From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jan 2 14:21:42 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.1/NSCS-1.0S) id OAA07713; Tue, 2 Jan 1996 14:21:42 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 14:21:42 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601021921.OAA07713@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Bcc: Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #1 TELECOM Digest Tue, 2 Jan 96 14:22:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 1 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Happy New Year; Announcements, Administrivia (Patrick A. Townson) Re: Is There an 'Underground Guide' to Cellphones? (yukyuk@ix.netcom.com) Re: Is There an 'Underground Guide' to Cellphones? (David Richards) Re: Absolutely Amazing Free Catalog (Clifton T. Sharp) Re: MFJ vs. Internet Develpoment (Ronda Hauben) Re: MFJ vs. Internet Develpoment (John R. Levine) Re: Digital Global Roaming (Cameron J. Atkins) Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" (Bob Spargo) Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" (John R. Levine) Telco Wiring Problems in Old Apartment Building (scorpion@phantom.com) Re: Angst and Awe on the Internet - George Gilder Essay (Robert Jacobson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 13:07:38 EST From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Subject: Happy New Year; Announcements, Administrivia I want to welcome everyone to the start of Volume 16 of TELECOM Digest and encourage you to make full use the resources of the Telecom Archives and our 'think tank' of telecom professionals involved with this journal. In the next day or so, I will have the index to last year's Volume 15 completely finished and will send it out to everyone. This will be the usual index of authors and subjects as they appeared in each issue. As most of you know, the past year -- or really two years -- have seen an unrelenting growth in connections to the Internet and subscribers to this and other newsletter/journals. The mailing list here now numbers in the thousands of names, and with this comes a great deal of work merely on mailing list maintainence alone, to say nothing of the usual editorial work. Daily submissions are also coming in at a record pace and I hope no one is offended and everyone understands when I say that it is impossible to even begin considering/printing anything other than a small fraction of what reaches my inbox each day. Most of you were also very understanding when at the first of last year a voluntary subscription donation policy was implemented since this has for two years now been virtually full time employment for me. Although Microsoft and ITU both provide grants, those grants cover only about half the cost involved, and I rely on readers to provide the balance due. The suggested donation is twenty dollars per reader per year. If you sent a subscription last year, I hope you will do so again this year sometime over the next couple weeks as it is convenient for you. If you did not send one last year, please do so this time. The address is: TELECOM Digest Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL 60076 To bring you up to date on the phones here, the correct phone number to reach me is either 847-329-0571 _or_ 500-677-1616 (preferred). You can reach me by fax at 847-329-0572. Some of you are *still* writing to the Digest at the old address at Northwestern (telecom@eecs.nwu.edu). Please stop using this address immediately. Use ONLY the correct, current email address which is as shown above. Before long, mail sent to nwu.edu will bounce and be returned to you. I was *not* pleased to see Northwestern get beaten in the Rose Bowl yesterday ... but just seeing them there for the first time since I was a little kid was indeed a source of pride. All throughout this area over the weekend there were celebrations, particularly in Evanston directly east of us where the university is located. Anyway, happy new year 1996, and welcome to another time around with your favorite Digest and mine. May we all benefit and learn as we share together here in the next twelve months. Patrick Townson TELECOM Digest Editor ------------------------------ From: yukyuk@ix.netcom.com Subject: Re: Is There an 'Underground Guide' to Cellphones? Date: 02 Jan 1996 07:31:35 GMT Organization: Netcom In peshkin@nwu.edu (Michael Peshkin) writes: > Is there a source for what they don't tell you about cellphones in the > users manual? Like, how to read out and/or program the phone's id > number? Every salesperson knows how to do this, so it can't be too > great a secret. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There are various books you can > purchase with information and instructions on programming cellphones. > One example which comes to mind is Bishop. I forget the exact title > of their book but you would find it in some technical book stores. You might also want to check out Some back issues of Nuts and Volts magazine. Damion Thorn usually contributes very interesting articles on cellular. However ... the book "The Cellular Hackers Bible" is one of the best books I've read on the subject. YUK ------------------------------ From: dr@ripco.com (David Richards) Subject: Re: Is There an 'Underground Guide' to Cellphones? Organization: Ripco Internet BBS, Chicago Date: Mon, 1 Jan 1996 07:27:05 GMT In article , Michael Peshkin wrote: > Is there a source for what they don't tell you about cellphones in the > users manual? Like, how to read out and/or program the phone's id > number? Every salesperson knows how to do this, so it can't be too > great a secret. The original Ripco BBS, is going on it's thirteenth year (which can't be bad luck, nothing could be worse luck than the events of May 8, 1990) and carries a full selection of free files on cellular phones and other interesting subjects. The number is 312-528-5020 all modem speeds, full access on the first call. > Why do I want to know? Nothing unethical. I'd like to use a spare > phone as an emergency phone in my other car, sharing a number. (Of > course if both ever got turned on at the same time, they'd probably > disconnect my service, but I can avoid doing that.) Also I'm just > curious what are all the things you can do that they don't tell you > about. Motorola in particular commonly has numerous extra features coded into their phones and pagers, some can be accessed from the keypad/buttons, others require a programming cradle and software. TELECOM Digest Editor then noted in response: > Actually, you can *not* share a number between two phones as you > propose, or certainly not with your level of expertise. The reason > is both phones need to share the same ESN, or electronic serial > number, and that is the one thing which is difficult or usually > impossible to modify ... again, for most people. And the cellular carriers are working on pushing laws that would make changing the ESN a criminal act, even for the purposes of having two phones you own use the same account. Anything that denies them revenue is fraud :-( David Richards Ripco Communications Inc. My opinions are my own, Public Access in Chicago But they are available for rental FREE Usenet and Email dr@ripco.com (312) 665-0065 ------------------------------ From: clifto@indep1.chi.il.us (Clifton T. Sharp) Subject: Re: Absolutely Amazing Free Catalog Organization: as little as possible Date: Tue, 02 Jan 1996 08:06:18 GMT In article ptownson@massis.lcs. mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) writes: > TELECOM PRODUCTS is the name of an interesting sixty page catalog > published about every two months by Mike Sandman. Billing himself as > "Chicago's Telecom Expert" -- which I have no doubt he is -- his > bi-monthly catalog is full of technical reports, short articles of > interest on telephony, and *lots* of illustrations and short blurbs > about things he sells from his shop, which is located in Roselle, IL. I stopped in there one day to buy a headset he sells for the Motorola radios he carries. Email correspondence preceding the "event" suggested that he didn't know whether it would work with my specific model, but he'd be willing to test it. I thought I had read a blurb inviting people to stop by and see his messy but comprehensive selection of stuff, so with the word "messy" in my head I walked into an office area which I thought was quite a neat and efficient use of space. A cute bird announced my arrival quite loudly to a lady nearby, who called Mike in the back room and gave my name; Mike came right out and introduced himself, remembering me from our exchange some days previous. He had to rip open one of those ultrasonically-welded "bubble packs" to let me test the headset, but did so without hesitation. As it turned out, it worked fine and I bought it on the spot. The entire operation from my entry to my exit must have taken ten minutes (nine of it to open that damned package :-), and I walked away quite impressed with the operation and the courtesy of his employees. > His merchandise all seems to be reasonably priced. Most of the prices > in his catalog appear to be average or better than average. I strongly > recommend getting a copy and checking it out. Headsets for the usually inexpensive ham radio equipment I buy generally cost a lot; the headset for my $215 Alinco radio cost me $87. I was very nicely surprised when I walked out of Mike's store with a Motorola headset for $95 (plus a few bucks for a belt clip upgrade; the stock ones Motorola supplies are chintzy). Note that I include the PTT-switchbox-cum-VOX gadget in the price of both. There's a LOT of stuff in Mike's catalog which can be used for things other than telecom equipment; for example, some tiny little Alps switches he carries are used in just about every kind of consumer electronic equipment I've seen, and the deskset keypad repair kits he offers would be perfect for repairing TV remote controls and certain computer keyboards. And there's always that bidet! I'll be going back. Cliff Sharp WA9PDM clifto@indep1.chi.il.us ------------------------------ From: ronda@panix.com (Ronda Hauben) Subject: Re: MFJ vs. Internet Develpoment Date: 1 Jan 1996 23:22:01 EST Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC John Vitiello (jvitiell@ix.netcom.com) wrote: > A question was posed to my class in Regulatory Law and Telecommunications > Policy at grad school. I'm interested in anyone's opinion on the subject. > The question was: > Could the internet have developed if the Bell Sysyem had remained a > monopoly? Yes, and in fact it developed while the Bell System was a regulated monopoly and the regulation of the Bell System was a significant contributing factor in a number of ways to the development of the Internet. > If so how? 1. The availability of leased lines from AT&T long lines was a help to the development of the early ARPANET which was the father of the Internet. 2. The regulatory pressure on AT&T in the mid 1960's led them to support the development of UNIX in 1969 and not only its subsequent development, but then the development of Usenet in 1979. 3. Usenet played an important part in contributing to the development of the Internet. When Usenet pioneers made ARPANET Mailing Lists available to those on Usenet in 1981, this was a step toward making the ARPANET open to others, which helped to support the development of the Internet. The Bell System played an important and supportative role in the creation of Usenet, and Usenet has contributed in many important ways to the development of the Internet. (Usenet has been called the soul of the Internet :) 4. There are several chapters in the netbook "Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet" that provide important details of these events. See especially the chapters "On the Early Days of Usenet: The Roots of the Cooperative Online Culture" and "On the Early History and Impact of Unix:Tools to Build the Tools for a New Millenium". Also the chapter "Social Forces Behind the Development of Usenet" gives an overview of these developments. These are available online at http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/project_book.html The issue of the Amateur Computerist that we did to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of Unix includes an interview with Berkley Tague of AT&T who describes the automation of AT&T under the pressure of regulatory obligations. The automation that AT&T then undertook in the 1970's and the programming of the 5ESS at AT&T in the late 1970's and early 1980's was a massive programming project and there are indicators that programmers in AT&T supported the development of Usenet because it was helpful to them in their work on large scale programming projects. Thus regulation played an important role helping the development of the Internet, rather than deregulation being helpful. The issue of the Amateur Computerist commemorating 25 years of UNIX is described in my signature and available free via email. It is also available at http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/acn/ Ronda Hauben The Amateur Computerist au329@cleveland.freenet.edu vol 6 no 1 Winter/Spring 1994 Celebrated the 25th Anniversary of Unix with interviews with John Lions and Berkley Tague articles on the history of Unix and of Usenet, article on linux etc. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 01 Jan 96 17:21:00 EST From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: MFJ vs. Internet Develpoment Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > [most Internet traffic travels via T1 and T3 leased lines and ... ] > (As I understand it, rates for leased lines did not drop > nearly as much as consumer long distance prices.) Sure they have. Inter-lata leased lines are just as competitive as inter-lata switched service. They technology has changed somewhat, e.g. frame relay and ATM, so you can't quite compare apples to apples. Lacking divestiture I suppose we'd have seen a lot more use of satellite, microwave, and other bypass technologies and fewer leased lines from the telco. > I believe that the "real" cause of the Internet explosion is that the > price of modems and personal computers has dropped dramatically while > the speed and power has greatly increased. No question there, the net would be a lot smaller if modems and routers were $2K and $20K rather than $150 and $2K. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - Stanford econ prof ------------------------------ From: CAMERON.J.ATKINS@sprintintl.sprint.com Date: Mon, 1 Jan 1996 23:46:57 EST Subject: Re: Digital Global Roaming > Ian Nicholls wrote: >> brister@zip.com.au (James Brister) writes: >>> Do I have any hope of use that phone is the USA? >> No. I don't think GSM is used at all over there. Some companies use a >> digital variant of the Analogue system, which doesn't help you. > Well, you might be able to use your SIM in the Washington DC area. A > Sprint (and someone else) venture just launched PCS1900 service. > PCS1900 is basically GSM at 1900Mhz (there are some "americanization" > aspects such as equal access for long distance). But, you will NOT be > able to use your phone from Australia. There are no commercial arrangements between any of the Australian carriers (Telstra, Optus, Vodafone) to support roaming (whether your own SIM or a "SIM swap") into the US if you have a digital mobile service. Technically it may be possible, but it is usually the abilities of Telco's billing systems to exchange CDRs and the agreed tariffing that are the challenges that present themselves. >>> Could anyone enlighten me as to potential problems? >> When you get back, you might have to pay an arm and a leg through the nose >> for approval to use a foreign phone in Australia. > That's kind of protectionist, isn't it? I mean, all you should have > to do is pay any import duties and you should be done. As far as > getting service with Telstra or OPTUS, you should be able to plug your > SIM (that is registered in a local network) into your phone ... and you > should be done. However, I've heard that the voice encryption (A5 > algorythm (sp?)) used in Europe was blocked in Australia. And, that > a "substitute" encryption method was employed instead. Anybody know > the details? Any telco equipment in Australia must be approved by Austel (Aust. Telecomm. Authority) before it should be used. By virtue of the way GSM phones operate, this is difficult to police though as a rule of thumb you will not get into trouble if you simply purchase a GSM phone overseas that is already marketed within Australia (e.g. Nokia 2110, Ericcson 337, Motorola 8200)- if you believe you may want to sell the phone in the future it is prudent to get the necessary certification that endorses the phone by Austel. To get this you simply approach the local office of any of the phone distributors. This may cost you A$25 thereabouts. However, if you buy a GSM phone o/s (It is bound to be cheaper), you simply plug your local SIM in. A5 is used in Australia. Some developing countries (Am unsure exactly who and do not wish to guess) are prevented from using it due to perceived concerns of providing it where the threat of having it applied for dubious means is a risk. We're a friendly bunch down here! > The GSM networks in Australia generally wouldn't know where the phone > was purchased (or manufactured). Really, all they care about is > whether or not your IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) > and IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) numbers are valid > in it's network. The telcos don't log the IMSI or IMEI at present. The telcos are individually (I know Voda and Optus are for certain) constructing IMSI and IMEI databases that will enable them to validate and track customer phones. The application of this will be similar to what is applied on the AMPS network whereby the ESN is logged on the network customer care/billing system - (i) for the purpose of registering valid local phones and (ii) "locking" out the activation of stolen or lost phones. The ease of re-using GSM phones at present when lost or stolen has been the obvious trigger for such databases. If you want more information, please contact me directly. Regards, Cameron Atkins ------------------------------ From: Bob Spargo Subject: Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" Date: Mon, 01 Jan 1996 23:53:37 EST Organization: CyberGate, Inc. Reply-To: bspargo@gate.net Rob Hickey wrote: > An interesting article appeared in the {Globe and Mail} (Canada) regarding > the future of PCS. The author, Geoffrey Rowan, appears to cast doubt > on the viability of PCS providers; he maintains that cellular technology > will not be quickly missplaced for the following reasons: > 1) PCS phones cannot compete with cellular phones on price since they are > practically giving away cell phones; This shows a distinct lack of understanding of market economics on the part of Mr. Rowan. Manufacturers are not giving away cellular phones. Their price is being bought down at the retail level by the cellular operator. If the PCS equipment costs less to manufacture (and it will in time) then the buy down will be less, or the same buy down amount will provide a lower end user cost. > 2) PCS air time cannot compete with cellular air time charges since most > cellular companies are not charging on evenings and weekends; I think the basic premise that most companies give away nights and weekends may not be true when considering the lowest rates in the major metro areas. In any event, the money in cellular is made off of air time charges during business hours. Provide a less expensive service during those hours and you will attract business. > 3) PCS phones cannot be practically any more portable than the latest > cell phones; Probably true. Size is predominately determined by the human body (ear to mouth distance) and battery technology. The body isn't going to change but, for a given talk/listen time, the battery capacity (in mA/hr) and size may be able to be reduced slightly with PCS due to lower power drain. > 4) PCS phones will not work in moving vehicles. Don't put money on this. > Mr. Rowan questions why the PCS industry would spend billions in > infrastructure to duplicate services that already exist. After reading your summary of his article, I suspect Rowan is not very familiar with the technology of either service or with the market potential for personal communications services. Having been involved in the embryonic days of cellular from the late '70's through mid '80's, I witnessed similar questioning of the viability of that service. After all, the first phones were close to $3,000 at retail and the cellular operator needed to gross $100/month/subscriber to make any money. If you want to know how those early guys made out check with John Kluge, John Palmer, Wayne Schelle, Craig McCaw and all those others who had the foresight and guts to build those first systems. Bob ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 01 Jan 96 17:15:00 EST From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > ATT and some of the other big boys plan to market nation wide services > which use PCS in some areas and cellular in others. All with the same > telephone. No more roaming, anywhere in the country call in or out for > the standard per minute rate. I call you wherever you are, no extra > charge -- for you or me. Hey, that's just like what A side cellular users in Canada have had for the past decade. (Well, you do pay toll charges, but it's home airtime rates everywhere.) Seems to me that PCS will force a big consolidation in the cellular biz. We're already seeing some of that, e.g. NYNEX and BAMS merging, and AT&T SBC buying up systems all over the place, but once PCS starts being a serious threat, I expect to find cellular systems in medium sized markets eaten by the majors. It'll probably end up with a scenario similar to that for landline phones -- a few big players that dominate all the major markets, and scattered small players in rural areas. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - Stanford econ prof ------------------------------ From: scorpion@phantom.com Subject: Telco Wiring Problems in Old Apartment Building Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 09:27:05 EST Organization: Phantom Access Technologies, Inc. / MindVox I am in New York, and my telco is NYNEX. The question that I have is where I live there are two buildings that share a inside wall, and other things like hot water and steam. We have a main line that come from a pole, to one of the building's basement. It is 150 - 200 feet from the pole to the building basement. From there the main line splits in to two; one for each building going like 75 feet each direction to each box. These are the old terminal boxes that need a nut wrench to connect the wires. There is a mess in the boxes, a bunch of wires everywhere, so that when telco comes to repair or connect a new service always they break someone else's line. I told them that if this happen again I not going to let anyone go and work in the lines there, and they would have to fix it from the street. Usually when some line is not working, the first thing they say is that the problem is in the basement. I know for a fact that the problem is not there; the problem is where the other telco men are working on the street someplace else. Later they want to come to the building and try to find an empty pair so they can change the line to the other pair. 1) Can I tell the telco NYNEX to put a new box where the main cable enters the basement, just there instead the two boxes, I think one is much better, so all the lines from each building can go in there. 2) Can I make them change the old main line, and put a new from the basement box to the pole or some where else, and what type, can I specify what type and how many wires, thinking of the future like ISDN or something else, I think 100 to 200 pairs is enough, on both buildings are 24 apartments. 3) Right now the main line that is coming to the buildings sucks, in that line are I think ten exchanges none of them offers ISDN or some of the other services like CALL ANSWERING etc, the problem is that the line routes to some place and that place don't support this services, some of the exchanges do, but since they route to that place is no way to get some of the services. Is there anything I can do about it? 4) Is there going to be any charge to the building or that is the telco responsibility. Any ideas, or other things that I can ask them? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There are several things which need to be addressed here. First of all, what is *your* relationship to the owner of the property and the apartment buildings? If you are not the landlord or the landlords's representative (i.e. building manager or caretaker) then you will NOT instruct the telco to do anything with those boxes. I've seen a lot of situations such as you describe here in the Chicago area in very old apartment buildings; especially in buildings where there used to be switchboard phone service operated at a front desk many years ago. Generally over the years since, telco has 'wired through' those old basement boxes straight to all the apartments so they do not have to have access to them on any regular basis. Still though, I think if you check applicable tariffs and case law, you will see that telco has easement in the basement; that is, you may not forbid them to enter for the purpose of working on their wires. Even if you are the landlord or the landlord's representative this is probably the case. Telco can be admitted to the basement at anytime in an emergency or at any reasonable hour otherwise. There is also a question of who owns the wire inside the building, what are called the 'house pairs'. Were the house pairs abandoned, or vacated by telco at any time in the past? If not, then your 'demarc' is in a distinctly different location than it would be otherwise. In that case, it is immediatly where the wires enter your apartment and prior to that (unless you are the landlord) you have no right to tell telco they must or must not do anything. If the inside wires or house pairs were at some point abandoned by telco and are now the property of the landlord, then the demarc moves back to where the wires come in the basement from the outside. Now, maybe you or landlord have a right to say something. The trouble is, fifty or seventy years ago when there were lots of buildings being constructed in larger cities and telco was busy wiring everything; installing the old switchboards in apartment buildings, etc. no one ever could have forseen what the future and divestiture would bring. The best course of action now might be to speak with someone in authority who has some responsibility for 'outside plant' at telco and explain what appear to be the chronic and repeated problems with service when work is done in your area. Again, it would help if you are in a position to do some of the bargaining, i.e. the landlord or property owner. It sounds to me like there is probably a severe shortage of pairs in the area (a very common problem in some older inner city neighborhoods) and that to merely get a pair for new service for someone, the installer has to go around to several basements in the area like yours and try to find a couple of good wires he can make into one working pair. Then he has to tell someone in the central office which wires he is using; they have to coordinate it there; somewhere along the line the plant records are inaccurate and need reconciliation; someone else gets accidentally cut off in the process. You have noticed how the wire pairs in your basement box are probably tagged with cryptic information of one sort or another; some of it accurate, some of it woefully out of date. When a new subscriber gets service, the installer has to go to all the other basements in the area to 'open the multiples', that is, to disconnect the wires at that point so someone else won't be able to use the new subscriber's line. It would be of tremendous help if you are in a position as landlord to negotiate the installation of a new terminal box outside the building with all existing inside wires and the inside boxes neatly organized once and for all; all house pairs accounted for and correctly tagged where they are 'wired through' to the new outside terminal, etc. If you are only a tenant, then my sympathies to you. Telco does not care what you think of *their* terminal in the the basement of the building where you live, although they might do something about it if the right person(s) are properly approached. PAT] ------------------------------ From: cyberoid@u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) Subject: Re: Angst and Awe on the Internet - George Gilder Essay Date: 2 Jan 1996 06:04:48 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Seems to me Mr. Gilder has his demons wrong. I haven't noticed a lot of "left-wing Luddites" or "media Marxists" going full out to discredit the Net. I'm not even sure who he means, but the critiques I've seen from social critics have always been tempered with a realization that the Net represents power and its management, like everything having to do with power, is up for grabs. Only a pollyanna would be surprised that this is the case. On the other hand, it looks to this humble observer that it's the media magnates and the far-right crazies who run this Congress, with whom Mr. Gilder is usually very comfortable, who are threatening the Net with the "Three Cs": consolidation, concentration, and censorship. No amount of praise for garage information handiworkers can obscure the fact that it's cats on the right who have everyone's fate clutched tight in their dirty little hands. But they pay the freight for most of the techno-futurists, so it would be pollyannish in its own way to expect any of the contract theorists to call them out. Thanks, Pat, for a chuckle on New Year's. Bob Jacobson [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: If George Gilder wishes to respond, I'll certainly appreciate his thoughts. Meanwhile, once again a happy new year to all, and welcome to another volume of the Digest. I really want to work on improving the Digest and the Archives this year, so any of you who can help, PLEASE do so ... your financial assistance is very very important. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #1 **************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 3 10:17:19 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.1/NSCS-1.0S) id KAA13204; Wed, 3 Jan 1996 10:17:19 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 10:17:19 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601031517.KAA13204@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Bcc: Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #2 TELECOM Digest Wed, 3 Jan 96 10:17:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 2 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Say NO! to Metered ISDN Service (Francois D. Menard) Compuserve Censors USENET in Europe (Jean B. Sarrazin) *77 and *87 in 860-land (David A. Cantor) Billing Telecom Conference (lmoran@planet.net) More on Canada==>US Caller ID (Mark Cuccia) A Phone Number is NOT a Credit Card! (Mike Wengler) How Do You Tell if Your Phone is Tapped? (Rich Sagall) France Telecom Offers Voice Mail For Publiphones (JeanBernard Condat) Germany: Another Deutsche Telekom Disaster (Juergen Ziegler) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Francois D. Menard Subject: Say NO! to Metered ISDN Service Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 15:14:26 +0000 Organization: Praline Internet This is a copy of a message that I posted in a mailing list of ISP's in Quebec discussing about "metered ISDN services". I would like to collect as many opinions about what I wrote. I would rather have your replies CC'ed to me via email, but I will also watch the follow-ups in the newsgroups. This will cartainly make for an interesting thread. Happy new year! Following up to a message by Dave Collier-Brown , > In my considered opinion, this is merely a tactic to get a metered > service, **any** metered service, into place. I have suggested in > writing to the CRTC that this indicated that Bell is unable to do it's > own required homework in pricing the home service, and that it should > not be permitted to have a metered service to the home in any case. > In fact, the cost to Bell is dominated by call setup (routing), and > is not time-related at all. If they must admit they cannot estimate > their costs, then let them do so and let them base their prices on their > costs, not on a third, irrelevant, factor. I wrote: You are absolutely right ! The day Bell Canada starts to bill ISDN as a metered service, it will be the beginning of the end. SAY NO TO ANYTHING THAT IS METERED. It is on this philosophy (of dedicated / not metered ) that we've built on the Internet, damn it! I pay many K$ a month for the right to say "Bell, Shut up !" If I want to do IPhone, I can do IPhone, if I want to pay for a T1 just for the fun of toying with a packet sniffer, that's my OWN problem. Say Yes to Metered service, and watch the pricing structure of Bell's ATM service. Remember guys, Bell/RBOC's have to keep on making as much money as they are making right now (read more)... Their only problem is that in the months to come, people will stop believing that it costs more to Bell to establish a Comm Link between Montreal and Vancouver than Montreal and Toronto. Hence, people will finally light up and realize that they have been fooled for years. This will be the end of Long Distance tariffs as has been mentioned by the article of the Economist. Remember my message about how the CEO of Bell Canada, has quoted the Economist as saying the the "advancements in telecomm technologies will be the single most economic force shaping the next 50 years" instead of using the real text wich rather talk about the "Death of Distance" as being the single most important econominc force to shape the next 50 years. I tell you, by year 2000, I foresee the gradual disappearing of ALL topologies of Long Distance billing. Everything will soon become "cost to access the network". Start allowing for this cost to be invoiced via a "metered" method and we are ALL shooting ourselves in the feet. I do NOT want to see Bell starting to sell their ATM-Internet (aka Beacon/Sirius) as the UNCONGESTED Internet. Leaving us with what they will refer to as an "inferior and poorly managed T1/T3 based IP-network". Has anyone of you looked at the RSVP IETF draft or what Mr. Huitema in France is working on for IPNG (IPv6). REAL soon!, we'll be able to do "quality-of-service"-based routing and bandwidth allocation. Sure, ATM will be better, but not at the expense of letting us all being shoved-up-in-the-ass a painful METERED-ATM service without doing something about it... The key to all of this is for us to demonstrate that we are capable of doing intelligent bandwidth management ourselves on exinsting network backbones. If Telcos can do it, why not ourselves also ! Our only overhead is a protocol called IP, which soon will be intelligent enough to do QofS (Quality of Service) bandwidth allocation and routing. I admit that this is a little far from the original topic of metered ISDN, but, permit me to make an allusion. This thing about allowing metered services, would be like failing to protect your "(C) copyrights". If you fail, even only once, nobody will render a judgment in your favor in the future. We do not have metered service right now (make an exception of CIR on Frame Relay networks, which is already too much), and we are perfectly cool about this. If we let this happen, that will be our own fault. Once again, our OWN fault. So lets get to work. Francois ------------------------------ Date: 02 Jan 96 08:48:19 EST From: Sarrazin, Jean B <72077.1366@compuserve.com> Subject: Compuserve Censors USENET in Europe Today CNN announced that in response to a request from the German government, Compuserve has disabled access to *all* USENET newsgroups. It seems Compuserve has taken to exercising censorship continent-wide, as CIS USENET access is also scrapped for all their European subscribers. Does Compuserve realise that the German government has no authority over other European nations? Furthermore, Compuserve has made no announcement to its members to that effect. I consider it unacceptable that Compuserve has not only complied to such a feeble attempt from a single European government at controlling Net access and contents, but also penalised a large number of subscribers without explanation or compensation. What is this knee-jerk reaction? What is Compuserve afraid of? As far as I know, the other ISP's in Germany have not been affected. Comments from outside and inside Compuserve are eagerly awaited. Jean B Sarrazin 72077.1366@compuserve.com Amsterdam, the Netherlands [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are confused. You are having a knee-jerk reaction of your own. First, let us understand the correct use of the term 'censorship'. By definition, only the government can censor soemeone. Compuserve is not the government. 'Censorship' is when the government physically stops you from speaking or writing on whatever topics you wish. 'Censorship' is *not* when some private organization or person refuses to collaborate or cooperate with you and assist in your speech-making or printing. No one owes you any printing press or pulpit. If the government -- and they are the only ones who can do it -- forbids you to own a printing press or to use it as you see fit or forces you to remain silent, then you have been censored. If I do not agree to print your messages or allow you to speak on my radio station, I am exercising my freedom of choice. You are still free to go get a press elsewhere and you are still free to exercise your vocal chords all you want. You have not been censored. Compuserve is a private organization. It is not an agency of the government. They pick and select programming they wish to make avail- able to their subscriber-members. They have not censored anything because they are incapable of censoring anything. They cannot forbid you to sit at your computer and peck away at the keyboard to your heart's desire. They cannot forbid you to read any collection or arrangement of pixels on your computer screen that you wish to view. They have said they do not wish to be part of the distribution process of certain 'types' of messages. They are exercising their freedom of choice, their business judgment, just as you are free to exercise yours. You may suggest that the only reason they came to this decision was due to some heavy-handed actions by the German government, and that may be correct, but if it is, then it is the government doing the censoring; not Compuserve. Next, it is my understanding they have chosen only to discontinue the 'alt' groups, *not* Usenet groups. If I stand corrected, please advise me. You might be amazed at how many sites in the USA do not carry 'alt' and in fact only carry a limited portion of Usenet. It is a choice they have made as to how their resources will be allocated. Furthermore, Compuserve like the other online commercial services only began carrying any Internet news groups at all as of about two or three years ago. Where is there something written in stone saying they must continue to carry them? Your argument might have some validity if it were not for the fact that historically, every time a commerical site has connected with Internet for the purpose of the exchange of news, the 'establishment' on Usenet has stunk up the place with flaming which went on and on about the poor calibre or quality of messages coming from the commercial sites. I first began hearing that argument from the 'establishment' here about ten years ago, when Portal Communications in San Jose, California 'came on board' back in 1986 ... the feeling was the net was going to hell in a handbasket 'if those commercial sites and their users are allowed to participate ...' And now you are mad because they are no longer participating, and you refer to them as 'censors' ... Next, my understanding is they only 'pulled the plug' on the alt groups until such time as they have made modifications in their software to selectively allow and disallow the use of some services based on the member's node, or point of connection to their system. I believe it is their intention to arrange the software so that if you call via (let us say) a node or local number in Frankfurt or Berlin, then upon trying to access certain newsgroups you will receive the response, 'you are not allowed to use this service via the node from which your call is originating ...' At first, the gurus there said it was impossible to identify the members in such a way that some could be denied access to portions of the service but not other portions. In other words, either you are a member in good standing and get it all, or you are not a member in good standing and don't get any of it. I, and a couple of others have pointed out to them that indeed, distinctions can be made at both the User-ID level and the node, or local phone number level, and in fact some distinctions are implemented now and have been for a long time. It was pointed out for example that certain members with full service totally free 'house accounts' -- for example, the forum managers -- are unable to dial in via the 800 number. When Compuserve gives someone a totally free account as a 'valued member' of their system, it only adds insult to injury for the free user to dial in on the 800 number as well ... and the attitude of CIS has always been if we give you a free account then at the very least you can pay for the local phone connection to get in. So as a result, User-ID numbers in the block 753xx,xxxx cannot enter via any of the 800 numbers. The software forbids it. So the suggestion was made, fine, then block all 100xxx,xxxx users out of the newsgroup service, but it was pointed out that 100xxx is a relatively new invention. There are lots of European users over the years in the 7xxxxx series, and furthermore it is not unique to Germany. But the BDx (for example BDE, BDF, BDG) and DEx (for example DED, DEF, DEG, DEH) nodes are unique to Germany, as Berlin in the former case and Dusseldorf in the latter case, so what you do is say those nodes cannot have certain services if that is the way the German government feels about it. And you say to those users and the German governnment that Compuserve will not knowingly or willfully deliver to Germany any verboten (I knew I would have a use for that word someday! grin) newsgroups. If a German subscriber wants to call long distance via France or something and get in, there is little Compuserve can do about that of course, but they can cease delivery of 'certain things' to known German locations since regardless of User-ID (i.e. an American visiting in Germany with his 7xxxxx or 102xxx/103xxx account logged in) the Germans don't want it. I understand CIS is now looking at ways to flag the nodes and/or establish specific blocks of User-ID numbers for customers from certain places to identify what CIS will and won't provide. They thought they could not do that; they have been told they could, and now they are working on it. And seriously, I can't blame them for dropping 'alt', although it would be sort of radical if they dropped all of Usenet in the process. Let's face it: the newsgroups on Internet have long been a thorn in the side of the commercial services anyway: they cannot collect money on them the way they do their own forums, etc. They have their own users pretty much under control and collect money from them, then here come the troublesome, flaming users from Usenet to cause them a lot of grief, flooding their postmaster with cranky replies, etc. They need it like we need more heat in July. But you have a way to 'censor' Compuserve in return: you can cancel your membership and go to a service you like better. And that, I think is where this whole thing is going to shakedown over the next couple years: ISP's will decide they do or do not want the alt.sex stuff and the grief that goes with it. They will develop signatures or styles for themselves and quit trying to be all things to all people. They'll quit packing their suitcases to go on a long trip -- a long guilt trip -- everytime some freshman student at a university somewhere accuses them of 'censorship' for not carrying a newsgroup he happens to like reading. And please folks, no cable television analogies and how the cable has to carry Playboy Channel, etc ... Most of us have only one cable provider in town ... we all have dozens of ISP's who want our business. PAT] ------------------------------ From: David A. Cantor Date: Wed, 03 Jan 1996 00:20:04 -0500 Subject: *77 and *87 in 860-land I've discovered that rejecting calls from callers who block their CLID (*77) and rescinding such rejection (*87) work here in 860-444. However, when entering these codes, I get a normal-sounding ring-back signal (I let them go for five ring cycles) rather than the expected confirmation tones. David A. Cantor +1 860.444.7268 (444-RANT) New London, CT 06320-2639 DCantor@chqsplay.mv.com ------------------------------ From: lmoran@planet.net Subject: Billing Telecom Conference Date: 02 Jan 1996 14:39:55 GMT Organization: Planet Access Networks - Stanhope, NJ Billing Systems in the Telecommunications Industry Conference March 6 - 7, 1996 Washington, DC Sponsored by America's Network magazine Hear from the leaders in the industry: AT&T, Bell Atlantic, US West Communications, NYNEX, Pacific Bell, Bellsouth and many more!!! For more information call: 800-882-8684 or e-mail info@iqpc.com Provide your name, address, phone and fax number ------------------------------ From: Mark Cuccia Subject: More on Canada==>US Caller ID Date: Tue, 02 Jan 96 15:13:00 CST Last night, I received a call from a friend in Whitehorse, YK. (403-668-xxxx) I received the full ten-digit number on my Caller ID box, but for the name part, I didn't get the city (ratecenter) and two letter abbreviation for Yukon. I didn't even get `YUKON', but rather `ALBERTA', all caps, left justified, with eight spaces filling out the remainder of the fifteen character field. (I did get `ONTARIO' spelled out on a call in early December, from 905-842-xxxx). It seems that for Caller-ID with Name, on calls within the BellSouth region (I don't know how calls originating in independent territory but within the BellSouth nine-state area will show) where the number transmits, BellSouth can check its own LIDB database to get the name assoicated with the number. On calls originating in the (continental) US but outside of BellSouth, if the number transmits, BellSouth can get the ratecenter (town) name and state. The state is abbreviated. They are using the NPA-NXX to check some database, probably with info from Bellcore's TRA (Traffic Routing Administration) products/databases. For calls originating in the US, it wouldn't matter whether they used a Routing or a Rating database from Bellcore TRA to check the NPA-NXX. However, Canadian NPA-NXX info is *only* in Bellcore's RATING database/products. Stentor Canada does not participate in Bellcore TRA routing products. You will only find Canadian NPA and province info in the routing products. Information down to the Central Office code (NXX) level for Canadian NPA's *is* in the Bellcore rating materials, which Canada does participate in. The call I received came from the Yukon and not Alberta. Even if Yukon and the Northwest Territories were to get a single but unique NPA code, I wonder what the ID box would say -- Yukon for all calls from that NPA? Northwest Territories? Maybe YK/NWT? If it is spelled out on a max 15 character line, it would say: `YUKON NORTHWEST' And how about calls from Prince Edward Island? Both it and Nova Scotia share the same 902 NPA. Except for maybe political identity, I don't see Prince Edward Island getting its own areacode anytime soon. I haven't yet received any calls from Alaska, Hawaii or the Caribbean since inter-State/LATA CID began. I don't know how these calls would appear if anything other than `out-of-area'. Alaska, Hawaii and the Caribbean do participate in Bellcore's routing products, though. I also haven't (yet) received any calls from outside of the North American Network since CID across state/LATA lines began. The number being available would probably also depend on the originating country and any international carriers. *If* Mexico has any form of CID, I would *guess* that it would show a 52X-XXX-XXXX number. But how will CID number display work with international calls between various numbering plans? Are there yet any standards/specs on this for for non-ISDN lines? I know that many European countries do have Caller-ID type service. MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@law.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 14:54:04 -0500 From: wengler@ee.rochester.edu (Mike Wengler) Subject: A Phone Number is NOT a Credit Card! The ten digit phone number is being used as a credit card, but with rules and procedures that are sloppy stupid and slimey by comparison to those used by Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and a host of other credit cards which are voluntarily and knowingly acquired by customers. I knew I was getting credit from the phone company when I got my phone number, but I had no idea that I was getting a credit account for use at "dating" services and other slimey crap. It is high time that telco be held to the same standards as Visa, MasterCard, and Discover when providing a credit and billing service for other companies. Especially on standards of customer entering into the contract. TELCO: DON'T BILL ANYTHING WHICH IS NOT SPECIFICALLY AUTHORIZED BY CUSTOMER! Failing to hang up is a "low-bandwidth" way to aquire such authorization: try using the standards of Visa, MC, and Discover: real verbal "OK, sounds good" type response to get authorization. I have been following the comedy of billing that is reported in this group when completely random and idiotic services manage to use a local telephone company to bully large charges from "customers." The outstanding conclusions I reach are: 1) The ten digit phone number is being used as a credit card, and local telco is being used as the credit agency, or at least the billing/coll- ections branch of that agency. 2) Rules and practices for such phone number credit activity are slimy, loose and crappy by comparison to the rules and practices for "real" credit cards: Visa, MC, Discover etc. which don't masquerade their credit service behind some other front. I think it is no accident and no coincidence that the billing fraud reported here allegedly committed by ITA, Integratel and others is carried out using phone numbers and not real credit cards. The practices they employ are crap compared to the practices employed on behalf of real credit cards. Specifically, I have been billed on real credit cards after making an 800 number call. In EVERY case, a live human being 1) informed me of the total charge and 2) asked me if I agreed to that. I might further add that in every case another difference exists: 3) I received some real product (airline ticket, clothing, flowers, etc), quite knowingly, as a result of a very consciously entered into transaction. In every case of fraud alleged in this group, the "service" committing the fraud either gave an automatic message informing that there would be a charge, or claimed later that they had done so. The defrauders never bother claiming that you specifically authorized this charge, only that you heard you would be charged and didn't bail out fast enough. Visa has NEVER tried to make me pay a charge because someone announced to me that there would be a charge. It seems to me that they have never suggested even that I pay a charge that I had not explicity authorized. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Pac Bell -- nor any other telco is > being deceptive when they say that calls to 800 numbers are free to > the calling party. Where the *toll charge for the call itself* is > concerned, it is reversed to the called party. In other words, yes > indeed, Absolute Communications did pay for the carriage of your call > in an effort to get you to do business with them. This is no different > than any other 800 number you call; the person owning the number > *does* want to hear from you and agrees to pay for the call. PAT seems to want to defend the slime on technical grounds that the 800 number call is still free, even though the telco bills you for it, citing number of minutes of the call and generally at a time sensitive rate. This is indeed a technicality: the technicality which is apparently behind these lousy practices. If telco delivers the service to me, and telco bills it, any attempt to call that a "free" phone call will fall successfully on telecom nerds ears, but ring oddly in the ears of customers who should not have to learn the whole industry in order to avoid a $100 dating service bill coming with their phone bill. > But when you call an airline for example via their 800 number to > reserve tickets, and you are later billed for same, do you complain > that you thought it should have been free since you called via 800? PAT, uhm, have you been billed for plane tickets by telco? If so, this is a new service I am unaware of, I have invariably been billed on my credit cards after explicity authorizing both the company to issue me the credit card in the first place, and the ticket vendor to charge me an agreed amount in the second place. This difference between a time sensitive charge billed by telco with time on an 800 number being the inventoried item and a plane ticket on Visa is NOT subtle. > There is no doubt at all that many/most of the 'adult oriented' sex > lines operating are run by sleazy people, but in their defense I > must say they are not trying to make you pay for the phone call to > them, they are trying to make you pay for the actions they took in > your behalf. Billed through telco, by the minute. Many sex lines do charge on Visa. This is more honest, as it does require all sorts of consent on the part of the customer which phone number billing through telco does not. > You call any one of several long distance carriers via 800 to use > their direct lines to place your call. Do you complain that because > you dialed 800-CALL-ATT to convey a message or cause some action to > occur that it should be 'free' to you since you dialed 800 and were > told by PacBell there would be no charge for your call? Even though > you dialed 800 at no charge, you expect to pay for resulting services > don't you? Only because I agreed ahead of time to do so! I went through an authorization process to take on a particular long distance phone service which may also issue me a travel card. Integratel and ITA do NOT have that kind of authorization before they make charges. > Every one of the adult oriented lines operating via 800 used Western > Union as their guinea pig: if WUTCO gets to accept calls on a toll > free number, convey information between the caller and others, etc > and charge the same to the telephone bill of the caller, *then so > do we*. And you know what? They are right. Unfortunatly perhaps, > telco has to treat every one of those services at arms-length, even > as they hold their own noses to avoid the stench. The true solution > is for telco to get out of the business of billing for anything but > their own services. PAT] This simply doesn't cover it. Why shouldn't telco just write their standard to say: "credit authorization must include explicit authorization on customers part for the charge. Disputed charges will be returned by telco and you'll have to collect it your own damn self. Company must maintain less than X% billing complaints to continue to receive billing service from telco." I bet this would keep WUTCO and lose the defrauders. C'mon, you know I'm right! > Much of this could be resolved if the IPs would tape record the > first fifteen or twenty seconds of each phone call, during which time > they would make a statement similar to this: > "For billing purposes only, the first few seconds of this call is > being tape recorded. Our records indicate you are calling from the > phone number xxx-xxx-xxxx. If this is correct; if you are of majority age > in the state from which you are calling, responsible for the payment > of the telephone bill for this number; agree to pay $xx per minute/call > for the conversation which follows, and consent to our tape recording > of this billing verification, please press the 'Y' key on your phone > now or speak the word 'yes' ... if any part of the above is not true > then please disconnect now at no charge." (Pause for about five seconds > to listen for keypress or verbal agreement). Automatically disconnect > or proceed, as appropriate. After hearing key press or verbal 'yes' > then system responds, "Thank you. Tape recording is turned off. You > may continue." (At that point caller is cut over to program in progress > or handed off to to the person they will speak with, etc.) Yes, this would be an improvement. But still: 1) not even this level of authorization is required by telco, even though WUTCO with a virtual certainty gets a higher, more explicit approval than this, and they are alleged by PAT to be the camel's nose in the tent here. 2) I still never wanted my phone # to be a credit card, I simply wanted credit with the phone company itself 3) All my legitimate transactions over the phone get billed to actual (not telephone number) credit cards. Mike Wengler ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 17:30:24 -0500 From: rich.sagall@pobox.com (Rich Sagall) Subject: How Can You Tell if Your Phone Line is Tapped I recently read about a phone number this purported to be a way to check and see if your phone is tapped. I am somewhat dubious about the source, so I am asking readers of this list if they know anything about the number. Here's the procedure: Dial 10732-1-770-988-9664 A computer generated female voice recites the number you are calling from, and then says "8". The voice then repeats "0" nine times. According the source, if the voice then says "1" or "2," then your line is clean. Any other number is supposed to mean your line is tapped. Thanks for any information anyone can provide. Rich Sagall, MD Publisher of Interesting! (interesting@pobox.com) and Pediatrics for Parents (pediatricsforparents@pobox.com) home pages http://www.agate.net/~richs/interesting.html and http://www.agate.net/~richs/MMPage1.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: We've had this little urban legend (is that what you would call it?) here in the past, but not for a couple of years now. Would someone care to explain what all those zeroes and other digits following the phone number read-out are supposed to mean? Thanks. PAT] ------------------------------ From: JeanBernard_Condat@email.Francenet.fr (JeanBernard Condat) Reply-To: JeanBernard_Condat@email.Francenet.fr Subject: France Telecom Offers Voice Mail For Publiphones Date: 02 Jan 1996 17:14:16 GMT Organization: FranceNet Paris (France), January 2th, 1996--France telecom have announce the creation of a very interesting and usefull service: a voice mail for publiphone users. If your correspondant is busy, if you are unable to wait for somebody on the phone you can leave a 30-seconds voice mail. The message will be automatically transmit to the called number at the hour given by the caller. The service is simple: when a call don't go right, a little message appear on the digital screen of the publiphone (in all streets in France). You push the green keyboard (PRICE: 5 UTP = 4,05 FF TTC)... and you will be ask by the computer system to leave a 30-second message and the hour at which you will be happy that the message will be deliver. The person called will be re-call four times by the computer system (not between 10 pm and 7 am) and the computer will re-call three new times for voice mail delivery. All the 158,000 publiphones using a phone card will be equiped with this service in the three first months of 1996. France Telecom give a toll free number for more information: 05 15 24 42 (ask for M. Gerard Merveille for calls out of France: +33 1 44 44 88 23). Some years ago, a new service called "3636" was tested in Lyon for the same service. The success of this test was great and all publiphones receive the visits of lovers, sellers, students and other people looking for an hurge telecommunications with other ones not responding. Jean-Bernard Condat Computer Fraud and Security Expert Paris, France condat@atelier.fr ------------------------------ From: juergen@jojo.sub.de (Juergen Ziegler) Subject: Germany: Another Deutsche Telekom Disaster Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 19:58:35 MET Germany, January 1st 1996, the German monopoly telephone company "Deutsche Telekom AG" has introduced a new telephone rate scheme. As the new rate scheme will introduce a hike in local calls (up to 350%), most long distance calls wil have lower rates. As a result of the massive hike of local calling charges, there was a massive media coverage about the unsocial local rates for low income subscribers. But this massive hike of local calling charges was not enough for Telekom. On the first day of the new rate system, Telekom switches charged long distance calls at a higher rate, because these switches did not use the lower holiday rate. After last year's massive phone fraud desaster, the first day of the new rate scheme will be another unforgetable Telekom day. There is not much technical information available about this Telekom flaw, but as one Telekom spokesman mentioned, Telekom switches made by "SEL Alcatel" had a software problem. It was not mentioned, that the same problem happens to be true for the other system in use, which are mainly made by "Siemens". But if SEL Alcatel is to blame for this poor showing, then this is another sour moment for that company. As SEL Alcatel had to slash thousands of jobs last year, it was also mentioned, that SEL Alcatel had to pay more than 30 Mio. DM (approx. $20'000'000) as contract penalties, because they could not deliver switch software in time. Juergen Ziegler * juergen@jojo.sub.de * 77815 Buehl (Baden) * Germany ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #2 **************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 3 21:05:55 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.1/NSCS-1.0S) id VAA13536; Wed, 3 Jan 1996 21:05:55 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 21:05:55 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601040205.VAA13536@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Bcc: Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #3 TELECOM Digest Wed, 3 Jan 96 21:06:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 3 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson CompuServe and Germany (John R. Covert) Re: Compuserve Censors USENET in Europe (Ross E. Mitchell) US West, Regulators and Quality of Service (Peter Marshall) Re: New Canadian Telco Websites (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: Angst and Awe on the Internet (George Gilder) 60Hz Buzz on Phone Line and Modem Problems (Doug Rudoff) RBOC Interconnection Rates (Jonathan McHale) Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" (Sudeepto Roy) Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" (Eric Valentine) Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" (George Gilder) Re: *66 Works on Ticketmaster Type Numbers? (Eric Valentine) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 3 Jan 96 17:29:34 EST From: John R. Covert Subject: CompuServe and Germany This is supposedly the list of what CompuServe shut down in response to the Munich State Prosecutor's office: 66 alt.binaries.* groups alt.homosexual 2 alt.magick.sex[.*] groups alt.motss.bisexual alt.politics.sex 2 alt.recovery.* groups alt.religion.sexuality 130 alt.sex[.*] groups alt.sexy.bald.captains alt.stories.erotic alt.support.disabled.sexuality alt.tv.tiny-toon.sex 3 clari.* groups pertaining to sex and lbg news de.sex de.talk.sex es.alt.sexo 2 fido.* groups with "sex" in their names 6 fido7.* groups with "sex" in their names 15 gay-net.* groups rec.arts.erotica shamash.gayjews slo.sex soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi 2 t-netz.sex groups ucb.erotica.sensual uw.alt.sex.* zer.t-netz.sex I cannot verify the accuracy of this list; it's interesting that alt.revisionism is not on the list, but might be missing because the organization which provided this list wasn't interested in that portion of the problem. Today the German government is denying ordering that these newsgroups be shut down or threatening prosecution (even though they had earlier raided the CompuServe offices in Munich). However, they admit that they told CompuServe that German law required them to monitor the content of the information provided by their on-line service to eliminate anything related to child pornography, revisionism about the holocaust, or other neo-Nazi activity; CompuServe insists that they are not responsible for content and had no choice but to shut down the groups, since they don't have the resources to do the monitoring. They shut them down world-wide, because they don't, at this time, have the technical means to deny access to a portion of their offerings to subscribers only in Germany. Of course, there are hundreds of other internet providers in Germany which still (at the moment) provide access to all of these groups. This access may or may not be by storing the text of the groups on servers owned by those providers, and that may be the key difference. /john [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: John provided a relatively 'cleaned-up' version of the list of newsgroup names. I received another version of the list with all sixty-six varieties (like the ketsup people, I guess) of the alt.binaries.* and all 130 of the alt.sex.* groups mentioned above listed by complete name. I am not a prude, God knows I am not a prude, and I think you know I am not a prude ... but that complete listing was rather embarassing, and I frankly would not have printed it here. My thanks to John for summarizing it all much more 'neatly' above. If you wish to see the complete list of verbotin newsgroups, check out a couple other e-journals on the net over the past couple of days. A couple of them eagerly ran the entire list of names, I guess to defiantly show how open-minded and liberal and tolerant they are -- or perhaps just how naughty they can be. All of course were accompanied by the usual 'censorship' and First Amendment arg- uments. Amazing isn't it as Tom Lehrer, the Harvard mathemetician turned comic noted in some of his performances, "the people who enjoy seeing smut never will admit that they like it and enjoy seeing it and reading it ... they always couch it in First Amendment theories ... always in a sort of third person removed approach. They'll never admit to their own prurient interests in the subject matter, preferring instead to blame all the problems on the First Amendment, although they don't quite phrase it that way either." Just think how stimulating and intellectually honest things would be if the people who are making the biggest fusses about Compuserve and the net right now would just openly say 'I like reading and posting to those groups', or 'I like having those groups because seeing others with interests like mine help validate my own behavior'. But oh no ... the First Amendment has to take still another beating. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rem@world.std.com (Ross E Mitchell) Subject: Re: Compuserve Censors USENET in Europe Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 16:15:46 GMT Recently the TELECOM Digest Editor wrote in response to Jean B Sarrazin's note complaining about Compuserve's "censoring" of USENET groups: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are confused. You are having a > knee-jerk reaction of your own. First, let us understand the correct > use of the term 'censorship'. By definition, only the government can > censor soemone. Compuserve is not the government. 'Censorship' is > when the government physically stops you from speaking or writing on > whatever topics you wish. With all due respect to PAT, I know of no source which limits the meaning of censorship to government-imposed censorship. In fact, the film and television industries have long histories of self-imposed censorship. Certainly some of us remember the "network censors" of the early days of television. Further, the word censor is defined in The American Heritage Dictionary as simply "A person authorized to examine books, films, or other material and to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable." Censorship itself is defined as "The act, process, or practice of censoring." So while we might agree or disagree that Compuserve's "removal of objectionable" material (i.e. censorship) is ill-advised, I believe it misses the point to argue that this is not a form of censorship at all. Ross Mitchell [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Your own definition agrees with *me* ! "A person who is authorized to examine ... and remove ..." Now, what is the *only* entitity in a position to do that to whom we as citizens have little or no recourse? Can you spell G_O_V_E_R_N_M_E_N_T ? The First Amendment addresses what the *government* may and may not do. It says nothing about how individuals and companies may choose to interact with one another. The entire Bill of Rights does not protect individuals from each other; it protects us from the *goverment*. How effective is any attempt at censorship other than the government variety? To put it another way, there are no laws or consitutional provisions against individuals and private organizations imposing *passive* forms of censorship on each other. While I can be and am forbidden to come to your home and take away your printing machinery, the prohibition is against the theft of your property or an assault upon your person. If I steal your computer, I am charged with theft; not with the resulting censorship imposed on you until you obtain a new computer. On the other hand, if I leave you alone and do not molest you or remove your methods of communication **but simply refuse to help you propogate your communication for reasons of my own** then no laws have been broken. You cannot use the word 'censor' with the loose definition you presented. When you do, you cheapen its currency. All last year on the net, the term was 'child porn', and it got used and abused to the point it no longer has any shock value at all. Is the word for this year around here going to be 'censor'? Try it and see if in six months or a year anyone cares one way or the other. Do not ascribe individuals and private organizations making conscious choices in how they interact (or refuse to interact) with each other as 'censorship'. It isn't so. It only becomes censorship when Compuserve removes all the newsgroups and the government responds by saying you *must* subscribe to CIS. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Peter Marshall Subject: US West, Regulators and Quality of Service Organization: Eskimo North (206) For-Ever Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 18:39:36 GMT Forwarded FYI to the Digest: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- REGULATORS CHARGE U S WEST "STONEWALL" U S West Communications tried to "stonewall" official efforts to address its eroding customer service, according to regulators in its home territory. The U S West Regional Oversight Committee (ROC) said the telco's plans were contained in an internal memo instructing company representatives attending an ROC meeting in October not to give regulators a reason to "justify their existence." The ROC consists of regulators from throughout U S West's 14-state service area. Joan Smith, an Oregon regulator and former ROC chairwoman, said the memo reinforced the atmosphere of suspicion between U S West and regulators. "The idea was not to put anything in writing, because if they gave us an inch, we'd take a mile," Smith said. "I guess they think that we [regulators] have horns. Well, we can. But then, so can they." Regulators called the document a public relations black eye for U S West, which is already under fire for its inability to provide prompt primary and secondary phone service. In the Oct. 19 memo, U S West vice president Laura Ford said company representatives should push for internal measurement of customer service performance, rather than accept uniform regulations drafted by the committee. Ford urged the three U S West officials at the ROC meeting to take a "cordial but firm" approach. She emphasized that the regulators not be given "the impression that they should be measuring our service quality," or that they should "be micromanaging our business." U S West was provided a copy of the proposed ROC standards months in advance of the October meeting. However, the company did not offer a written response because it feared that "they [ROC members] might well have their backs up and be loaded for bear by the time we meet with them," according to the Ford memo. ROC members discovered the memo when one of the U S West officials left it behind after one of the meetings. U S West officials said the memo's content had "been blown out of proportion," but defended the premise that consumer reaction is the best indicator of how the company is performing. "Obviously, we're not proud that the memo is out there," said U S West corporate spokesman Dave Banks. "But its overriding message is right. We want our customers to set our customer service standards, because if we don't perform, sooner or later, they're going to walk when they have the opportunity." ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 15:31:55 CST From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: Re: New Canadian Telco Websites On Wed, 3 Jan 1996, Will Macdonald wrote: > Aren't most on http://www.stentor.ca/ ? > I'm from AGT, our parent company being is at: http://www.telus.com/ http://www.stentor.ca has a clickable map of Canada along with a list of hypertext clickable lines of the Stentor members and two associate members (Northwestel & GTE's Quebec Telephone). Originally, clicking on any of these Stentor member telcos brought you to a brief description of that company, the brief description being located within Stentor's website/server. I've only had access to the Internet since April, and I discovered Stentor's site at that time. At that time, most Stentor member telcos had only brief descriptions within Stentor's site, which could be clicked away from Stentor's map page, while Bell Canada seemed to be the only Canadian telco with a developed Website of their own, which could be clicked away (linked from) Stenotr's map/list at their webpage. Since April, the other telcos of Stentor one-by-one set up webpages of their own, which were hypertext linked from Stentor's map/list. After Northwestel began their own webpage sometime in September, only Newfoundland & Prince Edward Island seemed to be the only Stentor member telcos without webpages of their own- or at least telcos without webpages that were not (yet) hypertext linked to Stentor's webpage map. I did a `netsearch' on Newfoundland and came across their own webpage, which had not (yet) been linked to Stentor's map. (at least not in the past few days). I couldn't find anything for (Prince Edward) Island Tel. Co. when I was `surfing/searching'. I also came across Telebec & Northern Telephone with webpages of their own. These two companies are held by BCE (also the parent company of Bell Canada & holds either the company itself or shares of the parent companies of: Northwestel, Newfoundland Tel, NB Tel, MT&T, and (PE) Island Telco- which is also held in part by MT&T). Telebec & Northern Tel are not members or associates of Stentor on their own. Neither is a member of CITA- the Canadian Independent Telephone Association. But each is a member of their respective provincial independent tel. associations- Northern Telephone is a member of OTA- the Ontario Telephone Association, while Telebec is a member of ACTQ- the letters are for words in French, but I'll give the basic English here- Association of Quebec Telephone Companies. BTW, (GTE) Quebec Telephone is an *associate* member of Stentor. It is *not* a member of CITA, but it *is* a member of ACTQ. Northwestel *used* to be part of CN Telecommunications until about 1988. Back then, it was a member of CITA, until it was taken over by BCE (Bell Canada Enterprises), and thus became an *associate* member of Stentor (Telecom Canada). Edmonton AB (EdTel) was a Canadian `independent' telco (and a member of CITA), but it was taken over by AGT sometime around March 1995. AGT's holding company purchased it from the City of Edmonton. (EdTel was municipally owned). I'm still waiting to see when Ontario Northland Communications gets a webpage. It is a member of CITA, but not of OTA. When I was looking at Northern Telephones webpages, it was stated that toll services in northeastern Ontario were provided by the *provincially* owned Ontario Northland Transportation Commission. NT's service area `seems' as if it had toll switching/transmission services of its own- it has a number of exchanges and Central Office codes in central northeastern Ontario. Ontario Northland Communications has only a handful of local exchanges & NXX codes just north of and just south of NT's exchange operating territory. In some old CITA publications I have, it is stated that Ontario Northland Communications has some Class-4 (and even a Class-3) toll/tandem switches. I would guess that Ontario Northland Communications is part of the provincially owned Ontario Northland Transportation Commission. Maybe Nigel Allen or Dave Leibold could shed some more light on this. MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 03 Jan 1996 12:16:28 -0600 From: george gilder Subject: Re: Angst and Awe on the Internet cyberoid@u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) responded to my article which appeared here over the New Year's holiday. > Seems to me Mr. Gilder has his demons wrong. I haven't noticed a lot of > "left-wing Luddites" or "media Marxists" going full out to discredit the > Net. That's because you are not on the pub lists for new book releases. I have received at least 20 books in the last six months making ridiculous arguments that the net widens gaps between the rich and poor, the info rich and info poor, corporate monopolies and consumer rights, that the net invades privacy, pollutes culture, promotes isolation, emits carcinogenic rays, and destroys the sense of community fostered by TV. The endless leftist fears of monopoly, concentration, conglomeration offer new pretexts for the very government regulation that can actually kill the net. The fact is that the net is the enemy of all monopolies, hierarchies, pyramids and power grids of the existing establishment. By attacking the Net, the left allies itself with the old establishments of TV and telephony. The old dinosaurs will continue to copulate, as we see today, but the overall impact of the net is to flatten the landscape, promote equality, and multiply entrepreneurial opportunities. What the left fears is that the net will be too effective in opening opportunities for the poor around the world (bringing a billion Asians into the middle class in ten years), and thus will threaten the cozy nooks and niches of protected and overregulated welfare states of the West. > On the other hand, it looks to this humble observer that it's the media > magnates and the far-right crazies who run this Congress, who [promote] > consolidation, concentration, and censorship. Yes, there are conservatives who have proposed imprudent indecency rules, but Gingrich and Rick White are on their case, and the courts are extremely unlikely to uphold any new restrictions. However, the fears of corporate consolidation and concentration that you voice have led to a Telecom bill that gives the FCC 80 new regulatory functions relating to the net. The law of the telecosm suggests that traffic flows to the least regulated arena. If the left has its way, the Internet will be centered in Asia. Best, gg ------------------------------ From: dougrud@blarg.net (Doug Rudoff) Subject: 60Hz Buzz on Phone Line and Modem Problems Date: 3 Jan 1996 09:14:11 GMT Organization: :noitazinagrO My step-mom's house's phone line has a very loud 60 Hz buzz. Any suggestions on how to get rid of it? It affects modem connections. The 2400 baud modem she has on her computer system can connect, but when I use my Global Village Powerport Gold (14.4 kbaud) I have no luck connecting even when I set it to connect at 2400 baud. Are there any filters that will help? Many thanks. Doug Rudoff dougrud@blarg.net Seattle, WA ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 22:14:29 +0900 From: jmchale@gol.com (Jonathan McHale) Subject: RBOC Interconnection Rates Would anyone know where to point me to for information on interconnection access rates RBOC's charge IX's (and others, if available -- e.g. cell operators), and the methods the FCC and State commissions use to determine fairness of such rates? I am studying the evolution of interconnection rules in Japan, and it would be useful to see what we do as a point of reference. Thanks, Jonathan McHale Tokyo ------------------------------ From: sroy@qualcomm.com (sroy) Subject: Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" Date: Wed, 03 Jan 1996 22:50:06 GMT Organization: Qualcomm Incorporated In article , Rob Hickey wrote: > 1) PCS phones cannot compete with cellular phones on price since they are > practically giving away cell phones; Wonder what prompted the author to make this comment. The "free" cellular phones are really heavily subsidized ones which come with a long term (e.g. 3 yr.) service contract. Why wouldn't the same be applicable to PCS? > 2) PCS air time cannot compete with cellular air time charges since most > cellular companies are not charging on evenings and weekends; With the use of emerging digital technologies (CDMA, TDMA etc.), airtime charges should actually be cheaper than cellular phones. Inherrently, these technologies offer higher subscriber capacities. > 3) PCS phones cannot be practically any more portable than the latest > cell phones; Somewhat untrue, I guess. In general PCS phones are more compact and handier than their cellular counterparts -- though these days 'tis difficult to spot much of a difference. Recently at a trade show I noticed a tiny PCS (TDMA) phone from a Japanese manufacturer that would fit the palm. > 4) PCS phones will not work in moving vehicles. Again, wonder why the author would say this. In general, the way I understand it, there's not a vast difference between PCS and digital cellular (except for frequencies, technologies, network topologies to a certain extent etc.). Please post your comments. Thanks, Sudeepto Roy ------------------------------ From: exueric@exu.ericsson.se (Eric Valentine) Subject: Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" Date: 03 Jan 1996 21:16:52 GMT Organization: Ericsson North America Inc. Reply-To: exueric@exu.ericsson.se In article 5@massis.lcs.mit.edu, Rob Hickey writes: I assume by PCS you mean the PCS that is being licensed around 1.9 Ghz. If so, I'll take a crack at it. > 1) PCS phones cannot compete with cellular phones on price since they are > practically giving away cell phones; They aren't making money on the phones. Sales of cellular and PCS phones are both heavily subsidized. But depending on the economies of scale (e.g based on technology choice etc.) the subsidies may or may not be smaller for PCS phones. The other thing to consider is the feature level of the phones. Same argument as for PCs: if today's PCs are five times faster than ones at the same cost a few years, can you say today's are cheaper? I think so. How about a PCS phone that support Short Message Service or more advanced data services? > 2) PCS air time cannot compete with cellular air time charges since most > cellular companies are not charging on evenings and weekends; Evenings and weekends are not where the cellular companies make their money. That free time is an unused resource and they will be happy to give it away in exchange for monthly subscription and occasional roaming fees. The battleground will be 1) for high end users that use their cell phones a lot during the day and 2) residential wireline replacement markets. For case 2) we should remember that the local phone companies don't charge for airtime either, and they make money. For case 1), you want to provide more services like voice/short message/voice mail packages. Then the high-end guys use their phones a lot more during the day. > 3) PCS phones cannot be practically any more portable than the latest > cell phones; Yes and no. Portability is not just size, it is how long you can use it, and where. Consider battery life. Consider security problems with the legacy cellular systems that can often make it a pain in the ass to use anywhere outside your home service area. A more modern system doesn't have those problems. > 4) PCS phones will not work in moving vehicles. Wrong. He must be talking about cordless phones or maybe field trials for some of the CDMA systems. There is no inherent problem with using PCS 1900 in a moving vehicle unless you try something silly like pico-cells along an expressway, but that will hose an AMPS system too, just from trying to support the handovers. One version of PCS at 1900 is GSM-based and upbanded from 900. It has been working in vehicles for some time now quite nicely, thank you. The same will be true some day for CDMA based systems. > Mr. Rowan questions why the PCS industry would spend billions in > infrastructure to duplicate services that already exist. Because they think they can make a lot of money. The cellular operators made a ton of money and there is no reason to think that the market won't support at least a few more big players (and a lot of small ones in markets that are too small to excite the big guys. Not everyone will get rich. Not nearly. But if you look at where the US is on the cellular penetration curve (still climbing fast) and consider even the possibility of starting to tap into the residential market (think about the synergies with companies like Sprint that could blow off access charges.) > Is there merit to these arguments, and do the same conditions apply in > the United States (given that millions have already been spent on > licenses)? There is merit in the argument that the cellular operators will not all be killed off by PCS. They have a head-start and didn't have to cough up billions of bucks for licenses. Now they will just have to be more responsive and competitive to try to hang on to their market share. Eric Valentine Ericsson Radio Systems ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 03 Jan 1996 11:38:22 -0600 From: george gilder Subject: Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" > cellular technology will not be quickly missplaced for the following > reasons: 1) they are practically giving away cell phones; 2) cellular > companies are not charging on evenings and weekends; 3) PCS phones > cannot be practically any more portable than the latest cell > phones; 4) PCS phones will not work in moving vehicles. PCS is not a competitor for cellular; it is a new local loop technology, digital from the gitgo, that offers voice, internet access, mobility, and backhaul over the existing cableTV plant. Using CDMA, PCS will offer high security and bandwidth on demand as well. If the digital acoustics are superior to wireline, it will cut deeply into existing wireline markets.On the basis of their British experience, USWest estimates that they will lose some 30 percent of their market to cable based PCS. PCS will be complementary to cellular; you plug the same handset into your car system for vehicular usage. George Gilder ------------------------------ From: exueric@exu.ericsson.se (Eric Valentine) Subject: Re: *66 Works on Ticketmaster Type Numbers? Date: 03 Jan 1996 20:27:10 GMT Organization: Ericsson North America Inc. Reply-To: exueric@exu.ericsson.se In article 2@massis.lcs.mit.edu, relkay01@fiu.edu (Ron Elkayam) writes: > On Tue, 26 Dec 95 00:02:36 EST, Bill Rubin (rubin@watson.ibm.com) posted: >> But if it will actually work in these situations, I might actually >> consider using it! > It's pointless for heavily-used busy numbers. By the time you get the > ringing, and pick up the phone, the desired line is busy again (and > you'll be told to hang up and wait some more). It's not as if it > reserves you the right to be the next caller (it doesn't). There is an option specified for Automatic Callback that will allow the possibility of the calling line to be "reserved" for the subscriber that ordered the callback. It is problematic when the callback request is queued against a PABX or hunt group since you obviously can't reserve *all* lines going into the PABX. *If* we ever get the function that allows you to receive the number where your call finally ended up (assuming it is a single line, as may be the case for a hunt group) you should be able to order callback against *that* line. Of course, callback queue space is limited and everyone else will figure out the same trick. If you have CLASS ACB, you might try a couple of the numbers above a group number, since they are often allocated in sequence. If it turns out to be the right place, you should have a shot at queuing towards that *one* number and, if the telco has the option turned on, being able to reserve the line for your incoming call. A lot of ifs ... Eric Valentine Ericsson Radio Systems ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #3 **************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 3 22:02:48 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.1/NSCS-1.0S) id WAA17663; Wed, 3 Jan 1996 22:02:48 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 22:02:48 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601040302.WAA17663@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Bcc: Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #4 TELECOM Digest Wed, 3 Jan 96 22:03:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 4 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson 1996 International Forecasting Conference (Peter S. Chung) SDSL v. ADSL (Peter Brace) Asymetry (ADSL) and Net Access - A Bad Thing? (Rupert Baines) Re: ITA Dating Service Rip Off: Is This a Scam? (Thomas Peters) Re: ITA Dating Service Rip Off: Is This a Scam? (Glen Ecklund) Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" (Andrew C. Green) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: PETER.S.CHUNG@gte.sprint.com Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 19:55:14 -0500 Subject: 1996 International Forecasting Conference Dear Patrick, I am requesting your favor of publishing an attached E-mail in your TELECOM Digest so that all telecommunications professionals could benefit by attending the conference. You have previously published our conference "call for papers" in your Digest last November, 1995. Your kindly gesture of publishing the attached E-mail is most appreciated. Yes, I was a little let down after my alma mater, Northwestern got beat by USC. But it was a jolly good show for NU and the Big Ten conference. Thank you very much, Peter Chung, GTE - 1996 ICFC co-chairperson. *********** Attachment *********** THE 1996 INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS FORECASTING CONFERENCE Timely Agenda Focused on Your Needs The International Communications Forecasting Conference (ICFC) is a professional forum for telecommunications forecasters, demand analysts and planners presenting state of the art information to help them do their jobs better. The annual ICFC provides the opportunity for discussion, presentation, and review of emerging issues as they pertain to telecommunications forecasting and planning, demand analysis, business research and cost analysis. The ICFC is the premier conference dedicated to the Telecommunications Forecasting profession. Why is attending the 1996 ICFC important for you? The ICFC is designed by industry experts specifically for Telecommunications Professionals. The challenge for telecommunications forecasters, planners, and analysts is to respond to the dynamics of our industry by integrating marketing, technology and consumer behavior into companies' tactical and strategic decision making processes. As technological advances and worldwide economic integration render international borders virtually irrelevant for telecommunications end users, we are faced with unprecedented new challenges. Both wireline and wireless service areas now extend beyond familiar regional and national boundaries and most large telcos have become multinational corporations. Nevertheless, business planning requirements must still be based on knowledge of customers, competitors and markets as well as assessments of internal costs and efficiencies. How can customer behavior be understood in an environment of reduced regulation, increasing bypass opportunities, offshore competition and blurring of the distinction among services? The 1996 ICFC is the premier forum for discussion of the forecasting and demand analysis challenges of the 90's and beyond. If you want one cost-effective conference targeted to your needs - this is it! Internationally Known Speakers Reed Hundt, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission Mr. Hundt will speak to the conference on "Competition in the Telecommunications Industry". During Mr. Hundt's chairmanship the FCC is making key decisions regarding industry structure and competition which will effect the US communications industry and markets for years to come. Professor Alfred E. Kahn Dr. Kahn, former Chairman of NY PUC and Professor of Economics, Emeritus, Cornell University, will speak on "Deregulation and Competition in the Telecommunications Industry". Dr. Kahn was a major force behind deregulation in the US transportation sector. Drawing upon his rich experience in both the academic and policy arena, Dr. Kahn always brings an invigorating perspective to a discussion of competitive forces in the US economy. Mr. Peter Huber Mr. Huber, author of the much acclaimed study "Geodesic Network", "Orwell's Revenge: the 1984 palimpsest" and many more will present his ideas on "The Internet and Future of the Telecommunications Industry". Mr Huber has an uncanny ability to predict the interaction of technology with human behavior. Attendees are sure to find Mr. Huber's insights to be rewarding listening. ICFC's Reputation for Quality and Excellence Over the last 13 years, the International Communications Forecasting Conference has developed an outstanding reputation throughout the Telecommunications Industry. This reputation has attracted the highest quality speakers and participants.For this conference we have expanded our participation audience further by inviting and encouraging the participants from IXC, CAP, CATV, Cellular and PCS industries of domestic and foreign countries. Forecasting Conference Outstanding Educational Opportunities The ICFC is the only international training forum for telecommunications forecasters and planners. In addition to the Keynote Speakers, there will be many SPECIALIZED SESSIONS concentrating on the cutting edge of telecommunications forecasting and demand analysis techniques and applications as well as pre-conference TUTORIAL SESSIONS. Typical agenda topics include: - Optimal Calling Packages - LEC Entry into InterLATA Services - Local Loop Competition - Wireline vs Wireless Competition - Internet and Telecommunications - Unbundling and Access Line Forecasting - Market Share Prediction - One-stop Shopping for Telecom Services Networking With Telecommunications Professionals The ICFC provides a unique opportunity to meet your fellow telecommunications forecasters and planners, industry analysts and academics. Conferees will have time during the conference to share notes on forecasting and demand analysis issues and discuss new ideas. Informal outings will be planned in the evenings to encourage further networking, while experiencing the excitement of Dallas. Technology Showcase A highlight of the ICFC is always the vendor exhibits of the latest forecasting and analytical software and information sources that can make your forecasting more effective and accurate. With so many vendors in one place, it is easy to learn about and compare state of the art tools such as: - Geographic-based databases - Statistical analysis and forecasting software - Economic data and market analysis information Services - Demographic analysis and mapping tools Cost Effective Training Examine the many benefits and experiences available to you at the International Communications Forecasting Conference: increasing your professional and technical knowledge; improving your understanding of the globalization of the industry; seeing state of the art forecasting and analytical techniques and tools. When you compare these benefits to other, more costly seminars and training sessions, the ICFC has the most to offer to help you and your company meet the ever changing demands of the future. The low registration fee, discount hotel rates, combined with all the outstanding speakers and features, make the 1996 ICFC your best training value. Because this conference is planned by telecommunications professionals like you, this is the conference that fits your budget and provides the information you need to be more efficient and do your job better! New and Different Challenges The time to plan for the new telecommunications industry is not tomorrow but today. Challenges await that, today, have not been identified. Improve your knowledge of the new environment that is changing our industry and its markets. With the information you will acquire, you will be able to better steer your company's tactical and strategic decisions. The 1996 International Communications Forecasting Conference will enhance your understanding of "Demand Analysis with Competition in the Information Age". What's Included? - Admittance to the General Sessions with Reed Hundt, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission, Professor Alfred E. Kahn, Mr. Peter Huber, plus additional internationally known speakers. - Admittance to the Specialized Sessions, Tutorials and Technology Showcase. - Detailed conference materials, including handouts from the Specialized Sessions. - Opening reception/dinner at the hotel plus 2 lunches, 3 continental breakfasts and coffee breaks. DATES: April 16-19, 1996 LOCATION: Dallas, Texas, USA HOTEL: The Grand Kempinski Dallas Conference Logistics Dallas Texas' cosmopolitan metropolis, also a "Telecom Capital of the World", will be an exciting venue for this important event. The Grand Kempinski Dallas is situated in the North Dallas/Galleria area located off the Dallas Tollway. This provides easy access from the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in only 20 minutes, and from Dallas' Love Field Airport in 15 minutes. There are three major shopping malls nearby, one which is directly across the street. There are over 130 restaurants, nightspots and lounges to provide entertainment. The Grand Kempinski Dallas provides complimentary transportation to any destination within a three-mile radius of the hotel. As a 1996 ICFC attendee, you will receive a special hotel rate of $110 for a hotel room, single or double occupancy plus applicable taxes. The ICFC has negotiated these rates to be in effect three days before and after the conference, so bring the family and visit the Dallas, Texas area. All conference attendees MUST book their rooms DIRECTLY with the hotel by calling 800-426-3135 or 214-386-6000 or by faxing 214-701-0342. Please mention that you are attending the 1996 ICFC and/or Technology Forecasting for the Telecom Industry Seminar to receive the special rate. Schedule Registration opens at 12:00 noon on Tuesday, April 16th. For those who arrive early, there will be a tutorial session in the afternoon. The Conference will open with a reception at the hotel beginning at 6:00 p.m. The 1996 ICFC will conclude at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, April 19th. Conference Registration The early registration fee for the 1996 ICFC is $500 in US dollars or after March 25th a late registration fee of $550. You must register by mail and payment must be by check or money order. Complete registration details are provided below. If you have any registration questions, please call Don Gorman at 610-469-0515. First Name_____________________Last Name_____________________ Company Name & Title_________________________________________ Street___________________________ City_______________________ Prov./State__________Country_____________Postal/Zip__________ Tel__________________Fax______________E-Mail_________________ Check/Money order enclosed_______$500 for early registration _______$550 for late registration FORWARD THIS REGISTRATION FORM ALONG WITH YOUR CHECK OR MONEY ORDER to: ICFC 1996 ATTN: Don Gorman 204 Murray School Road Pottstown, PA 19465 Tel: 610-469-0515 U.S.A. Fax: 610-469-0515 Any Other Questions? Please direct your questions to: Peter S. Chung- GTE, Co-chairperson Tel: 214-718-5491, Fax: 214-718-4299 or -4977 Internet E-mail: peter.s.chung@gte.sprint.com "Dallas Skyline Courtesy of the Dallas Convention & Visitor Bureau" (Sorry: we are unable to show Dallas skyline on-line) ------------------------------ From: Peter Brace Subject: SDSL v. ADSL Date: Wed, 03 Jan 1996 07:22:26 -0800 Organization: Melbourne PC User Group Inc, Australia Fellow telecomers, Is there really much commercial difference between SDSL and ADSL? And is SDSL likely to have much of an impact on cable rollout? (i.e. is coax/fibre no longer needed?? Interested in opinions ... Peter Brace ------------------------------ From: Rupert Baines Subject: Asymetry (ADSL) and Net Access - A Bad Thing? Date: 3 Jan 1996 23:23:59 GMT There seems to be a widespread opinion amongst digerati that Internet applications require symetric services. I'm not convinced (see below) -- I *like* assymetry -- but I haven't heard many convincing arguments in either direction. I'd love to hear some comments on this! WIRED slagged ADSL on this basis (HYPE list in Nov), Scott Moore posted on it (below), and there is a John Perry Barlow article (http://www.alumni.wesleyan.edu/WWW/Info/JPB.html) that forcefully argues on similar lines. I have been meaning to try to write a response, but haven't quite got round to it ... but here goes a few thoughts: The quote below is from Scott Moore's post before Xmas. >>> 2. SDSL will be marketed as both an internet connect and as >>> videoconferencing. People other than coporations will balk >>> at the cost of the special equipment and special connect >>> rates that videoconferencing will require (remember that the >>> local bells are going to want extra to transport that call >>> to grandma in Chicago). However, because it is short haul, >>> SDSL may take off as an internet connect tool, after which >>> videoconferencing may take off, curiously, when done via >>> computer using it as and encoder/decoder with a cheap ($100) >>> camera. RB>> Huh ?? RB>> Why is SDSL better for Internet access than ADSL ? > Even AT&T is advertising that. It amazes me that there is so much effort > going into asymetric access right now. Cable modems are built assuming that > you want huge downstream with small upstream capacity, which is a model > that applies mainly to sitting passively flipping web pages. But the most > exciting thing about the internet is that it is interactive. All these seem to confuse SYMETRY with INTERACTIVITY. They are not at all the same, and I think it is possible -- even desirable -- for an attractive interactive service to be aymmetric. There are four reasons I suggest, in a vague order of relevance: One is philosophical -- not practical, but is so fundamental it is easy to overlook: Human I/O is assymetric to a huge degree -- your eyes have a bandwidth that could be in the Gigabits/sec, your ears are >1Mbps, and heaven only knows what it would be for taste (food via the net!?), smell, touch (tele-sex ?) not to mention the weirder ones of proprioception or the like. Compare that to the output in terms of position, speech, and the like; shouldn't any system at least try to reflect the user? Secondly is still philosophic but a bit more real. The difference between 'data' and 'information' is heavily related to how much you can discard. I typically subscribe to a few newsgroups, and read a few dozen posts for every response I make. That is an assymetry of ~100:1 -- and it seems an asymmetry we would want to encourage. Obviously it varies with application (see #4), but it still seems that more data flows in than information flows out. There is a word for people who do not respect that asymmetry -- we call it spamming! Third is a consideration of the actual applications: Other than video-conferencing, nearly all are asymetric. Many people watch videos, very few will want (or afford) to produce them at home. Client/server systems predicate an assymetry. Many people access web pages -- fewer host their own at home. I'd like to expand on that: Yes, having a web-server is popular and growing (but still orders of magnitude less content rich than accesses), and I'm sure that 'what's your URL' is indeed the chat up line in Palo Alto bars, and posting pictures of the family at Thanksgiving is lovely, and , and ... that is irrelevant. Arguing from that to a criticism of asymetry is deeply flawed. Those personal home pages may well become ubiquitous, but they will not be located *at home*: they will reside on servers at the ISP -- with reliable 24x7 uptime (does your home PC have that? why?), adequate disk and memory, expensive server software (which is rapidly getting smarter and more complex) etc etc. Oh yes, the ISPs also have very fast *symetric* (T3, OC3, OC12 etc), shared between many users and many accesses, with individuals reaching the ISP on assymetric links. And I think this is true in general: some people will want to host their own sites, but not many, and perhaps they will pay (more) for a symetric service. This probably is true for some SoHo applications, and that is a role for SDSL or HDSL, but in general I really do see the vast majority outsourcing (as they do now with email server, for the same reason). Finally, there is practical experience: Bob Olshansky at GTE Labs has done a lot of work on this in connection with ADSL (see TELEPHONY Nov 94, and many -excellent- ANSI/ETSI contributions), and has reported that logs of *real* internet traffic show an average asymetry of 15:1. There is a wide variation (from <1:1 up to 55:1), but the clear conclusion is that real traffic now, over existing (symetric) lines, is highly assymmetric. In fact, it is even more extreme -- much of that lower speed path is handshakes and flow control from the TCP/IP protocol. That is why ADSL shouldn't get too asymetric (10:1 say?) but does *not* justify any attitiude that "The Internet is symetric, and symetry is required in access to it." What do people think? What have I missed? Comments or suggestions please :) HAPPY NEW YEAR !!! r ------------------------------ From: tpeters@hns.com (Thomas Peters) Subject: Re: ITA Dating Service Rip Off: Is This a Scam? Date: 3 Jan 1996 19:36:21 GMT Organization: Hughes Network Systems Inc. Some thoughts: 1. These sex lines, horoscopes, and even Western Union aren't tariffed services. They are just normal purchases of services which happened to be billed to a telephone account. Therefore normal contract and consumer laws should apply. 