made sense since any message you read was paid for by -someone- on their system. But once the internet gateway came about, all bets were off. So currently it is possible to pay just the annual fee ($25) and log in, via an 800 number, and get hours of email reading/day. Obviously at some point they will have to do something ... dannyb@panix.com (or dburstein@mcimail.com) ------------------------------ From: jon_sree@world.std.com (Jon Sreekanth) Subject: Re: Pointers Wanted to TDD Specifications Please Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 05:55:37 GMT In article josephc@cco.caltech.edu (Joseph Chiu) writes: > After looking through various journals and computer-rags (all the way > back to mid-80's!), and looking around at FAQ's and such, I'm still > stumped in my search for technical information on TDD's. The closest thing to an official TDD spec is an older draft standard by EIA. Here is an excerpt of a letter from TIA: May 16, 1988. In 1981, the EIA Engineering Committee TR41 undertook the writing of a voluntary industry standard for telecomm devices for the deaf. ... As commercial interest in these devices has diminshed, we now find ourselves in a situation where only two manufacturers remain in the market, and they seem unwilling or unable to agree on the terms of the standard. .. Accordingly, ... (TR41) voted to abandon PN 1663 and directed me to place the existing document Draft 9 in the public domain ... EIA and its successor organizations will no longer maintain this draft, but will continue to make copies available to qualified persons and organizations for a reasonable period of time ... -------------- So the summary is: Telecommunications Industry Association, TIA, at 202-457-4936 can provide PN 1663, Draft 9, if you ask nicely. Jon Sreekanth Assabet Valley Microsystems, Inc. Fax and PC products 5 Walden St #3, Cambridge, MA 02140 (617) 876-8019 jon_sree@world.std.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 00:50:09 EDT From: Richard Layman Subject: Re: Information WANS Requested Matthew Scott Weisberg had a query about linking city government agencies in a WAN. Here are some suggestions for resources. Public Technology Inc. is a technical consulting group for local governments. It is a nonprofit group created by the National League of Cities, the Intl. City/County Management Assn., and the National Assn. of Counties. They provide assistance to local governments on telecommun- ications, cable, computing, utilities and other issues. They are at: 1301 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20004, 202-626-2400. Another option to consider besides an RBOC is the local cable company. I have read articles in publications concerning local government about this. I think San Jose may have used a cable company for such a project. {Governing Magazine} runs a column on information technology and a yearly feature on leading telecommunications-computing projects in government. {Government Technology}, based in Sacramento, is a monthly tabloid (similar to {NetworkWorld}) for local and state government IT/telecom peopole and may be a good resource as well. Richard Layman, Marketing Director, Computer Television Network rlayman@cap.gwu.edu ------------------------------ From: mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald) Subject: Re: New Player in the 800 Game Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 15:27:10 GMT Organization: UIUC In article telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) writes: > I had a very pleasant conversation earlier today with Steve Betterly > about a new 800 service available to small and medium size users. Sounds interesting and perhaps popular. That brings up the question: what happens when 800 fills up? Will they just add 820, 830, 840, etc? Doug McDonald [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't know what they will do. Has anyone yet announced the code to be used when 800 runs out of space? PAT] ------------------------------ From: petef@well.com (Pete Farmer) Subject: Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 17:54:43 -0800 Organization: Tetherless Access Ltd. In article hardiman@cbnewst.att.com writes: > PacBell runs an ISDN BBS. > 510-277-1037 for pokey old modems. > 510-823-4888 for speedy new BRI or SDS 56/64K access Pac Bell also has a gopher server: gw.pacbell.com I think this has much of the same information that's on their BBS. Peter J. Farmer Internet: petef@well.com VP, Marketing Voice: 415-321-5968 Tetherless Access Ltd. Fax: 415-321-5048 ------------------------------ From: gretske@delphi.com Subject: Re: International Callback Services Date: Wed, 15 Jun 94 22:36:01 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) As info, my company, Transglobal Telecom, has recently begun offering "non code calling" calback type services. If we can be of assistance, call me at 800-633-3882. Gene Retske ------------------------------ From: bruce.roberts@greatesc.com (Bruce Roberts) Subject: Can I Use Deactivated Cellular Phones For Emergency Calls? Date: Wed, 15 Jun 1994 10:41:00 GMT Organization: The Great Escape - Gardena, CA - (310) 676-3534 John R. Covert writes CC> Remember that in some areas 911 is STRICTLY reserved for life-and-death CC> emergencies. Los Angeles is particularly strict about enforcing this, I'm CC> told. In Massachusetts, 911 or *SP from cellular doesn't go to 911, Cellular 911 calls in Los Angeles (at least on AirTouch [PacTel]) go to a special, cellular/mobile phone operator who will take traffic problems and up. We have this number (which I can't recall at the moment) programmed into the auto-dialer on our Amateur Radio repeater/phone patch because they deal very well with half duplex radio calls and "yes, I'll give you my number and, yes, I know it doesn't even come close to matching the number you have in your 911 database" conversations. They will take information and pass it on or connect you with any police department, fire department or the California Highway Patrol. An excellent service in my humble opinion. TTFN -br- Bruce Roberts, bruce.roberts@greatesc.com * RM 1.3 01036 * Redundancy is prohibitively disallowed again. ------------------------------ From: cccf@altern.com (cccf) Subject: Internet Access in France - State of the Art Date: Thu, 16 Jun 94 7:46:56 GMT INTERNET IN FRANCE For a long time, I dream to have an Internet address. For an US guy, it's easy to answer to this request. For me, France-born teenager, I must have a friend that give me an email box on the computer of a rich university. At this time, a lot of controls stop like a solution. The second solution is to access via my free videotex terminal called Minitel on a gatheway connected to an UUCP or Internet node. The cost is between FF 1.25 (for 3615 Internet) and FF 9.46 (for 3619 USnet) per minute ... but for email and news only. Some videotex services don't like ftpmail requests or more than 520-caracters messages (like 3617 Email) and refuse sending my mails :-8 The third solution is to buy a commercial access: MCIMail have an "experimental connection with Internet" at this time; AT&T give you an address in Netherlands and CompuServe ask for my parent's MasterCard number :-] Some good associations (like French Data Network, Fnet or Frmug) send me a little package with a good service, but the guys that don't live in Paris paid a lot of money for an incredibly expensive phone call (FF 0.73 all 12 seconds) to access to the service. The only solution is 3619 USnet (a joke developed by Intelmatique, a subsidiary of France Telecom that gives you a user-ID on Delphi domain), the really crazy Audiotel service called FranceNet (that stop the service all 20 minutes), the last baby born today and called World-net or, at least, the uncredible 3619 Inet that give you an email box on "on101"-domain in the USA. Internet is a real *problem* at this time in France, not a solution. This message cost me FF 25.00 to be send to you. A little expensive, no? Listing of (Un-)useful Addresses Altern (3616) Valentin Lacambre, 29 rue de Cotte, 75012 Paris Tel.: (1) 42 79 81 38 Email: sysop@altern.com Calvacom (RCI-Calvacom) 175 rue J.-J. Rousseau, 92138 Issy-les-Moulineaux Cedex Tel.: (1) 41 08 11 00, Fax: (1) 41 08 11 99 Email: rci1@calvacom.fr CompuServe Centre Atria, Rueil 2000, 92566 Rueil Malmat, 92410 Ville d'Avray Tel.: (1) 47 50 62 48, Fax: (1) 47 50 62 93 Email: sales@teaser.com EUnet France SA 52 av. de la Grande Armee, 75017 Paris Tel.: (1) 53 81 60 60, Fax: (1) 45 74 52 79 Acc}s Utopia: (1) 39 63 50 22 ou NUA 17827026961 Email: contactne@rain.fr USNet (3619) Intelmatique SA, 16-18 rue du Dome, 92300 Boulogne- Billancourt Tel.: (1) 47 61 47 61, Fax: (1) 46 21 22 40 Email: jperd@delphi.com World-NET SCT, 20 av. Daguerre, 77500 Chelles Tel.: (1) 60 20 85 14, 3617 SCT, Fax: (1) 64 21 65 35 Email: info@World-net.sct.fr Jean-Bernard Condat, General Secretary hc, Chaos Computer Club France Internet: condat@altern.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, I know it is expensive for you to participate in this Digest, which is one of the reasons I always appreciate hearing from you with news from France. Perhaps someday things will improve for you there. In the meantime, do the best you can to stay in touch with us. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #293 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa10522; 17 Jun 94 15:22 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA03694; Fri, 17 Jun 94 11:18:17 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA03685; Fri, 17 Jun 94 11:18:15 CDT Date: Fri, 17 Jun 94 11:18:15 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406171618.AA03685@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #294 TELECOM Digest Fri, 17 Jun 94 11:18:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 294 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Foreign Country Calling Card Access Numbers (consult@hawaii.edu) Bell Atlantic's Full Service Network (Eric Rabe) IXC's and InterLATA CID (Greg Monti) Re: Pointers Wanted to TDD Specifications Please (ssatchell@bix.com) Re: More Sneaky MCI Marketing (Stuart Whitmore) Re: Nine Track IBM Standard Labels (Wm. Randolph U Franklin) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: consult@hawaii.edu (Consult) Subject: Foreign Country Calling Card Access Numbers Date: 17 Jun 94 01:28:28 HST Organization: University of Hawaii at Manoa FOREIGN COUNTRY CALLING CARD ACCESS NUMBERS This is a list of phone numbers to use from foreign countries when you want to place an international call back to the USA or, in certain cases, to another country and have the call billed to your calling card. Extra service charges above the actual long distance rate apply and in some cases vary from country to country. Use of AT&T's USA DIRECT, MCI's WorldPhone, and US Sprint's Sprint Express must be made with each company's respective calling card only (ie AT&T's USA DIRECT will not accept Sprint's FonCard). AT&T's USA DIRECT may take your local BOC's calling card as well. This would be a calling card issued by your local telephone service provider. I make no guarantees as to the accuracy of this list. Changes in service do occur, and typographical errors may be present. Data for this list was obtained from an AT&T USA DIRECT wallet card dated April 1990, a MCI WorldPhone brochure dated 1994, and a US Sprint pocket guide I received in November 1993; so the data for AT&T's USA DIRECT as listed here is severely out of date and lack many countries where service has since been added. AT&T MCI US Sprint USA DIRECT (R) WorldPhone (R) Sprint Express (SM) ---------------- ---------------- ---------------- American Samoa 633-2624(633-2MCI) Antigua #2 (cardphones only) Argentina 001-800-200-1111 001-800-333-111% 001-800-777-1111 Aruba 800-1011 Australia 0014-881-001 008-5511-11! to 0014-881-877 use OPTUS @ 1-800-881-100! to use TELSTRA @ Austria 022-903-011$ 022-903-012$! 022-903-014 Bahamas 1-800-872-2881& 1-800-624-1000 Bahrain 800-001 800-002 Belgium 11-0010$ 078-11-00-12$! 078-11-0014$ Bermuda 1-800-623-0484+ 1-800-623-0877$ Bolivia 0-800-2222$ Brazil 000-8010 000-8012 000-8016 Canada 1-800-888-8000! Cayman Islands 1872 1-MCI(1-624) Chile 00*-0312 00*-0316! 00*0317 China 108-12++! Colombia 980-11-0010+ 980-16-0001! 980-13-0010 Costa Rica 114$ 162$ 163$ Cyprus 080-90000$ Czech and Slovak 00-420-00101 00-42-000112! Denmark 8001-0010$ 8001-0022$! 8001-0877$ Dominican Republic 1-800-872-2881 1-800-751-6624 1-800-751-7877$ Ecuador 170 171 Egypt 355-5770$!(02 first outside Cairo) El Salvador 195$ 191$ Finland 9800-100-10$ 9800-102-80$! 9800-1-0284$ France 19*-0011$ 19*-00-19$! 19*0087$ Gambia 001-199-220-0010$ 00-1-99$ Germany 0130-0010 0130-0012! 0130-0013$ Greece 00-800-1311$ 00-800-1211$! Grenada 872+ 1-800-624-8721+ Guam 018-872+ 950-1022! Guatemala 190 189$ 195$ Haiti 001-800-444-1234+! Honduras 001-800-674-7000+ Hong Kong 008-1111$ 800-1121! 008-1877 011 to call other 011 to call other than USA than USA Hungary 00*-36-0111$ 00*-800-01411$! 00*800-01-877$ Iceland 999-002$ India 000-127++! Indonesia 00-801-10 001-801-11$! 00-801-15 Iran Special phones+ Ireland 1-800-55-1001! 1-800-55-2001$ Israel 177-150-2727! 177-102-2727$ Italy 172-1011$ 172-1022$! 172-1877$ Jamaica 0-800-872-2881+ 800-674-7000 Japan 0039-111$ 0039-121$ to 0066-55-877$ to use KDD @ use IDC 0066-55-121$ to 0039-131$ to use IDC @ use KDD 0055$ to call other than USA Kenya 080011++ Korea 009-11 009-14! to 009-16$ use KT @ 0039-12! to use DACOM @ 03 then "*" from phone booths!+ 550-2255! from military bases Kuwait 800-MCI(800-624) Lebanon 600-624! 425-036+! (add 01 outside Beirut) Liberia 797-797 Liechtenstein 155-0222$! 155-9777 Luxembourg 0800-0112 Macau 0800-111 0800-131 Malaysia 800-0012$! 800-0016$ Mexico 95-800-674-7000 LADATEL phones only, rate varies Monaco 19*-00-19$! 19*0087 Netherlands 06*-022-9111$ 06-022-91-22$! 06*022-9119 Neth/Antil. 001-800-872-2881 001-800-950-1022!+ New Zealand 000-911 000-912 000-999 Nicaragua 166! (dial 02 1st outside Managua) Norway 050-12-011$ 800-19912$! 050-12-877$ Panama 109 108 2810-108 from military bases Paraguay 008-11-800+ Peru ##0+ 001-190 (dial 196+ 190 1st outside Lima) Philippines 105-11+$ 105-14$! to use PLDT @ 1026-12$! to use PHILCOM Poland 0*-01-04-800-222! Portugal 05-017-1234! 05017-1-877 Puerto Rico 1-800-888-8000! Qatar 0800-012-77!% Russia 8*10-800-497-7222$!+ Saipan 950-1022+! San Marino 172-1022$! 172-1877$ Saudi Arabia 1-800-11 Singapore 800-0011$ 8000-112-112 800-0877$ South Africa 0800-99-0011! Spain 900-99-0014! 900-99-0013 St. Kitts 1-800-872-2881 Sweden 020-795-611$ 020-795-922$! 020-799-011$ Switzerland 046-05-0011$ 155-0222$! 155-9777 Syria 0800! Taiwan 0080-13-4567$! 0080-14-0877 on special phones, press Sprint Thailand 001-999-1-2001% Trinidad & Tobago Special phones Turkey 00-8001-1177$ Ukraine 8*10-013+ United Arab Emirates 800-111 United Kingdom 0800-89-0011 0800-89-0222! to 0800-89-0877 use BT 0500-800-800 to 0500-89-0222! to call other than US use MERCURY 0500-800-800! to call other than US Uruguay 00-0410$ 000-412 U.S. Virgin Isles 1-800-888-8000! Vatican City 172-1022 172-1877$ Venezuela 800-1114-0$+ 800-1111-0 KEY TO SYMBOLS -------------- $ - Public phones require coin or card + - Limited availability ++ - Available in major cities * - Wait for second dialtone at this point @ - International communications carrier ! - Country-to-country calling available. May not be available to/from all international locations. Certain restrictions apply. % - Not available from public payphones # - Press # key on telephone ------------------------------ From: bellatl@ba.com (Eric Rabe) Subject: Bell Atlantic's Full Service Network Date: 16 Jun 1994 20:50:32 GMT We thought that Internet users would be interested in the following News Release outlining our filing with the FCC to provide a full service network. Further information regarding this filing, including maps of the deployment areas are available at ba.com via anonymous FTP and gopher . Eric Rabe Bell Atlantic | Internet: rabe@ba.com NEWS RELEASE *********************************************************** ***********************************************************Bell Atlantic June 16, 1994 Shannon Fioravanti 703-974-5455 Joan Rasmussen 703-974-8815 *************************************************************************** * BELL ATLANTIC SEEKS FCC APPROVAL * * FOR CONSTRUCTION OF FULL SERVICE * * IN SIX METROPOLITAN AREAS * *************************************************************************** Washington, D.C. -- Bell Atlantic today detailed the first neighborhoods in six major markets where the company will begin building its video dial tone communications network. The plans were provided in an application for a construction permit, which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requires under section 214 of the FCC code. "We're committed to providing our customers the advanced video and interactive multimedia services they want, as well as the reliable Bell Atlantic phone service they have come to expect," said Larry Babbio, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Bell Atlantic. "Our network will offer customers a wide array of entertainment and information choices. We expect these services to be competitive, and we're ready to take on the cable companies to win in the marketplace." On May 19, Bell Atlantic announced it would build the Bell Atlantic network starting with deployment in six urban and suburban areas in the mid-Atlantic region that is Bell Atlantic's telephone territory. Those areas are: northern New Jersey, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia/Delaware Valley, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Hampton Roads, Virginia. Today's FCC filing is an essential step in deploying the video dial tone system that will bring advanced entertainment and information services to Bell Atlantic's customers. "This filing is a vote of confidence in FCC Chairman Reed Hundt's commitment to streamlining the approval process of these 214 applications," said Edward Young, Bell Atlantic vice president and associate general counsel. "We anticipate beginning construction of the Bell Atlantic network as soon as we have the commission's approval." The filing proposes an innovative approach to addressing public interest concerns identified by Congress and the FCC. Bell Atlantic announced a "will carry" proposal, a voluntary plan under which the new network will provide transport without charge to local broadcast and public, educational and governmental programmers. These channels would be available along with programming of all video information providers. Customers will need only a cable ready television set to receive these local channels. Video dial tone networks are common carrier networks that let customers connect to video information providers or high speed data networks in the same way today's telephone dial tone allows customers to make audio connections. "We are telling the FCC we will deploy our network throughout our region as quickly as possible," said Young. "Not only is this plan the right thing to do, it is also in our best interest to connect as many customers as we can since this will make the network more attractive to information providers." A hybrid fiber-coax system will connect customers to the network in each of the six major markets. In some parts of the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area, ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) technology will be used as well to provide the services over copper telephone lines. This will permit customers to receive interactive entertainment and information via ADSL before Bell Atlantic deploys the hybrid fiber coax technology. "This filing also should put to rest any concern about so-called 'electronic redlining'," Young said. "The racial diversity in the areas served by this new network is greater than that in the overall Bell Atlantic territory." The Bell Atlantic territory is 23.8% minority. However, the area where the advanced services will be deployed is 36.2% minority in population. Bell Atlantic Corporation, based in Philadelphia, is the parent of companies which provide a full array of local exchange telecommunications services in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C. The corporation is at the forefront of developing a variety of new products, including video, entertainment, and information services. Bell Atlantic also is the parent of one of the nation's largest cellular carriers and has an ownership position in cellular properties internationally. In addition, Bell Atlantic owns and interest in Telecom Corporation of New Zealand and is the parent of companies that provide business systems services for customer-based information technology throughout the U.S. and internationally. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 10:49:16 EDT From: Greg Monti Subject: IXC's and InterLATA CID The combination of Return Call and IXC handling of Caller ID makes for an interesting combination. You will be able to use these features in combination to find out the phone number of someone who called you, even if their Caller ID is blocked. I tried it recently on an interstate, intraLATA call. My LATA, Washington DC, crosses state lines. Calls to other states, even if local, may be preprended by an IXC carrier access code and will go through. There is no incentive to do this because you pay the toll rate of the carrier you select. I received a (local interstate) call from someone who had blocked their caller ID. I told them I could find out their number by concatenating a carrier access code with a Return Call code. We hung up. I dialed 10288*69. They answered. I received a bill from Bell Atlantic Virginia for $0.75 (the "per use" charge for Return Call), and, on the AT&T page, an itemized charge for a one-minute interstate toll call to 301 NXX-XXXX for about $0.17. So, for a grand total of $0.92, their blocked number was no longer a secret. In the future, when Caller ID rolls out nationally, *all* returned calls (using the Return Call feature) to blocked numbers will be billed by the IXC that carries them. No need to dial 10288. The secret number will be exposed on your bill. Greg Monti Arlington, Virginia, USA gmonti@npr.org ------------------------------ From: ssatchell@BIX.com (ssatchell on BIX) Subject: Re: Pointers Wanted to TDD Specifications Please Date: 16 Jun 94 16:36:02 GMT Organization: Delphi Internet Services Corporation jon_sree@world.std.com (Jon Sreekanth) writes: > In 1981, the EIA Engineering Committee TR41 undertook the writing of > a voluntary industry standard for telecomm devices for the deaf. > ... As commercial interest in these devices has diminshed, we now > find ourselves in a situation where only two manufacturers remain in > the market, and they seem unwilling or unable to agree on the terms of > the standard. .. Accordingly, ... (TR41) voted to abandon PN 1663 and > directed me to place the existing document Draft 9 in the public > domain ... EIA and its successor organizations will no longer > maintain this draft, but will continue to make copies available to > qualified persons and organizations for a reasonable period of time ... Don't believe everything you read! There is now Recommendation V.18 which describes the modulation/signalling methods used for TDD. While TR-41 decided to drop the ball, TR-30 (Data Modems) picked it up and carried the ball for a three-pointer. The offical version of V.18 should be available in about 6 weeks. Joseph Chiu, you might want to call Global Engineering Documents and make an advance order for the document, so you get it as soon as ITU is done with the grunt work of getting it printed. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 09:25:08 -0700 From: whitmore@tahoma.cwu.edu (Rattlesnake Stu) Subject: Re: More Sneaky MCI Marketing Organization: Central Washington University On 15 Jun 1994 22:14:03 -0400, DeFantom (defantom@aol.com) scribbled: > In article , nuance@access.digex.net > (T. Stephen Eggleston) writes: >> She has NEVER had a phone! > True, but has she ever subsribed to a magazine? MCI may, like other > people who send ads in the mail, get names from a master list they > have purchased from another company. I had a friend of mine who's DOG > got a ton of junk mail when he, just for giggles, subscribed to TIME > magazine in the DOG's name! Have you read "Looking Backward" by Edward Bellamy? I'll come back to that in a moment. The direct mail scene is typically caught in a Catch-22: Consumers only want to receive ads that are relevant to them and their interests, and get "heated" by inappropriate ads such as asking a child who has never had a phone to switch long distance carriers (obviously the result of a bad choice of mailing lists to buy). Consumers also do not want anyone to store, sell, and otherwise track their personal interests, and get "heated" by projects like the "Big Brother" marketing CD-ROM that Lotus got so much flak about. So what's the answer? Consumers want it both ways; this might be possible by only buying locally, and never buying anything (including magazines) through the mail. Ah, but that's not perfect either, as the problem of paying much higher prices is obvious to anyone who lives in a small town with minimal local competition. And it also assumes that consumers will keep themselves aware of products that might interest them - a doubtful condition. Bellamy put forth some interesting points about avoiding the fiasco of looking for the best price (which sometimes costs more than the money saved); however, I disagree fundamentally with the utopian communist system he promotes in his "Looking Backward" novel. My point (since I don't have an answer either) is simply to learn tolerance for the sometimes-crazy result of the fundamental problems in our system of marketing. If you really don't like getting junk mail (and who does?), take the time to write to the people who SOLD your address, not the people who BOUGHT it (unless they also resell it). I use, and track, variants of my name to see who sells to whom, and write promptly when I see that my address was sold by a company. Just some thoughts from somebody on both sides ... Stuart Whitmore whitmore@tahoma.cwu.edu ------------------------------ From: wrf@ecse.rpi.edu (Wm. Randolph U Franklin) Subject: Re: Nine Track IBM Standard Labels Date: 16 Jun 1994 19:47:00 GMT Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY, USA Reply-To: wrf@ecse.rpi.edu (Wm. Randolph U Franklin) 1. The IBM standard label format requires a separate file before and after the data file. That's 3 tapemarks total. The label files are a couple of 80-byte records with the obvious info. 2. You might be able to find the mentioned IBM pub for free in the computer center reading room of any large university. Possibly some IBM offices have reading rooms also. 3. If you specify LABEL=(1,NL), that requires that there be no label. I used to use BLP=bypass label processing. 4. All this brings back memories of JCL etc. If you want to know why other companies got a toehold in, consider what was needed to copy a disk file (this is from memory from 25 years ago). //ABC JOB lkajd misc accounting // EXEC PGM=IEHGENER //SYSUT1 DD DSN=INFILE,VOL=SER=USR001,DISP=OLD //SYSUT2 DD DSN=OUTFILE,VOL=SER=USR001,DISP=(NEW,KEEP,DELETE), // SPACE=(CYL,(1,1),RLSE),FCB=(LRECL=80,BLKSIZE=4000,RECFM=FB) //SYSIN DD DUMMY I used nothing but this for five years, then switched to a PDP-10, where the procedure was this: COPY OUTFIL=INFILE People wonder why I don't like IBM SW! Even when IBM went interactive, e.g., with CMS, you still needed to specify much of this. No joke: I used to think that computers were intrinsically hard, and that IBM was so smart to design such complicated protocols to solve such a hard problem. Then I saw that it could be so easy. Sort of like Saul traveling the road to Damascus. Wm. Randolph Franklin, wrf@ecse.rpi.edu, (518) 276-6077; Fax: -6261 ECSE Dept., 6026 JEC, Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst, Troy NY, 12180 USA For more info, including PGP and RIPEM keys, finger -l wrf@ecse.rpi.edu ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #294 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa14863; 21 Jun 94 11:50 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA12962; Tue, 21 Jun 94 07:53:09 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA12953; Tue, 21 Jun 94 07:53:07 CDT Date: Tue, 21 Jun 94 07:53:07 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406211253.AA12953@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #295 TELECOM Digest Tue, 21 Jun 94 07:53:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 295 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Forwarding 5-ESS to 1A-ESS to 5-ESS to Hunt Group - Broken (S Aristotelis) NYNEX/NY Billing Errors Continue (Doug Reuben) MCI Solicits Carphones! (Doug Reuben) MCI v AT&T Supreme Court Decision (Monty Solomon) International Tariff Filing Required (John R. Ruckstuhl) 19" Equipment Rack - Heavy Duty - Standard EIA Rails (Chuck Hodgson) Book Review: "The Virtual Community" by Rheingold (Rob Slade) Windows Zip Navigator (Richard Patterson) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: birchall@pilot.njin.net (Shag Aristotelis) Subject: Forwarding 5-ESS to 1A-ESS to 5-ESS to Hunt Group - Broken Date: 21 Jun 94 01:31:24 GMT Organization: Screaming in Digital, the Queensryche Digest As has been chronicled here in the past, I use Bell Atlantic's "IQ" call-forwarding service to cut down on my bill for calling the local (well, not quite local ;) university dialup. In addition, the line my PC uses has call-forwarding on it, so that educators at the county college and local high-schools can "double-forward" through to the university. So it has been for nearly three years, with nary a problem. [University] <-- [Forward] <-- [Me & Forward] <-- [Others] Last week, this happy state of affairs apparently got a bit unhappy. One of the educators reported it to me Sunday, shortly before a BA-NJ tech showed up, test set in hand, to check the wiring here at the house. At that time, all we had to go on was that the number here was returning a busy-signal instead of forwarding through. Since there are 48 lines on the modem rack, and hardly that many people in this part of the state to use them, we were sure that the lines weren't all in use. In addition, calling out from that line to the other forward (the one between me and the university) worked just fine. The tech determined that the wiring was fine, and that it had to be a problem with the C.O. He called it in to the office, and a switching tech called me repeatedly throughout Sunday afternoon. The number was consistently busy. That evening, it cleared up, so she declared it "better" (though we still didn't know what had caused the problem, and nothing had actually been done to fix it). This morning, I received another report from the educator saying that sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't. This seemed illogical, so I called the number from itself, so that I'd be going through it. I got the connection, but when I tried calling it from the voice phone in the next room, it returned a busy signal. I hung up the modem, and it rang clear. At this point, it became apparent that due to some strange mutation in the switching last week, only one call was being allowed to forward through the number at a time - despite the fact that the number being forwarded _to_ (the other forwarding point) would ring through, and at the final destination (the university) there were more than three dozen open lines. My own use of the line (to dial out to the other forward) doesn't cause any problems at all, so it's not a simple thing of the line being off-hook. I called the local repair CSC (the tech had given me the number). They said to call the IQ Service support folks, since forwarding is an IQ service. I called them, and they forwarded me back to repair. Left them a problem report. I decided to try to get through to the switching tech, since she seemed clueful, but I hadn't gotten her name or number. 4-1-1 didn't like the idea of giving me any sort of number for the switching center *grin* so I called the main office, went through product support, and ended up talking to a guy in Tier 2 support. According to the main office, Tier 2 are experts who don't usually deal with problems involving less than 100 lines. The expert I talked to strangely had no experience with forwarding, but he was very knowledgeable about switches. He told me that multiple-forwards (such as mine) wouldn't work between two identical switches. I didn't catch the reason for this, but I accept it, since it's the only useful thing I've heard all day. My CO has a 5-ESS. The middle forward has a 1A-ESS, soon to be replaced with a Siemens digital switch. The university has a 5-ESS. Ergo, it _should_ all be working fine. (Thank goodness BA-NJ has the good sense not to put identical switches in adjacent CO's.) I called repair again, explained the situation briefly, and asked them to have a switch tech call me. They said they'd have one call in an hour. I called back two hours later, asked why no one had called, and the revised it to "they'll call you when it's cleared." Throughout the last five or six steps, I have told every person I've talked to that it's almost definitely a software bug on the local 5-ESS. They don't seem to like it when customers talk about software bugs, or ask to speak to someone who deals with software. Oh well. If it's still broken in the morning, I'll be calling them again, I suppose. Mind you, I'm not _personally_ inconvenienced by this, but I'd like the equipment to work, since I'm paying for the functionality it delivers -- when it works correctly. I'm still a big fan of Bell Atlantic, and won't move out of their service area any time soon if I can help it -- but I think I might move to a different exchange. :) Shag (did Godot work for a telco? ;) ------------------------------ From: dreuben@netcom.com (Cid Technologies) Subject: NYNEX/NY Billing Errors Continue Date: Mon, 20 Jun 1994 15:15:17 PDT After mentioning to NYNEX/NY that they were incorrectly billing $3 daily roaming charges for MobilReach calls in Baltimore (or in any MobilReach market), they said that the problem would be immediately corrected. This was three months ago! I had mentioned it to them in Jan, Feb, and March, and assumed after filing a "trouble ticket" about this it would be corrected. One would think that after three complaints and about one hour on the phone with them explaining to customer service that these calls should not incur a $3 charge that they would want to save some time and correct the problem rather than go through this once a month. Customer service will *insist* that these calls do incur a $3 charge, even on days when there is a full page ad in the paper for MobilReach which says just the opposite! So if you are a NYNEX/NY customer, and roam into the Bell Atlantic service areas of Baltimore and DC, check your bills -- there may be $3 daily roaming charges which should NOT apply. As for me, this is the last time I'll have to deal with NYNEX/NY's utterly brainless customer service morons -- apparently, they could not get along too well with Bell Atlantic in the NY "NYNEX/BAMS partnership system", so this July BAMS will be assuming all of NYNEX/NY's customers with Jersey numbers, and I will be dealing with BAMS instead of NYNEX. (I have a NJ # so that I don't have to pay the outrageous amount of tax which the state of New York, perpetually nearing bankruptcy, deems appropriate to levy against cellular customers with NY numbers - get a Jersey number, save over 10% on your next bill! ;( ) BTW, I believe NYNEX will drop their cheapest plans in July (if they haven't done so already.) If they do, then Cell One is definitely the way to go, as NYNEX/NY offers *nothing* over CO/NY other than better rates. (well, OK, they do have call delivery to Orange County and Dutches County while CO/NY doesn't, and NYNEX does not bill for incomplete calls over 40 seconds as does CO/NY.) I wonder if BAMS will continue the $24 plan and I think they had a $19 plan with high airtime rates as well ... we'll see ... Doug CID Technologies (203) 499 - 5221 ------------------------------ From: dreuben@netcom.com (Cid Technologies) Subject: MCI Solicits Carphones! Date: Mon, 20 Jun 1994 15:39:19 PDT I got a call two days ago on my carphone from MCI. The guy did the usual "Hello, Douglas ... I want to tell you how I can save you a lot of money over AT&T!" I thought this was odd, since I switched to MCI *from* AT&T a few months ago. AT&T wouldn't give me frequent flier miles for my carphone usage, and refused to allow me to pay my bills by VISA, which MCI had no problem with. More importantly, AT&T has this annoying habit of not opening the voice channel from the calling party TO my carphone until after I pick up the phone (ie, until I "supervise"). Since I roam a lot, when someone calls me the call goes to my home system and is (was) then sent over AT&T to where I am roaming, I would answer the phone, say "Hello" a few times, hear nothing, and only after five seconds or so when supervision got back to the calling party would the line be opened and I would have to apologize for not hearing the calling party right away. Not very professional! AT&T more or less said "tough luck", so after I got fed up with their "We don't care ... we're the Phone Company" attitude on this issue, I just gave up on AT&T and went with MCI. So the MCI dweeb goes on about how I would save money if I *switched* to MCI. I told him that I already USED MCI, and he said "Oh, no, you are with AT&T, and they charge more ... much more." (As if I were some four year old and he was telling me about the Big Bad Wolf!). Finally, rather than spend another minute on airtime, I told him "Do you know this is costing me airtime -- you're calling a carphone..." And he cheerfully replied "A carphone -- I love it!" and went on with his routine. Needless to say, I got his name, sales office, manager's number, etc, and will talk to MCI Corporate about this. Does Sprint take VISA, give miles, and not have the AT&T supervision problem? Maybe I should try them! Unlike AT&T/MCI, I have NEVER received an unwanted solicitation from them in five years. That's pretty important to me, especially when AT&T called for WEEKS after we switched just *2* lines to WilTel! I had to call their executive complaint # (908-221-4191) to get them to stop, and the next "save" call from AT&T will result in my yanking all of our lines from them and handing them to WilTel. Anyhow, I used to think I was safe on my carphone from these annoying calls from AT&T, MCI, et. al. Guess not anymore ...:( Doug CID Technologies (203) 499 - 5221 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 01:58:20 -0400 From: Monty Solomon Subject: MCI v AT&T Supreme Court Decision Excerpt from liibulletin -- 18 June 1994 Begin forwarded message: AN E-BULLETIN LEGAL INFORMATION INSTITUTE -- CORNELL LAW SCHOOL lii@fatty.law.cornell.edu The following Supreme Court decisions just arrived on the ftp site ftp.cwru.edu. These are not the decisions themselves nor excerpts from them, but summaries (syllabi) prepared by the Court's Reporter of Decisions. Instructions for accessing or ordering the full text of any of these decisions are provided at the end of this bulletin. ================================================================ MCI TELECOMMUNICATIONS CORP. v. AMERICAN TELEPHONE & TELEGRAPH CO. Docket 93-356 -- Decided June 17, 1994 ================================================================ Title 47 U.S.C. 203(a) requires communications common carriers to file tariffs with the Federal Communications Commission, and 203(b)(2) authorizes the Commission to "modify any requirement made by or under . . . this section . . . ." Relying on the latter provision, the Commission issued an order determining that its earlier decision to make tariff filing optional for all nondominant long distance carriers was within its authority to "modify." American Telephone and Telegraph Co., the only dominant long distance carrier, filed a motion with the Court of Appeals seeking summary reversal of the Commission's order. The motion was granted on the basis of that court's prior decision determining that the Commission's authorization of permissive detariffing violated 203(a). Held: The Commission's permissive detariffing policy is not a valid exercise of its 203(b)(2) authority to "modify any requirement." Because virtually every dictionary in use now and at the time the statute was enacted defines "to modify" as meaning to change moderately or in minor fashion, the word "modify" must be seen to have a connotation of increment or limitation. That 203(b)(2) does not contemplate basic or fundamental changes is also demonstrated by the fact that the only exception to it deals with a very minor matter: The Commission may not require the period for giving notice of tariff changes to exceed 120 days. The Commission's permissive detariffing policy cannot be justified as a nonfundamental "modification." The tariff-filing requirement is the heart of the common carrier subchapter of the Communications Act of 1934, and the policy eliminates that requirement entirely for all except one firm in the long-distance sector, and for 40% of all consumers in that sector. Moreover, it is hard to imagine that a condition shared by so many affected parties qualifies as "special" under 203(b)(2)'s requirement that when the Commission proceeds "by general order" to make a modification, the order can only apply "to special circumstances or conditions." The Commission's interpretation of the statute is therefore not entitled to deference, since it goes beyond the meaning that the statute can bear. That Congress seemed to manifest agreement with the parties' respective interpretations in later legislation is irrelevant; there has been no consistent history of legislation to which one or the other interpretation is essential. Finally, petitioners' argument that their interpretation better serves the Act's broad purpose of promoting efficient telephone service should be addressed to Congress. Pp. 5-16. Affirmed. Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Kennedy, Thomas, and Ginsburg, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Blackmun and Souter, JJ., joined. O'Connor, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the cases. HOW TO ACCESS OR ORDER EMAIL DELIVERY OF ITEMS REPORTED IN THIS BULLETIN The full text of these decisions is archived at the ftp site ftp.cwru.edu in several formats (ascii, WordPerfect, xywrite...) You can also access the decisions using the LII's gopher server at gopher.law.cornell.edu, or through our World Wide Web server at http://www.law.cornell.edu/. If you don't have access to a gopher or WWW client, you can access one via telnet. Telnet to www.law.cornell.edu and log in as www. Finally, if you have only email access to the internet, you can retrieve these documents by sending a mail message to liideliver@ fatty.law.cornell.edu. Put your document requests in the body of the message like: request 91-611 You can request several decisions at once by putting them on separate lines. Request court decisions using the docket number as it appears with the syllabus. ------------------------------ From: ruck@netcom.com (John R. Ruckstuhl) Subject: International Tariff Filing Required? Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 10:06:40 GMT For a long time, I've not known which LD carrier would be least expensive for me. After all, I listen to the marketspeak with some suspicion ("save 20%"... off what?). Last week I decided to take a few minutes (hah) to investigate the market. I asked AT&T, MCI, Sprint, and a couple of other LD carriers I'd never heard of who were listed in my yellow pages, ExpressTel and LCI. I asked for STANDARD, NON-DISCOUNTED rates from my residence to a handful of places I call, because I need a basis to evaluate the N% off claims. For the calls I make from California (415) 324- to various US East Coast locations, and to Montserrat (a non-US island in the Caribbean, area code (809), 491-) I found the per-minute STANDARD NON-DISCOUNTED rates for AT&T, MCI, and Sprint are within a penny of each other in all my cases (your mileage may vary): East Coast examples (Day/Eve/Night) were 27/17/14 cents/min for AT&T and Sprint, MCI was 26/16/13). Montserrat was 90/120/76 cents/min. ExpressTel is mailing me a copy of their rate structure. But LCI has quoted rates that aren't believable. They sound too good to be true. I've got three different rate quotes from LCI for my calls to Montserrat: (1) 17/14/12 cents/min, (2) 25 cents/min regardless of time-of-day, (3) 98/74/59 cents/min. After I asked each time for them to double check, they each returned with quote (1). Yes, 88% off AT&T's standard rate for Evening calls. Then a little more truth filtered into the conversation. This rate (17/14/12) was available only to those who picked them as their primary carrier and were enrolled in one of their free discount plans. So I asked what the rate would be if I just used their five-digit access code and had them carry my call to Montserrat. The rep couldn't quote me rates ("they depend on a lot of things"). So I asked for a quote of the rate in effect right that minute, but he couldn't provide even that. Firstly -- any comments on LCI? Secondly -- must they file tariff rates for int'l calls with any authority, e.g. FCC? If so, who do I contact to request filed info? Thirdly -- their discount rates to Montserrat sound too good to be true; sanity check? Fourthly -- is there any legal requirement that they be able to quote me a specific rate in effect? Why couldn't I get that info? Fifthly -- should whether I've chosen a carrier as my primary carrier for a line matter w.r.t. which discount programs I'm eligible to join? I seem to remember that, e.g., MCI Friends and Family could be joined even if MCI wasn't the selected LD carrier, but that many MCI Customer Servicefolk didn't understand that concept, so the knowledgable customer had to twist arms. Could this have been a regulation imposed on the LD industry or just a MCI fine-print policy? If the rate is real, then all by itself, it would quickly pay for an extra telephone line with LCI selected as primary carrier. Thanks for your comments! John R. Ruckstuhl ruck@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: Chuck.Hodgson@es.atl.sita.int (Chuck Hodgson) Subject: 19" Equipment Rack - Heavy Duty - Standard EIA Rails Reply-To: chuck.hodgson@es.atl.sita.int Organization: SITA Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 02:12:24 GMT 19 " Communcations/Computer Rack $550 Or Best Offer Trimm Industries 19" Rack, 36" deep, 70" Tall - On Casters - Strudy, welded Contruction - Grey frame with beige rear and side doors - EIA Threaded rails, front and back, adjustable - two full length power strips - 30Amp -120volt circuit breaker protected power panel in rear. (NOTE: 30A is NOT required, as the power strips are standed 120V/20Amp ) - 3 cantilever shelves - 4 Flat shelves, 3 mounted on slides. - extra slides, mounting screws and cable troughs included. chuck@atl.sita.int (404) 850-5382 Days ------------------------------ From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "The Virtual Community" by Rheingold Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 05:00:00 GMT BKVRTCOM.RVW 940411 Addison-Wesley Publishing Company Heather Rignanesi, Marketing, x340, 73171.657@Compuserve.com P.O. Box 520 26 Prince Andrew Place Don Mills, Ontario M3C 2T8 416-447-5101 fax: 416-443-0948 or Tiffany Moore, Publicity tiffanym@aw.com Bob Donegon bobd@aw.com John Wait, Editor, Corporate and Professional Publishing johnw@aw.com Tom Stone, Editor, Higher Education Division tomsto@aw.com Philip Sutherland, Schulman Series 74640.2405@compuserve.com 1 Jacob Way Reading, MA 01867-9984 800-822-6339 617-944-3700 Fax: (617) 944-7273 5851 Guion Road Indianapolis, IN 46254 800-447-2226 "The Virtual Community", Rheingold, 1993, 0-201-60870-7, U$22.95/C$29.95 hlr@well.sf.ca.us In the dust jacket blurbs, Mitch Kapor is quoted as calling this, "A Magic Mystery Tour of the human side of cyberspace." Although the points of some passages are mysterious, this book definitely concentrates on the human face of computer mediated communications. Tom Peters calls it "riveting". Now the personal aspects of net communication are important, and too often get lost in the technology. Rheingold's "stream of anecdote" style is also pretty much guaranteed to keep your attention. But Rheingold's view of the nets is limited, lopsided and even somewhat distorted. A "Nonsequitor" cartoon shows a long line of people in business dress waiting their turn at a table. Standing before the table, with their backs to a wall, they pick up a dart and throw it over their shoulder at the wall. At the top of the wall, large bold letters state, "Today I am an Expert In ... " The remainder of the wall is covered with small pieces of paper with topics written on them. The title reads, "How Journalists Start Their Day." It is possibly important to bear in mind that this is more or less what Rheingold boasts of doing in his work (page 59). Rheingold appears to be paddling at the shores of the cyberspace sea, calling our attention to oddities in the tidal pools of Prestel, Minitel, CIX, TWICS, Compuserve, and his home puddle at the WELL. While not completely unaware of the Internet ocean before him, he seems to prefer to ignore it (most often referring to it by the historical name of ARPANET). In a sense, this does not really matter: since there is no attempt at any sort of analysis, what does it hurt if the stories are limited? Instructive is the fact that whole chapters are devoted to MUD (Multi-User Domains) and IRC (Internet Relay Chat). Virtual communities on the net are rapidly evolving ones, with fast growth (the Interpedia discussion reached 30,000 members within a month of its creation), high turnover in membership, and sometimes an equally rapid demise. IRC, however, is the ultimate in ephemericity. MUDs, on the other hand, are almost antithetical to the idea of community. Not only are they virtual, but completely unreal, with the permitted; nay, encouraged; use of false personae. For those who know the nets, this can be an amusing and entertaining diversion. For those who do not, please do not base your judgments on this. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKVRTCOM.RVW 940411. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated newsgroups/mailing lists. DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca, RSlade@sfu.ca, Rob Slade at 1:153/733 BCVAXLUG ConVAXtion, Vancouver, BC, Oct. 13 & 14, 1994 contact vernc@decus.ca ------------------------------ From: richard.patterson@yob.com (Richard Patterson) Subject: Windows Zip Navigator Date: Tue, 17 Jun 94 16:43:00 -0600 Organization: Ye Olde Bailey BBS - Houston, TX - 713-520-1569 Reply-To: richard.patterson@yob.com (Richard Patterson) June 10, 1994 [Houston, TX]. FlashPoint Windows Zip Navigator [ZipNAV] has been released, and is available for download from CompuServe (WINSHARE and other Windows related forums), America Online (Windows and other forums), Genie (Windows, IBM and other forums), Ye Olde Bailey -- Houston BBS at (713) 520-1569. The shareware/evaluation Windows product is contained in the self-extracting archive file ZIPNAV.EXE (ZIPNAV.ZIP or ZIPNAV20.ZIP). A brief description follows: File: ZIPNAV.EXE (668316 bytes) DL time (9600 baud): < 18 minutes AUTHOR: Richard Patterson (FlashPoint Development) NEEDS: Windows or Windows for Workgroup 3.1 or greater Type: Shareware This is a self-extracting file requiring 1,820,610 bytes when uncompressed. ZipNAV combines the original 100% Windows FlashPoint ZIP/ZIPX & Zip Tools with all new user interfaces, File Manager extensions, custom menus and Microsoft Windows for Workgroup support/toolbar buttons, "true" drag and drop (now drag ZIP archive member files directly TO as well as from File Manager dirs/zip), optional PKZIP shell, online doc/help, support for programmer/user applications (apps that can execute a program via WinExec() or macros can function as a compression/decompression shell), temporary checkout (run, edit/update, view, print files), standalone text file viewer & much more. Zip 1.1/2.0 compatible decompression and management; compression limited to Zip 1.1 file format -- so acceptable for America Online uploads. These are standalone Windows applications; PKZip for DOS is NOT required. See DISCOUNT.TXT which describes early registration and competitive upgrade discounts available on individual and multiple use licenses. Note: To install, run the self-extracting archive ZIPNAV.EXE in (or unzip ZIPNAV.ZIP to) a temporary directory. Then run FPSETUP.EXE to install ZipNAV. Documentation: !, FP_NEWS.WRI plus Online Help For further information, contact the author at one of the following addresses: E-Mail: Internet -- richard.patterson@yob.com flashpoint@genie.geis.com flashptdev@aol.com America Online: FlashPtDev GEnie: FlashPoint CompuServe: 70771,1336 Please do not send Internet mail to CompuServe -- it will be rejected, as CIS is the only major online service charging its subscribers an additional fee for incoming mail from Internet (MCI, AT&T and other non-CIS services). Ye Olde Bailey BBS Zyxel 713-520-1569(V.32bis) Hayes 713-520-9566 (V.FC) Houston,Texas yob.com Home of alt.cosuard ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #295 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa07172; 22 Jun 94 17:45 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA15845; Wed, 22 Jun 94 13:40:08 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA15836; Wed, 22 Jun 94 13:40:05 CDT Date: Wed, 22 Jun 94 13:40:05 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406221840.AA15836@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #296 TELECOM Digest Wed, 22 Jun 94 13:40:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 296 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Asia Telecom News (Cedric Hui) V.34 Standard is Agreed (Robert Shaw) Spectrum Allocation (Amy Berger) AMPS Inter-Operable With GSM? (Amy Berger) Looking for Erlang "B" Equation (Scott White) The Third Summer School on Telecommunications (Vesa Ruokonen) Help on Dial Line Protection From Storms! (Mike Foltz) Germany <-> Canda: Cheapest Rates? (poing@cs.tu-berlin.de) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: chui@netcom.com (Cedric Hui) Subject: Asia Telecom News Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 18:04:58 GMT While most of the discussions on telecom developement of in this Digest are of local issues (North America), I hope that recent telecom developments in Asia are also of interest to this group's readers: FROM HK: Subject: Motorola Invests US$40M In Hong Kong Wireless Network 06/20/94 Date: 20 Jun 94 22:13:27 GMT NORTH POINT, HONG KONG, 1994 JUN 20 (NB) -- Motorola has announced that it is investing US$40 million in Hong Kong to develop a high speed wireless computing network for the territory based on the latest microcellular packet switched technology. It is the first such venture by Motorola anywhere in the world. One local information technology (IT) industry watcher, who preferred not to be identified, told Newsbytes that he thought this would be a forerunner of even more intensified Motorola activity in the region. "The telecoms giant is one of the pioneers in this part of the world and as such commands considerable respect throughout. It is expected that Australia, because of its wide geographical spread, will be observing this move with more than a passing interest as well," he said. The network will be built and operated by a new Motorola subsidiary, Motorola AirCommunications Ltd. It will give users of notebook computers, personal organizers, and personal digital assistants (PDAs) access to information and messaging services wherever and whenever they need it, freeing them from the constraints of the wired telephone network. "Motorola AirComms is the newest and most exciting communications company in Hong Kong," said Robert Growney, executive vice president of Motorola and president and general manager of the company's Messaging, Information and Media Sector (MIMS). "To us it's more than an investment - it's a chance for Hong Kong to become the world's showcase for a whole new concept in personal communications." Growney adds that Hong Kong was chosen as the ideal city in which to pioneer such a network because of its "dynamic economic environment" and its proven acceptance of advanced mobile communication services such as cellular telephones and CT2. "Motorola will draw on the experience we gain with this venture to extend our wireless network operations to other parts of the world." Operating at 19,200 bits per second (bps), the Motorola AirComms network will be operational in trial mode by the end of the year. Unlike other networks it will primarily offer a range of messaging and public information services specifically designed for consumers. "We are investing in a service that will offer four times the speed of the previous wireless data network, together with greatly improved geographical coverage and a much wider range of applications," said Pam Thompson, managing director of Motorola AirComms. "By exploiting microcellular technology, we will provide comprehensive, uninterrupted coverage throughout the urban areas and in many parts of the New Territories. The new network is expected to be the platform for a host of new services including wireless fax and email, scribble-and-send messaging through PDAs, and mobile access to information sources such as CompuServe Hong Kong, Thompson said. Looking a little into the future, she added, "we foresee that mobile banking and shopping will become important applications, together with remote access to office local area networks." The Motorola AirComms network will be compatible with similar networks, also using Motorola technology, which are currently under development in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Australia. Together with Motorola, the carriers involved in these networks have formed a consortium called AsiaPAC Radio Data Net and intend to offer their customers a transparent "roaming" service throughout the Asia-Pacific region. "Our first priority is to provide our customers with top-quality service and support. While we invest in the new network, we will simultaneously be investing in people - skilled technical staff who will be able to understand our customers' needs and help them to easily make use of the many services available," said Thompson. (Keith Cameron/19940620/Press Contact: Pam Thompson, Motorola AirComms +852-599-2800) FROM CHINA: Date: Tue, 21 Jun 94 13:57:24 -0700 Subject: China Says It's Leaping Onto Telecom Superhighway BEIJING (Reuter) - Telecommunications Minister Wu Jiachuan said China is aggressively leap-frogging its way onto a futuristic information superhighway by exploiting the country's very backwardness. Beijing plans to use $7 billion in foreign investment by 2000 but still will not allow foreigners to take equity or management stakes, Xinhua news agency late Monday quoted the minister of posts and telecommunications as saying. `Compared with Western countries China is spared the pain of eliminating outdated equipment due to its not-so-developed telecommunications infrastructure,' Wu said. Instead, he said, it can install the newest equipment without being hindered by entrenched technological interests. `China's telecommunications construction can leap over some development stages and technical levels which the Western countries had gone through and directly adopt highly efficient new technology and equipment,' Wu said. Wu reiterated a ban on direct management or equity ownership of services by foreigners, a policy that reflects national security concerns and -- some analysts say -- the ministry's strong interest in protecting its lucrative monopoly. Wu said foreign investment was welcome in telecommunications equipment production and supply as well as in engineering, design, product development, research and education. `China especially welcomes overseas businessmen to invest in telecommunications construction projects,' he said. `The Chinese side will ensure their interests according to the rule of mutual benefit.' Wu said China hopes by 2000 to tap `at least' $7 billion in foreign capital -- more than the $5.67 billion it has used over the last 10 years. It will use $2.1 billion in foreign capital in the next 18 months alone, he said. The addition of 12 million lines last year brought China's total to 42 million -- still one of the world's lowest rates at 3.5 lines for every 100 people. The target is 140 million lines by 2000, he said. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Jun 1994 09:40:22 CET From: SHAW +41 22 730 5338 Subject: V.34 Standard is Agreed Patrick, Greetings from Geneva. I thought that TELECOM Digest readers might be interested in the news that the long awaited V.34 "V.fast" modem standard was approved a couple of weeks ago by the relevant ITU-T (formerly CCITT) Study Group. It has now gone out for ballot to all ITU-T members with the deadline of September 20, 1994 for responses. Electronic versions of the standard will be available within a few days to ITU members on our Gopher server. For non-ITU members, an electronic version will be available after the September 20th deadline. Robert Shaw Information Services Department International Telecommunication Union Place des Nations 1211 Geneva 20, Switzerland shaw@itu.ch Here's the "official" ITU press release. ITU/94-16 9 June 1994 Milestone in modem technology: the V.34 standard is agreed by ITU-T and put under ballot for adoption Study Group 14 of the International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector, ITU-T (formerly known as CCITT), has been meeting in Geneva, Switzerland for the last week to decide on the approval of the long-awaited standard for future high-speed modems. The meeting was chaired by Mr K. Kern (Germany). The work of Study Group 14 covers modems and transmission techniques for data, telegraph and telematic services. The adoption of the standard will give a go-ahead signal to the industry to offer new products using high performance data transfer technology. Work on the drafting of the standard started some three years ago Termed by industry experts V.fast in its development stage, V.34 as it will now be called, will surpass the current technology used in data transfer via traditional telephone lines. V.34 future modems will transfer data at speeds twice the current technology, thus the nickname V.fast. By increasing transmission speed, they will drastically cut down the time needed by computers and faxes and in turn lower user phone bills. These new modems will have variable data transmission capacity ranging from 2 400 bits/second all the way up to 28 800 bits/second. The new modems will use a feature called line probing that will allow modems to identify the capacities and quality of the phone line and adjust themselves to allow, for each individual connection, for maximum throughput using the highest possible data transmission rate. In addition the standard will support a half-duplex mode of operation for fax applications and will support automoding to existing V-series modems. Other important features of the new technology include an optional auxiliary channel with a synchronous date signalling rate of 200 bits/second. Data conveyed on this channel would be independent of the primary channel (2 400 28 800 bit/second) and would consist mostly of modem control data. Multi-dimensional trellis coding will be used to gain higher immunity to noise and other phone line impairments thus improving throughput. V.34 modems will also be the first modems to identify themselves to telephone network equipment (handshaking). Most important to the industry, V.34 will not only foster world-wide connectivity due to its adaptive capabilities, but will enlarge the market opportunities in areas which face poor telephone line quality. V.34 technology has been long in coming and has had to overcome many obstacles. One year ago, members of the modem manufacturing industry had become so impatient, they suggested that an interim standard for modems be approved. This interim standard, however, only made speed improvements. The proliferation of high-speed non-V.fast modem production led many market analysts to become sceptical of the interoperability such non-V.fast technology-oriented products. The adoption of V.34 is therefore very opportune. "V.34 modems will be transmission devices that will be faster, more reliable and cheaper to use," said Mr Kern at the outcome of the meeting. Given its half-duplex mode of operation, the use of V.34 will also help reduce costs of fax transmissions and make feasible the use of colour fax. "The fax market is in sharp increase on a global basis, thus providing a new market outlet for modem manufacturers," Mr Kern added. The approved standard should be applicable within a period of 16 weeks maximum. "One of the main issues for the future will be to make it possible for V.34 modems to adapt their speed while transmitting data to adjust with changes occurring on the lines such as noise impairments," concluded Mr Kern. BREAKTHROUGH FOR DEAF AND HARD OF HEARING At the same meeting of Study Group 14, a standard Recommendation V.18 was also approved. It will provide, for the first time, recognition of the communication needs of the deaf and hard of hearing. This Recommendation, with its capability to interwork with all existing devices, provides the platform on which a universal standard communication device can be built. ------------------------------ From: fsca@netcom.com (Frost ca/.nameFsca Sulli) Subject: Spectrum Allocation Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 16:45:29 GMT Was there an auction for PCS, especially unlicensed voice and data PCS services? As I don't read this group often, please send me e-mail at: amy_berger@fs-ca.ccmail.compuserve.com Thanks, Amy Berger - Frost & Sullivan fsca@netcom.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes there was something like this recently and it was reported here in this Digest. Perhaps one or more of the readers will send you copies of the notices as they appeared here. PAT] ------------------------------ From: fsca@netcom.com (Frost ca/.nameFsca Sulli) Subject: AMPS Inter-Operable With GSM? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 16:52:30 GMT Can anyone tell me if there is any manufacturer working on AMPS/TACS interoperability with GSM? Does any one have a contact at the Joint Technical Committee/Air Interface Standards Group? Please reply via e-mail at: Bukasa_Tshilombo@fs-ca.ccmail.compuserve.com fsca@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: swhite@mathcs.emory.edu (Scott White) Subject: Looking for Erlang "B" Equation Date: 22 Jun 1994 18:01:19 GMT Organization: Emory University, Dept of Math and CS There is an Erlang Equation, I think named "B", which computes the number of required rotary ports given blocking probability, holding time, and average calling frequency I think. Could someone kindly tell me what it is? Thanks much, Scott White Department of Mathematics and Computer Science Emory University, Atlanta, GA Internet: swhite@mathcs.emory.edu UUCP: {rutgers,ogicse,gatech}!emory!swhite ------------------------------ From: Vesa.Ruokonen@lut.fi (Vesa Ruokonen) Subject: The Third Summer School on Telecommunications Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 12:28:28 GMT Reply-To: Vesa.Ruokonen@lut.fi Organization: Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland (Also available as: http://www.lut.fi/ltkk/tite/SSTC94.html) Lappeenranta University of Technology 15.6.1994 Data Communications Laboratory THE THIRD SUMMER SCHOOL ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS Lappeenranta University of Technology August 8 - 11, 1994 Preliminary Program The 3rd Summer School on Telecommunications will consist of the International Workshop on Intelligent Networks, during Monday and Tuesday, August 8 - 9, and two Seminars on Wednesday and Thursday, August 10 - 11. The IN Workshop is arranged together with the IFIP TC6 Task Group on Intelligent Networks and Telecom Finland. The aim of the workshop is to collect international state-of-the-art contributions on the Intelligent Network technology and its applications. In the beginning of the workshop there will be a Tutorial on Intelligent Networks. The presentations of the IN Workshop have been selected using a review process based on the submitted extended abstracts. A more detailed program including the titles of the presentations will be available by July 12. The Seminars concentrate on two rapidly evolving areas of telecommunications: Network and Service Management and Broadband and ATM Technologies. Each topic will take one day, consisting of invited presentations. The speakers are leading Finnish experts, with one exception: professor Peter Martini is a high-speed networking specialist from the University of Paderborn, Germany. The Workshop and the Seminars will take place in the Auditorium of the new Ylioppilastalo, in the immediate vicinity of the University main building and the car park in front of the University. Guidance is arranged starting from the main door of the University. The events start at 9.15 am each day. Summer School Proceedings, social program, lunch and coffee are included in the registration fee. There is a special student fee, not including the social events on Tuesday and Wednesday. The lectures are open (no fee) for the students and personnel of LTKK within the space limits in the Auditorium. For more detailed information, see the bulletin board of the Dept. of Information Technology, or contact the Summer School Secretary in the address given below. PROGRAM: Monday 8.8. - INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON Tuesday 9.8. INTELLIGENT NETWORKS Wednesday 10.8. SEMINAR ON NETWORK AND SERVICE MANAGEMENT Thursday 11.8. SEMINAR ON BROADBAND AND ATM TECHNOLOGIES Preliminary program for the Seminars: Wednesday 10.8. SEMINAR ON NETWORK AND SERVICE MANAGEMENT Chairman: Assistant Manager Jouko Parviainen, TELE 9.15 - 10.00 Service and Network Management expectations vs. capabilities Jouko Parviainen, TELE-TKK 10.00 - 10.45 Evolution of Open SW Architectures and Platforms Veli Kokkonen, TELE-KV 10.45 - 11.30 Operations Support System Integration with IN Service Control Point using Transaction Processing Timo Metsaportti, Independence-Technologies Finland Oy 11.30 - 13.00 Lunch 13.00 - 13.45 Q3 Network Management Software Development Nassim Bouteldja, Martis Oy 13.45 - 14.00 Coffee break 14.00 - 14.45 Use of X.500 in Service and Network Management Ismo Heikkonen, TELE-TKK 14.45 - 15.30 Neural Networks in Service and Network Management Jari Vanttinen, TELE-TKK Thursday 11.8. SEMINAR ON BROADBAND AND ATM TECHNOLOGIES Chairman: Prof. Jarmo Harju, LTKK 9.15 - 10.00 Realistic roadmap to ATM-networks Hannu Flinck, Nokia Telecommunications 10.00 - 10.30 Routing in ATM networks Jorma Virtamo, VTT 10.30 - 11.30 The 100VG-AnyLAN standard and its position in high-speed LAN technology Prof. Peter Martini, University of Paderborn, Germany 11.30 - 13.00 Lunch 13.00 - 14.00 Recent trends in teletraffic theory Ilkka Norros, VTT 14.00- 14.15 Coffee break 14.15 - 14.45 The impact of Video-on-Demand Service into ATM networks Hannu Flinck, Nokia Telecommunications 14.45 - 15.15 FSR - a switching technology for digitized video Juha Zidbeck, VTT For more information, please contact the Summer School Secretary: Ms. Paivi Ponni tel. +358 53 574 3917 LTKK / Centre for Continuing Education fax: +358 53 574 3920 P.O. Box 20, FIN-53850 Lappeenranta Finland The 3rd Summer School on Telecommunications August 8-11, 1994 Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland REGISTRATION FORM Please complete and return before July 15, 1994 to: Ms P{ivi P|nni Tel +358 53 574 3917 LTKK / Centre for Continuing Education Fax +358 53 574 3920 P.O. Box 20 FIN-53851 LAPPEENRANTA Finland Please fill out in CAPITAL letters Family name__________________Given name____________ Organization________________________________________ Postal address______________________________________ ___________________________________________________ Phone____________________Fax_______________________ Registration fee should be paid before August 8, 1994 to Lappeenranta University of Technology, PSP 00007 Helsinki Finland SWIFT PSPB FI HH Account number 800011 - 12344. Please mention your name and the period you participate in your payment. Payment includes coffee and luncheon every day, and the Welcome Party. Social Dinner and Lake Sauna Party are included in the regular fee, but not in the student fee. Extra tickets for the Social Dinner are available at the price FIM 150. Please mark X your choice Regular fee Student fee August 8-11,1994 FIM 1500 ______ FIM 300 ______ August 8-9, 1994 FIM 1000 ______ FIM 200 ______ August 10, 1994 FIM 500 ______ FIM 100 ______ August 11, 1994 FIM 500 ______ FIM 100 ______ I will also participate in Welcome Party in Aug 8_____ Social dinner in Aug 9 _____ and Lake Sauna Party in Aug 10_____. Date/Signature ______________________________________ HOTEL INFORMATION For hotel accommodations we have made a block reservation in each of the following hotels for August 6-14, 1994. Please make your own reservation at the hotel of your choice as soon as possible and before the deadline of July 22. You must mention the name "Telecom Finland" in order to receive the special rate. CUMULUS HOTEL, Valtakatu 31, Lappeenranta Tel. +358 53 5781 Fax. +358 53 578 299 Single room FIM 340, double room FIM 390. Breakfast included SOKOS HOTEL LAPPEE, Brahenkatu 1, Lappeenranta Tel. +358 53 5861 Fax.+358 53 415 3295 Single room FIM 290, double room FIM 340. Breakfast included. Vesa.Ruokonen@lut.fi ------------------------------ From: mike_foltz@sgate.com Subject: Help on Dial Line Protection From Storms! Date: 22 Jun 1994 13:50:27 GMT Organization: Southgate Internet Host To all thanks in advance. I am experiancing problems on our BBS and Internet dial-in lines when there is wicked lighting storms. We have a total of 30 lines both local and 1800 numbers all feeding Multitech a rack mount card cage with MT1432BR modems. On the RS-232 the modems feed a Shiva lan rover for ARA or a cisco CS-516 for Internet access. We also have other vendors modems such as Intel, ZyXel and Scout modems for testing, SLIP and fax services. I seems that the storms do most harm on the Multitech modems, but it appears not to bother the other modems. The past 2 storms i have had to reprogram the Multitechs most lost what they were originally setup with. Some did not recover even with reprogramming. I am able to connect but either get no data or just garbage. Is there some type of pads, isolators etc that can be used on the dialup lines to protect the modems from getting trashed and also let 14.4K rates pass? Is there guides to BBS or Modem installations that address this issue? I am a bit confused why the other modems didn't have problems? They have phone lines that come in over the same copper bundle that feeds the Multitechs. Any help is appreciated!! Thanks, Mike Foltz foltzmik@sgate.com 703-803-8361 ------------------------------ From: poing@cs.tu-berlin.de (Frank) Subject: Germany <-> Canda: Cheapest Rates? Date: 22 Jun 1994 13:59:45 GMT Organization: Technical University of Berlin, Germany Could anybody please tell me what rates are offered for calls between Germany and Canada (and the other way around)? I am living in Germany and my fiancee is living in Canada at the moment. The calls would mainly be going to just to one location, so maybe there's an offer like 'MCI's Best Friend' for example. Please send the answers via Email, 'cause I am not really reading this section regularly. poing@cs.tu-berlin.de Frank http://www.cs.tu-berlin.de/~poing ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #296 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa07788; 22 Jun 94 18:47 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA18472; Wed, 22 Jun 94 15:00:05 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA18463; Wed, 22 Jun 94 15:00:03 CDT Date: Wed, 22 Jun 94 15:00:03 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406222000.AA18463@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #297 TELECOM Digest Wed, 22 Jun 94 15:00:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 297 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson More Problems With 911 Calls (John Musselman) AT&T Phones - Junk? (rt@astro.ocis.temple.edu) Call Back and the Less Developed Countries PTT's (martinvars@aol.com) PBX vs. ACD (was Re: Privacy on Rolm Switch) (Kevin Collins) Centrex Lines vs. Regular Lines for BBS (Ian Evans) NT Meridian 9417 Telephone Set (Tony Harminc) Modem Doesn't Recognize Hangup - Fixable? (John R. Ruckstuhl) Information About Hayes ESP Requested (Marc Schaefer) MCI Metro - "Wanted Poster" (Paul Robinson) MCI Metro Ad - Analysis (Paul Robinson) Another National N11 Code Request (Greg Monti) O.J. Simpson Case (Carl Moore) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jcm@frank.nccom.com (John Musselman) Subject: More Problems With 911 Calls Date: 22 Jun 1994 14:02:27 -0700 Organization: North County Communications, San Diego, California While roaming ... if it's odd and bizarre, I will encounter it. Recently, I was about 20 miles west of El Centro, California. I had my phone set to scan the A system. My home system is also A, so nothing bizarre about that. I had observed a reckless driver on the highway and did my civil duty by calling 9-1-1. I placed two calls to 9-1-1 because I spotted him later when CHP lost him. I never did know the outcome of the story, however in one fashion I did ... I received my Bell Atlantic cellular bill yesterday. And to my suprise, there were some interesting charges on it. 1) A $3.00 daily usage charge for the A system in Yuma, AZ (Cellular One). 2) Two calls originating from Yuma, AZ to El Centro, CA (619-337-3191) with the usual $.60 per minute roaming airtime charges AND long distance charges for the calls from Yuma to El Centro! For those of you who are unaware of the geography angle of things, Yuma is about 70 miles west of El Centro, CA. My total charges for calling 911 to be a samaritan that day: $7.62 I called Cellular One's Todd Kochanowski in Yuma, AZ. Because of the location of Yuma and El Centro, Cellular one serves BOTH cities. My question to him was: Are all 911 calls from El Centro placed on Yuma Feature Group A lines? Seems to me like that would get quite costly. He explained to me that the 337 number in El Centro was in fact El Centro's version of 911 and that the entire billing issue was an error. Kinda makes me wonder how many other good samaritans have been stiffed like this. Now the question is: Will they FIX this, or will roaming customers in El Centro, California continue to pay for being helpful to law enforcement officials? jcm@nccom.com John C. Musselman Software Developer/System Analyst ------------------------------ From: rt@astro.ocis.temple.edu Subject: AT&T Phones - Junk? Date: 22 Jun 1994 20:59:04 GMT Organization: Temple University, Academic Computer Services Hello, Has anyone noticed any problems with the AT&T cordless phones? I mean particularily the 55xx or 56xx series. It seems as though that some people have had problems with their AT&T 5515 cordless phones causing line problems in their homes or offices. Sometimes the 5515 phones would have problems where the person would not be able to transmitt their voices and only hear the incoming sounds. Also the lines all over the house would go dead for a period of time now and then. What could be causing the problems? I have seen a 5600 go bad as soon as two weeks after it was taken out of the box. One of the Bell Atlantic lineman said that AT&T phones are the worst in the market. He continued to say that they are made in China and one should go and get a Pansonic cordless (barf). I recall that AT&T phones are made in Singapore. But regardless of where it is made, it is AT&T technology. Are AT&T phones in general, junk? Quality wise, I think not. They are rugged, durable and well designed. Any thoughts? ------------------------------ From: martinvars@aol.com (MARTINVARS) Subject: Call Back and the Less Developed Countries PTT's Date: 22 Jun 1994 10:13:03 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Does anybody know of a forum for Call Back companies where we can share information about what some PTT'sin less developed countries are doing to interfere with our services? Uruguay for example has now gone as far as blocking whole area codes in the USA preventing Uruguayans to call and installing DTMF detection and cutting off lines where DTMF is heard. This means that while users get the call back call they cannot dial into it without being cut off. It is remarkable what the Uruguayan people living in a democratic country have to put up with such illegal blocking from their own phone company. It is time that call back companies take coordinated action. One easy way around the Uruguayan PTT's illegal cutting off of calls that generate DTMF (imagine all the people trying to listening to their answering machines getting cut off!) is voice recognition. An interesting fact that has escaped some PTT's is that many of them make more money with Call Back than selling their own services. When they sell their services the pay a settlement and when they get a call back they receive a settlement Therefore if their rate to the USA falls below the addition of two settlements they are better off with call back. The Uruguayan and Costa Rican PTT for example have lowered their rates to the USA so much as a result of call back competition that they now do much better with call back. Nevertheless they continue to try in vain to cut off call back calls. Obviously it is not business people that run those companies. The newly privatized companies that Telefonica bought are smarter in this respect and realize that keeping rates high creates market segmentation and allows them to make money either by themselves or with call back. Viatel, the company I founded in 1990, has migrated away from Call Back into direct services using our own $51M leased line network that reaches 10 cities in Europe, three in the USA and one in the Far East but there are some countries that seem to be determined to exploit the business and user community and refuse to give us leased lines or toll frees and force us to use call back as an access mode. Viatel's wants to show the PTT's of the world that they will be better off collaborating with the information revolution. AT&T's break up and opening to competition resulted in the USA taking the leadership in global telecom while the user community in the USA greatly benefited from it. But what is most remarkable is that AT&T, the big loser of the antitrust activities of the 80's is now the winner. It is the biggest and sntrongest telecom company in the world. IBM the winner of the antitrust cases of the 80's only won that battle to lose the war. At Viatel in the USA we were able to defeat AT&T's opposition (AT&T is still addicted to settlements and continues to behave like a monopoly) and get our 214 license from the FCC. They will one day thank us for losing. Around the world the most advanced countries have welcomed our entry. Now it is time to show the less developed country that bad and expensive telecommunications is a luxury they cannot afford. ------------------------------ From: kevinc@Aspect.COM (Kevin Collins) Subject: PBX vs. ACD (was Re: Privacy on Rolm Switch) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 12:32:36 GMT In article raverboy@aol.com (Raverboy) writes: > I know the Rolm 9751 is mostly for ACD. > [ details about silent monitor deleted - KC ] As they say on the Hertz commercials, "not exactly". The ROLM 9751 (like all PBX's) was originally designed to provide basic connectivity -- internal and external calls, transfer/conference, park, etc. ROLM, AT&T, NT, and other PBX manufacturers have since written ACD application software that runs alongside the PBX software to deliver some ACD functionality to their customers. These ACD packages have gotten better over the years, but IMHO still don't match the overall solution delivered by the stand-alone vendors (like Aspect), who designed their switches from the ground up to do ACD. Of course, the stand-alone ACD's are generally more expensive than the integrated ACD's, but you get what you pay for. Before I'm accused of too much bias, I should say that I've worked on the Call Processing and ACD software for both ROLM and Aspect for the last six years. Kevin Collins Aspect Telecommunications E-Mail: Kevin.Collins@aspect.com San Jose, CA Voice: +1 408 441 2489 My opinions are mine alone. ------------------------------ From: ian.evans@bville.gts.org (Ian Evans) Reply-To: comp.dcom.telecom@bville.gts.org Subject: Centrex Lines vs. Regular Lines for BBS Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 03:05:00 -0400 Organization: Baudeville BBS: Toronto CANADA 416.283.0114 I'll soon be expanding my BBS from two to four lines. I currently have a two line hunt group and want to install a second, seperate hunt group. I had asked Bell if there was any cheaper way of handling this new hunt group, as the lines are really incoming only. They suggested I install Centrex lines: "The monthly rate for each centrex hunting, incoming line is $39.00/month (minimum of two). Each outgoing access line is $13.45/month, (minimum of one)." The monthly rate for each regular line, (as you have now) is $52.35/month. The service charge to install two new centrex lines terminating on single line sets is $282.00." I just want to make sure that what they describe (two centrex incoming, one outgoing) will allow me to have two simultaneous incoming callers using my BBS. Past experience has shown that the front line people you speak to don't always understand what you're talking about, especially when computers and modems are involved. Many thanks for any help. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Jun 94 17:30:10 EDT From: Tony Harminc Subject: NT Meridian 9417 Telephone Set Does anyone have any experiences good or bad with this new set from NT? This is a two line POTS set with nearly every bell and whistle I can think of: CNID name & number display including number lookup (it will display the caller's name as listed with the number in your personal directory or use the telco name service where available), endless re- and auto-dial buttons, two lines with hold and conference, a programmable 'prime line' chosen when you go off-hook, handsfree with mute and volume control, 'FAX' jack with built in Identa-ring detect (routes inbound calls to the second number on one of the lines to the jack), a paging system (works with other 9417s or an external speaker), bilingual (selectable English or French) prompts, changeable ringing cadence, and much much more :-) This is all taken from the single sheet that NT just faxed me. I saw a set at a Bell Canada Phone Centre yesterday, and they claimed they are the exclusive distributor and it is available for rental only for C$15/month (ouch!). But NT tells me that Anixter is selling them - no list price available. This is being sold as a small business set, but it sounds like just what I need in my kitchen. It's nice to finally see this kind of thing from a reputable manufacturer; most of the bells and whistles sets seem to come from little known makers and are on the flimsy side. I'd be particularly interested in the US price for this unit; perhaps someone there could call 800-NORTHERN and see if the story matches. Tony Harminc ------------------------------ From: ruck@netcom.com (John R. Ruckstuhl) Subject: Modem Doesn't Recognize Hangup - Fixable? Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 10:09:30 GMT I've just purchased a product I've recently seen mentioned (but not necessarily endorsed) in this newsgroup. The "Complete Communicator Gold Internal" (by The Complete PC, Inc.), which I purchased for $149, is a PC internal fax/data modem (14400bps Hayes-compatible modem with MNP 5 and V.42bis, 14400bps Group III Fax), with software for Fax send & receive and a voice-mail system. So says the box. I've used it for a week or so, but haven't really worked it over. I've got one major and one minor concern -- I'm hoping some reader will educate me. Firstly (major): I've seen the system record an incoming voice message for ~20 seconds past the hangup. I know vaguely that some equipment under some conditions fails to recognize a hangup (terminology?). I've seen answering machines do this. I called PacBell and learned I'm served by a 5ESS, and "Cutoff on Disconnect" (COD) is not available on this type of switch (would that, whatever it is, have helped?). Some answering machines have a CPC switch that I think is related to hangup detection -- what is (was?) CPC? Is there something in the AT command set that I can use to tell my modem to do a better job? I can picture my modem not hanging up, some recording from the telco coming on, and the voice-mail recording forever. :( Secondly (minor): The Fax/voice-mail software, FaxWorks 3.0, not only has to be running, but a "user" has to log into the software. At PC boot, Windows is started by a command in autoexec.bat, and I've put this FaxWorks software in the Windows group StartUp, so it is started automatically at boottime as well. But I can't see an easy way to shove the login keystrokes & mouse button-pushes down its throat automatically so that the system comes online at boottime. Is there a free/inexpensive utility that will help? I remember many years ago using a Borland product called SuperKey which might have had that capability, but I really don't know much about PCs. What to do? I know, this is better asked in some other newsgroup, so email is preferred on this nit. I don't know much about such things, so any comments will be appreciated. BTW, this product requires 386 (or higher) PC, half-length slot, 3.5 MB disk space, 2 MB RAM, EGA VGA or Hercules, MSDOS 3.1 or higher, Windows 3.1 or higher, and touch-tone. Thank your for any help. Regards, John R. Ruckstuhl ruck@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: schaefer@alphanet.ch (Marc SCHAEFER) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 94 18:09 MET Subject: Information About Hayes ESP Requested I'm looking for information on how to interface the Hayes ESP Serial Port Communication Accelerator with an AT bus interface on a non PC system. I know little about AT bus interface, except that the board probably is configurable to hear data and control at certain addresses via jumper. I need the jumper configuration the address involved and the format of the command and data registers. Thanks ! ------------------------------ From: Paul Robinson Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 10:10:10 EST Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA Subject: MCI Metro - "Wanted Poster" The following is the text of an advertisement which appears essentially as printed in the paper; minor format changes have been made to reduce space. Commentary appears in a separate article immediately following this one. Advertisement, {Washington Post} June 19, 1994, Page H10 What MCI did for long-distance, MCI Metro is doing for local phone service. We're setting the standard - again. We all know how successful MCI has been in the long-distance industry. But did you know that a major subsidiary of MCI is just beginning to make its mark in the local phone market? MCI Metro represents a multi-billion dollar, nationwide commitment. It also represents a career opportunity unlike any other. After all, this is your chance to get in on the ground floor and help build a brand new industry giant. Engineering Design, engineering and construction- . Fiber Optic Transmission Systems . Design and Implementation of SONET-based Network and Class 5 Switching . Alarm and Network Management Systems . Power and Grounding Systems . Customer Premise Management Construction . Transmission Engineering . Real Estate/Right-of-Way Negotiations . Construction Project Management (Fiber) Systems . Database Administration . Network Engineering . Network Management . Network Provisioning Product Marketing . Local Switched Products . Marketing Analysis/Pricing/Forecasting . Local Data Network Services . Dedicated Services . Product Development Positions based in Northern Virginia and Dallas areas. Additional opportunities in other metropolitan areas will follow. If you're up to the challenge, we should talk about your future with MCI Metro. Please send your resume, indicating position and salary requirements, in confidence to: MCI Metro, Human Resources, Dept P6, 1650 Tysons Boulevard, Suite 963, McLean VA 22102. Or, FAX your resume to (703) 506-6647. An Equal Opportunity Enployer M/F/D/V. MCImetro Redefining Local Telecommunications Service ------------------------------ From: Paul Robinson Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 10:10:10 EST Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA Subject: MCI Metro Ad - Analysis On looking at the ad for MCI Metro there are the usual questions as to whether this is a real invitation or if it is just a fishing expedition to see how many people are available out there? I'm thinking of sending in a resume but I wonder if it's worth bothering. I note one of the requests mentions SONET and another mentions people with experience with Fiber. As has been mentioned on the Com-Priv list, in discussing Sprint's protest of MCI's grant for a high-speed network for the NSF portion of the Internet, MCI doesn't have operational optical switching yet (as opposed to Sprint, which is selling connections on its optical-based switches). Does this mean MCI plans "fiber to the drop" (all the way to the network block in your house or apartment building) or even "fiber to the curb" (to the drop for the neighborhood) style of service delivery? If they are installing a brand-new local network from scratch, using fiber makes more sense due to capacity. MCI just got the most important approval for its merger with British Telecom, they're going to have some $2 billion in cash available, which means they will have the financial wherewithal to stand the cost of building the local portion of a network from scratch. Also, the types of requests they are looking for imply that they plan to go for the business service market rather than the (allegedly money losing) residential service market. It's one way to get experience, especially for a large company: buy it. I note that their office is in McLean. I believe The Virginia Commerce Commission has authorized a cable company to offer phone service in one small suburb of Richmond, but reports I have heard say State Law generally prohibits competition in local phone service. Maryland is expected to allow Metropolitan Fiber Systems to go ahead and offer dial tone and local termination to commercial customers next year when the PUC examines MFS' request. The other interesting issue is the Dallas location as well. I believe it was reported that a test of local service to its own employees was made by MCI in certain areas, and Dallas might have been one of them. Also, MCI may want to try to rely on the "dial tone hauling" case (as reported in TELECOM Digest), which it was decided in that area where a large company installed a microwave horn on its office in Dallas where Southwestern Bell operates, in order to haul dialtone into its building in Richardson because the local service from GTE there was so bad as to be unusable, and the court ruled that the argument that most of their calling was interstate in nature was a valid reason to bypass the local telephone company. Other people with more experience in telephone company operations might be able to "read between the lines" on this ad and figure out more, and perhaps tell some of the other readers (including myself) some other inferences the ad gives us. If this is real, it should be interesting. Paul Robinson -- PAUL@TDR.COM ------------------------------ From: Greg Monti Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 14:06:04 EDT Subject: Another National N11 Code Request The newsletter {Communications Daily} reported in its June 20, 1994, edition that the US Government's General Services Administration (GSA) has asked FCC to assign a single N11 code for use by the public to "gain access to federal executive agencies." Apparently, the request was made in March. There is also a proposal afoot that would assign a single N11 number to reach state governments. Presumably it would connect the caller to the government in his or her state. These follow requests for a nationwide N11 number to access text telephone relay services. With 011 and 111 unavailable, and with 411 and 911 in use in most places, that leaves only six N11 codes unused (211, 311, 511, 611, 711, 811). 611, 811 (and if applications from newspepers are approved, 311 and 511) are already used in some places. The article notes that the FCC has opened a pleading cycle on the subject. Comments to the Commission are due Aug. 19. "Reply comments" are due Sept. 23. Greg Monti, Tech Mgr, FISPO, Distribution Division National Public Radio Phone: 202 414-3343 635 Massachusetts Av NW Fax: 202 414-3036 Washington, DC 20001-3753 Internet: gmonti@npr.org ------------------------------ From: Carl Moore Date: Tue, 21 Jun 94 11:59:59 EDT Subject: O.J. Simpson Case Two items of note: 1. O.J. Simpson was reported spotted thru cellular phone; 2. Los Angeles police chief Willie Williams, on travel in Philadelphia, estimated 25-30 hours in court (testifying in unrelated case) and 50 hours on the phone (most or all of it back to L.A.). [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: An article in the {Chicago Sun-Times} discussing this matter was entitled 'A Nation of Idiots'. It discussed the people who, with apparently nothing better to do deliberatly went out on the expressway in the hopes of seeing him as he drove past. The same article discussed 'hundreds of other idiots who drove to his house and clogged nearby streets -- as well as parking on his lawn and the lawns of neighbors, etc -- in a party-like atmosphere, in the hopes of seeing him come out of his house ...' Most people there, said the article, were sympathetic to OJS, booing the police while cheering OJS during the time he was in the process of being arrested, etc. Very sad ... PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #297 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa08144; 22 Jun 94 19:31 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA20155; Wed, 22 Jun 94 15:51:47 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA20144; Wed, 22 Jun 94 15:51:42 CDT Date: Wed, 22 Jun 94 15:51:42 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406222051.AA20144@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #298 TELECOM Digest Wed, 22 Jun 94 15:51:30 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 298 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FCC Callback Ruling (Leroy Casterline) Groups Hail New Bill For Public Space on NII (People For American Way) Pointers to Information on Cable Modem Details (Michael S. Pontecorvo) Hockey Broadcast Circuit (Fred Ennis) Anyone Have a Good PBX Disaster Recovery Plan? (rkprkp@aol.com) Long Dialup String (Randall Pascua) WWW Site For Used/New Telecom and WAN Equipment Dealers (Henry Minsky) Cellular to Cellular Calling (Shawn Gordhamer) WilTel Shows CID to/from CT (Doug Reuben) 17.5 Cent/Min No-Surcharge Travel Service (Doug Reuben) New Phone Circuits Book (David C. LeDoux) ISDN Application Survey (Stuart Brainerd) Anybody Know Status of Speedway.net? Any Alternatives? (Tom Olin) FormFlow Supports MicroSoft Exchange (Jack Bzoza) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: casterli@csn.org (Leroy Casterline) Subject: FCC Callback Ruling Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 13:18:48 -0600 Organization: Cahill Casterline Limited Reply-To: casterli@csn.org Pat, Sorry it took me so long to post this. I was hoping to OCR it from a fax, but no such luck. I typed it in, so any errors are mine ... Leroy Report No. CC-572 Common Carrier Action April 22, 1994 FCC AUTHORIZES THREE APPLICANTS TO PROVIDE RESOLD INTERNATIONAL SWITCHED VOICE SERVICE The Commission has granted the applications of VIA USA, Ltd. (Viatel), Telegroup, Inc., and Discount Call International Co. (DCI), to resell the public switched services of other U.S. carriers, over the objection of AT&T. Viatel is a Colorado corporation that sought authority to offer resold, tariffed international switched voice and facsimile service between the United States and various international points. Telegroup, an Iowa corporation, sought authority to offer resold international switched voice and data service between the United States and various international points. DCI, a Florida corporation, sought authority to operate a "typical telephone dialback operation" between points in the United States and various South American and Central American countries. AT&T, in its petition to deny, alleged that the applicants intended to engage in a "call turn-around" or "call-back" service. AT&T opposed the applications to the extent that the applicants proposed to use the resold services to provide call-back services using a "code-calling" configuration. AT&T stated that a reseller using "code-calling" instructs its customers in foreign locations to dial a U.S. telephone number, hang up after a pre-arranged number of rings, but before the call is completed, and wait for the reseller (usually through a conferencing unit) to return a call to the predesignated foreign telephone number, providing U.S. dial tone to the foreign customer. The connection between the calling and the called party is established via a U.S-originated switched service call to the called location. The customer does not pay the foreign carrier for the initial uncompleted call. After reviewing the applications and pleadings, the Commission found that the public convenience and necessity will be served by granting the applications to resell the international switched voice services of various U.S. common carriers. Moreover, the Commission could not find, based on the record, that uncompleted call signalling ("code-calling") constituted an unreasonable practice under Section 201(b) of the Communications Act. The Commission has long recognized that increased competition in the international marketplace benefits U.S. ratepayers, and has routinely granted applications for Section 214 authorizations for the resale of international switched voice services to further that goal. The Commission believes the proposed services would provide similar benefits associated with increased competition, in line with its statutory mandate to establish a rapid, efficient, nation- wide, and worldwide wire and radio communications service. The Commission noted that use of the resold services for international call-back activity could place significant downward pressure on foreign collection rates, to the ultimate benefit of U.S. ratepayers and industry. The commission disagreed with AT&T that uncompleted call signalling constituted an unreasonable practice under Section 201 of the Act, or otherwise was not in the public interest. The Commission reemphasized, however, that resellers of U.S. switched voice services are common carriers and continue to be subject to obligations of common carriers, including those in Sections 201(b) and 214. AT&T alleged that this activity imposed costs on its ratepayers through use of its facilities without compensation. However, the Commission agreed with the applicants that AT&T had presented no evidence that uncompleted call signalling occurred often enough or made sufficient use of the network to impede revenue-producing use of the network by AT&T or to otherwise impose costs on AT&T or its ratepayers. The Commission noted that AT&T and its foreign correspondents have the ability to address uncompleted call signalling practices that are imposing costs on them. In response to concerns expressed by AT&T and by certain foreign carriers about the effect of uncompleted call signalling on principles of international comity, the Commission required that the applicants provide service in a manner that is consistent with the laws of countries in which they operate. However, the Commission recognized that the legality of the proposed activities under foreign law is a matter for foreign authorities and courts to decide. Action by the Commission April 12, 1994, by Order, Authorization and Certificate (FCC 94-96). Chairman Hundt, Commissioners Quello and Barrett. -FCC- News Media contact: Patricia A. Chew at (202) 632-5050. Common Carrier Bureau contact: Adam L. Kupetsky at (202) 632-1305. ------------------------------ From: NetSurfer Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 06:59:26 HST Subject: Groups Hail New Bill For Public Space on NII (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 19 Jun 1994 22:20:30 -0700 From: email list server To: cpsr-announce@sunnyside.com Subject: Groups Hail New Bill For Public Space on NII This is a press release put out by People for the American Way and the Media Access Project last week. Additional information, including a copy of the legislation, will be put online shortly. June 15, 1994 PUBLIC INTEREST GROUPS HAIL INTRODUCTION OF BILL TO PROVIDE "PUBLIC LANE" ON THE INFORMATION "SUPERHIGHWAY" PEOPLE FOR CALLS BILL "VITAL" TO DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH-TECH DEMOCRACY MEDIA ACCESS PROJECT SAYS NON-PROFITS NEED TO GET ON NOW, NOT IN FIVE OR TEN YEARS Public interest groups expressed enthusiastic support for S. 2195, legislation introduced today by Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI) to ensure that there will be space on the "information superhighway" for schools, libraries, public broadcasters, and non-profit organizations which promote local artistic, political and social speech. Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Inouye's bill guarantees access on the "superhighway" for non-commercial and governmental uses. "Without this protection, we may not get anything besides home shopping and movies on demand," said Leslie Harris, Director of Public Policy for the People For the American Way Action Fund (PFAWAF). "Senator Inouye's bill creates an electronic `public square' where diverse political, artistic and cultural expression can flourish. It is vital to ensuring that the interests of the public are not left behind on the information `superhighway.'" Andrew Jay Schwartzman, Executive Director of the Media Access Project (MAP), underscored the short-term impact of Senator Inouye's proposal. "We hope -- and expect -- that some day the new technologies will provide so much capacity at such low prices that there will be no need to reserve space for public use. The bill directs the Federal Communications Commission to phase out the `public right of way' if and when that happens." But, he added, "It is critical that local government and non-profit groups have access to the new technologies right away. We need to begin using the technologies as they evolve; it will be too late to do this five or ten years from now." Potential uses of this capacity are innumerable, according to PFAWAF and MAP. Among them are distance learning (in which master teachers can work with students locally and nationwide) and interactive information services such as the video health referral system established by the Chicago Chapter of the Black Nurses Association. Similarly, performing arts groups could distribute their works on these systems using an upgraded version of the currently operative Arts Wire. PFAWAF and MAP are especially enthusiastic about the Los Angeles-based Democracy Network, an on-line interactive multimedia political communication prototype which could help reduce the cost of running for public office by creating high-tech voter information services, in which all qualified candidates could respond to citizen inquiries, "post" biographical information, video clips of their speeches and position statements, and the public can participate on video bulletin and issue boards. People For the American Way Action Fund is a 300,000-member nonpartisan constitutional liberties organization. Media Access Project is a twenty-one year old non-profit public interest telecommunications law firm which seeks to promote the public's First Amendment rights to speak and be heard. ----------- As Senator Inouye stated when introducing the bill, "nearly 100 educational, public broadcasting, library, civil rights, labor, local government, and disability rights organizations and others have expressed their support for the principles outlined in this legislation." This coalition is asking organizations and individuals to write the Senate in support of S. 2195. Sample letters to Senator Inouye, Senator Hollings, and your individual Senators will also put placed online shortly. Anthony E. Wright cme@access.digex.net Coordinator, Future of Media Project Center for Media Education ------------------------------ From: ponte@crl.com (Michael S. Pontecorvo) Subject: Pointers to Information on Cable Modem Details Date: 21 Jun 1994 18:47:32 -0700 Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access (415) 705-6060 [login: guest] I am looking for information on cable modems. How the technology works, baud rates, error recovery, etc. Any pointers would be helpful. Thanks in advance, Mike Pontecorvo ponte@crl.