2. Until the purchaser understands the terms and agrees to them either explicitly or implicitly, there cannot be a contract or legal obligation to pay. You can argue about what constitutes sufficient disclosure and what constitutes consent, but dialing a wrong number surely does not qualify. 3. I don't see any problem with billing these services to a phone number if everyone is in agreement that they want to do this: information provider, LEC, PUC, and consumer. Of course this means that they have to mention how they plan to bill along with the price and other terms. 4. Intentionally submitting false bills is fraud and a crime. If the LEC knows someone is doing this and keeps doing the billing anyway, they are accomplices. 5. Because these are nontariffed services being billed to the telephone account for convenience, any contract is clearly with the person using the telephone, not with the owner of the telephone. If the owner of the phone refuses to pay, the phone company should bow out immediately, no questions asked. By not doing so they are abusing their position as a public utility. The IP is still entitled to collect money legally owed. Their rights are exactly the same as, for instance, the local furniture store which sells on credit. This means they can try to figure out who really bought the merchandise and sue them. Of course they may have a hard time proving their case, but maybe that is why the furniture store is careful to establish identity and credit worthiness before they hand over the goods :-). Happy New Year, Tom Peters ------------------------------ From: glen@scooter.heurikon.com (Glen Ecklund) Subject: Re: ITA Dating Service Rip Off: Is This a Scam? Date: 3 Jan 96 20:02:43 GMT Organization: Heurikon Corporation shubu@cs.wisc.edu (Shubu Mukherjee) writes: >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But you *did* call their number. >> You said so yourself. > Never! :-) Don't jump to conclusions. Never ever did I say that any > where in my posts. We called them ___after___ we received our bill. > Clear? > If you still doubt it, check my previous posts and show me where I > said so. >> we know you called them and how long you were on the line, > Aren't you being a bit judgmental? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well okay ... let's let it pass for now > with my wishes to you for a Happy New Year. PAT] I think I can clear up a misunderstanding here. Shubu mentioned ITA on a different newsgroup. I directed him here, because I had read something about ITA here before. Shubu started this thread. (I know him from my previous job.) Another person, with a previous experience with ITA, responded. He mentioned that he had called their number. PAT seems to have confused Shubu with the other person. All better now? (Glen, who feels like a matchmaker fixing up a spat.) Glen Ecklund Email: glen@heurikon.com Heurikon Corporation Phone: 608-831-5500 8310 Excelsior Drive FAX: 608-831-8844 Madison, WI 53717 USA http://www.heurikon.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 03 Jan 1996 14:40:11 -0600 From: Andrew C. Green Subject: Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" Rob Hickey writes: > An interesting article appeared in the {Globe and Mail} (Canada) regarding > the future of PCS. The author, Geoffrey Rowan, appears to cast doubt > on the viability of PCS providers; he maintains that cellular technology > will not be quickly missplaced for the following reasons: I used an Ameritech PCS for about fifteen months back in '92 and '93 during a long-term trial, and can make some observations (purely as a semi-itinerant user only, you understand): > 1) PCS phones cannot compete with cellular phones on price since they are > practically giving away cell phones; This strikes me as a marketing angle only; those cellphones have a real cost which is simply being stashed elsewhere (say, in monthly fees), and I would assume that PCS equipment would have to be marketed the same way. > 2) PCS air time cannot compete with cellular air time charges since most > cellular companies are not charging on evenings and weekends; I'm afraid you lost me there; my cellular service charges for evenings and weekends, albeit at a lower rate than peak, and my PCS also charged at those times. If the provider wants to waive it as a marketing thing, fine, they can, and I don't quite see how the technology in use has anything to do with that. > 3) PCS phones cannot be practically any more portable than the latest >cell phones; My Motorola CT2 SilverLink PCS was an ounce or two lighter than the NEC 701 cellphone I bought a couple of years later, and I saw a couple of even lighter PCS models (I've forgotten the brand; I think it's in my files) of about four ounces that were also used in the PCS trial. Sizewise they were proportionally smaller as well, to the point of being just plain fiddly to operate. > 4) PCS phones will not work in moving vehicles. Assuming Mr. Rowan is referring to handoff capability here, the word back then was "Real Soon Now", and I would imagine they now do. In 1992 I had no problems using it in a stationary vehicle, BTW. > Mr. Rowan questions why the PCS industry would spend billions in > infrastructure to duplicate services that already exist. Ah, well, so would I, and so did most people who saw my PCS. They were especially skeptical upon hearing of the reduced range of PCS transceivers and microcells as compared to present-day cells, considering how many transceivers would have to be socked into our infrastructure to provide service. In the limited PCS trial we saw PCS antennas stuck on the front of bars, hung on our local train station roof, embedded in false ceilings of public buildings, etc. > Is there merit to these arguments, and do the same conditions apply in > the United States (given that millions have already been spent on > licenses)? I suppose there's some merit, yes. From a user-level perspective, the most frequently-asked question I hear is simply, "Why do we need PCS when we've already got cellular?" I'm stuck for a short answer myself. Andrew C. Green Adobe Systems, Inc. (formerly Frame Technology) Advanced Product Services 441 W. Huron Internet: acg@frame.com Chicago, IL 60610-3498 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #4 **************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jan 4 01:01:39 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.1/NSCS-1.0S) id BAA01383; Thu, 4 Jan 1996 01:01:39 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 01:01:39 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601040601.BAA01383@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Bcc: Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #5 TELECOM Digest Thu, 4 Jan 96 01:02:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 5 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson NPA Question (Thaddeus Cox) Questions On Installing One's Own VoiceMail System (James Trammell) Online List of Area Codes (Francois-Michel Lang) Called 911 After Deer Hit Car (Carl Moore) Small BBS / Host System Wanted (Matt Falenski) Source Wanted For Satellite Mobile Phone (kkush95403@aol.com) Learning About Corporate Telecom Buying? (Daniel Wynalda) 800 Number Abuse Question (Allen Kass) Phone Hacking (Ryan Gingras) [NetWatch]: Regulating I-Phone (Monty Solomon) Re: Anyone Know Who Unibridge is? (Stu Jeffery) ARMIS and Tariff Info on Disk or CD-ROM (Robert P. Daniels) Area Code Pointer (Alan Pugh) Live Voice Over Internet Using Touch-Tone Telephone (Michael Snider) Cellular Phone Compatibility - US/Korea (Daniel E. Jones) GSM Data Transmission - PCMCIA card (Lars Kalsen) Search For Any Radio-Link, Digital Microwawe Software! (visan@ibm.net) Help Wanted, Custom Controls, Wireless Net Drivers, Beta Test (M. Grogan) Shame Telstra Shame (Arthur Marsh) Re: New Phone System Getting Installed (somerville@delphi.com) Seeking Centrex ISDN ISP in Redwood City (H.J. Lu) Re: France Telecom Offers Voice Mail For Publiphones (Richard F. Masoner) Re: Standardization of Voicmail, Fax (Robert Virzi) Re: Absolutely Amazing Free Catalog (The Old Bear) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 03 Jan 1996 12:35:40 PST From: Thaddeus Cox Subject: NPA Question A simple question that I have been curious about for a long time: why did small states such as Iowa and Nebraska, who undoubtedly had a pretty small population in 1947 and still do today, get assigned multiple area codes? Does it have to do with the state having multiple non-Bell LECs, as postulated by a friend? Thaddeus Cox - coxt@sparky.oit.osshe.edu ------------------------------ From: trammell@quip.eecs.umich.edu (James Trammell) Subject: Questions On Installing One's Own VoiceMail System Date: 3 Jan 1996 17:20:48 GMT Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept. I want to put a voice mail system in my home. All I really need is a number of touch-tone selectable boxes, say four, and the ability to receive faxes as well. I want someone to be able to call the number and hear the following: (ring) Hello. If you are sending a fax, you may start transmission now. For ABC Services, press 1 (caller can now leave a message) For DEF Inc., press 2 (same as above) For XYZ Corp., press 3 (same as above) For anything else, press 0 (same as above) ... and so on. Does any software/hardware system exist to accomplish this task? Can a PC-compatible or Macintosh be fitted with a hw/sw subsystem allowing it to function in this manner? Thank you, James Trammell trammell@eecs.umich.edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A rather good product I sometimes use here for this is called 'Big Mouth'. It has been around a few years, but seems to be a dandy little voicemail system for low volume use. PAT] ------------------------------ From: alufml@fnma.com (Francois-Michel Lang) Subject: Online List of Area Codes Reply-To: alufml@fnma.com Organization: Fannie Mae Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 20:36:21 GMT I have a somewhat outdated online list of area codes that looks like this (in part): 011 [ International Access Code ] 201 Morristown, and Newark, (Northeast) New Jersey 202 Washington, District of Columbia 203 All parts of Connecticut 204 All parts of Manitoba, CANADA 205 All parts of Alabama 206 Seattle, Tacoma, and Vancouver, (Western) Washington 207 All parts of Maine 208 All parts of Idaho 209 Fresno and Stockton, (Central) California Unfortunately, this list is out of date, and doesn't include any of the area codes added in the past two years or so. There didn't seem to be anything of interest in the FAQ. If anyone has a more current list of area codes (in any form), I'd be happy to see one. Thanks! Francois-Michel Lang (202) 752-6067 FAX: (202) 752-5074 alufml@fnma.com ............. Fannie Mae ---- Portfolio Management lang@linc.cis.upenn.edu ..... Dept of Comp & Info Science, U of PA [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Watch this space! We will have one very soon now. Yes, I know I said that last week also. The areacode portion of the Telecom Archives is going to be greatly updated and I expect Carl Moore will have this available soon. He was out of town over the holidays, and we are lucky he made it back alive, as he will relate in the next message. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 3 Jan 96 17:05:12 EST From: Carl Moore Subject: Called 911 After Deer Hit Car I had to get admitted to someone's home in Michigan to call police after a deer hit the left front fender of the car I was driving. And guess what -- I was advised to call 911. So I did, and a sheriff's deputy came to investigate. The deer was almost hit by the car behind me after hitting the car I was driving. No driver lost control, and no people were injured, but the deer ended up dead at the foot of a driveway off to the left. I was left with a rounded dent in the fender, a dangling left side marker (which no longer worked), a cracked headlight case with a broken low beam, and a piece of fur stuck in the fender. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Fortunatly you got out of it alive and unharmed. Welcome back to the daily routine and 1996. PAT] ------------------------------ From: falensmj@westol.com (Matt Falenski) Subject: Small BBS / Host System Wanted Date: Wed, 03 Jan 1996 21:31:38 GMT Organization: Classic Industries, Inc. Hi! I was wondering if anyone here could help me out. What I'm trying to find is some sort of a BBS program. It will be used by about ten users total, and should be more of a file-based board. Everything I'm finding is like Renegade, and I dont need anything that fancy, or neat, just something with basic functionality. If you have, or know of something that is small, easy to use, and sort of user friendly, I would appreciate any help! Thanks! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A product which is several years old but does quite well for the purpose you describe is called 'Procomm'. It is also known as 'PC Plus'. It is a nice little terminal/commun- ications package with a host mode which can serve as a small BBS. The version I have is several years old, but I understand they have revised and improved the software recently. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kkush95403@aol.com (Kkush95403) Subject: Source Wanted For Satellite Mobile Phone Date: 3 Jan 1996 23:45:31 GMT Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: kkush95403@aol.com (Kkush95403) Magnvox has been providing the hardware and service for a satellite based mobile phone service. I understand that there are several new providers with less expensive equipment (2 to 3 K) instead of 40 K and at a rate of $1.50 per minute. Does anyone know who this is and where I may obtain more information? Thank you, Ken Empire Communications Inc. kkush95403@aol.com 707 545 8300 ------------------------------ From: Daniel Wynalda Subject: Learning About Corporate Telecom Buying? Date: Thu, 04 Jan 1996 00:36:02 GMT Organization: Consultants Connection BBS I've been a long time reader of the TELECOM Digest / on and off. I know alot about the normal topics of this group regarding COCOT's, carriers, tariffs, etc. Recently our family business has expanded to the point that I have 17+ lines and buy various data services. In this process, and in connecting to the internet I've begun to hear many new terms. While I know what a T1 is and how it works, I'm curious as to if there is a location one might look/read to learn about various telecommunication packaging schemes. For example: Since I have 17 phone lines, is there a way I can buy a T1 or something similar that would combine my lines and use the extra bandwidth for data to an alternate carrier? I am lucky enough to live in one of the local areas with competitive phone service. I don't know that I really am looking to save money -- but it would be nice to get upgraded internet service via this bandwidth if it could be used. Any pointers are appreciated. Daniel Wynalda/N8KUD/SYSOP |Consultants Connection BBS | 616-363-6680 danielw@wybbs.wynalda.com |2783 Sandalwood Ct NE | Grand Rapids, MI 49505 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 12:52:04 -0500 From: Allen Kass Subject: 800 Number Abuse Question Pat, I am trying to find out more about the 800 number abuse I have read about. We have a situation where an incoming 800 caller can gain access to our PBX and then turn the call around and go out on one of our outgoing trunks. We were called by AT&T's fraud division yesterday saying that there was an unusually high number of international calls originating from our outbound trunk group. Later we got a call from Cable & Wireless's fraud division saying that they were tracking an unusually high number of calls to one of our 800 numbers from a pay phone in Los Angeles, CA. My question is this: Can a DID call to an extension in our building be turned around inside the switch without our knowledge or assistance? We have an AT&T PBX. Any information would be helpful in understanding this situation and may help us establish a more secure system. As it stands at this point we might be responsible for approx- imatly 3000 minutes of fraudulent international and 800 calls. Thanks, Allen [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This indeed is possible depending on the type of system you have. I recommend you get some security/fraud experts on this immediatly. Many PBX's have a DISA port. This is a thing where a caller from outside dials into your system, and gets a new dial tone. Believe it or not, some companies do not even know that this exists on their PBX; they were never told about it when the PBX was installed, or if they were, they never were told how to change the default password and the importance of doing so. Other times, the security problem comes from a bug in the voicemail system which allows an incoming caller to 'transfer to another extension' and the caller instead presses '9' and transfers to an outside line. You must make certain your voicemail does not allow access to any outside lines or tie-lines if it has the ability to transfer calls to other extensions. Scandalous but true: When AT&T was marketing the Dimension PBX back in the middle 1970's, the local telcos (at least Illinois Bell) were installing it for customers without even telling them a DISA port was on the switch. Well believe me you, the phreaks all knew about it, as well as the default factory passcode which never got changed since no one knew it was there. Here in Chicago, the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad got hit for many thousands in fraud via the DISA, as did Montgomery Ward at their corporate headquarters. With both of them, it was just a local seven digit number which returned dial tone to anyone who called into it. Entering the default passcode followed by a '9' was all it took. Now in the case of General Motors, they also had massive fraud via DISA about the same time, but they had very 'generously' linked incoming 800 numbers to theirs for the benefit of employees traveling on business, etc. so of course their fraud was ten times worse than that of Wards or the railroad. In the case of General Motors, the fraud was so severe that they considered it a good investment of their time to take three or four clerical employees off their regular duties and assign them full time to investigating and tracking the fraud for close to a year. And they called *every single number* they could find to question the people who answered. Perhaps some readers here with very good expertise in this will write to you with specific suggestions if you want their help. But by all means admins, get your boards under control before hackers and phreaks eat you alive ... and they will if they find you are exposed and unprotected. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rgingras@MTS.Net (Ryan Gingras) Subject: Phone Hacking Date: Wed, 03 Jan 1996 11:59:41 GMT Organization: MTS Internet Reply-To: rgingras@MTS.Net In a normal telephone line what do each of the four wires do specifically? Which ones are the "In" and which ones are the "Out". Ryan Gingras E-Mail: rgingras@mts.net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: They are all in and out. We don't think of them in that way. Electrical current travels through the line and your telephone is in series with it. The wiring is usually done like this: The red and green wires are usually line 1. On a modular plug they will usually be the two innermost pins, i.e. pins 3 and 4. These two are all you need for a single line phone. The yellow and black wires are line 2 if you have a two line phone. If you have a one line phone of the old fashioned 'Princess' style with a light in the dial powered from a separate transformer then the yellow and black are the power supply for the lamp. Modern 'light in dial' phones use little LED's which are powered from the phone line itself. These two wires (yellow/black/line 2) are located on a modular plug as pins 2 and 5. Now you'll note from what I said above that leaves pins 1 and 6 still to be described. Well, if you look closely, chances are you will find just an empty little slot with no metal connector there on either end of the modular plug, and in the wall box you'll likely find just four little metal contacts sticking out. But on closer examination you will see there is room for a couple more down there also, one on either end. These would be (are) pins 1 and 6, and they are associated with the blue and white wires which you probably don't have in your phone either, unless it is a two or three line phone. Red/green pair one is always used for the phone line. What happens with yellow/black pair two and white/blue pair three depends on the type of phone and the application. Occassionally on old two-line mechanical hold turn-button style phones, the blue/white served as an intercom signalling pair. Occassionally on single line phones where the user wanted absolute privacy, the yellow/black served the 'exclusion switch'; that is, the central office line was brought in first to that particular phone on red/green, sent through a switch on the phone which either passed or cut off service to other phones on the premises 'downline', and then back out on yellow/black to the main terminal box where other extensions on the line got their feed provided the master phone on the front end allowed the connection past that point. For your purposes, I suspect red/green is all you need to bother with. Actually it does not matter; the phone does not know the difference; you can use the yellow/black or some other spare wire you have around there as long as you remain *consistent*. The current flows 'in' through one of the wires and 'out' through the other to use your term, and the switchhook on the phone either allows the current to flow unhindered through the 'loop' and back to the phone company or it diverts the current through the innards of the phone causing a change in what the central office 'sees' on your line. If you find that after hooking it up you are unable to make the touch tone buttons sound, then you have the 'in' and 'out' in your perspective reversed and you should swap them with each other at one end of the line or the other. You also need to make certain that not so much as a tiny strand of wire touches or comes in contact with one of the others. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 02:02:17 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: [NetWatch]: Regulating I-Phone Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Forwarded to the Digest FYI: Begin forwarded message: Date: Tue, 02 Jan 96 16:09:18 EST From: "paige albiniak" To: netwatch@pulver.com Subject: [NetWatch]: Regulating I-Phone Has anyone read Brock Meeks article in the Dec. 18 issue of {Interactive Week} about the FCC imposing a levy on ISPs? The money would be used to finance universal telephone and accompanying services for everyone using a telecommunications network. The levy is specifically aimed at making sure people continue to pay for phone services. Check out the article in hard copy or on Interactive Week's web site at http://www.zdnet.com/~intweek (if it is still there). I think it will get people's attention on this list. I would like to do a story on this as well (which is hard considering the government is shut down) and would really like to get everyone's feedback. Paige Albiniak, Editor Voice Technology & Services News ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 03 Jan 1996 15:53:18 -0900 From: stu@shell.portal.com (Stu Jeffery) Subject: Re: Anyone Know Who Unibridge is? In TELECOM Digest V15 #534, Steve Samler writes: > I understand that they are associated with PCS. A marketing group of > some sort that is charged with promoting PCS. Anyone have an address > or a phone? UNIBRIDGE was formed by a group of LECs to promote the use of their infrastructure and services to support PCS operators, especially the "entrepreneur" bidders (The first of the two Entrepreneur's Auction's started just before Christmas and will resume January 5). UNIBRIDGE is simply a clearing house for the information provided by the member companies. It is intended to make it easier to get information out to the PCS industry. Faith Muri-Brown is the UNIBRIDGE Coordinator. Her office is in Arlington VA at 703-974-4579. The UNIBRIDGE concept is for the PCS operator to lower his capital cost by leasing services and infrastructure from the LEC in his operating area. The offering is access to the LEC switch via "Generic C", which is an interface defined by Bellcore to support WACS, the Bellcore Wireless Local Loop technology. So far, WACS (also known as PACS) has not been widely adopted, but Generic C is being expanded to support CDMA (IS-95) and maybe others. In addition to access to the switch, the UNIBRIDGE concept includes other services from the LEC, such as lease of cell sites, back haul, billing services, etc. The prime customer for UNIBRIDGE are the smaller entrepreneur who are bidding for PCS licenses. There are currently 254 operators bidding in Band C, for the 484 (approximatly) licenses. The UNIBRIDGE members are (or at least were a few months ago) the "Baby Bells", less BellSouth and Southwestern Bell but including GTE. Each LEC has its own offerings and sales staff. Regards, Stu Jeffery Internet: stu@shell.portal.com 1072 Seena Ave. voice: 415-966-8199 Los Altos, CA. 94024 fax: 415-966-8456 ------------------------------ From: robert.p.daniels@ac.com Subject: ARMIS and Tariff Info on Disk or CD-ROM Date: Wed, 03 Jan 1996 17:21:52 GMT Organization: The Internet Access Company Is anyone aware of companies which compile tariff filings or ARMIS data in electronic format? I've heard a tariff CD-ROM exists but I don't know who manufactures it. Having ARMIS reports in electronic format since I often have to compile data on a holding company level while ARMIS are often filed by state. Please let me know via e-mail. Robert Daniels ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 03 Jan 1996 15:22:00 EST From: Alan Pugh <0003701548@mcimail.com> Subject: Area Code Pointer Could you (or someone else) please post a pointer to a web or ftp site that lists all current U.S. area codes and the states they are in? I've found a couple of sites that let you make queries of an area code for a given city, but nothing that just lists them all. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, you and a couple dozen other people have asked me this in recent weeks. I know this is starting to sound like a promotional advertisement, but *watch this space real soon*. There will be a completely up to date list and an executable script you can run on your own computer. When Carl Moore gets it to me it is going to go out as a special mailing ASAP. PAT] ------------------------------ From: snider@idirect.com (Michael Snider) Subject: Live Voice Over Internet Using Touch-Tone Telephone Organization: Internet Direct, Canada Date: 03 Jan 96 22:44:28 GMT I know there are many products that allow live voice communication over the Internet. But these use soundboards with microphones. I am looking for a product that uses a touch-tone telephone as the input/output device, yet the voice is transmitted over the Internet. I would like to use a DSP board such as a Dialogic board with a telephone attached to it. As you speak into the telephone, I need a product that will take the voice and transmit it over the network (the Internet) to a server housing a similar DSP board which will play the voice back to another caller using a telephone. Does such a product exist? Thanks in advance for any advice. Either respond to this newsgroup or E-Mail me at snider@idirect.com. ------------------------------ From: djones@mwunix.mitre.org (Daniel E Jones) Subject: Cellular Phone Compatibility - US/Korea Date: 4 Jan 1996 02:54:27 GMT Organization: MITRE Corporation, McLean VA I will be transferring to my company office in Seoul, Korea in the near future, and was wondering if a cell phone purchased in the U.S. would work over there. Obviously I would have to sign up for the service with the local Korean carrier. The real question (I think) is whether their system uses the same frequencies, protocols, etc. If anyone knows, please email me at djones@mitre.org. TIA, Dan Jones ------------------------------ From: dalk@login.dknet.dk (Lars Kalsen) Subject: GSM Data Transmission - PCMCIA Card Date: 3 Jan 1996 12:45:31 GMT Organization: Customer at DKnet Hi, and happy new year, I am trying to set some mobile datatransmission via the GSM mobile telephone network. It is working -- but not optimal. I am using af PCMCIA card NOKIA. Normally you send an initialization string for a modem - but what do I send for this PCMCIA-card. If you have any ideas, suggestions or experiences please E-mail. Greetings from Denmark, Lars Kalsen ------------------------------ From: visan@ibm.net Subject: Search For Any Radio-Link, Digital Microwawe Software! Date: 3 Jan 1996 14:52:11 GMT Reply-To: visan@ibm.net I am very interested in any microwawe digital radio-link calculation program, both a professional and share-ware type. Any WEB site, or any FTP site, for search information about digital and analogic Radio-link, and radio-Hop calculation? Any information about this would be appreciated! Thanks in advance. Vicente Sanchez. EB4BSQ. AKA visan@ibm.net SysOp de MERCURIO BBS. MERCURIO BBS- 24H @ 33K6 -HAM&COMMS Data +341 525 8090 - Fax +341 465 9376 ------------------------------ From: ges@oneworld.owt.com (Marty Grogan) Subject: Help Wanted, Custom Controls, Wireless Net Drivers, Beta Test Date: 3 Jan 1996 17:57:17 GMT Organization: One World Telecommunications To the modem community: I have been trying to locate comm drivers specifically designed to solve the problems unique to wireless network modems. Having been unsuccessful, I am resigned to developing them. If you have any such drivers, know of any such drivers or would like to beta test such drivers, please let me know by email. I will try to address any and all glitches that I know about as well as any that I learn of from you. I expect to offer a systems solution that will achieve nearly theoretical levels of reliability. Please send me any "horror stories" about difficulties with such networks. I will need to know about your system configuration and performance requirements, also. In return for your assistance, I will provide you with copies of all software developed and offer whatever advice that may assist with your own situation. Marty Grogan ges@oneworld.owt.com (509) 783-5056 ------------------------------ Subject: Shame Telstra Shame Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 15:44:03 CST From: Arthur Marsh A previous article under this thread in the TELECOM Digest reported concern by hobbyist bulletin board operators at a Basic Carriage Service Tariff filing by Telstra that would result in existing hobbyist bulletin board telephone lines being charged at the Business Service tariff. This would have resulted in an annual line rental of A$274.80 compared to A$139.80 for Non-Business Service. Telstra filed a new tariff proposal, filing number 462 on 21 December 1995, which was not disallowed by AUSTEL on 29 December 1995. The definition of a "Business Customer" in the new Public Switched Telephone Service (PSTS) Tariff section 4.2.2 includes: "(f) a customer that provides information services and operates for a commercial purpose." The phrase "and operates for a commercial purpose" was added in this tariff ammendment and appears underlined in it. AUSTEL will be writing back to people who complained about the previous classification to inform them of the new definition. Arthur Marsh, telephone +61-8-370-2365, fax +61-8-223-5082 arthur@dircsa.org.au ------------------------------ From: ROCKET Subject: Re: New Phone System Getting Installed Date: Wed, 3 Jan 96 11:01:54 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) I have been impressed with Siemens/ROLM telecommunications products over the few years. I have been in the telecom business for about ten years and have worked with all the major players in the PBX arena. I have several ROLM PBX's installed and they are all very reliable and offer excellent CTI integration. Good Luck! ------------------------------ From: hjl@zoom.com (H J Lu) Subject: Seeking Centrex ISDN ISP in Redwood City Date: 3 Jan 1996 09:42:39 -0800 Organization: Zoom.Com Information Services Inc. We are looking for an ISP with Centrex ISDN in Redwood City. The area code is 415. But I have no idea what NXX it will be. BTW, does anyone know how many COs Redwood City is served by and what the NXXs are? Please email me at hjl@gnu.ai.mit.edu. Thanks, H.J. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 13:49:35 -0600 From: richardm@cd.com (Richard F. Masoner) Subject: Re: France Telecom Offers Voice Mail For Publiphones Jean-Bernard Condat wrote: > Paris (France), January 2th, 1996--France telecom have announce the > creation of a very interesting and usefull service: a voice mail for > publiphone users. If your correspondant is busy, if you are unable to > wait for somebody on the phone you can leave a 30-seconds voice > mail. The message will be automatically transmit to the called number > at the hour given by the caller. I've used the MCI version of this service a couple of times in the several years or so it's been available here in the USA. What generally happens, though, is the recipient first hears the computerized "This is MCI with an important message from Ri...." and they hang up, thinking it's a sales solicitation. :-( Richard Masoner ------------------------------ From: rv01@gte.com (Robert Virzi) Subject: Re: Standardization of Voicmail, Fax Date: 3 Jan 1996 20:15:45 GMT Organization: GTE Laboratories, Waltham, MA In article , Tom Crofford wrote: > Does anyone out there know of any sort of standardization for > voicemail/auto attendant systems? I don't know the current status, but there is/was a standard in the works for voice mail. It was started, if memory serves me correctly, by the voice mail user interface forum. The effort was then trans- mogrified into an ISO effort. The latest report I have is called,"User interface to telephone-based services: Voice messaging applications." It is clearly marked as a draft international standard, so you'll want to get an updated version. (Mine is dated 93-11-05. So is that Nov-93 or May-93?) The alphabet soup on the cover says the source is: ISO/IEC JTC1/SC18/WG9/SWG IV. I can only generate about half those acronyms. Good luck tracking this down. Bob Virzi rvirzi@gte.com Just another ascii character... +1 (617) 466-2881 ------------------------------ From: oldbear@arctos.com (The Old Bear) Subject: Re: Absolutely Amazing Free Catalog Date: Wed, 03 Jan 1996 23:02:20 EDT Pat: He has a web site at: http://www.sandman.com for those who want intant gratification and can't wait to see the catalog! :) Cheers, Will The Old Bear [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: We're talking of course about Mike Sandman, who bills himself as "Chicago's Telecom Expert" and the marvelous catalog he sends out on request or gives to people who visit his shop at 804 Nerge Road in Roselle, Illinois 60172. His current sixty page catalog is really incredible, and full of all sorts of very interesting telecom stuff. To get a copy, you can go to the above web site or call 708-980-7710. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #5 **************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jan 4 04:14:28 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.1/NSCS-1.0S) id EAA09449; Thu, 4 Jan 1996 04:14:28 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 04:14:28 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601040914.EAA09449@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Bcc: Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #6 TELECOM Digest Thu, 4 Jan 96 04:15:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 6 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Northern Ontario Telephones (was Re: Canadian Telco Websites) (R. Dawson) Send Your Want to Buy Request (Joseph Stephens) Re: Compuserve Censors USENET in Europe (Ross E. Mitchell) Say NO! to Telecom Regulation (was Re: Say NO to Metered ISDN) (Brad Aisa) Re: KSU Needed (michael@no-names.nerdc.ufl.edu) Re: CID Not Passed Via 1-800-CALL-ATT (Arnette P. Schultz) Re: ITA Dating Service Rip Off: Is This a Scam? (Joel B. Levin) Re: ITA Dating Service Rip Off: Is This a Scam? (Mark J. Cuccia) 900 Mhz ... What's The Real Distance? (John Tassi) Re: SMDR Data Available? (D. Ptasnik) Re: SMDR Data Available? (John N. Dreystadt) Re: Price Reduced on Oslin Book "Story of Telecommunications" (D Breneman) DID Modems Wanted (Raymon A. Bobbitt) Last Laugh! Suspected Wrong Domain Name For "Heaven" (Paul Robinson) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: srdawson@interlog.com (Scott Robert Dawson) Subject: Northern Ontario Telephones (was Re: New Canadian Telco Websites) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 1996 06:20:21 GMT Organization: InterLog Internet Services Reply-To: srdawson@interlog.com Mark J Cuccia wrote: > I'm still waiting to see when Ontario Northland Communications gets a > webpage. It is a member of CITA, but not of OTA. When I was looking at > Northern Telephones webpages, it was stated that toll services in > northeastern Ontario were provided by the *provincially* owned Ontario > Northland Transportation Commission. NT's service area `seems' as if it > had toll switching/transmission services of its own- it has a number of > exchanges and Central Office codes in central northeastern Ontario. > Ontario Northland Communications has only a handful of local exchanges & > NXX codes just north of and just south of NT's exchange operating > territory. In some old CITA publications I have, it is stated that Ontario > Northland Communications has some Class-4 (and even a Class-3) > toll/tandem switches. I would guess that Ontario Northland Communications > is part of the provincially owned Ontario Northland Transportation > Commission. Maybe Nigel Allen or Dave Leibold could shed some more light > on this. This puts something I noticed a while ago in a new (not necessarily less murky) light: On my old (1986-87) official government road map of Ontario, the farthest northern settlements on the Hudson Bay seacoast, and in the interior, are marked with a telephone symbol. The key at the side of the map says, REMOTE NORTHERN LONG DISTANCE TELEPHONE NETWORK RESEAU TELEPHONIQUE INTERURBAIN DANS LES REGIONS ELOIGNEES DU NORD Telephone Access Point Pointe d'access au telephone On my new map, (1994-95), which I got at the tourist info booth downtown last week, the same settlements are shown without the telephone symbol. They still have their symbols for police, airstrip, medical, etc. These are _all_ of the settlements unconnected by road to the south, although one, Moosonee, on Hudson Bay, is at the end of the Ontario Northland Railway (the famous Polar Bear excursion train). Moosonee is the only settlement on any railway to have a symbol. None of the other settlements with rail-only access have a symbol. These settlements are not just in the northeast either; they go all the way across the North. The waeternmost is Poplar Hill, 300 km north of Fort Frances ON/Internatonal Falls MN- in area code 807 and well west of Thunder Bay. The easternmost is Moosonee itself, north from Smooth Rock Falls and Timmins, in area code 705. I wonder what's changed? Maybe they got satellite phones? Are these the 'ringdown' points that Mark mentioned earlier on? | Genetics is fun, but Scott Robert Dawson | _my_ family is defined by love... | srdawson@interlog.com http://www.interlog.com/~srdawson/scothmpg.htm [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am reminded of calls to a remote town in northern Ontario called Hearst, population five thousand and something back in the 1970's. It was listed as 'other place' in the Bell System Rate and Route tables. Our long distance operator would dial 705+181. Doing so, lo and behold, who would answer but an operator in Sudbury, Ontario. Our operator would then ask to be connected to Hearst, and upon reaching that place would then ask for the local number. You could almost feel the hundreds of miles speeding past as Sudbury plugged in the connection on her board. A very slight hum in the background and a sort of 'chunk chunk' sound as she rang the Hearst exchange, a few hundred miles to the northwest up Highway 11. Presently the operator there would answer by saying 'Hearst!' in a loud voice, and the long distance operator in Sudbury would say 'there is a call for you from Chicago ... go ahead Chicago'. Our long distance operator would ask for the desired two or three digit number, with the operator in Herst no doubt impressed that a call was coming from so far away. Very late one evening, about midnight, a call was placed to Hearst. Sudbury comes on the line, and our operator here asks as usual for Hearst. "Oh," says Sudbury, "is this an emergency call?". No, we said, it was not an emergency. Sudbury's response was, "well if it is not an emergency, I can't call her now. After 10 pm we are not supposed to call her until we give her a wake up call at 6 in the morning. The switchboard is in her home. She is on 24 hour duty with sleeping privileges. If its an emergency I will ring up there, and she or someone in the family will come and answer the board but it might take a minute or two to raise them." We said thanks, but don't wake the operator; it is not essential and the call can be placed tomorrow ... I found out the next day that it was an 'understanding' among the people of Hearst that telephone service operated between 8 am and 10 pm. If it was during the overnight hours, the operator was asleep but would respond under the assumption there was an emergency needing the doctor, the fire brigade or whatever. Lots of small rural areas in the USA had phone service with the same kind of 'understanding' among the townspeople in the early years of this century. No routine calling while the (sole) operator was trying to rest. If a call came in on the switchboard at midnight, the operator would awake from her sleep knowing there was trouble in the village. PAT] ------------------------------ From: felix@houston.net (Joseph Stephens) Subject: Send Your Want To Buy Request Date: 3 Jan 1996 14:48:48 GMT Organization: Houston SuperNet (houston.net) Search Equipment Exchange based in Houston, TX is an infomation service which lists used and unused Telecommunication Equipment such as: PBX, phones, cards, complete systems, maintenance materials and hard to find items. We will list want to buys from end users and dealers on our system for free. If you want to list a want to buy call 1-800-252-5969 ext 27 and talk to Michael Jacobs. Also we are compiling an interconnect directory. If you are an interconect and would like to be listed, please call Michael Jacobs for an input form. If you have any questions regarding Search Equipment Exchange, please call or E-mail root@atchou.com. ------------------------------ From: rem@world.std.com (Ross E Mitchell) Subject: Re: Compuserve Censors USENET in Europe Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 03:09:52 GMT PAT, you are free to ascribe any meaning you want to any word you want. You have decided that the only proper use of the word "censorship" is to describe that which is imposed by the government. That's fine with me. It's just that that's not the way it is defined in the English language, at least as far as the dictionary is concerned. The dictionary, as you well know, is where we record our agreements about the meanings of words. If you make your point by saying "government imposed censorship is..." I have no problem. But, if I use censorship in the broader sense, a sense that includes but does not limit itself to government censorship, please allow that my use, supported by the dictionary, is not improper, regardless of your belief of what the meaning OUGHT to be. Oh, and I hope you won't "censor" this final comment before returning to the topics of the group that you administer so well. Ross Mitchell [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I love it. Go ahead, use it in the 'broader sense', deuces wild, anything goes, come up with an answer that works. I used to know another guy who did this. Whenever a social problem came to his attention, or someone of whom he had high expectations did not live up to his expectations (I seemed to be his favorite victim) his retort would always be that 'freedom *as I know it and define it* in the USA is dead.' Naturally using his definitions, anything could be accounted for. To him, 'freedom' was the ability and willingness to do the right thing in the right place at the right time; everything else was 'license'. Therefore he could kill freedom whenever he felt like it. I used to tear my hair out trying to talk to him. Just remember: in this Digest, words mean what I say they mean. PAT] ------------------------------ From: baisa@hookup.net (Brad Aisa) Subject: Say NO! to Telecom Regulation (was Re: Say NO! to Metered ISDN) Date: Thu, 04 Jan 96 06:07:23 GMT Organization: HookUp Communication Corporation, Oakville, Ontario, CANADA Francois D. Menard wrote: > The day Bell Canada starts to bill ISDN as a metered service, it will > be the beginning of the end. SAY NO TO ANYTHING THAT IS METERED. It > is on this philosophy (of dedicated / not metered ) that we've built > on the Internet, damn it! > I pay many K$ a month for the right to say "Bell, Shut up !" If I > want to do IPhone, I can do IPhone, if I want to pay for a T1 just for > the fun of toying with a packet sniffer, that's my OWN problem. If I use 10K of bandwidth a day to get my email, why should I pay the same price as someone who is pumping 28M per hour over a B channel to the Internet? It makes far more sense to meter utilities, because this is both fair, and provides a reasonable check on demand. Imagine if gas or electricity weren't metered -- people would waste it like crazy, and everyone's rates would skyrocket. But I want _the market_ to decide this question, NOT the arbitrary dictates of a state mandated monopoly, nor the result of a cabinet order, nor the result of a CRTC order. The thing everyone should be objecting to is the vast regulatory bureacracy which stiffles telecom innovation and competition in Canada. Companies in free markets are very sensitive to their customers' needs and preferences. Even when there is only one provider in a certain area, there is the ever looming threat of competition. With today's technology, it should be possible to get bits into and out of the home in any of several different ways. The real answer is abolishing the CRTC and scrapping all telecom regulation. Then, the market can decide the ways in which people want their service. Brad Aisa, Toronto, Ontario, Canada baisa@hookup.net web archive: http://www.hookup.net/~baisa/ "The highest responsibility of philosophers is to serve as the guardians and integrators of human knowledge." -- Ayn Rand [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Considering the ideas presented in your message, I am not surprised your .signature includes an Ayn Rand quote; or should I say that the other way around: having seen an Ayn Rand quote in your .signature, I am not surprised at the sort of messages you send out to the net. Although sort of strange, she was a pretty nice lady. I have a personally autographed hard cover copy of {Atlas Shrugged}. The book was published while I was in high school (1957) and she was on a tour promoting her (then) new book. She spoke at an assembly program at our high school. I was the pet of the teacher who invited her, so afterward I got to go to dinner with Ms. Rand and Arthur when he drove her to the airport to go on to the next place in her tour. She signed my copy and his also. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Michael@no-names.nerdc.ufl.edu Subject: Re: KSU Needed Date: Wed, 03 Jan 1996 06:52:52 GMT Organization: University of Florida On Thu, 14 Dec 1995 08:17:06 -0500, you wrote: > I have a Panasonic KSU and I like it a lot. One of my clients needs a > KSU for his new office and I'm suggesting a Panasonic ... > So: I'm looking for people who sell them, either new or USED (at a good > price). > He needs ~6 CO lines, ~12-16 inside extensions, nothing larger than > that and 1-4 feature phones depending on price. The Panasonic is an EXCELLENT recommendation! Completely user programmable, and completely hybrid (can use system phones, or standard single-line telephones... like that pink princess phone in your daughter's bedroom :) ) I now sell ONLY the panasonic line. I can sell NEW, or keep my eyes open for a decent priced USED system. Your friend can call me at: Phone: (904) 332-9370 Fax: (904) 332-9560 Michael P.S. Sorry, but I can't respond via E-mail. I currently only have access to the news groups via a direct access account. ------------------------------ From: Arnette.P.Schultz@att.com Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 12:50:31 -0600 Subject: Re: CID Not Passed Via 1-800-CALL-ATT kevin@mcs.com (Kevin R. Ray) wrote: > I have used AT&T to make local calls to some people that I didn't want > to know who was calling in the past couple of days. I didn't want to > show up as "ANONYMOUS" (*67), so AT&T was my choice. :-) > Using 1-800-CALL-ATT does *NOT* pass along the CID info. > Using 0-NUMBER also does *NOT* pass along the CID info (which I would > think would be an Ameritech problem.) > Almost a month later and they still don't have it right... Not an issue of "getting it right". The FCC ruling does not force carriers of any type (LEC, IXC, Cellular) to implement SS7 in order to support the tranport of CID information (i.e. Calling Party Number -- CPN). It only applies to carriers that use SS7 for call setup already. Operator Service Systems (OSS) are not SS7 capable, so calls that use OSS will not pass CID information. This is true of any calls that route to an OSS (known as OSPS or TOPS by many). The problem is that standards have not been finalized to support OSS SS7. Special signaling is required for operator handled calls, for example for coin collection, and ANSI (T1S1) has not yet finalized the OSS SS7 signaling. So, I am aware of no OSS that supports incoming SS7 -- this is not unique to AT&T. Hence, any call that goes to an operator system (live or robot) will most likely fail to pass CID information, as it is taking a non-SS7 route. Both the cases you sight are routed to OSS for handling (usually via credit card, but other options are available). Also, John L. Wilkerson Jr, jwilkers@freenet.columbus.oh.us, wrote: > My brother in Texas called recently. His number came over with the > name "Texas Call" showing up on the name display. AT&T seems to be > working okay, as well as I can tell. Again, direct dialed calls (e.g. 1+number) placed over AT&T, and most large carriers (IXCs), will follow all SS7 routing and are capable of passing SS7 CPN information used by CID. All that is passed by the IXC is the CPN (number) and associated "presentation status". The trick of adding "Texas Call" is, as far as I know, done by the local switch that is providing the CID service. Arnette Schultz a.p.schultz@att.com ------------------------------ From: levin@bbn.com (Joel B Levin) Subject: Re: ITA Dating Service Rip Off: Is This a Scam? Date: 03 Jan 1996 15:59:37 GMT Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc. In article dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) writes: > If calling an 800 number can result in charges to the calling party, > then it is no longer safe to allow the public to call 800 numbers. > How useful is an 800 number if it can only be called from residence > lines? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think you will find however that most > of these funny numbers actually are non-dialable from pay phones. > Whenever I find an 800 number of the kind we have been discussing, ... > But time and again, genuine Bell payphones *never* complete those > calls, even if it is an 800 number, because the information provider > has access to a database of phone numbers listed as being in coin > service. Actually, as John Higdon has made clear on other occasions, an IP who receives realtime ANI also gets a class of service indicator. Any BOC pay phone or any _properly configured_ COCOT line, and presumably PBX or Centrex dial-out trunks show a certain class of service which the IP can refuse service for. With that information available, relying on a database is as unnecessary as it is cumbersome. /J ------------------------------ From: Mark J. Cuccia Subject: Re: ITA Dating Service Rip Off: Is This a Scam? Date: 03 Jan 1996 22:02:24 GMT Organization: Tulane University > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, the adult/sex IP's out there *claim* > they give ample notification of their charges. They *claim* that if you > remain on the line you do so of your volition and with full knowledge > of the cost of the call, and your consent for billing. Much of this could > be resolved if the IPs would tape record the first fifteen or twenty > seconds of each phone call, during which time they would make a statement > similar to this: > "For billing purposes only, the first few seconds of this call is > being tape recorded. ... now or speak the word 'yes' ... if any part > of the above is not true then please disconnect now at no charge." Pat, knowing the sleaziness of these adult/sex IP's with their 900-like PAY-PAY-PAY-per-call hiding behind 800 with ANI, I'd suspect that even with this method of recording the consent, they would fraudulently `insert' into the recording a DTMF `9' tone (for `Y' meaning `yes'). They've lied before, and they'll lie and cheat again, no matter what safeguards are used. When I use 950 and 1-800 (and soon 1-888) numbers to toll-free/coin-free access the carrier of my choice to make a card-sent-paid toll call, I understand that the 950 or 800 number is free, but to continue via my carrier I must DTMF (or say) my card/account/authorization code. If I were to misdial a particular 950 number, I am not supposed to be charged on the line I am calling from, since I didn't DTMF any valid account. I suppose that the carrier has the number of the line (or trunk) I am placing the 950 or 800 call from since (depending on the carrier) I see that originating number on my card-account bill for calls which were completed. The local telco can bill me for these calls if my account is set up that way, but I am billed for the toll call via the calling-card, and not for the 800 or 950 access, altho' there *is* that nasty calling card surcharge. If anyone visiting me uses my phone line for 800 & 950 access to place a toll call billed to *their* account, then *they* are billed for the call on their account and *not* me. But *I* am not billed anything for this call, even tho' the IXC has *my* telephone number (via ANI) as the originating telephone number. A few years ago, I remember seeing some print-ads for pay-per-call adult/porn services using 800 number, but it stated in tiny print at the bottom something like "2.00 for each half-minute...V/MC/AE". I called one of these 800 numbers from a nearby Telco payphone, and was connected to a recording of a sultry female voice stating that I could have an `exciting' time, by entering my Visa, MasterCard, or American Express card number into a touchtone phone. While I don't like the PAY-PAY-PAY-per-call services (900, 976, etc), at least this method required you to enter a commercial credit card number. They may have even had ANI to determine the originating number, but they billed via the credit card, and not to the originating telephone number via the LEC. Maybe all forms of pay-pay-pay services via 800 numbers should be required to be this way- not just a `press Y if you accept'. If they would want *telco* or a long-distance company to bill for the call, then they could be set up for telco/IXC to do a calling-card verification, just like telco does for its own toll services via 800 numbers. MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ From: jtassi@crash.cts.com (John Tassi) Subject: 900 Mhz ... What's the Real Distance? Date: 03 Jan 1996 19:10:44 GMT Organization: CTS Network Services Hello, What is the real distance of 900 Mnz phones? What are the limitations with buildings (walls - dry wall or wood or Metal studs), etc. I would like to use a 900 Mhz cordless outdoors at a range of 500 -> 1500 feet. What other options are there? (besides celular phones). Thanks. ------------------------------ From: davep@u.washington.edu (D. Ptasnik) Subject: Re: SMDR Data Available? Date: 03 Jan 1996 19:43:57 GMT Organization: University of Washington cordones@spacelab.net (Jose Cordones) writes: > As for the delivery time of the SMDR data, it is quite braindead, so > the information is dumped to you some time after the call is > completed. Like I had suspected in my first posting, it seems I will > have to hack an interface compatible with a System phone. Why, you > ask? SMDR is really lousy for the parts where I would like to: > 1. authenticate caller at beginning of transaction. > 2. have more or less real time limits on the phone usage for each user, > and to boot, most users will be remote. This also creates a real problem for small police stations. In order to be compatible with E911, the phone system needs to notify the e911 records center at the moment the call is answered. This notification sends the address and phone number to the police station display. Very expensive dedicated systems are available for large police centers that DO put out SMDR at the beginning and end of a call, and this is captured electronically to initiate the data transmission. Much older systems (1A2) have "A-lead control", an electromechanical event that happens when a phone goes off hook. This can also be captured by e911 systems to trigger the sending of name and address from the central storage site to the local display at the police station. A few police stations have tried some hokey set ups that attach to the handset cord of the telephone being used by the dispatcher. I know of one in particular that was trying to use a yucky and stupid AT&T Merlin phone system for their whole building, and naturally wanted the police dispatchers to use the same sets as everyone else. Here is the idea: When the set goes off hook, the signal is sent that requests the address info. Unfortunately this is so unreliable (not sure why), that each set is also given a little button that manually signalls if the off hook indicator fails. Seems to happen more than 10% of the time. Pretty frustrating for the cops answering the calls. Dave Ptasnik davep@u.washington.edu ------------------------------ From: johnd@mail.ic.net (John N. Dreystadt) Subject: Re: SMDR Data Available? Date: 03 Jan 1996 15:00:22 GMT Organization: Software Services In article , cordones@spacelab. net says: > As for TAPI, TSPI, etc. I had read Intel's homepages and it was of no > help. I now have checked Microsoft's TAPI page and they actually > bother to provide info. From the Intel disinformation part, my > fingers itched to tell you "but I want the computer to control many > lines, not one ..." but I just found a paper (ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/ > developr/TAPI/CLTSRV.ZIP) that claims "dispells the belief that TAPI > can't do third party call control and gives a suggestion on how to > impliment both the client and the server TAPI components." The format > seems to be "Power Point Text[?]" and I can't read it, though :-/ > Are there other any advanced books out on TAPI, even if from Microsoft > or Intel? A friend tells me that Apple has a Telephony API, too, but > I don't know any more, at this time. I'll be hunting. Any comments? Look around on the Microsoft area for the PowerPoint Viewer (ppv.exe?). Or talk to your friends and neighbors. This is a freely distributed piece of software that lets you look at PowerPoint presentations. Since I may have to do some TAPI stuff in the future, I would be interested in a followup from you on resources you find. John Dreystadt ------------------------------ From: david.breneman@attws.com (David Breneman) Subject: Re: Price Reduced on Oslin Book "Story of Telecommunications" Date: 03 Jan 1996 20:24:53 GMT Organization: AT&T Wireless Services, Inc. In article haynes@cats.ucsc.edu (James H. Haynes) writes: > I got a flyer the other day from Mercer University Press, the > publisher of "The Story of Telecommunications" by George Oslin. The > price has been reduced from $35 to $28. Maybe this means they are > trying to get rid of the remaining stock. I recommend the book highly > even though it is a mess. I'm interested in knowing in what way it's a mess. Of course, the narrative ends at about 1980, but it didn't seem to be particularly disorganized, which is how I would interpret your comment. Just curious. David Breneman Unix System Administrator IS - Operations AT&T Wireless Services ------------------------------ From: rbobbitt@ramlink.net (Raymon A. Bobbitt) Subject: DID Modems Wanted Date: Wed, 03 Jan 1996 23:33:31 GMT Organization: RAMLink Internet Access Service Does anyone know of a modem that will answer a DID trunk siezure, collect the digits, report the digits to the serial port and then negotiate the connection?? I am doing this with a PBX now and want to reduce the cost of service. Thanks in advance for any information. Raymon A. Bobbitt One Call Systems Po Box 1091 Ashland, KY 41105-1091 V/F 606-329-9919 rbobbitt@ramlink.net ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 03 Jan 1996 10:26:34 EST From: One True Church of God Organization: One True Church of God, Incorporated, AMN-SC Subject: Last Laugh! Suspected Wrong Domain Name For "Heaven" On Thu, 16 Nov 95 16:35:53 EST, gbouwkamp@allnet.com submitted a humorous article from an unknown source, containing: Subject: Last Laugh! Usenet and the Path to Salvation > When he was done, she began to stammer, but Saint Peter stopped > her, saying "I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do. To register > a complaint, you'll have to send mail to: > status-change-request@godvax.heaven.com > We have a group of cherubim who manage such requests. But don't > send it to: > status-change@godvax.heaven.com > Because that sends it to the whole list! Dear Pat: A domain name ending in .com represents a "commercial" site and I suspect that's incorrect in the context used. A company calling itself "heaven", or even a nightclub or some other such operation, if it had a domain name on the internet, would use such a domain name. But I doubt that if there was a real site such as the purported one in the fictional example, it would use such a domain name. Seriously I doubt {THAT} "Heaven" (the one allegedly upstairs) is a commercial site. International, probably. Or perhaps an organization. At our place, we use the following test address for mail that is supposed to bounce, or where we send flame-bait: not-for-mail@hottest.hell.int Thus I suspect if a "heaven" were existing on the 'net, it would be at an address like "heaven.int". In fact, we wanted to apply for such a thing, but the Internic wants a street address for the owner of a domain name. Pity. Sincerely, His Excellency, The Right Honorable Paul Robinson Divinely Appointed Most High Demigod One True Church of God, Incorporated A Maryland Non-Stock Corporation Incorporated July 14, 1995 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: ... And as we sat there waiting for our dinner that winter night in 1957, a fifteen year old smart aleck, his teacher who was always expecting too much of him and Ms. Rand, we showed her the rather lengthy review of her new book which had by coincidence appeared the day before in {The Christian Science Monitor}. She sat there for a few minutes silently reading the Monitor's review, occassionally sipping her cocktail and puffing on her cigarette through that long cigarette holder which was her trademark. Arthur also had a drink and cigarette in hand. I was not permitted by law to drink of course, but I smoked cigarettes and did so there at the table with them since smoking a cigarette showed that I was just as sophis- ticated as they. Throughout dinner I would look up occassionally and see her staring at me intently. After dinner, sitting there with coffee she spoke directly to me saying, "Such a smart young man! Too smart to believe in Gott! Why do you believe in Gott?" I guess I was sort of flustered; I did not have an answer, nor was Arthur any help. He held the newspaper up in front of his face pretending to read it so he could hide behind it and smirk without her seeing it. Dominus benedictus. Until tomorrow! PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #6 **************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jan 4 13:03:54 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.1/NSCS-1.0S) id NAA10352; Thu, 4 Jan 1996 13:03:54 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 13:03:54 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601041803.NAA10352@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Bcc: Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #7 TELECOM Digest Thu, 4 Jan 96 13:04:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 7 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Live! UK Open U Virtual Stadium 10th Jan 5PM GMT (Simon Masterton) Best Way to Add Remote Dialin POP? (Mike Carlson) New Years Day and Netizens Article in Japan (Michael Hauben) BTA Definitions (Eric Nelson) Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" (Joe J. Harrison) Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" (Sean Connery) Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" (oz@paranoia.com) Call Id -->RS-232 (Mario Guerin) AT&T's Inflexible Sales/Marketing Approach (Michael N. Marcus) Seeking ITU Contact (Tony Perez-Falcon) Federal Crackdown on Cellular Cloning (Clifford D. McGlamry) Is Cellular Cloning Legal? (T. Govindaraj) Re: Compuserve Censors Usenet (Bill Hensley) Last Laugh! Elvisphone Now Available (Van Heffner) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: s.j.masterton@open.ac.uk (Simon Masterton) Subject: Live! UK Open U Virtual Stadium 10th Jan 5PM GMT Date: Thu, 04 Jan 1996 12:08:02 +0000 Organization: Knowledge Media Institute Cochrane/BT gig continues KMi Stadium telepresence events using RealAudio and more; Wednesday 10th Jan 5PM GMT The Open University's new Knowledge Media Institute is hosting a monthly series of on-line interviews with top research personalities, using a medium it refers to as "KMi Stadium". KMi Stadium is billed as an experiment in very large scale telepresence, and aims to host an event with 100,000 attendees by the end of 1996*. The stadium uses a mixture of audio and images, combined with a custom-built software suite based on Sun Microsystem's Java language. A prototype non-Java version is up and running at the following URL (follow the obvious links to 'Stadium'): http://kmi.open.ac.uk/ The next event [January 10th at 5PM GMT] features "Maven of the Month" Prof. Peter Cochrane, visionary propenent of the "office on your arm" and other radical technologies, and Head of Advanced Applications and Technologies at British Telecom Research Laboratories. This event follows the successful KMi Stadium launch on 18th October which featured Henry Lieberman from the MIT Media Lab [available as an on-demand replay from the above URL], and similar events which took place in November and December 1995. Live attendees will have the opportunity to discuss current research issues with the guest speaker in a "talk radio with graphics" format. Visit early to preview the relevant research issues by following the 'info button' links. KMi Stadium will phone you during the event, if required, and your discussion will be broadcast live over the net using RealAudio's live encoder technology from Progressive Networks. You'll need to obtain the RealAudio player from http://www.realaudio.com to listen to the KMi Stadium audio channel. ------------------------------- *100,000 participants??? Yes: by doubling current attendance figures every month, we can do it. The three keys to scaleability are (i) the distributed server environment, (ii) local cacheing of all 'special effects' such as laughter, applause and slide shows, and (iii) a simple hierarchy of moderators and meta-moderators to field audience questions and comments. If you're interested in helping us (particularly experimenting with alpha releases of our linked servers), please contact our Java wizard, Adam Freeman Marc * Prof M Eisenstadt (Director) M.Eisenstadt@open.ac.uk * Knowledge Media Institute http://kmi.open.ac.uk/ * The Open University Tel +44 (0)1908 65 3149 * Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK Fax +44 (0)1908 65 3169 ------------------------------ From: mike@net-quest.com (Mike Carlson) Subject: Best Way to Add Remote Dialin POP? Date: 3 Jan 1996 23:09:33 -0800 Organization: NetQuest Internet Services I am trying to find the best way to add a remote dialin POP. I want to add about 10-20 dialin modems to a site about 60 miles away that can easily access my local server. What I'm basically trying to do is find a way for these remote modems to (transparently) access all of my equipment like it was local to them. (Of course I would like to keep it inexpensive as well ...) A real nice solution would be for the remote site to dial a number local to them, that would place them into my existing modem pool hunt group. The only thing with this is that I would think that I would have to have a remote-forarded line for each number in the remote group that corresponds with one number in my local group. This sounds both messy (I'm dealing with GTE and they have *real* troubles dealing with anything even slightly complex sounding) and costly. The other thing I can think of doing is running frame-relay to the remote POP, and setup a remote modem pool hunt group on a dedicated terminal server, and just route across to my local server. (I would like to go with a T1, but it's too costly at this point ... unless there is some justification for using it over the frame-relay.) If anyone that has done this (or at least the knows about doing this) ;) could let me know the best way to go about this, I would be very grateful! Mike Carlson ------------------------------ From: hauben@sawasdee.cc.columbia.edu (Michael Hauben) Subject: New Years Day and Netizens Article in Japan Date: 4 Jan 1996 06:39:18 GMT Organization: Columbia University Reply-To: hauben@columbia.edu Akemashite Omedetou! Happy New Year. I recently visited Japan to speak at the Hyper Network Conference, Beppu Bay '95. The conference theme was "The Netizen Revolution and the Regional Information Infrastructure." The conference theme was chosen in an attempt to understand what principles would help expand the Internet in Japan. While at the conference, a reporter from the Nishi Nippon Shimbun interviewed me. The article based on the interview about my research and Netizens was published in the Nishi-Nippon Newspaper New Years Day special edition. It was special that it was published in the New Years issue, as it helps to welcome a new era with the new year. I wanted to post about this early in the new year. The Nishi-Nippon Press is located in Fukuoka City, Oita Prefecture. I have seen a rough translation of the article and it seemed to convey the significance of the role Netizens have had in building the Net to be a cooperative communications medium which benefits the larger community. After I get permission, I plan to post an abstract in English from the article. However, if you can read Japanese and have access to the Nishi-Nippon Shimbun, please take a look at the article, and let me know here in this newsgroup (and e-mail if possible) if you have any comments or other thoughts about the article. My e-mail address is hauben@columba.edu Thank you, Michael Hauben Teachers College Dept. of Communications Amateur Computerist Newsletter http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/acn/ WWW Music Index http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/music/ ------------------------------ From: Eric Nelson Subject: BTA Definitions Date: 3 Jan 1996 22:38:01 -0700 Organization: Primenet Can anyone tell me what physical area each BTA corresponds to? Or can someone direct me to a location where I can find the answers. Thanks. ------------------------------ From: Joe.J.Harrison@bra0119.wins.icl.co.uk Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 14:45:10 GMT Subject: Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" I'm not sure I fully understand the term "PCS 1900" as used in the United States however from what I can tell it certainly sounds very similar to the PCN 1800 Personal Communications Networks already up and running in the UK and other countries. The UK has had traditional analog cellular networks for the last ten years or so, similar to those established in the US. PCN is a relatively new development (both UK PCN networks are less than three years old) but already it most definitely looks like genuine competition to cellular rather than being some kind of wireless alternative for the local loop. The standard is based on GSM but is frequency-doubled to use 1800MHz instead of 900MHz. Otherwise everything works just like GSM, with SIM cards and so on. There is a fair range of handsets available (Eric Valentine was too modest in failing to mention the very nice Ericsson PH237!) though not so much of a choice yet as with analog or GSM units. There is little difference in handset size or battery life though the lower power requirements of PCN mean there is scope to provide more uptime for the same battery capacity as coverage improves. Audio quality varies, at its worst it compares badly with analog and at its best slightly favourably. Moving vehicles are not a problem, although attenuation within vehicles and buildings is of course more significant at 1800MHz. I guess the main question in this thread though is why bother with PCS when there already is cellular? A good start for answering this question is to mention increased cell capacity in densely populated metropolitan areas, and the GSM-style security against scanners and cloners. Naturally the PCN startup operators also invented some good marketing reasons like per-second-billed cheaper calls, cheaper rental, and bundled free items such as voicemail, handset caller-id display, loss/theft/damage insurance. Most PCN users have no idea of the difference between "cellular" and PCN since for plain mobile voice telephony there is none. They wanted a mobile telephone and they bought the one that looked best to them on price. Until recently the inferior PCN coverage and denial of international roaming have meant that traditional cellular could retain its premium charges, but we are now at the point where a PCN v. cellular price war looks inevitable. And oddly -- an early victim of PCN might well be the text pager. The more upmarket PCN phones are capable of SMS (short message service) where 160-byte reliable-transfer text messages can be sent to or originated from the handset. Joe ------------------------------ From: bond@access.digex.net (Sean Connery) Subject: Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" Date: 4 Jan 1996 10:18:31 -0500 Organization: Universal Export If any of you all can get dc.general outside of the local area there is a lot of talk going on about the new Sprint Spectrum service introduced to the DC/Baltimore area. First widespread nontest market as far as I'm aware of ...?? Seems to be cheaper than cellular and great as long as you don'm mind not being able to leave the DC area (yet). Digital ... voicemail ... CallerID ... messaging. I've been searching the web for info on it but nada! I do have a rate sheet at home I could scan for those who wanted to see it. ------------------------------ From: oz@paranoia.com Date: Thu, 4 Jan 96 07:05:45 CST Reply-To: oz@paranoia.com Subject: Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" Organization: Overcome by Paranoia exueric@exu.ericsson.se and lotsa other people wrote about: >> 4) PCS phones will not work in moving vehicles. > Wrong. He must be talking about cordless phones or maybe field trials > for some of the CDMA systems. There is no inherent problem with using > PCS 1900 in a moving vehicle unless you try something silly like > pico-cells along an expressway, but that will hose an AMPS system too, > just from trying to support the handovers. One version of PCS at 1900 > is GSM-based and upbanded from 900. It has been working in vehicles > for some time now quite nicely, thank you. The same will be true some > day for CDMA based systems. Well, sorta wrong at least. There is a "technical challenge" that needs to be overcome to make PCS phones operate when moving at high speeds relative to the base station. The Doppler Effect is about 2 1/2 times worse at 1900 Mhz with respect to conventional US-AMPS cellphones. The problem is surmountable, and several solutions have been proposed. As far as "Pico" cells go, the presence of doppler shift can actually make pico cell implemenation easier and more effective. Doppler can be used to identify fast moving users and not hand them off to small cells. Oz ------------------------------ From: Mario.Guerin@HQASD2B.ssc.ssc-asc.x400.gc.ca Subject: Call Id -->RS-232 Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 16:21:08 -0500 Organization: EDS Canada Is there a way to receive Caller ID info using my USR 14.4 data/fax or do I need a Voice/Fax/data Modem. If not can I build something cheap to do it? Thanks, Mario ------------------------------ Date: 04 Jan 96 07:28:35 EST From: michael n. marcus <74774.2166@compuserve.com> Subject: AT&T's Inflexible Sales/Marketing Approach > I was in Sacramento at the time, and needed to know if a call from a > certain East Bay exchange to a certain San Francisco exchange was or > was not a local (untimed) call. Which reminds me of another bit of borderline silliness. In early 1984, shortly after the ATT break-up (the first one), I had to call ATT from my office in Westchester County, NY (914 land) to discuss the 800 account of a client in NYC (212 territory). I called the appropriate 800 number, and reached a group that handles customers in 914. They had no info on 212 customers, could not switch me to the 212 group, could not give me a number that I could call to reach the group, and could not forward a message to the 212 group so I'd be called back. ATT's state-of-the art customer-service computer had been programmed to assume that any call _from_ 914, must be _about_ 914. The only solution was to get in my car and drive across the 914/212 border and call from a pay phone on the other side. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The early years of divestiture, in the middle to late 1980's were an absolute embarassment watching AT&T try to 'sell' things. For the century before, sales had never been a big deal with them; at least not having to convince people to buy things from them. Whatever you wanted, you went to them and got on their terms. Now they have to actually convince you it is in your best interest to deal with them, but they got off to a *terrible* start. Your example above is just one of countless horror stories out of that time period. Totally inflexible, no way to use any creativity or imagination. I remember trying to sign up for AT&T Mail back around 1985 or so. Most of their employees had no idea what it was, and the few who did were never at their desk; always in a meeting or someplace. Countless transfers to someone else who could help me with it; panic stricken responses from employees who would demand to know 'who gave you my number?', unreturned messages left in voice mail, etc. The new breed of telecom people are making their money just by being able to respond in a timely way with accurate information on things. Yesterday I spoke on the phone for about an hour with a fellow in Boston whose company is looking into licensing the MyLine 800 software for resale. (Here in the Digest, I have told you about MyLine many times, but always as it involved a Licensee called 'Call America' on the west coast; I've found their service excellent). As I chatted with this fellow the point that he and I found ourselves coming back to a couple of times was the need -- when/if they begin selling MyLine through their company -- of providing fast, immediate customer service and support. They are considering the possibility of a major marketing thrust for MyLine, i.e. large advertisements in the major business media to try and grab a big share of the 800 number business from other, less flexible carriers. I told him the day those advertisements hit the streets, you want *well-trained*, intelligent, imaginative people on your staff sitting at terminals taking phone calls who are able to turn those numbers up on the spot and fax out basic preliminary operating instructions to the new subscribers. None of this "we will have it on in a couple of days; you will get a user manual in a week or two" nonsense. Those of you who have subscribed to MyLine 800 service at my urging have found it to be an extremely flexible, very powerful package. None of the traditional carriers with their 800 service come close to what MyLine offers. I told the Boston guy, don't screw up! When the typical small business person finds out about MyLine 800, you are going to have his account almost immediatly. Handle those accounts properly and watch the business come your way ... don't screw up! Those last three words and your ability to move fast, in a flexible and imaginative way will put you well ahead of any of the industry giants. By the way, is it true that AT&T has virtually ceased any and all marketing efforts on 500 service? Word coming to me is the program went over like a lead balloon. PAT] ------------------------------ From: RSSCorp@aol.com Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 08:42:23 -0500 Subject: Seeking ITU Contact We would like to consult the ITU white book(s) if at all possible. Can you supply us with an internet address and/or instructions for contacting the ITU? We would appreciate it greatly. Thanks, Cheryl for Tony Perez-Falcon ------------------------------ Date: 04 Jan 96 09:32:50 EST From: Clifford D. McGlamry <102073.1425@compuserve.com> Subject: Federal Crackdown on Cellular Cloning > Is there a source for what they don't tell you about cellphones in the > users manual? Like, how to read out and/or program the phone's id > number? Every salesperson knows how to do this, so it can't be too > great a secret. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There are various books you can > purchase with information and instructions on programming cellphones. > One example which comes to mind is Bishop. I forget the exact title > of their book but you would find it in some technical book stores. The semi-offical publication used within the cellular industry is the Curtis NamFax manual published by Curtis Electro devices out of Rocklin, CA. The cost is $185 for the first year, and $85 for subsequent issues. > Why do I want to know? Nothing unethical. I'd like to use a spare > phone as an emergency phone in my other car, sharing a number. (Of > course if both ever got turned on at the same time, they'd probably > disconnect my service, but I can avoid doing that.) Also I'm just > curious what are all the things you can do that they don't tell you > about. Nice try. You have to be able to reset the ESN to do this, and that CAN't be done through the keypad. An interesting article appeared in the Dec 18, 1995 issue of the RCR newsletter. The US Secret Service is taking the first person to court in a criminal case involving the set up and use of "extension" phones (these are the ones everyone wants so they can have a second phone with the same number). Make no mistake, this IS illegal. The enforcement is coming, and pretty soon, there will be a large number of folks in the awkward position of digging through their pockets to pay when the piper shows up at their door! ------------------------------ From: tg@chmsr.isye.gatech.edu (T. Govindaraj) Subject: Is Cellular Cloning Legal? Date: 4 Jan 1996 12:55:28 GMT Organization: Center for Human-Machine Systems Research - Georgia Tech My alarm monitoring company tells me that if I have a cellular phone they can program my alarm system to use that account/number as the link to use to communicate with the monitoring company. As far as I know this is illegal, but the monitoring company guy tells me that it is not. Has anything changed? (As a side note, I see notices in many places in Atlanta advertising something like "two cellular phones, one number." Is it time to call the cops? :-) ) govind T. Govindaraj, +1 404 894 3873, 894 2301 (fax) MIME/NeXTmail welcome. ISyE-0205, Georgia Tech, 765 Ferst Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332-0205, USA. Member, League for Programming Freedom (Info from: lpf@uunet.uu.net) http://www.isye.gatech.edu/faculty/T_Govindaraj [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: See the article just ahead of yours in this issue. Some contend cloning is totally illegal while others allow that a best case scenario might be that it is legal under some limited circumstances when the cellular carrier approves of it, if they ever do. My answer: stay away from it. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jan 1996 10:11:41 GMT From: Bill Hensley Subject: Re: Compuserve Censors Usenet Pat: FWIW, I jumped on CompuServe's Usenet service yesterday afternoon to see what the fuss was all about. It apprears to me that most of the alt groups are still accessable; most of the sex-related groups are gone, though. I checked again today, and a What's New item makes reference to "newsgroups that have been deemed pornographic" being blocked. Also FWIW, CIS has announced a series of on-line discussions of cyberlaw issues; the first is tonight at 2100 EST. I'd like to commend you on your response to the subject message. Few people take the time to understand the difference between true censorship and other people and organizations free exercise of _their_ rights; your response makes the distinction very clear. Cheers, Bill Hensley TRW Oklahoma City Engineering Office Bill_Hensley@smtp.rc.trw.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But as you may have read in the past couple of issues, there are some who legitimatly feel we need to use the term in a broader sense, to include any actions which cause someone not to so much to be totally silenced but merely to be inconvenienced to some extent in the propogation of their speech. I do feel the more liberal use of the word 'censor' as debated here yesterday is going to have the effect of muddying up the waters even more than they are already. It is a serious word, and a very serious business; something we need to be very concerned about. It does not help when we have to sort out and argue about the rights of private individuals and organizations to interact with each other as they see fit. Still, our correspondent yesterday raised some good points. If the dictionary is not the supreme judge of what words mean, then I don't know what is. If we cannot rely on our dictionary as he points out, then we are indeed up a creek. I have honestly believed for many years now that ninety -- perhaps ninety-nine -- percent of the troubles and social ills we encounter in the world are due in large part to people **not understanding what each other are saying**. We think we do, but we don't. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 04:00:05 -0800 From: vantek@northcoast.com (VANTEK COMMUNICATIONS) Subject: Last Laugh! Elvisphone Now Available Pat, Thought your readers might find this of some amusement: LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 3, 1996--Consumers will be able to sing, dance and groove with Elvis every time the phone rings. The new ELVIS PRESLEY FIGUREFONE makes its debut at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show (WCES) Jan. 5 - 8 in Las Vegas at booth no. 4757 (Telemania/Kash N' Gold), just as the King celebrates another birthday, Jan. 8. When a call comes in, instead of the standard ring, Elvis comes to life as he sings "Jailhouse Rock" (approximately 26 seconds) and moves like only the King can. The incredibly lifelike animation moves the head, arms, torso, legs and feet to the music. The Elvis Presley FigureFone is a 12" authentically sculpted and dressed Elvis figure on stage, complete with guitar and microphone. There's a full feature telephone handset built into the base, which is Elvis' stage. The styling is quintessential early Elvis as he looked in performance in 1956 -- up on his toes and rockin' with his famous trademark facial expression. Produced by Telemania/Kash N' Gold, the Elvis Presley FigureFone will be available in the summer of 1996 and will retail for about $79. The Elvis Presley FigureFone is under license from Graceland. Van Hefner Publisher Discount Long Distance Digest http://www.webcom.com/longdist/ P.S. If there were a Pat Townson phone, what would it do when it rang? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Enlightened Response: Good question ... what would it do? I'll print some responses in a few days if any come in, provided they are not too crude, rude or lewd. Otherwise, I may have to 'censor' them. Like my competitor {The New York Times}, I only print what fits. Send your 1996 love offerings and other tokens of sincerity to my post office box this week and I may be more inclined to print your abuses in this column. And for the last friggin time, PLEASE quit using the telecom@eecs.nwu.edu address. Mail to that address will start bouncing soon. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #7 **************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Jan 5 15:51:34 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.1/NSCS-1.0S) id PAA03213; Fri, 5 Jan 1996 15:51:34 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 15:51:34 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601052051.PAA03213@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Bcc: Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #8 TELECOM Digest Fri, 5 Jan 96 15:52:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 8 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Is Cellular Cloning Legal? (Bob Keller) Re: Federal Crackdown on Cellular Cloning (Kevin B. Kenny) More on the 10-732 ANI Number (Mark J. Cuccia) Doppler Shift, was Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" (Eric Valentine) Newest COCOT "Tricks" (Van Heffner) 500 Numbers - How Much Longer Do They Have? (Stan Schwartz) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 13:04:47 -0500 From: Bob Keller Subject: Re: Is Cellular Cloning Legal? In TELECOM Digest V16, #7, T. Govindaraj asked: > As a side note, I see notices in many places in Atlanta advertising > something like "two cellular phones, one number." Is it time to call > the cops? Pat, appended below is a brief article I recently wrote on the subject which you may or may not care to run in response to the above question. This article was written for publication in Nuts and Volts magazine -- and I believe it did run there -- but I did not sign away any copyrights, so feel free to run it in the Digest and/or put it in the archives if you wish. Bob Keller (KY3R) Email: rjk@telcomlaw.com Law Office of Robert J. Keller, P.C. Telephone: 202.416.1670 Federal Telecommunications Law Facsimile: 301.229.6875 2000 L Street, N.W. - Suite 200 CompuServe: 76100,3333 Washington, D.C. 20036 http://www.his.com/~rjk/ IF CELLULAR CLONES ARE OUTLAWED, ONLY OUTLAWS WILL HAVE CELLULAR CLONES: (A Critical Review of the FCC Prohibition on Modification of Cellular Unit Electronic Serial Numbers) By Bob Keller (KY3R) Law Office of Robert J. Keller, P.C. Washington, D.C. Among the many rule changes and amendments included in the Federal Communications Commission's recent "re-write" of Part 22 of its Regulations (the section of the FCC rules governing common carrier mobile radio services, e.g., paging, cellular, etc.), is a new Section 22.919 of the Rules. The new regulation, which became effective on January 2, 1995, provides that every cellular telephone must have a unique electronic serial number ("ESN") which may not be modified by any person for any reason after the unit leaves the factory. (See Figure 1 for the full text of Section 22.919 of the FCC Rules.) The stated purpose of the rule is to prevent or reduce fraud that results from the "cloning" (programming a legitimate ESN into a fraudulent unit in order to illegally access a cellular system). But the scope of the regulation goes further and has thus engendered much controversy. No one argues with the proposition that it ought to be illegal to clone cellular phones for the purpose of stealing service or fraudulently accessing cellular accounts. As written, however, Section 22.919 also precludes clearly nonfraudulent uses. It is a violation of Section 22.919, for example, to clone your ESN into a second unit to serve as an "extension" phone, even though you have no intention of using both units at the same time and are willing to pay all usage costs generated by both units. It is also a violation for your own cellular carrier to program the ESN of your broken phone into a loaner unit while repairs are made. Even cellular equipment manufacturers are concerned that the regulation is so narrowly drawn that many design features built into cellular phones are arguably in technical violation. It is not always easy to compose statutes or regulations that include the targeted conduct or situation without also unwittingly encompassing other matters that have nothing to do with the matter at hand. Such problems are frequently addressed after the fact by "interpretation" of the law. The meaning of a proscription can often be viewed in terms of its underlying purpose. Such use of legislative or regulatory history in effect imputes a certain intent to the authors of the law. Should this process not be applied to Section 22.919? Would it not be reasonable to assume that, because the purpose of Section 22.919 is to prevent cellular fraud, the Commission certainly could not have intended by it to proscribe nonfraudulent cloning? Well, there is good news and there is bad news. The good news is we don't have to guess at the FCC's intention. All the right questions were put to and answered by the Commission before the regulation was adopted. The bad news is the FCC's answers to those questions make very little common sense. ESN modification and cellular cloning was a hot issue during the rulemaking proceeding in which the current version of Section 22.919 was adopted. There was no argument with the need to adopt legitimate regulatory measures to address cellular fraud, and there was no objection to rules that prohibited the cloning of cellular phones or the modification of ESNs for fraudulent purposes. But commenters specifically urged the FCC not to draw the rule so narrowly that it precluded either modification or "emulation" of ESNs in order to create nonfraudulent "extension" phones. The Commission considered and squarely rejected these arguments, stating: "[T]he ESN rule will not prevent a consumer from having two cellular telephones with the same telephone number .... We note that Commission rules do not prohibit assignment of the same telephone number to two or more cellular telephones. It is technically possible to have the same telephone number for two or more cellular telephones, each having a unique ESN. If a cellular carrier wishes to provide this service, it may." Thus, with the stroke of a pen the Commission gave the cellular carriers an effective monopoly on the provision of cellular extension phones. The third party programmers of extension units, outlawed by Section 22.919, typically charge a flat fee to program the second phone. With the adoption of Section 22.919, however, many cellular carriers have started to offer two or more phones on the same number -- but they are imposing monthly fees in the $17 to $30 range for this optional service. At those rates many users may decide it is better to simply buy a second cellular account -- and the critics say that is exactly what the cellular carriers intend. The Commission also expressly considered and rejected suggestions that the scope of Section 22.919 be narrowed to permit ESN modification by manufacturers and authorized repair centers. The Commission responded to such suggestions as follows: "[C]omputer software to change ESNs, which is intended to be used only by authorized service personnel, might become available to unauthorized persons through privately operated computer "bulletin boards". We have no knowledge that it is now possible to prevent unauthorized use of such software for fraudulent purposes." That shows how far wide of the mark is the Commission's thinking on this whole issue. Can the FCC -- the agency attributed with the expertise in electronic telecommunications matters -- actually believe that by making it unlawful to modify ESNs they will prevent thieves from acquiring the means to do so? Are they really ignorant of how relatively simple (not necessarily inexpensive, but simple) it is to clone an ESN? There is an entire underworld industry for the laundering of stolen ESNs. The footsoldiers set up their sniffing monitors at airports, convention centers, busy highway interchanges, etc., and collect thousands of ESNs off the air from unwitting cellular users. The numbers are programmed into cellular phones and put on the street through a black market network. The units are frequently recognized as fraudulent and deactivated within days or even hours of their deployment, but not before many hours cellular airtime and long distance usage (potentially including extensive international long distance) has been misappropriated. Canceling the fraudulent account is easy -- finding the fraudulent unit and its user is not. The Commission certainly can not believe that such a lucrative operation is going to be hampered in the least by an FCC regulation making it unlawful to modify ESNs. The perpetrators of these cloning schemes knowingly and willingly assume the risk of violating many criminal statutes with potential penalties far more serious than non-compliance with an FCC policy. Section 22.919 can not rationally be excepted to have any significant effect on cellular fraud. It does, however, preclude totally nonfraudulent uses by honest members of the public. It also gives the cellular carriers a monopoly on the provision of cellular "extension" phones. This is a curious ruling for an agency that recently has been using "competition" as a mantra. Over the past few decades the FCC has consistently struck down telephone company tariff provision that precludes a uses of the telephone service that are privately beneficial to the subscriber without being harmful to the network or other users. Arguably, Section 22.919 fails under that test! The final chapter has not yet been written. The Commission received several petitions for reconsideration and clarification of Section 22.919. The matter is still under consideration, and at last report and ruling was anticipated by the end of the year. If the FCC does not adopt significant modifications to the rule, an appeal to federal court may be mounted by some industry players. In the meantime, the regulation remains on the books -- an obstacle to honest users, but an entirely insignificant, if even noticed, "finger shaking" at the crooks. - rjk - ======== Figure 1 ======== 47 C.F.R. Section 22.919 --------------------------------- 22.919 Electronic serial numbers. The Electronic Serial Number (ESN) is a 32 bit binary number that uniquely identifies a cellular mobile transmitter to any cellular system. (a) Each mobile transmitter in service must have a unique ESN. (b) The ESN host component must be permanently attached to a main circuit board of the mobile transmitter and the integrity of the unit's operating software must not be alterable. The ESN must be isolated from fraudulent contact and tampering. If the ESN host component does not contain other information, that component must not be removable, and its electrical connections must not be accessible. If the ESN host component contains other information, the ESN must be encoded using one or more of the following techniques: (1) Multiplication or division by a polynomial; (2) Cyclic coding; (3) The spreading of ESN bits over various nonsequential memory locations. (c) Cellular mobile equipment must be designed such that any attempt to remove, tamper with, or change the ESN chip, its logic system, or firmware originally programmed by the manufacturer will render the mobile transmitter inoperative. (d) The ESN must be factory set and must not be alterable, transferable, removable or otherwise able to be manipulated in the field. Cellular equipment must be designed such that any attempt to remove, tamper with, or change the ESN chip, its logic system, or firmware originally programmed by the manufacturer will render the mobile transmitter inoperative. ========== A Side Bar ========== Section 22.919 in all of its technical detail was adopted in late 1994 and did not officially become effective until January of 1995. The FCC has had a policy prohibiting ESN modification, however, since the earliest incarnation of its cellular regulations. Here is the full text of an FCC Public Notice explaining the policy as it existed prior to adoption of Section 22.919. ---------- PUBLIC NOTICE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION COMMON CARRIER PUBLIC MOBILE SERVICES INFORMATION October 2, 1991 Report No. CL-92-3 CHANGING ELECTRONIC SERIAL NUMBERS ON CELLULAR PHONES IS A VIOLATION OF THE COMMISSION'S RULES It has come to the attention of the Mobile Services Division that individuals and companies may be altering the Electronic Serial Number (ESN) on cellular phones. Paragraph 2.3.2 in OST Bulletin No. 53 (Cellular System Mobile Station - Land Station Compatibility Specification, July, 1983) states that "[a]ttempts to change the serial number circuitry should render the mobile station inoperative." The 1981 edition of these compatibility specifications (which contains the same wording) was included as Appendix D in CC Docket 79-318 and is incorporated into Section 22.915 of the Commission's rules. Phones with altered ESNs do not comply with the Commission's rules and any individual or company operating such phones or performing such alterations is in violation of Section 22.915 of the Commission's rules and could be subject to appropriate enforcement action. Questions concerning this Public Notice should be addressed to Steve Markendorff at 202-653-5560 or Andrew Nachby at 202-632-6450. Bob Keller (KY3R) mailto:rjk@telcomlaw.com Law Office of Robert J. Keller, P.C. http://www.his.com/~rjk Federal Telecommunications Law Telephone 202.416.1670 ------------------------------ From: Kevin B. Kenny Subject: Re: Federal Crackdown on Cellular Cloning Date: Fri, 05 Jan 1996 12:15:07 -0500 Organization: GE Corporate R&D, Manufacturing Technologies Lab Clifford D. McGlamry wrote: > An interesting article appeared in the Dec 18, 1995 issue of the RCR > newsletter. The US Secret Service is taking the first person to court > in a criminal case involving the set up and use of "extension" phones > (these are the ones everyone wants so they can have a second phone > with the same number). Make no mistake, this IS illegal. The > enforcement is coming, and pretty soon, there will be a large number > of folks in the awkward position of digging through their pockets to > pay when the piper shows up at their door! I'm curious. Would it be possible to set up a value-added service to support `extension cellphones?' The idea would be to have THREE phone numbers: the numbers of the two cellphones and the number of the group. When someone calls the number of the group, a machine picks up and places calls, simultaneously, to the two cellphones. The first call to complete wins, and the other call gets dropped. A smart PABX could probably arrange to see that the inbound call doesn't supervise until the outbound call does. Feasible? Kevin ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 09:28:00 CST From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: More on the 10-732 ANI Number Recently I mentioned that the AT&T's special network 10-732 code's ANI number had been changed from 404 to 770, conforming to the split of 404 into a smaller 404 and new 770. I also mentioned that there was also a second ANI number in 10-732 using Pittsburgh's 412 area code, but I didn't know it off hand. 10-732-1-412-369-3106 The Atlanta area number is now: 10-732-1-770-988-9664 ^^^ 770-988 is in Smyrna GA while 412-369 is in Perrysville PA. The 412 number is probably better to use from the Atlanta local (flat rate) calling area (which is probably one of the largest geographically, population-size *and* in number of Central Office (NXX) codes available. Based on what I've been told by friends in the Atlanta area, BellSouth does *not* allow use of 10-XXX (101-XXXX) over-ride calls for calling NPA-NXX codes which are local to the caller. (It is also that way here in Louisiana). 770-988 (previously 404-988) Smyrna is local within the Atlanta area, and therefore, 10-732/101-0732+ (1) 404/770 988-9664 was/is not allowed by BellSouth's exchanges in the Atlanta local calling area. BTW, from my cellular phone, I don't have to insert the `1' between the 10-732 and the (404)/770 or 412 (the cellular system translates the digits entered okay, since I am also using the `end' key). But please note: from both cellular phones *and* POTS landline phones, using a `0' (i.e. 10-732-0+NPA-NXX-XXXX) will route you to AT&T's OSPS operator services if the LEC switch accepts the NPA-NXX code. I have also dialed 1-770-988-9664 and 1-412-369-3106 without the 10-732/101-0732 and also with other 10-XXX/101-XXXX codes. I've *always* received a busy signal. I doubt that there is *anything* locally assigned to these Smyrna GA & Perrysville PA numbers. And using 10-732/101-0732+1+ on *other* ten digit numbers I've dialed *always* routes me to the recording: `You have reached a private network. To complete long-distance calls, you must be authorized by your account team or long-distance sales representative. You may dial 10-288-1 plus the number you desire to call.' MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ From: exueric@exu.ericsson.se (Eric Valentine) Subject: Doppler Shift, was Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" Date: 5 Jan 1996 14:47:17 GMT Organization: Ericsson North America Inc. Reply-To: exueric@exu.ericsson.se In article 7@massis.lcs.mit.edu, oz@paranoia.com writes: > Well, sorta wrong at least. There is a "technical challenge" that > needs to be overcome to make PCS phones operate when moving at high > speeds relative to the base station. The Doppler Effect is about 2 Bingo. Got me. I went into it with the mindset of handover overloads which has straightforward solutions, for instance using hierarchical cells. What speeds are we talking about and what is the direct consequence (dropped calls?) of the Doppler shift? Is this a problem in DCS1800 networks (I haven't heard that it is). Eric Valentine ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 02:10:22 -0800 From: vantek@northcoast.com (VANTEK COMMUNICATIONS) Subject: Newest COCOT "Tricks" Pat, I am not quite sure how long this has been going on, but I just found out about it recently. I haven't personally seen any of these COCOT phones locally, but I understand that they are becoming widespread at new installations. It will be interesting to see what MCI and AT&T do to combat this issue ... NATIONAL Jan 4, 1996 (DLD DIGEST) -- MISSING LETTERS? The next time you use a private payphone, look closely ... the newest "trend" in private (COCOT) payphones are phones which have numbers on the buttons, but not the corresponding letters (i.e. 2 = ABC, 3 = DEF, etc.). The reason? Payphone owners are losing so much money from dial-around services such as 1-800-COLLECT and 1-800-CALL-ATT that they have started removing letters from their pushbutton phones so that consumers will not be able to call these services. Most people can not remember which letters correspond with a particular number on a telephone without looking directly at it. Callers wishing to use these alternate collect services usually end-up having to Dial "0" to make the call, which is then handled by an Alternate Operator Service chosen by the payphone owner. These services often have exhorbanant per-minute rates and surcharges, much of which is paid as a commission to the COCOT owner. Van Hefner Editor Discount Long Distance Digest http://www.webcom.com/longdist/ ------------------------------ From: Stan Schwartz Subject: 500 Numbers - How Much Longer Do They Have? Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 21:48:25 -0500 I know we've touched on the subject before, but I finally saw it with my own eyes last weekend, late at night on cable: "Girls are waiting to talk to you ... only $3.99 per minute ... call 1-500-319- ...." How long before I can't dial my AT&T 500 number from most phones in the world? I had an EasyReach 700 number at one time but I dropped it, frustrated that it didn't work in many places (one of them being Rochester, NY, where the LEC (Frontier) didn't see it necessary to upgrade their software to complete 700 calls). I recently moved and I my job requires me to be at different locations. It was very handy to have a 500 number that was programmable and would bounce from location-to-location until it either reached me or hit my voice mail. Even my 66-year-old technologically-impaired mother was able to reach me without having to dial all over the southeast (I cheated with her, though -- I programmed the number into her CO-based Speed-Call-8). If the FCC and BellCore and all parties involved were able to agree on "Free for the call" 800 and 888 services (other threads not withstanding), why couldn't someone force their hand at agreeing to an NPA that would be a "minimal charge" (under $.50 or $1.00 per minute) NPA??? Did they all just shoot each other in the feed again? Does anyone use 700 anymore, or is it permanently tainted? How long before they kill the 400 NPA? Just ranting ... Stan [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: At least 500 has something which was missing in 700: the ability to one plus it or zero plus it with differing results. That does allow more flexibility, plus the ability (by zero plussing) to reverse the charges which 700 had also with its pin numbers. But with 700 you always had to add the 10288 part if you were not already a customer of AT&T. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #8 **************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jan 9 09:43:02 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.1/NSCS-1.0S) id JAA28869; Tue, 9 Jan 1996 09:43:02 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 09:43:02 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601091443.JAA28869@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Bcc: Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #9 TELECOM Digest Tue, 9 Jan 96 09:42:30 EST Volume 16 : Issue 9 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Using the Telecom Archives (TELECOM Digest Editor) Receiving the Digest via Email (TELECOM Digest Editor) Who are ACG and Tel America, Inc? (Bill Price) 800 Number Abuse Question Answered (Allen Kass) Re: 800 Number Abuse Question (Clarence Dold) Re: Compuserve Censors Usenet (Ross E. Mitchell) Fridays are Free With Sprint (Les Reeves) Inter@ctive Week Article About FCC "ISP Tax" (Kevin Mitchell) Forbidden Cellular NXXs (Tony Harminc) Computer Telephony Expo 96 (Palent9999@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 America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 20:47:36 EST From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Using the Telecom Archives I have received various complaints from people who say getting into the Telecom Archives is quite difficult ... and I agree that it is. We have experimented with the number of simultaneous connections to be allowed with various results. Like everything else about the net these days, it seems traffic to various ftp/web sites has increased tremendously. Originally (meaning when the archives was moved onto this dedicated machine a few months ago) it was set for 25-30 simultaneous connections. This resulted in constant 'busy signals' with users almost constantly being refused connection. The allowable number of connections was moved up to 50 and that alleviated the traffic jam for just a short while but it soon picked up again, so the allowable limit was set at 75. That 75 ftp users at a time limit soon maxed out and again got us to the point of constant busy signals or connection refused to additional users. We would have none the less left it at 75 but that resulted in constant disk activity and a massive degradation in other system performance. It was *s l o w* attempting to do any work at all on this machine with that many users constantly on ftp. Now we are back at 35 users allowed at any one time which provides a compromise I can live with -- I think -- between users wanting files and my ability to work here also. During the past two weeks the system crashed several times. It got so backlogged in stuff and wrapped up in what it was doing that it just completely shut down. There were times that 'uptime' was reporting loads of more than 40. I did not misplace the decimal ... I mean forty. One night just before a crash the load was in excess of one hundred. Right now as I write this, despite the fact that I am the only 'user' on the workstation, the various ftp connections have the load at 1.55 which still slows me down a lot, but I can live with it. There are also people who for whatever reason establish an ftp connection here and then just sit there all day doing little or nothing. Or maybe they are getting the same stalled and sluggish reactions that I am which causes their sessions to go on and on without ever coming to an end. It is hard for me to believe there are that many people demanding so much stuff from the archives, but apparently they are. So in addition to limiting the connections now to 35, a cron job comes along at five in the morning and automatically dumps off all ftp users, so we can start out fresh each day. What you can do: If you get a 'connection refused' message, just keep trying over and over. Bang at it repeatedly until you jump in on a vacant connection. Do not put it aside and come back in an hour; you will get the same all-busy results -- it is almost guaranteed. If it is possible for you to do your ftp connections in the early morning hours, I recommend that. It seems to be least busy in the hours of 5-8 AM Eastern time, probably because the cron job just finished doing a housecleaning. If you can't be up and around at that hour, try running a cron job of your own. You should all have copies of the archives directory which are reasonably up to date. The other thing you can do is make use of the Telecom Archives Email Information Service. This is not just for people without ftp ability; it is for anyone who wants to use it. You can retrieve any number of files as quick as it takes for email to get here, be processed by the TAEIS script and returned to you by email; many times in just seconds, or a minute or two. Every new user who is added to the mailing list gets a copy of the TAEIS help file, and if you don't have one you only need to ask. I do not have any other solution at the present time, but I did want to let everyone know I am aware of the massive logjams that have been occurring when attempting to ftp here. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 21:22:41 EST From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Receiving the Digest via Email Now let me address another problem which has been a thorn in my side for awhile ... the number of complaints which have been coming in from people saying the Digest has not been arriving in a timely way. Some have written to say they have not received it at all for several days at a time. You *should be* getting ten to fifteen issues of the Digest every week. Typically in mid-week, two or three issues in one day is not uncommon as output here. When I have investigated the delivery complaints, time and again I find a mailer daemon for the user in question saying that 'connection refused by xx' or 'service unavailable at xx'. In other words, your site for some reason is saying to my site that you cannot accept the mail at that time, and for whatever reason, everytime this site calls on yours, you are refusing the mail. Another problem is the mailers (yours and or mine) will hang, and eventually time out. If you are not getting the Digest in a regular way as mentioned above (do NOT write two weeks after the fact and ask me if I have published any issues in the past two weeks ... the answer is yes, at least 20-30 issues) then please ask your sysadmin to see if his logs indicate for some reason the mail was bounced. That is not to say there are not possible problems here -- I beleive there are -- but they seem to be very pervasive at times. The other thing is, I honestly do not know what to do when a mailing list becomes as large as this one has. The people near the bottom of a list alphabetically sorted by site name (for maximum speed and effeciency in running sendmail) are always going to be hours away from delivery, and the amount of time required for delivery increases daily as new names are added and sorted into the list. I am typically seeing a net increase of ten new subscribers per day; that is, the number of 'adds' to the list minus the number of 'deletes' removed off the list. At any given time of the day or night here, 24 hours per day, there is always one or more invocations of sendmail running doing delivery of the Digest. Anytime I examine the mailq, I find one or two thousand names there waiting for sendmail to make delivery on. Then maybe sendmail gets cranky and shuts down completely for several minutes to an hour; maybe there is network congestion at other points which cause it to hang or other problems such as the entire system crashing due to the excessive demands on ftp. I have tried breaking the list into smaller pieces and running three or four invocations of sendmail at one time, but that only adds to the overall sluggishness of the machine as sendmail sits there fighting with the ftp users over who is going to get the next machine cycle. :( So if your site name begins with an 'x' or 'y' or 'z' I am sorry that this message may not reach you for eighteen hours after it was written. Those of you who know something of how mailing lists operate know that all the names on the list are inserted into the 'bcc:' so that recipients don't have to sit through screen after screen of subscriber names in the envelope before the actual text starts flowing. Ihave sat here and watched the mailer take upwards of 15-20 minutes just to merely load the 'bcc:' before it started the actual distribution. Like Northwestern, MIT is very generous with me on resources. I can invoke sendmail day and night in massive quantities for all they care and entertain as many ftp connections as possible. But there are technical limits to things, and right now I just do not know where to turn next at resolving some of the lengthy delays many of you are experiencing. I am in this for the long term as most of you know; and perhaps we are just going to have to wait it out until a few million of the newcomers in recent months get tired and/or bored and unplug their computers for good, if they ever do. Someone suggested perhaps a mirror site could be found for the archives to relieve a little of the crunch here, and if anyone wants to do that, let me know. In the meantime, if you write to me about long delays on ftp and long delays on receiving my email, be assured I am seeing all those letters even if I do not write back in response ... mainly because I have no solution at present, and nothing to really say in response other than I am sorry and fully aware of how things are going. PAT ------------------------------ From: BPRICE@MPA15AB.MV.UNISYS.COM Date: 08 JAN 96 18:10:00 GMT Subject: Who are ACG and Tel America, Inc? A friend of my wife has appoached us to sign on with Tel America, Inc. T/A's literature identifies themselves as having some association with ACG, whoever they are. They deny that they are a multi-level marketing operation, but all I've seen in their literature just screams "multi- level" and "scam" to me. They peddle prepaid cards, pagers and paging services, and a business-phone service with 800 numbers through MCI. The business rates seem to be in the $.15/minute range; the card rates seem to be $.33/minute. The cards seem to be bundled with down-line salesman slots: pay $100, get one card and a license to sign up two people; for $300, you get three cards and four licenses; $700, seven cards and eight licenses. They also mention a Voice Mail offering. All that I have said above comes from a brief encounter with some random- looking marketing literature. The literature extols the virtues of their marketing plan, with only scant mention of products and services: this is typical of a scam, though not definitive. They do mention an "LNX 2000" switch as their major asset. T/A gives an address in Oakland, CA. Can anyone report on Tel America and ACG? What's the LNX 2000, and what's it good for? Bill Price "To DO the impossible, you must first THINK the unthinkable." (courtesy Ian Farbrother) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 15:02:35 -0500 From: Allen Kass Subject: 800 Number Abuse Question Answered Pat, I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for your interest and information about a question that I submitted a week or so back about 800 number abuse. I have really gotten an education in the past few days. Both from yourself, several other readers that have replied and from AT&T and Cable & Wireless. Fortunately, we did find out the "source" of this recent problem. Would you believe that one of our weekend part-timer news department operators was convinced that she should transfer an incoming 800 call to another outside line. The caller posed as another radio station needing a "special feed" and then instructed the operator to transfer his call to a 900 number not once but our SMDR indicates at least 15 separate time using at least four different sets in the news department. The 800 number appears on all the sets in the news department. We have changed all passwords and remote access codes and we have also limited what states (area codes) can call into this 800 number. We have also checked the progamming on all public access phones in the building and removed several features and added restriction to help prevent this from happening again. We have also put out a memo to the entire staff explaining that they are not to transfer any calls outside the building for any reason without the permission of their department head. These people have been explained the problem in great detail so that they can instruct the staffs. Again thanks for all the help and information. Regards, Allen Kass, Chief Engineer WRVQ Radio Q94 Richmond, VA. Voice: 804-756-6481 Fax: 804-755-6077 Email: allenk@richmond.infi.net Home page: http://www.infi.net/~allenk/index.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are quite welcome Allen. That is the purpose of my being here day after day; to help educate people on the topic of 'The Telephone Company' and all its manifestations. Stick around and learn some more. All of us, including myself, share through the collected wisdom of the group. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Clarence Dold Subject: Re: 800 Number Abuse Question Date: 8 Jan 1996 18:08:54 GMT Organization: a2i network TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > that this exists on their PBX; they were never told about it when > the PBX was installed, or if they were, they never were told how to Every PBX or voicemail system that we install has this ability turned off. It is irresponsible for a vendor to do anything else. If there are digital announcers on the system, we turn the ability off there as well. Some systems have maintenance features that answer the phone after 15 rings, for maintenance access at night. These are password protected, or they are on lines that only rnig under special configurations that we have the customer enable the night we need to get in. Again, it is irresponsible to expose your customers to such a gaping security hole. I know it happens, but I think there is some culpability on the part of the installing company. In our case, we handle the long distance traffic for most of our hardware customers, so I suspect that they would refuse to pay us, if an exposure was our fault. Clarence A Dold - dold@rahul.net - Pope Valley & Napa CA. ------------------------------ From: rem@world.std.com (Ross E Mitchell) Subject: Re: Compuserve Censors Usenet Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 18:41:45 GMT I think it's important to point out, for the record, that I agree that Compuserve has the right to decide what to carry and what not to carry. My argument was only with PAT's requirement for restricting the meaning of the term "censorship" to government-imposed censorship. My own view is that Compuserve's censoring of newsgroups is perfectly appropriate; as a private company it is under no obligation to provide a forum for all points of view. People who disagree are always free to leave the service, as PAT points out. It is interesting to note that when a company does edit material, it leaves itself open to charges of libel when it permits libelous material to remain on its service. This recently happened to Prodigy. The court ruled that since Prodigy had taken on the responsibility of deleting objectionable material, it had also taken on the responsibility of ensuring that what remained did not libel others. This responsibility, as I recall, would not have applied had Prodigy exercised no editorial control, much as the phone companies are not responsible for crimes committed through the use of their services. In the case of Compuserve, I wonder if this rationale could be extended to cover material contained in newsgroups it chooses to continue to carry. Personally, I think they're safe there. Ross Mitchell ------------------------------ From: lreeves@crl.com (Les Reeves) Subject: Fridays are Free With Sprint Date: 8 Jan 1996 12:25:54 -0800 Organization: CR Labs Fridays are FREE Sprint has gone nuts. Their beancounters have consumed too much champagne. They are offering a limited time (through 2-27-96) offer that may be just the ticket for you TD readers who lust for the days of free toll calls. The offer is available for all customers (residence or business) who call 800.347.3300 You sign up for Sprint Business Sense, which gives a flat rate of $0.16 / minute. This is a good rate during the day. It is a bit high after 5:00 pm, and many carriers will give you < $0.16 / minute with no strings attached. But wait, there's more. FRIDAYS ARE FREE !! No kidding. Free to anywhere. Anywhere means International anywhere. So, you get a $50 per month minimum bill from Sprint. They limit you to $1000 in *FREE* Friday calling per month. Let's give those beancounters a headache. Sign up now. Les lreeves@crl.com Atlanta,GA 404.874.7806 -- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Les and I discussed this at length on the phone a couple days ago. According to Sprint's literature, they will give you a year of free calls on Friday up to a thousand dollars per month. That works out to $12,000 in calls for $600 (50*12) in charges. The best part is, the $50 minimum per month can be taken out of the free calls on Friday. I am not sure if you have to default one of your lines to them or not. I don't think you do, and as Les points out, both business and residence phones are eligible. So if you like the idea of getting a bill once a month for $50 from Sprint while holding as many of your LD calls as possible for Friday where you have 24 hours once a week for a year to jam them all in, then you should sign up. Indeed, I think Sprint has gone nuts. Is this promotion going to turn out to be another fiasco for them like their 'free fax modem' offer? I would say $11,400 in free calls over a year's time is going to be just that, especially if multiplied by many thousands of new customers. I imagine they are betting that no one user can wrack up a thousand dollars in calls in a month's time on Friday alone. I think if we held over all those hours-long international calls each week and always made them on Friday we could. What would really be the pits for Sprint would be if we used them for nothing at all but Friday free calls, took that thousand in calls each month and cheerfully sent them their required check for $50 in payment. The bottom line is ($12,000 minus $600) = $11,400. I guess Sprint thinks they are going to win on this; that you will be so enamored of their service that you will make calls via their network the other six days of the week as well ... Sign up today: 800-347-3300. Sound enthusiastic, don't ask too many questions or make too many smart comments. Just sign up ... then show them what 'totally free calling' on Friday's is all about for the next year. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Inter@ctive week article about FCC "ISP Tax" Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 16:24:11 CST From: Kevin Mitchell Pat, I found the Inter@ctive week article about the "ISP Tax". The URL is: http://www.zdnet.com/~intweek/print/951218/upfront/doc11.html IMHO, the FCC is up to its usual misunderstanding of what's going on. I don't think that Internet phone service is going to displace real long distance use ... nobody has a terminal hooked up 24 hours a day waiting for a call. It's a novelty. For a long time, most long distance calls will be carried on regular old telephone sets. If the long distance companies are in such danger, and if the true cost of transmitting the spoken voice is really so low, then they should face the competition. Adapt or die. When we read that the FCC must "address the real potential economic impact" on the Bells, we're talking corporate welfare. Which, loosely translated, means that the government takes _your_ money without your consent and gives it to a _profitable_ corporation to allow that corporation to continue to exist where it otherwise might have to adapt to the new reality. Without harming that corporation's precious stock prices. Of course, if all the ISPs go out of business due to this tax, nobody cares. Except, perhaps, the local telco who wants to sell you the same service, priced by the byte. Oh yeah, and the price will be orders of magnitude more than the real costs. Not to mention that the application of this tax is discriminatory. ISPs and their users pay all the appropriate fees under the tariffs. An additional tax burdens the _other_ users of the Internet as much or more than it burdens the IPhone users. Corbitt is so worried about nonmodem phone users, but what about non-IPhone Internet users? And if my ISP leases a T1 from the telco and I make a call with a modem, who _cares_ what kind of information goes across it? All the applicable fees are paid. I'm hoping that the Netizens will rise up as they usually do and let their representatives and the FCC know that they oppose this kind of haphazard, discriminatory, and counterproductive regulation. Kevin A. Mitchell, developer of GIFConverter for the Macintosh Personal: kam@mcs.net http://www.mcs.net/~kam/home.html GIFConverter: kam@kamit.com or kam@kagi.com http://www.kamit.com/gifconverter.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 09 Jan 96 03:39:15 EST From: Tony Harminc Subject: Forbidden Cellular NXXs Some months ago, in reply to a slightly different topic, I mentioned that there are certain CO prefixes that cannot reliably be used as AMPS cellular NXXs. I just came across the list, and since several people had asked me to post it, here it is. The problem in brief is that the FOrward Control Channel (FOCC) data stream begins with an 11 bit "word sync" sequence 11100010010. This sequence is followed by 40 bit words, which encode all sorts of control and addressing information from the central station to the mobiles. It is possible for certain data, when encoded into the 40 bit words, to cause the word sync pattern to appear in the data, and thus possibly confuse a mobile attempting to synchronize on the data stream. Normally this is not a serious problem, since the mobile will quickly realize that it isn't sync'd, and will try again. But if many repeats of the false word sync sequence occur in the data, mobiles will have trouble reliably synching. One way that many repeats could occur is if a certain NXX code used for many mobiles in the area, when encoded in 40 bit format, and combined with other possible control information in the words, contains the word sync sequence. Since many phones with that NXX are likely to be paged if this is their home area, the sequence could be sent out very frequently. I have listed only the NXX and where relevent the thousands digit that cause problems, and not the detailed bit patterns that result. Many of these NXXs are invalid in the North American phone system, but are included for completeness. NXX Thousands digit NXX Thousands digit 175 0 to 9 595 8, 9, 0 176 0 to 9 851 8, 9, 0 177 0 to 9 007 8, 9, 0 178 0 to 9 150 2 179 0 to 9 224 2 170 0 to 9 288 2 181 0 to 9 352 2 182 0 to 9 416 2 663 0 to 9 470 2 664 0 to 9 544 2 665 0 to 9 508 2 666 0 to 9 672 2 899 0 to 9 736 2 800 0 to 9 790 2 909 0 to 9 864 2 568 1 to 7 928 2 070 1 to 7 992 2 339 8, 9, 0 056 2 In summary: usable prefixes 663, 664, 665, 666, 899, 800, and 909 are dangerous with any nnnn suffix, while certain others are OK with some suffixes and dangerous with others. I imagine cellular operators will simply avoid all of them. Note that the devil will never have an AMPS cellphone ... This information is from document RSS 118 (Annex A) "Cellular System Mobile Station - Land Station Compatibility Standard", dated Oct. 22, 1983, published by the DOC in Ottawa. Although it's an old document, I'd be very surprised if this restriction has changed, since the data formats are so fundamental to cellular operation. Tony Harminc ------------------------------ From: palent9999@aol.com (Palent9999) Subject: Computer Telephony Expo 96 Date: 8 Jan 1996 15:28:36 -0500 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: palent9999@aol.com (Palent9999) Come to the BIGGEST Computer Telephony Show in the world! ---- 98 hours of seminars ---- 36 hours of Killer App Theaters ---- 263 speakers ---- 341+ exhibitors plus wonder demos from Harry Newton's secret vault ... OVER 70,000 DOLLARS WORTH OF DOOR PRIZES, INCLUDING A BRAND NEW NISSAN 200SX!!! Why another show? Computer telephony is hot, brimming with opportunities for users, resellers, system integrators and entrepreneurs. CT Expo 96 is the fastest-growing computer show in North America. In 1991, we had 67 exhibitors. In 1996, we have over 360. In 1996, we have twice 1995's booth area -- the equivalent of 1070 10' X 10' booths. CT Expo 96 is the only computer show you'll find booths from telecom vendors -- Ameritech, AT&T, Comdial, Fujitsu, Harris Digital, NEC, Northern Telecom, Mitel, Pacific Bell, Rockwell, Toshiba, and Siemens/Rolm. CT Expo 96 is the only telecom show you'll find booths from computer companies -- Apple, Artisoft, Cirrus Logic, Delrina, Force, HP, IBM, Intel, Lotus, Microsoft, Novell, QNX, SCO, Sun, Unisys, and Xircom. CT Expo 96 is the only show you'll find computer telephony companies -- Active Voice, Amtelco, Apex, Bicom, Brooktrout, Dialogic, Diamond, Excel, Mitel, Natural MicroSystems, Parity, Octel, Rhetorex, Stylus, Talx, TRT, and Wildfire. CT Expo 96 is your only chance in 1996 to see this exploding new industry, to hear and to meet with all the industry's experts -- all under one roof. This is a rare opportunity. I urge you to come Visit our web site to fill out a free exhibit hall registration form. For more information, check out www.ctexpo.com or 1-800-999-0345 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #9 **************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 10 16:11:06 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.1/NSCS-1.0S) id QAA22250; Wed, 10 Jan 1996 16:11:06 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 16:11:06 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601102111.QAA22250@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Bcc: Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #10 TELECOM Digest Wed, 10 Jan 96 16:11:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 10 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson News Release in TC94-121 (Steve Wegman) News: ISDN Moves To The Burbs (Mike King) Cellular Fraud Suspects Arrested in Santa Fe (Tad Cook) Continuing Poor Service for CO/NY Customers Poughkeepsie (Doug Reuben) Interesting Vanity 800 Number, 1-800-BANTING (Nigel Allen) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Wegman, Steve Subject: News Release in TC94-121 Date: Tue, 09 Jan 96 08:35:00 PST NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Leni Hook 1/8/96 605-773-3201 PUC AND U S WEST AGREE ON DEVELOPMENT PLAN; RATE INCREASE PIERRE, SD -- The South Dakota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) today approved a Settlement between U S WEST Communications, Inc. (U S WEST) and the Commission staff. The Settlement covers all of U S WEST's South Dakota service territory, except those exchanges previously approved for sale by the PUC. The Settlement received unanimous approval by South Dakota's three Public Utility Commissioners, Chairman Ken Stofferahn, Vice-Chairman Jim Burg, and Commissioner Laska Schoenfelder. It includes $25 million in infrastructure development; a competition-oriented pricing structure; elimination of all touch-tone charges; and a rate adjustment phased in over 36 months. "This was among the most important decisions the PUC has ever made," said Stofferahn, who added, "Every square mile of South Dakota will now have access to the most advanced telecommunications services available anywhere." "Telecommunications is capable of extending telemedicine and distance learning to every South Dakota community," said Stofferahn. "With this $25 million investment, we will do just that," he said. Combined with the current infrastructures of U S WEST, South Dakota's Independent and Cooperative telephone companies, and the South Dakota Network (SDN), this new investment will make it even more possible for emergency, diagnostic, and prescribed care to be administered remotely from a regional medical center to any community where basic health care facilities are located. Regardless of its location, every public school can also use this same infrastructure to enhance classroom education through remote interaction with a regional education center. In addition to the infrastructure development, the Settlement includes a $2 million Distance Learning Initiative for public schools, Distance Learning training grants, a discount for state government to defray a portion of the state's education network costs, statewide deployment of Caller ID and other advanced custom calling features, full replacement of multi-party lines with one-party service, expansion of fiber-optics and local access to the internet. "By investing $25 million in this state for these and other upgrades, South Dakota will enjoy access to leading-edge technologies and all the benefits it may bring," said Stofferahn. U S WEST is a legal monopoly, and by statute allowed to recover its fully allocated cost of service through customer rates. Under traditional regulation, the PUC determines the cost of service and orders the utility to charge exactly that amount. According to Stofferahn, a nationwide movement toward competition requires a new regulatory approach. The Settlement still sets a cost of service based price ceiling for U S WEST, but allows downward-flexing of customer rates to remain competitive. "We have not approved a general rate increase for U S WEST since 1985. This Settlement allows an increase, but with a price ceiling below the cost of service, and a three-year phase-in," he said. The three-phase customer rate adjustment will occur in 18-month intervals, with a maximum price ceiling of $19.35 for basic residential customer rates. The first phase, effective on February 12, 1996, will affect customers in the following ways: Residents living within or close to city limits who do not have touch-tone service will have a monthly increase of $2.45. Residents living within or close to city limits who already have touch-tone service will experience a net monthly increase of 95 cents after elimination of the touch-tone charge. Approximately 30,000 residents receiving touch-tone and one-party service, and who live outside city limits, will experience a net monthly decrease of $2.05 after elimination of the Outside the Base Rate Area (OBRA) and touch-tone charges. Business customers who do not have touch-tone service will have a monthly increase of $2.75 per line. Business customers who already have touch-tone will experience a net monthly increase of 75 cents per line. The second phase adjustment is scheduled 18 months after the first. This adjustment limits the rate increase to not more than $2.10 for all customers who have not reached the $19.35 ceiling. However, the second and third increases will only occur if U S WEST shows clear improvement in its service quality performance. The third phase of not more than $2.10 is allowable under the plan 36 months after the first adjustment, provided that customer rates have not reached the ceiling. Business customers will also experience second and third phase increases during this 36-month period, provided that the business basic rate ceiling of $38.40 is not exceeded. "I firmly believe this plan and its corresponding investment completes the basic infrastructure necessary to meet South Dakota's needs for voice, data and video communications for decades to come," said Stofferahn, who added, "We have accomplished this without including the $25 million investment in the customer's rate base. In other words, this is a U S WEST corporate investment which will not be recovered through basic customer rates." (A copy of the investment plan may be obtained by contacting the PUC.) ------------------------------ From: mk@TFS.COM (Mike King) Subject: News: ISDN Moves To The Burbs Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 10:51:50 PST Forwarded FYI to the Digest: Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 10:45:10 -0800 From: Tom Tinnes To: news-list@list.pactel.com NEWS FROM PACIFIC BELL: ISDN Moves To The Burbs Pacific Bell Responds to Major Geographic Shift in User Base FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 4, 1996 For more information, contact Mary Hancock/Pacific Telesis Group 415 394-3620 or mghanco@legsf.pacbell.com As Californians become comfortable in cyberspace, they are asking for more: more bandwidth, more speed and the ability to do more than one task at a time. People everywhere are getting up on the Internet, tuning in to telecommuting from home and dipping their toes into virtual meetings via videoconference. As a result, demand is exploding for ISDN lines that can deliver speed and functionality at a reasonable price -- right to the home. But this technology isn't just on the move. It's moving to the suburbs. In the past ten months alone, Pacific Bell has experienced an amazing 200 percent growth in the number of ISDN lines installed in California. Of 60,000 total lines, nearly 30 percent are located three or more miles away from the nearest ISDN-equipped central office, with the remaining 70 percent concentrated close to central offices in metro areas. Compare that to last year's statistics showing that only 5 percent of installations occurred three miles out, for a 95 percent metro concentration, and a clear geographic shift emerges. Pacific Bell projects that, by the year 2000, more than 70 percent of ISDN lines will be in homes for business or personal use. Customers are continually finding more uses for ISDN, so we're always fine-tuning the product to fit their needs," said Tom Bayless, switched digital services director for Pacific Bell. "In the last year, we've learned a lot about who buys ISDN and how they want to buy it. The cost to bring service to remote users is higher, and their ranks are growing. And unlimited night and weekend usage has driven many to never turn their lines off during those times. These usage trends have proven to be costly. To address this, we've added a penny per minute to our usage charges, while giving customers packages with more features, flexibility and discount options. Our monthly price continues to be the lowest in the country." Of course, the applications are in the driver's seat. When ISDN was first introduced in 1988, the typical user worked for a large business in an urban center and was attracted by the outstanding voice capabilities of ISDN. Lightning-quick call connections, digital-quality sound and the ability to install multiple phone lines on existing twisted copper wires -- all at a significant cost savings for businesses -- attracted corporate customers. But as computer use started to seep into the mainstream, fast access to the Internet and on-line services, efficient remote work solutions, telecommuting and videoconferencing all became possible and accessible at home. Pacific Bell is a nationally-recognized leader in championing ISDN. The company's installation and monthly charges are the lowest in the U.S., and its usage rates are among the lowest. The company's Education First initiative offers free ISDN installation and service to California schools and libraries for two years. Pacific Bell is also aggressively pursuing a special ISDN education access rate from the CPUC offering affordable, predictable usage prices for schools and libraries. Customers wanting to order Pacific Bell ISDN or obtain more information can call 800 4PB-ISDN. Information on the company's ISDN services is also available on the Internet World Wide Web at http://www.pacbell.com. Pacific Bell is a subsidiary of Pacific Telesis Group, a diversified communications corporation based in San Francisco. ------------------ Mike King * mk@tfs.com * Oakland, CA, USA * +1 510.645.3152 ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: Cellular Fraud Suspects Arrested in Santa Fe Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 23:08:24 PST Suspects in cellular fraud scam arrested in Santa Fe; U S WEST Cellular assists Secret Service in sting SANTA FE, N.M.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 9, 1996--Acting on information provided by U S WEST Cellular, U.S. Secret Service agents raided a Santa Fe hotel room this morning and arrested three suspects with ties to South America for alleged cellular fraud. Inside the room agents confiscated at least ten cloned cellular phones that had been used over a six-week period to place hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of illegal long distance cellular calls to countries throughout the world. U S WEST Cellular fraud analysts first identified unusually high call activity on several cellular phone numbers in the Phoenix area and determined that most of the calls were routed internationally. Network technicians, using sophisticated network technology, were able to track the cellular bandits as they moved their operation from Phoenix to Tucson, Albuquerque and finally, Santa Fe. `The calling patterns we identified in Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque and Santa Fe were typical of the call sell operations we have seen in other cellular fraud operations,` said Lisa Bowersock, company spokesperson. `Because many of the calling patterns were the same, we were able to determine that a single cellular fraud operation was simply moving its location in hopes of remaining undetected. Little did they know, we were on their trail every step of the way.` Using high-tech radio direction finding equipment, New Vector technicians in Santa Fe pinpointed the source of the fraudulent calls to a motel on Cerrillos Road. Private investigators hired by U S WEST Cellular kept the hotel under constant surveillance until U.S. Secret Service Agents were able to obtain the necessary warrants to search the motel rooms and make the arrests. `The support we received from the Secret Service and 9th Judicial District Attorney's Office in New Mexico was outstanding,` Bowersock said. `If they had not acted when they did, it's possible the suspects would have left town in a matter of hours.` U S WEST Cellular and other carriers that have been defrauded by the same operation are still compiling losses from this particular cellular fraud ring. Confirmed losses have reached $700,000 and are quickly approaching $1 million. `While these cellular bandits set up shop in U S WEST Cellular territory, the numbers used to clone phones and commit cellular fraud were from out of the area so few, if any, New Mexico or Arizona customers were affected,` Bowersock said. `In addition, thanks to proactive anti-fraud efforts by U S WEST Cellular employees, 95 percent of the fraudulent charges were identified before they reached legitimate customers' bills.` Cloning fraud involves the practice of programming stolen cellular phone numbers and electronic serial numbers into other cellular handsets, thus creating a `clone` of the the original cellular phone. Once a phone has been cloned, the cellular bandit is then free to place unlimited calls which are billed to the original account. Cloned phones often are used in `Call Sell` operations in which cellular bandits sell calls to individual users for a flat fee. `U S WEST Cellular takes the theft of cellular service very seriously, and we are aggressively pursuing cellular bandits. This is the first of several significant investigations underway and we can expect more arrests in the near future,` Bowersock said. `U S WEST Cellular has one of the most sophisticated fraud detection programs in the country, and when it comes to uncovering illegal activity, it's not a question of if, it's when.` Once fraudulent activity is detected, U S WEST Cellular turns the case over to law enforcement for further investigation and prosecution. Deliberately altering cellular phones to defraud a cellular company is a federal felony under Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 1029, and carrier a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and a $50,000 fine for the first offense. Under the same code, the U.S. Secret Service had primary jurisdiction over cellular fraud crimes. U S WEST Cellular is a division of U S WEST New Vector Group Inc. Based in Bellevue, Washington, New Vector has cellular operations in 12 midwestern, western and southwestern states and serves more than 1,400,000 customers. The company operates 25 Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) and 26 Rural Service Area (RSA) cellular systems under the brand name of U S WEST Cellular. New Vector is a subsidiary of U S WEST Inc., a diversified corporation based in Englewood, Colorado. ------------------------------ From: dreuben@interpage.net (Doug Reuben) Subject: Continuing Poor Service for CO/NY customers Poughkeepsie Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 05:25:28 EST After this weekend's dramatic snow event, I'm convinced that US Cellular/Poughkeepsie (00503) is both one of the most incompetant and unsupervised cellular systems in the country This weekend, while driving on Dutchess County Route 21 near Poughkeepsie, NY, I noticed a stranded motorist who had hit a pole and was motioning for help. (For those of you who may not have heard :), we had a pretty bad blizzard in the Northeast, and it extended a good deal inland, even up to Poughkeepsie. ) I stopped, and the guy asked if I could pull him. Since the car I was in was an older rear-wheel drive vehicle with pretty poor traction and control, I suggested that it may not be the best thing to do, but offered to call my dad, who lived down the road a few miles, and have him use our 4-wheel drive vehicle to tow him back onto the road. We agreed, and then I tried to use my Cell One/NY (00025) phone to place a call to the house in order for my dad to come and meet us. Foolish me -- I should have known -- it was a weekend, and no one was on duty at CO/Poughkeepsie, so *of course* something had to go wrong and prevent my phone from working. When I tried to use the B side, I found that the coverage was so poor that I was unable to get a signal, even by moving around a good deal. Eventually, I just drove home and told my dad to follow me, and by the time we got back the motorist had a tow-truck help to extricate him. However, had this been a more serious emergency, or I had been all alone and stuck, I would not have been able to use my carphone to call for help or to be available if someone needed to reach me. And I don't mean not be able to call my dad or AAA (which is bad enough!), but 911 and ALL calls were denied - NOTHING would go through. Frequent readers will know this is NOT the first time that I have posted about this problem. It seems that on a regular basis, roamers from Cell One/NY (aka ATT Wireless) are denied ANY sort of service in the Poughkeepsie system. Specifically, when the Poughkeepsie system "flakes out", CO/NY roamers: 1. Can not place any calls; 2. Can not receive any calls; 3. Can alternately not receive calls AND callers are greeted with "diconnected" or other erroneous recordings; 4. Can use feature codes, but they are not confirmed, or are only confirmed on alternate attempts; 5. Can not dial 911; 6. Can not dial 611; 7. Can not place calls to the Operator or anywhere else. Interestingly, roamers from OTHER systems, besides CO/NY, have no difficulty with most of these. (Although as an interesting aside, all roamers on the NACN, of which CO/Poughkeepsie is now a member, will experience a feature code confirmation failure on every other call. Thus, if I were to roam with my Metro Mobile (aka Bell Atlantic in CT) account into the Poughkeepsie system, and hit *72+10D to forward my calls, the first time I'd get dead air, but the second time I'd receive a confirmation dial tone. The third time would receive dead air, and the fourth time would receive a confirmation dial tone. It may be because they are in such close proximity to each other, but I'd expect the FIRST *72 call or other feature code call I make to receive a confirmation tone on the first try, while the 00503 system *routinely* fails on the first try for nearly all roamers.) What's most infuriating about this situation is that I have been on the phone literally for hours about this with US Cellular and CO/NY, and they keep "solving" the problem, only to find that it returns the next weekend, when of course no one is on hand to experience it -- or remedy it -- immediately. (It happens too during the week, which is when the people from CO/NY first noticed it after a number of reports from myself and other CO/NY customers who were roaming in the area.) Moreover, the problem is sporadic -- it happens sometimes, and then it stops. I've noticed that it usually starts towards early afternoon, and then ends very late at night, usually after 1AM, although these times vary. And it is NOT a coverage problem or a problem with CO/NY, as I am able to place and receive calls on all the other nearby systems. It also does not appear to be a Fraud Protection Feature issue, as this has been going on well before the feature was in use (although the feature may be compounding the problem). Overall, I am becoming very irritated by the apparent inability (or lack of interest) on the part of US Cellular to get this problem resolved once and for all. From the endless and recurring nature of the problem, it appears to me that US Cellular considers this to be rather unimportant and have passively allowed it to drag on for over a year, despite diligent attempts on the part of CO/NY to address the issue and the severity of the problem manifested by the inability to dial such basic emergency numbers like 911. If there are any Cell One/NY roamers who travel to the Poughkeepsie system on a regular basis and have some time, I'd appreciate hearing about your experiences in this market. To my knowledge, all CO/NY accounts who travel to the Poughkeepsie system will potentially be affected by this -- I have tried out 917-855, 914-643, and 718-753 accounts and all have had the same problem. If you do try out 911, please be careful (just see if it goes through). I don't like the idea of making unecessary calls to 911, even if you hang up before they answer, but it may be productive to test those as well. I have tried 911 on our CO/NY accounts while in the Poughkeepsie system, and as noted above, even 911 does NOT work when the system chooses to selectively "act up" for (or more aptly, "against") CO/NY roamers. As a result, I have a hard time convincing my parents to stay with CO/NY when they keep asking "Why won't my phone work?" and "What are we supposed to do in an emergency when the regular phones fail?". The problem is so bad that you can more or less expect your CO/NY phone not to work more often than not. This is not acceptable for people who need to rely upon their cellphone as means to call 911 and other help when their landline phones fails. Hopefully, sooner than later, US Cellular will get their act together and remedy this problem once and for all, although after over a year, I am increasingly discouraged. I'll keep the Digest updated as to developments, and thanks in advance for any responses from other CO/NY roamers who have had or are having similar problems in Poughkeepsie. Doug Reuben * dreuben@interpage.net * +1 (203) 499 - 5221 Interpage Network Services -- http://www.interpage.net, telnet interpage.net E-Mail Alpha/Numeric Local/Nationwide Paging, WWW Fax, and E-Mail<->Fax Svcs [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I can tell you that thus far in the month or so I have used it, Frontier Mobile Line seems to have their act together pretty well. I suppose the credit is really due to the supplier here (Ameritech, B carrier) being well organized. An interesting and useful feature here is that in any Ameritech service area throughout the midwest, roaming and call transfer are automatic. Since I go up to Milwaukee now and then, the Frontier people gave me a Milwaukee number for the second NAM in my phone at no additional charge. Although it is also Ameritech, there the carrier code is 00044 instead of 00020 as in the Chicago market. When I have been here in Chicago but set the phone to the Milwaukee number and then dialed the Milwaukee number on my landline phone, without telling them anything, when the Milwaukee number connects, a Frontier recording comes on telling me that 'we are transferring your call to the place where your party is roaming', and the call is transferred immediatly. At Ameritech they told me 'Fast Track is old fashioned; we automatically track your phone all over our region.' No need to use *18 to establish it, however you can use *19 to turn it off as desired in which case you must use *18 if you want it back on again. But Ameritech also said to me that anywhere in their region of five states (Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio) it is not necessary to use a dual NAM phone 'to avoid romaing charges' since calls are a flat rate of 50 cents per minute when out of your home area. No daily rates or anything like that. So I get to call anywhere in Ameritech's Chicago region (from Michigan City, Indiana in the east to Morris, Illinois in the southwest to the Wisconsin state line in the north, although that is merely the guarenteed coverage range -- it may go further) for 35/18 per minute. If I call or from one of those markets into Chicago or vice versa then I pay 50 cents per minute at all hours. With my Milwaukee NAM turned on, I would pay 50 cents per minute if here in Chicago or other Ameritech area and 35/18 when actually in the Milwaukee coverage area which is roughly the Wisconsin state line on the south to about forty miles north of Milwaukee to the north and nearly to Madison, Wisconsin on the west. To test this out, the other day I took the Greyhound Bus from Skokie up to Milwaukee and monitored the phone conditions as we traveled north on I-94. There was a very strong signal indicated on the phone all the way north. Somewhere around the state line, the Chicago NAM switched into 'Roam-B' mode. I punched in the Milwaukee NAM and got the same strong coverage all the way to downtown Milwaukee. I was only using the short little stubby antenna the entire trip. In Milwaukee I punched *611 and again got an entity answering the phone as 'Frontier Customer Service'. An interesting thing is when calling *611 within 'home' territory (i.e. Chicago NAM when actually in this area and Milwaukee NAM when actually north of the border) always gets me Frontier. Calling *611 when in roaming mode always gets me Ameritech customer service. They're both open 24 hours per day. According to the Ameritech rep I spoke with in Milwaukee, it was 'silly' to bother with a dual NAM if the only intention was to save on roaming charges within Ameritech territory. She said 'we auto- matically find you wherever you are in our five state territory'; and 'at 15 cents per minute days and 32 cents per minute nights (roaming versus home rate differential) it takes a lot of calls to amortize or justify whatever you are paying as a monthly service charge on the second NAM.' I told her I was getting the second (Milwaukee) number as part of my package at no extra charge so any pennies saved were pennies earned. At that point she put my account up on her screen for the first time and her response was 'oh, I see you are a wholesale account.' But guess what Cellular One is doing here: if they don't recognize you as one of their customers, they hand you right over to an outfit called 'Cellular Express' -- (intercept ringing signal followed by a message saying) "you are in Cellular One Chicago territory; we do not recognize you; if you want to make any calls, hang up and then dial star eight six five five ..." 8655 = 'TOLL'. Doing so gets you the Cellular Express Operator who will be glad to help you at the rate of $1.95 per minute plus $1.95 for the call itself, billed to a phone company calling card or major credit card. No carrier pic codes allowed, no free calls to 911 or 800 numbers and certainly no 500 numbers. An interesting thing about Frontier Mobile Line: on long distance calls, one plus defaults to Frontier/Allnet but zero plus defaults to AT&T. The variety of standards for cellular service in the USA is pretty amazing isn't it? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 01:56:04 -0500 From: Nigel Allen Subject: Interesting Vanity 800 Number, 1-800-BANTING Organization: Internex Online (shell.io.org), Toronto, Ontario, Canada The Canadian Diabetes Association has the phone number 1-800-BANTING. It was convenient that one of the discovers of insulin had a seven-letter surname. Frederick G. Banting and Charles H. Best were the scientists at the University of Toronto who discovered insulin. (Two other University of Toronto scientists who played an important role in the discovery were Collip and J.J.R. Macleod.) Nigel Allen ndallen@io.org http://www.io.org/~ndallen/ ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #10 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 10 21:10:28 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.1/NSCS-1.0S) id VAA16417; Wed, 10 Jan 1996 21:10:28 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 21:10:28 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601110210.VAA16417@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Bcc: Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #11 TELECOM Digest Wed, 10 Jan 96 21:10:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 11 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" (Jon Steel) Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" (oz@paranoia.com) Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" (Nirmal Velayudhan) Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" (Mike P. Storke) Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" (Robert Ponce) Association of International Teleconsultants (Erik Gundersen) Pacific Bell ISDN Rate Increases - Protest Web Site (David C. Barry, Jr.) Looking to Purchase New Phone System - Help! (Pete 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 America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: steelj@ecid.cig.mot.com (jon steel) Subject: Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" Date: 10 Jan 1996 12:17:23 GMT Organization: Motorola Ltd., European Cellular Infrastructure Division Joe.J.Harrison@bra0119.wins.icl.co.uk writes: > There is a fair range of handsets available (Eric Valentine was too > modest in failing to mention the very nice Ericsson PH237!) though > not so much of a choice yet as with analog or GSM units. There is > little difference in handset size or battery life though the lower > power requirements of PCN mean there is scope to provide more uptime > for the same battery capacity as coverage improves. Audio quality > varies, at its worst it compares badly with analog and at its best > slightly favourably. Audio quality in Digital Cellular very rarely depends upon the handset -- it is inherent to the network performance. (Multi-path fading, fringe coverage etc) > Most PCN users have no idea of the difference between "cellular" and > PCN since for plain mobile voice telephony there is none. They wanted > a mobile telephone and they bought the one that looked best to them on > price. Until recently the inferior PCN coverage and denial of > international roaming have meant that traditional cellular could > retain its premium charges, but we are now at the point where a PCN v. > cellular price war looks inevitable. International Roaming is still a BIG limiting factor for PCN networks. You can't roam to what isn't there, and PCN in Europe is very limited. The big development for PCN operators will be the introduction of "Dual Band" handsets. (Both GSM900 and PCN,DCS or whatever you want to call it). > And oddly -- an early victim of PCN might well be the text pager. The > more upmarket PCN phones are capable of SMS (short message service) > where 160-byte reliable-transfer text messages can be sent to or > originated from the handset. Point to Point SMS is NOT exclusive to PCN. This is a core function of the GSM recs and therefore applicable to both types of network. Just trying to straighten a few point out. Cheers, Jon Steel. Senior Cellular Systems Engineer. Northern & Eastern European Operations, Motorola ECID Ltd, Swindon, UK Tel: +44 (0)1793 556698. Fax: +44 (0)1793 423493 Mobile: +44 (0)802 385671 Email: steelj@ecid.cig.mot.com ------------------------------ From: oz@paranoia.com Date: Tue, 9 Jan 96 15:48:26 CST Reply-To: oz@paranoia.com Subject: Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" Pat, this is technical refutation of a comment that I made based on an article that I read. I hope that you'll publish it ASAP. I'm rather ashamed that *I* didn't spot it. I should have known better. I need to go spit the feathers out now ... Patrick L. Martin wrote: > I have not heard this aspect discussed. I had to think about it a bit and > remembering some old theory from my police radar days recalled that doppler > frequency shift was proportional to the frequency. The higher the frequency > the greater the shift. I found the idea interesting enough that I dug in an > old engineering manual and found the following formulae for doppler > shift in a radar system. > Fs=2FtV/C > where > Fs = frequency shift > Ft = Transmit frequency > V = equals velocity - to be in same units as C > C = speed of light > I beleive the multiple of 2 has to with the reflection of the wave doubling > the shift so I would simplify this to Fs=FtV/C for a point to point shift. > Assuming 1.9 Ghz and 75 mph relative velocity the shift will be about 212 Hz. > Following pasted from my quickly made spread sheet. > 186,000 speed of light miles per second > 669,600,000 speed of light miles per hour > 1,900,000,000 Frequency in hertz > 75 miles per hour relative velocity > 142500000000 fu - numerator > 212.813620071684588 Frequency shift > When I used to work more with radio, frequency tolerances on the order of 0.5 > ppm were pretty normal. At 800 mhz that comes out to about 400 Hz. I doubt > that the indicated 212 hz shift will cause many problems, however, higher > speeds and or higher frequencies will increase the shift in a linear fashion. > I mention higher frequencies because I have seen paper designs of pico cell > systems from 38 to 100 Ghz. > If the math is in error, feel free to correct it. I used your equation and 200 Km/hr and came up with 352 hz, so I have to agree. My comment was based on an article that briefly mentioned the problem. A quick thought back to *my* police radar days made me realize that an X band (~10 Ghz) doppler radar gets audio values based on the _round_ trip doppler. This made your analysis make sense instantly. It _clearly_ has to be something else, but it was a problem with moving vehicles and frequency/time. It is probably something like fade rates at speed and the article author converted that to doppler. I'm glad you spotted this and I've copied Pat on this in the hope that he prints the correct information. > Patrick L. Martin pmartin@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: nirmal@lccinc.com Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 11:05:47 -0500 Subject: Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" oz@paranoia.com wrote: > exueric@exu.ericsson.se and lotsa other people wrote about: >>> 4) PCS phones will not work in moving vehicles. >> Wrong. He must be talking about cordless phones or maybe field trials >> for some of the CDMA systems. There is no inherent problem with using >> PCS 1900 in a moving vehicle unless you try something silly like >> pico-cells along an expressway, but that will hose an AMPS system too, >> just from trying to support the handovers. One version of PCS at 1900 >> is GSM-based and upbanded from 900. It has been working in vehicles >> for some time now quite nicely, thank you. The same will be true some >> day for CDMA based systems. > Well, sorta wrong at least. There is a "technical challenge" that > needs to be overcome to make PCS phones operate when moving at high > speeds relative to the base station. The Doppler Effect is about 2 > 1/2 times worse at 1900 Mhz with respect to conventional US-AMPS > cellphones. The problem is surmountable, and several solutions have > been proposed. As far as "Pico" cells go, the presence of doppler > shift can actually make pico cell implemenation easier and more > effective. Doppler can be used to identify fast moving users and not > hand them off to small cells. Ref: Jakes, W.C, 'Microwave Mobile Communications', IEEE Press, 1994 A CW Transmission from a mobile moving at a constant speed 'may be represented as a carrier whose phase and amplitude are randomly varying, with an effective bandwidth corresponding to twice the maximum Doppler shift' of Velocity/wavelength. The envelope of the fading signal is Rayleigh distributed (under some assumptions, which I don't go into here) and the Doppler shift affects the level crossing rate (i.e the rate at which the fading signal crosses a threshold) and the fade duration, which is the duration for which the signal remains below a threshold. This will be double that of a cellular signal (approx) as PCS signals (1.85-1.99 GHz) are roughly double the frequency. The Doppler Shift at 1800 MHz for a 60 mi/hr. mobile is 160 Hz. Hardwarewise, it seems unlikely this could pose a problem, since this is about 8.8*10(-6) % of the carrier. From the point of view of coding, interleaving would take care of fast fades to some extent, insofar as the fade durations are concerned. The traditional method of tackling the fade rate problem would be some form of AGC. CDMA offers the advantage of soft handoffs, and the power control on the reverse link, where under some conditions Rayleigh fading would be compensated for by means of a power control bit updating the mobile Tx power every 1.25 ms. PCS 1900 refers to the PCS system based on the GSM system in North America. Once such system has rolled out in the Washington DC- Baltimore area, and to the best of my knowledge, not too many people are concerned about Doppler Shifts :-) Nirmal Velayudhan Associate Engr. PCS Group LCC, L.L.C. (703) 284 8371 e-mail- nirmal@lccinc.com ------------------------------ From: storkus@heather.greatbasin.com (Mike P. Storke) Subject: Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" Date: 10 Jan 1996 00:51:04 GMT Organization: Great Basin Public Access UNIX, Reno, NV In article is written: >> cellular technology will not be quickly missplaced for the following >> reasons: 1) they are practically giving away cell phones; 2) cellular >> companies are not charging on evenings and weekends; 3) PCS phones >> cannot be practically any more portable than the latest cell >> phones; 4) PCS phones will not work in moving vehicles. > PCS is not a competitor for cellular; it is a new local loop > technology, digital from the gitgo, that offers voice, internet > access, mobility, and backhaul over the existing cableTV plant. Using > CDMA, PCS will offer high security and bandwidth on demand as well. If > the digital acoustics are superior to wireline, it will cut deeply > into existing wireline markets.On the basis of their British > experience, USWest estimates that they will lose some 30 percent of > their market to cable based PCS. PCS will be complementary to > cellular; you plug the same handset into your car system for vehicular > usage. > George Gilder I believe you're confusing PCS with cable-modem technology. PCS stands for "Personal Communications Services", and operates at 1.8-2.0 Ghz. It's not quite a replacement as it is an expansion of AMPS capabilities. You ARE correct about many things, though: it IS fully digital from the git-go, and data access (PDAs use PCS to communicate) was built in in the first place. The primary advantage of PCS is the enormous bandwidth available, but the primary disadvantage is the very thing that makes this bandwidth available: the high frequency, which make microwave-related phenomena such as doppler shift and fadeouts doubly frequent and strong (i.e., multipath becomes a much greater factor in the equation). However, due to lack of noise, both on the air itself and in the equipment, power levels can be reduced as well. Unfor- tunately, it turns out you must reduce cell-size in turn, which means more capital outlay, and also means that (primarily) you'll see PCS only in metro (possibly suburban) areas, with ordinary AMPS remaining the primary service in many suburban and likely all rural areas. Mike P. Storke N7MSD Snailmail: 2308 Paradise Dr. #134 Inet: storkus@heather.greatbasin.com Reno, NV 89512-2712 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 10:47:33 -0800 From: Robert Ponce Subject: Re: PCS Faces Rough Road I think that it is a legitimate question as to whether PCS can survive in competition with cellular, not because of technical reasons but because of market reasons. Right now, there are too many competing wireless technologies chasing too few applications -- and more on the way. The FCC's plan to sell off every possible bit of spectrum space created a "Fool's Gold Rush", and I think the whole PCS auction process created the idea that entrepreneurs who missed the cellular boom could now come in and get a piece of the airwaves that they could call their own. But the competition is tough, well capitalized and already making money. The cellular industry will be very difficult to compete with unless PCS finds a different way to attack the market. ANd cellular is not the only competition. THere is SMR (SPecialized Mobile Radio) which are a bunch of frequencies which have been used primarily for trucking and taxi dispatch. Motorola owned most of these licenses a few years ago, and sold them to companies like Nextel (in exchange for equity stakes) with the idea of converting these frequencies into digital cellular. It didn't fly. Nextel found that they couldn't garner the resources for the huge capital outlay required. Ironically, Nextel found a white knight in Craig McCaw, who promptly steered them away from competing directly with cellular, saying "Been there- Done that." Then there are the satellite systems coming on line, such as Motorola's Iridium System, which threaten to push price competition even further in wireless delivery systems. (And Craig McCaw and Bill Gates are reportedly developing a hge satellite project as well.) If you add the competition from packet radio (pager channels that are being upgraded to handle two way, low level communications, such as wireless e-mail), you have a very crowded market for wireless services. Right now, the cellular industry will continue to be the front-runners in wireless communication for some time, because they have the revenue, the customer base, the capitalization and the technical expertise. For PCS or any other wireless technology to be competitive, it has to find a niche of its own. The "killer app" may be the interactive TV/Broad bandwidth Internet access pot of gold that everyone is searching for. ALready DSS has shown that cable TV is vulnerable to a wireless technology that can deliver more, better channels. The problem for satellites is that the delay makes it unsuitable for upstream/downstream communications. If PCS becomes an affordable delivery system for two-way, full motion video, it could fulfil the promise of the "Gold Rush". A final thought on PCS and other wireless technologies: time and technological increases favor wireless over cable and fiber. The costs per subscriber for fiber and cable can only be reduced so far: even though fiber can offer almost limitless bandwidth, the costs to physically deliver it can't be reduced. Those costs increase exponentially in rural areas. With wireless, technological advances continue to bring the delivery costs down, with no additional physical costs. So in the long run, wireless technologies may be the cheapest pipe into the home, as well as the car or jacket pocket. But in the short run, ill-defined market strategies may cannibalize sales and waste a lot of capital on ventures that are not positioned to succeed. An interesting company to watch is Motorola, which has shrewdly hedged its bets and put itself in the center of all the developing wireless technologies. Bob Ponce I-Contact Media Inc. 914 761-4328 Interactive Media Consultants/Content Developers ------------------------------ From: Erik Gundersen <76017.572@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Association of International Teleconsultants Date: 10 Jan 1996 12:54:21 GMT Organization: Explorers' Foundation ASSOCIATION OF INTERNATIONAL TELECONSULTANTS (AIT) A professional association for independent telecom consultants, agents, brokers, resellers and service providers world wide. ______________________________________ The telecommmunications industry is undergoing dramatic changes and therefore the non-profit Association of International Teleconsultants (AIT) has been created to promote the interests of its members and the industry as a whole. Deregulation in the US and the UK while most countries in the world have a highly monopolised telecom sector, has provided new opportunities for specialised services such as callback, and numerous new companies quite understandably venture into this fairly uncharted territory, and with these a new breed of telecom consultants with visions of the future has emerged. As we are witnessing a technological revolution while countries prepare to deregulate, changes will accellerate, which creates opportunities as well as pitfalls. There will be new, successful companies emerging, as well as closures. In this environment the AIT was founded on the 4th of July 1995, with aims to: - 1. - be an industry voice, to represent its members and update its members on relevant industry developments and regulations. 2. - increase agents' and consultants' purchasing power, offer new services through the association's corporate members. 3. - organize promotional campaigns on behalf of members, international advertising and Internet exposure, the AIT logo may be used by members - a recognition of quality service. 4. - assist with recruitment and training in cooperation with corporate and individual members and help improve industry service standards and image. 