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: What is a 'cable modem'? PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Hockey Broadcast Circuit From: fred@page6.pinetree.org (Fred Ennis) Date: Tue, 21 Jun 1994 23:28:34 -0400 Organization: Page 6, Ottawa, Ontario +1 613-723-5711 Hi! I was talking with the Chief Engineer of CFRA Radio where I do an afternoon talk show, and I promised I'd raise the question with the experts here in TELECOM Digest. What is the most economical way of delivering broadcast quality (5 Khz or better bandwidth, mono only) sound from other NHL cities back to our studios in Ottawa. Bear in mind that installation costs are a killer unless it is something that can be used by ALL NHL broadcasters to do their away games and it can then simply be a matter of the home team installing the facilities for all visiting broadcasters. Options could include leased line to satellite uplink, ISDN, switched 56, Rood/Comrex/other systems using two dial up POTS lines, etc. Email is welcome, or post here to let others join in the solving of this problem. Thanks in advance! Fred Ennis, fred@page6.pinetree.org ------------------------------ From: rkprkp@aol.com Subject: Anyone Have a Good PBX Disaster Recovery Plan? Date: 22 Jun 1994 01:28:02 -0400 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) I am interested in seeing if anyone out there has developed a disaster recovery plan that they would be interested in sharing for their PBX system. I'm interested in plans that address switch failure, cable cuts, site disasters, carrier failures, etc. Any plan that addresses any or all of the above would be welcome. I know each situation is a little different, but I'd love to see a copy of some. E-mail me if you have anything to share. Thanks. ------------------------------ From: randallp@delphi.com (Randall Pascua) Subject: Long Dialup String Date: 22 Jun 1994 08:35:05 GMT Organization: Delphi Internet Services Corporation Hello all, I don't know if this is the correct area to post my question, but here goes ... I'm trying to have my modem dialup a long string of numbers (to no avail). Here's what I want my modem to dial: 9,18005555555,1,55555555555,1,5555555555 (explanation) 9, <- is to get an outside line from a hotel - followed by a pause 18005555555, <- is to call up my calling card service followed by a pause 1, <- is a menu selection on my calling card service followed by a pause 55555555555, <- is my personal password in the service followed by a pause 1, <- is another menu selection on the service followed by a pause 5555555555 <- is the actual area code and phone number that I wish to reach via my calling card service A bunch of humbug I know -- BUT if I do daytime calls via my calling card service -- then I get a discount ($). I'm sure you've seen the advertis- ments on tv. Anyway -- I wanted to have my modem dial this long string but it always replies: ERROR Must be because a modem's dialup procedure will only handle so many characters and numbers. So I've figured this out: put most of the info in my telephone profile "0" (non-volatile ram in my modem) then put the rest in profile "1". (example) at&z0=9,18005555555,1,55555555555,1, at&z1=5555555555 I then type: at&v which then shows me the two telephone profiles stored in my modems' nvram: &Z0=9,18005555555,1,55555555555,1, &Z1=5555555555 NOW! my question is: can I just do some sort of "at" commands that will dial both numbers consecutively? Or is there a better solution to this? Whew! Thanks, Please send email reply to: randallp@delphi.com ------------------------------ From: hqm@ai.mit.edu (Henry Minsky) Subject: WWW Site For Used/New Telecom and WAN Equipment Dealers Date: 22 Jun 94 05:06:32 Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory I have started a WWW listing of used and new telecom/internetworking equipment dealers, specifically dealing in useful stuff for configuring a PC running BSDI BSD.386 un*x for wide area networking. The list is made up of some places I have had reasonable experiences with, and many places I have not dealt with, but were recommended by various sources on the net. I don't have any relation to any of these folks, and as always, caveat emptor ... The list is at: http://www.ai.mit.edu/datawave/hardware.html There is an automatic entry form, if you want to add your favorite source to the list (and you are running a relatively new Mosaic or other WWW client). Henry ------------------------------ From: shawnlg@netcom.com (Shawn Gordhamer) Subject: Cellular to Cellular Calling Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 20:00:51 GMT When one cellular phone calls another on the same system, is the equipment smart enough to _not_ use the telephone network? As the number of cellular-type phones increase in proportion to the number of landline phones, will there be less of a dependence on the local landline network? I've heard that soon, non landline phones will have about the same cost as landline ones. If this is true, then I would think many people will switch to portable phones and leave the landline network altogether. Shawn Gordhamer shawnlg@netcom.com Rochester, Minnesota USA ------------------------------ From: dreuben@netcom.com (Cid Technologies) Subject: WilTel Shows CID to/from CT Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 13:08:05 PDT I've noticed that WilTel LD (usually 10555) is now transporting CID between NY and CT offices which are SS7 equipped. WilTel seems to be supporting blocking - if you *67 to block the ID, the call shows up on the receiving end as "PRIVATE". (I think) I've heard of other cases noted here on the Digest where this is not the case - ie, *67 does NOT make a difference, and your ID is shown no matter what. Does this apply to offices where *67 is simply NOT available, ie, where the local telco hasn't implemented CID yet and CID's customer controlled feature codes, like blocking? Or is this more of a case where WilTel (or MCI or any of the other carriers who are starting to allow CID transmission) randomly chooses to ignore the "privacy bit" (can they strip it?) causing the remote Telco to display the full CID number? Doug dreuben@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: dreuben@netcom.com (Cid Technologies) Subject: 17.5 Cent/Min No-Surcharge Travel Service Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 14:06:18 PDT I was just browsing through the pages of the {Consumer Reports Travel Letter} June issue, and noted an article about a Calling Card company called "Alliance Travel Network". The article was quite brief, but it seemed to indicate that ATN was offering a Calling Card service charging 17.5 cents per minute DAY rate, which is pretty good compared to the 23 cents which I am paying now. There is no surcharge associated with this service, and they didn't mention any monthly fees. (Although maybe there are - I'll see when I get their literature.) You access the service via an 800 number, and they offer Canadian and international calling as well. I don't know if they offer six-second billing as does ConTelCom (WilTel reseller with the 23 cent calling card), but if they did, a quick check to my pager for 15 seconds daytime would run like six cents! Compare that with a similar call placed over AT&T, Sprint, or MCI's calling card "services", which would cost around $1, DAY rate. With rates as low as ConTelCom's or ATN's (assuming no monthly minimum), AT&T et. al. are beginning to look like AOSs! Why pay $1 when you can pay six cents (or to be fair, for a full one minute of LD 17.5 cents)? Anyhow, ATN's number is: 800-477-9692. They will mail you some literature about their company if you call. Doug CID Technologies (203) 499-5221 ------------------------------ From: ledoux@netcom.com (David C. LeDoux) Subject: New Phone Circuits Book Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 01:29:38 GMT I just bought a new book which might interest some readers. It is called "Ready-to-Build Telephone Enhancements", by Delton T. Horn, Tab Books, 1994, ISBN 0-8306-4359-1, $16.95, and contains home-brew electronics projects like remote ringers, hold buttons, DTMF generators and detectors, telephone amplifiers, ring detectors, off-hook indicators, and a couple of circuits to test phones and phone lines. Several of these have been requested in the past by readers of the Telecom Digest and the other Usenet telecom groups, I believe. The book also contains a couple of chapters of info on how telephones work. David C. LeDoux ledoux@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: swbrain@mcs.com (Stuart Brainerd) Subject: ISDN Application Survey Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 20:51:59 CST Organization: Synapse Consulting To all interested in helping out on an ISDN applications survey, I am posting this message for Ms. Anderson. The survey was quick and she actually shared with me some of her findings. Interesting. Such as the number of people who have tried using ISDN and got so frustrated they gave up completely; and that most people are either fanatic about ISDN or are very down on it. ________________________________ Attention ISDN users. I would like your participation in a study of ISDN usage. Please contact me with phone number and best day/time to call. Thank you. Sandy Anderson INTERNET:73241.3477@Compuserve.Com ------------------------------ From: tro@partech.com (Tom Olin) Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 14:23:51 +0500 Subject: Anybody Know Status of Speedway.net? Any Alternatives? Speedway.net has been unreachable for the past several days by both Internet and by dial-up. They announced that they would be moving to a new location sometime in early June, but they never announced any specific information about the move, such as when they would be going down or when they expected to be back up. I'd like to have some confirmation that they will indeed be coming back on-line sometime soon. If anybody knows anything about their status, please reply via e-mail. I'm also interested in finding any Internet service providers similar to Speedway, for situations such as this. speedway provides a full range of Internet services, including shell access, full Usenet feed, PPP/SLIP connections, etc. The key items for me are PPP and the fact that the service is free except for the long-distance phone call via AT&T. speedway makes its money by getting a cut of the LD charges from AT&T, and AT&T happens to be my only option for LD service. If anybody knows of other providers who offer PPP, a charging method like speedway's, and the usual other Internet goodies, please reply. I am not affiliated with Speedway in any way other than as a usually satisfied customer -- except when they disappear for days at a time without leaving a note! Tom Olin PAR Technology Corporation Voice: +1 315 738 0600 Ext 638 tro@partech.com New Hartford, NY Fax: +1 315 738 8304 ------------------------------ From: Jack Bzoza Subject: FormFlow Supports MicroSoft Exchange Date: Wed, 22 Jun 94 10:07:00 PDT Delrina FormFlow to Support Microsoft Exchange Premier Forms Application Software Will Integrate with Microsoft+s New Messaging and Information Platform SEATTLE, WA and TORONTO, ONT - June 21, 1994 - Delrina Corporation (NASDAQ:DENAF, TSE:DC) today announced plans to integrate the powerful forms application creation environment of Delrina FormFlow with Microsoft+s new messaging and information platform. Microsoft Exchange is part of a family of products that offers a new generation of enterprise computing and information sharing. Microsoft Exchange enables group collaboration across functional, organizational, and geographical boundaries, and automates business processes. Delrina FormFlow enables people with little or no programming experience to quickly create sophisticated forms applications with conditional logic and deploy them across their organization using their LAN-based e-mail systems. FormFlow+s integrated Intelligent forms Language enables professional developers to get +under the hood+ and design highly complex applications when necessary. By tightly supporting Microsoft+s public/private folders, data replication, and the forms registry in Microsoft Exchange, FormFlow users can now track their forms applications across wide area networks. This combination provides all that customers will need for entering the evolving electronic commerce marketplace providing critical capabilities for both intra-company and inter-company structured information sharing. +Electronic forms are a key enabling technology for client-server solutions supporting the flow of structured information,+ said Rob Shurtleff, General Manager Workgroup Solutions Product Unit. +Delrina+s support for Microsoft Exchange delivers an enterprise-wide forms solution.+ +Delrina FormFlow provides a first-class solution to companies looking to organize and route forms-oriented information through their enterprise,+ said Albert Behr, Director Forms Marketing at Delrina. +Combined with Microsoft Exchange, FormFlow offers the first viable alternative to Lotus Notes for sharing and managing structured information - and one that is completely platform, operating system, and messaging system independent.+ Ranked by the editors of PC Magazine as the premier forms-based application creation environment for automating workflow (Editors Choice, June 1994) and the best forms processing software by the editors of PC Magazine and InfoWorld (PC Magazine Editors+ Choice, March 1994; Infoworld, May 1994), Delrina FormFlow brings front-end forms creation with conditional routing to Microsoft Exchange. Delrina FormFlow leverages a company+s current investment in technology by allowing: DOS, Windows, Macintosh, and UNIX hardware; the most popular e-mail systems, including MAPI, VIM, MHS, AOCE, SMTP, LAN-based, and public e-mail; and, the most popular desktop/SQL databases, and ODBC; to be combined in forms-based applications. Delrina develops, markets and supports PC-based software products and services for the PC fax and data communications, electronic forms processing, and consumer content markets. Founded in 1988, Delrina employs more than 500 people with headquarters in Toronto, Ontario and offices in San Jose, CA; Washington, DC; Kirkland, WA; the United Kingdom; France; and Germany. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #298 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa17290; 23 Jun 94 16:03 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA08993; Thu, 23 Jun 94 11:39:11 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA08984; Thu, 23 Jun 94 11:39:09 CDT Date: Thu, 23 Jun 94 11:39:09 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406231639.AA08984@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #299 TELECOM Digest Thu, 23 Jun 94 11:39:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 299 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Cellular to Cellular Calling (Robert Virzi) Re: Cellular to Cellular Calling (Bernard Rupe) Re: Cellular to Cellular Calling (Steven King) Re: Cellular to Cellular Calling (Doug Reuben) Re: Cellular to Cellular Calling (Ross E. Mitchell) Re: MCI Metro Ad - Analysis (Pete Farmer) Re: Information Wanted on Satellite BBS? (Paul Robinson) Re: Long Dialup String (Carl Oppedahl) Re: Long Dialup String (Neil Weisenfeld) Re: Long Dialup String (Ilja Schliffkowitz) Re: Long Dialup String (John R. Levine) Re: Smooth Operator (Compass Voice Mail) (Bob Koskovich) Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" (Jeffrey Rhodes) Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" (Mike McCrohan) Telecom Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: rv01@gte.com (Robert Virzi) Subject: Re: Cellular to Cellular Calling Date: 23 Jun 1994 14:23:12 GMT Organization: GTE Laboratories, Waltham, MA In article , Shawn Gordhamer wrote: > When one cellular phone calls another on the same system, is the > equipment smart enough to _not_ use the telephone network? Actually, I believe that the cellular systems are "smart enough" to avoid the landline network even across cellular systems. (This may involve a LD network hop, but not a LEC network). The reason for this is that LECs charge cellular providers for landline network access, and cellular companies would rather avoid this charge. In fact, if you have something like a "landline inter-connect fee" appearing on your cellular bill, you are paying a small portion of this charge already. > As the number of cellular-type phones increase in proportion to the > number of landline phones, will there be less of a dependence on the > local landline network? Probably. Bob Virzi rvirzi@gte.com +1(617)466-2881 ------------------------------ From: rupe@wombat.cig.mot.com (Bernard Rupe) Subject: Re: Cellular to Cellular Calling Date: 23 Jun 1994 14:49:08 GMT Organization: Cellular Infrastructure Group, Motorola In article shawnlg@netcom.com (Shawn Gordhamer) writes: > When one cellular phone calls another on the same system, is the > equipment smart enough to _not_ use the telephone network? As the > number of cellular-type phones increase in proportion to the number of > landline phones, will there be less of a dependence on the local > landline network? Yes, a call within a cellular system would not use the public telephone network. A cellular system could be completely independent of the public network. In many international systems, this is almost true. Keep in mind that calls between two isolated cellular systems still use the public network to route the call. > I've heard that soon, non landline phones will have about the same > cost as landline ones. If this is true, then I would think many > people will switch to portable phones and leave the landline network > altogether. I wouldn't count of this happening anytime soon. The main cost difference is the airtime (maybe 16-30 cents/minute). Bernie Rupe 1501 W. Shure Drive Room 1315 Motorola, Inc. Arlington Heights, IL 60004 Cellular Infrastructure Group +1 708 632 2814 rupe@cig.mot.com ------------------------------ From: king@wildebeest.cig.mot.com (Steven King, Software Archaeologist) Subject: Re: Cellular to Cellular Calling Date: 23 Jun 1994 14:14:17 GMT Organization: Motorola Cellular Infrastructure Group Reply-To: king@cig.mot.com shawnlg@netcom.com (Shawn Gordhamer) publicly declared: > When one cellular phone calls another on the same system, is the > equipment smart enough to _not_ use the telephone network? Yes, cellular calls within a single system are carried strictly on the cellular operating company's equipment. The local telco isn't involved. Crossing a LATA boundary is an exception, of course. In some cases, trunks between cell sites and the cellular switch are leased from the local telco. This is another kettle of fish. In this case, telco still isn't handling the call at all, just providing the physical plant. > I've heard that soon, non landline phones will have about the same > cost as landline ones. If this is true, then I would think many > people will switch to portable phones and leave the landline network > altogether. I'd do it in a minute! Not because my landline service is bad, but simply because I'd like to jump feet-first into the 21st century. Unfortunately, the cost of wireless service is still "what the market will bear", and at this point the market will bear quite a lot. I wouldn't look for any major breakdown in cellular pricing until something drastic happens, either technologically or legally. Steven King -- Motorola Cellular Infrastructure Group ------------------------------ From: dreuben@netcom.com (Cid Technologies) Subject: Re: Cellular to Cellular Calling Date: Thu, 23 Jun 1994 02:22:23 PDT On Wed Jun 22 13:00:51 1994, shawnlg@netcom.com (Shawn Gordhamer) wrote: > When one cellular phone calls another on the same system, is the > equipment smart enough to _not_ use the telephone network? Generally, yes if a "home" or "visiting" (roamer) calls a HOME customer it goes through the same switch. Otherwise, it goes out via landline. Thus, if a Cell One/DC (00013) system customer is in Cell One/NY (00025) territory as a roamer, and calls a Cell One/NY customer who is also in NY SID 00025, then it will be handled by the switch internally (and very quickly!), and not use of the landline network and concomitant local/toll rates will not apply. However, if the NY customer called the DC customer (again within NY 00025), then even though they are both in the NY system, and NY is *not* constrained by the MFJ or DOJ rules about "looking ahead" to other switches, the call will STILL be placed over landline to DC, where the DC 00013 switch will say "Oh, our customer is in NY, let's send the call up there." This is because the DC customer may have forced calls to voicemail or used forwarding or have some other special treatment at his home switch. If the call DIDN'T go back to DC, then the NY switch would have no idea if the DC customer's calls were forwarded or not, and would ring the DC roamer in NY even though the DC roamer may have chosen NOT to receive phone calls or forwarded them to his office or somewhere else. Eventually, I think SS7 and other protocols may be able to handle this without having to go over an IXC, but generally, when dealing with disimilar switch types, the calls must go over an IXC or local landline. Currently, think most switches can communicate with other *similar* switches by the same manufacturer and (if they are networked) CAN query the "home" switch to see if any features are active, and respond accordingly without going through the landline network. This is what used to allow customers on Motorola EMX systems to have total use of their features, voicemail, etc., without the current "clicking" (dialing) periods where the EMX switches have to dial each other up via an IXC. However, due to Department of Justice requirements on Bell-owned Cell Co's, a lot of this can no longer be done legally, much to the detriment of cellular users. For example, a Connecticut customer USED to be able to roam into Rhode Island and have all of his features work as if he were on one big system, including having unanswered calls bounce back to voicemail. There would be *NO* toll charges for call delivery from CT to Rhode Island -- it was all handled in the EMX switch and passed back and forth through the Cellco. The same was true for a CT customer roaming in Boston, a RI customer in CT, etc. It functioned smoothly, like one big system, and calls from customer to customer, as long as they were from one of the New England EMX systems, did not go out to a landline at all. When Metro Mobile of CT and RI was taken over by Bell Atlantic, the silly, MCI-inspired DOJ rules kicked in, and they had to take this large system down and set up small mini-systems in each LATA (except for some sections of lower Western Mass) and connect them all via IXC's (like MCI, so that MCI would get its minuscule cut :( ). This means customers pay more for call delivery (when it used to be free), and it means that No-Answer-Transfer and thus voicemail won't work when you are roaming out of your home "mini" system. You also have to wait three times as long for a call to be delivered to you due to the slow way the EMX 500 switch seems to handle this whole process, and the newer 2500 is not much better, as far as I can tell. I can't emphasize how ridiculous this seems when it USED to work just fine -- the government is making us all take a step backwards and forcing switch vendors to create all these inane workarounds just because some big babies like MCI whined that doing the above technically violates the MFJ. A grand waste of time to placate an LD company(ies) -- the costs in this case IMHO greatly outweigh the benefits. There are even some rare cases where calls in the *same* system go over an IXC or landline for local calls. The Eastern New Hampshire system went bankrupt (or something) a while ago, and the FCC granted "interim" operating authority to TWO carriers, Cell One/Boston and Cell One/VT (Atlantic Cellular, Providence, RI). Boston owns the