5. - support members in the event of cessation of their activities. Admission for Membership subject to approval. For information about Membership and the AIT Code of Practice, please email: 76017.572@compuserve.com, or fax: +33 68896820 Uploaded Jan 07, 1996 by E. Gundersen, AIT ------------------------------ From: dcbarry@pacificnet.net (David C. Barry, Jr.) Subject: Pacific Bell ISDN Rate Increases - Protest Web Site Date: Tue, 09 Jan 1996 17:16:34 -0800 Organization: My corner of the sky....... If you are a user of Pacific Bell ISDN, or are considering subscribing to PacBell ISDN, you should be aware of some *very* important information. Even if you are not in PacBell land, you may still find this of interest if you follow ISDN issues. Your utility could bve next! On December 21, Pacific Bell filed application A95-12-043 with the California Public Utilities Commision. In short, the application requests very significant rate hikes for all PacBell ISDN users, and would all but end unmetered calling for Home ISDN users. I have created a web site that spells out exactly what the application contains, and what it means to you as consumer. It also contains information on what you as a public citizen can do to help block these proposed hikes. Please visit my protest website: http://www.pacificnet.net/~dcbarry/isdn.html to obtain essential information on this application. I encourage you to register your name and email address so that we can keep you up-to-date on the application as it weaves its' way through the regulatory maze. Please share this information! You might wish to add a line to your .sig referencing the protest pages. Do what you can to spread the word. David Barry email:dcbarry@pacificnet.net homepage: http:www.pacificnet.net/~dcbarry ------------------------------ From: pete@inquo.net (Pete Kruckenberg) Subject: Looking to Purchase New Phone System - Help! Date: 9 Jan 1996 06:32:07 GMT Organization: inQuo Internet (801) 530-7160 We have finally out-grown our current phone system (a Toshiba Perception), and we are looking to purchase a new phone system in the next 60 days. I would like to get input on what phone-system vendors (and possibly models) we should look at to meet our needs. The short list of our requirements is: Handle 400-500 stations (mixed analog and electronic/digital) we currently have 96 analog and 120 electronic/digital in use; Switch ISDN (taking in multiple BRI's or a PRI and sharing them amongst office users); Handle multiple T1's directly (rather than splitting them out with a channel bank); Handle DID lines; Good handling of high-speed modem communications (28.8kb modems); Good integration with PC/Mac (voice-mail management, calls through PC, etc) currently available or soon to be available, probably via Microsoft or Novell "standards"; Some kind of good integration with remote-branch switches (so every station, regardless of the location, is seamlessly reachable via an extension), with remote branches connected via leased lines; Release-line/release-trunk transfer capability (so a call in a remote city comes into the remote switch, conferences in the operator at the corporate office, then releases the leased-line channel when the call is transferred back to an extension at the remote office, rather than using up a channel to the corporate office and one back to the remote office); Integration with Repartee (Active Voice) voicemail system (not absolutely necessary, but would be nice) -- Repartee communicates with our Perception using DTMF to turn MSG lights on and off, etc.; Cool features at the station, like being able to request to not be disturbed, conditionally or unconditionally forward your extension (possibly based on caller ID), leaving a message for the receptionist (out to lunch, in a meeting, out sick), caller ID, display of parked calls, ability to pick up a call ringing or on hold on another extension, conference/forward/park a call, etc, etc, etc.; Hunt groups, etc, etc; Remotely manageable via a serial/telnet/network connection; I would also like to get some suggestions on how to handle one major change that will probably have to happen. Our Perception has an intercom feature, so a user can dial another user's office and immediately talk to them without the dialed user having to pick up. Where this comes in handy most is when a call comes in, the receptionist can find out if someone is in their office within a few seconds, rather than dialing the office, waiting for the person to pick up, etc. One thing we thought is that the receptionist could possibly key in a message (on a keyboard) with the caller's name/id, which would then be displayed on the extension phone's LCD display. This may be more work, but it'd probably be one solution. If the person at the extension doesn't want to answer, the call would go back to the receptionist (it would have to be labelled somehow, so the receptionist would know that it was coming back, and who it was coming back from) after a few rings, and then she could page the person or put the caller into voice-mail. I'd like to get other ideas about how we can make the switch to a new switch without having to add more receptionists, by making them as efficient as possible in transferring calls to extensions (and letting the person at the extension know who is calling). Thanks for your input. This is my first major purchase like this (we're budgeting around $150k for the switch), so I appreciate any and all input on what to look for, what vendors to look at, what to avoid, etc. Any input on books or other literature I should look at would be appreciated. Thanks, Pete Kruckenberg pete@inquo.net ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #11 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jan 11 15:18:06 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.1/NSCS-1.0S) id PAA15207; Thu, 11 Jan 1996 15:18:06 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 15:18:06 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601112018.PAA15207@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Bcc: Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #12 TELECOM Digest Thu, 11 Jan 96 15:18:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 12 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Snow, Snow, Go Away! (TELECOM Digest Editor) WUTCO `Grams' and LEC Telco Billing (Mark J. Cuccia) Canada Number Portability (Monty Solomon) Satellite Provides Remote Links (Monty Solomon) MCI Starts Charging For Incoming Mail (TELECOM Digest Editor) Telephone Bill Auditing Advice Wanted (Dan Pock) Advice Needed - Bulk Incoming Lines (Brian Kantor) A Question About Inside Wiring Standards (James A. Young) And Now ... For ctrycode.c (Country Code Lookup) (Dave Leibold) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 14:13:10 EST From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Snow, Snow, Go Away! This is directed mostly at our east coast readers who in the past several days have seen the blizzard of their (hopefully) lifetimes ... with snowfall ranging from 'merely' 18-20 inches some places to as must as two feet or more in other locales. Please let us know how it has affected phone service in terms of network traffic congestion, etc. We've seen little else on the television news here in Skokie for the past couple of days except scenes of the folks on the east coast as they dig out; commute by dog sled to their employment, etc. I know it is something you won't forget for years to come, and something you will tell your children and grandchildren about. Memories come rushing into my mind of the 'big one' here, a blizzard which lasted about two days the first week in February, 1967. Before it was over, two feet of snow in some areas with drifts of several feet more in other areas. Traffic was completely snarled; phone service was at a standstill, etc. It started snowing a little on Tuesday night, but no one paid any attention. Wednesday, February 1 brought more snow, but again no one thought anything much of it, but then it did not stop, and snowed throughout the night and into Thursday, at which point it was beginning to be of concern. In those days, the Weather Service was not nearly as sophisticated as it is today in accurately predicting just *how much* snow there would be, nor was any form of disaster recovery plan in effect. People got to work pretty well on Thursday morning even though the snow was coming down but when it did not stop all day Thursday we knew something big was going on. I worked the midnight shift at the University of Chicago phone room at the time on a part-time basis, a couple of nights per week. (I had been there full-time until about 1962 then left but returned for part time work a few years later.) I lived pretty close, just a few blocks away, so I got into work okay that Thursday night but Friday morning brought the real fun times ... As of 7 AM that Friday morning, *none* of the day shift operators had shown up for work. Most of the campus was closed down, but the medical center was going full steam with the problem being most of their employees had not made it in either. Now this was a large phone room; a twenty-one position switchboard actually divided in three parts: nine positions on one side of the room for what was called the 'university board', nine positions on the other side of the room for the 'hospitals board' and three positions at one end of the room for the new 'Computation Center' (where all the new computers were being installed a couple blocks away). Normally in the daytime there were ten or twelve operators on duty and sometimes as many as fifteen. During the overnight hours when the university board and the comp center boards were mostly dead, there was one operator who stayed mostly on the hospital side of the room but would unplug his headset and walk over to the university side and plug in over there when a call came up on that side. So the place was busy on most days. That Friday morning, with half the people in the hospital gone and most everyone on the campus side gone, the board was still very busy; still far too busy for one poor guy working alone left over from the night shift. The supervisor called in about 7:15 and said she could not make it in to work either, and by that time the place was a madhouse with dozens of lights blinking on all positions going unanswered, and me going crazy. She said to get on the public address system and announce several times the following message: "Anyone with any experience in running telephone switchboards please report immediatly to the phone room, 5801 South Ellis, sixth floor." I made that announcement several times over a fifteen minute period and before long there were about a dozen volunteer operators there, all of whom just moved in and started taking calls, etc. When the afternoon shift was due to start a couple of the regular operators arrived and they continued to work with the handful of volunteers still around. About the same time as the afternoon phone operators started arriving the medical center was still struggling along very short handed and the person in charge there announced that for anyone who wished to do so, the cafeteria would be open the rest of the night at no charge for anyone who wanted to eat 'whatever was available' since food supplies (for the public, not the patients) had not arrived that day either. There was a catch though; anyone who stayed to eat could also stay overnight in vacant patient rooms provided they were willing to help take care of the patients overnight. I figured what the heck -- and I 'reported for duty'. My duty was to work in Wyler Children's Hospital and help feed formula to the tiny babies there, some of who were just days or weeks old. I had given bottles to some of the babies which had been prepared by the nurses and I came down the hall to a room where the door was closed but a baby inside squalling like all the others. A sign on the door said not to enter without permission so I asked Nurse what about that one? Sort of grim, she replied to me the orders were 'do not sustain'. And she said to me, 'do you want to see something pretty awful?' My curiosity peaked at that point I said I did, so she said we would go inside. Inside, in an incubator, a little black baby which had been born the day before. It was horribly misformed, with legs and arms sticking out in the wrong places; a misshaped second head which appeared to have no life in it attached crudely, etc. The nurse told me 'the mother checked in through the emergency room with no valid identification; we helped her through labor; afterward she saw the baby and walked out, abandoning it here. The doctors state there is no corrective surgery possible which will save the infant and allow it to live any semblance of a normal life. It will die on its own in the next several hours or at most within a day. We have tried to locate the mother to obtain her permission to do what must be done but the identification she provided us had all wrong addresses, etc.' Later that night after all the babies were asleep and I was getting ready to go to the room I had been given and do the same, I sat in the nursing office drinking coffee and talking to the lady I was working with. I asked her did she ever get so bummed out she felt like just sitting down alone somewhere and crying after some of the things she dealt with day after day there. Yes, she said, she did, but when she felt that way she always realized that, 'if I am sitting off somewhere crying, I cannot be of any help or service to the people the university pays me to help and serve. I cannot be of much help to the patients here if I cannot keep my own emotions in check.' .... Saturday morning I awoke early, and enough of the staff had managed to come in that I was not needed to help with feeding on the morning shift. I went home for the first time in about 36 hours. As I walked past the train station I stopped in to buy a couple of papers and eat at the lunch counter there. A handwritten sign on the door says 'all trains running local with all-stop service today'. The agent was arguing with a man who insisted the payphones must be out of order since he had put in his dime and had not gotten dial tone. When he hung up the dime had not returned. "Just pick up the same phone and stand there a few minutes, sir; the dial tone will come on the line eventually, probably in a couple of minutes ..." In the meantime as he stood there arguing with her, the phone made a clicking sound as supervision *finally* came to the line and returned his dime in the slot on the bottom of the phone. At home trying to call my mother, I waited a couple minutes for dial tone only to misdial her number. I tapped the hook to start over and immediatly realized I was going to wait another minute or two for the next time around on the dial tone. Later that day I had my picture taken by an enterprising fellow who would take your picture with a Polaroid Instamatic Camera standing on top of a ten foot high pile of snow which had been scooped over to the side of the road if you gave him a dollar. I still have that picture around here somewhere since no one now-days would ever believe a pile of snow that big had sat at the entrance to the Museum of Science and Industry parking lot where it exits onto Lake Shore Drive. It was approximatly two months before all that snow had *finally* either melted or been carted off and dumped in the lake. You east coast people are going to see it on the ground at least all the rest of this month and most of next. And when it does finally all melt ... you'll see floods the likes of which usually only occur in torrential summer downpours. Big pools of water at every street corner which the sewers cannot carry off fast enough as you walk with pants legs rolled up, shoes soaking wet, etc. The ground will stay saturated all spring so that the slightest amount of rainfall in the spring will bring flooded basements, more backed up sewers, etc ... watch and see. I found out that same day that an apartment building near where I lived had burned to the ground late Thursday night two nights before. It took a couple minutes to get dial tone to call the Fire Department. After much effort and many delays, the Fire Department got about a block away on a street completely buried in snow and could get no closer. The firemen walked on foot the rest of the way and had to spend valuable time searching in the snow for a hydrant. By the time they were able to drag their hoses through the snow, get them hooked up and get the hydrants turned on the building was mostly gone, with about fifteen families left homeless on that, of all nights. That was our 'storm of the century' now 29 years ago. Lots of stories came out of it (people stuck on CTA busses in high drifts for several hours; one woman giving birth on a CTA bus because it was impossible to get out of the bus and get to a hospital), and I imagine a lot of stories will be heard about the east coast blizzard in the years to come. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 09:13:26 CST From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: WUTCO `Grams' and LEC Telco Billing Last night while on the phone with the local BellSouth business office regarding a minor billing matter (not associated with WUTCO), I inquired if one could still place Western Union Telegrams and bill them to the local telephone bill. I was told that as of Monday 30 October 1995, BellSouth and WUTCO ceased to have a billing contract. The BellSouth service rep was located in Louisiana, and only handled Louisiana accounts, so I don't know if this termination of WUTCO charges billed via BellSouth applies only to Louisiana or to the five-state (former) South Central Bell region or to the entire nine-state BellSouth region. I then called WUTCO's 800-325-6000 number (Telegrams, Cablegrams, money wire transfers, etc) to inquire further. The WUTCO `operator' didn't know for sure about BellSouth, but *did* tell me that WUTCO does *not* bill Telegram charges to telephone numbers in GTE locations anymore. I was told that WUTCO can still bill to (valid) major credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, AmEx, etc), mail a bill to the customer *directly*, and accept cash payments via *some* WUTCO agents. (Most of the WUTCO agents around here are at neighberhood convenience stores which do money by wire). I asked why WUTCO is getting away from billing via a telephone billing number and was told that there are people who `aren't always paying their phone bills'. This seems a bit strange to me, since there would be those who would ignore a direct bill from WUTCO and people who don't pay their credit card bills. And WUTCO charges (IMHO) seem to be `legit' communications charges when compared to TeleSLIME (900, 976, etc, including PAY-PAY-PAY-per-call charges via 800/ANI). It *might* be that WUTCO finds it more economical to *not* offer billing via the LEC telco. I would assume that WUTCO can reference a Bellcore maintained listing of all US NPA-NXX codes which identify the local telco for that NPA-NXX. WUTCO's database would then indicate whether they had a billing contract with that LEC operating telephone company. I was also told by WUTCO that even for telcos where WUTCO still has a billing contract, that a database is checked to see if the requested billing telephone number is a `restricted' telephone number (payphone, PBX trunk line, PBX extension, Cellular phone number or Cellular system trunk line, customer requested billing restrictions, etc). This is probably the LIDB or similar database containing numbers with Billed Number Screening. Even though few people probably send Western Union Telegrams these days, this loss of WUTCO billing via the LEC is a historical loss, particularly when TeleSLIME/PAY-PAY-PAY-per-call is billing via LEC without even checking a Billed Number Screening database. (There might `always' be a Western Union ... but there is no longer a single Bell Telephone System). MARK J. CUCCIA Phone, Write or Wire: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 02:07:36 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Canada Number Portability Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Excerpt from Edupage, 4 January 1996 NUMBER PORTABILITY The CRTC has ordered Canada's phone companies to prepare for local service competition by developing a system that allows consumers to take their phone number with them if they change service providers. Phone companies have opposed portability because it serves as an incentive to competition, according to the Public Interest Advocacy Center. The group adds that recent licensing of personal communications services may provide an impetus to portability. (Toronto Globe & Mail, 2 Jan 96 B3) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 02:11:23 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Satellite Provides Remote Links Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Excerpt from Edupage, 7 January 1996 SATELLITE PROVIDES REMOTE LINKS Ottawa-based TMI Communications saw its $500-million MSAT satellite investment start to pay off: the world's most powerful satellite will provide voice and data transmission service throughout Canada, the US, Mexico, the Caribbean and Latin America to millions of people in remote areas, including Canadians who live in the 85% of the country outside the reach of cellular phone systems. This mobility comes at a price, however, since handsets with antenna cost between $5,000 and $6,000 and calls are $2.50 per minute (Ottawa Citizen 4 Jan 96 C5) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 13:53:20 -0500 (EST) From: telecom@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Telecom Digest (Group)) Subject: MCI Begins Charging For Incoming Email A subscriber wrote to me recently saying MCI Mail is now going to being charging for incoming mail ... and that would include Digests from the Internet. If it is true, then my sympathies to everyone there. Now might be a good time to consider signing up with one of several good and reliable local ISPs ... people who appreciate your business and will offer you flat rate service. PAT ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 05:14:44 -0800 From: nadaniel@earthlink.net (Dan Pock) Subject: Telephone Bill Auditing Advice Needed HELP! I am a full time telecommunications student at DeVry. Working a full time job is killing me and cutting into my studies but I have no choice. I've been thinking about starting a home based business auditing phone bills but I don't study tariffs for another two semesters. Does anyone out there no where I can get started with this? I think the first step is to get training in understanding tariffs but I don't know where to begin. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Sincerely yours, Daniel Pock ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 20:54:58 -0800 From: brian@nothing.ucsd.edu (Brian Kantor) Subject: Advice Needed - Bulk Incoming Lines I run the University's incoming dial-up data service, consisting now of about 450 Centrex and 1-MB lines each with its own modem and terminal server port. These lines currently enter via a 900-pair terminal that's been in the building since before I started here over a decade ago -- there are in fact 1500 pairs (most of them no longer in use) running into the room from the Pac Bell CO down the road. We use this to provide local call-in modem service. We're looking at doubling the capacity of this facility over the next few years, and I'm interested in finding suggestions for bulk CHEAP incoming service. Right now I pay about $400 to set up a single port -- that includes the line installation, wiring, modem, and one port on a Xylogics Annex-3 terminal server. There's a lot of wire doing it this way, but labor cost is NOT the important factor since student labor is cheap. Unfortunately, we're now getting to the point where the number of modems that need resetting or prodding or just adding new ones is keeping a student pretty much busy all the time. I'd like a more manageable and flexible system if I can get it for not a whole lot more. I've looked at channelized T-1 services. PacBell sez they can supply us with "SuperTrunk" service, but I'm not convinced that's the answer; the price seems higher than plain old Centrex pairs and we've no shortage of entrance facilities. (We use Centrex since the monthly cost is about the same as a 1-MB and installation is $30 cheaper per line.) The old free Digital Entrance Facilities isn't available, our Pac Bell representative says, so we'd have to go with the "supertrunk". In addition, the Xylogics "Remote Annex" terminal server that can do T-1 and still look like what people are used to seeing when they call us is 20 grand (list) for 24 lines. (Anixter, where we USED to buy a lot of things, offered us a whopping 10% discount off list, which seems to me to be a take-your-business-elsewhere sort of price. Besides, they've just finished reorganizing all the personal interaction out of their business; it took me half an hour just to find the salesman we need to deal with for a price quote on this product.) The USR Total Control product looks attractive, but getting technical data on the thing would seem to need intercession of some major diety; all I can get is glossy brochures that don't tell me enough. I'd like suggestions on how to best go about expanding (or refitting) my dialin service -- or confirmation that I'm currently doing it about the cheapest way I can already. These are my tax dollars too, you know. Responses via E-mail, please. I'm too busy to yack on the phone. Brian Kantor Academic Computing Network Operations 0124 University of California at San Diego La Jolla, CA 92093-0124 USA brian@ucsd.edu ucsd!brian ------------------------------ From: James A. Young <8young@rsvl.unisys.com> Subject: A Question About Inside Wiring Standards Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 11:33:02 GMT Organization: Unisys Corporation In cleaning out my file drawer last night I came across an old brochure from my local telco (US West) about telephone inside wiring standards. The brochure states that each outlet in my home should have separate wires connecting to the demarcation point and sure enough, all the wiring done years ago by the telco does just that. (I'm embarrassed to say that own hanidwork doesn't.) However, I also noticed that a new water meter reading unit installed by the city water department also doesn't conform. They just cut into the middle of one of the existing wires. Is this standard outdated or is the city not doing things quit by the book? Running the wire all the way from the water meter sensing unit to the demarc point would have involved very little extra, about 5 feet of wire and no cutting of existing lines. A second question I was wondering about is should I bother to go back and rewire the outlet I installed? It's been working fine for ten years as far as I know. Jim Young | 8young@rsvl.unisys.com Unisys Corp. | (612) 635-7257 - voice Roseville Software Development Center | P.O. Box 64942 - M.S. 4313 | Roseville, Minnesota, 55164, U.S.A. | ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jan 96 13:09:00 EST From: dleibold@else.net (Dave Leibold) Subject: And Now ... For ctrycode.c (Country Code Lookup) Found a bit of time to review the areacode.c program. Seems it wasn't that hard after all to make a country codes program, mostly inspired by the areacode.c one. These are country codes only ... current as of now. Getting all the area codes within countries will be another can of worms, one which might gag some systems. ------ cut here ----- /* Based on the areacode.c for TELECOM Digest (areacode.c received from Brint Cooper, updated 5 Jan 1996 by Carl Moore) */ #include #include /* ctrycode.c - adapted from areacode.c, originating with AREACODE.MAC (Ver. 1.0 - January 2, 1981 by Kelly Smith; Ken Yap (ken@rochester.arpa) also appears in that program's credits). Compile: cc -O -o ctrycode ctrycode.c Run: ctrycode nnn nnn ... ctrycode displays the country or region assigned to a telephone country code. These country codes may have 1, 2 or 3 digits. This 1996 version was prepared by David Leibold using latest available country code information. Country codes are officially assigned by the International Telecommunications Union and published under their Recommendation E.164 (as of 1996). Bug reports, corrections, comments can be sent to dleibold@else.net. ** Entries must be in sorted order because binary search is used. */ /* add country codes */ char *countrycode[] = { "1 Canada, United States, Bermuda, Caribbean nations", "20 Egypt", "212Morocco", "213Algeria", "216Tunisia", "218Libya", "220Gambia", "221Senegal", "222Mauritania", "223Mali", "224Guinea", "225Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast)", "226Burkina Faso", "227Niger", "228Togolese Republic", "229Benin", "230Mauritius", "231Liberia", "232Sierra Leone", "233Ghana", "234Nigeria", "235Chad", "236Central African Republic", "237Cameroon", "238Cape Verde", "239Sao Tome and Principe", "240Equatorial Guinea", "241Gabon", "242Congo", "243Zaire", "244Angola", "245Guinea-Bissau", "246Diego Garcia", "247Ascension", "248Seychelles", "249Sudan", "250Rwanda", "251Ethiopia", "252Somalia", "253Djibouti", "254Kenya", "255Tanzania", "256Uganda", "257Burundi", "258Mozambique", "259Zanzibar", "260Zambia", "261Madagascar", "262Reunion", "263Zimbabwe", "264Namibia", "265Malawi", "266Lesotho", "267Botswana", "268Swaziland", "269Comoros and Mayotte", "27 South Africa", "290Saint Helena", "291Eritrea", "297Aruba", "298Faroe Islands", "299Greenland", "30 Greece", "31 Netherlands", "32 Belgium", "33 France", "33 Monaco", "34 Spain", "350Gibraltar", "351Portugal", "352Luxembourg", "353Ireland", "354Iceland", "355Albania", "356Malta", "357Cyprus", "358Finland", "359Bulgaria", "36 Hungary", "370Lithuania", "371Latvia", "372Estonia", "373Moldova", "374Armenia", "375Belarus", "376Andorra", "377Monaco", "378San Marino", "379Vatican City State", "380Ukraine", "381Yugoslavia", "385Croatia", "386Slovenia", "387Bosnia and Herzegovina", "389The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", "39 Italy", "40 Romania", "41 Switzerland and Liechtenstein", "42 Czech and Slovak Republics", "43 Austria", "44 United Kingdom", "45 Denmark", "46 Sweden", "47 Norway", "48 Poland", "49 Germany", "500Falkland Islands", "501Belize", "502Guatemala", "503El Salvador", "504Honduras", "505Nicaragua", "506Costa Rica", "507Panama", "508Saint Pierre and Miquelon", "509Haiti", "51 Peru", "52 Mexico", "53 Cuba", "54 Argentina", "55 Brazil", "56 Chile", "57 Colombia", "58 Venezuela", "590Guadeloupe", "591Bolivia", "592Guyana", "593Ecuador", "594Guiana", "595Paraguay", "596Martinique", "597Suriname", "598Uruguay", "599Netherlands Antilles", "60 Malaysia", "61 Australia", "62 Indonesia", "63 Philippines", "64 New Zealand", "65 Singapore", "66 Thailand", "670Northern Mariana Islands", "671Guam", "672Australian External Territories", "673Brunei Darussalam", "674Nauru", "675Papua New Guinea", "676Tonga", "677Solomon Islands", "678Vanuatu", "679Fiji", "680Palau", "681Wallis and Futuna", "682Cook Islands", "683Niue", "684American Samoa", "685Western Samoa", "686Kiribati", "687New Caledonia", "688Tuvalu", "689French Polynesia", "690Tokelau", "691Micronesia", "692Marshall Islands", "7 Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan", "800International Freephone", "81 Japan", "82 Korea", "84 Viet Nam", "850North Korea", "852Hongkong", "853Macau", "855Cambodia", "856Laos", "86 China", "870Inmarsat: SNAC service", "871Inmarsat: Atlantic Ocean East", "872Inmarsat: Pacific Ocean", "873Inmarsat: Indian Ocean", "874Inmarsat: Atlantic Ocean West", "875Reserved for maritime mobile services", "876Reserved for maritime mobile services", "877Reserved for maritime mobile services", "878Reserved for maritime mobile services", "879Reserved for maritime mobile services", "880Bangladesh", "886Taiwan", "90 Turkey", "91 India", "92 Pakistan", "93 Afghanistan", "94 Sri Lanka", "95 Burma (Myanmar)", "960Maldives", "961Lebanon", "962Jordan", "963Syria", "964Iraq", "965Kuwait", "966Saudi Arabia", "967Yemen", "968Oman", "969(formerly South Yemen - now 967 after unification)", "971United Arab Emirates", "972Israel", "973Bahrain", "974Qatar", "975Bhutan", "976Mongolia", "977Nepal", "98 Iran", "994Azerbaijan", "995Georgia", "996Kyrgyz Republic" }; char *where(code) char *code; { register int i, codelen, high, low, mid; int strncmp(); char incode[3]; if ((codelen = strlen(code)) > 3) return ("not a valid country code"); strncpy(incode, code, 3); if (codelen < 3) incode[2] = ' '; if (codelen < 2) incode[1] = ' '; low = 0; high = sizeof(countrycode) / sizeof(countrycode[0]); while (low <= high) { mid = (low + high) / 2; i = strncmp(incode, countrycode[mid], 3); if (i < 0) high = mid - 1; else if (i > 0) low = mid + 1; else return (countrycode[mid] + 3); } return ("not a valid country code"); } main(argc, argv) int argc; char *argv[]; { char *where(); if (argc < 2) { printf("Usage: ctrycode nnn nnn ...\n"); printf("This program displays countries for given "); printf("telephone country codes\n"); exit(1); } for (--argc, ++argv; argc > 0; --argc, ++argv) printf("Country code %s is %s. \n", *argv, where(*argv)); } ----------------- cut here ------------ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But readers, you have seen *nothing* yet! ... based on corrections at hand, the areacode file is being polished off, and an entirely different script which has more flexibility and features is coming your way in a day or so ... Country codes and USA/Canada area codes *in one large master file ... Lookups not just by code number, but by any search string you wish to use. It runs using Bourne, requires no compiling, and is very simple to modify with new lines and codes at any time. It will be, I think, the final word on area codes and country codes. When it is ready it will come out as a special mailing and I hope you will consider replacing the areacode script I sent out a few days ago with this vastly improved and enhanced version. Watch for it! PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #12 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jan 11 22:44:21 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.1/NSCS-1.0S) id WAA19343; Thu, 11 Jan 1996 22:44:21 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 22:44:21 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601120344.WAA19343@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Bcc: Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #13 TELECOM Digest Thu, 11 Jan 96 22:44:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 13 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson BC Tel U.S. 800 Bypass Approved (Dave Leibold) Cellular Phone Called Simon (Andre Groenwald) Illegal Cloning Alleged (Wes Leatherock) Re: Fridays are Free With Sprint (Leonid A. Broukhis) Is ISDN Dying Already? (Jim Hornbeck) Re: Doppler Shift, was Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" (William Hawkins) Re: Is Cellular Cloning Legal? (Matt Simpson) Re: Warning: SLC96 Cannot do 28.8 kbps (grendal) Re: Warning: SLC96 Cannot do 28.8 kbps (Dave Van Allen) My ANI is: (Thanks AT&T!) (Les Reeves) Re: Federal Crackdown on Cellular Cloning (Michael D. Sullivan) Re: Cellular Fraud Suspects Arrested in Santa Fe (David Norman) Reserving 888 Numbers (Bob Schwartz) Enhanced Full Rate Vocoder (Milind Paranjpe) Re: D3 Channel Bank Question (Bill Benzel) Unusual Radio Promotion (Mike Harpe) Re: Last Laugh! Suspected Wrong Domain Name For "Heaven" (Ed Ellers) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dave.Leibold@superctl.tor250.org (Dave Leibold) Date: 10 Jan 96 07:25:54 -0500 Subject: BC Tel U.S. 800 Bypass Approved The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission approved BC Tel's September application to provide a bypass service for U.S. 800 numbers. Telephone subscribers in British Columbia would soon be able to reach American 800 (and probably forthcoming 888) numbers that were previously inaccessible to them. BC Tel's service would allow customers to reach the U.S. 800 numbers for CAD$0.18/minute. The CRTC's approval of the service requires BC Tel to have customers dial a special access code first, then play an announcement warning of the charges to use this service. The customer can then complete the bypass call, or hang up before charges are assessed. During the CRTC application process, Unitel was concerned about the confusion that could be caused when customers are charged for a service that is normally perceived as toll-free. This is the first to my knowledge that a major Canadian telco (i.e. part of the Canadian Stentor group) has started such a service for general use. The now-defunct STN carrier provided an 800 bypass for $0.10/minute. ACC and Sprint Canada have had such services in the past, generally for their business customers. This news was from CRTC's Telecom Order 96-6, as found on the web at http://www.crtc.gc.ca/ Fidonet : Dave Leibold 1:259/730 | Internet: Dave.Leibold@superctl.tor250.org ------------------------------ From: sahfs@iafrica.com (S A Holstein Friesland Society) Subject: Cellular Phone Called Simon Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 11:22:04 Organization: Internet Africa Can anybody please help me in locating the manufacturer of a product named Simon. It is a cellular phone that can handle electronic mail as well as being a personal organizer. Any information about this product will greatly be appreciated since the name and features of the product is all I have. Andre Groenewald S A Holstein Friesland Society SAHFS@IAFRICA.COM ------------------------------ From: wes.leatherock@hotelcal.com (Wes Leatherock) Subject: Illegal Cloning Alleged Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 13:37:00 GMT A story in {The Daily Oklahoman} (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) for Jan. 9, 1996, reports that AT&T Wireless Services has asked for an injunction against an Oklahoma City firm for allegedly cloning a cellular telephone to create an extension. The story, by Oklahoman staff writer Charles T. Jones, says AT&T Wireless Services asked in federal court for a temporary restraining order and permanent injunction against Johnny Meyers, doing business as Safari Communications and Safari Holdings, Inc. According to the story, "The lawsuit alleges Meyers' company 'advertised and solicited' AT&T Wireless customers to have the secret electronic serial numbers of their activated cell phones 'cloned' onto other phones, thus giving them an 'extension' phone." The story says the suit alleges that such unauthorized phones are illegal and deprive AT&T Wireless Services of income. Besides the injunction, the story says, AT&T Wireless Services is asking for attorney fees and any other losses it can prove at trial. The story says The Oklahoman was unable to reach Meyers for comment. Wes Leatherock wes.leatherock@hotelcal.com wes.leatherock@baremetl.com wes.leatherock@f2001.n147.z1.fidonet.org ------------------------------ From: leob@best.com (Leonid A. Broukhis) Subject: Re: Fridays are Free With Sprint Date: 11 Jan 1996 17:35:35 -0800 Organization: Best Internet Communications TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to lreeves@crl.com (Les Reeves): > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Les and I discussed this at length on > the phone a couple days ago. According to Sprint's literature, they > will give you a year of free calls on Friday up to a thousand dollars > per month. That works out to $12,000 in calls for $600 (50*12) in > charges. The best part is, the $50 minimum per month can be taken > out of the free calls on Friday. I am not sure if you have to default > one of your lines to them or not. I don't think you do, and as Les > points out, both business and residence phones are eligible. So if Go to http://www.sprint.com/ then to the Business Sense International (which will bring you to http://www.sprintbiz.com/cgi-bin/qfridays.cgi ) and tell us _where_ does it say anything about residence phones. If it sounds too good to be true, it isn't. Leo [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: According to Les, it says nothing about residence phones, but does not specifically exclude them. He says that when he talked to their representative, he was told that 'any phone was eligible if it was used to make business calls'. I presume you have to refer to yourself as a business; is that so hard to do? Are they going to demand that you produce evidence of business telephone service as per local telco records? Here in this area, lots of people work from home as a routine thing and do so with residence service from Ameritech. The bottom line is if you call Sprint at that number and agree to be billed a minimum of fifty per month for long distance calls for one year, you can have up to a thousand dollars per month in free calls as long as you make the calls on Friday. That is 50*12=600 versus 1000* 12= 12,000, a difference of $11,400. Now you can just barely do it on purely domestic traffic at 16 cents per minute. The math adds up like this: That is $230.40 per day if your phone is off hook the entire 24 hours. Based on 4 1/3 Fridays per month that is $997.40 per month. Based on 52 Fridays in the year it is $11,981 for the year, but you have to pay $500 of that, remember. They did say in their advertisment the rates were 16 cents per minute. But instead of all that time spent on domestic calls, why not instead a half dozen or so international calls every Friday of several minutes duration each? Or, a single international call several hours in length one a week ... they are allowing international calls under this plan. I don't think you have to default any lines to them; you can do it by keeping your lines with whatever carrier they are on now (AT&T, smile) and just remembering to prepend 10333 to your dialing string all day on Friday. Seems to me it would be worth remembering to do that if Sprint was willing to give me over eleven thousand worth of service in a year's time. And, there is no where mentioned in their adver- tising that I am aware of any catch about how they will only give Friday Free credit up to the same extent you otherwise use them; i.e. no reference to 'if your bill is $50 for the month we will give you up to $50 in free calls on Friday ....' nothing like that. It says 'we will give you up to $1000 in free calls monthly for calls placed on Friday if you spend a minimum of $50 per month.' It sounds to me like another 'sign up and get a free fax and data modem' promotion -- grin -- the one they lost their shirts on a couple of years ago compliments of Digest readers who signed up in droves, demanding their free fax modems, then stayed on Sprint for a month or so and switched back to wherever they were before. Let's give it a whirl and watch them squirm; a couple thousand Digest readers legally pulling eleven thousand dollars each in traffic through Sprint for a year at no charge. That should give them a swift kick in their bottom line! Readers: if you try to sign up and they say no, or if you do sign up and then they lie about it and claim you don't get all those free calls, let us know. PAT] ------------------------------ From: horn@netcom.com (Jim Hornbeck) Subject: Is ISDN Dying Already? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 02:49:39 GMT Recently I called Pac Tel to inquire about ISDN service and received a rather cool reception. Since I had understood that they were pushing ISDN prety heavily, I started asking some knowledgable folks at work what was up. They told me that ATT was about to introduce a new compression scheme for data transmission for twisted pairs that would make most current needs for ISDN obsolete. The Telco *expert* was, of course, not there today to answer with any authority. However, others have noticed the chill reception given to inquiries also. What have I missed? Is Ma Bell on the verge of introducing something worth while or is this just smoke? Curious mind(s) want to know. Regards, Jim Hornbeck WA6GHF horn@netcom.com GEnie L.Hornbeck ------------------------------ From: bill@texan.rosemount.com (William Hawkins) Subject: Re: Doppler Shift, was Re: "PCS Faces Rough Road" Organization: Rosemount, Inc. Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 00:25:25 GMT There may be lots of reasons why PCS will grind its face on a rough road, but I'm delighted to hear that it doesn't work in a fast moving vehicle. Ever been behind someone on the highway who gets bad news (or is otherwise distracted from the task of driving)? Bill Hawkins ------------------------------ From: msimpson@service1.uky.edu (Matt Simpson) Subject: Re: Is Cellular Cloning Legal? Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 09:42:29 -0500 Organization: University of Kentucky Computing Center A cloner here (Lexington, KY) was recently arrested and tried. He was cloning phones for people who had legitimate cellular service and wanted a second phone; he was not cloning stolen numbers. According to the news, this was the first time in the country that someone had been charged for that. I saw a headline in the newspaper a couple of days ago saying he had been acquitted. I didn't get a chance to read the article. ------------------------------ From: i@me.me.sra.com (grendal) Subject: Re: Warning: SLC96 Cannot do 28.8 kbps Date: 11 Jan 1996 23:35:43 GMT Organization: Systems Research and Applications Corp. In article , tedwards@Glue.umd.edu says ... > I have now heard of two ISPs in Bell Atlantic territory who got burned > when getting a SLC96 installed to handle their large numbers of phone > numbers. Apparently the SLC96's are incapable of handling 28.8 kbps, > and regularly result in 21 kbps and worse for users. > This sets up the perverse situation where larger regional ISPs have > worse dialup speeds that little Mom-n-pop ones who dialtone over > copper. > Has anyone else heard of this? I imagine there are probably many > large office buildings that might also have SLC96 service which are > similarly "speed impaired." > Of course, we all know 28.8 kbps is a "best case" scenario, but this > is sad for the future of analog dialup net connectivity (hmm - could > it be the RBOCs would use this "feature" to leverage ISDN?) Yo, Thomas, I seem to remember several conversations here regarding modem problems that I thought were caused by SLC services. Yes, indeed, SLC will limit your bandpass sufficiently (4:1) so that only 4800 will be usable. With lousy modems, 2400 is more likely. This (SLC) is most often found in newer suburban develpment areas and older and sparsely populated rural areas. The philosophy is called "pair gain", meaning that digital compression multiplexing (via a lower digital sample rate) allows less copper to be used -- a signifi- cant economic factor in telephone cost. The RBOCs are now reducing ISDN prices to build a market base. Once the RBOCS have converted the entire analog plant to SLC, they will increase ISDN rates and ISDN will be the only way we'll get ANY decent bandwidth. Remarkably clever, eh? By then, the cable companies may be a good alternative and the Telco's will be left with voice. grendal ------------------------------ From: dave@yt1.youtools.com (Dave Van Allen) Subject: Re: Warning: SLC96 Cannot do 28.8 kbps Date: 11 Jan 1996 19:40:11 GMT Organization: FASTNET(tm) PA/NJ/DE Internet kenshalo@anc.ak.net wrote: >>> I have now heard of two ISPs in Bell Atlantic territory who got burned >>> when getting a SLC96 installed to handle their large numbers of phone >>> numbers. Apparently the SLC96's are incapable of handling 28.8 kbps, >>> and regularly result in 21 kbps and worse for users. >> I have heard telecom device providers speaking of this being due to >> robbed-bit signaling occuring over the T-1 feeding the SLCs. This >> doesn't make sense to me, as it would infer that B8ZS coding is also It doesn't make sense to you, because that's not the problem. The line coding is not what is messing up the payload, it the A/D conversion at the switch (prior to feeding the digital hicap to the SLC) and then further, the type of card used at the SLC to convert back to copper to feed your demarc. We reported this problem to Bell Atlantic 18 months ago, and were told we were crazy, that it was "our equipment". The question was then asked why, "I can take "our" equipment, off-site, to my house no less, and get nearly perfect 28.8K connects? What I got was dead-air, and excuses. Today, the same guy at the TAG group humbly tells me this is a "national problem". If your site is fed by a SLC, and there is just ONE A/D conversion at the CO switch, then count on poor 28.8K connects. Most switches are still 90% analog out to copper. When the RBOC's need to extend facilities past copper length, or for other reasons, they normally take the analog side of the switch out- put, pump this to D-4 channel banks, MUX's ec t, and point it all toward a T-3 or Sonet ring. At the far end they "decode" the channels back to analog and deliver them to you on copper. That initial MUX'ing is what causes the problem. High order eliptical filters (9th order according to Bellcore) cut the top-end off sharply at 3050Hz (or thereabouts), phase shift, q-Noise and other by-products are the result. This doesn't affect voice, but it plays hell on data. We tried a test, where we asked Bell for a Digital handoff T-1 with 24 voice, B8ZS ESF channels and we plugged it into a Channel bank to convert back to analog. Result, poor connects. Bell "swore" that this was a complete digital path, NO A/D except at OUR end. Hmmm, weeks later we found out that there WAS an A/D conversion at the switch. Bell said, "well that's the way we ALWAYS do it. We asked for a digital port from the DMS-100 to feed our circuit. Not in the tariff -- you need an HSA (house special assembly) for that. They did it -- guess what? Perfect connects! Nynex is the only (that we could two months ago) RBOC that had a tariffed service that was truly digital -- it goes under the trade name of Flexpath. If you want more reliable 28.8K connects, get an ascend MAX and feed it ISDN PRI, load it up with ascends 28.8K modems and you'll be much happier. BTW, they CAN fix the problem at the SLC -- they just don't see a need to do it. Not fun when you have 500 modems that all get at BEST 26K connects and the puny Internet service provider down the street has a two dozen 'cheeze' modem, built to the CO on copper and they get 28.8K all of time. Try explaining THAT to your (potential) customer. Best regards, *Dave Van Allen - You Tools/FASTNET - dave@youtools.COM - (610) 954-5910 -=-=-=- www.youtools.com - FASTNET(tm) PA/NJ/DE Internet -=-=-=- ------------------------------ From: lreeves@crl.com (Les Reeves) Subject: My ANI is: (Thanks AT&T!) Date: 11 Jan 1996 13:38:01 -0800 Organization: CR Labs For those TD subscribers who lament the loss of 1-800-YOUR ANI, AT&T has a couple of numbers for you: 800.532.7486 (Billing info, but ANI readback even if the billing info system is down and you don't have AT&T as your PIC). OR 800.858.9857 (True Rewards, True Reach, or True Lies balance info). ANI works regardless of your LD company. Note: These are ANI readbacks. *67 and other CID issues do not apply. Try it from your Cell Phone! Les lreeves@crl.com Atlanta,GA 404.874.7806 -- 404.875.1273 ISDN Voice 404.875.1274 ISDN data/fax -- ------------------------------ From: mds@access.digex.net (Michael D. Sullivan) Subject: Re: Federal Crackdown on Cellular Cloning Date: 11 Jan 1996 05:17:10 GMT Organization: Wilkinson, Barker, Knauer & Quinn Reply-To: mds@access.digex.net (Michael D. Sullivan) In , Kevin B. Kenny writes: > I'm curious. Would it be possible to set up a value-added service to > support `extension cellphones?' The idea would be to have THREE phone > numbers: the numbers of the two cellphones and the number of the > group. When someone calls the number of the group, a machine picks up > and places calls, simultaneously, to the two cellphones. The first > call to complete wins, and the other call gets dropped. A smart PABX > could probably arrange to see that the inbound call doesn't supervise > until the outbound call does. Feasible? In fact, some cellular carriers with appropriate software offer the ability to have two cellphones (e.g., portable and vehicular, or husband and wife) that can be reached with a single number. The phones actually have different MIN and ESN assignments, but the switch is programmed to hand traffic to the first of the two to answer, more or less. Michael D. Sullivan Email to: mds@access.digex.net Bethesda, MD, USA Also: avogadro@well.com 74160.1134@compuserve.com ------------------------------ From: dnorman@cix.compulink.co.uk ("David Norman") Subject: Re: Cellular Fraud Suspects Arrested in Santa Fe Organization: Brother International Europe Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 11:48:46 GMT I'm perplexed! Surely the mobile telco knows the overseas number dialed. If the recipient of the call were to be visited by the local fraud squad and asked who originated the call, I'm sure a few arrests back in the originating country might lessen people's enthusiasm for "really cheap" inetrnational calls! I may be missing something here, of course (perhaps I'm too honest?) I realise the call may be to a call box (or otherwise untraceable), there may be political/cost implications in following up the recipient (presumably they are innocent themselves?), but surely the call originator is guilty of theft, or receiving stolen goods? I've never seen any comment from mobile telco's about this aspect of fraud. Is it just too difficult, or is being done on the quiet? I guess I must look honest too, 'cause no-one has ever offered me cheap calls on a cloned handset!! (This isn't a request either!) A final observation: here in the UK it isn't illegal to clone a phone (although I think this is being looked at), but it is illegal to misuse the telco's electricity to make a fraudulent call, but this makes it much harder to gain convictions. Dave Norman: dnorman@cix.compulink.co.uk ------------------------------ From: bob@bci.nbn.com (Bob Schwartz) Subject: Reserving 888 Numbers Date: Wed, 10 Jan 1996 22:43:45 -0800 Organization: BCI Has anyone got advise on how to reserve an 888 number and How to get the best chance at securing the *right* number?? Through an RBOC a Long Distance company or ... Is there a deadline? When will numbers be assigned and any other pertinant information? Please reply to Bob@BCI.NBN.COM Thanks in advance. ------------------------------ From: Milind Paranjpe Subject: Enhanced Full Rate Vocoder Date: 11 Jan 1996 19:26:39 GMT Organization: interWave Corp. Hello all, Does anyone have information on the Enhanced Full Rate vocoder used in PCS-1900 in Washington DC? Milind milind@iwv.com +1 415 261 6200 x170 ------------------------------ From: whb@Op.Net (Bill Benzel) Subject: Re: D3 Channel Bank Question Date: 11 Jan 1996 19:41:18 GMT Organization: OpNet -- Greater Philadelphia Internet Service Raymon A. Bobbitt (rbobbitt@ramlink.net) wrote: > Does anyone know the difference between D3 and D4 framing in a channel > bank?? D3 is 24 channels (one DS-1) and D$ is 48 channels (two DS-1s). Some D4 channel banks are designed to permit "drop and insert" so that you can switch traffic through them. Not all models, however, support this feature. Bill Benzel Fiserv, Inc. Philadelphia whb@opnet.com ------------------------------ From: mike@hermes.louisville.edu (Mike Harpe) Subject: Unusual Radio Promotion Date: 11 Jan 1996 16:10:14 -0500 Organization: University of Louisville, Louisville KY USA WHAS-AM 840 here in Louisville is starting a rather unusual radio promotion that I thought the Digest readers would have some thoughts on ... It's simple ... they are calling pay telephones around town and giving money to people who answer them. Is this a proper use of payphones? How would a COCOT operator feel about this? I would like to hear some opinions. Michael Harpe, Communications Analyst III Information Technology Internet: mike@hermes.louisville.edu University of Louisville (502) 852-5542 (Voice) (502) 852-1400 (FAX) Louisville, Ky. 40292 WWW: http://www.louisville.edu/~meharp01 ------------------------------ From: edellers@shivasys.com (Ed Ellers) Subject: Re: Last Laugh! Suspected Wrong Domain Name For "Heaven" Date: 11 Jan 1996 14:48:28 GMT Organization: Pennsylvania Online [Usenet News Server for Hire] In article , One-True@TDR.COM says: > A domain name ending in .com represents a "commercial" site and I suspect > that's incorrect in the context used. > A company calling itself "heaven", or even a nightclub or some other such > operation, if it had a domain name on the internet, would use such a > domain name. But I doubt that if there was a real site such as the > purported one in the fictional example, it would use such a domain name. > Seriously I doubt {THAT} "Heaven" (the one allegedly upstairs) is a > commercial site. International, probably. Or perhaps an organization. That's what I would think too. Actually I've seen some Usenet messages from a user identified as "satan@hell.org" a while back. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #13 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jan 11 23:20:39 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.1/NSCS-1.0S) id XAA22114; Thu, 11 Jan 1996 23:20:39 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 23:20:39 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601120420.XAA22114@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Bcc: Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #14 TELECOM Digest Thu, 11 Jan 96 23:20:43 EST Volume 16 : Issue 14 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FCC Reopening Procedures (Bob Keller) Re: News: ISDN Moves To The Burbs (Fred R. Goldstein) Seminar Presenters Needed (Mark Mitchell) Re: News Release in TC94-121 (Lars Poulsen) Area Code Overlays in Texas Delayed (Edmund C. Hack) Warning to All Net Users (Emmanuel Goldstein) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 21:57:04 -0500 From: Bob Keller Subject: FCC Reopening Procedures Here is the full text of a public notice issued today by the FCC regarding the filing of documents that were due during the shutdown. The bottom line is that anything that came due during the shutdown (or that would have been due today, Jan 11, or will be due tomorrow, Jan 12) may be filed until 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, January 16, 1996. PUBLIC NOTICE Federal Communications Commission 1919 M St., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20554 DA 96-2 January 11, 1996 PROCEDURES FOR THE FILING OF DOCUMENTS THAT WERE DUE DURING THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN OR DURING THE WEATHER EMERGENCY By Public Notice (DA 96-1) released January 5, 1996, the Managing Director announced procedures for the filing of documents that were due to be filed with the Commission during the time that it was closed due to lack of appropriations (December 18, 1995 through January 5, 1996). Due to a weather emergency, the FCC remained closed from January 8, 1996 through January 10, 1996. Another forecasted weather emergency may affect Commission operations on Friday, January 12, 1996. Any documents that were due to be filed with the Commission (at its headquarters, Gettysburg, PA, or Mellon Bank) while it was closed, whether for the budget-related shutdown or the subsequent weather emergency, will be due no later than 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, January 16, 1996. To this extent, Section 1.4(j) of the Commission's rules, 47 C.F.R. sec. 1.4(j), which would otherwise require such filings on the first business day after a shutdown, IS HEREBY WAIVED in order to facilitate an orderly reopening. Additionally, in light of the inclement weather, filings normally due today or tomorrow (January 11 and 12, 1996) will also be due on January 16, 1996. While parties will have additional time to file at the appropriate location, they are strongly encouraged to tender their documents for filing as early as possible. The Commission will be closed on Monday, January 15, 1996, a Federal holiday. The FCC Headquarters building and the Secretary's office reopened today at 8:00 a.m. and will close at 5:30 p.m. While persons will be admitted to the building before 5:30 p.m., due to the anticipated volume of filings, they may not be able to file documents with the Secretary after 5:30 p.m. See 47 C.F.R. sec. 1.4(f). Documents required to be filed at the Commission's Gettysburg facility and at the Mellon Bank will also be accepted during normal business hours. Documents received at the Commission's headquarters, at Mellon Bank or at the Commission's Gettysburg offices via mail from December 18, 1995 through January 10, 1996 will be deemed filed on January 11, 1996, the first day that the Commission has reopened. This Public Notice affects only due dates for filings with the Commission that were due during the time that the Commission was closed or due on January 11-12, 1996. It does not affect due dates for the filing of other documents and does not affect the effective dates of Commission actions or other events. These matters may be dealt with separately by the Commission or its Bureaus and Offices. Action by the Managing Director. - FCC - -------------------------- Bob Keller (KY3R) mailto:rjk@telcomlaw.com Law Office of Robert J. Keller, P.C. http://www.his.com/~rjk Federal Telecommunications Law Telephone 202.416.1670 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 16:31:36 -0500 From: Fred R. Goldstein Subject: Re: News: ISDN Moves To The Burbs What a hoot. Here's PacBell shilling for a massive rate increase by writing a so-called "news" story in which they just happen to mention one of the reasons why they allegedly require a huge ISDN rate hike. Let's dissect the message. not really news: >NEWS FROM PACIFIC BELL: ISDN Moves To The Burbs > In the past ten months alone, Pacific Bell has experienced an amazing > 200 percent growth in the number of ISDN lines installed in > California. Of 60,000 total lines, Okay, here's a "fact" they're releasing: They've shipped 60k ISDN lines in the past ten months, 200% growth, meaning they had 30,000 and now have 90,000. That's pretty good for an American telco. PacBell *had* taken a leadership position in ISDN, which they are now trying to get out of. (Maybe they want Bell Atlantic to buy them instead of NYNEX?) > nearly 30 percent are located > three or more miles away from the nearest ISDN-equipped central > office, with the remaining 70 percent concentrated close to central > offices in metro areas. That's the key. ISDN Basic Rate loops work to 18,000 feet, more or less. Beyond that you need a Mid-span Repeater (MSR). Adtran is the only maker that I'm aware of, and their price is in the $1k apiece range (list is I think higher, but if PacBell doesn't get a huge bulk discount, their purchasing folks aren't on the ball. Or Adtran is just too cocky with their effective monopoly.) PacBell (rightly, I think) doesn't charge extra for the MSR, since it's their judgement as to where COs go. In the ancient of days, telcos often had "rural" and "suburban" surcharges for lines that crossed a boundary, which was on a map filed with the PUC as part of the tariff. Most states have abolished these for POTS. PacBell applies similar precedent to ISDN. NYNEX, btw, isn't so nice, and probably has more than 30% out of range. So with 30% of 60k lines needing MSR, PacBell has shelled out for around 18k of them, which probably means nearly $20M for Adtran. > Compare that to last year's statistics > showing that only 5 percent of installations occurred three miles out, > for a 95 percent metro concentration, and a clear geographic shift > emerges. Pacific Bell projects that, by the year 2000, more than 70 > percent of ISDN lines will be in homes for business or personal use. There's the problem. They wrongly assumed 5% MSR when preparing their tariff in 1994. They probably based it on Centrex experience, and Centrex is rarely marketed at long-loop customers, ISDN or not. So they are maybe $15M in the hole for unplanned MSRs! This is probably a reasonable justification for raising the monthly ISDN rate by a few dollars, since the average (of MSR and non-MSR lines) ISDN line is probably carrying $300-400 more investment than anticipated. > And unlimited night and weekend usage has driven > many to never turn their lines off during those times. These usage > trends have proven to be costly. Here's where they get tricky. While resi POTS is flat rated daytime, resi ISDN is flat rated *only* after peak business hours (5PM-8AM). A few users have taken advantage of it to *never hang up* during those hours. I personally think that's a bad thing, though POTS users can do it too, 7x24, even with Multilink on multiple V.34-modem lines, and there's no plan to penalize them. ISDN users are being told to pay up. So PacBell is proposing a *20 hour/month* cap on nighttime "flat" usage. This is incredibly small. US West is proposing a *200 hour* cap in its states, has it in some, and was just turned down in Washington. I think a cap like that is eminently reasonable, since a "nailed" call is using resources that are better provisioned as leased lines. But 20 hours is less than a typical teenager talks in a week. That's bad, but it gets worse: > To address this, we've added a penny per minute to our usage charges, Hear this: PacBell proposes charging *double* for ALL calls made on ISDN lines, outside of Centrex! If you have an ISDN telephone set, then calling your next door neighbor will cost you *2 cents/minute* compared to *1 cent* on a measured (business) POTS line, or *0 cents* on a resi POTS line. If you have an Adak, Moto, Gandalf, Adtran IBM or similar ISDN-to-POTS-jack adapter, under the proposed new tariff, you'd better sell it to somebody out of state! What does this do to prevent nailed-call "abuse"? All it does is make two modem calls a *lot* cheaper than one ISDN B channel call, and make ISDN voice almost a non-entity. The net effect is to make PacBell's ISDN an *extremely* undesirable product. This will, of course, take care of their backlog in a hurry! Let's make it clear: US telephone companies, for the most part, *hate* ISDN. PacBell's ISDN Bashers have finally, it seems, taken the front seat over the pro-ISDN faction. Scott Adams was fired, and Dilbert's Boss (the guy with the beard on his kepeleh) now seems to be in charge. While PacBell is *theoretically* subject to competition, there won't be any for most subscribers for *years* to come, if ever. And they know it. PacBell should raise the installation and/or monthly rates to make up for the MSR shortfall, and can reasonably put a cap on free usage to discourage nailed lines. But the proposal to charge double for all calls, except for a 20-hour nighttime allowance, is totally unreasonable, and will leave California's experiment with reasonable ISDN for the history books. Fred R. Goldstein fgoldstein@bbn.com Bolt Beranek & Newman Inc. Cambridge MA USA +1 617 873 3850 ------------------------------ From: msm4174@aol.com (Msm4174) Subject: Seminar Presenters Needed Date: 11 Jan 1996 13:29:44 -0500 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: msm4174@aol.com (Msm4174) A major offerer of seminars in Latin America is seeking qualified seminar lecturers in the areas of data communications, information systems, distributed computing, and telecommunications. Seminars are typically two days in length and are held in Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela. Openings are available in the May timeframe. Presenters will be paid an honorarium for each day of instruction, plus travel and perdiem. Presenters should have at least 15 years experience in the field and previous experience delivering seminars or major presentations to middle/upper management and senior technical computer and communications professionals. Seminars are given in English, with simultaneous translation into Spanish. Examples of recent offerings include: Analysis and Design of Client Server Systems, Advanced LAN Systems and Technologies, Information Systems Project Management, Cabling and Wiring, Fiber Optic Telecommunications, Distributed Computing, Integrating LANs and WANs. Please send seminar topic ideas and a brief summary of previous work and seminar experience to: Mark Mitchell voice/fax: 503-484-4174 email: msm4174@aol.com ------------------------------ From: lars@spectrum.RNS.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: News Release in TC94-121 Date: 11 Jan 1996 09:45:50 -0800 Organization: Rockwell International - CMC Network Products In article Wegman, Steve forwards a press release about an agreement between US West and the South Dakota Public Utilities commission allowing a monthly rate increase of about $6 per line over the next three years. This deal sounds to me like corporate welfare. > The Settlement .... includes $25 million in > infrastructure development; a competition-oriented pricing structure; > elimination of all touch-tone charges; and a rate adjustment phased in > over 36 months. "This was among the most important decisions the PUC > has ever made," said [PUC chairman] Stofferahn ... So they eliminate touch tone charges, but raise the price by a little more than the surcharge they eliminate. In other words: They are really not only keeping the touch tone surcharge but raising it and making it mandatory. In return for this rate boost, they are mandating that US West *must* put in the system upgrade that they were planning to do anyway (because it reduces their cost). > In addition to the infrastructure development, the Settlement > includes a $2 million Distance Learning Initiative for public schools, > Distance Learning training grants, a discount for state government to > defray a portion of the state's education network costs, In addition, they are forcing the telco to donate money to the schools to make up for the money that the state legislature is unwilling to appropriate out of the general tax fund. What a deal ... > statewide deployment of Caller ID and other advanced custom calling > features, ... for which US West will undoubtedly set a monthly price per feature to recover the cost of providing these features. > full replacement of multi-party lines with one-party service, This seems legitimate. There is a cost to upgrading these (rural) customers, and although they will lose the discount they got for living with the (substandard) party-line service, the end result MAY be a net loss for US West. > expansion of fiber-optics and local access to the internet. Whether the wiring is twisted pairs or coax or fiber is largely irrelevant to customers. US West will want to put in massive amounts of fiber in any case, because this is the most cost-effective way to install backbone wiring today. As for Internet access: Is South Dakota an island of the nation with no Internet access? If the telephone company is mandated to provide inexpensive Internet access everywhere, is this not guaranteed to turn Internet access into a monopoly, thus *destroying* the competition that may already exist? > The Settlement still sets a cost of service > based price ceiling for U S WEST, but allows downward-flexing of > customer rates to remain competitive. "We have not approved a general > rate increase for U S WEST since 1985. This Settlement allows an > increase, but with a price ceiling below the cost of service, and a > three-year phase-in," he said. I would bet that the reason they have not approved any rate increases since 1985, is because the cost of providing basic service has gone *down* every year. I believe it is *still* going down. By my perspective, this sounds like an enlightened rate restructuring in a regulated cost-plus monopoly environment, but it is exactly backwards from the claimed position of preparing for increased competition. Here is the way I would suggest that a rate restructuring should be written today: 1) Define a standard basic telephone service: Single-party, touch tone, no CLASS features, and set a price ceiling for it. Require uniform pricing for this basic service throughout the service area. Require that this service be offered throughout the service area. 2) Allow (but do not require) the telco to offer a lower grade of service at a discount. (This allows gradual phasing out of party lines and pulse dialing.) 3) Set the rate for the basic service at the average price of pulse and tone dialing today. (I.e. make the elimination of the tone surcharge revenue-neutral). 4) Remove the linkage of the rate cap to documented costs. 5) Require that the service be provided entirely from within the state (i.e. no moving the repair service trouble desk to Plano, TX or Tijuana, Mexico). 6) Allow competition, but require that anyone offering service in a county must provide basic service everywhere in the county with the capped service rate. (I.e. no cream skimming of the downtown business districts.) 7) Treat Internet access as an unregulated, competitive activity. 8) Require fair terms for interconnects. (This probably needs a LOT of staff work to define. Lars Poulsen Internet E-mail: lars@RNS.COM Rockwell Network Systems Phone: +1-805-562-3158 7402 Hollister Avenue Telefax: +1-805-968-8256 Santa Barbara, CA 93117 Internets: designed and built while you wait ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 15:40:12 -0800 From: Edmund C. Hack Organization: CRL Network Services (415) 705-6060 [Login: guest] Subject: Area Code Overlays in Texas Delayed {summarized from news reports here in Houston] The plan by Southwestern Bell to not split the 713 (Houston) and 214 (Dallas) area codes, but to overlay them with new area codes has been delayed by the Texas PUC. A PUC vote had been scheduled to be taken on the plan today, January 11, 1996. The PUC staff and an administrative judge had recommended to the PUC that the overlay plan be approved. The delay is to allow additional public hearings in the suburbs of Dallas and Houston at the end of the month. 713 and 214 would be the first area codes to be overlaid. The vote was delayed after several prominent lawmakers requested the PUC do so to allow more public input. There have been two public hearings on the matter. The first in late December, was in Austin and was mainly attended by lobbyists, although a few private citizens did speak. The notices for this meeting sparked a lot of coverage in the local press in Houston and fired the talk shows into high gear. (Only Houston Lighting and Power is as mistrusted as SW Bell, and we tend to like the gas company.) The 713 area code will run out of numbers in a few months (there are said to be 8 prefixes left in 713 and 12 in 214) and numbers in the new area code (281) have been available on an optional basis for a while. The PUC has had objections to the plan from MCI and other companies that wish to enter the local service market, citing fears that they will not be able to get numbers available in 713 assigned "fairly". Local business have tended to support the overlay, since they would not need to reprint letterhead and other items. The public has tended to oppose the plan and support a geographical split, since the overlay will require a switchover to 10 digit dialing in March. SW Bell said that a "donut" split would need to be resplit in 5 years or so and that an overlay is the best long-term solution. Other suggestions have been made: Move all cellular, pager, fax and data lines to the overlay, freeing large blocks of numbers for use in 713. Release all lines assigned to hunt groups except for the primary number. Do a double geographical split now instead of later. Some civic leaders are opposed to the geographic split, since some of the suburban cities would be in two area codes. Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, has said that the change to ten digit dialing will cost consumers $53 million/year in lost time, assuming time dialed is worth $10/hr. Another objection is that the overlay will make it harder for children to memorize their home phone number. The PUC has also asked SW Bell to determine if there will be a windfall to them from extra directory assistance calls. Commentary: The sudden furor over this is interesting, considering that SW Bell has been publicizing 10 digit dialing and the overlay in phone bill inserts for at least 6-10 months. You do read your phone bill insert don't you? Apparently, most Texans don't. Edmund Hack ------------------------------ From: emmanuel@2600.com (Emmanuel Goldstein) Subject: Warning to All Net Users Date: 11 Jan 1996 23:31:39 GMT Organization: 2600 Magazine - The Hacker Quarterly Our nightmare with PSI has been ongoing since August of 1995. We have tried to be reasonable and have given them every opportunity to respond to us and resolve our problem amicably. They have ignored our letters, phone calls, and email. We have no choice but to bring these unpleasant facts to the widest possible audience -- the net itself -- in the hopes that others will see the way this company is using deception and false promises to lure in customers. It is our wish that nobody else be taken in as we were. So far, PSI has taken nearly $1300 from us and provided absolutely nothing in return. Not only that, but they have stated that they will continue to charge our credit card for an entire year and that we have no choice but to pay them what they demand. It sounds incredible and even unbelievable. But every word is true and we have the evidence to back it up. It started when we saw an advertisement for PSI's ISDN service. ISDN allows fast and reliable connections to the Internet, among other things. There are two ways of connecting to the Internet - by making what is known as a "data call" which connects at 64k and by making an "audio call" which connects at 56k. (Audio calls are also referred to by many as "data over voice".) Some local phone companies, ours included, have slapped a surcharge onto all data calls which make such calls prohibitively expensive for anyone trying to keep a site up 24 hours. The audio calls are billed at normal phone rates, however. This is how the system works throughout the nation. One of the very first things we asked PSI when we contacted them was whether or not they supported data over voice. On two separate occasions we were told that they did. When it became clear that they were offering the service we wanted, we signed a faxed contract. This contract makes no specific mention of speeds and/or configurations that are or aren't supported. The day came to finally hook our site up to PSI and, lo and behold, it didn't work at all. We spent a while trying to figure it out on our end and then we called the technicians at PSI. They consulted with each other for a while and then revealed to us that it was "against company policy" to offer this service. We asked to speak to the person who told them that but they were suddenly unavailable. We asked to be called back. To this day, we have yet to be called back. We demanded to be released from this contract since it was signed under false pretenses and amounted to a bait and switch tactic on their part. Deborah Nicely of the Customer Satisfaction Department promised to get back to us. Several weeks later we received a terse letter from her saying basically that we had signed a contract and that was that. In early December, we decided to try an experiment. We called PSI and pretended to be new customers. We asked the exact same questions we had asked in August, the most important one being: "Do you offer data over voice?" Both times we called, the answer was very clear and exactly the same. "Yes." Hear it for yourself on our website: http://www.2600.com. PSI's printed literature is also misleading, especially if you've already been given the impression that they support 56k connectivity. From one of their advertisements, they define their ISDN service as using "one 'B' channel of the customer's ISDN line (BRI) for LAN integration access at up to 64Kbps." The words "up to" certainly seem to prove that connecting at 56k wouldn't be a problem. We've tried to bring this to PSI's attention so they could do something about it. But they have been completely unresponsive. We've run out of options and now we are forced to make this a public issue. PSI is ripping us off and from what we have seen, we can only conclude that they are doing this intentionally. If you use PSI, consider this carefully. Once they have your money, they treat you very differently from when they are trying to get you as a customer. And if you are considering using PSI in the future, please learn from our mistake, which was believing what PSI told us. We have set up a special PSI mailbox for all suggestions, comments, and complaints concerning this PSI situation. Please let us know if you would like your comments to be public or private and, if public, whether or not you want your name attached to them. The address is psi@2600.com. Fingering this account will also get you the latest update. PSI can be reached at (703) 904-4100, fax (703) 904-4200. However, you are setting yourself up for disappointment if you believe your comments will carry any weight with them. On the other hand, it can't hurt to try. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Have you tried simply telling your credit card company to honor no further charges from them? You are entitled to treat this as a dispute under federal law and refuse payment on your credit card, forcing the card provider to charge it back to PSI for adjustment. Do they have a signature on file for all this? Good luck in getting it resolved. Does anyone from PSI wish to respond? PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #14 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Sat Jan 13 09:05:48 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.1/NSCS-1.0S) id JAA08007; Sat, 13 Jan 1996 09:05:48 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 13 Jan 1996 09:05:48 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601131405.JAA08007@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Bcc: Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #15 TELECOM Digest Sat, 13 Jan 96 09:05:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 15 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Fridays are Free With Sprint (Les Reeves) Re: Fridays are Free With Sprint (Tim Dziechowski) Call for Papers: IVTTA (Voice Technol for Telecommunications) (M. Spiegel) Blizzard of 96 - Phone Service in Northern Virginia (Scott Robohn) Re: TELECOM Digest V16 #12 (John M. Sullivan) Re: SDSL v. ADSL (Jon M. Taylor) Cellular "Customer Service" and Fraud (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 America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: lreeves@crl.com (Les Reeves) Subject: Re: Fridays are Free With Sprint Date: 12 Jan 1996 10:14:02 -0800 Organization: CR Labs Leonid A. Broukhis (leob@best.com) wrote: > Go to http://www.sprint.com/ then to the Business Sense > International (which will bring you to > http://www.sprintbiz.com/cgi-bin/qfridays.cgi ) and tell us _where_ > does it say anything about residence phones. If it sounds too good > to be true, it isn't. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: According to Les, it says nothing about > residence phones, but does not specifically exclude them. He says that > when he talked to their representative, he was told that 'any phone > was eligible if it was used to make business calls'. I presume you > have to refer to yourself as a business; is that so hard to do? Are > they going to demand that you produce evidence of business telephone > service as per local telco records? Here in this area, lots of people > work from home as a routine thing and do so with residence service from > Ameritech. Pat is correct. I have received much mail from folks who have been told by Sprint that the program is only available to business customers. The truth is that it is a limited time promotion offered in conjunction with Sprint's Business Sense program. Business Sense is targeted at business customers, but not limited to them. You neither need a business line nor a business entity to get the program. I grilled them at length about this point. I have the Business Sense program on two residential lines, and the customer is a person (me). Sprint needs to get their ducks in a row about this. Apparently they have not yet explained the program correctly to all of their employees. > I don't think you have to default any lines to them; you can do it by > keeping your lines with whatever carrier they are on now (AT&T, smile) > and just remembering to prepend 10333 to your dialing string all day > on Friday. I don't believe this is true. They definitely send an order to your LEC to change your primary carrier to 10333. And if you were to change it later on to some other carrier, Sprint would be notified by the LEC of the change. I can't predict what Sprint would do in this situation, but some other carriers I have dealt with immediately cancel whatever plan you were on when you try this. And keep in mind that the Free Fridays offer is only available through the end of February, so you could be unable to get back on this insane plan if you tried to change your primary IXC in the last couple of weeks of February. You *can* use 10333 to make Free Friday intra-lata, intra-state calls if Sprint currently offers this in your lata. I also grilled them on this specific issue, and they assured me that this was the case. This seems rather odd to me since I am pretty sure Sprint excludes these calls on their residential "Sprint Sense" program. But this whole thing seems like Sprint is going to take a tremendous financial bath, so what the heck. Here in Atlanta it costs as much to make a 70 mile intra-lata call on BellSouth as it does to call Kansas, so I will be making a few intra-lata calls on Friday. One last caution about this program. Before you start making your four-hour calls to Gaum on Friday, be sure that your account with Sprint is Business Sense, and that your free Fridays are enabled. I called them today (Friday), and inquired as to the status of my account. I was told that I was indeed on Business Sense, but my free Fridays did not start until *next* Friday. Had I not made that call, this could have been a very expensive Friday. Les lreeves@crl.com Atlanta,GA 404.874.7806 404.875.1273 ISDN Voice 404.875.1274 ISDN Data/Fax [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: They may be telling people it is necessary to be a business customer, but I wonder how they would be in any position to define what a 'business customer' is? I would say even if it is necessary to default a line over to them that is not a bad tradeoff. Give them one of your lines you don't use very often -- except on Friday of course! I guess to avoid the aggravation of arguing with them over whether or not residence phones can be included it is better to just mention that you work from home and operate your business there. Les, do you know if there is any minimum length of time one has to be on the program? In other words do you have to stay on for a full year in order to get all the Fridays credited back to you for example? Can you stay on for a month, get four Fridays of free calls and then drop out? PAT] ------------------------------ From: tdziecho@uunet.uu.net (Tim Dziechowski) Subject: Re: Fridays are Free With Sprint Organization: PictureTel Corp. Date: Sat, 13 Jan 1996 01:23:50 GMT In article , leob@best.com (Leonid A. Broukhis) says: > Go to http://www.sprint.com/ then to the Business Sense > International (which will bring you to > http://www.sprintbiz.com/cgi-bin/qfridays.cgi ) and tell us _where_ > does it say anything about residence phones. If it sounds too good > to be true, it isn't. Yesterday I called Sprint's business 800 line and switched my SOHO home business line to Sprint. The salesman asked me if I wanted to switch my residence line too, so I did. It gets better: I only have to pony up $50/month for _both_ lines. So starting next Friday I'll be netsurfing until midnight on one line while my wife calls all her relatives in Colombia, SA. Unless of course, she notices the "conference" button on my AT&T 2-line 9132... ;-( timd@pictel.com (Tim Dziechowski) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Another person wrote to me asking 'what are you trying to do, cause Sprint to go bankrupt?'. Believe me, it would take a lot of people signing up for Free Fridays to make that happen, but it will be fun to see them sit and re-think this crazy promotion after it has been running for awhile. As Les points out, after signing up, be certain to check the next Friday to make sure you are installed on 'Business Sense' before you start making a pig of yourself. In his case, it took until the second Friday after enrollment before Free Fridays started. Don't get caught unaware! PAT] ------------------------------ From: spiegel@din.bellcore.com (Murray F Spiegel) Subject: Call for Papers: IVTTA (Voice Technol for Telecommunications) Date: 12 Jan 1996 21:04:51 GMT Organization: Speech Technology Research Group (Bellcore) Reply-To: spiegel@bellcore.com CALL FOR PAPERS THIRD IEEE WORKSHOP ON INTERACTIVE VOICE TECHNOLOGY FOR TELECOMMUNICATIONS APPLICATIONS September 30 - October 1, 1996 The AT&T Learning Center 300 N Maple Ave Basking Ridge, NJ 07920 USA Sponsored by the IEEE Communications Society The conference venue is on 35 semi-rural acres and is close enough (1 hour) for side trips to New York City. Our workshop will be held immediately before ICSLP '96 in Philadelphia, PA, approximately 80 miles from our location. The IVTTA workshop brings together application researchers planning to conduct or who have recently conducted field trials of new applications of speech recognition, speaker indentity verification, text-to-speech synthesis over the telephone network. The workshop will explore promising opportunities for applications and attempt to identify areas where further research is needed. Topic areas of interest: - ASR/verification systems for the cellular environment - User interface / human factors of applying speech to telecommunications tasks - Language modeling and dialog design for "audio-only" communication - Experimental interactive systems for telecommunication applications - Experience in deployment & assessment of deployed ASR/verification systems - Text-to-speech applications in the network - Speech enhancement for telecommunications applications - Telephone services for the disabled - Architectures for speech-based services Prospective authors should submit 1-page abstracts of no more than 400 words for review. Submissions should include a title, authors' names, affiliations, address, telephone and fax numbers and email address if any. Please indicate the topic area of interest closest to your submission. Camera-ready full papers (maximum of 6 pages) will be published in the proceedings distributed at the workshop. Due to workshop facility constraints, attendance will be limited with priority given to authors with accepted contributions. For further information about the workshop, please contact: Dr. Murray Spiegel, Bellcore, 445 South Street, Morristown, NJ 07960 USA Phone: 1-201-829-4519; Fax: 1-201-829-5963; E-mail: spiegel@bellcore.com For full information, visit our web page: http://superbook.bellcore.com/IVTTA.html Send abstracts (fax or email preferred) to: Dr. David Roe IEEE IVTTA '96 AT&T Bell Laboratories Murray Hill, NJ 07974 USA Phone: 1-908-582-2548; Fax: 1-908-582-3306 E-mail: roe@hogpb.att.com SCHEDULE Abstracts due (400 words, maximum 1 page): Mar 15, 1996 Notification of acceptance: May 1, 1996 Submission of photo-ready paper (maximum 6 pages): Jun 15, 1996 Advance registration to be received before: Jun 15, 1996 Late registration cut-off: Aug 30, 1996 IVTTA '96 Evening welcoming reception: Sep 29, 1996 IVTTA '96 Conference: Sep 30 & Oct 1, 1996 WEB PAGE Check our web page for late breaking news and developments: http://superbook.bellcore.com/IVTTA.html REGISTRATION INFORMATION Early registration (prior to June 15, 1996): Day-only: $390 Full: $650 Late registration (Jun 15 - Aug 30, 1996): Day-only: $465 Full: $725 IEEE members: charges are $25 less Additional proceedings: $25 Day-only registration includes all technical sessions, welcoming reception, lunches, snacks, banquet, and a copy of the proceedings. Full registration includes all of the above plus: dinner on evening of arrival, breakfast both days, two nights lodging at the conference center, and use of the center facilities (jogging track, exercise center, pool, etc). WORKSHOP COMMITTEE GENERAL CHAIR REGISTRATION & FINANCE Candace Kamm Dick Rosinski AT&T Bell Laboratories AT&T Bell Laboratories cak@research.att.com rrr@arch4.att.com PROGRAM CHAIRS PUBLICITY David Roe Murray Spiegel AT&T Bell Laboratories Bellcore roe@hogpb.att.com spiegel@bellcore.com George Vysotsky LOCAL ARRANGEMENTS NYNEX Science & Technology David Pepper george@nynexst.com Bellcore dpepper@bellcore.com INTERNATIONAL STEERING COMMITTEE Sadaoki Furui, NTT PROCEEDINGS Matthew Lennig, BNR Jay Naik David Roe, AT&T Bell Laboratories NYNEX Science & Technology Christel Sorin, CNET naik@nynexst.com George Vysotsky, NYNEX ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Jan 96 11:53:12 EST From: Scott Robohn Subject: Blizzard of 96 - Phone Service in Northern Virginia As we continue to have more snow dumped on us here in Northern Virginia (Bailey's Crossroad's), I saw Pat's request to keep him updated on how the weather is affecting phone and other network service. So here goes. We've been getting fast busy signals intermittenly all week, especially to the south and southwest parts of Fairfax County. At one point on Tuesday, I'd been trying to call my wife ('S') with no success (fast busy). My colleague lives a mile or two away from the office and we had no problem calling his wife ('D') at home. D kept _gently_ reminding me that it was snowing more and more and that if I got stuck at the office tonight, S would be all alone with the kids. So, D called S on their cell phone and called me on her cordless phone and held two handsets together! Wasn't perfect, but it worked. Way to go, Cellular One. And no, I didn't get stuck that night. Internet access has been a problem, too. Web access and file downloads have been _real_ slow. We have a T1 from this building to a local provider; hardly anyone has been here this week, so I figure it must be everyone snowed in playing with their new Christmas present PCs. Drive safely. Scott Robohn robohns@ncr.disa.mil [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A federal government employee remarked to me that, 'the first scheduled day back to work since the middle of December a month ago, and then it gets cancelled as well from the snow emergency ...' He was at work Thursday, may or may not have made it in Friday, and of course Monday is a legal national holiday, although the federal employee I was speaking with said a lot of his co-workers and himself had been told they could go into work on Monday if they wanted even though the offices would not be open to the public. Quite a few federal people apparently will go in on Monday just to try and organize the mountains of past due work waiting them and prepare themselves for an incredible Tuesday when most will be overwhelmed with members of the public waiting in line for service, etc. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 12:21:46 -0500 From: sullivan@interramp.com (John M. Sullivan) Subject: Re: Snow, Snow, Go Away! Our Esteemed Moderator wrote: > That was our 'storm of the century' now 29 years ago. Lots of stories > came out of it (people stuck on CTA busses in high drifts for several > hours; one woman giving birth on a CTA bus because it was impossible > to get out of the bus and get to a hospital), and I imagine a lot of > stories will be heard about the east coast blizzard in the years to > come. Oh yeah, we're getting all of those, and it isn't over yet. Most of the above ground portion of the metro system was shut down for a couple days. This was after one train slid into another in the yard a couple of miles from where I live early in the storm and killed the operator. That night around midnight a train on what I gather must have been the last scheduled run got stuck on the tracks with about 200 people on board. They sent a rescue train out to offload the passengers but that got stuck too. They were only about 3000 feet from the next station and some people apparently wanted to walk out, but the crew wouldn't open the doors because they were afraid of people stumbling around snow covered tracks in the dark and getting electrocuted. They ended up being stuck there in the cold and the dark until the Metro authority managed to get a locomotive up to pull them back to the last clear station at around 6:30 the next morning. After that they didn't send any trains above ground at all for a couple days, which effectively cut off the suburbs. We also had a miraculous birth story (seems you can't have a serious storm without one of those). Woman went into labor in Arlington late at night so her husband packed her into the car and tried to make the hospital. The car got stuck in a snowbank, still quite a long way from the hospital, and they started walking through heavy snow in the middle of the night, stopping every few minutes for her contractions. They finally got picked up by a father and son in a pickup truck who actually work at George Washington University hospital and were trying to get in. So they got her to the hospital in time for the delivery and were the heroes of the moment. The whole city was pretty much shut down. Maryland and Virginia were doing a reasonable job of keeping the main arteries as clear as possible -- which frankly wasn't all that clear -- but of course DC has no money, and a lot of the city streets were impassable. The National Guard lent the police dept. 14 Hummers with drivers to get officers around to emergencies, and they even had three armored personnel carriers busting through snow at one point. The mail didn't get delivered for a couple days. Garbage pickups still haven't resumed. Several roofs collapsed. They had to evacuate a nursing home to a nearby hotel when the dining room roof buckled. Fortunately there were no serious power outages. By Wednesday I managed to get into the office (my newsletter was supposed to have gone out on Tuesday -- first time its been late in the two years I've been writing it). They had a couple lanes clear on the interstates, but the merging lanes on the ramps didn't exist anymore. There was just a single plowed channel that dropped you straight into traffic, so cars were lined up WAY back as the driver of the lead car would cautiously inch around the edge of the huge snowbank until he could see (praying all the while that he wouldn't get clipped by something first), and then dart out when it was clear. Most people stayed home Wed. however, so it wasn't bad other than that. Thursday totally sucked. Everyone decided they could no longer justify staying home, and the Federal government re-opened since they'd all been home forever and were chomping at the bit. The roads were indeed passable, but could only handle a fraction of their normal capacity because they mostly had at least one lane still under snow and another that would disappear from time to time as the bank edged out and forced cars over into the next lane. The normal 15 minute drive to work took me an hour and a half and that was by avoiding the interstate entirely and taking back roads. The beltway was a parking lot. One of my managing editors took 5 hours to get in, 2 of which were spent covering two miles on the Dulles Toll Road. Frankly I preferred the snow. (And I got my wish too!) And here's the telecom angle. We never had any trouble with the wireline network, but Thursday when half of Washington spent half the day parked out on the beltway the cellular networks were totally jammed. The aforementioned managing editor couldn't get a call through from the toll road (in Virginia) to our office on the Maryland side at all. He finally managed to get a call through to his house in Virginia and had his wife call the office via Bell Atlantic to tell them where he was. The evening rush was just as bad. I should point out for the "PCS has a rocky road" crowd that I never had any trouble with my Sprint Spectrum phone though. Used it couple of times during the day and the only time I had a problem was when I was trying to call a cellphone on Bell Atlantic Mobile. First time the network just said the hell with it, try again later. The second time it rang the phone but only gave me about three rings before it dropped me with an announcement that the party I was trying to call was not available. I don't follow cellular that much -- is that standard or will it usually let the phone ring until you give up? So anyway now it's Friday and snowing again. Everybody stayed home and the roads are terrible. Part of the beltway is closed because no less than 4 semis are jacknifed in a short stretch known locally as the Rock Creek rollercoaster. All the local airports are closed, a plane slid off the runway at Dulles, but nobody was hurt. It's disaster land all over again! We're only supposed to get another 4-10 inches or so this time, though (See, we've already gotten blase), and I expect we'll be back to normal by Monday. john sullivan sullivan@interramp.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, don't forget Monday is a federal holiday (Martin Luther King Day) and federal agencies will be closed. That will affect some of the 'normalacy' on Monday. I am told some agencies are asking workers who want to come in on Monday to do so to try and organize themselves without a massive crunch from the public. Then what happens on Tuesday? Will it snow again, or will the money run out again? ... PAT] ------------------------------ From: taylorj@ecs.ecs.csus.edu (Jon M. Taylor) Subject: Re: SDSL v. ADSL Date: 12 Jan 1996 00:42:38 GMT Organization: California State University, Sacramento In article , Peter Brace wrote: > Is there really much commercial difference between SDSL and ADSL? AFAIK, ADSL is (as the name implies) asymmetric -- you get much more downstream bandwidth to you than you can send back. It was thought up a couple of years ago when the "interactive TV" thing was all the rage and everyone thought that the future of the information superhighway was 500 home-shopping channels for couch potatos. Now that the extremely rapid growth of the Internet has placed it in the forefront of the datacomm revolution, though, it has become apparent that both downstream and upstream bandwidth are needed in a more equitable balance, and thus we have SDSL. I, too, read the web page where it was claimed that T1/E1 speeds were going to be possible over standard unmodified telco copper wiring with SDSL, but I have yet to hear a detailed explanation of how this is possible without repeaters. > And is SDSL likely to have much of an impact on cable rollout? (i.e. is > coax/fibre no longer needed?? Well, if they can pull off what they claim with SDSL, it would at the very least put off the inevitable task of upgrading the entire worldwide copper phone plant to coax/fiber (and eventually all to fiber). However, even then the laws of physics dictate that you will never be able to cram as much bandwith into a piece of copper wire as you will a glass fiber. Photons are bosons, a class of subatomic particles which can occupy the same space at the same time, and thus can pass though each other without interference (unlike electrons, which are mesons). This means that there is essentially *NO* (theoretical) upper limit on the bandwidth of a glass fiber, because you can send light down the pipe at a huge number of different frequencies and they will not interfere with each other. As long as the equipment at the ends of the fiber can pick out the different frequencies from each other, you have no problems. This is the current bottleneck in fiber-optic networking technologies, because the equipment at the ends of the fiber has to be electronics, which can only switch so fast with current technology. I think that the current upper speed limit is around 10 GBPS, but that may be out of date. Jon Taylor = | ------------------------------ From: gvaeth@netcom.com (Greg Vaeth at General Instrument) Subject: Cellular "Cust. Service" and Fraud Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 17:22:41 GMT Hi, I wanted to relate a few experiences I had recently with my cellular carrier: Week 1: I received a call from customer service confirming receipt of their PIN number mailing and asking if I was ready to activate my PIN. I said, "Wait a minute, your industry has a major theft-of-service problem so you want me to make calling more inconvenient to protect you from revenue loss?" "Oh, no sir," she replied, " This feature is to protect you!" Right, I declined. Week 2 (the day after I returned from Orlando, where I had about 40 minutes of airtime): My wife called me at work to say that she got "number not in service" when she dialed my cellular number. When I called customer service, I was told that my phone had been cloned and the number taken out of service. I was incredulous, thinking I was being punished for declining PIN activation. However, after they told me that someone in Florida cloned my phone, I explained that I made the calls and they reactivated my number. I asked why they had not called me directly, they said that it was not their policy (some other department flags the account, they just take the calls) , but that if I had tried to use the phone the call would have been redirected to customer service!! "So I lose incoming calls and potentially am delayed making an important/emergency call because you "think" I was cloned?" "Sorry, sir, that's our policy." Week 3: I received another call from customer service, this time confirming receipt of their "local security area" service where you have to let them know you're going out of the area so that your phone will work. "Is it optional?", I asked "No sir". I asked to speak to his manager. "Is it optional?", I asked his manager. "Yes it is." I declined. He would give no explanation of why the first guy said it was not optional. Sheesh! I know that fraud eventually costs me in higher rates, but couldn't they be a little more up front about what they're doing? And why is it such a pain in the neck for me when they decide someone else has cloned my phone? Any comments? Regards, Greg [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Any comments? Yes ... for starters, tell your existing carrier they are in violation of their contract with you for causing those interupptions in your service and imposing those special conditions on you after the fact. Close your account with them and go to one of the other carriers such as Frontier, where there are no contracts required and just month by month billing at a less expensive rate. PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #15 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jan 15 17:10:12 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.1/NSCS-1.0S) id RAA09669; Mon, 15 Jan 1996 17:10:12 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 17:10:12 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601152210.RAA09669@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Bcc: Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #16 TELECOM Digest Mon, 15 Jan 96 17:10:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 16 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Fridays are Free With Sprint (David W. Crawford) Re: Fridays are Free With Sprint (Glen L. Roberts) Re: Fridays are Free With Sprint (Tye McQueen) Re: Snow, Snow, Go Away! (Jodi Weber) Re: Snow, Snow, Go Away! (Shawn Goodin) Re: Snow, Snow, Go Away! (Ed Ellers) Re: Snow, Snow, Go Away! (John McGing) Re: Snow, Snow, Go Away! (Michael P. Deignan) Re: Blizzard of 96 - Phone Service in Northern Virginia (Lee Winson) Re: Blizzard of 96 (Dave Levenson) Re: Unusual Radio Promotion (Dave Levenson) Re: Unusual Radio Promotion (Ed Ellers) Re: Unusual Radio Promotion (jtassi@cts.com) New India Telecom Mailing List: india-gii (Arun Mehta via Monty Solomon) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: David W. Crawford Subject: Re: Fridays are Free With Sprint Date: 15 Jan 1996 12:28:46 -0500 Organization: Woo Studios Ltd. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: They may be telling people it is > necessary to be a business customer, but I wonder how they would > be in any position to define what a 'business customer' is? I would > say even if it is necessary to default a line over to them that is > not a bad tradeoff. Give them one of your lines you don't use very > often -- except on Friday of course! I guess to avoid the aggravation > of arguing with them over whether or not residence phones can be > included it is better to just mention that you work from home and > operate your business there. Les, do you know if there is any > minimum length of time one has to be on the program? In other words > do you have to stay on for a full year in order to get all the > Fridays credited back to you for example? Can you stay on for a > month, get four Fridays of free calls and then drop out? PAT] So you tell Sprint, the long distance carrier, which will serve your residence (and under this scheme, Sprint will serve your residence even if you maintain another carrier as the default for 1+dialed calls) that you want business long distance service (Sprint Business Sense) at your residence. Is there a hazard that your LEC (the LEC is involved in the billing of the long distance service, right ?) will reclassify your household phone service from residential line to a more expensive business line ? EndNote: I have a collection of Sprint calling cards; every time I applied, I received a T-shirt and 30 free minutes within US evening calls, plus 'surprise bonuses'. The last 'surprise bonus' was that I could call anywhere within the US for one hour -- on Halloween between 8 and 9pm only -- for free. So I placed a call, but after 20 minutes of 'all circuits are busy' messages I gave up. David W. Crawford [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Maybe that is how they handle calls on Friday; constantly bouncing them back with 'all circuits busy' ... If what Les Reeves says is correct, that a business account with the local telco is not needed, then your question becomes a moot point. If they do bother to verify that, then you have to decide for yourself if the change in your status is warranted or not. PAT] ------------------------------ From: glr@ripco.com (Glen L. Roberts) Subject: Re: Fridays are Free With Sprint Reply-To: glr@ripco.com Organization: Full Disclosure Date: Sun, 14 Jan 1996 17:34:20 GMT lreeves@crl.com (Les Reeves) wrote: > Leonid A. Broukhis (leob@best.com) wrote: >> Go to http://www.sprint.com/ then to the Business Sense >> International (which will bring you to >> http://www.sprintbiz.com/cgi-bin/qfridays.cgi ) and tell us _where_ >> does it say anything about residence phones. If it sounds too good >> to be true, it isn't. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: They may be telling people it is > necessary to be a business customer, but I wonder how they would > be in any position to define what a 'business customer' is? I would > say even if it is necessary to default a line over to them that is > not a bad tradeoff. Give them one of your lines you don't use very > often -- except on Friday of course! I guess to avoid the aggravation > of arguing with them over whether or not residence phones can be > included it is better to just mention that you work from home and > operate your business there. Les, do you know if there is any > minimum length of time one has to be on the program? In other words > do you have to stay on for a full year in order to get all the > Fridays credited back to you for example? Can you stay on for a > month, get four Fridays of free calls and then drop out? PAT] They told me there was a $50/month usage minimum to qualify for Free Fridays, and that I was limited to $1000/month on Fridays, and that the free calling lasts for a year. I might think they meant $1000/year max not $1000/month max. I signed up and sent them a letter to confirm their statements to me. Links, Downloadable Programs, Catalog, Real Audio & More on Web Full Disclosure [Live] -- Privacy, Surveillance, Technology! (Over 140 weeks on the Air!) The Net Connection -- Listen in Real Audio on the Web! http://pages.ripco.com:8080/~glr/glr.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: $1000 per month does not come close to $1000 per year does it, either in the math or the syntax. Granted, it seems like quite a deal; I wonder how they are going to weasel out of it when the promotion becomes widely known, as has certainly happened by its discussion in this forum. Poor Sprint; they never seem to learn do they? Remember how screwed up their whole operation used to be back in the days right after their original owner (remember, it was named for the outhern