eastern towers, more or less those east of a large lake in New Hampshire (I can pronounce it but I won't dare try to spell it! :) It begins with a W...), and VT owns the western ones. So if you call a customer on the "same" system, ie, the Eastern NH system, and he is on the same set of towers that you are being serviced by, then there is no need for a landline carrier, ie, NETel or an IXC. But if the call goes between the two carriers (remember, its still ONE system), then I think it does go over an IXC or landline. They recently upgraded the interconnection so I don't know if this is necessary -- it now seem to be working like a big EMX network up there, but a year ago calls from one side of the lake to the other took longer and you got those "IXC dialout clicks", while cell-to-cell calls utilizing just one of the two carriers went through instantly. (Eastern NH is really weird in terms of features and rates, especially if you are a Cell One/Boston or CO/VT customer roaming there. And if you are not a Boston or VT customer, watch out! The towers/signals are so close to each other that you could easily be hit with TWO daily roam charges as you access the two carriers which make up the single system.) > I've heard that soon, non landline phones will have about the same > cost as landline ones. When this is true I'll never complain about a cell company again! :) I know there are plenty of carriers with off-peak and special plans, but overall, they are dramatically more expensive than landline, and I think it will be that way for good number of years to come. Hopefully, I'll be proven wrong! Doug CID Technologies (203) 499 - 5221 ------------------------------ From: rem@world.std.com (Ross E Mitchell) Subject: Re: Cellular to Cellular Calling Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 21:28:00 GMT I have two cellular numbers using Cellular One service in the Boston area. I incur no local phone charges when calling from one number to the other. Since I subscribe to a plan which gives me free airtime on nights and weekends, this is especially beneficial: I forward calls from one line to the other. When my bill arrives I see two charges: one outbound for $0.00 and one inbound for $0.00. Regards, Ross Mitchell - rem@world.std.com - Phone: 617-965-7010 - Fax: 617-630-0140 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Jun 1994 05:28:28 -0800 From: Pete Farmer Subject: Re: MCI Metro Ad - Analysis My take on the MCI Metro want ad is that it's for real. This matches up with public announcements that MCI has made on their getting into the local loop market. It galls them to no end that 50 cents of every one of their revenue dollars gets handed back to the Local Exchange Carriers for access fees. In the press today, in fact, was a story that DEC reported it was discussing the potential sale to MCI Metro of some of their private fiber facilities in the Boston area. What MCI is planning is NOT "fiber to the house or apartment building," but more likely to the financial district or industrial park. What MCI is doing is most comparable to the activity of MFS and Teleport. Their focus -- at least initially -- is _solely_ on business. (And, after all, how many residential customers are looking for T1 access?) Over time, MCI would probably like its fledgling wireless activities to complement MCI Metro. MCI has taken a 17% share of Nextel. It probably would like residential callers to be able to access its network without using RBOC facilities, via Nextel. The $4.3 billion it's receiving from British Telecom is what makes this possible. MCI wil probably be able to raise a like amount in the debt markets. Always nice to have petty cash! With regard to the McLean, VA, and Dallas area locations mentioned in the MCI ad -- o MCI's world HQ is in the DC area; hence, McLean. o The MCI Data Division is headquartered in Richardson, TX; hence, Dallas. McLean and Dallas have to do with where the rest of the MCI folk are, and not with _local_ plans that MCI may have for either area. I think things _will_ be interesting from MCI. In fact, I'm expecting we'll hear something this summer from MCI regarding Internet access services. Any lurkers from MCI care to comment? Pete Farmer Voice: 415-321-5968 821 Berkeley Ave. Fax: 415-321-5048 Menlo Park, CA 945025 Internet: petef@well.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Jun 1994 06:19:53 EDT From: Paul Robinson Reply-To: Paul Robinson Subject: Re: Information Wanted on Satellite BBS? Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA "Gary E. Chidester" , writes: > I read an article the other day about BBS via satellite and how it > would be cheaper because there would be no long distance charges > accrued. How is this possible? What you are reading about is the delivery of -- what our Esteemed Moderator refers to as DungHeapNet -- Usenet News via satelite. You pay $1800 for a satelite dish and a one year subscription, then it's $30 a month which gets you a full feed of all 8,000 public newsgroups, and the satelite dish is connected to whatever computer you want to take it via. It is extremely useful for getting a full- or nearly-full news feed without having to tie up a 56K line simply for incoming news. For almost all sites, most of the news traffic is incoming delivery of new articles, so a setup like this can allow a site to use a UUCP or dialup SLIP/PPP connection at 14.4K baud for outgoing mail and bidirectional news and still receive a full feed or even a large part of a full feed. > I can see how you could receive information via satellite, but unless > there is two-way communication how can you request the information > you want? The system carries all news as it gets it. Your computer simply takes the messages from the groups you normally accept. Figure that in a two year period, the service will cost roughly $2200 or so. That's about $100 a month. If the amount of line costs for delivery of incoming news raises your rate to take news above $100 a month, then it's worth considering. If you want to take a full feed, there are about 8000 public newsgroups which generate about 80 meg of articles a day. A 14K slip line can carry about 120 meg a day figuring full loading at 84K a minute, but you might not always get that full rate, and second, 14K is slow. Also, a full-time 14K slip line is going to run around $250 a month or so from a commercial provider. If you only want to run a UUCP or dialup on demand connection, which is probably much cheaper, a satelite connection can give you a full feed without having to tie up a line to a provider continuously, and for less money on a long-term basis. It can also serve as a backup feed for those who want more reliable service than being dependent on a single provider. Paul Robinson - Paul@TDR.COM ------------------------------ From: oppedahl@panix.com (Carl Oppedahl) Subject: Re: Long Dialup String Date: 22 Jun 1994 18:08:55 -0400 Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC In randallp@delphi.com (Randall Pascua) writes: > I'm trying to have my modem dialup a long string of numbers (to no > avail). Here's what I want my modem to dial: > 9,18005555555,1,55555555555,1,5555555555 > Anyway -- I wanted to have my modem dial this long string but it always > replies: ERROR I assume you have studied your modem's documentation and checked to see how it handles long lines. > So I've figured this out: put most of the info in my telephone profile > "0" (non-volatile ram in my modem) then put the rest in profile "1". > NOW! my question is: can I just do some sort of "at" commands that > will dial both numbers consecutively? Or is there a better solution > to this? Well, again you might want to consult your modem documentation. Something like ATDT&Z0&Z1, maybe. Carl Oppedahl AA2KW Oppedahl & Larson (patent lawyers) Yorktown Heights, NY voice +1-212-777-1330 ------------------------------ From: weisen@alw.nih.gov (Neil Weisenfeld) Subject: Re: Long Dialup String Organization: NIH Div of Comp Rsrch and Technology Date: Wed, 22 Jun 1994 23:25:37 GMT Randall Pascua (randallp@delphi.com) wrote: > I'm trying to have my modem dialup a long string of numbers (to no > avail). Here's what I want my modem to dial: > 9,18005555555,1,55555555555,1,5555555555 My Telebit WorldBlazer allows you to terminate a dial command with a ';' indicating that it should stay in "command mode" after dialing. I could do something like: ATDT 9,18005555555,; ATDT 1,5555555555,; ATDT 1,5555555555 Note the lack of a semi-colon on the last one. I don't know if other modems support this feature. Neil Weisenfeld, Computer Engineer Internet: weisen@nih.gov Nat'l Insts. of Health, 12A/2033 Voice: +1 301 402 4030 Bethesda, MD 20892 Fax: +1 301 402 2867 ------------------------------ From: schliff@rm600.dfn.de (Ilja Schliffkowitz) Subject: Re: Long Dialup String Date: 23 Jun 1994 10:41:37 GMT Organization: Regional Computing Center, University of Cologne Reply-To: schliff@me-verw.uni-koeln.de Randall Pascua (randallp@delphi.com) wrote 22 Jun 1994 08:35:05 GMT: > So I've figured this out: put most of the info in my telephone profile > "0" (non-volatile ram in my modem) then put the rest in profile "1". > at&z0=9,18005555555,1,55555555555,1, > at&z1=5555555555 Yep, atds0s1 should dial both stored sequences. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Jun 94 10:28 EDT From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Long Dialup String Organization: I.E.C.C., Cambridge, Mass. Re tricking a modem into sending a longer string of digits than it's willing to buffer. Try this: Send "ATDT --- first part of dialup string --- ;" wait for OK, or delay Send "ATDT --- second part of dialup string --- ;" wait for OK, or delay send ATDT " --- last part of dialup string --- " Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, jlevine@delphi.com, 1037498@mcimail.com ------------------------------ From: Bob Koskovich Subject: Re: Smooth Operator (Compass Voice Mail) Organization: Digital Equipment Computer Users Society Date: 23 Jun 94 04:16:39 -0400 In article , elitman@proxima.com (Eric A. Litman) writes: > Has anyone on this group used Compass Technology's Smooth Operator > PC-based voice mail system? We just recently installed a Smooth Operator system (for $$ reasons). In general, I'm happy with it so far. Two gripes at this point: 1. In order to dial-through to an extension from the auto attendant, the extension MUST have a mailbox defined. Not a serious problem for us, but it would be a pain if there were many no-box extensions on our switch. This, as I understand, is a common "feature" of PC-based VM systems. 2. The message delivery feature is NOT what it could be. For instance, I want to be paged with my box number for regular messages, and box+911 for urgent messages. To do it requires a kludge; you only have your choice of delivering urgent messages or all messages, and can't deliver a different message based on urgency. Alas, you get wat you pay for. Bob Koskovich Manager, Information Services EDM Supplies Inc Downey, CA ------------------------------ From: jcr@creator.nwest.mccaw.com (Jeffrey Rhodes) Subject: Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" Date: 23 Jun 1994 15:50:52 GMT Organization: McCaw Cellular Communications, Inc. Reply-To: jcr@creator.nwest.mccaw.com In article 14@eecs.nwu.edu, petef@well.com (Pete Farmer) writes: > In article hardiman@cbnewst.att.com > writes: >> PacBell runs an ISDN BBS. >> 510-277-1037 for pokey old modems. >> 510-823-4888 for speedy new BRI or SDS 56/64K access > Pac Bell also has a gopher server: ? > gw.pacbell.com > I think this has much of the same information that's on their BBS. > Peter J. Farmer Internet: petef@well.com > VP, Marketing Voice: 415-321-5968 > Tetherless Access Ltd. Fax: 415-321-5048 I have AT&T Accunet Service for my ISDN data calls here in Kirkland, WA and I can only reach the 510-823-4888 at 56k V.120. I get a CONNECT 57,600 but if I set my Hayes System Adapter TA to 64k I get NO CARRIER. I am able to make 64k V.120 calls to the UK, so why is this number not answering 64k V.120 data calls? Jeffrey Rhodes at jcr@creator.nwest.mccaw.com ------------------------------ From: Mike McCrohan Subject: Re: Pac Bell's "ISDN Anywhere" Date: 23 Jun 1994 06:13:38 +0100 Organization: Ireland On-Line In article , Pete Farmer wrote: > In article hardiman@cbnewst.att.com > writes: >> PacBell runs an ISDN BBS. >> 510-277-1037 for pokey old modems. >> 510-823-4888 for speedy new BRI or SDS 56/64K access > Pac Bell also has a gopher server: > gw.pacbell.com I dialed into their BBS yesterday (expensive business from Ireland during the business day!) to look up ISDN connectivity/availability for a client. The product Definitions refer to Centrex IS and SDS IS: "PACIFIC BELL ISDN PRODUCT AVAILABILITY AS OF MAY 16. 1994 Source: Pacific Bell Applications Bulletin Board System (510) 277-1037 ISDN Product Definitions: Centrex IS - Provides simultaneous voice and data capabilities of Basic Rate ISDN as an optional feature to a Centrex line. SDS IS - Provides simultaneous voice and data capabilities of Basic Rate ISDN as an optional feature to a measured business line (1MB). " Would I be correct in assuming that SDS IS is a regular ISDN Basic Rate Access line? Would I also be correct in assuming that Centrex IS is an ISDN additional service available to existing Centrex customers, which would give those customers ISDN BR capability? If the answer to the latter question is "yes", could a non-centrex customer contract for a single Centrex IS line if SDS IS is not yet available? Mike ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #299 ****************************** Received: from delta.eecs.nwu.edu by MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU id aa14844; 27 Jun 94 21:36 EDT Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA04222; Mon, 27 Jun 94 17:23:32 CDT Return-Path: Received: by delta.eecs.nwu.edu (4.1/SMI-4.0-proxy) id AA04212; Mon, 27 Jun 94 17:23:30 CDT Date: Mon, 27 Jun 94 17:23:30 CDT From: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Digest (Patrick Townson)) Message-Id: <9406272223.AA04212@delta.eecs.nwu.edu> To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V14 #300 TELECOM Digest Mon, 27 Jun 94 17:23:00 CDT Volume 14 : Issue 300 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: "Understanding Local Area Networks" by Schatt (Rob Slade) Canadian Internet Handbook Now Available in U.S. (Rick Broadhead) Wireless Comms Summer Course (Richard Tsina) Need Help Setting up Service (Dialins ,etc) (C. Mohr) MCI Solicitations Cause Havoc at Our Company (Bill Garfield) Book Review: "The Internet Book" by Comer (Rob Slade) Canadian Chat Line Case (Dave Leibold) Re: O.J. Simpson Case (Robert L. McMillin) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and GEnie. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available at no charge to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: 9457-D Niles Center Road Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 708-329-0571 Fax: 708-329-0572 ** Article submission address only: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu ** Our archives are located at lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Additionally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Rob Slade Date: Mon, 27 Jun 1994 06:49:27 MDT Subject: Book Review: "Understanding Local Area Networks" by Schatt BKUNDLAN.RVW 940415 SAMS Understanding Series Prentice Hall Computer Publishing 113 Sylvan Avenue Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 (515) 284-6751 FAX (515) 284-2607 or 11711 N. College Ave. Carmel, IN 46032-9903 or 201 W. 103rd Street Indianapolis, IN 46290 or 15 Columbus Circle New York, NY 10023 800-428-5331 or Market Cross House Cooper Street Chichester, West Sussex PO19 1EB England phyllis@prenhall.com - Phyllis Eve Bregman is postmaster 70621.2737@CompuServe.COM Alan Apt Beth Mullen-Hespe beth_hespe@prenhall.com "Understanding Local Area Networks", Schatt, 1992, 0-672-30115-6, U$26.95/C$34.95 This is a readable and fairly comprehensive guide to the concepts and terminology behind Local Area Networks. While it gives a thorough background to a wide range of LAN features, technical details are scant. This may be good news to the executive trying to get an initial grasp of networking; it may present problems to the manager charged with coming up with a plan for implementation. Three initial chapters provide basic concepts and jargon for LANs, basic parts and pieces, and connections to wide area networks. Four major network operating systems are described in further chapters, and it is nice to see some mention of OS/2 and Macintosh systems included. Chapter eight is a bit odd: of the four "other" LANs listed, two are hardware interfaces rather than network operating systems. A further three chapters look at electronic mail options, management and networkable software. The book closes with a chapter on LAN selection and appendices with vendor addresses, a glossary and a bibliography. The material is very basic and almost completely non-technical. The content will certainly help a neophyte to get started, or someone who has to "start from zero" on a major networking project. However, the lack of technical details could allow for major disasters in the choice of systems. For example, the topologies are described correctly, but the load implications of the different access methods are never discussed. An ethernet, with repeaters, could conceivably service an entire ten-storied building. With heavy loads, however, you would probably want to break that down into a series of smaller networks with routing. If response time is critical, you probably need token-ring access in order to guarantee an upper bound to delays. (The lack of detail extends to the review questions at the end of each chapter. These are extremely simple queries from the lowest level of Bloom's Taxonomy, and only serve to check whether you've read every sentence.) A possibly useful start, but far from being complete. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKUNDLAN.RVW 940415. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated newsgroups/mailing lists. DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca, RSlade@sfu.ca, Rob Slade at 1:153/733 DECUS Symposium '95, Toronto, ON, February 13-17, 1995, contact: rulag@decus.ca ------------------------------ From: Rick Broadhead Subject: Canadian Internet Handbook Now Available in U.S. Date: Mon, 27 Jun 1994 12:33:00 GMT June 24, 1994 Contact: Beth Hespe PTR Prentice Hall (201) 592-2348 (Tel) (201) 592-2785 (Fax) T H E C A N A D I A N I N T E R N E T H A N D B O O K Now Available in the United States Foreword by Jean Monty, President and CEO of Northern Telecom Limited Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, June 24, 1994 -- Prentice Hall/PTR and Prentice Hall Canada proudly announce that, due to popular demand, the Canadian Internet Handbook by Jim Carroll and Rick Broadhead is now available in the United States. In the last three months, the Canadian Internet Handbook has established itself as a genuine Canadian publishing phenomenon. It has been on the Toronto Star's National Bestseller List for the last two months, and for six consecutive weeks, the book was the #1 selling non-fiction paperback in Canada. The authors believe it to be the first Internet book ever published to reach the #1 position on a general bestseller list. The Canadian Internet Handbook has also achieved bestseller status in several other prominent Canadian newspapers, including the Financial Post, Ottawa Citizen, and the Globe and Mail. This is a significant accomplishment for a country the size of Canada. With over 35,000 copies printed and distributed in Canada alone, the Canadian Internet Handbook has far exceeded the normal Canadian bestseller status of 5,000 copies. Due to great demand for the book in the U.S. market, the Canadian Internet Handbook is now being distributed in the U.S. by Prentice Hall. The Canadian Internet Handbook provides Internet users with comprehensive directories of Canadian Internet resources, including Canadian Gopher servers, WWW servers, and Internet-accessible library catalogues. The book also includes a detailed listing of Canadian Usenet groups, and a list of over 700 organizations that are using the Internet in Canada. Other chapters discuss such topics as "What's Wrong With the Internet?", and "Where is the Internet Going in Canada?" The book covers all the popular Internet tools - Mail, Telnet, FTP, Gopher, WAIS, WWW - and provides many examples of how Canadian businesses and individuals are using the Internet. Shell Canada, Midland Walwyn, the Regina Public Library, and the Canadian Space Agency are some of the organizations profiled in the book. Jean Monty, President and CEO of Northern Telecom Limited, introduces the book with a foreword. For further pricing and ordering information, point your Gopher client at: gopher.prenhall.com WWW users can point their browser at the following URL: http://www.csi.nb.ca/handbook/handbook.html For more information, please contact the authors of the book: Rick Broadhead Jim Carroll handbook@uunet.ca handbook@uunet.ca ------------------------------ From: course@garnet.berkeley.edu Subject: Wireless Comms Summer Course Date: 27 Jun 1994 18:03:09 GMT Organization: University of California, Berkeley U.C. BERKELEY Continuing Education in Engineering Announces a short course on Wireless Technology: WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS (July 26-27, 1994) There are technical bottlenecks to developing a ubiquitous wireless multimedia environment: the capacity of the radio link, its unreliability due to the adverse multipath propagation channel, and severe interference from other channels. This course covers the principles and fundamental concepts engineers need to tackle these limitations (e.g., a thorough treatment of channel impairments such as fading and multipath dispersion and their effect on link and network performance). Topics include: Introduction to Wireless Channels, Cellular Telephone Networks, Analog and Digital Transmission and Wireless Data Networks. Comprehensive course notes will be provided. Lecturer: JEAN-PAUL M.G. LINNARTZ, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley. His work on traffic analysis in mobile radio networks received the Veder Prize, an innovative research in telecommunications award in the Netherlands. At Berkeley he works on communications for intelligent vehicle highway systems and multimedia communications. Professor Linnartz is the author of numerous publications and the book "Narrow Land-Mobile Radio Networks" (Artech House, 1993), the text for the course. For more information (brochure with complete course descriptions, outlines, instructor bios, etc.,) send your postal address to: Richard Tsina U.C. Berkeley Extension Continuing Education in Engineering 2223 Fulton St. Berkeley, CA 94720 Tel: (510) 642-4151 Fax: (510) 643-8683 email: course@garnet.