acific ailroad nternal etwork ele- communications service at the SPRR) sold it? You would think that fiasco with the free fax modem promotion a couple years ago would have gotten them wised-up. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tye@metronet.com (Tye McQueen) Subject: Re: Fridays are Free With Sprint Date: 14 Jan 1996 01:01:32 -0600 Organization: Texas Metronet, Inc (login info (214/705-2901 - 817/571-0400)) > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > The bottom line is if you call Sprint at that number and agree to be > billed a minimum of fifty per month for long distance calls for one > year, you can have up to a thousand dollars per month in free calls as > long as you make the calls on Friday. That is 50*12=600 versus 1000* > 12=12,000, a difference of $11,400. I believe the free calls on Friday are also limited to being less than or equal to the value of calls during that week. This limits your savings to 50% at most. I got this impression from subtle wording in the TV commercials. Tye McQueen tye@metronet.com || tye@doober.usu.edu Nothing is obvious unless you are overlooking something http://www.metronet.com/~tye/ (scripts, links, nothing fancy) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Hmmmm ... anyone else get this impression or actually get told this by a Sprint rep? PAT] ------------------------------ From: jweber@cbnews.att.com Date: Mon, 15 Jan 96 13:37:16 EST Subject: Re: Snow, Snow, Go Away! Pat - On the Sunday and Monday (January 7 and 8) of the heavier blizzard (as compared to what's coming down today), I got the "All circuits are busy" interrupt throughout a good part of each day trying to place calls from 908 to 201 (intraLATA stuff in Bell Atlantic territory). Jodi Weber jodiweber@attmail.com or jweber@cbnews.cb.att.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jan 96 07:46:44 EST From: root@proclt.vnet.net (Shawn Goodin) Subject: Re: Snow, Snow, Go Away! Organization: pro-charlotte gateway, Charlotte, NC Hello from Charlotte, NC! We were on the tail end of the storm -- as a transplanted Northerner (you probably remember me from the Suburban Round Table, and I talked to you earlier this year about Microsoft's phone system), I expected the storm to have some effect on the telecommunications system and the area businesses. As it turned out, while there were some expected delays due to busy circuits on long distance trunks and on cellular, I considered them to be pretty minimal. Charlotte, however, was hit by a one to four inches or so of snow, and an inch or two of ice. In my area, I had maybe an inch of snow and an inch or so of ice, but that is enough to paralyze this city. They don't plow streets here unless it's a significant snowfall (more than six inches). They instead use a mixture of sand, slag (cinders?) and salt to melt any snow/ice. Problem was, it was too cold for salt to be truly effective, and the schools in the Charlotte area were closed from Monday through Friday, with various teacher workdays now rescheduled as make-up days. One of those make-up days is Memorial Day (and this was to be the first year in quite a while for kids to get Memorial Day off. Not this year (again). It was infuriating to see the main thoroughfares essentially clear of most ice/slush/snow, yet still have the schools closed. The issue here is the safety of the kids -- with many secondary and side/neighborhood streets still covered with ice, it was deemed too dangerous for school buses to safely travel (Charlotte-Mecklenburg buses approximately 33,000 students every day). With temperatures this weekend in the 50's, it's expected that everything else out there will melt, and schools will finally reopen on Monday. A much smaller storm came through Thursday night/Friday morning. Lines in the grocery stores were seven or eight carts deep as shoppers prepared for being snowed out another week (grin) despite the forecast of much warmer temperatures for Friday and the weekend. Much of what fell Friday was gone by Saturday afternoon. Wonder what they do with all of that extra bread, milk, and toilet paper. Shawn Goodin -- KD4QGZ Charlotte, NC CompuServe: 76703,1034 root@proclt.vnet.net shawng@vnet.net shawng@pro-charlotte.vnet.net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Of course I remember the Suburban Round Table; and there was also the BBS that Herb Zite used to operate as well on the same software; I think his was called the Chicago Round Table. Several sysops used Bill Blue's software which was called the "People's Message System" or PMS for short. That's what we had running on the BBS I maintained for the Chicago Public Library in the early 1980's. I bet it is fun watching their reaction in the south to the smallest little bit of snow, isn't it? We had about four inches here over the weekend and no one thought anything of it at all. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: Re: Snow, Snow, Go Away! From: edellers@shivasys.com (Ed Ellers) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 96 10:33:47 In article , TELECOM Digest Editor said: > Later that day I had my picture taken by an enterprising fellow who would > take your picture with a Polaroid Instamatic Camera standing on top of a ten > foot high pile of snow which had been scooped over to the side of the road > if you gave him a dollar. You may be thinking of a Polaroid Automatic camera -- Instamatic was Kodak's trademark, even though Motorola had used Insta-Matic as a trademark before them. The Polaroid cameras in 1966 were called the Automatic 100 through the Automatic 104 (not counting the Swinger). These days a dollar wouldn't even pay for the FILM for such a venture! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are probably right. I don't remember what it was for sure. I do remember the next day was Sunday; four or five of my friends and I rode the Illinois Central Suburban Electric Train (now it is called 'Metra') from Hyde Park to downtown Chicago. We got off at the Jackson/Adams station downtown. At the intersection of Michigan Avenue and Adams Street next to the Art Institute and directly across from Orchestra Hall was another *huge* mound but in this case some people from the Art Institute had created some marvelous sculptures out of snow on the top of that mound. They took pictures also for anyone who wanted it, standing in the 'doorway' of an Igloo they had created up there. Television was still relatively unsophisticated and remote broadcasts always took a bit of effort to handle, so as always in the alley behind Orchestra Hall was the big semi-trailer truck from Illinois Bell and their crew, with the guys from WTTW/Channel 11 and they were having a snowball fight. Funny, isn't it, how some things from long ago stand out so clearly in your mind. Nothing like that storm since. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Jan 1996 23:18:47 -0500 From: John McGing Subject: Re: Snow, Snow, Go Away! Reply-To: jmcging@access.digex.net Pat, Just a note from an ex-Chicagoan who delivered his papers during that 1967 storm. I was telling my wife about the evening papers being dropped off at the intersection of Diversy and Austin (I had a four block walk to that intersection). I tied a big box to my flexible flyer sled and pulled the thing to the drop off point and folded my papers and ended up doing two routes. I went from Diversy to almost Belmont, from Austin to Narragansett. Steinmetz HS is in that square, and I tried to shortcut to one of my last customers by cutting across the field there. Bad move. Anyway, I probably delivered papers for six hours that day, I know it was very late and dark when I got back but luckily people did let me warm up and give me warm drinks. At the corner of Diversey and Moody a CTA bus was abandoned and was drifted over; when the city started to come alive the biggest wrecker I ever saw pulled that bus out but Diversey was one lane for days. My customers did get their papers. I delivered all the afternoon papers, the {Daily News, Chicago American, Chicago Today (successor to the American}). Course, you at least did something socially useful but you're also a bit older than me :) BTW, no papers delivered here for four days in a row. ;) John jmcging@access.digex.net Nobody knows the troubles I've seen JOHN.PF on GEnie Team OS/2 .... and nobody cares! http://www.access.digex.net/~jmcging [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I had two newspaper routes when I was eleven and twelve years old; I guess 1953 or so. On my morning route I had the {Chicago Tribune} and the {Chicago Sun Times}. I guess I had about fifty customers, and I had three or four who got the {Wall Street Journal}. On my afternoon route I had about a hun- dred customers (some were also morning customers) who got the {Chicago Daily News} and the {Chicago Herald-American}. About a dozen of the afternoon customers got miscellanous stuff; there were three or four for the {Christian Science Monitor} and a couple who got that Polish newspaper, the {Daily Zygoda}. I had a wagon I pushed along with the distributor's name, "Charles Levy Circulating Company" on the side, and a nice warm jacket they gave me to wear with their logo on it. I got paid based on collections. I had to turn in a certain amount to the company, via the driver who brought my stack of papers twice each day. Everything over that was mine. I went around to each customer once a week to get the money for the papers from the week before. I had some who only got the Sunday paper; some who got it every day, etc. Long after I gave up my routes they changed the pro- cedure and started billing for the papers from the office, having the customers remit direct, mainly because so many of the kids were getting their money stolen by guys on the street who would rob them. Oh, I almost forgot! We had {TV Guide} magazine every Wednesday, with television listings starting two or three days later. Those were fifteen cents each and I got a nickle for each one. When I was nine years old I had a {Saturday Evening Post} route, if you remember that weekly magazine founded by Benjamin Franklin. I had about twenty people on my route, and took them their copy every Saturday. They sent the magazines to our house by parcel post to arrive every Thursday or Friday, and I was to deliver them on Saturday unless it was a holiday in which case I could take them around on Friday. Each person paid ten cents at the time of delivery and I sent the company five cents for each copy I sold. "We trust you!" they said in their recruitment ad for sales people. "As long as you promise to pay us for the copies we send and do so, we will send you more copies each week." If you had any left over copies unsold you tore off a portion of the front cover with the date and sent it in with your payment for the rest. {TV Guide} also used kids as independent salesmen for their weekly publication back in those days. I never had that until they finally started doing it through Levy Circulating. Then some kids had that only, but I had it for delivery with the Wednesday newspapers to whoever subscribed. A friend of mine had a Time/Life route. He delivered {Time Magazine} door to door to 'his customers' on one day each week and its com- panion publication {Life Magazine} another day each week. Overall I earned about five or six dollars per week on my newspaper route. When I was younger my {Saturday Evening Post} route brought me about a dollar or two each week. Once a year, Illinois Bell also hired kids to deliver the new phone books and pick up the old ones. I don't remember what they paid, but it was something like ten cents for each new book out/old book returned. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kd1hz@anomaly.ideamation.com (Michael P. Deignan) Subject: Re: Snow, Snow, Go Away! Date: 12 Jan 1996 17:46:00 -0500 Organization: Ideamation, Inc. The only problems I had with phone service during the Blizzard was I couldn't connect to my Internet Service Provider for several hours. Other than that, if you didn't look outside, you wouldn't have known anything was going on by picking up the phone. That said, let me think back ... I've "lived" through two "great blizzards". The first one occured in February 1978, when we got something like three feet of snow in a 36 hour period. I was 14 years old at the time. I still remember watching John Ghiorse, the Channel 10 weatherman, (who is still alive and well and on Channel 6 today) telling everyone it was "just going to be flurries, an inch or two at most." Well, 7:30am arrived, and I had to leave for school. School was about a mile away from my house, living in Providence, RI, and none of the radio stations had any school cancellations. So, I left the house with my friend Patrick, determined to make it to school. The snow was really coming down hard, and we had a couple inches on the ground as we walked to schoo. By the time we made it to school (close to 8:30), it was pretty clear that this wasn't going to be "flurries". We went inside, only to find all the students who had shown up (about 100 of us) all clustered in the lunch room. It seemed that most of the staff had not shown up, so we couldn't go to our home rooms. After sitting in the cafeteria for what seemed like hours, finally we were told to "go home" at 10 am. Both Pat and I proceeded to walk back home, this time with three or four inches of snow on the ground. It took us another 45 minutes. When I got home, naturally all the weathermen were on the channels talking about the storm. Some of them, being "sensationalist", starting talking "blizzard". Our old standby, John Ghiorse, wasn't calling it a blizzard -- yet. He coldly explained that to have a blizzard you had to have certain conditions met, and while we were on the way there, we were not there yet -- technically. The snow continued. Offices let people out early. Traffic jammed on the highways. People couldn't get off the exit ramps, and others abandoned their cars in the middle of the highway. Roads clogged. Everything came to a stand-still. People were stranded, others braved the walk home. My father, a 14-year veteran of the Providence Police force, walked home from downtown -- about a three mile walk. I went to bed. It was still snowing. When I woke up, we had something like 37 inches of snow. Drifts literally travelled up the sides of houses. Both of our doors were snowed in ... I had to crawl out of a side window to get out of the house and start digging out the doors. After digging for a few hours, I decided to go visit a friend down the street. No problem, I think -- its only one city block away. Yeah. Snow was up to my chest. I walked to Jeff's house, it took me almost an hour to get there. After warming up, I started the trek home. Sometime that first afternoon, some snowmobiles ran up and down the streets, making a compressed trail to walk in. It made travelling easier, but not by much. None of the main streets were plowed. People couldn't get in to work to go plow. My father, who had walked home the day before, couldn't get in to work. The whole state came to a stand-still. People were stranded at firehouses, hospitals, and stranger's homes. Funny, now that I look back, the phones were pretty busy too. You had to wait for a minute or two to get a dial tone. Not that it made much sense to me at the time :-) Eventually things got back to normal. On the third day the major roads in the area were plowed, and we were able to take a sled and go shopping. It was a truely eerie feeling walking down the middle of Smith Street, one of the major arteries running into Providence, and simply having the street crowded with people -- no cars. On the way to the store, we came across several people -- neighbors -- helping a man shovel his car out of the middle of the street -- apparently he couldn't get it off the road, and he got stuck facing towards his house. I remember we had to walk up the snow bank on one side they were shovelling, and over to the other side -- the banks had to be seven feet high. Finally on the fifth day, the catepillars started working their way through our neighborhood. We had huge four or five foot mounds along the side of the road. At intersections they would create four huge mounds on each corner -- these had to be ten feet high. I think we still have pictures around somewhere. They made great snow forts. About seven days later, everything was pretty much back to normal. ... Fade ahead 17 years ... On to the great blizzard of '96. I really wouldn't call this a Blizzard. More like a snow squall. If you want a Blizzard, go to Alaska where the annual snowfall is over 600 inches! Now *THAT* is alot of snow! For this blizzard, things are a bit different. Now I'm thirty, and talk about irony -- I work for the Providence Police Department (dad has long since retired on disability due to getting shot on a drug raid), but not as a cop, instead as Director of MIS. Most people don't realize that Providence is the second largest city in New England, with Boston being the first. Overall, we received 24 inches of snow over a day and a half (Sunday and Monday). We got about 16" by 8 AM on Monday, with another 8" by the time things wrapped up Monday nite. Monday morning arrived, and unlike everyone else, I had to drive to work. Unfortunately, working in Public Safety I didn't get the luxury to stay home. Most people did decide to stay home, though. Probably just as well that they did. Cars on the roads would have gotten stuck, and made clean-up alot harder. Despite the fact that the streets had been plowed sometime during the night, they still had about 4" of standing snow on them. I live in Providence, about a city block from Smith Street (the same from '78) in the same neighborhood I grew up in as a kid. By the time I reached Smith Street, the roads were in decent shape -- I certainly wouldn't have wanted to drive without my Ford Explorer though. I made it to work, with my stop at Dunkin Donuts and all, in less than 20 minutes. Telecom-wise, things held up pretty good. No outages, although the part of the DMS-100 switch the city leases from Nynex did get clogged with calls from people wanting to know when their streets were going to get plowed. By Tuesday, things were pretty much back to normal. Alot of the streets still have standing snow, but are passable. All of the major roads are down to bare pavement. It is snowing right now, but it is going to change to rain (supposedly) and make ice-mountains of everything around here. Overall, I have to say that Providence and the State of RI faired pretty well. I see accounts on the National news about neighborhoods still buried in DC and I think back to the '78 blizzard. I think we faired pretty well for three reasons: 1. John Ghiorse didn't predict flurries. He didn't predict 2' of snow either, but that's beside the point. 2. The bulk of the snow occured on a weekend, and we were well into the snowstorm by the time people had to commute. 3. When commute time arrived people were not at work this time, they were already at home. Welp, that's about it from here. MD ------------------------------ From: turner7@pacsibm.org (Lee Winson) Subject: Re: Blizzard of 96 - Phone Service in Northern Virginia Date: 13 Jan 1996 21:07:30 GMT Organization: PACS IBM SIG BBS In the Philadelphia area, which got 30 inches of snow, phone service remained ok. I had a few situations of busy circuits. No wait for dial tone. On Friday we had a second storm, and my calls from the suburbs to the city couldn't get through on account of busy circuits. The busy circuit recording was irritating since it rang about 6 times before the recording came on. IMHO, whenever telephone circuits get close to capacity for whatever reason, the phone company should announce on radio/TV asking people to defer using the phone for a while. This is prevent busy circuits or no dial tone blocking urgent calls to get through. If lines get really crowded, the phone company should announce that only emergency calls should be made. During storms, there is tremendous phone traffic. Much of it is important -- cancelling appointments, arrangements for transportation, baby sitters, etc. But much of it is social -- people stranded in the house chatting, or people chatting about the storm. If there is enough capacity in the network in a storm to accomodate social chitchat, fine, but not at the expense of delaying dial tone. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Back in the days of step-by-step and panel type central phone exchanges, there were a couple here in Chicago which were notorious for taking a long time to return a busy signal. With luck, if someone's line was busy you got a busy signal then and there. But quite often, it would ring anywhere from one to three or four times and *then* the busy signal would cut in. I think what you were experiencing was it was taking a long time merely to get an available intercept recording circuit. Telco usually does announce on the radio and television about these things. Once about 1950 when I was little, the operators at Illinois Bell went on strike. They called it a 'wildcat strike', meaning the union had not authorized it. The operators were protesting the new automatic dialing. Most offices in Chicago had been converted but there were still two or three manual central offices, and those operators were both hearing (and spreading) unfounded rumors that the company planned to finish the automation and fire all the oper- ators. They all walked off the job for two days, and during that time if you picked up your phone (in a manual central office) or dialed the code to reach that office (from one which had been automated) a recording came on the line immediatly saying 'due to a labor dispute between our employees and the company, we are only able to handle emergency calls at this time. If your call is not an emergency, please hang up now. If it is an emergency, please hold and supervisory person- nell will respond as soon as possible.' Illinois Bell tried to bring in spare operators from other central offices to fill in for the strikers but most of the ladies were afraid to cross the line, knowing they would have to work with the strikers later on. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: The Blizzard of 96 Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 15:02:00 GMT Here are one man's observations on the `Blizzard of 96': Here in the New Jersey suburbs of New York City, we got between two and three feet of snow within about 24 hours. Governor Whitman declared a state-wide emergency under which it became illegal to operate a motor vehicle other than for emergency services. (I have not heard of anybody actually being given a summons for driving, but they were ticketing cars which got stuck in the snow.) The emergency in New Jersey was lifted after about 24 hours; in New York, 48 hours. The snow was of the `light and fluffy' variety -- not too hard to shovel, and not particularly destructive to overhead utility lines. There were no widespread power, telephone, or cable TV outages. It was transportation, both public and private, that got hit hard. Rail and bus service nominally operated on weekend schedules, but it was hard to tell that it operated at all. (The New York Subways operated normally, except for those lines which run above ground.) One of our customers operates a fleet of several hundred armored trucks. They stayed off the streets in NJ on Monday. It was their first service outage in decades. Some ATM machines ran out of cash; probably some bank branches would have run out, but they were mostly closed. At the customer's request, we used remote access to their computer systems to re-route scheduled coin and currency shipments for delivery one day late. Several roofs collapsed, mostly flat roofs on large retail and industrial buildings. A fire in an industrial building in Elizabeth, NJ was probably not caused by the blizzard, but the firefighters were surely hampered by the conditions. Injuries occurred in traffic accidents. Heart-attacks occurred as people performed physical work (mostly with shovels) beyond their normal levels. Our COCOTs saw a significant drop in revenue as the public stayed home or indoors. By the third day, revenue was back to normal weekday levels on all but one of our phones. That one (on a drive-up pedestal in Rahway, NJ) came back to life a couple of days later, when the roadway it serves was cleared of snow. Friday, a little more snow (we hardly noticed!) followed by some rain. Today (Saturday), the temperature is supposed to hit 40 in the city, and upper thirties in the 'burbs. We expect some local flooding as the snow begins to melt. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: uunet!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 [The Man in the Mooney] ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: Unusual Radio Promotion Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 14:22:10 GMT Mike Harpe (mike@hermes.louisville.edu) writes: > WHAS-AM 840 here in Louisville is starting a rather unusual radio > promotion that I thought the Digest readers would have some thoughts > on ... > It's simple ... they are calling pay telephones around town and giving > money to people who answer them. > Is this a proper use of payphones? How would a COCOT operator feel > about this? I would like to hear some opinions. In many jurisdictions, payphones are not permitted to allow incoming calls at all (war on drugs, or something similar). Even where the law permits, many premises-owners ask that their payphones not be arranged to permit incoming calls. It would seem that this promotion would be of limited value in these areas. As a COCOT operator in NJ, we normally don't permit incoming calls unless the premises-owner specifically requests it (usually only if the payphone is indoors, and is the only phone on the premises) and the local ordinances permit it. Unless incoming calls are permitted, we don't advertise the phone number of the instrument, though we don't take any other action to hide it (e.g. Caller*ID will show the number of a payphone that called you, even if it won't accept your callback). Incoming calls occupy our equipment and produce no revenue. If this occupancy reduces the availability of the equipment to revenue-producing outbound callers, then it costs us. It is for this reason that we reduce the revenue commission paid to the premises-owner if incoming calls are permitted. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: uunet!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 [The Man in the Mooney] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Dave, I did not know you were a 'bottom- feeder', as we used to say here in the Digest a few years ago. Surely you remember all those messages; why did you not comment back then, or weren't you in the business then? PAT] ------------------------------ From: edellers@shivasys.com (Ed Ellers) Subject: Re: Unusual Radio Promotion Date: 14 Jan 1996 01:31:28 GMT Organization: Pennsylvania Online [Usenet News Server for Hire] In article , mike@hermes.louisville.edu says: > Is this a proper use of payphones? How would a COCOT operator feel > about this? I would like to hear some opinions. It's hard to say. The COCOT guys wouldn't like it, but I don't know what they could do aside from disabling ringers. Now if these phones are inside places of business this *might* be considered an annoyance call, but out on the street I don't know of anything forbidding it. ------------------------------ From: jtassi@cts.com Subject: Re: Unusual Radio Promotion Date: 15 Jan 1996 17:45:44 GMT Organization: CTS Network Services We put a pay phone in our teenager's room (this really keeps the phone calls down), and I think he would LOVE IT! ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Jan 1996 23:38:20 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: New India Telecom Mailing List: india-gii Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM FYI Begin forwarded message: Date: Sun, 14 Jan 1996 08:56:01 +0530 (GMT+05:30) From: Arun Mehta Subject: india-gii Announcing india-gii, the list that discusses all issues that impact telecom in India, including policy, practice, problems and issues, as well as events happening in the world that directly impact telecom and the growth of the Internet in India. We are planning a seminar on "Indian Telecom Policy in the context of the Global Information Highway: Opportunities and Threats" on 2-3 March, 1996, in New Delhi. Along with leading Indian experts, it is planned to involve international participants through electronic mail. A. What is the status of telecom in India? How does it compare with that of other countries? B. What is the importance of telecom in India's development? What are we losing on account of the poor state of telecom in the country? C. From the perspective of the users what are: 1. Advantages/disadvantages of a long-distance and satellite commun- ication monopoly; 2. Advantages/disadvantages of the concentration of the roles of service provision, policy formulation and industry regulation in one body. D. Changes needed in Indian legislation such as the Indian Telegraph Act of 1885 to cater to today's needs and those of the immediate future. E. Indian legislation vis-a-vis rights to privacy, freedom of expression, etc. in cyberspace. F. Implications of new technologies for Indian telecom, specifically: 1. Low-earth orbit communications (Iridium and the like); 2. Spread-spectrum, packet radio and other broadcast technologies. G. Implications of DOT policies and guidelines, such as: 1. Restrictions on interconnection of networks; 2. License fees. H. Implications of the coming together of telecom and entertainment technologies. To susbcribe, send mail to listserv@cpsr.org, and in the body of the message write: subscribe india-gii Newt Gingrich if that happens to be your name, else whatever your name is ... Arun Mehta, B-69 Lajpat Nagar-I, New Delhi-24, India. Phone 6841172,6849103 amehta@doe.ernet.in a.mehta@axcess.net.in amehta@cerf.net http://mahavir.doe.ernet.in/~pinaward/arun.htm "I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any."--Gandhi ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #16 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jan 15 20:04:34 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.1/NSCS-1.0S) id UAA24796; Mon, 15 Jan 1996 20:04:34 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 20:04:34 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601160104.UAA24796@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Bcc: Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #17 TELECOM Digest Mon, 15 Jan 96 20:04:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 17 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: 800 Number Abuse Question (Robert Wolf) Re: Reserving 888 Numbers (Rweiss1954@aol.com) 888 Pre-Reservation (Gary Bouwkamp) 800 Replication - It's Now or Never (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: Area Code Overlays in Texas Delayed (Lee Winson) Re: Area Code Overlays in Texas Delayed (Joe Isham) Re: Area Code Overlays in Texas Delayed (Tim Hogard) Re: Illegal Cloning Alleged (Pat Martin) Re: Illegal Cloning Alleged (Robert A. Rosenberg) Re: Fridays Are Free With Sprint (Jonathan Edelson) Re: Snow, Snow, Go Away! (Tom 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 America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert Wolf Subject: Re: 800 Number Abuse Question Date: 15 Jan 1996 17:40:39 GMT Organization: Millennium Telecom Allen Kass wrote: > I am trying to find out more about the 800 number abuse I have read > about. The 800 number abuse you referred to is commonly called Toll Fraud, and is a common, but serious problem for American businesses. Toll Fraud is defined as 'The illegal use of telecommunication services by someone outside an organization.' This definition includes calls placed with stolen calling card numbers, the 800 number abuse you described, using voice mail systems to place unauthorized international calls, and stolen cellular service. In 1993 there were 35,000 reported cases of toll fraud, costing industry $5 Billion. How much of a risk does a business face from toll fraud? Consider a small business office that is open 8 AM to 6 PM Monday to Friday. If that office only has ten trunks and they are used for stolen international calls during the 62 weekend hours, the business could be billed $62,000 for that one weekend's activity. Companies with more trunks face a larger potential loss. You may wonder who is responsible for the cost of those illegally placed phone calls. The basic rule that applies to telephone service is that whoever has control of the system that placed the call is liable for the cost of the call. Calls placed with telephone calling cards originate in the network, which is controlled by the company issuing the calling card. That company has the ability to monitor calling card usage, and prevent the card from being used. Therefore, the holder of the calling card is not liable for unauthorized calls billed to the card. However, calls that are placed from a company's PBX are billable to that company, even if the call was originated at a pay phone and merely transferred or forwarded by the PBX to some other location. The major long distance carriers all have clauses in their tariffs stipulating that the company owning or leasing the PBX can monitor its usage and take steps to prevent illegal calls from being placed. In some cases where toll fraud bills have exceeded $100,000 and the billed company has contested the invoice, long distance carriers have sued their own customers to collect the contested bills. The carriers always win those lawsuits. Currently, about 80% of the illegal calls are believed to originate in New York City, although that figure is hard to substantiate. To avoid detection call thieves (commonly called phone phreakers) will place a call to an 800 number in some remote city (like St. Louis), use that telephone system to place a call to some other business in another city (say Seattle). Using that phone system they place a call to a business in Los Angeles, and from that phone system place a call to their ultimate destination in some international location. The most commonly called locations are the Caribbean (809 and 441 area codes), Mexico, Colombia, El Salvador, Russia, China, Egypt, Pakistan, and India. These calls are stolen for two reasons. First, there is the profit motive. International calls that normally cost an average of $1.50 per minute are sold for a cost of $10 for 20 minutes. Buyers line up a many public phone booths to call the family back home. Second, for a variety of reasons, callers want to place calls that can not be traced back to them. Calls placed from someone else's phone system fill that need very nicely. Historically, calling cards were the first method used to place unauthorized calls. Calling card numbers and pins are stolen by scavenging through trash bins (referred to as dumpster diving) or by watching and listening as someone places a call at a pay phone (called shoulder surfing). After losing hundreds of millions of dollars, the carriers began monitoring card usage, and canceling cards when the usage appeared suspicious. When it became more difficult to use stolen calling card numbers, phreakers turned to the PBX as an alternate means of stealing phone service. In this case, the manufacturers of the PBXs had implemented several phone system features that made this task easy. First, Trunk-to-Trunk Transfer was implemented to enable three party calling with two people outside of the system and also to allow people to forward their phones to a remote number. This feature is at the core of all phone system toll fraud. Without trunk-to-trunk transfer, a phreaker must be on the premises to steal phone service (not too useful). Second, Direct Inward System Access (DISA) was implemented to enable traveling executives and sales people to place calls from remote locations and have them billed to the company PBX at the lower PBX rate. This feature often was safeguarded by an access code and a password. These protections are preinstalled by the system manufacturer and often remain unchanged. Even if they are changed, a phreaker with a war dialer can determine the new password and use DISA to place outbound calls that are billed to the PBX owner. Third, many PBXs select which trunk group to connect to an outbound call by means of a Least Cost Routing table. However, some systems allow a caller to bypass the least cost routing algorithm and manually select a trunk by means of a trunk access code. Similar to DISA trunk access codes are preinstalled and seldom changed. When calling restrictions are embedded in Least Cost Routing tabled, phreakers bypass these restrictions by using trunk access codes. Finally, to simplify the task of performing system maintenance, phone system manufacturers provided remote modem access to the phone system maintenance ports. This allowed their technicians to remotely diagnose system problems and turn system features (such as DISA and trunk-to-trunk transfer) on and off remotely. The system's technician ID and password are almost never changed. Phreakers know these passwords and like the technician can access the system remotely to activate DISA and change the DISA password. Phone mail systems expose businesses to two additional threats of toll fraud. First, if a phreaker learns a mailbox password or finds a mailbox without a password, he can record a greeting that says hello, pauses for 10 to 15 seconds and then says 'Yes, operator, I will accept all third party charges.' Later, the caller can place an operator-assisted third party call billed to that number. When the operator calls the billed number to verify, the pre-recorded message accepts the charge for the call. Second, voice mail systems often come with automated attendant capabilities that instruct the caller to enter the called party's extension. The voice mail system then connects to the phone system to transfer the call. If the caller enters extension 900 the phone system interprets the 9 as a request for 'outside' dial tone and connects the call to the public network. The 00 is a request for an operator assisted call. The caller is able to place an operator assisted international call. The major long distance carriers offer toll fraud protection plans under a variety of names. These plans are all insurance policies that will reimburse a company for some losses. They provide protection under specific circumstances. But, like all insurance policies they define which losses are covered and which are not covered. Before you sign up for any plan, be sure you understand the exclusions. Call accounting programs track each outbound call and record the time the call was placed, its duration, and the trunk used to place the call. Some of these programs also provide toll fraud detection capabilities. If you specify your company's typical calling patterns, it will identify exceptions to the pattern and take some predetermined action such as sounding an alarm or paging someone. Early detection combined with quick action will keep toll fraud loss to a minimum, but will not protect you completely. Although it is important to detect toll fraud quickly, it is even more desirable to prevent it from occurring. Prevention can take several forms, but should include: (1) disabling DISA, (2) disabling trunk-to-trunk transfer if business needs allow, (3) disabling use of trunk access codes, (4) limiting access to the maintenance port. This last point is most important. If phreakers can get into the phone system through the maintenance port, they can undo steps 1, 2, and 3. Toll Fraud is an extensive topic with many facets. The above description is generic and just scratches the surface. A telecommunications consultancy like Millennium Telecom can provide specific information about your particular situation. Robert Wolf member: Society of Telecommunications Consultants Millennium Telecom http://www.keyconnect.com/millennium 818-790-7339 Fax 818-790-7309 Consulting in Voice, Video, and Data Communications ------------------------------ From: rweiss1954@aol.com (Rweiss1954) Subject: Re: Reserving 888 Numbers Date: 15 Jan 1996 11:45:13 -0500 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Some IXC's are beginning to take reservations. I heard LCI is beginning to take reservations in February. Reply to me if you need specific information. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jan 96 15:49:11 EST From: Gary Bouwkamp Subject: Re: Reserving 888 Numbers In TELECOM Digest V16 #13 Bob Schwartz asked: > Has anyone got advice on how to reserve an 888 number and how to get > the best chance at securing the *right* number?? Through an RBOC a > Long Distance company or ... > Is there a deadline? When will numbers be assigned and any other > pertinant information? Bob, Call your current Resp Org or long distance carrier. The service providers have just finished submitting tapes to the SMS with a list of the 800 "vanity" numbers that their customers have requested replication in 888. These numbers will be marked as "unavailable" in SMS until the FCC has ruled on the legitimacy of vanity numbers. Pre-reservation of 888 numbers will be from 01/24/96 to 02/25/96. This will allow service providers to reduce pent-up demand for toll free numbers before the March 1st rush. Keep in mind that it will be first-come first-served. The high visibility numbers like 888-flowers or 888-the-card would have already been reserved by their owners and marked as unavailable. Of course, this schedule could abruptly change depending on when the FCC issues its pending ruling. Gary Bouwkamp Frontier Communications ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 12:30:25 -0500 Subject: 800 Replication - It's Now or Never From: producer@pipeline.com (Judith Oppenheimer) JANUARY 12, 1996 CONTACT: JUDITH OPPENHEIMER, 212 684-7210 800 REPLICATION - IT'S NOW OR NEVER New York, NY - The deadline is quickly looming for 800 number subscribers to have their 800 numbers replicated in the new 888 area code. Luckily for savvy businesses, while carriers are not publicizing this information, there is one consulting firm that's making sure its clients are protected. According to Judith Oppenheimer, President of Interactive CallBrand, "The telecom industry is offering business 800 users an unprecedented opportunity to replicate -- mirror -- their 800 toll-free numbers in the new toll-free 888 exchange, so that their customers don't reach competitors instead. For example, 1 800 FLOWERS wants to make sure that it will be assigned 1 888 FLOWERS once the new system is in effect." "The problem," continued Oppenheimer, "is that businesses haven't been informed about, or guided through the replication process by their carriers. It's the biggest secret in business communications today. And it could have disasterous results for businesses who miss the opportunity." "1 800 YEARBOOK used to belong to the Baltimore Orioles, and we still get calls, two years later, for the Baltimore Orioles yearbook!" says Mitchell P. Davis, Editor and Publisher of The Yearbook of Experts Authorities & Spokespersons. "Just imagine if someone else got 888 YEARBOOK and put it on tv! We'd have to pay for those calls - and we don't want to delay customers when they're trying to reach the right place. They'll be confused." It appears that only a few industry insiders have made themselves privy to this information. Interactive CallBrand, a consulting and marketing firm specializing in toll-free services, has stayed on top of the facts and ahead of the deadlines by participating at all industry forums. "ICB's given us critical information to protect our 800 numbers during the 888 process", says Jay Carpenter, President of 1 800 SHOP AUTOS. "Even if a non-competitor got the numeric version in the 888 exchange, the cost in misdials and lost business to both companies could be prohibitive. It's a risk we can't afford to take." For More Information Contact: Judith Oppenheimer, 212-684-7210 Judith Oppenheimer, President, Interactive CallBrand A leading source of information on 800 issues. producer@pipeline.com, (ph) 1 800 The Expert, (fx) 212 684-2714 http://www.users.nyc.pipeline.com:80/~producer/ ------------------------------ From: turner7@pacsibm.org (Lee Winson) Subject: Re: Area Code Overlays in Texas Delayed Date: 15 Jan 1996 20:51:21 GMT Organization: PACS IBM SIG BBS Are there any places in the U.S./Canada at present that requires ten digit dialing? How many places have overlay area codes right now? I myself prefer splits to overlays, except perhaps for fax, cellular, beeper, and computer lines -- for those I wouldn't mind always dialing ten digits. Per Edumund Hack's question -- I'd say most people do NOT read their phone bills or their newspaper. When my own area code was split, there was tremendous advance notice in both the media, company advertising (big posters on city buses), as well as inserts; as well as a full one year dual-transition period. But when the transition expired, you'd think no one said a word about it! (One thing did hurt the Bell company -- the problems with PBXs and LD carriers not being able to get through, as well as Bell's own DA giving out the old area code.) ------------------------------ From: jisham@onramp.net (Joe Isham) Subject: Re: Area Code Overlays in Texas Delayed Date: Mon, 15 Jan 96 16:27:46 GMT Organization: Eurostation Charles de Gaulle In article , Edmund C. Hack wrote: > The plan by Southwestern Bell to not split the 713 (Houston) and 214 > (Dallas) area codes, but to overlay them with new area codes has been > delayed by the Texas PUC. A PUC vote had been scheduled to be taken on > the plan today, January 11, 1996. The PUC staff and an administrative > judge had recommended to the PUC that the overlay plan be approved. > The delay is to allow additional public hearings in the suburbs of > Dallas and Houston at the end of the month. 713 and 214 would be the > first area codes to be overlaid. Actually, the staff recommendation was to approve the 281 overlay for Houston, but to geographically split 214 and 972. The geographic split would take the Dallas Central Zone exchanges and place them in 214, while the suburban exchanges and the rest of the 214 area would go to 972. > The vote was delayed after several prominent lawmakers requested the > PUC do so to allow more public input. There have been two public > hearings on the matter. The first in late December, was in Austin and > was mainly attended by lobbyists, although a few private citizens did > speak. The notices for this meeting sparked a lot of coverage in the > local press in Houston and fired the talk shows into high gear. Same in Dallas. Dallas mayor Ron Kirk has threatened to sue the PUC if a geographic split is instituted in 214. He seems to want none of those "unglamorous" 972 numbers in his city. But he doesn't seem to understand that with an overlay, there will be 972 numbers assigned in the city of Dallas. The problem, of course, is that the suburban exchanges cover parts of the city of Dallas. > Some civic leaders are opposed to the geographic split, since some of > the suburban cities would be in two area codes. Hasn't The Woodlands has already been in two area codes since the 713/409 split? > Commentary: The sudden furor over this is interesting, considering > that SW Bell has been publicizing 10 digit dialing and the overlay in > phone bill inserts for at least 6-10 months. You do read your phone > bill insert don't you? Apparently, most Texans don't. Hmm. In Dallas, SWB has put nothing into our phone bills about any impending area code split. jisham@onramp.net : Joe Isham, Dallas TX : http://rampages.onramp.net/~jisham/ ------------------------------ From: thogard@inmind.com (Tim Hogard) Subject: Re: Area Code Overlays in Texas Delayed Date: 14 Jan 1996 05:10:48 GMT Organization: In Mind, Inc. Edmund C. Hack (echack@crl.com) wrote: > {summarized from news reports here in Houston] > The plan by Southwestern Bell to not split the 713 (Houston) and 214 > (Dallas) area codes, but to overlay them with new area codes has been > delayed by the Texas PUC. A PUC vote had been scheduled to be taken on > the plan today, January 11, 1996. The PUC staff and an administrative > judge had recommended to the PUC that the overlay plan be approved. > The delay is to allow additional public hearings in the suburbs of > Dallas and Houston at the end of the month. 713 and 214 would be the > first area codes to be overlaid. SWB could not get the Missouri PUC to approve the St Louis overlay so St Louis gets the old area code and the rest of the area gets a 537 or 735 or 573 area code. The PUC's decisions was based on public complaints. I thought it was strange that the PUC decided against the phone company. There is a large electric company that even complained the PUC was owned by SWBell. You know its bad when other monopolies complain. tim http://www.abnormal.com/~thogard GPS, VW and Usenet topics. ------------------------------ From: pmartin@netcom.com (Pat Martin) Subject: Re: Illegal Cloning Alleged Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 02:29:22 GMT In article , wes.leatherock@hotelcal. com (Wes Leatherock) wrote: > A story in {The Daily Oklahoman} (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) for > Jan. 9, 1996, reports that AT&T Wireless Services has asked for an > injunction against an Oklahoma City firm for allegedly cloning a > cellular telephone to create an extension. > The story, by Oklahoman staff writer Charles T. Jones, says AT&T > Wireless Services asked in federal court for a temporary restraining > order and permanent injunction against Johnny Meyers, doing business > as Safari Communications and Safari Holdings, Inc. > According to the story, "The lawsuit alleges Meyers' company > 'advertised and solicited' AT&T Wireless customers to have the secret > electronic serial numbers of their activated cell phones 'cloned' onto > other phones, thus giving them an 'extension' phone." > The story says the suit alleges that such unauthorized phones are > illegal and deprive AT&T Wireless Services of income. > Besides the injunction, the story says, AT&T Wireless Services > is asking for attorney fees and any other losses it can prove at > trial. > The story says The Oklahoman was unable to reach Meyers for > comment. Ooooooh! ATT is up to their same old S*. Probably will cause damage to the network? Patrick L. Martin pmartin@netcom.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: AT&T would like it if anything which deprived them of income (i.e. competitors of any sort) could be declared illegal. One report reaching me says this guy in Oklahoma City is NOT taking it laying down; but rather is pushing hard in return with a countersuit and his own attornies to make certain everyone knows *exactly* what the legalities are. AT&T sometimes has to be reminded that they are just as good at cheating as everyone else they accuse of doing it. Remember how in the early days of the international 'callback services' (where USA dialtone is given to overseas customers after they ring a number in the USA once and hang up) AT&T screamed about being deprived of revenue on that. And truly, they were being deprived. I personally do not think any scheme which involves signalling over the phone network without paying for it is legal. But the point is, all the time AT&T was crying about how this was hurting them, they were busy selling their own brand of 'toll-saver' answering machines; the kind that wait until the fourth ring to answer if it is the first call of the cycle, enabling the owner to hang up without getting charged for a call just to find out he has no messages. Maybe they thought all the people who bought their 'toll saver' answering machines were using them via the MCI network ... and that it okay with AT&T! So if AT&T keeps on pushing this guy in Oklahoma City, someone please ask them what their real problem is .... PAT] ------------------------------ From: robertr@icu.com (Robert A. Rosenberg) Subject: Re: Illegal Cloning Alleged Organization: RockMug (Rockland County NY) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 07:18:06 GMT I hope that AT&T has a tariff for providing Extension Phones. In the absence of such a tariff the "deprive AT&T Wireless Services of income" claim is without basis (you can not deprived of income you have no provision for earning). As to the "unauthorized phones are illegal" claim, the same basis applies. Refusal of a request to provide the service, makes the practice authorized and legal so long as you are not doing anything that would not be allowed if such a service DID exist. Both these points were decided in the case where HBO was suing someone (who had no local cable company in his area) who was using a dish to receive HBO Satellite Broadcasts (this was in the days before they were scrambled). The guy has OFFERED to pay HBO for reception privileges but HBO refused his request. The Judge ruled that he was not stealing anything from them since they did suffer any loss of income (no service to steal/bypass -- no loss of income). ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 12:49:42 PST From: Jonathan Edelson Subject: Re: Fridays Are Free With Sprint I am not sure that this is such a crazy promotion. Remember that much of the cost of telephone service is the investment in equipment; it costs almost nothing to carry a call if the capacity is there. Sprint will thus be taking business away from other companies, with little cost to themselves. My only question is how they deal with the local access costs. Jon [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You have a good point. In the very early days of AT&T, but after the patent on the telephone ran out, their goal was to acquire -- and thus control -- as many of the small local phone exchanges as they could. AT&T tried everything they could think of. They'd go into a small town and offer good money to the proprietor of the local telephone exchange. Often times that worked and the guy would sell out. But some of the locals were stubborn; some were community-minded and on general principle opposed to being part of the (then) new and rapidly growing consortium called the 'Bell System'. Some, no matter what the cash offer would refuse it, saying neither they nor the people in their town wanted any part of 'The Bell' ... In fact there were times the pressure became so intense on the small independent telcos to sell out to 'The Bell' that the small guys all formed an association called USITA (The United States Independent Telephone Association). Today, AT&T and USITA are good friends, but not back then. So you were a proprietor of a small local phone exchange, and you turned down the offers made to you by Ted Vail and his associates repeatedly, even as the offering price got higher and higher. Vail's response would be "well, then let's see how much your phone exchange is worth when you can't interconnect with anyone else in the USA ..." and he would cut their interconnection off. Some of the small locals banded together and routed around Bell wherever they could, many associating themselves with GTE's predecessor. (I am talking early 1900's now). Furious with this turn of events, Vail's response was to go right into the same town and set up a competing phone company and either give the service away for *free* or very close to it for several months; as long as it took to put the original guy out of business entirely. Then when the original guy, with all of his customers stolen from him had to file bankruptcy and shut down the phone company, here would come Vail's people again, this time to offer him maybe ten cents on the dollar. This time the guy would sell out, and Bell would let him walk away holding his trousers up with one hand; everything else in his life gone. So indeed, Sprint may have more business saavy then we think. They might think losing several million dollars in revenue over a year or so won't matter since the other carriers will lose all that revenue also every Friday as people pump everything out over Sprint. You are correct; the infrastructure is in place and most of whatever happens from now on is just gravy. They may be hoping everyone who has read this thread to date will come onboard with the same idea in mind: 'Stick it to Sprint! Stick it to Sprint! ...' because if you are busy sticking it to Sprint you can't very well be on the phone via one of the other carriers. And, a certain number of people who decide to stick it to Sprint will eventually decide to stay with them. Remember Vail's game plan back almost a century ago: he knew the locals would sign up with Bell and forget about the other guy. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 14:05:37 -0800 From: tsw@3do.com (Tom Watson) Subject: Re: Snow, Snow, Go Away! Organization: The 3DO Corporation In article , ptownson@massis.lcs.mit. edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) wrote: > This is directed mostly at our east coast readers who in the past several > days have seen the blizzard of their (hopefully) lifetimes ... with > snowfall ranging from 'merely' 18-20 inches some places to as must as > two feet or more in other locales. Please let us know how it has affected > phone service in terms of network traffic congestion, etc. While everyone agrees that big snowy winter storms are a bummer, look on the lighter side. In 1961 here in the San Francisco Bay area (pre Silicon Valley) the headlines for the {San Fransisco Chronicle} on January 15, 1961 (I think that's the date, I could be off a week) was: _Chains Required San Francisco East_. We don't get snow here in the winter much. When we get three inches it is a MAJOR event. It was a nice Sunday, and everyone was out playing in the stuff (including adults). Film was SOLD OUT of every camera store known to man. And you wonder why people live in "earthquake" country ... Tom Watson tsw@3do.com (Home: tsw@johana.com) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: By 'chains required' I believe they were referring to snow chains for automobile tires, things which are mostly forgotten. Is it legal anywhere to put those on your tires now-days? Around here they have been forbidden for years due to the damage they cause the roads. But it used to be many years ago that snow chains were used to enable your automobile tires to get the necessary traction on an icy highway. There were no inter- state highways in those times; roads between communities were just two lanes (one in each direction) and many were in miserable con- dition under any circumstances, let alone a big winter storm. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #17 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jan 15 23:17:18 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.1/NSCS-1.0S) id XAA08696; Mon, 15 Jan 1996 23:17:18 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 23:17:18 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601160417.XAA08696@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Bcc: Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #18 TELECOM Digest Mon, 15 Jan 96 23:17:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 18 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Is ISDN Dying Already? (John R Levine) Re: Is ISDN Dying Already? (werecat@netcom.com) Re: Is ISDN Dying Already? (Stephen Balbach) Re: Is ISDN Dying Already? (William Brasuell) Re: Is ISDN Dying Already? (Robert I. Sinclair) Re: Telephone Bill Auditing Advice Needed (Bob Schwartz) Re: Warning to All Net Users (psyber@usa.pipeline.com) Re: 60Hz Buzz on Phone Line and Modem Problems (Ray Barker) Re: 60Hz Buzz on Phone Line and Modem Problems (Gerry Wheeler) Re: Learning About Corporate Telecom Buying? (Robert Wolf) Re: A Question About Inside Wiring Standards (John Fricks) Re: Canada Number Portability (Lis Angus) Re: Enhanced Full Rate Vocoder (Sudeep Bhoja) Re: Fridays are Free With Sprint (Steven R Kleinedler) Re: Fridays are Free With Sprint (TELECOM Digest Editor) He's BAAAACCCKKKK !! - The Return of the Slaton Thing (John R. Levine) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Jan 96 19:44:00 EST From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Is ISDN Dying Already? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > Since I had understood that they were pushing ISDN prety heavily, I > started asking some knowledgable folks at work what was up. They told > me that ATT was about to introduce a new compression scheme for data > transmission for twisted pairs that would make most current needs for > ISDN obsolete. ... They're probably referring to ADSL or SDSL, which provide multi-megabit speeds over a copper pair. Like ISDN, they require special equipment at each end of the connection. ADSL provides something like T1 speed in one direction, and 64K or so in the other. SDSL is multimegabit each way. I wouldn't give up on ISDN quite yet. For one thing, ISDN is considerably farther along the learning curve, so you are now starting to see retail ISDN adapters for reasonable prices, and support for ISDN hardware on popular computers. It'll be at least a couple of years before ADSL or SDSL reach anything like that point. Also, adapting an existing phone switch for ISDN is relatively straightforward, since the 64K channels on ISDN match the existing switching channels in modern digital phone switches. I'd think that handling the much larger channels that ADSL and SDSL require would need a lot more work in the switch, and would hence be much more expensive for a telco to provide. Besides, ISDN now does what it does pretty well. 64K or 128K data can be provided at close to POTS rates, either locally or remotely, and is adequate for a lot of networking, and you can use ISDN for voice as well. I see in the papers that the number of second home phone lines is exploding, and I'd think in a rational world that a single ISDN line would serve the vast majority of purposes that otherwise would need two POTS lines. Yeah, faster is nicer (I should talk, I have a T1 in my back bedroom) but at what price? John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - Stanford econ prof ------------------------------ From: werecat@netcom.com (WereCat) Subject: Re: Is ISDN Dying Already? Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Sun, 14 Jan 1996 13:27:43 GMT Some time ago horn@netcom.com wrote: > Since I had understood that they were pushing ISDN prety heavily, I > started asking some knowledgable folks at work what was up. They told > me that ATT was about to introduce a new compression scheme for data > transmission for twisted pairs that would make most current needs for > ISDN obsolete. The Telco *expert* was, of course, not there today to > answer with any authority. However, others have noticed the chill > reception given to inquiries also. Years ago, many years ago, ISDN was introduced. The RBOC's dragged and dragged their feet in making ISDN available. They had too much invested in POTS. Why should they throw out all the investment they made in ISDN for some other technology? Eric ------------------------------ From: stephen@clark.net (Stephen Balbach) Subject: Re: Is ISDN Dying Already? Date: 14 Jan 1996 21:22:04 -0500 Organization: Clark Internet Services, Balt/DC, mail all-info@clark.net This must be in reference to ADSL, it is not new and AT&T Paradyne is releasing a low-cost router which uses ADSL compression. However, it requires the the RBOC have ADSL as a service which none do to my knowledge. Its mostly used on campus networks, or by the RBOC's in thier internal networks when 2-pair is not cost effective they can run 1-pair and use HDSL and achieve T1 speeds. When the RBOC's have invested as much time and money in a ADSL infrastructure as they have in ISDN over the past 10 years, you may see ADSL/HDSL as a threat to ISDN. Stephen Balbach "Driving the Internet to Work" VP, ClarkNet due to the high volume of mail I receive please quote info@clark.net the full original message in your reply. ------------------------------ From: brasuell_bill@tandem.com (William Brasuell) Subject: Re: Is ISDN Dying Already? Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 17:56:41 -0800 Organization: Tandem Computers In article , horn@netcom.com (Jim Hornbeck) wrote: > Recently I called Pac Tel to inquire about ISDN service and received > a rather cool reception. > What have I missed? Is Ma Bell on the verge of introducing something > worth while or is this just smoke? PacBell understimated demand and is now busy expanding capacity. In the meantime they can't provision service so they are not encouraging new orders. It's much more popular than they estimated. My opinion anyway. Bill Brasuell ------------------------------ From: robert-s@ix.netcom.com (Robert I Sinclair ) Subject: Re: Is ISDN Dying Already? Date: 15 Jan 1996 04:16:59 GMT Organization: Netcom In horn@netcom.com (Jim Hornbeck) writes: > Recently I called Pac Tel to inquire about ISDN service and received > a rather cool reception. What they may be discussing is ADSL. I don't know of any US carriers that are planning to offer it at the moment. It is purported to provide a 6MB per/sec downlink and 640kb?? uplink. The benefit to ISDN now is the higher rates go through the existing telephone network while ADSL will have to have a high speed data network to carry the traffic from point to point. Take a look at the ADSL web page more more complete info: http://www.sbexpos.com/sbexpos/associations/adsl/what_is.html Robert-s ------------------------------ From: bob@bci.nbn.com (Bob Schwartz) Subject: Re: Telephone Bill Auditing Advice Needed Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 01:36:56 -0800 Organization: BCI In article , nadaniel@earthlink.net (Dan Pock) wrote: > HELP! > I am a full time telecommunications student at DeVry. Working a full > time job is killing me and cutting into my studies but I have no > choice. I've been thinking about starting a home based business > auditing phone bills but I don't study tariffs for another two > semesters. > Does anyone out there no where I can get started with this? I think > the first step is to get training in understanding tariffs but I don't > know where to begin. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Daniel, I've been auditing phone bills for over ten years. Your post is distressing to say the least. You imply you have little or no time. It takes time to start ANY business and telecom auditing takes months to generate a decent cash flow-unless. The field is competative so a newcomer wannabe needs connectiuons to clients, lots of them. Never mind your tariff class. Go get a tariff and find out how it is to read. DRY and TECHNICAL and requires intense concentration coupled with the ability to do some sophisticated analysis, negotiation, patience and a hell of a lot of perseverence and the ability to keep about 25 diverse and unique simultaneuos projects moving. it also takes a war chest because every vendor knows how to spoof and delay until you are broke or need a day job. It is not easy getting refunds from people whose job often depends on them not understanding what you're talking about. Another thing it takes is A TECHNICAL BACKGROUND or at least an understanding of telecom. The telecom bill auditing industry has been polluted with amateurs that believe the hype they read about the great home business opportunity. They go to a seminar, pay lots of money and expect to be handed a magic wand or something that will make them understand phone bills and enable them to work with telecom vendors. Those that do actually get unsuspecting clients find that they have made representations that they can't deliver. Then they call a pro and see if they can save face and get bailed out. I've recieved over a hundred such calls. I've run into several hundreds of companies that signed up for an audit and never heard from the auditor again. Here is my advise to you. KEEP YOUR DAY JOB. If you think you can sell audits then do it for a professional outfit. If you are not inclined towards sales and have never done billing analysis or even customer service then GET A BETTER DAY JOB. I'll be out of town for several weeks (a well deserved vacation after collecting two million from Pacific Bell for a Centrex FEX error -- it took four partners five years) [focus on the years not the dollars.] and not reading the Digest so I'll probablly miss any response to this but if you're inclined ... bob@bci.nbn.com *BOB* Bill Correctors, Inc. ------------------------------ From: psyber@usa.pipeline.com (psyber@usa.pipeline.com) Subject: Re: Warning to All Net Users Date: 15 Jan 1996 20:32:37 GMT Organization: Pipeline USA On Jan 11, 1996 23.31.39 in article , 'emmanuel@2600.com (Emmanuel Goldstein)' wrote: > Our nightmare with PSI has been ongoing since August of 1995. We have > tried to be reasonable and have given them every opportunity to > respond to us and resolve our problem amicably. They have ignored our > letters, phone calls, and email. We have no choice but to bring these > unpleasant facts to the widest possible audience -- the net itself -- in > the hopes that others will see the way this company is using deception > and false promises to lure in customers. It is our wish that nobody > else be taken in as we were. I use them for dialup service, and they were all but befuddled when I dialed in using an older version of their software, and had massive problems. It took a supervisor, and fourty minutes of my long distance to figure out that all I needed to do was upgrade the version I was running. Like any infant company, they are obviously suffering through growing pains (i.e. hiring people off the street for cust service, using OJT to try formally train them.), but to milk the customer in the process is not good practice. > So far, PSI has taken nearly $1300 from us and provided absolutely > nothing in return. Not only that, but they have stated that they will > continue to charge our credit card for an entire year and that we have > no choice but to pay them what they demand. It sounds incredible and > even unbelievable. But every word is true and we have the evidence to > back it up. They can charge, but you can dispute. Let the CC company run interference while you call in the BBB on them. Additionally, since phone service is involved in the perceived fraud, you might want to consider bringing the phone provider in on things. > hours. The audio calls are billed at normal phone rates, however. > This is how the system works throughout the nation. > One of the very first things we asked PSI when we contacted them was > whether or not they supported data over voice. On two separate > occasions we were told that they did. When it became clear that they > were offering the service we wanted, we signed a faxed contract. This > contract makes no specific mention of speeds and/or configurations > that are or aren't supported. ACK! If you don't have the specific configurations and a guarantee in writing, you will have a major problem in any litigation you choose to pursue. > PSI can be reached at (703) 904-4100, fax (703) 904-4200. However, you > are setting yourself up for disappointment if you believe your > comments will carry any weight with them. On the other hand, it can't > hurt to try. Good luck to you, you've got one helluva fight ahead! ------------------------------ From: moop@interlog.com (Ray Barker) Subject: Re: 60Hz Buzz on Phone Line and Modem Problems Date: Mon, 15 Jan 96 01:04:09 GMT Organization: modus operandi In article , dougrud@blarg.net (Doug Rudoff) wrote: > My step-mom's house's phone line has a very loud 60 Hz buzz. Any > suggestions on how to get rid of it? > It affects modem connections. The 2400 baud modem she has on her > computer system can connect, but when I use my Global Village > Powerport Gold (14.4 kbaud) I have no luck connecting even when I set > it to connect at 2400 baud. > Are there any filters that will help? Call the trouble line of your local telco (usually 611). That interference shouldn't be there. Sounds like a bad ground somewhere. modus operandi | Proprietor: Ray Barker Computer Network | Voice: (416)947-1910 Consulting & Contracting | Fax: (416)362-2373 ------------------------------ From: gwheeler@gate.net (Gerry Wheeler) Subject: Re: 60Hz Buzz on Phone Line and Modem Problems Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 13:44:34 GMT Organization: SpectraFAX Corp. Reply-To: gwheeler@gate.net dougrud@blarg.net (Doug Rudoff) wrote: > My step-mom's house's phone line has a very loud 60 Hz buzz. Any > suggestions on how to get rid of it? Call the phone company and ask them to fix it. The phone system is designed around "balanced pair" wiring -- the two wires connected to your phone travel identical routes, right next to each other, so any induced noise (hum) in one should be canceled by the same noise induced in the other. However, if the pair becomes different it becomes unbalanced, and you get hum. A common problem is that one of the wires has become fully or partially grounded, or that one of the wires in the pair of wires in the cable which runs past your house has become open at some point beyond your connection -- you're still connected to the CO, but the pair is unbalanced. Gerry Wheeler 941-643-8739 voice SpectraFAX Corp. 941-643-5070 fax Naples, FL gwheeler@gate.net ------------------------------ From: Robert Wolf Subject: Re: Learning About Corporate Telecom Buying? Date: 15 Jan 1996 16:53:20 GMT Organization: Millennium Telecom Daniel Wynalda wrote: > While I know what a T1 is and how it works, I'm curious as to if > there is a location one might look/read to learn about various > telecommunication packaging schemes. > For example: > Since I have 17 phone lines, is there a way I can buy a T1 or something > similar that would combine my lines and use the extra bandwidth for > data to an alternate carrier? I am lucky enough to live in one of > the local areas with competitive phone service. I don't know that > I really am looking to save money -- but it would be nice to get upgraded > internet service via this bandwidth if it could be used. First, a multiplexor with drop-and-insert capabilities would be able to use 17 channels of the T-1 for voice traffic and allocate other channels for other functions (i.e. two channels for Internet access, two other channels for videoconferencing, etc.) Second, a local telecommunications consultant may provide additional information. Contact the Society of Telecommunications Consultants headquarters at: (800) STC-7670 stchdq@attmail.com Robert Wolf member: Society of Telecommunications Consultants Millennium Telecom http://www.keyconnect.com/millennium 818-790-7339 Fax 818-790-7309 Consulting in Voice, Video, and Data Communications ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 14:25:37 +0000 From: John_Fricks@nt.com Subject: Re: A Question About Inside Wiring Standards Organization: Nortel In article , James A. Young <8young@rsvl.unisys.com> wrote: > In cleaning out my file drawer last night I came across an old brochure > from my local telco (US West) about telephone inside wiring standards. > The brochure states that each outlet in my home should have separate > wires connecting to the demarcation point and sure enough, all the wiring > done years ago by the telco does just that. (I'm embarrassed to say that > own hanidwork doesn't.) However, I also noticed that a new water meter > reading unit installed by the city water department also doesn't conform. > They just cut into the middle of one of the existing wires. Is this > standard outdated or is the city not doing things quit by the book? > Running the wire all the way from the water meter sensing unit to the > demarc point would have involved very little extra, about 5 feet of wire > and no cutting of existing lines. A second question I was wondering > about is should I bother to go back and rewire the outlet I installed? > It's been working fine for ten years as far as I know. If it's working fine, don't fix it. But the brochure is right on ... Standard EIA/TIA-570, June 1991, "Residential and Light Commercial Telecommunications Wiring Standard", recommends wiring from all telecomunications outlets terminate on a single distribution device. The distribution device, in turn, is connected to a jack on the network interface device located at the demarcation point. Alternatively, the distribution device (inside the building) is connected to a jack on an auxiliary disconnect outlet (also inside the building), which is then connected to the network interface device at the demarcation point. Daisy chain wiring of outlets is not recommended. John Fricks Email: John_Fricks@nt.com Nortel Inc. ------------------------------ From: Lis Angus Subject: Re: Canada Number Portability Date: 14 Jan 1996 21:46:46 GMT Organization: Angus TeleManagement Group There is a public process to develop an interim local numbering portability solution in Canada by May 1996. The minutes of this process are on line at the CRTC web site at: http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/proc_rep/telecom/w_ntce/pn9548e.htm LIS ANGUS Tel: 905-686-5050 ext 221 Angus TeleManagement Group Fax: 905-686-2655 8 Old Kingston Road e-mail: lisangus@angustel.ca Ajax Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7 http://www.angustel.ca ------------------------------ From: s-bhoja@ti.com (Sudeep Bhoja) Subject: Re: Enhanced Full Rate Vocoder Date: 14 Jan 1996 17:45:02 -0600 Organization: WCS In article Milind Paranjpe writes: > Hello all, Does anyone have information on the Enhanced Full Rate > vocoder used in PCS-1900 in Washington DC? Yes. The EFR vocoder was developed by Nokia (NPAG). Slight variants of this vocoder can be seen in GSM EFR and the new IS 136 vocoder. I think the PCS 1900 vocoder operates at a bit rate of 13 Kbps. It is an Alegbraic CELP based algorithm. The ETSI Weighted Mops estimate on this is somewhere around 15 MIPS. What application are you looking at? If you know your target DSP, I may be able to tell you the expected MIPS. Sudeep ------------------------------ From: srkleine@quads.uchicago.edu (steven r kleinedler) Subject: Re: Fridays are Free With Sprint Reply-To: srkleine@midway.uchicago.edu Organization: The University of Chicago Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 04:52:35 GMT So, I called up Sprint to sign up for the service. Them: So, what's the name of the business? Me: I'm not a business. I'm a home. Them: So, what name do you want on the bill? [I have been sneaking looks at the phone books of friends in other cities and states as long as I can remember to look at their area code and prefix pages and the like. I remember wigging out with joy when I figured out the fact that area codes had either 0 or 1 in the middle and big cities got 212, 213, etc when I was about 10. You can imagine my joy when I stumbled onto this group. Thank you, all.] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You are quite welcome Steve. I'm glad you like it. In the early days, the one in the middle meant there were other area codes in the same state, and the zero in the middle meant there were no other area codes in the same state. You are correct that the short dial-pulls were assigned to large cities. New York City got five (212), which is the least of all. Chicago (312) and Los Angeles (213) each had six. Pittsburgh, PA (412) and Dallas, TX (214) each got seven, while St. Louis (314) and Springfield, MA (413) got eight as did Austin, TX (512) and Philadelphia, PA (215). Nine dial-pulls went to places like Cleveland (216) and Minneapolis (612), Syracuse, NY (315) and Cincinnati (513), and Milwaukee (414). I believe other than the first three or four codes, no further attempt was made to allocate on any basis other than as described above. Our Nation's (Drug and Violent Crime) Capitol (202) got fourteen dial-pulls as did its neighbor Maryland (301); but its other neighbor Virgina (703) got twenty. Sparsely populated areas got lots of 60x, 70x, 80x and 90x codes, all with seventeen to twenty-five or more pulls required. Lots of area codes beginning with seven, eight or nine were assigned much later than the original bunch, most of which tended to begin with two, three or four in the very early days, or if they began with seven, eight or nine tended to have 'short' third digits; i.e. one or two, maybe three so the number of pulls sort of balanced out. 909 with twenty-eight pulls was the last of the 'traditional' codes to be assigned, and by that time, most people had never seen a rotary dial phone, let alone know or remember how to operate one ... so it didn't matter. Conversely though, in some cities it was considered very fashionable to have a telephone number with a long dial-pull involved, thus a big demand for numbers ending in 'thousand' or 'hundred'. In other cases, customers complained about long pull numbers, so as often as not numbers with 99xx as the last four digits were never assigned for public use; they usually were phone company special lines. In other places, short pulls were in demand, and you would find lots of business places with numbers like x111. Repetitive digits were sought after, and usually unavailable to the general public, ie. 1212, 1313, 1414. If you had one of those, or something like 1234, 2345, or 3333, chances are likely you had it for years. People with numbers like 000x usually were charter subscribers to telco from fifty years before in manual days when their phone number was literally '1' or '6' or whatever and the conversion to dial forced prepending several zeros at the start of the final part to flesh it out to seven digits. The Western Union agent in the community always had 4321; the police always had 2121 and the firemen always had 2131, at least around here. When you had two communities on the same phone exchange, the *other* police had 2151 and the *other* firemen had 2161. I remember once about twenty years ago getting a phone number which ended '8947'. I called a friend to give him my new number; on hearing it his response was 'oooh, ick'! People liked getting numbers with a certain rythym or cadence to them in those days. I guess they still do. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jan 96 15:01:53 -0800 From: TELECOM Digest Editor Organization: TELECOM Digest Subject: Re: Fridays are Free With Sprint I wonder if there is something to stop a budding entrepreneur (not me, since I have a real job) from setting up a room full of desks with phones, switching them all to Sprint for $50 total per month, and charging folks by the hour for "office space" which happens to have a free worldwide phone? Of course the office hours would have to be limited to Friday only for a few hours so that the monthly total would not exceed $1000 per line, unless the entrepreneur were to use a PBX with call detail capability that he could process in near real time. Not worth the bother, I guess, but an interesting thought. Just a fantasy, really. It might be fun to have friends come over for Friday afternoon/evening phoning parties. Or what if a hotel were to program a couple of the lines on its PBX to use that service every Friday for all guest long distance calls, etc? The Sprint offer says: "certain restrictions apply", and they may have thought to include a resale prohibition. I'll bet someone does it anyway, though! PAT ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 19:27:21 EST From: John R Levine Subject: He's BAAAACCCKKKK !! The Return of the Slaton Thing Hey, look what just fell into my mailbox. It's your favorite e-mail correspondent. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Trumansburg NY Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies" and Information Superhighwayman wanna-be Content-Description: Touch the World With TELEMAIL (fwd) Return-Path: Received: from slip-1.slip.net by ivan.iecc.com with smtp (Smail3.1.29.1 #11) id m0tY5Ij-001T8rC; Fri, 5 Jan 96 01:06 EST Received: from [198.70.174.214] (chi-pm4-20.freeppp.com [198.70.174.214]) by slip-1.slip.net (8.6.9/8.6.9) with SMTP id VAA22355; Thu, 4 Jan 1996 21:00:17 -0800 X-Sender: telmail@pop.slip.net (Unverified) Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 22:19:24 +0130 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: telmail@slip.net (Jeff Slaton) Subject: Touch the World With TELEMAIL TeleMail Touches The World! INTERNET - OUT BOUND CALLING - FAX ON DEMAND - 800 SERVICE CREDIT CARD PROCESSING INTERNET - Reach all or part of 20 + Million through personal E-Mail, Web Pages and more. The fastest way to touch the most people - WORLD WIDE! 800 SERVICE - Instant access to more information through our custom auto-attendent, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. All calls provide calling number, name, address, etc. automatically. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ FAX ON DEMAND - Callers request and receive fax data on you and your product, electronically, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Fax out an order form, accept the order by phone, it's that easy. CREDIT CARD PROCESSING - Orders placed by 800 number instantly cleared and approved through your credit card processor or ours. Direct, electonic deposit to your bank in 72 hours. ATM CARD PROCESSING - Our card processor accepts ATM (DEBIT) cards, over the phone, and your money is on it's way tonight. ***** 1996 1st Quarter List Qualification Special ***** (TeleMail will send your e-mail message to people who want to hear from you!) Place your order before 1/10/95 to co-sponsor our list re-qualification during January and receive a special price AND a 60 minute calling card as a bonus! CALL FOR JANUARY RATES (Quantity Discounts Available) TeleMail, Inc. 1-800-944-3366 Jeff Slaton 5901 J Wyoming Blvd NE Albququerque, NM 87109 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Doesn't he *ever* learn his lesson? Calling that 800 number produces these results: at the voicemail menu delivered on answer, pressing '1' causes an outdial to the number (area unknown, but not 505) 739-6127 where a recorded message tells us the person is not at home and to leave a message. Perhaps whoever it is will be home at another time. Pressing 3 or 4 manip- ulates their fax machine. Pressing any other digit (0,2,5,6,7,8,9) gets the caller transferred to the voice mailbox of one 'Larry Host' or 'Larry Yost' or 'Larry Most' who we are told is away from his desk or on the phone right now. The * and # may do something -- who knows? It certainly is great that Jeff's business is doing so well he can afford to offer a toll-free number to his customers and potential customers. If you need to call him to discuss anything, you may not want to tie up the phone at your home or office doing so. Probably you'll want to call from a pay station somewhere where you can chat for *hours* as needed to place an order with Jeff or otherwise talk about the net and stuff like that. Please re-read the part of his message I underlined above. Phone numbers collected on his end. There seems to be no limit (which I can discern) to the number of calls his nice phone system can handle at one time. I had it up on two lines at the same time with the voicemail boxes talking to each other at one point. Remember, it is unlawful to harass anyone on the phone. Only call if you have something specific to say or deliver by fax. But since the *relevance* of the subject matter has never been of concern to Jeff when he delivers his traffic to the net, neither should it be of that much concern to you when you deliver your taffic to him. One last warning: no harassment, no phreaking, no hacking, no phraud. And be smart about where you choose to make your calls from. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #18 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jan 16 02:01:03 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.1/NSCS-1.0S) id CAA18979; Tue, 16 Jan 1996 02:01:03 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 02:01:03 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601160701.CAA18979@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Bcc: Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #19 TELECOM Digest Tue, 16 Jan 96 02:00:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 19 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson 888 for Toll-Free v. 88X Ring-Down Points (Mark J Cuccia) Alphanumeric Paging Software Shipping (David R. Coelho) Area Code Splits With Test Numbers From USWest (John R. Grout) Foreign Exchange Lines in Northern VA (GTE <-> Bell Atl) (Lee Sweet) TENTATIVE Labor Agreement Reached at Bell Atlantic (John Dearing) 900MHz Spread-Spectrum Devices Interfere (John Nagle) Re: Cellular Phone Called Simon (Al Testani) Flat-Rate Residential Telephone Service - Is End in Sight? (Lars Poulsen) NT SL-1 vs Meridian SL-1? (uswat@aol.com) Want to Interview AT&T'ers Who Took Buyout (Rob Gebeloff) Motorola 550 Cell Phone Problem (Mark Allen) Texas PUC Delays Implementation of 972/281 Areas (Charles Cremer) Call Screening Rejection Recorded Announcement? (Eric Tholome) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 16:20:15 CST From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: 888 for Toll-Free v. 88X Ring-Down Points For some 20+ years, the 88X codes have been used as `pseudo' area codes for identifying remote Manual ring-down points for billing purposes within the Bell System and other telcos within the North American network. The billing equipment used a six-digit code of the form 88X-XXX to identify specific V&H's associated with these remote rural locations. Customers could *not* dial these locations nor could the originating operator dial them. The originating `0' Operator (or post-divestiture AT&T operator from the US) would reach an inward or toll-station ring-down operator in a location closer to the desired party, by entering the NPA of that state/province (+0XX in some situations) +121 or 181. (121 for Inward or 181 for a toll-station operator). The inward (or toll terminal) operator would actually connect to that particular location. From what I've been told, *some* of these settlements *might* have actually had internal local dialing among some 20 to 50 telephones using an *ancient* step-by-step switch, but calls to and from that `exchange' were not dialable by customers. Some of these settlements might have been some form of common party line, where 20 people shared a common wire, and there was a Bell or AT&T (or Canadian telco) operator to connect these people with the outside world. They could call each other by cranking a coded ringing pattern on a magneto or something. For billing purposes, *manual* toll-tickets would be *written* up and later entered into billing equipment using these 88X-XXX mark-sense codes, plus (usually) a default last four digits (XXXX) of `0000' (or maybe 0001, 0002 or the like). These remote points were usually oil drilling rigs, hunting lodges, fishing camps, mining centers, riverboat pilot centers, etc. There may have been one or two `telephones' at the remote point, but all calls to and from these points had to be *operator handled*. Many still exist in Nevada. They might have a directory entry of something like `Call Operator and ask for Mountain Lodge No.3' or the like. Calling these points from the US *might* be able to be handled by the Local Telco operator if the desired rural point is in the same LATA, but usually they were routed by AT&T operators `only'. (I don't think that Sprint or MCI operators even know that these locations exist). A numerical listing of these 88X-XXX points is included in some of Bellcore TRA's *rating* documents and products. I have a December 1994 Bellcore TRA `Industry Numbering Plan Guide' (fiche only) which lists them. There is not any special rhyme or reason to many of the XXX assignments, but the 88X portion `seems' to have `some' pattern. 881, 882, 883, and 885 (884 was not used) were for remote settlements all over Mexico. 886 thru 889 were for the US (including Alaska), Canada, and some Caribbean locations. (Hawaii `seems' to have used 0XX and 1XX codes within their own 808 NPA for identifying these types of locations in that state. i.e. 808-0XX and 808-1XX). (880 was also not used in these 88X-XXX codes). When I first heard about the use of 888 as an additional special area code for toll-free service, I wondered as to *how* the ring-down points using 88X-XXX would be managed (since 888-XXX was used). And then later I read about the plan for 880 and 881 to be used for `caller agrees to pay' when calling US 800 (and 888) numbers from overseas, I again was curious as to the 88X-XXX ring-down points. (880 isn't a problem since there was no use of 880-XXX from what I've been able to see). The monthly `INC' (Industry Numbering Committee) mailings I get from Bellcore had some mention that the industry billing forums should work at coming up with a *different* scheme as to identify non-dial rural points. It seem that there is not the best of communication of data between these industry forums or individuals who participate in these industry forums. The latest INC mailing (received Thursday) had more mention of these Non-Dial Toll-Points. A submission by an INC participant from Stentor (Canada) mentions that there could be conflicts if additional 88X codes were to be used for new uses. (877 is the next toll-free code to be used if 888 fills-up, and then 866 would be next if 877 fills up, etc. 882 would be used for caller-pays international to US 877 numbers, 883 would be used for US 866 numbers, etc). The submission to the INC mentions that there could be conflicts if 883, 885, 886, 887 or 889 were to be assigned at this time for other dialable uses. It suggests that these codes be `put-on-hold' until a solution could be worked out with the OBF (Ordering and Billing Forum) and the NOF (Network Operations Forum). It is also mentioned that there are about 1400+ such non-dial points, *half of which are in Canada*. And that these non-dial points are located in about five different states in the US, in addition to many such non-dial points in Mexico. I spoke on the phone this morning with the person from Stentor who raised this issue at the last INC meeting. He told me that there is *some* shuffling around of 88X-XXX billing identification codes for these non-dial points, particularly moving those within 888-XXX into other 88X codes, due to the impending use of 888 as the second special area code for toll-free service. BTW, it is also mentioned in this INC mailing that the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands has requested to be a part of the North American Numbering Plan, similar to Guam's request earlier. There will be discussions between the US and Canadian governments (and telco industry people) and representative from Guam and the CNMI. It was noted that the Northern Mariana's present country code (+670) might become its North American Numbering Plan area code. It would become +1-670 and the ITU assigned country code of 670 would become available, similar to Guam possibly moving from +671 to +1-671. MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ From: drc@ppt.com (david r coelho) Subject: Alphanumeric Paging Software Shipping Reply-To: sales@ppt.com Organization: Personal Productivity Tools, Inc Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 22:07:07 GMT Los Altos Hills, Calif., January 12, 1995 -- PERSONAL PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS today announced the availability of version 2.4 of the ETHERPAGE(TM) alphanumeric paging solution for Unix workstations. With this release, ETHERPAGE is now available on workstations running the AIX operating system. ETHERPAGE is the first commercial product to provide an enterprise-wide alphanumeric paging capability for unix workstation networks. EtherPage provides exceptional robustness to insure that messages are delivered efficiently and without fail. Priced from $595 to $2195, the product is shipping now for SunOS 4.1.X, Solaris 2.x, HP-UX and AIX. EtherPage will work with most Hayes compatable modems, and utilizes industry standard protocols used by virtually all paging services. Features: Automatic generation of pages from email Easy integration with user written scripts/programs Easy integration with network monitoring such as SunNet Manager, HP Openview, Tivoli, Boole&Babbage, others Command line interface, and GUI interface, available for Openlook/Motif Pager aliases which allow messages to be sent to multiple pagers Extremely powerful filtering capabilities which allow messages to be sent to different pagers based on time of day, day of week, etc Automatic insertion of sender identification into messages Automatic suppression of duplicate messages Automatic splitting of long messages into multiple pages Automatic forwarding of messages between multiple servers Support for multiple concurrent modems User definable per paging service message size limits Automatic email confirmation Automatic truncation of messages Job logging and accounting User definable shell scripts with macro expansion for success/failed delivery User definable retry limits Robust handling of modem errors, phone line problems including busy, no answer Robust handling of paging service errors such as invalid pager id Error recovery including automatic email of problem report Job batching for rapid delivery of jobs in a single phone call Client-server architecture for centralized management UUCP style tty locking for shared tty/modem usage Symbolic configuration files for easy maintenance Support for IXO, TAP, PET protocols; Support for SNPP (RFC 1645) Support for touch-tone message delivery C application programming interface If you would like to evaluate EtherPage for 30 days, send email to sales@ppt.com or call (415) 917-7000. david r. coelho email: drc@ppt.COM personal productivity tools, inc 14141 miranda rd voice: (415) 917-7000 los altos hills, ca 94022-2045 usa fax: (415) 917-7010 ------------------------------ From: j-grout@glibm5.cen.uiuc.edu (John R. Grout) Subject: Area Code Splits With Test Numbers from USWest Date: 15 Jan 1996 22:35:17 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Reply-To: j-grout@uiuc.edu In Thursday, January 11th's {Wall Street Journal}, USWest published the following pending area code splits and associated toll-free numbers for PBX testing: Area Code Where Affected Permissive Toll-Free Date Test Number 520 Rural Areas of Arizona 10/21/95 (520)782-0100 Flagstaff, Prescott, Yuma 6/30/96 "" Tuscon 12/31/96 "" 541 All but Portland Oregon 6/30/96 (541)276-0192 970 Northern and Western Colorado 1/14/96 (970)241-0022 For more information, call USWest at (800)441-5516. John R. Grout Center for Supercomputing R & D j-grout@uiuc.edu Coordinated Science Laboratory University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ------------------------------ From: Lee Sweet Subject: Foreign Exchange Lines in Northern VA (GTE <-> Bell Atl) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 20:14:55 -0500 Organization: Datatel, Inc. I am in the process of moving to Eastern Loudoun county (VA), which is (sigh!) GTE country. I work in Western Fairfax county (the nextmost easterly county, for those who aren't familiar with the Capital Area (USA) geography :-). It's a toll call from my new place to Fairfax. I was quoted $100 (or so)/month for a Bell Atlantic OR a GTE foreign exchange line that would put me into Fairfax (in essence, giving me a Washington Metro calling area line). (I need an unmetered location local to work for extensive dialup modem use.) Now, $100/month is certainly cheaper than several hours/night at $0.08/minute, but does this seem reasonable? I now live on the Chesapeake Bay, and pay $35/month for a Washington metro line, and am 50 miles further away. Go figure. Any comments? Is it mostly because of the GTE/BA boundary? And, BTW, so far, the GTE phone-people have been most helpful. I was pleasantly surprised; of course, after install things may change! lee@datatel.com ------------------------------ From: jdearing@netaxs.com (John Dearing) Subject: TENTATIVE Labor Agreement Reached at Bell Atlantic Date: 16 Jan 1996 00:06:59 GMT Organization: Philadelphia's Complete Internet Provider Early Friday, 1/12/96, Bell Atlantic announced that a tentative agreement had been reached with The Communications Workers of America (CWA) on "Common Issues" such as wages, benefits and employment security. Bargaining was continuing on Local Issues. The CWA represents some 34,000+ employees at Bell Atlantic and has been working without a contract for the past five months. The previous contract expired August 5th, 1995. No further details were announced at that time. I hope that our "long journey into night" is nearly over and we can get back to doing what we do best, "phone work". Speaking only as a member *of*, but not *for* CWA local 13,000. They speak for themselves. 8-) John Dearing : Philadelphia Area Computer Society IBM SIG President Email : jdearing@netaxs.com U.S.Snail : 725 Ripley Place, Phila PA 19111-2524 (USA) Voice Phone : +1.215.725.0103 (after 5pm Eastern) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: When you have all the details of the new contract available and are free to discuss it, please write us again with a summary. PAT] ------------------------------ From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) Subject: 900MHz Spread-Spectrum Devices Interfere Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 18:49:36 GMT I have both a Ricochet radio modem (see "http://www.metricom.com" for details) and a Southwestern Bell "Freedom Phone" model SST900. These are both 900MHz spread-spectrum devices, and, much to my disappointment, they do interfere with each other. The cordless phone gets random clicks, and the bandwidth on the radio modem drops as the cordless handset gets close to the radio modem. At 10', modem bandwidth drops by about half, and at 3', the link drops. I was expecting better performance from this technology. I wonder if it's because the Ricochet unit is a frequency-hopper and the cordless phone is (I think) a direct-sequence spread spectrum system. Other than that, the Ricochet unit works well. Bandwidth to the Internet runs about 10Kb/sec, although round-trip times are around 500ms. I'm in a suburban area, and my net traffic is making several radio hops via Ricochet's street-light mounted packet radios before it reaches a wired access point. Most of Silicon Valley now has little Ricochet boxes on street lights, offering a realistic alternative to PacBell and the cellular guys. John Nagle ------------------------------ From: ajt@emi.net (Al Testani) Subject: Re: Cellular Phone Called Simon Organization: EmiNet Domain Internet Services (407)731-0222 Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 03:18:47 GMT sahfs@iafrica.com (S A Holstein Friesland Society) wrote: > Can anybody please help me in locating the manufacturer of a product > named Simon. It is a cellular phone that can handle electronic mail as > well as being a personal organizer. > Any information about this product will greatly be appreciated since > the name and features of the product is all I have. The product was designed by IBM, manufactured by Mitsubushi for IBM and distributed by BellSouth. I not sure it is on the market now. The unit was a cellular phone with a PC built into it. It did all of the PIM functions like address book, calendar, notepad, etc. and all of these fuctions were integrated with the cellular phone. It had phone paging and a pager card could be purchased to plug into it for complete paging functions. It did email and send and receive fax where you could either type in your fax or draw on the screen with images or markup a fax you had received. It had a touch sensitive screen with a computer generated qwerty keyboard as well as a unique predictive keyboard. Nice device ... I have one. If you need additional informaton, email me. Al Testani ============= Boca Raton, FL ============== ajt@emi.net ------------------------------ From: lars@silcom.com Subject: Flat-Rate Residential Telephone Service - Is End in Sight? Date: Mon, 15 Jan 96 16:38:45 Organization: Silicon Beach - Business Internet Services While working on an article about various regulatory issues, I have come to the conclusion that the days of flat-rate residential telephone service are numbered. The best that we can hope for is an extra-deep discount rate for after-hours message units to residential subscribers. What has caused this, is the "Internet Phone" mania. Apparently the excitement over "free long-distance calls" has caused the FCC to wonder (again) if "value-added networks" aren't really similar to long-distance carriers. If the answer is yes, then Internet Service Providers may be mandated to pay the same access fees to the LECs as the IXCs have been paying all along. This would not only cost more than local message units, but it would also force the ISPs to measure and charge for connect time in order to recover these new costs. This development (which I learned about from an article by Brock Meeks) comes on the heels of Pacific Bell's proposal to eliminate free after-hours connect time from their Home ISDN tariff. How do other TELECOM readers feel about these developments? Lars Poulsen http://www.silcom.com/~lars/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have thought for a long time that it was just a matter of time until local unmeasured service would be gone everywhere. We lost it as such several years ago here. We still get a very small (by comparison to the old days) 'local calling area' where we pay a few cents per call regardless of how long the call lasts, but years ago we could have unlimited calling all over northern Illinois if we wanted it for a set fee per month. Illinois Bell dumped it about the time the early modem users (middle 1980's) started using what Bell called 'unlimited call pack' to make calls to the outer suburbs which lasted for hours to BBS lines. I think there will be various reasons given for its demise on a location by location basis, but I can't imagine there being any of it left by the year 2000. PAT] ------------------------------ From: uswat@aol.com (Uswat) Subject: NT SL-1 vs Meridian SL-1? Date: 15 Jan 1996 19:52:15 -0500 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: uswat@aol.com (Uswat) I have been trying to find out this for a while, but to no avail. I was wondering if anyone could tell me the differences between Northern Telecom's SL-1 and their Meridian SL-1. If I had some parts, how could I tell which belonged to which? How compatible are they? It appears that US West nor NT could not answer this. I thought at least NT could, but after several inquiries to several people there, I still have not received a response. Thanks ahead of time. ------------------------------ From: gebelo@access.digex.net (Rob Gebeloff) Subject: Want to Interview AT&T'ers Who Took Buyout Date: 16 Jan 1996 04:52:31 GMT Organization: Express Access Online Communications, USA This is Rob Gebeloff at {The Bergen Record}. We're looking to interview some AT&T employees who took the buyout, especially those who live in our readership area. If you can help out, drop me a note or call me at (201) 646-4313. Thanks, Rob ------------------------------ From: mallen@ee.gatech.edu (Mark Allen) Subject: Motorola 550 Cell Phone Problem Date: 15 Jan 1996 16:04:58 GMT Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology I have a Motorola 550 flip cell phone which has the nasty habit of shutting itself off inappropriately (e.g., I will turn it on for standby calls, put it in my pocket, and later take it out of my pocket to find that it has shut itself off.) This problem seems to be independent of the battery condition (fully charged, partially charged) and even the battery itself (brand new battery has the same problem). It appears to be more related to mechanical stress on the phone itself. 1. Has anyone else had this problem? 2. I checked into getting the phone serviced, but the cost was prohibitive (e.g., 75% of the cost of a new phone without even knowing what the problem was or whether it could be fixed). If it's something as simple as a loose connection or cracked PC trace, I might be able to fix it myself if I can open up the phone. How is this done? Thanks, Mark Allen mallen@ee.gatech.edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This may sound silly, but you also might want to check and see if the phone has a 'time to sleep' register in it that is set for some very low period of time. For example, a Radio Shack (really Nokia of course) cell phone I had a few years ago had a 'feature' built into it where if the phone was not activated in some period of time (you set the number of hours in this register) then it shut itself off on the assumption you may have forgotten to do so. If you set it for zero, then the feature was de-activated. Any time you used the phone, even just to press keys on the keypad then the register was reset to the starting point again. Does your phone have this? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jan 96 23:02:01 EST From: Charles Cremer <71231.2206@compuserve.com> Subject: Texas PUC delays implementation of 972/281 areas Texas PUC delays implementation of Dallas and Houston area overlays (Condensed and paraphrased from an Associated Press article published in the {Houston Chronicle}.) On Wednesday, January 10, the Texas Public Utility Commission deferred a final decision on how to implement the 972 and 281 area plans until February 7th. The Commission cited the public's lack of information and lack of understanding as reason for the delay and scheduled three additional public hearings in each region for late January. The attorney representing SBC (Southwestern Bell Communications) expressed disappointment, saying that in a short time there may be no more numbers available for new service. There are fewer than 15 available NPA's remaining in Houston's 713 area code and in Dallas' 214 area code. MCI and other companies hoping to become competitors in the local service market favor geographic splits, while SBC and businesses favor overlays. Overlays would allow customers to retain existing numbers, but would require users to dial 10 digits on most local calls. An administrative law judge has recommended a split in Dallas and an overlay in Houston. Charles Cremer ------------------------------ From: tholome@francenet.fr (Eric Tholome) Subject: Call Screening Rejection Recorded Announcement? Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 21:40:52 +0200 I was wondering ... For those of you who can subscribe to some form of call screening, with which you can blacklist certain numbers, so that people calling from these numbers cannot get through to you anymore, what kind of recorded announcement does your telco send to the caller in that case? I guess it must be PC, but nevertheless clear enough so that the caller doesn't bother calling again. Something like "we're sorry but your call cannot be completed because the party you are calling does not wish to receive calls from your line anymore" I guess. I would like to see the exact words that the telcos use. Do they quote a phone number that can be dialed for assistance? What if the number was blacklisted by mistake? Thanks for any information, Eric Tholome | displayed with | private account 23, avenue du Centre | 100% recycled | tholome@francenet.fr 78180 Montigny le Bretonneux |___ pixels! ___| phone: +33 1 30 48 06 47 France \________/ fax: same number, call first! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In the case of a specific number being blocked or blacklisted as you phrased it, the messages I have heard say, "The party you are calling has indicated they do not wish to receive calls at this time. Please try your call again later. This is a recording, ". Note they do *not* say 'the party does not wish to speak with *you* at this time' ... merely that the party does not wish to receive calls at this time. In the case of a block against all calls from persons who block their Caller-ID from your display the message, the message goes something like this: "The party you are calling does not wish to accept calls from persons who have blocked delivery of, or hidden their telephone number from display. Please hang up and call back with your caller-id unblocked." PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #19 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 17 20:28:16 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id UAA21558; Wed, 17 Jan 1996 20:28:16 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 20:28:16 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601180128.UAA21558@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #20 TELECOM Digest Wed, 17 Jan 96 20:28:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 20 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: "Civilizing Cyberspace" by Miller (Rob Slade) Re: ARMIS and Tariff Info on Disk or CD-ROM (msal765@aol.com) Cell Phone Rates On Their Way Down; Smart Phone (Edupage via Monty Solomon) Internet Scams (Chicago Tribune via Tad Cook) Computer Intelligence Society Telecom Archives (tangent@cybercom.net) Ethernet Over 23GHZ Microwawe Radio Links (Gilles Rech) BC Tel Offers Access to US 800 Numbers (Ian Angus) Possible/Probable to Run ADSL With Higher Bandwitdth? (Bradley Ward Allen) Looking for Telephony Solution (Michael Davis) Jan CT Magazine Recommended Two line Phoneworks (Kingsley G. Morse Jr.) Seeking Cable-TV Discussions (Henrik Ebeklint) PCS Caused EMI (Alfonso C. Fuller, Jr.) Phone Boards For SGI (Mark Fanty) How to Contact NPA Carriers For Vanity Numbers (Glenn A. McComb) Foreign Exchange in Oregon (Kevin Paul Herbert) Motorola 550 Nicad Batteries (Gordon Wilson) Fiber Optic T1 Line vs. Copper T1 Line (Cameron Anderson) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 14:56:27 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Civilizing Cyberspace" by Miller BKCVLCYB.RVW 960108 "Civilizing Cyberspace", Steven E. Miller, 1996, 0-201-84760-4, U$26.85 %A Steven E. Miller smiller@aw.com %C 1 Jacob Way, Reading, MA 01867-9984 %D 1996 %G 0-201-84760-4 %I Addison-Wesley Publishing Co./ACM Press %O U$26.85 800-822-6339 617-944-3700 Fax: (617) 944-7273 bkexpress@aw.com %P 413 %T "Civilizing Cyberspace: Policy, Power and the Information Superhighway" On the rising wave of information superhighway books, and the increasing backwash of anti-net tomes, no single author has been able to produce a work that even remotely compares with Miller's. Neither dazzled by technical brilliance nor dreading the cyborg juggernaut, he provides the fruits of a working relationship with the technology, thorough research, and insightful analysis. The book specializes in public policy, but since that can touch everyone and everything it is not a limitation. Miller is thus able to examine all aspects of information structures and strictures. His material is clear and well reasoned: it does not provide ready answers at every point, but raises all pertinent issues. Even esoteric topics are handled well: obviously not all areas can be covered in depth, but Miller knows more than he says and gives accurate and helpful resumes. One shortcoming in the book is the less than rigorous division of topics. While many issues in public policy interrelate, many chapters seem to flow together without an obvious break. This may be difficult to resolve, but it was rather odd to find the same (fairly lengthy) quote used in almost identical discussions on both pages 64 and 204. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKCVLCYB.RVW 960108. Distribution permittted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. Rob Slade's book reviews are a regular feature in the Digest. DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca rslade@vanisl.decus.ca DECUS Symposium '96, Vancouver, BC, Feb 26-Mar 1, 1996, contact: rulag@decus.ca ------------------------------ From: msal765@aol.com (MSal765) Subject: Re: ARMIS and Tariff Info on Disk or CD-ROM Date: 17 Jan 1996 15:19:56 -0500 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: msal765@aol.com (MSal765) I am not sure what ARMIS is but I do know that there is a source for national and international tariff data on CD-ROM. You can contact LYNX Technologies by phone at (201) 256-7200 or on the internet at WWW.LYNXTECH.COM. They may be able to help you. MS ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 00:47:43 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Cell Phone Rates On Their Way Down; Smart Phone Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Excerpts from Edupage, 11 January 1996 CELL PHONE RATES ON THEIR WAY DOWN Cellular phone rates, which have remained high for years in the face of enormous consumer growth, may finally be responding to competitive pressures and beginning to drop. Subscriber growth rates are slowing down, and wireless wars have ignited in New York, Chicago and Washington, DC. Figures for the largest 15 carriers in the U.S. show a 12% growth rate in 1995, down from 63% the previous year. And the advent of personal communications services may push prices down even further, possibly another 10% to 40% according to an analyst at EDS Management Consulting Services. (Wall Street Journal 11 Jan 96 B1) ======================================================= SMART PHONE Colonial Data Technologies' Telesmart 4000 phone incorporates the ability to send e-mail over the Internet, pay bills and bank electronically, type and send text messages directly to pagers, shop from electronic catalogs, and manage calls via a full range of Caller ID services. The device includes a graphic display screen, magnetic card reader, alphanumeric keypad, v.22 modem and processor, and is priced at $289.99. (Newspage Business Wire 8 Jan 96). INTERNET PROVIDER TAKES ON PHONE COMPANY Canada's largest Internet service provider iStar is challenging the phone companies head-on by offering private networks to businesses communicating on the Internet. Secure*net, known in the industry as a virtual private network allows companies to transmit data to remote offices over lines dedicated to one client for a fraction of the cost many companies pay for leasing transmission lines from phone companies. (Ottawa Citizen 11 Jan 96 C6) ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: Internet Scams Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 00:31:40 PST Illinois Prosecutors Go After Internet Scams By Stephen Franklin, Chicago Tribune Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Jan. 12 -- Psst: Wanna make zillions working at home? Wanna fix up your credit fast and easy? Wanna make a stock market killing? Click here and follow the instructions on your computer screen: Tap. Tap. Tap. Sorry, netties, but it was bound to happen. Crooks, too, are netizens of the Internet. Nowadays, they can reach into your pocket with the neatest computer graphics. And thanks to technology, they can pull in lots more suckers on the Internet than before and at not much of a cost. "It is important that consumers, when using the Internet, be careful," state Atty. Gen. Jim Ryan said Thursday as he announced nine consumer fraud cases against businesses and individuals using the Internet or on-line services. The cases are the second time a state prosecutor has gone after Internet scams-Minnesota was the first last year. They came after state officials began to monitor cyberspace dealings late last year. Experts said the Federal Trade Commission, FBI and state and federal securities officials also have been tracking questionable Internet dealings. "We looked for what we know. We don't know what else would be out there," explained Deborah Hagan, bureau chief for consumer fraud in the attorney general's Springfield office. Two cases filed by the state involve what officials allege are illegal pyramid-type schemes. Five were against businesses that offered to help people cleanse their credit histories. One business promised earnings up to $1,800 a week for anyone who contacts people allegedly due an insurance refund on the purchase of Housing and Urban Development homes. Another business charged by the attorney general allegedly uses deceptive marketing for a nutritional supplement used against a variety of illnesses. Only one of the businesses singled out by prosecutors is located in Illinois, MicroSmart Enterprise in Joliet. The others are located in California, New York, South Carolina and Utah. Ryan said he intended to seek court orders to stop the businesses from operating in Illinois and penalties of up to $50,000. While Ryan said he would be considering whether to go after Internet gambling, Minnesota officials have taken that route, charging one company with illegally offering gambling in their state. Carolyn Ham, an assistant state attorney general in St. Paul, said the state has filed consumer fraud charges against Wagernet, a gambling operation based in Belize, and Kerry Rogers, a part-owner from Las Vegas. Tracking down scam artists is not that difficult, Ham said, because they must exit cyberspace to collect money from their victims -- they must use the U.S. mail and give their real addresses. "But the day is not far off when they won't have to come out of cyberspace, and then it will be really difficult to find these folks," Ham said. She and other experts urge consumers to be especially careful about giving out credit card numbers on the Internet. Most consumer fraud operations found on the Internet are those that have operated for years elsewhere, said Holly Cherico, an official with the Council of Better Business Bureaus, based in Arlington, Va. "The problem is that these businesses look so legitimate when they are on a computer screen," she said. Since last fall, the nationwide organization has maintained a World Wide Web site for consumers to file complaints, and about half of those filed so far involve transactions done on the Internet. FOR ONLINE SERVICES: Visit the Chicago Tribune on America Online (keyword: TRIBUNE) or Career Finder, the World Wide Web site of the Chicago Tribune. Point your Web-browsing software to http://www.chicago.tribune.com ------------------------------ From: tangent@cybercom.net (Iris of your eye) Date: 17 Jan 1996 02:41:57 GMT Organization: Cyber Access Internet Communications, Inc. Subject: Computer Intelligence Society Telecom Archives ARCHIVES: ftp://cis.cybercom.net UNIX: cis.cybercom.net, login as new. BBS: cis.cybercom.net, login as bbs. Archives: Files on everything from ss7 signalling to dms500 i/o structure. Faqs, guides, how-to's, etc. Unix: Free ftp, telnet, irc, lynx, tin. BBS: Messages on telecom related topics, bbs file system linked to the CIS archives. Some of the most intelligent telecom discussion around. ------------------------------ From: gilles@cismhp.univ-lyon1.fr (Gilles Rech) Subject: Ethernet Over 23GHZ Microwawe Radio Links Date: 16 Jan 1996 16:32:11 GMT Organization: C.I.S.M. Universite de Lyon 1 / INSA de Lyon Hello, I'm looking for people who would have experienced Ethernet 10 Mbps links over a 23GHZ microwawe radio link. Especially with the Digilink MTV 8000 (Optibeam ?, /M/D/S/ ?). Thanks in advance. Gilles Rech C.I.S.M., Universite Claude Bernard Lyon I & INSA Lyon, France. ------------------------------ From: Ian Angus Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 09:02:55 -0400 Subject: BC Tel Offers Access to US 800 Numbers BC Tel, the telco in Canada's westernmost province, has introduced a service called "South of 49," which allows callers in British Columbia to dial 800 numbers which are normally accessible in the United States. Similar services have been offered in the past by some resellers. This meets a real need -- an astonishing number of US companies ignore the market beyond their country's borders. US-only 800 numbers are regularly advertised, often without an alternative non-800 number, in magazines and on television shows which are widely seen in Canada In approving the service, the CRTC ordered BC Tel to implement an access code which will ensure that consumers know the difference between normal toll-free 800 calls and chargeable "South of 49" calls. As announced today, callers who wish to use the service will dial "880" instead of "800" to reach the normally inaccessible number. Before being connected, they will be told that the call is chargeable (18 cents/minute) and given an opportunity to hang up. I asked BC Tel three questions about their service: Q. What happens if a callers dials "1-880" on a number which he could have dialed toll-free. A. If it is a Canadian 800 number, a recording will tell the caller to dial the correct number. If it is a US 800 number, the call will go through and the caller will be charged. BC Tel is encouraging customers to try 1-800 first, and only use 1-880 if they can't get through. Q. How will BC Tel's system tell the difference between "800" and "888" numbers which have the same seven digit number? A. BC Tel will introduce "1-881" as the code to reach 888 numbers. Q. What happens if the North American Numbering Plan folks decide to use "880" and "881" as NPAs? A. BC Tel has the NANP's approval to use 880 and 881 for these services, so that problem shouldn't arise. The service is on a sixth-month market trial. I suspect that this use of "pseudo-Area Codes" will confuse customers, but we'll see. IAN ANGUS Tel: 905-686-5050 ext 222 Angus TeleManagement Group Fax: 905-686-2655 8 Old Kingston Road e-mail: ianangus@angustel.ca Ajax Ontario Canada L1T 2Z7 http://www.angustel.ca ------------------------------ From: ulmo@panix.com (Bradley Ward Allen) Subject: Possible/Probable to Run ADSL With Higher Bandwitdth? Date: 17 Jan 1996 17:02:40 -0500 Organization: Q Reply-To: ulmo@q.net Let me phrase this as a "my needs" problem since that seems to get the most attention :) My Internet usage slows the most when someone accesses my computer's HTTP server. So, I think it would be best if I run an ADSL configuration from my home such that my transmissions get the higher bandwidth side. I think this will be the typical ADSL usage for many users if it becomes mainstream. While there are many reasons for me to attempt getting HDSL, so-called cable modems (meaning over "The TV Cable cable" although just about *anything* can be considered a cable modem) or other types of connections (NTP, lots of data in both directions, etc.), I just want to understand this ADSL thing. Bradley Allen ------------------------------ From: madavis@iadfw.net (Michael Davis) Subject: Looking for Telephony Solution Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 22:22:39 GMT Organization: customer of Internet America *********************Please respond via email********************* My level of frustration is growing and I hope that someone that reads this will be able to point me to a solution. I would like to have a telephony card that meets the following criteria: 1) Compatible with TAZZ (MS Phone 95). 2) Able to coexist with an internal modem. 3) Able to answer incoming calls, display Caller ID information, WHILE the internal modem has me connected to the internet. I have tried PhoneBlaster and Telecommander 3500XL. I seem to remember there being a board in the TAZZ beta that would match what my needs are, but I have yet to find it. Also, if there is another solution out there, I'm very eager to get more information. Thanks in advance! Michael madavis@airmail.net ------------------------------ From: change@nas.com (Kingsley G. Morse Jr.) Subject: Jan CT Magazine Recommended Two Line Phoneworks Date: 17 Jan 1996 09:48:29 -0800 Organization: Network Access Services, Inc. The January issue of Computer Telephony magazine had a roundup of SOHO applications, and recommended a two line product called Phoneworks from Connectware. Problem is Connectware says the two line version isn't ready yet. Anyone know of two line SOHO application that's available now? Kingsley G. Morse Jr. ------------------------------ From: pluto.hh.se@mh1.hh.se (pluto) Subject: Cable-TV Discussions? Date: 17 Jan 1996 18:15:02 GMT Organization: Innovationsgruppen I am interessted in the cable-TV technology and the possibilities to use it for data-communication. I think it's hard to find any newsgroups that contains regular discussions about it. If you have any suggestions about the subject, please contact me so we can exchange ideas. Please email me at: pluto@hh.se Thanks in advance. Adress: Henrik Ebeklint InnovationsGruppen Box 823 301 18 Halmstad Tel: +46-(0)35-123308 Email: pluto@hh.se www: http://www.hh.se/org/innovgrp/index.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 12:27:06 -0500 From: Alfonso C. Fuller, Jr. Subject: PCS Caused EMI While I agree with many of the comments made regarding PCS, I am suprised that no mention has been made of the interference that TDMA (and apparently other technologies) generate due to the amplitude modulation. Six million or more Americans wear hearing aids who are at risk of annoying and possibly painful noise generated by PCS equipment. In addition, there are reports of various other types of equipment being effected (powered wheelchairs, auto airbags, taxi meters, etc.) It seems to me that if these problems are not resolved soon, a tremendous backlash may develop in the market -- or am I over dramatizing things? Al Fuller ------------------------------ From: fanty@bart.cse.ogi.edu (Mark Fanty) Subject: Phone Boards For SGI Date: 16 Jan 1996 23:46:39 GMT Organization: CSE department, Oregon Graduate Institute I'm looking for a telephone board for SGI workstations. It must let me record and play speech to and from memory, detect DTMF, etc. Mark Fanty Center for Spoken Language Understanding fanty@cse.ogi.edu Oregon Graduate Institute of Science & Technology (503) 690-1030 PO Box 91000 fax (503) 690-1306 Portland, OR 97291-1000 (shipping: 20000 Walker Rd./Beaverton, OR 97006) ------------------------------ From: glenn@best.com (Glenn A. McComb) Subject: How to Contact NPA Carriers for Vanity Numbers Date: 16 Jan 1996 11:36:54 -0800 Organization: Best Internet Communications I've downloaded the 500 NPA assignment list, and tried calling 800 directory for telephone numbers. No luck! I'm looking for: ONCOR ROGERS CANTEL ALLTEL MOBILE RESERVE COMPUTER But, in general, how does one go about this? I understand that I will need to change one of my lines to their carrier to get a number handled by them. But then doesn't equal access guarantee that I can then change back after a month or two back to my preferred carrier? Thanks for your help. Please post to this group, I'm sure others will benefit. glenn glenn@mccomb.com http://www.mccomb.com ------------------------------ From: kph@cisco.com (Kevin Paul Herbert) Subject: Foreign Exchange in Oregon Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 11:47:15 -0800 Organization: Cisco Systems, Ashland, OR US West has been telling me that there is no foreign exchange of any kind tariffed in Oregon, either by bringing in individual pairs or 24 lines on a T-1. Is this really true? If there is anybody out there which has a FX line in Oregon, I'd appreciate hearing about it so that I could figure out how to get it from US West. Thanks, Kevin ------------------------------ From: gw@cdc.hp.com (Gordon Wilson) Subject: Motorola 550 Nicad Batteries Date: 16 Jan 1996 21:25:40 GMT Organization: HP Integrated Circuit Business Division, Palo Alto, CA Hello, Does anyone have any idea how many nicad batteries are in the Motorola 550 cell phone? I measured the voltage at full charge and got 6.9V. At 4/6 charge (according to FCN-4) is was 6.4V. Assuming it is 5 cell, then 1.4V per cell for fully charged seems a bit high. And, at 4/6 charge 1.3V seems very high. Anybody got an idea how many nicad cells are in this phone? Volts per cell 1.2V 1.3V 1.4V 5 cell 6.0V 6.5V 7.0V 4 cell 4.8V 5.2V 5.6V TIA, gordon wilson gw@cdc.hp.com ------------------------------ From: cam@servtech.com (Cameron Anderson) Date: 5 Jan 1996 21:01:45 GMT Subject: Fiber Optic T1 line vs. Copper T1 line Organization: Stellar Communications I am trying to find out some info about copper and fiber optic T1 lines. The company that we are buying out T1 from (Frontier, in the Rochester, NY area) says that a copper T1 and a fiber optic T1 are the same. Aside from the obvious physical differences ... is there a benfit of choosing one over the other? Does the copper line perform as well as the fiber optic line? I really have very little knowledge when it comes to this matter. If you could please e-mail your responses to me it would be most appreciated, as I rarely read this group. (I also need to know real soon, too!) Thank you. Cameron Anderson (cam@servtech.com) Stellar Communications Inc. Rochester, NY ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #20 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Jan 18 14:28:27 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id OAA21647; Thu, 18 Jan 1996 14:28:27 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 14:28:27 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601181928.OAA21647@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #21 TELECOM Digest Thu, 18 Jan 96 14:28:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 21 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Three Month Wait for Basic Phone Service (Denver Post via Tad Cook) Book Review: "Network Management" by Leinwand/Conroy (Rob Slade) Re: Pacific Bell ISDN Rate Increases - Protest Web Site (Fred R. Goldstein) 38ghz "Wireless Fiber" (idesteve@aol.com) Re: Reserving 888 Numbers (Bob Klemme) MCI Press Release on Spamming (0003436453@mcimail.com) Trunk Capacity Tables? (Peter A. Smith) Re: MCI Mail to Charge For Incoming Mail (Robert W. Fowler) Help: Need ANSI Standards (Switched 56K Lines) (Avi Chami) Information Wanted on Small "PBX" For New Home? (Eddy J. Gurney) Fiber Optic Transceivers Wanted (Chris Gettings) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Cook Subject: Three Month Wait for Basic Phone Service Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 09:29:44 PST Some US West Customers Faced Three Month Wait for Basic Phone Service By Stephen Keating, The Denver Post Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Jan. 18--US West Communications spent $1 million on cellular phone vouchers last year for Colorado customers who waited almost three months, on average, for basic dial-tone service, according to records from the Baby Bell. The information, released by US West at the request of {The Denver Post}, highlights the phone company's "held order" problem in Colorado, which is among the worst in the United States at a time when competition looms for local phone markets. The standard for new phone service across the country is five days from the date of order. US West claims that 95 percent of its customers receive that level of service, but population growth, demand for second phone lines and an acknowledged lack of planning by the phone company have led to at least 2,400 fuming customers who waited months last year. "I'm not happy about this problem," said Bob McGinnis, director of marketing for US West's consumer division. "We're always going to have pockets of held orders. But those entities that have superior customer service will succeed in the marketplace." To address the problem, US West began a cellular voucher program last spring, which has been made permanent by the state agency that regulates local telephone service, the Public Utilities Commission. Customers who wait more than 30 days for basic dial-tone are eligible for a $150-per-month voucher to use a cellular phone until their line is connected. The total number of held orders in a year's time -- no matter how long the wait -- is in the thousands, but US West declines to publicly release that number, claiming the information is proprietary. However, the cellular voucher program profiles those that wait the longest in Colorado. Between April 14, when the program started, and the end of the year, 2,257 residential customers applied for cellular vouchers and were paid a total of $947,550. Those customers waited an average of 2.8 months for service. A reported 173 small-business customers received vouchers totaling $89,550 and waited an average of 3.5 months. The number of customers currently waiting more than 30 days for basic phone service in Colorado is 1,155, according to US West. "The held-order situation has not improved significantly," PUC Chairman Robert Hix said yesterday. "More work needs to be done and the burden is with US West. Many customers are getting water, sewer, electricity and cable TV service provided, but not getting phone service in a timely manner." One of those customers is Megan Carrico, who waited eight months for basic phone service at her family's new home in Elbert, 20 miles northeast of Colorado Springs. "My first reaction was total shock," said Carrico, a computer specialist for MCI Corp. and a US West customer for five years. The Carricos finally got service on Dec. 14. They received more than $1,000 in cellular vouchers in the meantime, which helped, but, said Carrico, "I had to get in my car and drive a mile to the top of a hill to get a signal." US West installed more than 100,000 new phone lines in Colorado in 1995, the fifth straight year of four percent or more growth. That doesn't include the churn -- the ongoing connection, disconnection and switchover of phone service -- estimated at eight times the number of new phone lines. US West has said that the held-order problem should dissipate by mid-1996 -- the same time as companies including MCI, Tele-Communications Inc. and AT&T will be eligible to offer local telephone service that competes with US West. McGinnis said that held-order customers are particularly vulnerable to competitors, but that the company has "a large segment of customers who are very loyal." Held orders do affect US West's "credibility to the extent that their problems are very well-publicized," said William Deatherage, an industry analyst at Bear Stearns & Co. in New York. "Negative advertising has an effect on your brand name. But real competition may not come for a couple years, so it's more important what customers think of the company then." ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 13:23:16 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Network Management" by Leinwand/Conroy BKNETMNG.RVW 951108 "Network Management: A Practical Perspective", Allan Leinwand/Karen Fang Conroy, 0-201-60999-1, U$39.76 %A Allan Leinwand leinwand@cisco.com %A Karen Fang Conroy conroy@cisco.com %C 1 Jacob Way, Reading, MA 01867-9984 %D 1996 %G 0-201-60999-1 %I Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. %O U$39.76 416-447-5101 fax: 416-443-0948 800-822-6339 Fax: (617) 944-7273 %O 617-944-3700 bkexpress@aw.com markj@aw.com http://www.aw.com/cseng/ %P 338 %S UNIX and Open Systems %T "Network Management: A Practical Perspective" Part one of the book provides a very useful introduction and overview of network management by following, and explaining, the ISO categories of fault, configuration, performance, security and accounting management. This acts as a tutorial for those who are becoming involved in the activity for the first time, and will likely broaden the view of those who may have been performing the functions for some time without formal training. The review of network management protocols in part two is more technical, although not right down to a programming level. It covers SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) and version 2, as well as the less commonly implemented OSI CMIS/CMIP (Common Management Information Services/Protocol). Part three looks at the RFCs for Management Information Bases while part four looks (very briefly) at productivity tools. A sample "request for proposal" provides a very useful guide for choosing and buying network management products. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1995 BKNETMNG.RVW 951108. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. Rob Slade's book reviews are a regular feature in the Digest. Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca | "Power users think Institute for rslade@cyberstore.ca | 'Your PC is now Research into rslade@vanisl.decus.ca | Stoned' is part of User Rob_Slade@mindlink.bc.ca | the DOS copyright Security Canada V7K 2G6 | line." R. Murnane ------------------------------ From: fgoldstein@bbn.com (Fred R. Goldstein) Subject: Re: Pacific Bell ISDN Rate Increases - Protest Web Site Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 10:18:17 EST Organization: Bolt Beranek & Newman Inc. > On December 21, Pacific Bell filed application A95-12-043 with the > California Public Utilities Commision. In short, the application requests > very significant rate hikes for all PacBell ISDN users, and would all but > end unmetered calling for Home ISDN users. > Please visit my protest website: > http://www.pacificnet.net/~dcbarry/isdn.html Interesting stuff! A few details from PacBell's application for a rate hike, found via that page, may give some more clues as to what's going on. PacBell is proposing to double local usage charges on business AND residence ISDN lines. A local call on ISDN will thus cost twice as much as on POTS, whether voice or data. But PacBell, on its own pages, is attempting to throw a bone at resi users: They're throwing in four "custom-calling" voice features previously available for $4/month. One category of ISDN users is exempt from the usage hike: Centrex users! A Centrex internal call remains, of course, free; a Centrex external local call remains at the undoubled POTS price. So a business ISDN user will have a huge incentive to reclassify the line as Centrex, and a resi user with significant local usage will also be better off as Centrex, though multiple POTS lines with multiple modems will be FAR cheaper. What we're seeing, of course, is the Centrex-vs.-ISDN battle moving into a new phase. Centrex was designed to provide a CO-based alternative to PBX voice service. It became the RBOCs star product overnight, when divestiture gave their embedded PBX rental base to AT&T. This historical quirk elevated Centrex to deific status, and for some RBOCs, it takes precedence over everything else, and then some. With PacBell's new proposed rates, Centrex ISDN penetration will likely rise, as lines are converted (tariff-wise) to Centrex. This will make the Centrex product managers look good and the ISDN managers look bad, but that's the way "it's supposed to work" at an RBOC. The voice features are no doubt useless to 95%+ of residence ISDN users. They're only useful to fancy ISDN feature telephone sets, which are designed for Centrex and often don't pass FCC Class B emissions testing. They don't allow call bridging (two on a call at once), a necessary residential feature. Most residential ISDN usage is data-oriented, and the voice usage is via an adapter to an ordinary analog set. PacBell's offer to remove the charge for these features is sort of like a car maker's offering a free trailer-towing package, taximeter and trucker's logbook holder -- in a small sports car. It's a ridiculous offer. The other oddity is a proposal to offer $1/month off for resi ISDN lines delivered more than TEN lines to ONE location. Not a big demand for tenth lines, is there? Sure I know one audio-BBS owner who might theoretically use that many channels, but this is again an absurd offer. Once again, a telephone company is proving its cluelessness by insulting its "ratepayers". Clearly PacBell wants no *customers* (people you compete to please), and maybe even not *subscribers* (people you deign to satisfy). They don't take the theoretical threat to their monopoly seriously, and are thus out to fleece their *ratepayers* (people who can't go elsewhere). Perhaps the CPUC can once again save them from themselves. Fred R. Goldstein k1io fgoldstein@bbn.com Bolt Beranek & Newman Inc., Cambridge MA USA +1 617 873 3850 Opinions are mine alone; sharing requires permission. ------------------------------ From: idesteve@aol.com Subject: 38ghz "Wireless Fiber" Date: 18 Jan 1996 09:47:49 -0500 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: idesteve@aol.com Does anyone have experience with this service provided by a company called Winstar? Thanks. ------------------------------ From: Bob Klemme Subject: Re: Reserving 888 Numbers Organization: MV Communications, Inc. Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 15:26:50 GMT Hello, Our LD carrier told us to get our desired numbers in to them so that they can put them on the list. Although this is no guarantee of success, because others with that number may have a reserved rights to it already, or someone else at another carrier may simply get in line before you. Should be an interesting frenzy in March. Our LEC (NYNEX) also polled its business customers asking if we would want to reserve our number if we were given the option. (They did not say we WOULD be able to reserve it!) Bob ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Jan 96 10:40 EST From: Hardwire <0003436453@mcimail.com> Subject: MCI Announces "Spamming" Policy for Internet Users Contact: John R. Houser MCI Telecommunications Corp. 312-938-4820 MCI ANNOUNCES "SPAMMING" POLICY FOR INTERNET USERS Company Policy Designed to Discourage Abuse of Network; Prohibits Unsolicited Mass Distributions ATLANTA, GA, January 17, 1996 -- MCI today announced that it has instituted a policy designed to discourage "spamming" -- the common Internet term that describes the unsolicited mass distribution of e-mail messages and/or postings to multiple newsgroups -- on the MCI Internet network. The policy covers a variety of services MCI offers to businesses and consumers, including electronic mail, Internet access, World Wide Web website hosting arrangements and other online and Internet-related services. "MCI will not tolerate the use of its network for spamming or other similarly abusive behavior," said Ronald J. McMurtrie, director of marketing for MCI Business Enterprises. "Any customer caught spamming on our network, or who persists in the mass distribution of unsolicited e-mail messages, will be dealt with immediately. We reserve the right to automatically disconnect and deny access to any MCI customer who violates this spamming policy, and we will take swift and corrective action." MCI has also pledged to cooperate with other online and Internet service providers to discourage and resist such abuses of these resources. According to McMurtrie, spamming is a nuisance that costs customers time and money. "Our customers should not have to bear the cost of receiving unsolicited messages or the nuisance of having to deal with the issue," he said. "We want our online services to be both useful and enjoyable resources for business and consumer communications, and not a source of frustration and annoyance." MCI's spamming policy prohibits the following: * posting a single article or advertisement on multiple Usenet or other newsgroups; * postilicited mass e-mail messages to more than 25 e-mail users if the distribution generates complaints; * falsifying user information provided to MCI. For complete details of MCI's policy on spamming, Internet users can view it on MCI's World Wide Web site at http://www.mci.com or www.internetmci.com. MCI, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is one of the world's largest and fastest-growing diversified communications companies. With annual revenue of more than $13 billion, MCI offers consumers and businesses a broad portfolio of services, including long distance, wireless, local access, paging, outsourcing, Internet software and access, information services, business software, and advanced global telecommunications services. ------------------------------ From: PA.Smith@mtsat.telesat.ca (Smith, Peter A.) Organization: Telesat Canada Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 10:18:05 EST Subject: Trunk Capacity Tables? I'm looking for a soft copy (file or equations) for the NEAL-WILKINSON B.01L Trunk Capacity Table. I have a paper copy that has undergone many faxing and photocopying. I was hoping to get back to an original, but I have no idea where the source of this table is. Thanks for any help, Peter Smith P.Smith@Telesat.ca ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 12:21:40 EST From: Robert W Fowler Subject: Re: MCI Begins Charging For Incoming Email TELECOM Digest Editor recently wrote: > A subscriber wrote to me recently saying MCI Mail is now going to > being charging for incoming mail ... and that would include Digests > from the Internet. If it is true, then my sympathies to everyone > there. Now might be a good time to consider signing up with one of > several good and reliable local ISPs ... people who appreciate your > business and will offer you flat rate service. MCI has no plans to bill for incoming Email messages. The subscriber is mistaken. Robert [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Robert, with no offense intended, the reports I am getting are not quite the way you responded. The response I got from an employee at MCI Mail applies to people who are in what they term the Friends and Family program, but may apply to other email users as well. There is bad news/good news: First: MCI Mail today does *not* charge to receive inbound mail in any form. Bad News: That is changing: MCI Mail will *only* charge for receiving inbound messages from the Internet. The quote I heard was .03/Kilos. That is because of major abuses that MCI Mail has suffered from inbound messages from the 'net to MCI Mail subscribers. (One guy received over 9000 messages one month! His charges? $0.00) Good News: This does *not* affect people who receive their inbound mail via internetMCI (POP3/SMTP). If someone is using internetMCI then more than likely they are already using that as their medium for receiving messages. More Good News: MCI Mail will be the first email service to offer the option to MCI Mail subscribers to block incoming messages from the Internet to their MCI Mail address. Eventually the MCI Mail subscriber will be able to block out originating messages from certain parties. (Say that someone is sending nasty-grams: joesmith@abc.com ... MCI Mail will give the ability to block inbound messages from him.) Also this will not effect (at least not initially) Friends and Family mail subscribers. So Robert, the correct answer would seem to be 'yes and no' depending on the subscriber's exact relationship with MCI. Would you care to refute the claim that mail from Internet direct to subscriber@mcimail.com will not be charged? I have a couple hundred names on my mailing list at that site who would certainly be grateful to find out otherwise. PAT] ------------------------------ From: chami@chk.telrad.co.il (TMX100chk Avi Chami 3925) Subject: Help: Need ANSI Standards (Switched 56K Lines) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 17:49:00 GMT Organization: Telrad Ltd. Hi everybody, I need the titles for the following ANSI standards: T1.306-1990, T1.314-1991, T1.109-1990. I believe that they are related to 56K switched lines. Send me please the titles or a pointer to an ftp site. Thanks in advance, Avi Chami chami@chk.elex.co.il Telrad Comm. Inc. ------------------------------ From: eddy@server1.mich.com (Eddy J. Gurney) Subject: Information Wanted on Small "PBX" For New Home? Date: Thu, 18 Jan 96 9:26:06 EST I will soon be moving into a new home and would like to install a really nice phone system that will offer lots of nifty features. Three lines is enough for now (probably only use two to start with) and eight stations will be good enough, but the ability to add more stations (but not necessarily lines, but both would be nice! would be a plus. I'd like some of the phones to have an LCD display, capable of displaying calling party name and number (CID service form phone company). All of the phones should have a speakerphone and a "hands-free" intercomm feature where an extension can be rung and a response given without having to push any button on the phone, as well as the ability to "page" through all extensions. Other extra features (such as doorbell-connections so that the doorbell rings the phone in a special cadence and the ability to talk to people at the door from any extension, music-on-hold, etc.) are always welcome. It would be nice if you could also connect standard analog devices to the system without special adapters (i.e., modems, fax machines, garage phone, etc.) I believe this is commonly called a "hybrid" system. So far, the closest I've come is the Panasonic KXT-308 system; the only thing it doesn't do is the caller ID feature that I really want. Other than that, it is an excellent system based on what I've heard. Are there any comparable systems that do have caller ID, or does anyone know if Panasonic is planning on support CID in the near future? In any event, I'm open to other suggestions. A friend gave me a copy of the January issue of "The Mart", but unless you know exactly what you're looking for, its not much help. :-) So, if anyone can offer suggestions for a nice, small "home PBX" type system that doesn't cost a fortune, I'd appreciate ANY info (such as the AT&T Partner and Spirit systems. What's the deal with all the different versions? I see 2.0, 3.1, 4.0, etc. in The Mart.) Thanks and regards, Eddy ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 12:43:31 -0700 From: gettings@econnect.net (Chris Gettings) Subject: Fiber Optic Transceivers Wanted Help from the Digest! I am looking for an economical fiber optic transceiver. I need to connect RJ45 jacks on Cisco routers to a pair of multimode fiber strands to run ethernet. I have located a Black Box product (LE611A-ST converter) which cost $752 each. Also, a Milan product for about $500. Both are more than I want to spend. I need a quite a few of them (50-100 initially) and was hoping for less than $300. Maybe I am delusional, again. Does anyone know where to get some? Why are the RJ45 to fiber transceivers so much more than the AUI to fiber transceivers? Chris Gettings Internet: gettings@econnect.net Tel: (416) 585-2626 Fax: (416) 585-2242 Visit us on the World Wide Web: http:/www.econnect.net ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #21 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Jan 19 12:41:09 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id MAA15941; Fri, 19 Jan 1996 12:41:09 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 12:41:09 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601191741.MAA15941@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #22 TELECOM Digest Fri, 19 Jan 96 12:41:30 EST Volume 16 : Issue 22 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Texas Prison Phones (Dallas Morning News via Tad Cook) UCLA Short Course on "Advanced Communications" (Bill Goodin) Re: Three Month Wait for Basic Phone Service (Lee Winson) Re: Three Month Wait for Basic Phone Service (Javier Henderson) US West Spends $1M Providing Substitute Cellular Service (John R. Levine) NPR News Story About IDT Internet Services (Lars Poulsen) Re: Motorola 550 Cell Phone Problem (Steve Forrette) WILDFIRE on DateLine (Steve Cogorno) Payphone DTMF Mystery (Peter Clitherow) Pacific Bell and Teleport Reach Interconnect Agreement (Mike 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 America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Cook Subject: Texas Prison Phones Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 14:51:57 PST Pilot program to allow Texas inmates access to phones By CHRISTY HOPPE Dallas Morning News AUSTIN, Texas -- Inmate access to telephones has led in some states to scams, credit card abuse, harassment, escape planning, drug dealing and gang activity. Regardless, Texas, the last holdout state in the nation, is planning to let its inmates reach out and touch-tone someone. Proponents of phones in penitentiaries say that inmates should be allowed to talk with their families and that new technology prevents old problems of fraud and abusive calls. The biggest plus is that it is like dialing for dollars. The comptroller estimates the state could demand 40 percent of the long-distance revenues from prison calls -- or $158 million over five years. "I don't think you could convince the average Texan that we should pass up $30 (million) or $40 million a year," Comptroller John Sharp said. Prison administrators are not beginning the pilot program on their own initiative. The legislature this year required that phones be installed. Many Texas prison officials hate the idea. So do some victims' rights groups. And most Texas Board of Criminal Justice members worry that the sound of ringing cash registers is obscuring the voices of reason. "I'm sure the state could make millions of dollars a year by selling chocolate cakes with metal files baked in them to inmates, but I wouldn't recommend it," said Allan B. Polunsky, chairman of the criminal justice board, which oversees state prison, probation and parole polices. Polunsky said he is all for generating new revenue, but he believes much of the money would be eaten up prosecuting new crimes committed over the phone. "There are scams that go on today that go on through the mail. So I can just imagine what they could do with the phones," he said. Polunsky said telephones are a headache that are not legally required and not socially needed. "I'm not sure we need to be providing this kind of service to our inmates," Polunsky said. "We're not running a hotel; we're running a penitentiary." Under current rules, most state prisoners are allowed one supervised phone call every three months for good behavior. But under consideration is a system to provide phones in recreational areas. As envisioned, each inmate would have an access code that would allow collect calls to a few designated numbers. The numbers of selected relatives or friends would be approved by prison officials. All other calls would be blocked, as would attempts to transfer calls to a third number. Republican State Sen. J.E. "Buster" Brown sponsored the legislation that forced prisons to offer the phones or face budget cuts. In public hearings, he largely dismissed the concerns of naysayers, defending technology that can determine what numbers are called, how long the calls last, block transfers and allow officials to record or listen to any conversation. He recently could not be reached for comment. The criminal justice board is scheduled to select a consultant in January to draw up specifications so that bids can be taken for equipment, carriers and service for about 20 prisons initially. While the state oversees more than 100 prison units, the first phones are slated for state jails -- reserved for nonviolent offenders -- and for low security units designated for drug treatment. The number of inmates with access to phones would be about 12,000. The phone systems in these first units, when operational, are expected to raise $5 million annually for the state. Criminal Justice executive director Andy Collins has fought the phone idea for three years and is less than enthusiastic about the current project. "There are security concerns and they have been evidenced all over the country," Collins said. Collins fears that inmates using phones could take advantage of unexpected circumstances to plan escapes -- such as flu depleting the number of guards for a few days. Such a situation would not be possible through the mail, he said. The mail is read, but phone calls are harder to monitor, he pointed out. If the program expands to the entire prison system, 150,000 inmates will have access to phones. "You couldn't hire enough people to listen to all those calls," Collins said. Technology provides that the calls can be taped, but Collins said that only helps after a crime has been committed and does not stop it before it occurs. In addition, no mechanical system is perfect, he said. "If mama has the technology to transfer that call to someplace else, I've been told privately that what's in place to protect against that is not fail-safe," Collins said. In addition, some inmates' families are involved with criminal enterprises such as gangs or drugs. "To me, it's penny-wise and pound foolish," Collins said. A 1990 survey conducted by {Corrections Compendium} magazine showed that 23 of the 49 states that have inmate-available telephones reported problems. Most were inmates using phones to conduct credit card scams, make harassing or threatening calls, or bypassing safety systems to make third-party calls. The survey also showed that at least three states had problems with families unable to pay phone bills, losing their telephone service, or being beset by creditors. Collins pointed out that revenue estimates provide that each inmate makes at least $40 a month in phone calls -- a price some families cannot afford. "When Johnny calls, it's hard for mama not to accept Johnny's phone calls," Collins said. Sharp said concerns and problems in other states have not been so severe or widespread that the phone service has been discontinued. "Forty-nine other states are doing it. They're making money for their states," he said. "There's no logical reason it shouldn't work in the Texas prison system." Sharp said any program involving inmates is also going to involve problems. "Nothing is trouble-free," he said. "But I don't think it's too much to expect that when taxpayers are forking over record money for the prison system to ask ... (inmates) to pay some of the costs." Andy Kahan, crime victims coordinator for the Houston mayor's office, said it is the lack of a trouble-free system that worries him and other crime victims advocates. "Anytime you give them access to the outside world, problems develop," Kahan said. He pointed to an incident last year where convicted sex offender Hal Parfait, during his prison industries job of inputting data, gleaned private information about one female customer. The inmate wrote an 11-page obscene and threatening letter to her. "My concern would be this would be another way of access to get to victims' families, and I don't think they need to be put through the constant fear of worrying about being contacted, either by the offender or by his family," Kahan said. Polunsky said protection of victims is also one of the key concerns of the criminal justice board. "At a minimum, they can be harassed if the system is not done properly, and I'm not sure you can ensure against that possibility," he said. Sharp, however, noted that phones are available in all county jails to inmates before the are transferred to state prisons. He said such access has not caused problems. "It's being done all over the nation. Every sheriff in every county from each end of Texas is doing it. None of the red herrings hold up," he said. Sharp said his one major concern about a phone system in state prisons is that prison officials do not want to do it. "The only way this system will fail is if the prison system makes it fail," he said. ------------------------------ From: BGoodin@UNEX.UCLA.EDU (Goodin, Bill) Organization: UCLA Extension Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 14:48:08 -0800 Subject: UCLA Short Course on Advanced Communications On April 22-26, 1996, UCLA Extension will present the short course, "Advanced Communication Systems Using Digital Signal Processing", on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. The instructors are Bernard Sklar, PhD, Communications Engineering Services, and frederick harris, MS, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, San Diego State University. As part of the course materials, each participant receives a copy of the text, "Digital Communications: Fundamentals and Applications", by Bernard Sklar. This course provides comprehensive coverage of advanced digital communications. It differs from other communications courses in its emphasis on applying modern digital signal processing techniques to the implementation of communication systems. This makes the course essential for practitioners in the rapidly changing field. Error-correction coding, spread spectrum techniques, and bandwidth-efficient signaling are all discussed in detail. Basic digital signaling methods and the newest modulation-with-memory techniques are presented, along with trellis-coded modulation. Topics that are covered include: signal processing overview and baseband transmission; bandpass modulation and demodulation; digital signal processing tools and technology; non-recursive filters; channel coding: error detection and correction; defining, designing, and evaluating systems; signal conditioning; adaptive algorithms for communication systems; modulation and coding trade-offs and bandwidth-efficient signaling; and spread spectrum and multiple access techniques. The course fee is $1495, which includes the text and extensive course notes. For additional information and a complete course description, please contact Marcus Hennessy at: (310) 825-1047 (310) 206-2815 fax mhenness@unex.ucla.edu ------------------------------ From: turner7@pacsibm.org (Lee Winson) Subject: Re: Three Month Wait for Basic Phone Service Date: 18 Jan 1996 22:48:58 GMT Organization: PACS IBM SIG BBS Interesting problem. But the article didn't clearly state the technical causes for delays. That is ... Were the delays due to stringing new wire to newly built houses? Were the delays to merely "turning on" phone service with a new number to an existing house? Were the delays adding a second line to a house with one line? At the phone company -- why did the delays occur? Insufficient capacity at a CO to accomodate new subscribers? Insufficient manpower to do outside wire stringing? Bogdown in paperwork processing? When NY Telephone suffering serious problems in the 1970s, one cause was the increased "churning" from customer moves. In those days of distributor frames with long jumper wires manually strung each time a phone line was connected, the frames got overloaded. Further, things like cable assignment were all done manually and would bottle neck up. Lastly, NY Telephone had a lot of employee turnover and the newly hired employees were slow to pick up job skills. I wonder if any of those conditions are the current problems at US West. I would assume computerized order processing and ESS offices would eliminate a lot of problems. Anyone know any more details? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Not So Funny Joke: I always assumed it was because 'the person who can help you is away from their desk right now or in a meeting. Do you want me to transfer you to their voice- mail?' Either that, or the other common assumption is the company was secretly sold to some South American telco of whom they are now a subsidiary, and they have to go by the parent company's time table for new customer installations. PAT] ------------------------------ From: javier@tgv.com (Javier Henderson) Subject: Re: Three Month Wait for Basic Phone Service Date: 18 Jan 96 15:01:01 -0800 Organization: TGV In article , Tad Cook writes: > Some US West Customers Faced Three Month Wait for Basic Phone > Service This belongs in the "and you think that's bad?" category ... I spent a few days in Montevideo, Uruguay, once, back in January 1983. Nice, quaint city, capital of the country, with very friendly people. I remember reading in the phone book, where it lists the information on how to order service, that your order would be placed in one of three categories: a. You were a member of law enforcement, doctor, judge, or any other profession for whom the telephone service was critical. b. Your order had 20 or more years of waiting. c. Your order had 10 to 19 years of waiting. It didn't say whether moving to a new place reset the counter or not ... I guess if you had been waiting for your phone 9 years or less, you'd keep on waiting until you entered (c), wait for another ten years, and enter (b), at which point, if you still wanted telephone service, you would get it. Or, if you got lucky, the phone company would expand facilities in your area and you would get service sooner. "Knowing someone" didn't hurt, either ... Javier Henderson, VMS Product Support javier@tgv.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 08:50:28 EST From: John R Levine Subject: US West Spends $1M Providing Substitute Cellular Service A Knight-Ridder syndicated article reports that US West gave a million dollars worth of cellular phone vouchers to people to whom they were unable to provide regular phone service in Colorado. You qualify for a voucher if you have to wait more than a month for a phone. People have routinely been kept waiting two or three months, and in some cases as much as eight months for service. Even US West admits that this is largely due to their poor planning. They say they'll have the backlog cleared up by mid-1996 which by a remarkable coincidence is when local service competition starts. The problems seem mostly to be in rapidly growing edges of built up areas. The article notes that there's been no problem with power, CATV, water, or sewer. It's just US West. It occurs to me that many if not most of the cellular vouchers are being used to buy US West's own cellular service, so the true cost to US West of this band-aid is probably a lot less than the reported million bucks. I suppose the cellular is better than nothing, but if I were the Colorado PUC, I'd have opened up the underserved areas to competition ages ago. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Trumansburg NY Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies" and Information Superhighwayman wanna-be [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, either that or I would have insisted that the vouchers be used on the competitor's cellular service. That might have made them sit up and take notice. Although John, I am not sure merely opening the door to competition would help all that much. The competition basically has two choices: they can either distribute their own cable and wires everywhere, which would put them in approximatly the same backlog status as telco, or their other choice is they can lease telco facilities which leaves them at the mercy of telco anyway. Do you remember the article here some time ago from the guy in New York who signed up with some of the competition? I think he went with Teleport. Anyway, he wrote in here angrily asking how to make NYNEX do *their* job where Teleport was concerned so that Teleport could finish installing what he ordered from them. And others have written here at one time or another saying the problem with the competition often turns out to be they are never at their desk and you have to leave a message in their voicemail. Much of the problem would seem to be a shortage of outside plant, and I can't see where it matters if telco installs it or a 'competitor' does it because you-know-who is ultimatly in control and will be for the next several years, as far as any of us can see into the future. All that 'competition' is going to amount to for the next few years is telco will be working with a lot of wholesale accounts instead of individual end users. They'll still be boss of course. PAT] ------------------------------ Subject: NPR News Story About IDT Internet Services Date: Thu, 18 Jan 96 13:07:45 -0500 From: Lars Poulsen To the editor, NPR "Morning Edition" (cc: Telecom Digest) Yesterday's Morning Edition news program had a segment about the Internet Service Provider (ISP) "IDT", which I found disappointing. The story lionized the company and its founder/president; I think his name is Howard Jones. An industry analyst was quoted as comparing him to "MCI's McGowan when *he* was young, energetic and up-and-coming" or words to that effect. The comparison may have been apt, but for those who know the industry's history, it means something quite different than what was conveyed to the audience. When MCI was young, it was selling a substandard service with a promise of great savings, but the promised savings were often based on incorrect accounting in the price examples presented. For example, MCI would compare their price for a call from Los Angeles to St Louis against AT&T's price for the same call, but conveniently forget that in order to use the MCI service, you would have to pay for a local (measured business ) call from the subscriber to MCI's Los Angeles gateway in addition to the MCI charge. When this cost was factored in, MCIs rates were usually about equal to -- or sometimes even higher than -- AT&T's rates. In much the same vein, IDT has been running television ads with the punchline "always a local call" or "almost always a local call" even in areas where they have no local access gateway. When asked specifically for the locations of access gateways, their sales reps have persevered in promising access via free local calls in many specific cases where this was not true. Or they have been promising that a local access gateway would open "in two weeks" when it has actually taken months before local access became available. When and where local access has been available, it has often been severely under the capacity needed to serve the customers they have signed up, resulting in a busy signal on most calls. In the program, IDT shrugged off these complaints with a statement that "people tend to complain about everything: If their friend doesn't respond to their e-mail, if they read on the internet that their stock has gone down, they always complain to the internet service provider". I have no doubt that IDT has a lot of complaining customers: They deserve it. There are several problems with IDT. The most serious is that they have a defective business model. In order to attract the maximum number of customers, they have priced their service so low that it cannot generate enough revenue to pay for the equipment needed to serve the influx of customers. This is especially bad when the service offers flat rate pricing, rather than a usage based pricing where higer usage automatically generates the revenue needed to pay for the equipment to provide the service. As many local "mom-and-pop" Internet Service Providers demonstrate, it *is* possible to provide high-quality almost-flat-rate Internet service; it tends to cost $20 to $25 per month (I pay $25/month for up to 100 hours of connect time). In our town, we also have a provider who offers "unlimited access for $10/month" and their service is like IDT's: 75% busy calls, and no useful customer support. MecklerMedia maintains a list of ISPs (http://www.thelist.com/). For a while, they maintained an archive of subscriber comments and testimonials about various service providers. IDT's customers were unanimously negative about their service. To make things worse, IDT is now pushing the "Internet Telephone" fad. This seems an extremely irresponsible thing for an ISP to do. If this application takes off, it could bring as much traffic to the Internet as the World Wide Web, and in return will probably force the telephone companies and the regulatory agencies to end the availability of free local calls, or to force the reclassification of ISPs as long-distance telephone companies. (For more about this issue, read my article at http://www.silcom.com/~lars/editorial/telecom.htm which goes into more detail about the forces that are combining to make this happen.) As an engineer working behind the scenes to build the Internet, I welcome coverage of the Internet, but please, let it be informed coverage! Lars Poulsen [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you *very much* for sending that communication to NPR and for sending a copy here. I am in complete agreement with you on a couple of points. Back in the early 1970's I was after MCI repeatedly for their false advertising on their so- called 'savings' when using their service. I wrote about it on a couple of occassions in {Telephony Magazine} and I filed an informal complaint with the Federal Communications Commission which required MCI to specifically respond to me which up to that point they refused to do; and which even then they did in a half-hearted, very vague way. I think they believed people would pay more attention to the coin-rated portion of their phone bill and somehow ignore or not care about the message units portion. MCI would demonstrate time and again how the long-distance portion of your bill -- real dollars and cents expressed as such -- went down, but they would gloss over or ignore how the local message units portion which you also had to pay for went up. They assumed -- and I guess they were correct if their early success means anything -- that most large companies (and that is all they really went for; they were cream-skimmers) would notice a reduction of a few dollars in their long distance bill but would somehow fail to notice the ten or fifteen percent increase in the number of local message units each month. If anything was said, MCI's response was 'well how do you know your employees are not making a lot more personal calls than they used to?' But rare was the manager who would question why if the company averaged fifty to sixty thousand local calls per month previously they were now up to seventy or eighty thou- sand local calls per month. They sure saw that bottom line on the long distance portion of the bill however; that was 'real money'. Such was MCI's successful but fraudulent approach in the early days when to make calls via their network you had to dial a seven digit local number which supervised and was billed for (or embedded in the local charges) by the local telco regardless of whether or not you got an answer or a DA/BY from the distant end. Now on to IDT for just a moment in this long commentary ... they have been hitting the market hard here in Chicago also, and your editor fell for their advertising. Their thing here has been an eighth of a page ad in the {Chicago Sun Times} on an almost daily basis asking people to sign up. Their thing here has been to promote 'uncensored news groups! You can check out the entire net; we don't censor what you are allowed to see or read' ... with the implication being if you sign up you can be just as naughty as you please for the mere sum of ten or fifteen dollars per month flat rate. Now I am not the sort of person to be naughty -- or if I were, I certainly would not come out of the closet and say so right here in my own columns! -- but I had one simple request for them, and if they could meet it, they could have my business. "Can you offer me a Unix shell account with rlogin and telnet ability? If so, I will use your local access number as a dialup to the several university sites where I have user privileges. If you have good connec- tivity I may consider operating my Digest from your site." Simple enough question ... and their answer was *yes*, they did offer Unix shell accounts, 'but very few people want those, they prefer to use Netscape or some other surfing tool.' I told them you give me the shell account; I'll take care of what clients and front-ends I need and stuff. It takes them about three weeks, but finally here comes stuff in the mail for me; my account name, password, phone number to use for dialup, etc. It is a local (in this area that means an 'A band') call -- just barely -- out of the Chicago-Newcastle central office, but it works at 9600 baud. The trouble is, as I find out when I call in, it is not a 'text-based' (as they referred to it) account. It works exclusively with Netscape, etc. I call them back, and now the fun begins. They answer their 800 order line on the first ring. Their custmer service and tech support lines take longer to get through on. (What else is old news?) *45* minutes on hold -- but it was their 800 number -- gets me a rep who tells me 'why no, we don't offer Unix shell accounts in the Chicago area. We do in some parts of the country but not in Chicago; the vendor we have there does not offer them.' I found out then that what they are doing is reselling other providers, at least in some markets. I asked her why then did I have to waste three weeks plus another 45 minutes to find this out. Her best guess was the salesperson who took my order must have been misinformed. 'They don't all seem to know that Chicago is an exception to our usual package and prices. We are giving the Netscape package there at a cheaper rate because we cannot provide 'text-based' type accounts in Chicago; not with the vendor we have there.' I said fine, thank you very much and please credit the ten dollars you quickly charged to my credit card the day I placed the order along with your start-up fee, etc. Furthermore, please don't force me to have to challenge a charge every month for the next six months while you get your act together and cancel my *totally unused* account. Overall, not a satisfactory thing. They originally promised my 'start up package' would arrive in seven to ten days; when I called after ten days (a 20 minute wait on hold that time) I was told it would arrive arrive any day now and in fact fifteen days after that it did arrive, only to be totally useless for my requirements. PAT] ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: Motorola 550 Cell Phone Problem Date: 18 Jan 1996 21:09:11 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn I had a similar problem with mine. I had lived with it for several months, because of the expense and inconvenience of having it service. But, I finally realized that the mechanical stress problem was in the battery, not the phone itself. Since the battery was about a year old and due for replacement anyway, I just got a new one, and the problem went away completely. So, my advice is to examine the battery carefully to see if that's where your problem is. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ From: cogorno@netcom.com (Steve Cogorno) Subject: WILDFIRE on DateLine Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 10:42:38 PST Did anyone happen to catch the segment on WildFire on Tuesday's DateLine NBC? I have used the system before, and it is very nice to work with (for those who don't know, it is an extended voice mail service that responds to the user's voice). My question is that Jane Pauley commented after the taped segment that the unit costs about $50,000, but the service can be rented. Does anyone know of a company that provides dialin service using WildFire? (MyLine folks -- this may be a good opportunity to expand :-) Thanks! Steve cogorno@netcom.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I guess I mentioned that the MyLine software is available for licensing. Call America was/is the first licensee, but they are not the exclusive providers. I was contacted a couple weeks ago by a fellow in Boston whose company was considering starting a MyLine franchise there. I assume if you want, you can contact them, and if you have the startup cash run a little 800 resale of your own. On a related topic, word came to me that Steve Betterly, the Call America sales representative most of you who signed up for MyLine dealt with, has resigned his employment and gone on to a position better for him with another firm. I'll miss his fine and efficient service. Jeff Buckingham has not yet announced who will replace Steve, but assuming the service level remains as good as it was in the past, I'll probably keep recommending them as the Official supplier of 800 service to the Digest. Now don't misunderstand: it is not that their Love Offerings to my purse are any better or worse than anyone else's ... ... they do have a really great service available for small to medium size users of 800 numbers. PAT] ------------------------------ From: clithero@u.washington.edu (Peter Clitherow) Subject: Payphone DTMF Mystery Date: 18 Jan 1996 21:49:16 GMT Organization: Rural Health Research Center, Family Medicine, UW I was in LAX airport, and chanced to use an innocuous looking payphone there (United departure lounge). Can't recall who owned the thing, but the default LD carried was ATT. So, I called up 1800-CALL-ATT to make my call and was surprised to notice that the tones for successive identical digits (e.g. 00, 55, and 88) were non-standard and *different*. That is, if you push zero twice in succession, you got different DTMF tones. Anyone know why this should be the case? I've encountered it before, and always assumed that it was a sneaky attempt by COCOTs to prevent access to reasonable LD service. Further, once the COCOT connected me to ATT, the tones *reverted* to their normal behaviour! Peter Clitherow, 206-685-0401 Rural Health Research Center, UW, Seattle, 98195. ------------------------------ From: mk@TFS.COM (Mike King) Subject: Pacific Bell and Teleport Reach Interconnect Agreement Date: Fri, 19 Jan 1996 01:09:08 PST Forwarded FYI to the Digest: Date: Thu, 18 Jan 1996 17:37:34 -0800 From: tltinne@legsf.PacBell.COM NEWS FROM PACIFIC BELL Pacific Bell and Teleport Communications Group Reach Interconnect Agreement FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Jan. 18, 1996 For More Information: Pacific Bell: Jerry Kimata 415-394-3739 jerry.kimata@pactel.com TCG: Tracy Corrington 718-355-4620 corrington@tcg.com SAN FRANCISCO -- Pacific Bell and Teleport Communications Group (TCG) announced today the signing of an interconnect agreement that will enable TCG to offer Californians service in the recently opened local phone market. "This agreement is the first reached under new, competitive guidelines ordered by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on Dec. 20, and we're pleased with the outcome," said Lee Bauman, Pacific Bell vice president-Local Competition. "It will enable another formidable participant to compete for local phone customers in California," he said. "This is just the beginning. In the weeks and months ahead, there will be no doubt that local phone competition has arrived in California, as competitors rapidly move into the marketplace. "We'll be busy negotiating many interconnect agreements with companies anxious to offer local service," he said. "Phone customers will benefit because they'll have more choice; more choice in suppliers and also more choice from Pacific Bell, enabled by greater competitive flexibility." "Both companies worked hard at reaching this agreement in a very short time," said Jim Washington, TCG regional vice president. "I think it shows how eager TCG is to bring our services to California consumers and expand competition into the local exchange market, as well as Pacific Bell's determination to fulfill its role of facilitating that competition. California consumers are clearly the winners," he said. The agreement lays out the terms and conditions for interconnection of the companies* networks by two-way trunks. Either company's trunks may be used. Unlike other arrangements, such as the resale of local service or the lease of local links, TCG will use its own facilities to sign up and serve local phone customers. The interconnection with Pacific Bell will be made to complete calls to Pacific Bell's customers. Completing local calls on each others' networks will not be compensated and will be handled on a 'bill-and-keep' basis. Local toll calls completed by either company will be compensated at existing switched rates. Term of the agreement is one year, with automatic renewal unless canceled by either side after March 1, 1997. The local phone market was opened to competition on Jan. 1. Resale of local service for companies without their own network facilities will occur on March 1. TCG is the nation*s largest competitive local exchange carrier, with networks in 47 U.S. markets. Pacific Bell is a subsidiary of Pacific Telesis Group, a diversified telecommunications corporation headquartered in San Francisco. ---------------- Mike King * mk@tfs.com * Oakland, CA, USA * +1 510.645.3152 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #22 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jan 22 14:04:38 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id OAA17820; Mon, 22 Jan 1996 14:04:38 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 14:04:38 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601221904.OAA17820@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #23 TELECOM Digest Mon, 22 Jan 96 11:31:36 EST Volume 16 : Issue 23 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Post Office Seeks On-Line Presence (Tad Cook) 70% Cellular Fraud in NYC? (John R. Levine) Proposal For Two New NPAs in NJ (psyber@usa.pipeline.com) What Happened to Pay Phone Booths? (Lisa Hancock) Long Distance Carriers Accused of Hoarding 888 Numbers (Judith Oppenheimer) I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company (Richard M. Weil) German Phone Rates (delong@sirious.com) The Brits Got it Right On! (Dave Farber via Gordon Jacobson) Re: MCI Begins Charging For Incoming Email (David Leibold) MCI Internet Email Fees (David W. Tamkin) Telecom Archives Receives Good Rating From Magellan (TELECOM Digest Editor) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Cook Subject: Post Office Seeks On-Line Presence Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 00:07:03 PST Post office seeks an on-line presence; Agency sees a promising future delivering secure e-mail and financial transactions. By Shelley Emling Cox News Service WASHINGTON -- Remember when the Postal Service just delivered regular old mail? Now those knee-sock-wearing, pith-helmeted letter carriers are part of a "universal hard-copy delivery system" -- a bit of technojargon that befits the new thinking inside postal headquarters in Washington. Along with hard-copy delivery -- you know, letters -- the post office now has its own Web site on the Internet, where visitors can view stamps, get ZIP codes and read about auctions of unclaimed items, frauds and scams. Early next year it plans to sell stamps through Prodigy's on-line service. Forward-looking postal officials speak excitedly about letter-sorting robots, multimedia kiosks, e-mail encryption and interactive television. Why the change in direction for an institution that's been as solid and as steady as a giant ocean liner? Competition. `Hard' mail erodes ... E-mail and faxes are eroding first-class-mail volume -- about 43 percent of faxes sent today are substitutes for mail. Meanwhile, e-mail messages are growing 122 percent each year. While overall mail volume increased nearly 2 percent during the past year, business-to-business postal communications have fallen 33 percent since 1988. As a result, some members of Congress are demanding reform, claiming the Postal Service has been unable to effectively operate as a business, hamstrung by oversight procedures designed to prevent the public from being taken advantage of under the monopoly. "What corporation can you think of that hasn't made any changes in its structure since 1970?" asked Pete Brathwaite, assistant to U.S. Rep. Philip Crane, R-Ill., who has sponsored a bill that would transfer ownership of the Postal Service to postal employees. For the consumer, the Postal Service's response to pressure from both Congress and competition is already translating into a new emphasis on customer service and innovative products. The most important product is one that would bring some of the virtues of old-fashioned letters -- security, postmarks and legal protection -- to new-fashioned e-mail, beginning next year. Electronic postmarks ... "The electronic postmark will be just as important to mail as the airplane is to transportation," said Richard Rothwell, the Postal Service's senior director of technology integrations. The Postal Service is working with software companies such as Premenos Corp. to develop software that would use public "keys" (like a phone number) and private "keys" (like a bank PIN number) to give consumers their own unique identities. In electronic transactions, senders and receivers would use their private keys in combination with the others' public keys to sign, seal and open electronic documents. Although private companies plan to offer e-mail services similar to what the Postal Service envisions, the post office has an advantage by carrying the force of federal law: Fraudulent e-mail certified by the Postal Service could be prosecuted like regular postal or wire fraud. "Trust is what is so far missing in the electronic frontier, and that's what the Postal Service can provide," said Robert Reisner, the Postal Service's vice president of technology applications. Kiosks planned ... Meanwhile, the Postal Service also plans to install kiosks, beginning next spring, in malls, libraries, and post offices that allow consumers to interact with government agencies with a few pushes to some buttons. "You will be able to use it to change the address on your driver's license, pay a fine, apply for a loan with the Small Business Administration, register for a campsite at a national park, all sorts of things," said Mark Saunders, a Postal Service official in Washington. The Postal Service also is testing an "Interactive Cable TV Post Office" in Orlando, Fla. -- which allows consumers to order stamps and other services by using their cable's remote -- as part of Time Warner's Full Service Interactive Cable Network. And a new system that uses robots to move mail within a postal facility is being developed. The Postal Service's home page on the World Wide Web is located at http://www.usps.gov [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have mixed reactions to this to say the least. Really, I don't know what to think. I will say the new post office in Skokie -- the branch office built about two blocks away from my house -- is a very modern looking place. It looks more like a small shop than a government office; a very pleasant place. But I just don't know what to think about them getting into email. Do people really want that? Does it matter what people want where the government is concerned? Will the post office at some point try claim an exclusive right to handle email as they do now with what they have decided to call 'hard copy'? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 18:18:41 EST From: John R Levine Subject: 70% Cellular Fraud in NYC? A message in Van Hefner's Discount Long Distance Digest said in passing that 70% of the cellular calls in New York City are fraudulent. Can that possibly be true? I could easily believe that 70% of the international calls placed from cell phones in NYC were bogus, and maybe even 70% of the toll calls, but 70% of all calls? Jeez. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Trumansburg NY Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies" and Information Superhighwayman wanna-be ------------------------------ From: psyber@usa.pipeline.com (psyber@usa.pipeline.com) Subject: Proposal For Two New NPAs in NJ Date: 21 Jan 1996 22:26:45 GMT Organization: Pipeline USA Industry Team Proposes New Area Codes in New Jersey Newark, N.J. -- A team of telecommunications industry professionals faced with the challenge of addressing New Jersey's rapid depletion of telephone numbers today agreed to submit alternatives to the Board of Public Utilities for its consideration. Each plan urges state regulators to approve the addition of two new area codes in New Jersey. The Board of Public Utilities will consider the proposals. The team is drafting a report to be submitted to the BPU in the coming weeks. Individual companies will file public comments with the BPU in the coming months. Under the Industry Carriers Compatibility Forum guidelines, the participants agreed not to take public positions on the plans until regulators have had an opportunity to review the industry proposals. The assignment of the new area code numbers will be made at a later date by Bellcore, the administrators of the nation's area codes. for more information, contact: Shannon Fioravanti, 703-974-5455 hannon.l.fioravanti@bell-atl.com JC - Note that according to NPA/NXX for July '95, 201 and 908 were 63% and 56% saturated, respectively. 908 just split from 201 in 1991. John Cropper, aka Psyber InfiNet Administrator psyber@usa.pipeline.com ------------------------------ From: hancock4@cpcn.com (Lisa) Subject: What Happened to Pay Phone Booths? Date: 21 Jan 1996 20:36:21 GMT Organization: Philadelphia City Paper's City Net It used to be that pay phones were enclosed in a booth. The phone booth gave the user privacy, a bit of comfort (indoor ones had a seat), and most important, quiet to talk and hear. Today, whenever a building is rennovated, the phone booths are pulled and shelf mounted phones put in place. Have you ever tried to use a shelf pay phone in a noisy location, with other callers shouting right beside you? Further, pay phones are often located in tight corners or hallways, where echos are a big problem. Likewise, outdoor pay phones are now quite rare. I never see any new installations. When a parking lot was resurfaced, the booth was replaced with a pedestal. Likewise at the train station. At outdoor locations, a booth is particularly needed to shield the user from ambient noise. Plus, a little shelter from rain and wind while on the phone is nice. Years back, the cost of using a pay phone was the same as at home. Now, 1+ coin calls pay a steep surcharge, and even credit card calls pay extra. Anyone know why booths have disappeared? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There are two factors to consider here. One is vandalism. In the the past -- many years past -- we punished vandals who ruined nice things in order that the rest of us could have nice things. Then at some point the rules changed and we were told we could not have a nice thing at a certain place because the vandals would wreck it and therefore it was pointless to install it. So now we all do without nice things such as pay phone booths with seats in them. Rarely do I see one these days, while thirty years ago I saw them everywhere. When on occassion I see one, the day it becomes vandalized (all the glass in the wondows broken out; the lighting fixture smashed; the door ripped off the hinges, etc) is the day telco removes it and puts a phone mounted on the wall in its place. Very rare now are even the little shelves or kiosk-type semi-partitions around the phone; most are just mounted on the wall. Needless to say, the little stands which had dozens of phone books nicely bound in plastic covers which always appeared anywhere you had a cluster of payphonesare gone also. Typically, when there were a few pay phone booths together, a convenience which came with it was the ability to stand at the little table nearby and look at phone books from various cities to find the number you were seeking. After it got to the point all the books were either defaced very badly or missing entirely (and as often as not the little stands were also all busted up) they were removed also. Somehow things changed so that the behavior of the vandals became the norm; became the expected behavior, and the rest of us became the ones with unrealistic desires. Second, at some point it became politically incorrect to have any possible thing for one group of people that another group of people was unable to use. Again, about thirty years ago, most of us were polite and caring and helpful and considerate of those around us who were physically handicapped. No one ever assumed that all people could do all things; some of us had abilities that others did not have and vice-versa. That apparently was not good enough for the more radical of the organizations which represent the interests of persons with physical handicaps. If *they* can't use a pay phone booth because their wheelchair won't fit inside, then why should *you* be allowed to use one? So it was not only a matter of removing the booth and putting the phone directly on the wall; all the phones also had to be mounted *low enough* on the wall so that a person in a wheelchair could easily sit next to one and use it. If the rest of you have to stoop over to use it, then too bad. Times change as do attitudes. I quite agree with you that the return of pay phone booths would be a wonderful thing. So would bus stop shelter houses and benches to sit on while you wait for the bus to arrive. (In Chicago they were literally on every corner in the 1950-60's, and that is when the busses ran at two or three minute intervals day and night). The trouble is, Lisa, where in the USA we used to set very high standards and demand the best in everything, over the past couple decades the people with the loudest mouths and the most push-comes-to-shove abilities have dictated that the lowest common denominator will be sufficient for all of us. PAT] ------------------------------ From: callbrand@aol.com (CallBrand) Subject: Long Distance Carriers Accused of Hoarding 888 Numbers Date: 21 Jan 1996 23:34:44 -0500 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: callbrand@aol.com (CallBrand) Gary Bouwkamp had posted: > Call your current Resp Org or long distance carrier. > The service providers have just finished submitting tapes to the SMS > with a list of the 800 "vanity" numbers that their customers have > requested replication in 888. These numbers will be marked as > "unavailable" in SMS until the FCC has ruled on the legitimacy of > vanity numbers. > Pre-reservation of 888 numbers will be from 01/24/96 to 02/25/96. > This will allow service providers to reduce pent-up demand for toll > free numbers before the March 1st rush. Keep in mind that it will be > first-come first-served. The high visibility numbers like 888-flowers > or 888-the-card would have already been reserved by their owners and > marked as unavailable. > Of course, this schedule could abruptly change depending on when the > FCC issues its pending ruling. > Gary Bouwkamp > Frontier Communications (Unfortunately) THE REAL DEAL goes like this: LONG DISTANCE CARRIERS ACCUSED OF HOARDING 888 NUMBERS By Lynn Jones Vanity International, a Chicago-based consultancy which helps companies find toll-free numbers to fit their businesses, has filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission requesting a delay in the Jan. 24 launch date of new 888 number orders. The company wants the process delayed because it feels that companies such as AT&T, MCI and Cable & Wireless (known as RespOrgs, or Responsible Organizations), are not alerting clients -- particularly the smaller ones -- about the process, as the FCC has said they should do. "Carriers are automatically setting aside numbers for their largest accounts," Stocker said, "but smaller users were either not asked, or in some cases, their requests were collected but not entered into the national database." Part of Stocker's concern stems from the response his clients have been getting from their carriers when trying to request replication of their 800-numbers. He claims, for example, that an AT&T representative told 1-800-TICKETS president Richard Zorn, "We're not taking any requests for 800 replication." When Stocker asked whether existing replication requests had been entered into the national database, he claims he was told, "not as far as I know." Industry consultant Judith Oppenheimer concurs with Stocker, arguing that carriers are not notifying clients that the replication process is taking place. Oppenheimer said she was told by Frontier Communications, a division of Allnet, that they were "only taking orders for companies billing over $1,000 a month." Cable & Wireless gave her a similar response, despite the fact that "a recent survey among RespOrgs showed that nearly one third of 800-number users who want replication bill under $1,000 a month," Oppenheimer said. Both Stocker and Oppenheimer note that carriers have only taken their clients' orders for replication after applying considerable pressure at multiple levels. FCC spokesperson Mary DeLuca said there's no guarantee that Vanity's comments will be considered, since there is currently no public comment period on this issue. Judith Oppenheimer, President, Interactive CallBrand A leading source of information on 800 issues. CallBrand@aol.com, 1 800 The Expert, (ph) 212 684-7210, (fx) 212 684-2714 http://www.users.nyc.pipeline.com:80/~producer/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 04:21:03 -0500 Subject: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company From: richrw@pipeline.com (Richard M. Weil) Sometimes when I call a company (never a home phone), I don't hear the phone ring, it just picks up and I get the voice mail. Can someone explain this? Thanks. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The ring you hear when you dial a number (whether residence or business, no matter) has nothing to do with the ring 'heard' by the recipient of the call. Actually, the only reason the caller hears a ringing signal at all is because telco believes if they did not provide it, many or most callers would assume the line was out of order. For that reason, telco provices a 'ringing noise' that the caller hears as he waits for his party to answer so that the caller will be placated. It is almost like a placebo -- a 'medical treatment' which does nothing -- but makes the patient feel better knowing he is getting 'treated' for his illness. Many companies use DID (direct inward dial) type systems with their own telephone switches and software. In their case all telco does is hand the call to their telephone switch for handling and delivery to wherever, including voicemail. Those companies may have their switches programmed to not send a ringing signal out for whatever reason. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 15:01:16 -0800 From: TFG Subject: German Phone Rates [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This article originally came to me written in German. It was sent for translation and I hope it is all correct. I have not edited the grammar as I sometimes do because I really do not want to tamper with it and somehow get the meaning and original author's remarks incorrect. PAT] German Telecoms (Deutsche Telekom) new rate system: Telephone rates: German telecom turns almost everything up with their new rate system started on January 1,1996. All datas which effect the cost of a call will be changed: The cost for one unit, the time bar, the time and distance zones. In general, long distance and short local calls will be cheaper, longer local calls more expensive. The service fees will also be changed. 1. Telephone rates: - The cost for one unit decreases from 23 to 12 Pfennig. - The time bar per unit for local calls during peak hours decreases also from 6 minutes to 1.5 minutes. - The old day and night rates are discontinued. Five new billing times are created. During weekdays from 9am to 12 am the most expensive so-called morning rate system is in force. The cheapest time to call will be between 2am and 5am under the new night rate system. Inbetween these times three new rate system have been created. - The domestic distance zones expanded from 3 to 4. In citys and within ca. 20 kilometers it is called city rate . Up to 50 kilometers the so-called "Region 50" rate is in effect, up to 200 kilometers the "Region 200" rate. For calls above this the long distance rate. - International calls will be cheaper due to a longer time bar per unit. - The price for a basic service connection; the registration and change of existing junction boxes telephone and connections increases from 65 to 100 DM. 2. Further changes in charges and services: - The monthly rate for basic telephone service is still 24,60 DM. The previous ten free units are discontinued . The monthly charge for a double line junction box increases from 35,20 to 49,20 DM. - One unit at public phones decreases from 30 to 20 Pfennigs with an also shorter time bar per unit. This rate varies between 25 and 19 Pfennigs while using a pre-paid calling card depending on the amount pre-paid. - The former free information is now subject to a charge. Instead of former 23 Pfennigs per unit for the call on information regarding domestic phone numbers will now be 60 Pfennig per unit,information for international phone numbers will be 96 Pfennig per unit. After being publicly criticezed for the planned rebates for big businesses (35%) Deutsche Telekom agreed now to offer some sort of reduction for residential customers. Because of not having installed digital equipment everywhere these reductions will take effect at the end of 1996. Persons who call a lot then be offered to call "a limited quantity" of often called numbers at "cheaper" rates. Under this proposed rebate system will also fall frequently used numbers for access numbers to on-line systems. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 02:53:07 -0500 From: Dave Farber (via Gordon Jacobson) Subject: The Brits Got it Right On! BROKERS SAY NET THREATENS TELECOMS The London stock brokerage firm Durlacher says in a report that telecom companies underestimate the threat posed to their business by the Internet: "Their greatest difficulty is that telecom operators run business based on charging for the cost per unit of time used. The long-term marginal costs associated with a local call are now, however, heading toward zero. In the future, charges will be made for content that is accessed rather than the cost of moving the material from the host machine to the users." The report warns that technical developments could leave telecom operators "with an obsolete system, of no obvious value, other than the recycle value of the copper in the cables." (Financial Times 15 Jan 96 p6) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 21 Jan 1996 23:46:58 -0500 From: woody Subject: Re: MCI Begins Charging For Incoming Email Organization: Internex Online (shell.io.org), Toronto, Ontario, Canada TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > More Good News: > MCI Mail will be the first email service to offer the option to MCI > Mail subscribers to block incoming messages from the Internet to their > MCI Mail address. Eventually the MCI Mail subscriber will be able to When AT&T Mail introduced incoming Internet mail charges (when these were announced for Canadian subscribers, at least), they offered an option to block incoming Internet mail. This was implemented a few years ago, predating MCI Mail's plans. djcl@io.org ---> http://www.io.org/~djcl/ ------------------------------ Subject: MCI Internet Email Fees Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 12:15:05 CST From: David W. Tamkin A reply came to my query on MCI Mail about this rumor. It was confirmed with no details: Date: Tue Jan 16, 1996 2:21 pm CST From: Help with Internet / MCI ID: 453-8383 TO: * David W. Tamkin / MCI ID: 426-1818 CC: MCI Help / MCI ID: 267-1163 Subject: Re: (Forwarded) charge for incoming mail? There will be a formal announcement detailing the new MCI Mail policies and charges at the end of this month. However, in response to your question, yes, MCI will be charging for inbound internet messages. Regards, Debbie Internet Support Group -------------- Bummer. ------------------------------ From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Telecom Archives Receives Good Rating From Magellan Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 12:15:00 CST Over the weekend, I got a couple dozen messages identical to the one below in my mailbox. The only thing different in each message was the name of the archives file referenced. Otherwise, the message content was the same. I did get one (of the several, otherwise identical) messages which said that a given entry in the archives had been rated 'three stars'. Here is one of the messages: --------------------- Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 20:05:49 -0800 From: review@mckinley.mckinley.com (McKinley Review) Subject: Your site reviewed and rated by Magellan Congratulations! Your Internet site Internet Public Access Information http://lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/public.access/ has been reviewed and rated by The McKinley Group's professional editorial team, and listed in Magellan, our comprehensive Internet directory of over 1.5 million sites and 40,000 reviews. To recognize the hard work that has gone into establishing and maintaining your site, we are awarding a special "Reviewed by Magellan" logo for inclusion on your pages. We encourage you to display your "Reviewed by Magellan" logo proudly. It can be downloaded from our special logo Web page at http://www.mckinley.com/mckinley-txt/backlink.html and hyperlinked to our home page at http://www.mckinley.com/ Here at The McKinley Group we pride ourselves on our ability to recognize quality resources on the Net. Three primary factors are considered: depth of content, ease of exploration, and Net appeal. You might also want to offer visitors to your site a direct link to our powerful search engine. The following HTML code will add a form that enables anyone at your site to search Magellan:

Enter Query:

(Click here for search options)
Congratulations again on this award of honor. We at The McKinley Group wish you continued success in all of your Internet endeavors. Sincerely, The McKinley Group, Inc. http://www.mckinley.com review@mckinley.com ------------------------------------- Now as I said, there were about a dozen of the above in my mail this morning. All that changed were the file names they referred to in each letter. I want to thank them very much for their kind note(s) about the Telecom Archives. I know very little about the McKinley Group and the 'Reviewed by Magellan' award, but I do appreciate any person or organization which takes the trouble to review my work and comment on it, good or bad. I can tell you that over the past few years, this Digest has been both a source of much pride and at times, a source of much heartbreak. It has taken a lot of work, and now and then when I get the feeling that I would be better off doing an rm *all.digest.files and finding something else to do with my time, I always hear from a few readers who convince me otherwise. The biggest impediment here has always been meeting my basic obligations to my creditors, and your continued support with an annual subscription donation along with the funding from Microsoft and ITU has reduced that pressure on me considerably. If you have not yet subscribed to the Digest, I hope you will do so today. Thank you. Patrick Townson ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #23 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jan 23 22:59:08 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id WAA03984; Tue, 23 Jan 1996 22:59:08 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 22:59:08 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601240359.WAA03984@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #24 TELECOM Digest Tue, 23 Jan 96 12:59:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 24 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: "Way More Free Stuff From the Internet" (Rob Slade) Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company (Robert Virzi) "Universal" 611 and CO/NY Call Forwarding Problems (Doug Reuben) CO/NY Turns Off Call Forwarding to 800 Numbers (Doug Reuben) Telephone and Other Vandals (Frank Pize) Re: What Happened to Pay Phone Booths? (Derek Peschel) Re: What Happened to Pay Phone Booths? (Scot E. Wilcoxon) Re: What Happened to Pay Phone Booths? (Mark Brader) Re: Post Office Seeks On-Line Presence (Crystal Trexel) Re: Post Office Seeks On-Line Presence (Robert McMillin) Re: Post Office Seeks On-Line Presence (Matthew B. Landry) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 12:51:26 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Way More Free Stuff From the Internet" BKWMFRST.RVW 961012 "Way More Free Stuff From the Internet", Vincent, 1995, 1-883577-50-0, U$19.99/C$27.99 %A Patrick Vincent pjvincent@coriolis.com %C 7339 E. Acoma Drive, Suite 7, Scottsdale, AZ 85260 %D 1995 %G 1-883577-50-0 %I Coriolis Group %O U$19.99/C$27.99 (602) 483-0192 sbounds@coriolis.com %P 500 %T "Way More Free Stuff From the Internet" On the one hand, this is a random collection of stuff that is available online. The listings are divided by topical chapters, but within the chapters, there is no discernable organization: this is a book for browsing, not for reference. What is here is sometimes good, rarely the best, and sometimes sadly out of date. There is no development from Vincent's earlier work (cf BKFRESTF.RVW): essentially they are two volumes of the same work. On the other hand, for newcomers who know nothing about the net, there could be a lot of fun here. This is the "Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog" without the user's guide, and with less serious intent in the catalog. Along with any number of other books it can provide a fun way to actually start using the net (provided you can remain calm in the face of files or sites which may not exist anymore). About this word "free." With rare exceptions, everything is accessible on the net for free. World Wide Web and Gopher sites are free. (Your access charge, or course, may vary.) Anonymous ftp sites, Usenet newsgroups, and mailing lists are free. Informational files are often free. But programs are very often shareware, something that Vincent doesn't go out of his way to explain. In fact, the recommended (required?) software that you need for archive files; StuffIt for the Mac and PKZip for MS-DOS; is shareware. You can get it for free, but if you're going to use it, you're supposed to pay for it. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKWMFRST.RVW 961012. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. Rob Slade's book reviews are a regular feature in the Digest. Vancouver roberts@decus.ca | "If a train station Institute for rslade@vanisl.decus.ca | is where a train Research into rslade@cyberstore.ca | stops, what happens User Rob_Slade@mindlink.bc.ca | at a workstation?" Security Canada V7K 2G6 | Frederick Wheeler ------------------------------ From: rv01@gte.com (Robert Virzi) Subject: Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company Date: 22 Jan 1996 19:46:03 GMT Organization: GTE Laboratories, Waltham, MA In article , Richard M. Weil wrote: > Sometimes when I call a company (never a home phone), I don't hear the > phone ring, it just picks up and I get the voice mail. Can someone > explain this? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The ring you hear when you dial a > number (whether residence or business, no matter) has nothing to do > with the ring 'heard' by the recipient of the call. Actually, the > only reason the caller hears a ringing signal at all is because > telco believes if they did not provide it, many or most callers > would assume the line was out of order. For that reason, telco > provices a 'ringing noise' that the caller hears as he waits for > his party to answer so that the caller will be placated. I've always heard this explanation, and even know that ringback is generated locally. So how come different places I call sound different to me? This is especially true for an overseas call. Obviously there is some communication going on, but I've yet to hear exactly what it is. Bob Virzi rvirzi@gte.com +1 (617) 466-2881 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The reason 'different places sound different' is because ringback is generated in the place where the call is terminating. I don't know what to think of your statement 'generated locally'. Do you mean 'local' as in the place where you are located or 'local' as in the place where the call terminates as opposed to some remote or central location? Every telco does its own thing after certain basic standards have been met. PAT] ------------------------------ From: dreuben@interpage.net (Doug Reuben) Subject: "Universal" 611 and CO/NY Call Forwarding Problems Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 03:10:25 EST While down in Atlantic City a few weeks ago, I tried to place a call to ComCast cellular's customer service department, and dialed 611 on my CO/NY phone. Suprisingly, I received customer service for Cell One/NY (00025), and NOT customer service for Comcast Cellular in Atlantic City (00247?). That is, ComCast apparently detected that I was a roamer from CO/NY, and directed my call to NY's customer service line rather then to theirs. For a while now, CO/NY customers roaming along the northeast corridor could call CO/NY's 800-242-7327 customer service number free of charge from their cellphones while roaming in Boston (00007), RI (00119, soon to change to a new SID), CT (00119 and 01101, which is run off of CO/NY's switch), Poughkeepsie (00503), Orange County (00479?), Western Mass (00119), Franklin County, Mass (used to be 00119, now 00313, may not be "free" anymore), all of the NJ systems besides CO/NY (Newtown, Ocean County, Comcast Atlantic City 00247, Comcast-Metrophone Philly 00029, Comcast New Brunswick 00173, Comcast Trenton 00575, Comcast "Flemington" 01487), Vanguard Cellular/Eastern PA (00103), Comcast/DE (00123), and CO/Baltimore and DC (00013). CO/NY customers can dial 800-242-7327 from any of these markets and not be charged for the call on their cellular bills. This saved a good deal of time (especially for me! :) ) when problems with call delivery or other roaming issues presented the need to call back to CO/NY so that they could investigate a given problem. Customers no longer had to tie up customer service reps getting credit for calls which were placed to CO/NY -- the process is now "automated". (When calling 800-242-7327 from outside of CO/NY's "extended" area, you will be billed for the call, even in other AT&T/McCaw properties. What happens in Canada with Cantel?) However, it was also nice to be able to call local customer service via 611 if there was a problem of local concern, such as questions regarding coverage areas, peak and off-peak rates (not an issue with CO/NY, as they maintain the NY peak/off-peak structure), etc. Now, it seems, it is impossible for a CO/NY customer to call ComCast Cellular customer service via 611, as all 611 calls are routed to CO/NY! I guess that to most customers this is an improvement, but it makes it a lot more difficult to contact local customer service from my cellphone when I need to. Non-CO/NY customers, such as Boston and CT, do NOT go to their respective customer service departments when 611 is dialed; it seems to only "work" for CO/NY customers in the ComCast system. Doug Reuben * dreuben@interpage.net * +1 (203) 499 - 5221 Interpage Network Services -- http://www.interpage.net, telnet interpage.net E-Mail Alpha/Numeric Local/Nationwide Paging, WWW Fax, and E-Mail <-> Fax Svcs [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Frontier does sort of the same thing. Even though throughout the midwest they are reselling Ameritech, dialing *611 gets intercepted and never reaches Ameritech. It is sort of odd: using my local NAM, *611 cuts over right away to Frontier customer service, and *711 for roaming information is not a working number. Using my Mil- waukee NAM causes the phone to go into 'ROAM-B' mode and the same *611 gets Ameritech. *711 reaches the very same Ameritech office. If I ride up to Milwaukee on the bus, the exact opposite occurs. The Milwaukee NAM of course is the local one there, and *611 reaches something which is answered merely 'customer service' (they don't say Ameritech or Frontier when the recording answers and asks you to hold for a rep) and *711 at that point gets Ameritech. But if I switch into my home NAM up there naturally I go into 'ROAM-B' mode and *611 gets me Ameritech again, and *711 plays a recording about how to sign up for service, etc (which does not apply to me). Perhaps someone can explain this: if I put the phone in 'A-ONLY' mode which means only use the A carrier then I get peculiar results. If phone is 'A-ONLY' (as opposed to 'STANDARD') then when on the local NAM here, no matter what I dial -- anything, any number other than *611 -- I get a rapid busy or re-order. *611 in that case gets me Cellular One customer service even though I have no account with them at all. Even 911, *999 (for emergencies) or attempts to dial anything just get that rapid busy. But if I put the phone on the Milwaukee NAM and keep it in 'A-ONLY' mode then no matter what I dial other than *611 and *711 gets me an intercept telling me to dial *8655 (aka *TOLL) to reach a 'Roamer Plus operator' who will assist me if I let them get ahold of my credit card . It turns out 'Roamer Plus' is another name for 'Cellular Express' and they are very bad people. An Ameritech rep I spoke with said 'stay away from them! $1.95 per minute plus $1.95 surcharge for each call.' I wonder why when I am on my local NAM all Cellular One does is give me re-orders, yet when they think I came down from Milwaukee they are willing to sell me service at $1.95 per minute plus $1.95 per call? Also, perhaps someone can explain this: The same Ameritech rep who warned me about the bad people said, "officially by the rules your Milwaukee NAM should be set to carrier 00044 and your local NAM should be set to carrier 00020, even though it is Ameritech in both instances, and the same computer which is here in the Chicago sub- burbs. Try leaving both NAM's set to 00020 and see what happens, or if you mostly stay in Milwaukee try leaving both set to 00044." I sensed a wink in his eye which said there would be some interesting results and I tried to pump him a little further. The impression I got was that 414/708/630/847/219/815 was all really transparent to their computer and the computer would never consider me to be a roamer (i.e. fifty cents per minute all hours) and always consider me to be a local user (i.e. 35/18) regardless of the NAM I was using provided the carrier code programmed in matched the geography of the tower in use. I tried setting the Milwaukee NAM to the Chicago carrier code and indeed, the 'ROAM-B' light went out, and it appeared I was 'just another local user' albiet with a different area code than any of the other locals. Calls went through okay, but I have not seen the bill on them. Any comments or ideas on this? PAT] ------------------------------ From: dreuben@interpage.net (Doug Reuben) Subject: CO/NY Turns Off Call Forwarding to 800 Numbers Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 03:36:34 EST For some unknown reason, CO/NY no longer allows callers to forward their calls to 800 numbers. Additionally, I've noticed that Boston (00007) customers can no longer use unconditional call forwarding (*72 for Boston) while in the CO/NY (00025) market. First off, while calling CO/NY to inquire about my inability to forward my Boston number via *72, I was told that CO/NY customers may no longer forward calls to 800 numbers. The person whom I spoke to had no idea why this had been effectuated, but hazzarded a guess that it may have had to do with "fraud". I'm not sure what sort of fraud can be perpetuated by forwaring calls to an 800 number which can not be accomplished by forwarding to a non-800 number, so I really have no idea why this is a fraud issue at all. (Could it have to do with FORWARDED calls to an 800 displaying the ANI of the "outdial" port with 800 services which offer ANI->Caller ID, and CO/NY not wanting people to get the outdial ports? It won't work if you dial the 800 directly from your cellphone, but it sometimes will if you forward your cellphone to an 800 number and then dial your cellphone number which will forward to and ring the 800 number. If you have a caller ID box on the other end, you will frequently get the ANI of the outport on your Caller ID box.) CO/NY will also be offering (or are being forced to offer) Caller ID from Cellphones, with per-call and per-line blocking, *67 and *82 codes (which currently are accepted but don't do much of anything -- all calls show "Out of Area"). Perhaps it has something to do with this, but I doubt it. I really can't understand the reason for this -- it is inane to block call forwarding to 800 numbers; I routinely forward my calls to 800 numbers and find this to be a significant concern. (But then I find a lot of these esoteric things to be "significant" concerns :) ... why can't the system just *work* without all these irregularities?) I've also noticed that CO/Boston (00007) customers can no longer use their unconditional call-forwarding (*72) from within the NY 00025 market. No-Answer-Transfer (NAT) (*71) will work, but it does a roamer little good as re-directs to a NAT number will not work for Boston roamers (ie, if your phone is active in the NY market it will NOT transfer to the desired NAT number), and thus it is imperative that *72 works as it is the only way that CO/Boston customers roaming in NY (or Litchfield County, CT 01101) can ensure that their calls are properly forwarded (unless they use *71 and then force calls back to the Boston market with *35, which is cumbersome and a pain). I'm not sure if any of these have to do with the AT&T takeover during the past summer (evidenced by the especially annoying and non-standard "Dial 1 for all calls" requirement -- no other northeast "A" system requires this, making it especially confusing for roamers, which is precisely NOT what cell companies should be doing), or it is a result of the fraud protection feature (which still causes problems with incoming calls in Poughkeepsie) but overall, NACN integration and the availability of features while at home and roaming has been reduced to an good extent in the "post-ATT" period as compared to before AT&T acquired McCaw. Overall, the system is still very well run, however, blocking 800 Call Forwarding and the continuing translation problems with Boston, CT, and elsewhere do not lend themselves to ehancing the roaming "experience" for all customers, and should be addressed if customers are ever to appreciate a "seamless" roaming environment. Doug Reuben * dreuben@interpage.net * +1 (203) 499 - 5221 Interpage Network Services -- http://www.interpage.net, telnet interpage.net E-Mail Alpha/Numeric Local/Nationwide Paging, WWW Fax, and E-Mail <-> Fax Svcs [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The thing I like about Ameritech is their 'seamless' roaming throughout their five state territory. The Ameritech rep said to me no matter where I was in any of their several markets, 'we will find you.' I've found for example with my cell phone turned off, calls to my Milwaukee number get a Frontier intercept saying 'party is not available right now'. I set the phone in the Milwaukee NAM and turn it on, then dial the Milwaukee number again, seconds later. This time Frontier comes on saying, 'we are going to transfer your call to the city where your party is at the present time ...' and the phone immediatly rings down here in Skokie -- all within seconds. If I use my Milwaukee NAM to call my Milwuakee number even though I am here in Skokie, I get a busy signal; naturally I guess, since I am on the phone. The Ameritech rep said to me 'Fast Track Roaming is old- fashioned. We just automatically look for you everywhere.' I asked him if that was the case suppose I wanted to call my number to access my voicemail and did *not* want the cellular system chasing around all over the country looking for me; what was I supposed to do then? He said in that case, dial *19, wait for the three beep tones, and then dial my number; I would go to voicemail instead. That overrides the national searching which would otherwise get underway. 'But be sure to dial *18 after that if you want us to start looking for you again ...' I asked him if they still killed everyone at three in the morning and started over as they used to do. He said in the case of people who started Fast Track using *18 they still did a general cancellation of all forwardings a little past midnight, but those users who they would search and seek out by default were not turned off. He said a way to get back automatically 'on search' after having done *19 was to 'just turn the phone off a couple minutes and then turn it back on ... the process of identifying you and notifying your home switch and defaulting you into Fast Track will happen within seconds ... or do *18 without powering down, whichever you like better.' I must say Ameritech Cellular seems to really have thier act together, and by extension Frontier (in this market) since they resell Ameritech. Their two markets I am familiar with (Chicago and Milwaukee) both seem to be heavily saturated with towers, coverage-wise. I never use anything except the little tiny stub antenna and still get very strong coverage everywhere. PAT] ------------------------------ From: bidscan@aztec.co.za Date: Tue, 23 Jan 96 18:00 EET Subject: Telephone and Other Vandals On 21 Jan 1996 20:36:21 GMT, TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There are two factors to consider here. > One is vandalism. In the the past -- many years past -- we punished > vandals who ruined nice things in order that the rest of us could have > nice things. Then at some point the rules changed and we were told > we could not have a nice thing at a certain place because the vandals > would wreck it and therefore it was pointless to install it. So now > we all do without nice things such as pay phone booths with seats in > them. > up) they were removed also. Somehow things changed so that the > behavior of the vandals became the norm; became the expected behavior, > and the rest of us became the ones with unrealistic desires. > Second, at some point it became politically incorrect to have any > possible thing for one group of people that another group of people > was unable to use. Pat, well said!! What else can I do but agree ... and wonder where it's going to end? In a similiar vein, here in South Africa we're getting to the point where a convicted criminal often seems to have more rights than his victim ... :-( However, I'm writing to you today to quote something from a book I have, titled "Requiem for a Red Box", which I'm sure you're likely to recognise as being about British telephone booths ... anyway, to the point: "1907/1908 : Blackburn, at that time anxious to preserve any vestiges of a rural atmosphere, acquired a six-sided rustic arbour with ornamental log walls, leaded light windows and a wooden roof surmounted inexplicably by two large balls. Inside there was not only a telephone but an electric light, a clock provided by Blackburn Corporation, and a table and seats. It proved a little too luxurious. Soon after it opened, four gentlemen of no fixed abode were found to be seated in it, enjoying a smoke and a game of cards. They were rapidly removed -- and so were the table and seats" Anything familiar in that last line? The book also refers to the problem of graffiti inside the boxes, and notes that in 1912 the Postmaster General rather optimistically provided scribbling pads for booth users in an effort to reduce graffiti.. All that happened was that the pads were stolen, and the walls continued to be scribbled on. By the way, the book quotes the "first recorded case of phone vandalism" as having occured, would you believe, in 1907 ... when Mr. Samuel Wartski tried to smash open the coinbox with a chisel. What that makes him different from current day vandals is that he was apparently only interested in recovering his own tuppence for a failed call rather than in stealing all the takings. How does that old saying go "The more things change, the more they stay the same" ... ??? Cheers, Frank Pizer bidscan@aztec.co.za ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jan 96 08:09:49 -0800 From: Derek Peschel Subject: Re: What Happened to Pay Phone Booths? Organization: University of Washington, Seattle In article TELECOM Digest Editor noted: > Times change as do attitudes. I quite agree with you that the return > of pay phone booths would be a wonderful thing. So would bus stop > shelter houses and benches to sit on while you wait for the bus to > arrive. (In Chicago they were literally on every corner in the Benches at bus stops are disappearing here ... for legal reasons! Recently, Seattle adopted a law which punishes people for sitting on the sidewalk. Apparently, the city wanted to make the sight of homeless people less obvious. (Homeless people rightly claim that the law is selectively enforced, and that hiding the problem is not the same as solving the problem. But that's another issue.) I'm sure that this law explains the sudden absence or disabling of benches around the city. Derek [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Our local busses and subways here are operated by the Chicago Transit Atrocity. Yes, I know many people mistakenly believe the third word in their name is 'Authority'. Up until about 1965 they maintained public restroom facilities in all subway/elevated train stations. Now admittedly, they were all filthy toilets; you can't imagine how bad unless you were around then and had to make an emergency pit stop or were one of the creatures who automatically seemed to gravitate to those places. All the stations had a janitor whose duty it was to every few minutes go in the men's room and make the general announcement to everyone present, "no loitering; no standing; no smoking." Their idea of 'cleaning' was to take a mop bucket full of scalding hot water with steam vapors coming off the top, pour in a half bottle or more of *pure* ammonia, and proceed to swab the floor with it. When they would do this three or four times per day, it not only killed all the germs on the floor around the toilets and urinals, it also drove out all the vermin who had been standing or slouching around in there. Those ammonia vapors would do the trick every time. Of course the innocent CTA passenger (perhaps one out of the dozen people present) who had the misfortune of being there in a stall 'doing his business' also had to evacuate in a hurry with tears streaming out of his blinking eyes, holding his nose and trying to breath though his mouth. Finally around 1965 or so it got to where most of the patrons of the subway station toilets were vice cops standing around trying to entrap other vice cops and the general public. The CTA closed them all down and said 'tough luck ... remember to go before you leave home from now on.' From one extreme to another though; now when CTA train passengers reach the end of the line at the Skokie Station, they come off the train looking for the obvious. None in sight any- where, so they pester the local merchants up and down Dempster Street, all of whom out of self-defense have to keep the restrooms they maintain for *their* customers locked, else deal with a dozen or more CTA riders every day using it, at the merchant's expense. The CTA is generally unwilling to work with the community at all on things like that. Benches, shelters to stand out of the rain and posted schedules at the shelters are long gone also. Bus drivers no longer make change (they quit that about thirty years ago) and subway fare collectors no longer accept twenty dollar bills. PAT] ------------------------------ From: sewilco@fieldday.mn.org (Scot E. Wilcoxon) Subject: Re: What Happened to Pay Phone Booths? Date: 23 Jan 1996 11:58:31 -0600 PAT, shall we now await reports of COCOTs installing phone booths to attract business? Scot E. Wilcoxon sewilco@fieldday.mn.org Laws are society's common sense, written down for the stupid. The stupid refuse to read. Their lawyers read to them. ------------------------------ From: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) Subject: Re: What Happened to Pay Phone Booths? Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 06:28:31 GMT Lisa (hancock4@cpcn.com) writes: > Likewise, outdoor pay phones are now quite rare. I never see any new > installations. We do around here (Toronto, Canada). The booth doors are now two free-swinging plastic leaves that don't quite meet, rather than the older folding glass door, but it's sure better than nothing. Mark Brader, msb@sq.com, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto ------------------------------ From: trexel.c@adlittle.com Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 15:55:22 -0500 Subject: Re: Post Office Seeks On-Line Presence > The Postal Service is working with software companies such as Premenos > Corp. to develop software that would use public "keys" (like a phone > number) and private "keys" (like a bank PIN number) to give consumers > their own unique identities. In electronic transactions, senders an > receivers would use their private keys in combination with the others' > public keys to sign, seal and open electronic documents. Hmmm. This sounds just like PGP to me. I wonder why the Postal Service is going through the trouble of recreating the wheel. Even despite the government not liking PGP, this seems silly. I will say, though, that a directory of public keys will be badly needed when secure transactions are the norm instead of the exception. The Postal Service is not the only organization that could provide this, of course. I could see one of the RBOCs adding public keys to an online white pages database. Or really any of the online directories (e.g. 411). Crystal Trexel ------------------------------ From: rlm@netcom.com (Robert McMillin) Subject: Re: Post Office Seeks On-Line Presence Organization: Charlie Don't CERF Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 21:13:44 GMT On 22 Jan 1996 01:07:03 PDT, PAT said: > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have mixed reactions to this to say > the least. Really, I don't know what to think. I will say the new > post office in Skokie -- the branch office built about two blocks > away from my house -- is a very modern looking place. It looks more > like a small shop than a government office; a very pleasant place. > But I just don't know what to think about them getting into email. > Do people really want that? Does it matter what people want where > the government is concerned? Will the post office at some point try > claim an exclusive right to handle email as they do now with what > they have decided to call 'hard copy'? PAT] And how are they going to enforce that? Make sure nobody ever sets up a Fido or UUCP connection? It would sure make life a lot more inconvenient, but dialup is still an option. I don't see the Internet going Postal any time soon ... Robert L. McMillin | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Netcom: rlm@netcom.com WWW: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/rl/rlm/home.html ------------------------------ From: mbl@conch.aa.msen.com (Matthew B Landry) Subject: Re: Post Office Seeks On-Line Presence Date: 22 Jan 1996 22:43:07 GMT Organization: Msen, Inc. -- Ann Arbor, MI. Our Beloved Editor wrote: > But I just don't know what to think about them getting into email. > Do people really want that? Does it matter what people want where > the government is concerned? Will the post office at some point try > claim an exclusive right to handle email as they do now with what > they have decided to call 'hard copy'? PAT] Let them try to claim whatever they like. It's a lot harder for a monopoly to enter a competitive industry and take it over than it is for small businesses to open up a monopolistic industry to competition. And moreover, they _don't_ have a monopoly on "hard copy" mail services ... just ask UPS and Federal Express. Their only monopolies are on federal subsidies, and on "first class" letters. If the federal subsidy continues, they may be able to undercut the prices of some ISPs (although they may end up being uncompetitive anyway), but the US Postal Service has a terrible speed and reliability reputation it'll have to live down in the public eye before ISPs will have anything to worry about. Matthew Landry [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: They claim to have a monopoly on all first class mail which is not 'urgent' requiring special delivery. UPS and Fed-X not withstanding, why don't *you* try starting a mail delivery service and see what happens? Did you read about the dirty trick the Postal Service played on three or four very large corporate customers of Fed-X not too long ago? They sent auditors out to the companies involved and in every instance where the shipper had failed to write 'urgent delivery required' on the face of the envelope the post office contended that the item really was handled by Fed-X in violation of federal laws. The post office made the firms involved come up with about three hundred thousand dollars in 'postage due'. They went back through the Fed-X shipping logs of those companies for about three years; clear back to the Statute of Limitations. There are rumors they are going to start auditing the fax records of several large firms also on the theory that only the Postal Service has the right to deliver 'personal correspondence of a non-urgent nature'. It becomes 'urgent' of course when the sender so defines it I guess by endorsing it in that way on the document itself. Anytime a government agency gets a monopoly on some public service they really make a mess out of it. Look at Chicago: not learning from or content with the horrible mess they made when the legislature 'municipalized' a huge amount of private property in the 1930's to start the Chicago Housing Atrocity, they then proceeded to municipalize all the private transportation companies here in 1947. All the bus and train lines were taken over and put into the Chicago Transit Atrocity. When the politicians had milked that for all it was worth and the CTA was on the verge of bankruptcy and defaulting on its debts and its bonds, etc in the 1970's, they got the bright idea of grabbing *all* the suburban train lines and busses throughout northern Illinois and using their revenues to prop up the CTA. The biggest holder of CTA bonds is/was Commonwealth Edison Company, going back into the 1930's when a CTA predecessor called 'Chicago Rapid Transit Company' was unable to pay the electric bill to run the elevated trains. When Edison was going to shut the power off to the elevated trains because the company could not pay the electric bill, someone got the bright idea to issue fifty year bonds. Edison bought all the bonds. Guess what? Those bonds became payable fifty years later about 1985, and Edison said to CTA, "We want our money and we want it now ... we don't care if you have to raise the farebox to five dollars a ride ... pay us or get sued." Well, the CTA paid it alright, and we got a fare increase that year that was worse than ever. In retaliation, the City Fathers started whispering among themselves, "Let's take over Edison. We'll municipalize them and tell the public the reason we did it was because we can provide the electricity without ripping them off the way Edison does .... we can give a better deal." But no one was deceived this time around. We bought the idea that poor people needed 'nice' houses (yuk!) and we bought the idea that a single transportation system was better than a half-dozen different competitors (even if they did honor each other's tokens and transfers), and we bought the idea that the suburbs somehow 'owed' it to Chicago to merge all their busses and trains with ours to keep ours from going bankrupt. But when it was pointed out that the same folks who brought us the housing atrocity and the transportation atrocity and the public schools were now going to be running the nuclear plants as well ... the citizens said no in a resounding way. Imagine, the local Democratic politicians taking over Edison; and they get lust in their hearts for Illinois Bell from time to time also. Makes a great Last Laugh! doesn't it? It sends shivers up my spine. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #24 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 24 11:17:27 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id LAA07306; Wed, 24 Jan 1996 11:17:27 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 11:17:27 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601241617.LAA07306@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #25 TELECOM Digest Wed, 24 Jan 96 11:17:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 25 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson On-Line Services Unwilling to Push Fight Against Censorship (Tad Cook) Motorola 550 Phone Solutions (Mark G. Allen) Re: Flat-Rate Residential Telephone Service - Is End in Sight (J Sukaskas) ISDN vs Cable Modems (Russ Welti) COMSAT Introduces PLANET 1 (mdsboston@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 America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Cook Subject: On-Line Services Unwilling to Push Fight Against Censorship Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 13:02:42 PST On-Line Services Seen Unwilling to Push Costly Fight against Censorship By Howard Bryant, San Jose Mercury News, Calif. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Jan. 21--When Compuserve Inc. agreed recently to block more than 200 Internet newsgroups that violated German obscenity laws, First Amendment stalwarts in the United States cringed in fear and seethed with anger. It was another step, critics said, toward complete government censorship of the Internet. More infuriating was that Compuserve acquiesced without even putting up a fight -- or so it seemed. Civil libertarian groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, say it is time for a sweeping landmark court case that clarifies the gray legal issues of cyberspace. Without it, expect a more intrusive government and an increasingly chaotic Internet atmosphere. But there is a problem: First Amendment analysts say major on-line players are unwilling to take on the federal government -- either generally or in court. Experts say they fear unfavorable legal precedents in an industry that is still in its relative infancy. Too, on-line providers may not want the publicity as Congress and others debate what is considered acceptable content in cyberspace. While such legal uncertainties loom, the big loser is the computer user, who will log into a cyberspace fraught with confusion and numerous unanswered questions. Will users end up forking over $100,000 and land in jail for downloading nude photos or accessing sex-related newsgroups, as Congress is proposing in its pending telecommunications bill? Is what's happening on-line a product of corporate cowardice, government censorship, or both? Are these proposed restrictions -- the consequence of a government wary of the Internet's ability to transmit pornography into the home -- even constitutional? One thing is clear: 1996 is shaping up as the year of the crackdown. As the Internet has increased in popularity, conservative Christian coalitions, parental guidance groups, community activists and others have expressed concern about content on-line. Most recently, the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles sent out mass mailings to on-line services urging them to block access to hate groups and hate speech on-line. "The debate on how to protect speech has been agonized over by traditional publishers like newspapers forever. We'd like to see that conversation joined by the Internet community," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center. "We're trying to be a catalyst before the rules are put in place. "We've asked them (on-line services) what they are," he said. "Are you broadcasters? Are you electronic soapboxes? Are you publishers? They've told us it depends. But I know this -- I've never heard an obscene phone call protected by free speech. The Internet represents a parallel." The federal government has made it a priority to reel in the big on-line services because of the growing amount of sex-related content pouring into America's homes via computer, especially where children may have access. The question is whether on-line services will fight back in court where, traditionally, head-to-head battles have led to the protection of the First Amendment, such as the 1969 landmark Brandenburg Supreme Court case that defined hate speech for a generation. "I'm confident there will be a challenge. These laws contain tremendous constitutional problems," said Ann Brick, staff attorney for the ACLU in San Francisco. "There isn't a reason for them (on-line services) to block anything. In fact, they have a great interest not to block speech." While on-line services have traditionally avoided the courtroom, it is not a completely foreign setting. San Jose-based Netcom On-line Communication Services and Prodigy Services Co. are now embroiled in court. In 1991, Cubby vs. Compuserve said the on-line provider was not liable for the use of the content on its service. But on-line services generally have taken the path of least resistance, which lately has meant making it more difficult for subscribers to view controversial materials on-line. Simply put, on-line providers have begun blocking access to the pictures, newsgroups and mailing lists from their services altogether. When Compuserve blocked access to 200 newsgroups late last month, company executives said it was because they were threatened with prosecution by the German government had they not complied. When Netcom released its latest NetCruiser software that allows computers to view the World Wide Web and 14,000 Internet discussion groups, the software offered listings of every type of newsgroup except the 4,000 newsgroups that contained the "alt" prefix. While some sexually explicit newsgroups on the Internet begin with "alt," many others do also such as alt.sports.baseball.sf-giants. Curt Kundred, a Netcom spokesman says the "alt" groups were omitted for the purpose of saving disk space. He said the company had no motives to block Internet content. "There was no hidden agenda with NetCruiser," he said. "The problem was that we wanted to fit the entire program on one floppy disk. It was clearly a space issue." Netcom subscribers can still access the "alt" newsgroups. But Netcom's actions have been perceived by a substantial part of the on-line community as anti-free speech, a potentially deadly rap in the court of public opinion. "You don't have to have any inside information to know that this is cowardice," said Howard Rheingold, longtime on-line advocate and author of "The Virtual Community." "These companies have the right to run their businesses any way they want, but I don't think it will play. They are charging full speed into the 19th century." A main reason why access providers do not present themselves as First Amendment vanguards is that it is often not in their best interest. These companies are businesses first, without the traditional roots in publishing. On-line services prefer to adopt partial aspects of the "common carrier" model, which would treat an on-line service like a telephone company: it provides a service and is not liable for the information being transmitted over their network. That way, on-line services can avoid First Amendment questions, and all of the sticky issues that accompany that role. "We're not a newspaper. We're not a television or radio station," said William Giles, spokesman for Compuserve. "We're something completely different. This technology has created a completely new entity, and on-line doesn't fall under those parameters." Shari Steele, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, agrees with on-line services that they should be allowed common carrier status. The foundation maintains that holding on-line services accountable for the actions of their users will limit free speech. "If they're going to be liable, there will be censorship," she said. "Anything remotely controversial will be tossed off the network. There will be monitoring of content and speech will be pretty bland. The on-line services will act as if they are under the constant threat of a lawsuit." But not everyone agrees with that strategy. Said the ACLU's Brick, "Access providers are making a mistake by thinking they are merely gatekeepers. They will be held accountable because they have such tremendous power." Given that attitude, some on-line advocates say the only solution is in the courtroom. "I don't think court is avoidable for on-line companies. The question of censorship has to end up in court, no doubt about it," said Shabbir Safdar, a board member of Voters Telecommunications Watch, an on-line newsletter based in New York that tracks free speech and telecommunica- tions issues. "Very few access providers are going to be considered completely hands off," he said. "Remember, they are the ones hosting on-line forums, message boards and chats. When you're offering those kinds of entertainment services, there is no way they can be considered a common carrier." Looming is the specter of the telecommunications bill, currently stalled in Congress that includes the strictest anti-pornography provisions the Internet community has faced during its young existence. Sponsored by Nebraska Democrat James Exon, the anti-pornography portion of the telecommunications bill calls for individuals who disseminate or receive material to pay fines of up to $100,000 or get a two-year prison term, or both. First Amendment proponents immediately decried the "Exon Amendment" as unconstitutional, but when it passed easily through both the House and Senate, fear set in. Predictably, the Internet community reacted ferociously, staging protests to censorship and government involvement both on-line and in the streets. "These restrictions are clearly unconstitutional," said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Media Education, a Washington, D.C. public policy group. "The legislature is reacting with fear. This (the Internet) is a powerful new technology that is shaping our future. Instead of looking at the positive effects, lawmakers are looking toward the dark side with these limits." But while the federal government has been attacked, many analysts blame the Big Three -- Compuserve, America Online and Prodigy -- for the easy passage of the Exon provisions. Some policy groups say the major on-line services didn't put up a strong fight against the Exon forces, while others point to a compromise between the major on-line services and the government. The compromise, although not yet approved by Congress, says access providers will not be held liable for any sexual material transmitted over their networks. "I find it incredible how quickly the these organizations are willing to cave in. That seems to be their first impulse," said Karen Coyle, member of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, a Palo Alto-based advocacy group. "It's very disappointing. They cave instead of fighting back. It's very clear these are not free-speech institutions." ------------------------------ From: mallen@ee.gatech.edu (Mark G. Allen) Subject: Motorola 550 Phone Solutions Date: 23 Jan 1996 18:57:45 GMT Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology Dear Digest, I thought that this summary of replies to my question regarding the cell phone which keeps turning itself off would be of interest. It seems as if this is a common problem, with a variety of underlying causes. The fix that worked for me was to clean the contacts as described in Tim Isaacs' reply (so far, the phone has been on for 10-15 hours, carried around as usual and hasn't turned itself off!!) In Tim's reply, he says that often there is some telltale 'dirt' on the contacts which can cause an intermittent connection between battery and phone. Although I didn't see any visible dirt/oxidation there, I tried his fix and it seemed to work. Thanks very much to all who replied. Mark Allen mallen@ee.gatech.edu (Mark Allen) writes: > I have a Motorola 550 flip cell phone which has the nasty habit of > shutting itself off inappropriately (e.g., I will turn it on for > standby calls, put it in my pocket, and later take it out of my pocket > to find that it has shut itself off.) This problem seems to be > independent of the battery condition (fully charged, partially > charged) and even the battery itself (brand new battery has the same > problem). It appears to be more related to mechanical stress on the > phone itself. From: Phil Ritter pritter@la.airtouch.com I have had this problem on two different Motorola flip-phones. You might want to check the battery mount on the phone case and/or the edges of the battery itself. Small cracks in this area can lead to poor contact between the phone and the battery terminals when the phone is stessed (the twists that it gets when you put it in your pocket, for example). In one case, a new battery solved the problem. In another, I had to get the phone case replaced. You might want to check the warrenty on your phone - Moto phones come with either a one or three year warrenty and I have had the case replaced three times on two phones, no questions asked, under warrenty. Besides the one mentioned above, another phone had its flip break (almost)off and another case mostly exploded when dropped onto a concrete floor - Moto took care of both under warrenty. Of course, since I work for a cell phone carrier, they might have looked at my particular cases(sic) more leniently than most ;-). From: Andrew C. Green acg@frame.com Hi Mark, I'm Emailing this to you instead of posting to the digest as it's a bit of a longshot, but my Motorola-built CT2 SilverLink PCS would do this to me occasionally. In my case I finally figured out that it was static shock; if the phone was on standby and got zapped with static (either directly or via _me_ getting zapped while it was in my pocket), it promptly shut itself off. Whenever you switched this model of phone off, it would make a little warbling sound, so I'd hear immediately when it decided to shut off by itself even when it was folded up in my pocket. As this is the dry-heat winter season, your question rang a bell with me. Just thought I'd pass it along ... From: Peter E. Rothschild Peter_Rothschild@sra.com I had a similar problem with a Motorola MicroTAC. It seemed that the latch that held the battery in place was weak, and that the battery would slide enough to lose contact. This would be most likely to happen when pulling the phone out of the pseudo-leather pouch, or out of my pocket. I replaced the standard pouch (which was the type that you must remove phone from to use) to a fancy pouch that allows you to use the phone without removing it (it has a plastic window over the over the phone display, and a flap that covers the flip and allows it to open). This also seems to protect the battery from movement when not in use. I also wondered if it would be possible to make the latch tighter somehow, maybe by heating the latch area gentely and bending it a little, but I never tried this. Good luck, and let me know what finally works for you. From: Stan Schwartz Do you use a lock code and if so, have you unlocked the phone? My Motorola TDMA-Alpha Flip will shut off automatically within a minute or so if it is on but still locked (under the assumption that it was turned on accidentally). From: timi@iconz.co.nz (Tim Isaacs) As a dealer I see this type of problem very regularly. First action we take is to check cleanliness of battery contacts. The contact area between battery and handset is actually very small and minor slippage across any black "gunge' can turn phone off. Of course, we never find out until we have missed that"important call. Just take a pencil eraser (we call them rubbers in NZ) and clean contacts on batteries and handset thoroughly. 90% of the time we never see the phone back and no technical staff involvement (or charges) required. From: bluesky@atlcom.net (Mark Cavallaro) There is an 8-hour time out feature. But your description sounds like the phone is broken. Is it possible the battery is loose in the holder? Call me if you want. Maybe I can help. BTW motorola generally asks for $85 on a mail-in repair. They are at 1-800-331-6456. From: brian@nothing.ucsd.edu (Brian Kantor) Mine used to do that too. Turns out that the external battery disconnect switch (that little silver pin in the connector on the bottom of the phone where you plug in the car kit) was intermittent. I opened up the phone and just soldered a diode across the switch so that it wouldn't vibrate open and my phone doesn't shut itself off anymore. I think it got that way by being dropped. Hardest part of the whole operation was getting the phone open. ------------------------------ From: Joe Sukaskas Subject: Re: Flat-Rate Residential Telephone Service - Is End in Sight? Date: 23 Jan 1996 19:31:44 GMT Organization: Maine Public Utilities Commission lars@silcom.com wrote: > While working on an article about various regulatory issues, I have > come to the conclusion that the days of flat-rate residential > telephone service are numbered. The best that we can hope for is an > extra-deep discount rate for after-hours message units to residential > subscribers. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I have thought for a long time that it > was just a matter of time until local unmeasured service would be gone > everywhere. . . . I think there will be various reasons given for > its demise on a location by location basis, but I can't imagine there > being any of it left by the year 2000. PAT] Perhaps except in Maine? In 1986, Maine voters enacted by referendum a statute that prohibits mandatory local measured telephone service in the state, stating that "traditional flat rate local telephone service" must be preserved "at as low a cost as possible." Any optional local measured service must be priced so that no more than 1/4th of the residential subscribers in the area take the measured service, and at least 3/4ths of the residential customers will remain "standard flat rate customers." ------------------------------ From: Russ Welti Subject: ISDN vs Cable Modems Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 17:47:04 -0800 Organization: University of Washington HELP! I live in central Seattle. I am about to sign on for ISDN service from a provider as well as buy about $1000 worth of ISDN equipment to allow me to telecommute, and hopefully run my X application from home using 128 K service (2 bonded B channels). This after ten years of dreaming of a high speed, home connection. Well I finally lost patience! BUT: Saw a real cool web page for TCI cable, about a service called @Home, to debut in Sunnyvale, CA this year (96) with more coming soon. Basically it is supposed to be VERY high speed and cost about $50 / month, unlimited usage. Connects to your computer at its Ethernet port. QUESTION: Can anyone state that this is not just "posturing"? Will it really happen that soon and at that speed and at that cost? If so, I'd be an idiot to invest in ISDN right now, right? Thanks much, Russ Welti University of Washington Molecular Biotechnology PO Box 357730 Seattle, WA 98195 rwelti@u.washington.edu (206) 616 5116 voice (206) 685 7301 FAX ------------------------------ From: mdsboston@aol.com (MDSBOSTON) Subject: COMSAT Introduces PLANET 1 Date: 23 Jan 1996 14:13:05 -0500 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: mdsboston@aol.com (MDSBOSTON) COMSAT INTRODUCES PLANET 1 WORLD'S FIRST PORTABLE, GLOBAL PERSONAL SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM PLANET 1 Allows Users to Send and Receive Calls, Faxes or E-mail Anywhere in the World BETHESDA, MD -- COMSAT Mobile Communications today introduced the world's first personal satellite communications (PSC) system, PLANET 1. Available by mid-1996, PLANET 1 terminals will retail for $2,995, with an all-inclusive (fully terminated) charge of $3 per minute (pending FCC approval). The PLANET 1 system integrates cellular and mobile satellite technologies to offer seamless global, personal voice and data communications from a portable, notebook-sized terminal. COMSAT's PLANET 1 terminal, manufactured by NEC, a world leader in electronics, incorporates the functionality of a standard business phone with value-added features such as single-number global roaming, voice/fax mail notification, paging and call-in-absence indicator. In addition to the high-quality digital voice and data capabilities, PLANET 1 will also provide mobile data services such as E-mail, Internet access and short messaging service. "PLANET 1 meets the immediate need for seamless, worldwide personal communications and is the only truly portable, global wireless service available today," said COMSAT President and Chief Executive Officer, Bruce L. Crockett. This affordable new service will deliver a reliable communications tool for global business professionals and anyone whose needs are not currently serviced by cellular or telephone systems. "NEC is proud to be involved in the development of the world's first personal satellite communications system. The PLANET 1 terminal will revolutionize global personal communications and make satellite communications more portable and affordable than ever before," said Mineo Sugiyama, president of NEC America. "Moving forward, we are committed to working with COMSAT to make PLANET 1 the standard for global, wireless communications. PLANET 1 uses subscriber identity module (SIM) cards for security and flexibility. These cards provide for consolidation of monthly billing statements for customers using both cellular and PLANET 1 services and can be programmed with pre-determined usage allowance. SIM cards also allow companies to create a terminal pool where multiple employees, each with their own SIM card and billing account, can share a limited number of terminals. PLANET 1 will provide secure digital communications channels using the high-powered spot beam technology of the Inmarsat-3 satellites. Spot beams allow smaller equipment to be used because they focus a greater concentration of power onto the earths surface and are extremely spectrum-efficient because they provide for frequency re-use within each beam, which translates into less expensive per-minute charges. The spot beams also allow for system management unavailable previously on the Inmarsat system. These beams can be re-positioned over land mass areas where there is the greatest demand for services and permit a distinction between national and international calls, enabling new pricing strategies to be devised. Each Inmarsat-3 has five high-power spot beams providing up to 2,200 circuits. PLANET 1 will be distributed by established cellular and wireless distribution channels. A proven leader and innovator with more than 30 years of experience in global satellite communications, COMSAT is the first service provider to introduce a complete PSC solution to the global marketplace. PLANET 1 is the first practical voice, fax and data communications product the international business traveler can use anywhere, anytime, said Traver H. Kennedy, director of wide area network services and research at Aberdeen Group, Inc. "The terminal design, its size, weight and interface will deliver on the promise of true individual mobile communication." NEC America, Inc., an affiliate of NEC Corporation, develops, manufactures, and markets a complete line of advanced communications products and software for public and private networks. NEC Corporation and its affiliates worldwide are a $43 billion global leader whose 151,000 employees are dedicated to providing leading-edge computer, communications and semiconductor products and services. COMSAT Mobile Communications is the business unit of COMSAT Corporation (NYSE:CQ) that provides mobile satellite communications to maritime, aeronautical and land-mobile customers around the world via the Inmarsat satellite system. COMSAT is the largest shareholder in the Inmarsat satellite communications network of more than 70 global signatories. COMSAT Corporation is a global provider of communications and entertainment products and services. Editorial Contacts: Eileen Pacheco Creamer Dickson Basford (617) 467-1576 Judith Pryor COMSAT Mobile Communications (301) 214-3432 ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #25 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 24 12:38:21 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id MAA14163; Wed, 24 Jan 1996 12:38:21 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 12:38:21 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601241738.MAA14163@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #26 TELECOM Digest Wed, 24 Jan 96 12:38:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 26 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AT&T Allies With DirecTV, Takes Equity Stake (Stan Schwartz) 708/847/630 Split (Neal McLain) Max Thruput on Dial-up Lines (Rick Whiting) Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company (Tom Watson) Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company (Bill McMullin) Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company (Mike Stockman) Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company (John N. Dreystadt) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Stan Schwartz Subject: AT&T Allies With DirecTV, Takes Equity Stake Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 19:34:52 -0500 Forwarded FYI to the Digest: AT&T Allies With DirecTV, Takes Equity Stake NEW YORK, NEW YORK, U.S.A., 1996 JAN 22 (NB) -- AT&T (NYSE:T) and the DirecTV unit of Hughes Electronics Corp. have announced an alliance whereby AT&T will market DirecTV's satellite television service and take a 2.5 percent stake in the operation. AT&T's $137.5 million purchase of equity in DirecTV comes with an option to increase its interest to as much as 30 percent, depending on its success at marketing DirecTV's services to its customers. Joe Nacchio, executive vice-president of AT&T's consumer and small business division, said in a teleconference with reporters this morning that this additional investment would be triggered by a rate of new subscriber signups over a certain time, which he would not specify other than to say AT&T is not likely to increase its share of DirecTV before the end of this year. AT&T will market DirecTV's service, which provides multiple channels of movies, sports, news, and other programming via satellite, to its subscribers. Nacchio said AT&T will use all its marketing channels, including direct-mail services currently used to sell the company's wireless communications services, to push the DirecTV service. He also said subscribers who sign up for DirecTV through AT&T will be able to have their DirecTV charges appear on the same bill as their AT&T long-distance charges. The service sold through AT&T will be the same service at the same price as that DirecTV offers through retail channels, Nacchio said. Eddy Hartenstein, president of DirecTV, said during the briefing that the deal with AT&T will complement his company's existing distribution arrangements with retailers across the United States. The alliance "provides us, DirecTV, with an extremely powerful marketing and distribution channel through which we can generate incremental sales," he said. As for AT&T, the deal gives it a presence in a fast-growing area of consumer electronics, Nacchio said. He said AT&T chose an alliance with DirecTV to give it that presence rather than bidding for a remaining satellite slot due to be auctioned shortly by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), because buying the satellite slot and setting up its own service would have cost much more than the arrangement with DirecTV and taken a great deal longer. With the DirecTV deal, he said, "our time to market will be measured in months, not years." Nacchio also said the deal gives his company the option of carving out territories where it chooses to cooperate with local cable-television operators and to forego offering the DirecTV service in those areas. The agreement is subject to the completion of definitive contracts and some regulatory approvals. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Jan 96 21:18:59 EST From: Neal McLain <103210.3011@compuserve.com> Subject: 708/847/630 Split Re the pending 708/630/847 split: Ameritech publishes a press kit with press releases, maps, and list of cities in each area. The list of cities is reproduced at the end of this message. The area code boundaries are described in the press release as follows: 847 -- Suburban Cook County north of Chicago's city limits, most of Lake County, the portion of McHenry County currently in 708, and the northern portion of Kane County. 630 -- DuPage County, the southern portion of Kane County, and the portions of Kendall and Will Counties currently in 708. 708 -- South suburban Cook County, areas around Peotone and Beecher currently in 708, and near-west Cook County suburbs south of Franklin Park. According to the published map, 708 extends throughout all of Cook County west of Chicago, all the way up to the southern boundary of Franklin Park, where it abuts 847. It abuts 312 to the east (along the Chicago City Limit), and it abuts 630 to the west (along the Cook/DuPage county boundary). Oak Park will indeed remain in 708. Ameritech has an 800 number for information about the split: 800-988-5888. There is a recorded announcement of general information, and a feature which allows you to determine the new area code for any NXX code currently in 312 or 708. The press release contains some interesting tidbits: - The test number for 630 is 630-204-1204 (but no test number was given for 847). - "Some customers in Bartlett, Burr Ridge, Elk Grove Village, Schaumburg, Streamwood, and Wayne will require new telephone numbers, as well as a new area code." - "Pet owners will need to change their pets' ID tags with the new area code." - The "WEEPUL" invasion returns: "Ameritech used the wacky-eyed, fuzzy pompon to help introduce area code 708 in 1989. Now they're back! And they're introducing 847!" - "Don't forget that 847 spells out V.I.P. on the touchtone dial." For a copy of the map, send a self-addressed stamped envelope (32 cents) to: Neal McLain 2305 Manor Green Drive Madison, WI 53711 List of cities: 630 Addison 630 Lily Lake 630 Agronne 847 Lincolnshire 847 Algonquin 847 Lincolnwood 708 Alsip 847 Lindenhurst 847 Antioch 630 Lisle 847 Aptakisic 630 Lombard 847 Arlington Heights 847 Long Grove 630 Aurora 847 Long Lake 847 Bannockburn 847 Loon Lake 847 Barrington 708 Lynwood 847 Barrington Hills 708 Lyons 630 Bartlett 630 Maple Park 630 Batavia 708 Markham 847 Beach Park 708 Matteson 708 Bedford Park 708 Maywood 708 Beecher 708 McCook 708 Bellwood 847 McGaw Park 630 Bensenville 630 Medinah 708 Berkeley 708 Melrose Park 708 Berwyn 708 Merrionette Park 630 Big Rock 847 Mettawa 847 Biltmore 708 Midlothian 630 Bloomingdale 847 Milburn 708 Blue Island 708 Mokena 630 Bolingbrook 708 Monee 708 Bridgeview 630 Montgomery 630 Bristol 630 Mooseheart 708 Broadview 847 Morton Grove 708 Brookfield 847 Mount Prospect 847 Buffalo Grove 847 Mundelein 708 Burbank 630 Naperville 847 Burlington 847 Niles 708 Burnham 708 Norridge 630 Burr Ridge 630 North Aurora 708 Calumet City 847 North Barrington 708 Calumet Park 847 North Chicago 630 Carol Stream 708 North Riverside 847 Carpentersville 847 Northbrook 847 Cary 847 Northfield 708 Chicago Heights 708 Northlake 708 Chicago Ridge 630 Oak Brook 708 Cicero 708 Oak Forest 630 Clarendon Hills 708 Oak Lawn 708 Country Club Hills 847 Oak Mill Creek 708 Countryside 708 Oak Park 708 Crestwood 630 Oakbrook Terrace 708 Crete 847 Oakwood Hills 630 Darien 708 Olympia Fields 847 Deer Park 630 Ontarioville 847 Deerfield 708 Orland Hills 847 Des Plaines 708 Orland Park 847 Diamond Lake 630 Oswego 708 Dixmoor 847 Palatine 708 Dolton 708 Palos Heights 630 Downers Grove 708 Palos Hills 847 Downey 708 Palos Park 847 Dundee 847 Park City 847 East Dundee 708 Park Forest 708 East Hazel Crest 847 Park Ridge 847 Echo Lake 708 Peotone 630 Elburn 708 Phoenix 847 Elgin 847 Pingree Grove 847 Elk Grove Village 847 Pistakee Highlands 630 Elmhurst 630 Plano 708 Elmwood Park 847 Plato Center 630 Eola 708 Posen 847 Evanston 847 Prairie View 708 Evergreen Park 847 Prospect Heights 708 Flossmoor 708 Richton Park 708 Ford Heights 708 River Forest 847 Forest Lake 708 River Grove 708 Forest Park 708 Riverdale 708 Forest View 708 Riverside 847 Fort Sheridan 847 Riverwoods 847 Fox Lake 708 Robbins 847 Fox Lake Hills 847 Rolling Meadows 847 Fox River Grove 847 Rondout 847 Fox River Valley Gardens 847 Rosecrans 847 Franklin Park 630 Roselle 847 Gages Lake 847 Rosemont 630 Geneva 847 Round Lake 847 Gilberts 847 Round Lake Beach 847 Gilmer 847 Round Lake Heights 630 Glen Ellyn 847 Round Lake Park 847 Glencoe 847 Russell 630 Glendale Heights 630 Saint Charles 847 Glenview 708 Sauk Village 708 Glenwood 847 Schaumburg 847 Golf 847 Schiller Park 708 Goodenow 847 Silver Lake 847 Grandwood Park 847 Skokie 847 Grass Lake 847 Sleepy Hollow 847 Grayslake 847 South Barrington 847 Great Lakes 708 South Chicago Heights 847 Green Oaks 847 South Elgin 847 Gurnee 708 South Holland 847 Hainesville 847 Spring Grove 847 Half Day 708 Steger 847 Hampshire 708 Stickney 630 Hanover Park 708 Stone Park 708 Harvey 630 Streamwood 708 Harwood Heights 630 Sugar Grove 847 Hawthorn Woods 708 Summit 708 Hazel Crest 847 Sylvan Lake 708 Hickory Hills 847 Techny 847 Highland Park 847 Third Lake 847 Highwood 708 Thornton 708 Hillside 847 Timber Lake 708 Hines 708 Tinley Park 630 Hinsdale 847 Tower Lakes 708 Hodgkins 708 University Park 847 Hoffman Estates 847 Venetian Village 708 Hometown 847 Vernon Hills 708 Homewood 630 Villa Park 847 Hubbard Woods 630 Virgil 847 Huntley 847 Wadsworth 847 Indian Creek 630 Warrenville 708 Indian Head Park 630 Wasco 847 Ingleside 847 Wauconda 847 Inverness 847 Waukegan 847 Island Lake 630 Wayne 630 Itasca 630 West Chicago 847 Ivanhoe 847 West Dundee 708 Justice 708 Westchester 630 Kaneville 708 Western Springs 630 Keeneyville 630 Westmont 847 Kenilworth 630 Wheaton 847 Kildeer 847 Wheeling 630 La Fox 847 Wildwood 708 La Grange 708 Willow Springs 708 La Grange Park 630 Willowbrook 847 Lake Barrington 847 Wilmette 847 Lake Bluff 630 Winfield 847 Lake Forest 847 Winnetka 847 Lake in the Hills 847 Winthrop Harbor 847 Lake Villa 630 Wood Dale 847 Lake Zurich 630 Woodridge 708 Lansing 708 Worth 630 Lemont 630 Yorkville 847 Libertyville 847 Zion Posted by Neal McLain <103210.3011@compuserve.com> ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 14:02:32 -0600 From: Rick Whiting Subject: Max Thruput on Dial-up Lines A while back I posted an article discussing the maximum throughput attainable on dial-up phone lines. I also discussed the difference between signaling (or symbol) rate (baud) and bit rate (bits/sec). Several people wrote me to point out that 2,400 baud is not the maximum theoretical signaling rate. In fact, it is and it isn't, depending on the model you use for the dial-up connection! In any case, higher baud rates are in fact achieved over dial-up lines (at least for some connections some times!). The chart below from U.S. Robotics On-Line Support shows that V.34 modems can negotiate for connections at up to 3,200 or even 3,429 baud. Note that at 3,200 baud the signaling rate is 9 bits/baud for 28,800 bps. V.34 INFORMATION CHART Symbol Rate Min Bit Rate Max Bit Rt Carrier Frq.