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ From: mohrc@storm.cs.orst.edu (C Mohr) Subject: Need Help Setting up Service (Dialins, etc) Date: 27 Jun 1994 04:43:58 GMT Organization: Computer Science Department, Oregon State University Hi, I'm hoping someone(s) out there can help me with a few questions. First what I am trying to do. A few of us here with some money to burn (but not to much) and some Unix experience want to set up a internet access service in a fairly large town here. There is no access except the local college, which only lets students on their machines due to lack of dialins. There are also no services that are a "local sprintnet" call away (unless you count Delphi or Prodigy; I'm refering to services such as Netcom.) We want to start fairly small and wait until we start getting more users to upgrade to bigger machines. What we are thinking of doing is getting a Pentium 99 with 64 or 32 megs of memory, two or three gigs of SCSI harddrive and putting the latest version of linux on it (uh oh I hear groans ;]). We are currently running linux 1.1.18 on a Pentium 60 and it seems to be running fairly well (although it only has four or five users and a mud running on it) which is why we choose that OS (plus its free.) We want to put in a minimum of 10 dialin lines to start, maybe 16 (this is where I start having problems ;]) Since there are two local colleges both with T1 or better lines we plan to (try) to get a T1 line as our connection to the net. Now the questions: Is it a really bad idea to use Linux for this task? If so why? What's a better suggestion? We dont want to sink 100 grand into this right away, over time maybe. Do you think a Pentium 99 will be able to handle 25 users at a time? 50? 100? Is there a maximum number of connections at a time under Linux? Maximum memory or HD? Does Linux support tape backups besides the "qic format" something in the one to two gig format? Does it support multiple serial port cards (meaning the 8-16 or higher port cards)? If so what kind (for both questions) If (and even if it does) Linux doesn't support multiple serial port cards what is the best way to get 8-32+ dialins to the Linux box? I'm guessing some type of modem server, can someone tell me how these work (the more specific the better) and who some good companies are to contact about these? How is a T1 line connected to Unix machines? Directly, a router, what? Is it different for each case? If this is the sole machine would it be a direct connection (and later when we add more machines add the router/gateway/whatever it is ...?) Is a seperate "gateway" machine required or can the same machine act as both? Can someone point me at the NW USA internet providers that offer connections to companies that plan to offer pay for accounts? I am only aware of one provider (NWnet) and i'm not certain they allow this. Is there a list of providers such as this? email/voice contact numbers needed as well if possible. Are there any suggestions (besides give up ;]) you have? Any technical knowhow or whatever is also GREATLY appreciated! Sorry if I am asking some very basic questions or things I "should" know but this will be my first time setting up a Unix network from ground zero (IE no T1 no dialins etc). I have set up two new Sequent machines for a university here but they did all the network connections and the modems were easy since they wanted them connected to the backplane (64 rs232 connecters weee fun!) Also any FAQ's would be great if you can point me at them (books are ok also but prefer free pubs or help for now ;]) Thanks ALOT for all help provided and we hope to see you on the net soon! PLEASE E-Mail all replies if someone else is interested I'll be glad to forward them to you. mohrc@storm.cs.orst.edu ------------------------------ Subject: MCI Solicitations Cause Havoc at Our Company From: bill.garfield@yob.com (Bill Garfield) Date: Sun, 26 Jun 94 10:21:00 -0600 Organization: Ye Olde Bailey BBS - Houston, TX - 713-520-1569 Reply-To: bill.garfield@yob.com (Bill Garfield) At my company my whole DID number block has been literally under seige for the past six months by the MCI autodialers. At first we had no idea where it was coming from; hundreds of single-jingles a day, at 16-minute intervals, across large blocks of our DID number span. These appeared as one-ringers, apparently because MCI's *DYSFUNCTIONAL* autodialers interpreted our PBX's double ring cadence as a "busy" and so immediately dropped the call ... BUT KEPT TRYING AND RETRYING AND... AND...!!!! After suffering under this continuing barrage of five-second duration calls for nearly a month I handed the problem to SWBT's Annoyance Call Bureau. Ten of the extensions then under assualt were put up on call trace and the data collection process began. SWBT's Major Account Center in Houston contacted me to advise that without exception, *ALL* the nuisance/harrassing calls were coming from the same trunk group, MCI. I was given a local number to use in contacting someone at MCI's Houston POP -- which coincidentally is right across the street from my office. Then for two more weeks I called the MCI POP at least twice daily and faxed thousands of call records to them to use in continuing the trace. "Shirley", one of the switchpersons, finally let it slip that these calls were coming from MCI Telemarketing Centers at Denver and Phoenix! Having positively identified the source, it still took TWO MORE WEEKS of nuisance calls to get relief. But it was over, or at least I thought it was. Early in May of this year, the by now very recognizeable single-jingle, 16-minute interval calls were back. However, this time attacking only one extension, 4796. According to SMDR records my subscriber tolerated the single-jingle attack an average of twelve times a day for three whole weeks before contacting anyone. (Patient fellow, huh?) As soon as I saw the calling pattern I had strong suspicions of -who- the culprit was, but I called SWBT's Call Annoyance Bureau again anyway. The CAB put the number on call trace and another week passed while we collected SMDR evidence. Suspicions confirmed! The MCI trunk group was again identified as the source. MCI's Houston POP again confirmed that the calls were originating from their Denver telemarketing center. Again I demanded, much less politely than before, that this activity immediately cease and desist. Again it took an entire week for MCI to get it under control. Although I do not speak for my employer, I can assure MCI Corporate that my switchroom crew in Houston is getting damned sick and tired of the MCI telemarketing group. Perhaps someone in this fine group would be kind enough to share with me some names and telephone numbers of influential individuals within MCI's corporate hierarchy. Ye Olde Bailey BBS Zyxel 713-520-1569(V.32bis) Hayes 713-520-9566 (V.FC) Houston,Texas yob.com Home of alt.cosuard [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Consider the message delivered, but I doubt that it will do much good until/unless some 'influential individuals' at MCI send the message to the telemarketing people, and even then I can tell you what their response will be in return: they have no way to program or control their dialers -- or so they will claim. As John Higdon pointed out here in the past in his ongoing battle with the newspaper solicitors in San Jose, this amounts to the proverbial unstoppable object meeting the unmoveable one ... when contact is made with an influential person at MCI you might want to have an influential person at your place of employment -- someone who *can* speak for your employer -- let them know in no uncertain terms that the contact is being made for reasons of courtesy prior to taking the whole thing legal. You have, in my opinion, a very good claim for damages due to the disruption of your business activities and your continued inab- ility to use the company's telephone system in the manner in which it was intended. Perhaps some influential person at MCI seeing this will be in a position to head off any further problems. Perhaps their choice will be to resolve the dilemma informally for you *now*. Good luck, and let us know how this progesses. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Rob Slade Date: Mon, 27 Jun 1994 06:27:49 MDT Subject: Book Review: "The Internet Book" by Comer I hope I'm not releasing this *too* far in advance. I haven't yet seen the final copy of this book, but I find it to be a very interesting and valuable work, and it has come to the top of the pile, so: BKINTBOK.RVW 940408 Prentice Hall 113 Sylvan Avenue Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 (515) 284-6751 FAX (515) 284-2607 70621.2737@CompuServe.COM Alan Apt Beth Mullen-Hespe beth_hespe@prenhall.com "The Internet Book: Everything You Need to Know About Computer Networking and How the Internet Works", Comer, (forthcoming) dec@purdue.edu It is difficult to find books which give some background to the Internet. Most guides assume that readers are either already thoroughly familiar with computer communications, or are uninterested. The history of the Internet often vaguely mentions military or government projects without giving much idea of the problems which needed solving. Given the growth in computer networking, a reference is needed which lies between non-explanations ("This computer is connected to that computer and they talk to each other.") and the TCP/IP programming manuals. This book fills a lot of those gaps. After an initial introduction to the current state of the Internet, chapters two through six give a very simple introduction to data communications and the need therefor. Those who have any kind of technical background may find the explanations a touch simplistic. With such rapid Internet growth, however, and for those who need some level of explanation without getting beyond their technical depth, this is likely to be very useful. It's easily readable. (It's also accurate.) Chapters seven to ten explain the drive for, and growth of, the Internet including excellent explanations of "why". The basic underlying concepts of the Internet protocols are covered in chapters eleven to seventeen, before the remaining nine chapters describe the primary application level tools of the system. (Actually, I'm jumping the gun a bit here. I've seen two drafts of the book, but the final version isn't done yet. The drafts I've seen have had some problems, particularly in regard to repetition of material and significant variation in reading level from ome section to another. A section addressing the concept of bandwidth, particularly as applied to text versus sound versus video application might also be helpful. The explanation of the tools of the Internet is quite reasonable, although mailing lists get dismissed very briefly while Usenet news gets perhaps a trifle more ink than it really deserves. The latest version, though, shows improvement in many of these areas, and I have great hopes for the final work.) The problems notwithstanding, this is an important addition to the library of Internet references. I heartily recommend it to those involved in network training. To date, the primary source material for the study of the development of the Internet, aside from the RFCs themselves, has been the "Internet System Handbook" (cf BKINTSYS.RVW), but it tends to be written at a technical or academic level. For those at the non-technical level who are wondering what the heck the Internet is (and one of Comer's anecdotes points out the hilarious misconceptions that are abroad), and what it all means, this is your book. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994 BKINTBOK.RVW 940408. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated newsgroups/mailing lists. DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca, RSlade@sfu.ca, Rob Slade at 1:153/733 DECUS Symposium '95, Toronto, ON, February 13-17, 1995, contact: rulag@decus.ca ------------------------------ From: dave.leibold@gvc.com Organization: GVC Technologies - The Name you can Trust Date: Mon, 27 Jun 94 11:47:11 EDT Subject: Candadian Chat Line Case I got a call from a British Columbia legal aid lawyer this week who wanted some information regarding "chat" line charges on phone bills. According to that conversation, there is a case coming up involving substantial charges made to a chat line in the Caribbean. In effect, these are calls to a +1 809 number, or perhaps to another country code, with the line operator taking a cut of the international balance of payments. This was apparently case of a child phoning these lines, with the parent being surprised by the bill later. BC Tel wants to collect these charges; the subscriber is fighting this (through the legal aid office); likely given that the calls were made without permission and occurred when the phone was not under the subscriber's absolute control. I'm not a lawyer, and thus was of limited help in this matter. This sort of case appears to favour the telco's side since the terms of service of most Canadian telcos deem the subscriber responsible for phone charges, regardless of who made or accepted them (at least for Bell Canada customers). Since the calls are in effect standard toll calls, the telco's case may be stronger than if the calls were to 900 or 976 numbers which sometimes have refund provisions. One could dwell on whether it is reasonable to expect that a subscriber should be liable for tolls in cases where there is a loss of full control over the phone. Perhaps an international challenge could be made, specifically with how international chat lines are supported. Information or ideas regarding similar cases, particularly of the legal variety, should be directed to Phil Dockerill, Legal Aid, at (604) 755.2550 (voice) or fax (604) 755.2770. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If the tariffs in Canada are the same as here -- and I suspect in this regard they are -- then the subscriber remains responsible for the uses made of his instruments. The fact that the owner of the telephone at one end or the other of the call gets a cut of the action is not of consequence; proprietors of commissionable pay telephones also get a peice of the action on 'sent paid' traffic through their phones, whether or not there are actually coins deposited. Any person who receives a commission would normally be expected to promote traffic by reason of his own income. If the parents don't want to pay, then I have to wonder where they draw the line on responsibility: suppose it had been a long distance call to a friend (of the child) who moved to some other international point, and the call had lasted a couple hours? Would they be willing to pay for that call, or is that telco's problem also? Why does it matter *to whom* the call was placed? As discussed in this Digest a few days ago, to the Information Provider, the use of International DDD with a commission on the traffic makes a lot better sense than 'traditional' 900/ 976 calls with their refund provisions, etc. Plus which, blocking out 900/ 976 is fairly common; a lot of people have those toll-restricted by telco, but who is going to toll-restrict all international traffic? . On the other hand though, in the case of an incoming collect call, the operator is *supposed* to get permission for the charges from an adult person if one is present and if she can 'obviously' tell she is speaking with a child. If it is 'obvious' that a child has answered the phone the operator is supposed to *not* mention the collect charges, but instead say to the child, "is an adult there I can speak with please?"; then, and only then, when an adult has answered, she is to give her spiel about 'a collect call from whoever, will you accept the charges?' ... Did anyone see the cartoon recently in the papers showing (in the first panel) this dirty old man standing at a payphone on a street corner in a trenchcoat which -- let's say courteously -- is not buttoned up all the way; he is exposing himself. The second panel shows an operator at a switch- board with cords and plugs; she is plugging into a connection, and appears to be a hateful witch. The third panel shows this old lady awakened in the middle of the night. She is standing there in a bathrobe, her hair in curlers with the ringing phone to her ear, and a bewildered look on her face. The message in a bubble coming out of the receiver is the operator speaking to her: "I have an *obscene* call for anyone at this number, will you accept the charges?". I thought it was funny. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jun 94 11:27:00 PDT From: rlm@helen.surfcty.com (Robert L. McMillin) Subject: Re: O.J. Simpson Case On 21 Jun 1994 07:59:59 PST, Pat said: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: An article in the {Chicago Sun-Times} > discussing this matter was entitled 'A Nation of Idiots'. It discussed > the people who, with apparently nothing better to do deliberatly went > out on the expressway in the hopes of seeing him as he drove past. The > same article discussed 'hundreds of other idiots who drove to his house > and clogged nearby streets -- as well as parking on his lawn and the lawns > of neighbors, etc -- in a party-like atmosphere, in the hopes of seeing > him come out of his house ...' Most people there, said the article, were > sympathetic to OJS, booing the police while cheering OJS during the time > he was in the process of being arrested, etc. Very sad ... PAT] I think people will change their tunes a bit after the release of the tape of today's 911 call of Simpson's estranged, late wife. If you haven't heard it, it is truly scary to hear him raving in the background, Nicole Simpson begging the operator to send police. Frankly, I think he sliced her open like a Halloween pumpkin. (Some reports indicated she was nearly decapitated ...) It is not looking very good for the Juice, and indeed it should not. All the circumstantial evidence points directly back to him; should the police find the murder weapon, it would nearly clinch the case. But even with a preponderance of evidence, bear in mind that this is the Los Angeles City District Attorney we are dealing with here, the same guys who fumbled both the Rodney King and, more troubling, the Menendez double murder case. The LA city DA can't seem to get it together to try high-visibility cases. There are mumblings in the department that maybe selecting prosecuting attorneys on the basis of their last name or their skin color isn't such a great idea after all ... We are told Gil Garcetti, the present DA, is out to make a point with Simpson. Whether this happens or not, I doubt seriously that the Juice will end up in the gas chamber. We are told, incredibly, that he has retained the services of the top plea bargainer in Los Angeles, in addition to or supplanting his regular lawyer, Robert Shapiro. The trial won't happen for another year, but when it does, you may be sure we will once more need the apt sign one Brentwood resident had stuck in his lawn: "MEDIA CIRCUS", only this time, the arrow will point to the municipal courts building in Santa Monica (or Beverly Hills). Robert L. McMillin | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Netcom: rlm@netcom.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, he nearly decapitated her ... it was a very vicious double murder. The bodies were slashed time and again. Mr. Goldman had over *sixty* stabs in his body. Nicole Simpson appeared to the police arriving on the scene as 'something that had been run through a meat grinder ...'; that's how bad it was. Furthermore, according to the coroner's report, apparently both were alive for several minutes after the initial attacks upon them, physically unable to leave because of their injuries and forced to watch the wounds inflicted on the other. Not content to simply kill you see, there had to be torture involved. With their throats slashed, neither was able to scream or call for help as they lay there watching the carnage. I suggest that Mr. O.J. Simpson is going to be in the penitentiary for the rest of his life, if indeed the court chooses to grant him more mercy than he granted his victims. Personally I don't like the gas chamber; it is torture. He ought to be humanely put to death in the same way we would deal with any vicious animal running loose. Today in the news- papers, the headline was that 'OJS attorney says client has alibi'. That should be very interesting to read. It should be remembered that in the United States, our constitution requires that Mr. Simpson be presumed innocent of the charges lodged against him until the government proves otherwise to the satisfaction of the court and/or jury. The fact that he is who he is means nothing; at least it should not. Idiots are everywhere it seems; people were at the house the other day trying to snatch up any bloody souveniers they could find; bits of the carpet, etc. One fellow had a carpet-cutting tool with him to remove a bit of the carpet. They in turn were arrested for trespassing; probably none of them have any idea what they did wrong. Over on the east coast on the other hand, the landlord of the house where Mr. and Mrs. Bobbitt had their domestic squabble that night has also found some notoriety for himself and his wife. He went in and removed the blood-stained carpet in the bedroom along with the soiled bed linens, etc ... he now has these *on display* in his home for anyone who cares to go by and look. Entitled 'Bobbit Carpet' and 'Bobbit Bed Linen', they have provided what he calls 'interesting conversation pieces' for folks who drop in to visit. Idiots everywhere. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #300 ******************************