** Bandwidth Req. 2400 2400 21600 1600 400-2800 1800 600-3000 2743* 4800 24000 1646 274-3018 1829 457-3200 2800* 4800 24000 1680 280-3080 1867 467-3267 3000 4800 26400 1800 300-3300 2000 500-3500 3200 4800 28800 1829 229-3429 1920 320-3520 3429* 4800 28000 1959 244-3674 * Optional symbol rates under the V.34 specification. We implement all of the optional symbol rates. **Each symbol rate supports two carrier frequencies and two bandwidth ranges to use. During negotiation, the modems will decide which to use. I just wanted to set the record straight. FYI, below is some other info re my posting. > Hello Rick, > Re your remarks in TELECOM Digest: >> The theoretical maximum transmission rate on a dial-up phone line is >> about 34,000 bits per second > Isn't it a bit dangerous making a statement like that? When I was at > Unit my lecturer told me that 2400 was the fastest one could ever > transmit down a telephone line. It was an absolute, like the > speed of light. Guess he was wrong. You are absolutely right! It is always dangerous to be dogmatic about a scientific theory. I'm a good enough scientist to know that truth is spelled with a small "t". However, it is generally understood that the reader knows this. Therefore, it is not customary to preface statements about well established theory as "according to current theory," etc. Aside from the philosophical implications of stating a "maximum theoretical" value, there is the problem with the underlying model. In this case, I was making a statement about dial-up phone lines. As you know, no two dial-up connections are likely to be the same. Even for calls completed by one switch, there can be significant differences in the channel qualities that determine maximum theoretical baud rate. As the man said, all generalizations are wrong except, perhaps, this one. Nevertheless, the theory underlying the prediction of maximum theoretical baud rate on dial-up lines remains sound and unchallenged to date. The value your instructor gave you,i.e., about 2400 baud, is still good today. Of course, our local telephone plant hasn't changed much (sigh!) either. Again, if you knew all the relevant factors for a specific connection, you would come up with a different number. But it would not be a dramatically different number. Since the modem designer must provide a robust design, she will stick with the typical circuit and about 2400 baud. What has happened is that processing power and, especially, the power of a specialized processor called a DSP engine, has dropped into the consumer price class. This has allowed the modem designer to incorporate coding schemes such as 3-dimensional Trellis coding, asymmetrical signal constellations, echo cancellation, advanced equalization, etc., to increase the signal constellation dramatically. Thus, while maximum baud rate has remained at about 2400 for more than a decade, the bit rate has steadily increased. Again, the theory that predicts the maximum rate remains sound. Given the model for a typical dial-up (analog) line, about 34,000 bps is the limit. That doesn't mean that you can't go faster on some connection somewhere. And it doesn't mean that you can't go faster on some new facility yet to be delivered to your home. FYI, manufacturers are just coming out with modems that can operate at up to 33.6 Kbps over dial-up phone lines (in accordance with the about to be adopted extension to ITU-T V.34). And they continue to tune their algorithms to provide better performance. For example, USR claims that their new EPROM release for the Sportster "will consistently be 2,400 to 4,800 bits per second faster than older versions of the V.34 code." USR also pointed out that "Not all phone lines will support 33.6 Kbps, of course ..." For grins, just think how fast you can go on the future line that has "0" S/N ratio! Shannon would be impressed. Thanks again for reading and commenting on my article. And ... In an earlier posting "Maximum Throughput Over Phone Line" I wrote: "The bottom line is that, in the modems we use today, the throughput in bps is significantly higher than the 2,400 baud maximum signaling rate. Readily available modems in the $200 price range can achieve 28.8 Kbps. When sending plain text, compression schemes such as V.42bis may increase the effective throughput by up to four times, e.g., to 115.2 Kbps. (The actual compression ratio is highly dependent on the nature of the data being sent.) However, unless you're using a 16550 UART in your serial port you will not be able to handle this throughput. Note that compression does not increase the line rate. The modem 'decompresses' the data received over the phone line and presents the higher data rate to your PC." Pete Holsberg asked "Can you add a word to the group about the relationship of the throughout and the port speed? I can see that many are confused by that." Here's my try at an answer: When using a modem and a PC to communicate over a phone line there are two "links" involved. The first link is the phone line connection between the modems at each end of the line. (Data com folks call modems Data Circuit terminating Equipment, or DCE's.) The theoretical maximum transmission rate between the modems is about 34,000 bits per second, a limit created by the properties of dial-up phone lines. The second link is between the modem and the PC. (Data com folks call the PC in this application the Data Terminal Equipment, or DTE.) For most of us, the modem communicates with the PC via the PC's serial data port. In any case, when we configure the modem and PC we define the data rate which can be anything up to the maximum allowed by the special purpose IC's called Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART's) at each end of the cable connecting the modem and PC. Not so long ago, e.g., in the time of 80386-based PC's, the UART's designed into serial ports were limited to 57.6 Kbps (16450 UART). Now days, serial ports can handle 115.2 Kbps (16550 UART). Newer UART's will go faster. So, the data rate between the modems is not necessarily the same as the data rate between modem and PC. This is nice because modern modems can "compress" some types of data for transmission. For example, a V.34 modem might be transmitting a text file across the phone line at 28.8 Kbps but, using its built in V.42bis compression scheme, the 28.8 Kbps data stream could be decompressed and presented to the PC's serial port at up to 115.2 Kbps. But this can only happen if the PC's serial port (read UART) can handle that speed. The bottom line is that the actual throughput to the application in the PC is limited by both the phone line link and the PC's serial port. It is nice when the serial port is capable of, and set to use, the highest speed expected to be input/output to the modem. However, it should be pointed out that a lot of the data we move around via modems can not be compressed very much, if at all. And a lot of folks are not using the latest V.34 28.8 Kbps modems or even the earlier V.32bis 14.4 Kbps modems. So, there probably are not a lot of folks that are really throughput limited by their serial port speed. But it is something to think about when buying modems and PC's for communications and when setting up your communications programs. Regards, Richard A. (Rick) Whiting Phone: + 1 612 550 1213 5780 Rosewood Ln. N. E-mail: rwhiting@winternet.com Plymouth, MN 55442-1411 Packet: W0TN @ WB0GDB.MN.USA.NOAM U.S.A. Fax: Number on request ------------------------------ From: tsw@3do.com (Tom Watson) Subject: Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 18:57:17 -0800 Organization: The 3DO Corporation In article , richrw@pipeline.com (Richard M. Weil) wrote: > Sometimes when I call a company (never a home phone), I don't hear the > phone ring, it just picks up and I get the voice mail. Can someone > explain this? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The ring you hear when you dial a > number (whether residence or business, no matter) has nothing to do > with the ring 'heard' by the recipient of the call. Actually, the > only reason the caller hears a ringing signal at all is because > telco believes if they did not provide it, many or most callers > would assume the line was out of order. For that reason, telco > provices a 'ringing noise' that the caller hears as he waits for > his party to answer so that the caller will be placated. It is > almost like a placebo -- a 'medical treatment' which does nothing -- > but makes the patient feel better knowing he is getting 'treated' > for his illness. Many companies use DID (direct inward dial) > type systems with their own telephone switches and software. In > their case all telco does is hand the call to their telephone > switch for handling and delivery to wherever, including voicemail. > Those companies may have their switches programmed to not send > a ringing signal out for whatever reason. PAT] Ah, DID lines. These are wonderful things for fun, fraud, and abuse (legal and otherwise). When a call gets forwarded to a group of DID numbers, a trunk in the group is siezed (wink start optional) and then the last 'n' digits are sent to the terminal device (when I was doing it we used dial pulse, but that was back in the early 80's). Then it is the responsibility for the terminal equipment to provide any nice buzz, ring, sound, or otherwise back to the subscriber that called the number. In our case (remember this is in the 1979/80 time frame) we chose to use 'ring' when we would eventually answer the line, and 'busy' (yes, it was a bad choice!) when we wouldn't (at least we made it a 'fast busy'. In out equipment we had a noise generator that made four 'progress tones': busy, fast busy, dial, ring, with the proper cadences. To make the cadences we used a nice programmable rom, but in the prototype (it was hand wired) it was all screwey for busy (it stuttered: zzt, zzt, zzzzzt, zzt...). We always thought it was funny, and kept it around in the machine. As for answering "immediately", the normal ring signal was 4 seconds on, 2 seconds off (USA ring). When we decided to "answer" the phone we cut the audio for the ring over, and picked up the ring cadence whever it was (33% chance you got it in the silent period). At the same time we would alert the "attendant" who would press an "answer" key to pick up the line. The attendant's alert was always immediate, and sometimes they held down the answer key (they liked to answer calls) so the caller would get "hello ..." before the ring. It surprised quite a few people. One time when "testing" the thing out (with the thing offline) I was able to manually switch the DID line to an operator, then talk to "her" without clicking. This was even more fun. Surprised an operator that was just sitting there with a headset on. All remotely, which made it even more fun. Our standard method to determine if we supervised correctly (this was before COCOTS) was to go to a payphone and shell out dimes/nickels/etc. and see if the phone collected them. If it did, then the line correctly "answered" the line. I had a "test" mode that turned off the answer supervision, so anyone could make "free" calls into the box. It was a magic cookie, and I didn't dare tell anyone about it. In the same era, I had a pager that went thru DID trunks (still have the pager). It was a tone & voice type. The older paging terminal NEVER supervised the line, so anyone could make "free" calls to my pager (it doesn't work that way any more *SIGH*). I called from far away with coins in hand, and got them ALL back. Them was the days ... Yes, DID lines. Fun fun fun. Tom Watson tsw@3do.com (Home: tsw@johana.com) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 08:21:36 -0500 From: Bill McMullin Reply-To: bill@InterActive.ns.ca Organization: InterActive Telecom Subject: Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company Richard, Pat and others, Another likely cause of not hearing ringing when dialing a number is he use of PRI ISDN at the desination. From what we have seen, most trunk side services such as T1 and PRI ISDN don't have network switch ringing. By network switch I mean a DMS-100 or AT&T switch. Some customer premise switches would generate the ringing on their own, however, the ringing is likely generated after the call has been answered. We use PRI ISDN as our interface to our local telco's DMS-100 and have tried to find ringing without success. We can make it ring by acknowledging the call but not accepting it. Eventually a timeout occurs and the call remains at the switch ringing for about two minutes then it disconnects and of course, this is of no use. The nifty thing about using PRI ISDN is that you have some control over network switch and the ability to screen calls arriving at your equipment. The ANI, DNIS, network, bearer and forwarding information (among other elements) are all delivered in the call setup messages in a few hundredths of a second. The CPE can, if it so desires, reject the call by telling the switch to busy the call or other nasty things like a network message indicating the number is "out of service". You could call this a "virtual busy" versus an "real busy" which would happen only when all the channels/lines are full and the switch determines if you are busy. Then in a later message, this dialague: > I've always heard this explanation, and even know that ringback is > generated locally. So how come different places I call sound > different to me? This is especially true for an overseas call. > Obviously there is some communication going on, but I've yet to hear > exactly what it is. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The reason 'different places sound > different' is because ringback is generated in the place where the > call is terminating. I don't know what to think of your statement > 'generated locally'. Do you mean 'local' as in the place where you are > located or 'local' as in the place where the call terminates as > opposed to some remote or central location? Every telco does its > own thing after certain basic standards have been met. PAT] Pat, in the case of end to end SS7 between local and remote CO's, is not the ringing sound presented by the originating switch? I understood that with SS7 the voice channel is not opened up between local and remote until the remote goes off hook. Under this scenario, their is simply signalling between local and remote switches over the SS7 link and a voice channel is not "wasted" until it is determined the caller has answered the phone or the call is transfered to voice mail. In the case of calls to non SS7 switches I suspect that a voice channel is opened and the ringing would be sent on that channel. I could be wrong on ringing but I do know that SS7 does look ahead to avoid opening channels when the destination line is busy. Bill McMullin InterActive Telecom Inc. 1-800-270-1014 Telecom service bureau specializing in services which integrate Telephony, Internet, and Wireless Data technologies. ------------------------------ From: Stockman@jaguNET.com (Mike Stockman) Subject: Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 20:39:06 -0500 Organization: jaguNET Access Services In article , our Esteemed Moderator wrote: > Actually, the only reason the caller hears a ringing signal at all is > because telco believes if they did not provide it, many or most > callers would assume the line was out of order. For that reason, telco > provices a 'ringing noise' that the caller hears as he waits for his > party to answer so that the caller will be placated. It is almost like > a placebo -- a 'medical treatment' which does nothing -- but makes the > patient feel better knowing he is getting 'treated' for his illness. However, *not* providing the ringing can cause problems. Two examples: In one company I worked for, the internal PBX wouldn't send actual touch tones until the call was answered on the other end (since it took the number you were dialing and did some stuff to it before placing the call for you). When I called companies with voice mail systems that *didn't* provide the ringing signal, my local PBX never knew the call was completed, and therefore wouldn't let me generate any tones. In most cases, I could just wait for a person, but it sure was annoying. Closer to home, my Panasonic speakerphone monitors all on-hook redials to see whether the line's busy (and therefore whether it should flash and redial). If it never hears the ringing, then even if the call goes through it assumes it was busy or failed and hangs up to try again. The ringing sound may have been intended as a placebo, but a lot of technology seems to take advantage of it, too. Mike Internet: stockman@jagunet.com AOL: MStockman CompuServe: 72500,3110 ------------------------------ From: johnd@mail.ic.net (John N. Dreystadt) Subject: Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company Date: 24 Jan 1996 03:05:00 GMT Organization: Software Services In article , richrw@pipeline.com says: > Sometimes when I call a company (never a home phone), I don't hear the > phone ring, it just picks up and I get the voice mail. Can someone > explain this? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The ring you hear when you dial a > number (whether residence or business, no matter) has nothing to do > with the ring 'heard' by the recipient of the call. Speaking as someone who has programmed IVR (interactive voice response) software in my past, it is very disconcerting to dial a phone number and have the answer happen instantaneously. The first few versions of my software did have a timer running and sending a ring tone down the line but I had mis-read the description of the units for the time interval and instead of waiting 2.5 seconds before cutting off the ring sound and pretending to answer the phone, my code was waiting 2.5 milliseconds. IVR software refers to the type of software that voice mail systems use where you dial a number, hear ringing, then hear a voice talking about your various options and what button on your touchtone phone to use. Much of my time spent in tuning the application was spent on the user interface. People expect certain time intervals between events and find systems that violate those expectations to be hard to use. I had one user describe the problem with not hearing the ringing sound as "un-natural". So what's natural about seizing the line, starting a timer, starting a ring sound, waiting for the timer, cutting off the ring sound, and then playing the first message? Expectations of delay may be violated even more drastically as ISDN gets used more and more as the incoming link on WATS lines. The delay time between when you finish pushing the last button on an 800 number and when the voice channel is established at the far end can be amazingly short due to SS7 and how tight the interface is between ISDN and the PBX at the corporation. John Dreystadt [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: There was one very old exchange in Chicago in the 1960's which dated back to about 1920 it seemed like. Whoever you were calling always got one full ring before the caller heard anything other than a few pops and clicks in his ear. It was called 'WEbster-9'. It was very common to dial a WEbster-9 number, hear clicks followed by a couple seconds of silence, and have the called party 'immediatly' answer -- or so it would seem. Of course they had received a full ring and sometimes part of a second ring before the caller heard anything. The thing about that exchange also was that if the called party's single line was busy (it had no ability to 'hunt' and there were no subscribers with multiple lines, or if there were each line had to be dialed independently to reach it) then it was quite common to hear the clicks and pops when you dialed into it followed by one or two rings you heard in your ear *then* it would cut over and send back busy signal. In 1974 telco cut from that direct to the new (at the time) ESS. The subscribers (including me: WEbster-9-4600) were beside themselves with joy. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #26 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 24 14:01:01 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id OAA22396; Wed, 24 Jan 1996 14:01:01 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 14:01:01 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601241901.OAA22396@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #27 TELECOM Digest Wed, 24 Jan 96 14:00:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 27 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson More Notes From the 800 Replication Front (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: Illegal Cloning Alleged (Lars Poulsen) Re: Illegal Cloning Alleged - Typographical Error (Robert Rosenberg) Dilbert Meets AT&T (Adam Frix) 888 for Toll-Free v. 88X Ring-Down Points (Dave Leibold) Re: BC Tel Offers Access to US 800 Numbers (Dave Leibold) IEC SuperComm96 Speaker Request (Ed Cox) Re: Flat-Rate Residential Telephone Service - End in Sight? (John Levine) How to Get Digital Scope FAQ (John Seney) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: callbrand@aol.com (CallBrand) Subject: More Notes From the 800 Replication Front Date: 22 Jan 1996 21:00:06 -0500 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: callbrand@aol.com (CallBrand) What a busy day. First off, re January 18 letter from DSMI to the FCC, "The second round of data input for the protection of 800 numbers within the new 888 code has been received. During this round of input, we received data from 37 companies requesting protection of 111,089 numbers." [Remember, 75 of 140 RespOrgs responded the first time. If all the second requests were new RespOrgs, that still leaves 28 RespOrgs who never submitted replication tapes at all. However, the number is probably even more, since most second pass submitters were corrections from the first submission, plus additional numbers. Which brings us to the next paragraph.] The letter goes on, "As a follow-up to my first letter on this subject, please be advised that the first round count which I provided to you (219,684) was based on counts entered on forms attached to the data files. When the actual data files were processed, 198,520 numbers were processed. The remaining requests failed during processing due to mismatches in RespOrgs, incorrect number statuses (e.g.: spare numbers), etc." That's it. How many second pass submissions were corrections of rejected first pass submissions? How many users were notified of rejection discrepancies? What happened to the rest of the RespOrgs, and their customers? Look for stories in DM News, AIN News, etc. The reporters I've spoken with, like most users, were under the impression that if the FCC ruled for replication, users would *then* have the opportunity to replicate. Not, it seems, in this lifetime, unless the FCC comes to the rescue. Anil Patel of DSMI confirmed for me today that "the industry" has no plans to re-open the replication-submission process to RespOrgs or users, even if the January 24th "pent-up demand early reservation 888 process*" is delayed pending the FCC ruling. I'm told users and others with complaints, who were not privy to the industry's replication process, should take their concerns to the FCC. * Re this "pent-up demand" - 300,000 toll-free numbers, according to recent SNAC meetings - we're still puzzling over this, since the ration limits imposed by the FCC on 800 number allocations since last June were never even strained, according to reports submitted by carriers at monthly FCC meeting. Judith Oppenheimer, President, Interactive CallBrand A leading source of information on 800 issues. CallBrand@aol.com, 1 800 The Expert, (ph) 212 684-7210, (fx) 212 684-2714 http://www.users.nyc.pipeline.com:80/~producer/ ------------------------------ From: lars@spectrum.RNS.COM (Lars Poulsen) Subject: Re: Illegal Cloning Alleged Date: 23 Jan 1996 14:47:07 -0800 Organization: Rockwell International - CMC Network Products In article , wes.leatherock@ hotelcal.com (Wes Leatherock) wrote: >> A story in {The Daily Oklahoman} (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) for >> Jan. 9, 1996, reports that AT&T Wireless Services has asked for an >> injunction against an Oklahoma City firm for allegedly cloning a >> cellular telephone to create an extension. In article pmartin@netcom.com (Pat Martin) writes: > Ooooooh! ATT is up to their same old S*. Probably will cause damage to > the network? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So if AT&T keeps on pushing this guy > in Oklahoma City, someone please ask them what their real problem is > .... PAT] I am amazed that people find it so impossible to believe that this can do damage to the network: It seems clear to me that there are both a technical and a legal reason for them not to want people to patch the ESNs: (1) The legal issue: It is my understanding that the ESN is a legally protected identification, just like the VIN (Vehicle ID Number) in your car. If you have two identical Ford Pickup trucks, and you only ever drive one of them at a time, is it legal for you to alter the VIN of the second one, so that they have the same VIN, and then you just move the license plate to the one you are driving this week ? No. The VIN is the basis of some legally mandated tracking systems. Some safety-related, some used to recover stolen vehicles. In the case of cellular telephones, the ESN serves as a unique device identifier for similar systems. Besides: Cloning of ESN/MIN combinations is the foundation of a great industry of service theft/fraud. A firmly enforced ban on tampering with ESNs makes it much easier to prosecute these criminals. (2) The technical issue: Since most people don't understand how the system works, anyway, it is unlikely that the owners of these cloned phones can really assure that only one of the phones is on the air at any given time. The basic air interface assumes that the ESN is unique, and that if two cells see the same ESN, they are seeing the same phone and the call belongs to the one with the stronger signal. With cloned phones, the system may attempt to do back-and-forth handoffs between cells that aren't adjacent. This is likely to bring out all sorts of bugs in the switching software that would never be seen in normal operation (and normal testing). This is similar to the argument against using cellphones from airplanes, where the signal from the hand-held may be able to reach every tower in the whole system. Rockwell Network Systems (Now a business unit of Meret Optical Communications) (Meret is the Egyptian Goddess of Song and Dance) Lars Poulsen Internet E-mail: lars@RNS.COM Rockwell Network Systems Phone: +1-805-562-3158 7402 Hollister Avenue Telefax: +1-805-968-8256 Santa Barbara, CA 93117 Internets: designed and built while you wait ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 16:39:43 -0500 From: robertr@icu.com (Robert Rosenberg) Subject: Re: Illegal Cloning Alleged - Typographical Error Carl Moore wrote to me, calling my attention to an error: In the last 3 lines of this forwarded message, did you mean to say they did NOT suffer any loss of income? The message in the Digest read: > I hope that AT&T has a tariff for providing Extension Phones. In the > absence of such a tariff the "deprive AT&T Wireless Services of > income" claim is without basis (you can not deprived of income you > have no provision for earning). As to the "unauthorized phones are > illegal" claim, the same basis applies. Refusal of a request to > provide the service, makes the practice authorized and legal so long > as you are not doing anything that would not be allowed if such a > service DID exist. Both these points were decided in the case where > HBO was suing someone (who had no local cable company in his area) who > was using a dish to receive HBO Satellite Broadcasts (this was in the > days before they were scrambled). The guy has OFFERED to pay HBO for > reception privileges but HBO refused his request. The Judge ruled > that he was not stealing anything from them since they did suffer any > loss of income (no service to steal/bypass -- no loss of income). ------------------------------- Yes - I accidentally dropped the "not" in "did not". [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And I somehow overlooked it also when editing the message for use here. Sorry. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: 23 Jan 1996 17:34:32 EST From: Adam Frix <70721.504@compuserve.com> Subject: Dilbert Meets AT&T Anyone who wants to read a humorous story written in the days of Ma Bell, a story with a definite Dilbert twist, should check out the short story "QRM-Interplanetary" by George O. Smith, which first appeared in the magazine {Astounding} in October, 1942. I could almost see those twin peaks of hair. Further, it's almost as if the author was an AT&T employee. Aloha, Adam [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: How about a quick summary of the story? Or do you have a method of easily sending it all? I'll be glad to make it available here if you do. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dave.Leibold@superctl.tor250.org (Dave Leibold) Date: 24 Jan 1996 00:18:52 -0500 Subject: 888 for Toll-Free v. 88X Ring-Down Points From: Mark J Cuccia : > For some 20+ years, the 88X codes have been used as `pseudo' area > codes for identifying remote Manual ring-down points for billing > [ . . . ] > ... Calling these points from the US *might* be able to be handled > by the Local Telco operator if the desired rural point is in the > same LATA, but usually they were routed by AT&T operators `only'. > (I don't think that Sprint or MCI operators even know that these > locations exist). Do Sprint and MCI have access to telco "inward" or remote operators? If they are precluded from access to them, there'd be no point to having MCI and Sprint operators know about the manual points. > A numerical listing of these 88X-XXX points is included in some of > Bellcore TRA's *rating* documents and products. I have a December 1994 An NPA-NXX finder (http://www.natltele.com/form.html) still had those 88x entries when I recently checked. 888-828, for instance, is Indian Cabins, Alberta which is just a few km shy of the Northwest Territories border (60 deg N lat.). This point is little more than a road stop that appears to be served by radiophone. The store has a radio payphone (or formally, "coin station"), for instance. The resident population of Indian Cabins is approximately eight, thus precluding a full exchange facility (but perhaps not a "toll point" arrangement that assigns numbers from the nearest exchange to set up a direct- dialable service). A check of all the Alberta points, for instance, yielded a usual batch of 403 NXX, then the manual 888 points (whose NXX had something of a correspondence to alphabetical order; perhaps the initial assignment of 888 manual points were alphabetical, with new entries added later). The only pseudo-NPA left listed for Alberta was 889 with two points: 889-393 Birch N.T. (Northwest Territories off an Alberta network?) and 889-424 Pine Point. > industry people) and representative from Guam and the CNMI. It was > noted that the Northern Mariana's present country code (+670) might > become its North American Numbering Plan area code. It would become > +1-670 and the ITU assigned country code of 670 would become > available, similar to Guam possibly moving from +671 to +1-671. The new area codes available in the NANP open some interesting possibilities ... maybe +1-299 for Greenland? Some folks near Boston might object if the French Territory of St Pierre & Miquelon were to be included in this way (e.g. +508 to +1-508) ... Speaking of French territories, the new France numbering plan is expected to incorporate dialing to the external French territories in its domestic dialing plan, according to an earlier Digest post. 0262 xxxxxx Reunion 0269 xxxxxx Mayotte 0508 xxxxxx St Pierre & Miquelon 0590 xxxxxx Guadeloupe 0594 xxxxxx Guyana 0596 xxxxxx Martinique This could also have been done as 00+ country code, since France is adopting the European standard international access code. Nevertheless, the scheme is designed not to conflict with France's domestic numbering. Finally, it would be interesting to hear what NPA code assignments might be "protected", that is not available for assignment as a regular area code. 670 and 671 might be protected for assignment to Mariana and Guam. Billing codes (like the old 88x ones, now needing a renumbering) are another matter. There may be other protected ranges of codes to allow for future expansion of the number of digits. Then there's that contentious issue of whether anyone is bound to get NPA 666, or even 382 if dial letter combinations are considered. Fidonet : Dave Leibold 1:259/730 Internet: Dave.Leibold@superctl.tor250.org ------------------------------ From: Dave.Leibold@superctl.tor250.org (Dave Leibold) Date: 24 Jan 1996 01:29:56 -0500 Subject: Re: BC Tel Offers Access to US 800 Numbers [re: the recently-approved BC Tel Canada-U.S. 800 access service] From: Ian Angus : > This meets a real need -- an astonishing number of US companies ignore > the market beyond their country's borders. US-only 800 numbers are > regularly advertised, often without an alternative non-800 number, in > magazines and on television shows which are widely seen in Canada Is this situation due to higher charges for receiving Canadian calls, or even an extra subscription charge just to make the 800 number accessible? I don't have U.S. 800 rates handy, but that's one guess as to why some 800 numbers remain "U.S.-only". Another guess involves the nature of some U.S. businesses whose offers are not available in Canada due to customs, costs, legalities, too much bother, etc. In such cases, there's no point in adding Canada to the 800 number's "footprint". There are also regional 800 numbers in existence, namely those that can be dialed within a particular NPA, state, or some other region less than a whole nation. State, provincial, county or even city government services come to mind. A magazine called {The Door} had an 800 number that was set up for U.S.-only, then it became reachable from Canada for a few months, then it went back to U.S.-only. I don't know what happened behind the scenes on that situation. They do provide a conventional number for international access, though. > As announced today, callers who wish to use the service will dial > "880" instead of "800" to reach the normally inaccessible number. > Before being connected, they will be told that the call is chargeable > (18 cents/minute) and given an opportunity to hang up. The now-defunct Canadian carrier STN used 1-700- as its access code for its 800 bypass services (i.e. STN customers would replace the 1-800- with 1-700-, or perhaps 10773-1-700- (10773 being STN's "equal access" code). Their bypass was available for 10c/minute. STN's pieces were picked up by Sprint Canada, which apparently had its own 800 bypass, but there's no indication that Sprint kept that service for its residential customers (there may be a business 800 bypass available from Sprint). Fonorola runs an 800 bypass these days. Its customers reach it by dialing 10507# (that's Fonorola's equal access code followed by the # key), get a carrier tone (similar to the "950" access tone), then dial 1-800-xxx-xxxx. There is no warning message that indicates there is a bypass charge, although I have heard this was CAD$0.17/min. > I asked BC Tel three questions about their service: > Q. What happens if a callers dials "1-880" on a number which he could > have dialed toll-free. > A. If it is a Canadian 800 number, a recording will tell the caller to > dial the correct number... Is that still true for those Canadian-based 800 numbers that are normally reachable from the U.S., or does that recording come on for only those Canadian 800 numbers normally barred from the U.S.? Nevertheless, the real fun begins when global "800" service begins. This will use the recent country code 800 assignment for international freephone services ... a code which may be confused with the various national "800" services. Fidonet : Dave Leibold 1:259/730@fidonet.org Internet: Dave.Leibold@superctl.tor250.org ------------------------------ Date: 24 Jan 1996 08:20:00 -0800 From: COX_ED@Tandem.COM Subject: IEC SuperComm96 Speaker Request I have accepted the chair for an IEC (International Engineering Consortium) training track to occur at this summer's SuperComm96 show in Dallas TX. This seminar is a TecForum, with the subject of the Internet (date of presentation is 6/24/96). I am in need of two speakers from the carrier community, one to talk about business and the other residential Internet services. I have written a complete outline with speech descriptions for each of the six people for this day-long panel. If you or your company are interested in filling one of these positions, please contact me at cox_ed@tandem.com or (214) 516-6210. Ed ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 08:03:00 EST From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Flat-Rate Residential Telephone Service - Is End in Sight? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > While working on an article about various regulatory issues, I have > come to the conclusion that the days of flat-rate residential > telephone service are numbered. ... > What has caused this, is the "Internet Phone" mania. ... > If [value added networks act like IXCs], then Internet Service > Providers may be mandated to pay the same access fees to the LECs as > the IXCs have been paying all along. As you probably remember, the 1987 "modem tax" fiasco was about exactly this second question. It's my impression that the FCC is still on the far end of a ten-foot pole from this topic. Re mandatory measured service, keep in mind that this question is 99.8% political and 0.2% technical. From what I've seen, the actual cost of connecting local calls is vanishingly low, particularly for residential users who tend not to make a lot of calls at the mid-day busiest hour, so the attempt to move people to measured service has nothing to do with "fairness" and everything to do with telcos trying to make a preemptive strike against telephone uses that depend on a lot of long local connections. Every telco that isn't an ISP yet is an ISP wanna-be (or maybe a Prodigy wanna-be, given their track record in the on-line world) so there's an incentive, no I-phone needed to explain that. In a lot of parts of the country, e.g. the Southeast, flat rate service remains the only kind of local service even for business customers, and PUCs would take a lot of political heat if they tried to change that. Even here in New York, with some of the most supine regulators in the country, flat rate is available everywhere upstate and even in NYC you pay by the call, not by the minute. And finally, voice over the net looks like a big deal to us net-heads, but it's a couple of drops in the ocean of bypass. The MFJ's per-minute access charges were an adequate substitute for the Bell System's internal subsidy transfers ten years ago, but they're getting increasingly creaky. How do you assess those charges against CAPs? Or cellular carriers, when the cell carrier is itself the IXC? And what do you do about the webs of leased corporate lines that move tons of voice and data outside the PSTN? For that matter, to the extent that e-mail displaces faxes, what about e-mail? The per-minute charge is an anachronism that's going to have to change regardless of whether people use the Net for voice. Assuming that we still consider universally affordable POTS a social goal, it'll have to be replaced by something more manageable, e.g. a small gross receipts tax on communications companies. Incidentally, if voice over the net becomes very popular, it seems to me the net's going to have to provide more or less as much bandwidth as the equivalent phone calls would have, with similar costs. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - Stanford econ prof ------------------------------ From: john@wd1v.mv.com (John Seney) Subject: How to Get Digital Scope.FAQ Organization: MV Communications, Inc. Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 10:58:23 GMT If you want the complete version of this Digital Scope.FAQ file sent to you automatically send me (john@wd1v.mv.com) an EMAIL where the subject contains the text "subscribe scope.faq" or go to the WWW page listed at the end of this file. This file contains the first "page" to give you a sense for it. \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ FALL / 1995 DIGITAL SCOPE.FAQ - VERSION 2.00 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ::Date/Time | O O :: :: /\ | :: :: / \ | O O :: :: / \ /\ | :: ::__/ \ / \ /`| O O :: :: \ / \/ | :: :: \ / | O O :: ::1.5 GHz BW \/ 10 GS/s |________:: ::________________________|A B C D :: :: rise 1.5 ns | x x x :: :: fall 4.9 ns | x x x :: ::_________________________________:: ::(*) (*) (*) (*) (*) (*) :: ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ::: ::: Dear Technologist(s): This Digital Storage Scope.FAQ file contains many (but not all) of your answers to the more "Frequently Asked Questions" re: Digital Storage Oscilloscopes (DSOs). The answers and suggestions come from > a decade of my experience as a DSO sales engineer in Boston, MA. The opinions are mine and represent no company or service - they are meant simply to be helpful, generic, and easy to understand. Thanks to the hundreds of responses to the earlier versions of this FAQ. Feel free to contact me anytime (john@wd1v.mv.com) if you have additional questions or comments. If you want the next version of this file sent to you automatically, send an EMAIL where the subject field contains the text "subscribe scope.faq". \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ KEY ISSUES REVIEWED IN THIS FAQ (in order of appearance) * DSO INDUSTRY TRENDS (Whats happening in DSO technology this year?) * DSO FORM FACTORS (What types of DSOs are there?) * PRIMARY DSO FUNCTIONS (What can DSOs actually do?) * COMPARISONS (How can I best compare various models) * APPLICATIONS (What are the most common DSO applications?) * ADCs (What speed do I really need on each channel?) * BANDWIDTH & TRIGGER (What numbers and functions are right?) * ARCHIVAL & MEMORY (How fast, how deep, and can I get more?) * DISPLAYS (What am I really looking at?) * MEASUREMENTS (How much is my signal changing over time?) * DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING (How can I obtain more useful information?) * DEMOS & PURCHASING (How can I see and get the DSO I really need?) Best regards, \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ John D. Seney, WD1V Internet: john@wd1v.mv.com 144 Pepperidge Drive America On Line: jseney@aol.com Manchester, NH 03103-6150 AX.25 Pkt: wd1v@wb1dsw.nh.usa.na (H) 603-668-1096 Ampernet: wd1v@wd1v.ampr.org Source for Free Macintosh Amateur Radio Test Simulators \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ LeCroy Sales Engineering - Maine, New Hampshire, and Northeastern Massachusetts (O) 800-553-2769 (F) 603-627-1623 (P) 800-SKYPAGE #5956779 All opinions are my own, including Digital Storage Scope.FAQ To obtain the latest copy automatically, simply send me an EMAIL with "subscribe scope.faq" in the subject field. or: http://beam.slac.stanford.edu/www/library/w3/dso.html \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #27 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Jan 26 10:42:21 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id KAA13850; Fri, 26 Jan 1996 10:42:21 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 10:42:21 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601261542.KAA13850@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #28 TELECOM Digest Fri, 26 Jan 96 10:42:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 28 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson FCC 888 Meeting Notes and Toll Free Order (D. Kelly Daniels) Do It Yourself 800 / 888 Fact-Finding (Judith Oppenheimer) FCC Issues Preliminary Order on 888 Implementation (Gary Bouwkamp) German Prosecutors Investigate Neo-Nazi Material on Internet (Tad Cook) Wireless Word Newsletter (taratai@aol.com) FCC Issues NAPLs For Slamming (Barry Mishkind) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 18:36:59 -0800 From: D. Kelly Daniels Subject: FCC 888 Meeting Notes and Toll Free Order FCC Jan 25 Report of 888 transition FCC Reported on Plan changes, VIA DSMI. The Single largest Change is the modification to the calculation of the Tallies for allocation. The allocation is 29,000 numbers per week. The return of numbers on reserve by any carrier can earn credit both for allocation and for that specific Resp Org/Carrier. The current volume for the past six weeks is 26,000. NASC reported that the SMS is up and running and that the SCPs' works well. Equipment Vendors - Working 100 % for Ericsson. - DCO Dates is Generally available - EWSD by !/12/95 - DSC Will be this week-end. Nor-Tel suggested several problems from BCS-36 that appeared in Canadian testing only. The problems all affected AMA creation. Originally NORTEL found 12 patches to be made linking several software modules. The implementation of those 12 patches created the re-origination of 9 patches of which 6 are significant. These problems are posted on the NORTEL Users Group Bulletin Board. The problems have not been duplicated in the USA (although GTE is well into it's testing and has not found any insurmountable problems). Specifically, AIN, Far-Eastern Countries (using country codes 8X and 7/10 digit dialed number in the 8X range are dropping the billable flags. NORTEL expects the problem to cross the 200/250 range (200 family affects the 10's and 100's). The problems while have not been encountered in the USA, NORTEL EXPECTS THE PROBLEMS. Angie of SNAC reports some clarification comes up with the Y factor load (the first load) 250,000 loaded for testing validation, 198,000 validated came in. On the second round an additional 111,000 came in additional from 88 companies representing 95.8% of all working numbers base. Now we sit with 277,000 have been processed (which represents the numbers offered up for replication). BOC SCPs status AMERITECH and Pacific Bell this weekend; Cincinnati Bell up and running. GTE is working these next three weeks. Several locations downloaded, balance by the end-of the month, the translations for the patches with be done by 3/1/96. Intra-LATA testing almost complete (this indicates some switch patches and translations have been performed also). SPRINT LOCAL everything okay. USTA Reports 11 million access lines (companies) polled, 76% responded with two companies that will delay because they are transitioning in new switches. Otherwise these companies will be ready (note NORTEL is a major vendor here using the DMS10, 100 and 250. OBF has it's plan ready as soon as order is given. Mary Deluca was very concerned that the 1/24 ready date was being rumored. It was felt that the 800 Users' Group established the date based on the report of Issue 1155 at the OBF (Referred to the Plan). In reality, the Plan does not go into action from 1/24 forward, until the FCC issues the order. Late yesterday evening the commission delegated to the bureau that the decision on the order will be made for implementation on 3/1/96 at 10:30 AM by John Moribito. Bell Atlantic, Pacific Bell supplied new schedules but generally on plan for live and ready on 3/1/96. BELL South has changed to show most are ready (740 offices). All other BOCs reported no changes, and are in line to meet the 3/1/96 date. The note here is the BELLCORE Testing tool and plan is being used. The Tool shows at this time some switches loaded, Some SCP's loaded this week and continued testing during February. BELLCORE reported that the first SCP completed the 13th of January for the first RBOC and the next was this week-end. This reference appears to refer to the SCPs the support the BOC 1 Tariffs. IXC Reports: MCI no significant problems SPRINT problem encountered and not corrected yet although it appears correctable. AT&T everything okay. JOHN MOREVITO ANNOUNCEMENT - Usually bureau was specifically not allowed to make decisions, the commission though allowed and ordered the bureau to make the order within three weeks and that has been done although some minor points will be released this afternoon. The NPRM asked if the vanity numbers should be given any special rights are allowed. The bureau has be sent back to the commission. The commission does delineate the personal and commercial rights have differences and that personal should not have vanity rights. The replication numbers will remain in reserve until the commission releases an order. The Bureau also received a complaint against Resp Orgs not notifying the smaller users via the carriers. The commission now delays all reservation request for a start of one week delay due to the order of the Resp Orgs to contact smaller users. Toll free DA issues have been set-aside to investigate. In that issue 800-555 and 888-555 are unavailable for reservation and set-aside for DA. The 888-555 numbers will remain in replication. 12:01 AM February 10th for 888 numbers. To address the pent-up demand for 888 numbers the allocation remains the same except the numbers are increased by 2.5 to 73,000 per week for every category. Allocation plan for 888 will be multiplied by a factor of 4 until March 1 to 100,000 per week. The minimum number for each Resp Org is 200 for 888 and 100 for 800 along with a special allocation for Canada. Part 69 waivers are not needed nor shall 888 be treated any different than 800. Tariffs affected for special permission of Part 51 rules. MCI asks for claification of first come first serve basis rules. FCC will permit the numbers on a first come first serve basis Allocation modifications will last for the first three weeks only. SNET asks for clarification commercial and personal will not have the same right? Bureau responds that the open issue of viability of an 800/888 number for vanity exists and the bureau will ask the commission to have the Resp Orgs manage this issue. DSMI asks how do we manage the graceful use of the 12:01 February 10 access. Bureau will continue to accept comments from all parties so that it may help the DSMI manage that critical hour. In Pat Townson's news groups and digest, it had been discussed about the issue of the Resp Orgs and Carriers not adequately polling commercial users. The Resp Orgs were ordered to do so, and that has been extended one week. Copies of the Press Release and the Order (when printed) for copying and mailing fees by calling TELCO Planning at 800-555-3299. Press Release (2 pages allow for time and materials) by FAX or Mail estimated at $4.50, cost of Order not yet determined. ------------------------------ From: callbrand@aol.com (CallBrand) Subject: Do It Yourself 800 / 888 Fact-Finding Date: 26 Jan 1996 09:43:50 -0500 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: callbrand@aol.com (CallBrand) I've been asked how one can get informed about 800 and 888, as well as other numbering issues, on one's own. I am glad to provide that information to anyone who's interested. Call the FCC - 202 418-0200, ask for the Common Carrier Bureau, and ask them how to get a copy of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), this one for Toll Free Service (Docket No. 95-155), along with the comments and responses. Also, ask for the meeting schedule for the FCC meetings on 888 Implementation. Then, call Kathy Cullen at Bellcore, 908 699-3245, and ask to be faxed the Industry Numbering Committee (INC) meeting notices and agendas with dates, reservation forms, etc. And then, call Angela Simpson at the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) - 202 434-8827, and ask for all the Ordering and Billing Forum (OFB) and SMS Numbering Administration Committee (SNAC) meeting notices, agendas, dates, etc. There's more, but that will get you started. Judith Oppenheimer, President, Interactive CallBrand A leading source of information on 800 issues. CallBrand@aol.com, 1 800 The Expert, (ph) 212 684-7210, (fx) 212 684-2714 http://www.users.nyc.pipeline.com:80/~producer/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Jan 96 13:40:24 EST From: Gary Bouwkamp Subject: FCC Issues Preliminary Order on 888 Implementation Pat, Here is a copy of today's FCC Common Carrier Bureau ruling on toll free 888 number deployment. They basically adopted the Industry's Toll Free Service Number Administration Committee (SNAC) recommendation that replicated numbers be set-aside as unavailable They also encourage Resp Orgs to re-open the interval for customers to request replication (from now until February 1st.) The first-come first-served pre-reservation interval will begin on February 10th. They also made maintained and adjusted the Resp Orgs 800/888 number allocations. The Common Carrier Bureau notes that they have not decided whether 800 numbers will ultimately be protected, and have deferred the issue to the full commission. Gary Bouwkamp Frontier Communications ---------------------- Report No. DC 96-3 ACTION IN DOCKET CASE January 25, 1996 COMMON CARRIER BUREAU ACTS TO ENSURE TIMELY DEPLOYMENT OF NEW TOLL FREE NUMBERS (CC DOCKET 95-155) The Common Carrier Bureau today announced action to resolve certain issues and allow the industry to open the new toll free service access code, 888, on March 1, 1996. This new toll free code is needed because the existing pool of toll free numbers will be exhausted in the near future. In October 1995, the Commission issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to address certain regulatory issues relating to the introduction of toll free Service Access Codes (SACs). The Commission noted in initiating this rulemaking that, while it has historically left most 800 numbering issues to the industry, this proceeding is necessary to continue to ensure the efficient, fair and orderly allocation of toll free numbers and the responsible use of limited numbering resources in a competitive environment. The Commission stated that its goal in this proceeding is to avoid the situation faced earlier this year: the imminent total depletion of toll free numbers before the industry could make a new toll free code available. The Common Carrier Bureau has also been working with the industry to speed the deployment of this new toll free code, 888. As a result of these efforts, the initial deployment date of April 1, 1996 was moved up by one month. In light of the recent Federal government furlough and subsequent emergency snow days, the Commission, in an order adopted January 24, 1996, concluded that the most efficient way to ensure that the necessary Commission decisions are made for the March 1 deployment of 888 numbers is to delegate to the Common Carrier Bureau the authority to make them. In the Report and Order adopted today, the Bureau adopts the general recommendation of the industry group, SMS/800 Number Administration Committee ("SNAC"), that Responsible Organizations ("RespOrgs"), the entities that provide and assign toll free service numbers, should poll their 800 subscribers to identify which subscribers may want to obtain their corresponding number in 888. Once these numbers have been identified, Database Service Management, Inc. (DSMI), the administrator of the toll free number database, can set these 888 numbers aside from the complete pool of toll free numbers by marking them "unavailable" in the SMS/800 database. The Bureau narrowed the SNAC plan, requesting RespOrgs to poll their commercial subscribers and that DSMI should begin to set aside the 888 numbers requests already received from RespOrgs as "unavailable" in the database upon release of this Order. The Bureau does not decide whether any 800 subscriber ultimately should be afforded any special right or protection and defers consideration of this issue to the Commission. Also, because all RespOrg may not have participated in this polling effort, the Bureau encouraged RespOrgs to continue to poll their commercial 800 subscribers and pass these requests onto DSMI no later than 11:59 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, February 1, 1996. DSMI should complete setting aside these 888 numbers by 11:59 p.m., eastern standard time, February 8, 1996. The Bureau also concludes that the entire "888-555" NXX should be designated "unavailable" until the Commission resolves those issues that will permit competitive toll free directory assistance services. With these efforts complete, the Bureau concluded that the remaining 888 numbers should be available on a first come, first served basis. RespOrgs may begin reserving 888 numbers for their subscribers at 12:01 a.m., Eastern Standard Time, February 10, 1996 subject only to a limited conservation plan. Consumers interested in obtaining a toll free number should contact the service provider of their choice. The Bureau concluded that an initial conservation plan for 888 numbers is necessary to protect the toll free database system from becoming overloaded which could possibly cause a temporary shutdown of the reservation process. The conservation plan adopted in this Order is based on the conservation plan adopted by the Bureau in August, 1995. Instead of capping the numbers being distributed to RespOrgs at 29,000 numbers each week, however, this 888 conservation plan will provide RespOrgs with approximately 120,000 numbers each week. Each RespOrg's weekly maximum allocation of numbers will increase by a factor of 4. Each RespOrg will be able to draw at least two hundred 888 numbers to meet its customers' demand. In addition, the Bureau found that a continued limited conservation plan is necessary for 800 numbers until 888 has clearly been successfully deployed and operating on a nationwide basis. The modification to the 800 conservation plan will increase the weekly allocation for three weeks beginning 12:01 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, January 28, 1996 and ending 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, February 17, 1996. For these three weeks, the 800 allocation will be approximately 73,000 numbers each week. Each RespOrg's weekly allocation will increase by a factor of 2.5. Each RespOrg will be able to draw no fewer than one hundred 800 numbers in each of these three weeks . On February 18, 1996 the 800 weekly allocation will return to 29,000 numbers. Finally, the Bureau concluded that, for tariffing purposes, 888 service should be treated like 800 service and that the associated investment and expenses of carriers regulated by price caps should not be given exogenous cost treatment. Action by the Chief, Common Carrier Bureau, January 25, 1996 by Order (DA 96-69). News Media contact: Susan Lewis Sallet at (202) 418-1500. Common Carrier Bureau contacts: Brad Wimmer at (202) 418-2351 Irene Flannery at (202) 418-2373 Mary De Luca at (202) 418-2334 ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: German Prosecutors Investigate Neo-Nazi Material on Internet Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 14:01:23 PST Neo-Nazi Materials Lead Prosecutors To Investigate Internet Providers By PAUL GEITNER Associated Press Writer BERLIN (AP) -- State prosecutors are investigating Germany's telephone company and another firm for allegedly helping distribute neo-Nazi propaganda on the Internet. The move comes a month after prosecutors in another German state, Bavaria, began investigating child pornography on the Internet, prompting the computer on-line service CompuServe to block worldwide access to sex-related material. Prosecutors in Baden-Wuerttemburg state said Wednesday they are looking into whether Deutsche Telekom is helping disseminate the writings of neo-Nazi Ernst Zuendel. Zuendel, a German extremist living in Canada, has created his own site on the Internet. Anyone logging on to the global network can access such Zuendel tracts as "Auschwitz: Myths and Facts," "The Holocaust: Let's Hear Both Sides" and "Did 6 Million Really Die?" Neo-Nazi material is illegal to print or distribute in Germany. Violators can be charged with inciting racial hatred, but it is unclear yet how such laws can be enforced in cyberspace. The national telephone company, which provides Internet access through its "T-Online" service for a monthly fee, is trying to determine how to prevent such material from being spread in the future, spokesman Stefan Althoff said Wednesday night. "We have no interest in seeing radical right-wing ideas spread in the Internet," Althoff said. Prosecutors in Mannheim, a city about 50 miles south of Frankfurt, said in a statement they also were investigating another firm for incitement. Wolfgang Kneip, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office, would not identify the firm because of the ongoing investigation. But next to T-Online, Germany's only other major Internet provider is CompuServe. Last month, CompuServe agreed to block access for its four million users worldwide to sex-oriented areas of the Internet because of pressure from Bavarian prosecutors investigating child pornography. CompuServe officials in Germany could not be reached late Wednesday. At the company's Columbus, Ohio, headquarters, spokeswoman Jane Torbica said Wednesday afternoon: "At this point, we have not received any information on this matter." Once the arcane domain of scientists, the Internet now allows people in homes, offices and universities to publicly post text, audio and pictures on computers. These files are maintained on interconnected networks of computers around the world, but can often be reached with a local phone call to a commercial on-line service or Internet provider. In a telephone interview from his home in Toronto, Zuendel said his "Zundelsite" on the Internet's World Wide Web has logged 20,000 "visits" since it opened five months ago. Zuendel said people from all over the world, including Germany, had accessed the site and downloaded his neo-Nazi materials. He said only a tiny portion of his computer mail was negative about the texts. "They're available on the Internet because Germany does not yet rule the Internet," Zuendel said. "They might want to, but they do not." Zuendel said he expected the Germans to go after his site. "The Germans, hypocrites that they are, would first say that they are against pornography," he said. "But that was only a foot in the door." Using the same anti-neo-Nazi laws that hold the distributor of material responsible for its content, Bavarian prosecutors last year identified some 200 Internet electronic forums, known as newsgroups, as illegal under German law. Unable to block access to those forums for just its 220,000 German users, CompuServe, a unit of H&R Block Inc., cut access to all customers, touching off a debate about censorship on the Internet. CompuServe officials say they are working on a way to selectively block controversial sites while allowing other customers to access them. ------------------------------ From: Taratai@aol.com Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 15:39:41 -0500 Subject: Wireless Word Newsletter NOTE: A client of mine is publishing the following newsletter on line. I thought TELECOM Digest readers might be interested in the most recent editorial issue of Wireless Word. Comments or feedback may be directed to the Advanced Radio Technologies at: artcorp@tcsnet.net or you may visit the web site at URL: http://artcorporation.com Advanced Radio Technologies' exclusive Internet newsletter is designed to provide you with insight and information on all relevant developments in Washington, D.C. which affect the wireless and communications industry. The Wireless Word will bring you periodic updates on the pending legislation to effect the first rewrite of the Common Carrier sections of the Communications Act of 1934, along with changes to other sections. The Wireless Word also will shortly add a comprehensive analysis of the current proposals as they would affect providers of competitive local telecommunications services by radio. Dole Puts Skids on Telecom Legislation Just when the telecom legislation looked as if it were about to be signed off on by the Conference Committee, election year politics reared its sly head. An issue that was thought to have been put to bed was surfaced in a surprise stand by Senator, and leading Presidential candidate, Bob Dole (R-Kansas). Senator Dole has objected to the plan to withhold from auction, the new spectrum that the television broadcasters wish to use for their conversion to a digital format. The broadcast lobbyists had thought that they, once again, had been able to segregate their spectrum from the auction fever that has swept all the other radio bands. Not so. With his eye firmly on the electorate, and apparently confident that he did not need campaign contributions from the broadcasters (or that he did and needed to stimulate contributions) Dole has objected to moving the telecom legislation to a final vote so long as the broadcasters are to receive "free" spectrum. The Senator termed the exemption of the broadcasters a "corporate welfare provision." Given delays already engendered by the budget impasse (and the Republican leadership stating that the budget has priority over telecom legislation), this latest snafu threatens to delay the final consideration of telecom legislation perhaps until too late for this Congress. However, nothing is certain in politics or government, especially as it concerns the rewrite of the Communications Act. Updated: January 19, 1996 ------------------------------ From: Barry Mishkind Subject: FCC Issues NAPLs For Slamming Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 10:27:42 -0700 Organization: The Ecelctic Engineer NATIONWIDE LONG DISTANCE, INC. Found Nationwide apparently liable for a forfeiture in the amount of $80,000 for violating the Commission's rules and orders regarding changing a primary interexchange carrier without customer authorization. (By Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture [DA 96-45] adopted January 19, 1996, by the Chief, Common Carrier Bureau) HOME OWNERS LONG DISTANCE, INC. (HOLD). Found HOLD apparently liable for a forfeiture in the amount of $80,000 for violating the Commission's rules and orders regarding changing a primary interexchange carrier without customer authorization. (By Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture [DA 96-47] adopted January 19, 1996, by the Chief, Common Carrier Bureau) MCI TELECOMMUNICATIONS CORP. Found MCI apparently liable for a forfeiture in the amount of $80,000 for violating the Commission's rules and orders regarding changing a primary interexchange carrier without customer authorization. (By Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture [DA 96-44] adopted January 19, 1996, by the Chief, Common Carrier Bureau) AT&T CORP. Found AT&T apparently liable for a forfeiture in the amount of $40,000 for violating the Commission's rules and orders regarding changing a primary interexchange carrier without customer authorization. (By Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture [DA 96-48] adopted January 19, 1996, by the Chief, Common Carrier Bureau) TAGET TELECOM, INC. Found Taget apparently liable for a forfeiture in the amount of $40,000 for violating the Commission's rules and orders regarding changing a primary interexchange carrier without customer authorization. (By Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture [DA 96-46] adopted January 19, 1996, by the Chief, Common Carrier Bureau) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #28 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Jan 26 12:32:06 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id MAA23664; Fri, 26 Jan 1996 12:32:06 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 12:32:06 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601261732.MAA23664@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #29 TELECOM Digest Fri, 26 Jan 96 12:32:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 29 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson AT&T Closing All Phone Center Stores (Andrew C. Green) New Telecom Resource Available (Lois Philips) NPA for Windows (Bill Garfield) Searching For Outlet For CPE Overstock (Robert Carlson) Unsolicited Fax Advertising = Harassment (Nick Sayer) Seeking Cellular Mailing List (Joe E. Herbers) Caller Pays Cellular Service (Joseph Singer) Remote Dial Tone? (Bob Keller) Rotary Dial Phones (Mark J. Cuccia) Re: ISDN vs Cable Modems (George Gilder) PacBell SuperTrunk (Bren Smith) SLIP/PPP Over Mobile Sat Phone? (Jim Jordan) Re: Dilbert Meets AT&T (Adam Frix) Re: Dilbert Meets AT&T (Robert A. Rosenberg) Re: Dilbert Meets AT&T (Michael Ward) Re: Dilbert Meets AT&T (Mark Brader) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 09:40:33 -0600 From: Andrew C. Green Subject: AT&T Closing All Phone Center Stores I note with some regret a full-page ad from AT&T in today's {Chicago Sun-Times} announcing that they are closing their Phone Centers nationwide, but that we "will be able to buy AT&T telephone products at thousands of retail outlets." Right. Leaving aside for the moment the point that their prices seemed stratospheric compared to the competition (I gave up waiting for their Model 824 (?) Caller ID desk/wall phone to come down to a competitive price and bought a nice GE model instead), I really don't think that we'll ever be able to go into a retail outlet and find any more reconditioned, bulletproof AT&T _rotary_ dial phones in those amazing 1970's colors. AT&T always had a fascinating, almost museum-quality display of old technology in their Phone Centers that you could still buy or lease; I still stop in occasionally at their outlet in Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, IL to see it, but I guess that era is drawing to an end. I cannot imagine any retail outlet bothering to allocate shelf space to old products like those in the future. I think the rotary telephone has now fully transitioned into the world of garage sales only. Andrew C. Green Adobe Systems, Inc. (formerly Frame Technology) Advanced Product Services 441 W. Huron Internet: acg@frame.com Chicago, IL 60610-3498 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But watch over the next few weeks as those stores liquidate and close down for some remarkable bargains. Now is the time to stock up on some of the older AT&T phones if you think you will have a use for them over the next few years. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 17:15:37 -0800 From: Lois Philips Organization: BellSouth Subject: New Telecom Resource Available We thought the readers of TELECOM Digest would be interested to know that BellSouth has opened our new World Wide Web site at: http://www.bellsouth.com The new site includes the latest BellSouth headlines, links to other BellSouth Internet sites and an archive of company news releases. Other information available include: financial information; the latest Annual Report; Chairman and CEO John L. Clendenin latest speeches; information onISDN; information on the BellSouth Foundation and how it works; and a search tool that will help you find where on the site something is located. For those who are interested in knowing all about BellSouth for the long term, a listserver has been established for automatic distribution of all future press releases or statements as they are sent out. To subscribe to the listserver, send an e-mail message to majordomo@bellsouth.com. Leave the subject line blank and in the body of the message type: subscribe bellsouth. Although this is the first Web site for BellSouth Corporate Headquarters, BellSouth subsidiaries have had sites up since early in 1995. The BellSouth Business System's site, available at http://www.bell.bellsouth.com, is the longest running of the BellSouth companies' sites and has recently undergonea re-design to accommodate the latest technology -- Java. BellSouth Small Business and the BellSouth Tennessee Headquarters group have each launched a site recently, located at http://www.smlbiz.bellsouth.com, and http://www.tn.bellsouth.com, respectively. Both sites have been designed to provide lots of information to visitors. BellSouth Wireless (http://www.bwi.bellsouth.com), BellSouth Cellular (http://www.com/bscc), and BellSouth Mobile Data (http://www.bls.com/bmd) each have sites in various stages of construction. Additional BellSouth sites are scheduled for completion in 1996. ------------------------------ From: bubba@insync.net (Bill Garfield) Subject: NPA for Windows 10JAN96 Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 22:01:28 GMT Organization: Associated Technical Consultants Reply-To: bubba@insync.net c.d.t. and TELECOM Digest readers may be interested to learn that the most recent upgrade to NPA FOR WINDOWS, a comprehensive NPA/NXX lookup utility has recently been released. It's a shareware program, but truly the best I've seen, including some commercial stuff. Here's the file_id.diz information from the .ZIP package: "NPA for WINDOWS <10Jan96> - Comprehensive area code (NPA), prefix NXX), and city name locator. Contains State, City, Prefix, AreaCode, over 100,000,000 ZipCode to NXX mappings ranked by frequency of occurrence, county name, estimated county population, lat/long for each NXX for inter-city or inter-NXX mileage calculation, NXX use type (landline/wireless), city time zone, and more for over 20,000 cities in the USA & Canada. Nearly 60,000 NPA/NXXs in all! All fields except lat/long & county population are key searchable! Tie US ZipCodes & Canadian Postal Codes to NPA/NXXs. Print, file output, and Optional Data Export. Most complete area code program you'll ever see!" [snip] As I said, the program is shareware, but a $35 registration will dispose of the nag/beg screen. I found it available for anonymous ftp at ftp.neosoft.com/pub/users/r/robert/npa/npaw.zip else point your favorite web browser to http:/www.neosoft.com/~robert/pcc filename is npaw.zip - Works under WIN3.x or WIN95 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 14:53:56 +0800 From: rcarlson@ccmail.tchk.com (Robert Carlson) Subject: Searching For Outlet For CPE Overstock Pat, I've been a TELECOM Digest lurker for a couple of years. Now, I have a problem that perhaps your readers could help me with. My company is a manufacturer of telephones and accessories. We have an overstock quantity of 15,000 brand new (1995 manuf.date) integrated telephone and answering machines. They were made for the UK, but for contract reasons I cannot sell the overstock there. Perhaps someone would know of a company in another country who would be interested to puchase all or part of the lot. We would make the necessary hardware adjustments for full functionality for any country. The product is only BABT approved, so for another country we sell the lot as non-PTT-approved. Of course we are not condoning the use of non-approved equipment, but in some smaller countries getting approvals is much less time consuming and more economical for such a small lot. I put some info on our company web page: http://www.tchk.com/zeke/xk7830.html TIA for any help you can provide! Robert (Zeke) Carlson TEAM CONCEPTS MANUFACTURING ------------------------------ From: nsayer@quack.kfu.com (Nick Sayer) Subject: Unsolicited Fax Advertising = Harassment Organization: The Duck Pond public unix, +1 408 249 9630, log in as guest. Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 12:49:31 UTC Over the course of a half hour last night, I received three copies of the same unsolicited fax advertisement. The product being advertised was software to send unsolicited fax advertisements! Enough is enough. Unsolicited fax advertisements are against the law. As such I feel justified in treating this just like any other repeated telephone harassment, and I encourage anyone else who received a fax about 'Dis Count Fax' to do likewise. Nick Sayer | "When DEC hits bottom, they're going N6QQQ @ N0ARY.#NORCAL.CA.USA.NOAM | to make an awful big splat." +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest' | URL: http://www.kfu.com/~nsayer/ | -- David Hawkins ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jan 96 08:46:52 EST From: joe.herbers@cbis.com (Joe E. Herbers) Subject: Seeking Cellular Mailing List I enjoy the TELECOM Digest; thanks for publishing it. I am focused on the cellular industry, though, and am looking for more info specific to it. The TELECOM Digest FAQ mentions a mailing list and I tried emailing to the address given. Mail was undeliverable to that address. Do you have any further info on how to contact the cellular group? Thanks, Joe [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I don't have any more recent information than what appears in the FAQ. Perhaps a reader knows how to reach the maintainer of that list. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 18:43:31 -0800 From: jsinger@scn.org (Joseph Singer) Subject: Caller Pays Cellular Service Reply-To: jsinger@scn.org I just got an insert in my US West statement regarding the implementation of caller pays office prefixes here in Washington state. The pamphlet basically says: US West has entered into a billing and collections agreement with some cellular carriers to offer Calling Party Pays to their cellular customers. Therefore effective January 1, 1996 you will be billed for calls you makie to certain cellular telephone numbers they are: {goes on to explain which CO codes in NPA 509, 206 and 360 are caller pays cell}. In all areas you will be billed for the cellular airtime charges associated with the call in addition to any applicable long distance charges. - - - - - - My question is what happens when you call these numbers from a payphone and does it matter what kind of payphone you're using? Will there be a different charge from a COCOT versus a telco payphone? Also assuming that the number is available through the international network how are calls going to be billed other than for the regular international tariff? JOSEPH SINGER SEATTLE, WASHINGTON USA jsinger@scn.org [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I believe it will be handled like any pay phone call. You'll be asked to deposit coins from time to time, or of course you can bill the whole thing to a calling card. This applies to Genuine Bell payphones. I don't know what the COCOTS will do, if anything. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 09:19:24 -0500 From: Bob Keller Subject: Remote Dial Tone? How can I set up a personal system that allows me to dial from any other number into my home office line, access dial tone from the remote location, either on the same line (the one I just called into) or on a separate line? My situation: My non-virtual office is in an executive suite. I like the arrangement except for one very significant problem. The rate for outgoing toll calls is -- Are you sitting down? -- 40 cents a minute!! (I am talking with the office manager to find out what can be done about this ... but that is a different matter.) In the meantime I am using my calling card -- even with the surcharge it beats 40 cents a minute to hell and back -- but I would like to set up a different solution, to wit ... I also work from home a lot, and I have two work lines their (Note: I said "work" not "business" ) that are on my business long distance plan along with my cellular. I would like to be able to call one of my home lines from my downtown office (or from anywhere else, for that matter) and then access dial tone for dialing back out. Can I do it? How? Is it worth it? Bob Keller (KY3R) mailto:rjk@telcomlaw.com http://www.his.com/~rjk ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 09:33:22 CST From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: Rotary Dial Phones (Friday 26 January 1996, 10:25am EST, 9:25am CST) A report I just heard on the radio on the 10AM (Eastern) hourly NBC/Mutual (Westwood) News ... ... while your ten year old might be able to program a VCR and download all kinds of material from the Internet, etc ... one school recently put in a rotary dial phone, and the children did *not* know how to use it!?!?!?! Maybe parents who are concerned about their kids running up bills calling 1-900 & 976 and the like PAY-PAY-PAY-per-call numbers should just get a rotary dial phone and keep a touchtone phone locked up for their own use! :-) BTW, I recently checked with BellSouth on my blocking against 976, special area code 900 and the recent local area 211 codes, and was told that I also had an `international' blocking. I was surprised to hear this, since I do call Canada frequently, and I have AT&T's TrueWorld service. While I haven't called locations outside of the NANP (UK, Australia, etc) in the past few months, I wasn't sure why or how I would have had a block on 011/01+. BUT I was told that *where_Bell_can_determine_the_codes*, I am also blocked from dialing to *other* countries' PAY-PAY-PAY-per-call codes and numbers. Now let's see if they can have my number flagged in the LIDB and elsewhere to prevent me from being billed to my number for 800 numbers which carry a PAY-PAY-PAY-per-call charge! MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 08:44:45 -0600 From: george gilder Subject: Re: ISDN vs Cable Modems Russ Welti wrote: > Saw a real cool web page for TCI cable, about a service called > @Home... > Can anyone state that this is not just "posturing"? Will it really > happen that soon and at that speed and at that cost? > If so, I'd be an idiot to invest in ISDN right now, right? @home is a deadly serious effort, heavily financed by Kleiner Perkins, the leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm, and TCI, with the close involvement of Netscape and Sun Microsystems. It is designed to blast wide open the bandwidth bottlenecks afflicting residential communications even after ISDN finally becomes convenient. @home will be available first in Sunnyvale and late this year throughout the state of Connecticut. There also will be some kind of cable modem venture in Seattle involving TCI and Microsoft. All the other cable companies are rushing to supply similar services. Although it is fashionable to disparage the capabilities of cable companies to deliver two-way bandwidth, @home is an entirely different proposition, run by Milo Medin, formerly NASA's Internet chief, and devoted to providing broadband 10 megabit per second downstream and 256Kbps upstream channels ubiquitously. Medin is also engineering a new 622 Mbps Internet backbone facility to accomodate the new traffic and an elaborate scheme of mirroring, caching, replication, and multicast to relieve congestion. I predict that this effort will blow away all the residential ISDN plans of the RBOCs. George Gilder [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: George Gilder is a regular contributor to the Telecom Archives. His collection of several essays is available for your review using anonymous ftp at our site: ftp.lcs.mit.edu. You would login anonymous, give name@site as password, then 'cd telecom- archives/george.gilder.essays'. If you prefer -- and our ftp lines are always quite busy -- you may use the Telecom Archives Email Information Service to get these files by writing to tel-archives@ftp.lcs.mit.edu. This is an automated address and your first letter will cause a help file to be returned to you. PAT ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jan 1996 12:32:52 -0800 From: Bren Smith Subject: PacBell SuperTrunk I received an unsolicited expensive glossy brochure from PacBell today calling attention to their new SuperTrunk product. According to their literature it's a: "digital T1 trunk that lets you assign individual trunk groups according to your needs. And because the channels are software defined with options for two way voice data you can easily reassign, expand, or eliminate trunk groups as your needs change." I've currently got a dedicated T1 with outbound LD and inbound 800 numbers. In addition, I've got 24 CO trunk lines. 12 as a 2 way redundant for my T1, and 12 for DID. Has anyone heard anything (good or bad) about this? Could this potentially be of use to me? Bren Smith |510/253-3048 voice Dantz Development |510/253-9099 fax 4 Orinda Way, Bldg C |bren@dantz.com Orinda, CA 94563 |"Practice safe government - use kingdoms" ------------------------------ From: jordan@tesla.iar.nrc.ca (Jim Jordan) Subject: SLIP/PPP Over Mobile Sat Phone Date: 25 Jan 1996 16:28:50 GMT Organization: National Research Council Reply-To: jordan@tesla.iar.nrc.ca Greetings, We are considering the purchase of an aeronautical mobile satellite phone system to work with the AMSC/MSAT satellite. This phone terminal has an RS-232C data port which operates at 4800 bps and according to the marketing literature will work with any existing data communica- tions software. We need to know if we can run a TCP/IP SLIP or PPP connection over such a link to connect to an Internet machine on the ground. Note: The satellite link connects to the terrestial phone system through a gateway station and there will be a propagation delay of 300+ msec. since this is a geostationary system. Are there any problems with such a time delay for SLIP/PPP? If so, is there a better protocol to use for Internet ftp file transfers? Thanks for any information or experiences. Jim Jordan e-mail: jordan@convax.iar.nrc.ca National Research Council jordan@tesla.iar.nrc.ca Ottawa, Canada K1A 0R6 http://www.nrc.ca/iar/index.html ------------------------------ Date: 25 Jan 96 21:49:15 EST From: Adam Frix <70721.504@compuserve.com> Subject: Re: Dilbert Meets AT&T Adam Frix writes: > Anyone who wants to read a humorous story written in the days > of Ma Bell, a story with a definite Dilbert twist, should > check out the short story "QRM-Interplanetary" by George O. > Smith, which first appeared in the magazine {Astounding} in > October, 1942. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: How about a quick summary > of the story? Or do you have a method of easily sending it > all? I'll be glad to make it available here if you do. PAT] I don't think I can send it all; it's quite long, and would be difficult for me to transcribe. Not to mention that it would probably violate copyright laws. ;-) In short, the story takes place on an asteroid that is placed in such a position as to provide telecom relay service among Earth, Venus, and Mars. Its sole function is to be a telecommunications relay station. It is full of engineers and "beam control technicians," and is a mostly closed (but very well adjusted) society of about 2700 employees in the mold of the old Ma Bell. You even see some truly dedicated people, just like when I read books about how AT&T used to be in the 40s and 50s. And they get a new administrator, someone very much like the manager we see in Dilbert every day. Think Frank Burns from M*A*S*H, and you get the idea. He turns the place upside down, and out of sheer ignorance (almost everything he does is out of sheer ignorance) almost destroys it -- literally. After following the Digest for some years now, I re-read this story and realized I was grinning a bit. Pat, I think you'll enjoy it. I found it in {Isaac Asimov presents The Great SF Stories, vol. 4 (1942)}, edited by Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg. Adam ------------------------------ From: robertr@icu.com (Robert A. Rosenberg) Subject: Re: Dilbert Meets AT&T Organization: RockMug (Rockland County NY) Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 06:11:37 GMT > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: How about a quick summary of the > story? Or do you have a method of easily sending it all? I'll be > glad to make it available here if you do. PAT] The short story appears in his "Venus Equilateral" novel (and its replacement "The Complete Venus Equilateral" which has the one new VE story written after VE was published). VE was a manned space station that was in an L5 orbit (60 degrees ahead of Venus) and was a relay station between Venus, Earth, and Mars. I do not have access to my SF collection right now or I'd list the publisher and ISPN numbers. The stories show how services get expanded as the needs occur (they start by adding the ability of being able to send messages to spaceships in flight and later receive messages from them [remember that this is beamed/directional not broadcast so you can see the problems with communicating with a moving object that is not following a fixed path like planets do] and later get into matter replication and beamed power). All in all a VERY enjoyable book even if some of the technology is out of date (Tubes as opposed to solid-state devices). ------------------------------ From: Michael Ward Subject: Re: Dilbert Meets AT&T Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 11:26:55 +0000 Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana If I recall, Dilbert is written by a former Pac Bell engineer. But I guess we could have guessed that. Mike Ward ward1@uiuc.edu ------------------------------ From: msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) Subject: Re: Dilbert Meets AT&T Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 18:38:32 GMT 70721.504@compuserve.com writes: > Anyone who wants to read a humorous story written in the days of Ma > Bell, a story with a definite Dilbert twist, should check out the > short story "QRM-Interplanetary" by George O. Smith, which first > appeared in the magazine {Astounding} in October, 1942. I second the recommendation. A lovely piece of humor for techies. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: How about a quick summary of the story? The setting is an interplanetary telegraph message relay station in space -- manned, naturally -- called Venus Equilateral. The company sends out a new manager whose idea of a good job is to cut costs no matter what. Fortunately, there are engineers around to save the day when things start to go wrong ... > Or do you have a method of easily sending it all? I'll be > glad to make it available here if you do. PAT] Not until the copyright expires, please! If I understand correctly, that would be 1998, though I'm not sure what date in that year. The story has appeared in a number of SF anthologies. It spawned a series of sequels featuring the same characters, and these are collected, together with a few less clearly related ones, in the book The Complete Venus Equilateral by George O. Smith (introduction by Arthur C. Clarke) Ballantine Books, 1976 ISBN 0-345-25551-8 which ought to be in at least some libraries. Mark Brader, msb@sq.com, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto "sci fi: the plural of scum fum" -- Spider Robinson My text in this article, on the other hand, is in the public domain. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #29 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jan 29 13:50:43 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id NAA20026; Mon, 29 Jan 1996 13:50:43 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 13:50:43 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601291850.NAA20026@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #30 TELECOM Digest Mon, 29 Jan 96 13:50:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 30 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Trends in Fraud on GSM and Analog Cellular Networks (Lawrence Berry) Re: 70% Cellular Fraud in NYC? (Van Hefner) NPR and Praise of IDT (Jerry Vuoso) 888 "Reservation" Questions (Andrew Diestel) Last Chance for 800 Number Protection (Judith Oppenheimer) Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company (Paul J. Zawada) Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company (Bill Horne) Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company (Steve Hayes) Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company (Jeffrey Rhodes) Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company (Steve Forrette) Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company (Dave Levenson) Re: 708/847/630 Split (Kevin R. Ray) Southern New England Telephone (Mark J.Cuccia) Re: US West Spends $1M Providing Substitute Cellular Service (John Levine) Re: 708/847/630 Split (psyber@usa.pipeline.com) Dollars For Domain Names? (Draper Kauffman) Need Blocks of Local Numbers With Call Forwarding (Doug Reuben) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: clearcom@iafrica.com Subject: Trends in Fraud on GSM and Analog Cellular Networks Date: Mon, 29 Jan 96 06:26:23 GMT Organization: CLEAR Communications > A message in Van Hefner's Discount Long Distance Digest said in > passing that 70% of the cellular calls in New York City are > fraudulent. Can that possibly be true? > I could easily believe that 70% of the international calls placed from > cell phones in NYC were bogus, and maybe even 70% of the toll calls, > but 70% of all calls? Jeez. We, in the digital GSM world, have heard of frightening statistics for fraud on analog systems, such as those outlined above. Unfortunately, I cannot confirm the actual extent of the problem. Want to share some info on GSM and ask for more input on the subject. Higher levels of technology, integration and encryption have made GSM less vulnerable to "re-chipping" or cloning than AMPS or TACS, with the GSM champions asserting that GSM is almost impervious to this problem. "Almost" may seem to be correct, as rumours have it that some cloned GSM handsets have appeared. Anyone with more info out there? I am involved in South Africa with establishing the GSM Equipment Identity Register (EIR), which is a database of handsets that are blocked or are being traced on the GSM networks following loss or theft from the legal owners. Each GSM handset, when a call is made, transmits its serial no. (IMEI) to the network. If the handset is in the EIR, the network logs the call destination, cell no., the SIM card its being used with, duration etc for later analysis. The system has been used to trace and recover hundreds of stolen phones over the past few months. If the phone is "blacklisted", similar info is logged, but the call cannot be completed. Anyone working on EIR elsewhere? Regards, Lawrence Berry CLEAR Communications Consultant in Cellular Communications Johannesburg, South Africa. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 00:23:18 -0800 From: vantek@northcoast.com (VANTEK COMMUNICATIONS) Subject: Re: 70% Cellular Fraud in NYC? > A message in Van Hefner's Discount Long Distance Digest said in > passing that 70% of the cellular calls in New York City are > fraudulent. Can that possibly be true? > I could easily believe that 70% of the international calls placed from > cell phones in NYC were bogus, and maybe even 70% of the toll calls, > but 70% of all calls? Jeez. My main source of information on that particular article was from a press release sent to (us) by the Federal Trade Commission. I am not sure how this particular statistic was compiled, but I believe the source to be reliable. The FTC study was appareantly done in November 1994 (over a year ago). One would hope that the situation has improved by now. Also, please keep in mind that NYC is FRAUD CENTRAL, when it comes to telecom related theft-of-service. I'm sure that things are much worse there than anyplace else in the world. Incidently, theft is MUCH lower in other countries, such as Israel, where cellular time costs approximately $.03 per minute, and only one cellphone caller pays for airtime (when two cellphone users are talking to each other). Van Hefner - Editor Discount Long Distance Digest http://www.webcom.com/longdist/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jan 96 09:53:11 EST From: Jerry Vuoso Subject: NPR and Praise of IDT Concerning NPR and IDT, the local New York City Public Radio Station (WNYC-AM) broadcast of NPR program "All Things Consired" is supported by IDT. I do not know if IDT also supports the broadcast of "Morning Edition". If they do, then there could be the appearance of 'conflict of interest.' Jerry Vuoso City Univ. of New York Acknowledge-To: [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Want to hear something funny? About two years ago when I finally decided to bite the bullet here and begin asking directly for financial assistance with my work on this Digest, a guy from NPR wrote a real self-righteous letter saying how there should be a committee appointed to make sure I did not run messages in favor of the financial supporters while 'censoring' those who did not pay anything. He was wringing his hands and was 'just certain' the end was in sight now that the Digest had 'gone commercial'. I asked him if there was even the remote possibility that National Public Radio *ever* ran programs suggested by their largest patrons and donors. He sounded aghast; oh no, they would never do that. PAT] ------------------------------ From: adiestel@solar.sky.net (Andrew Diestel) Subject: 888 "Reservation" Questions Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 05:36:45 GMT Organization: SkyNET Online Unless as a Resp-Org I am mis-informed, it is my understanding that: 1) the FCC has yet to rule on 888 repplication (whether or not a company holding an 800 number automatically gets the same 888 Number) and 2) That Bellcore/DSMI have been asking for lists of 800 numbers from resp-orgs that companies wish to have the corresponding 888 number put in unavailible status in SMS pending the FCC ruling. and 3) That just because there are requests to have 800 numbers replicated in 888 for customers, that there is no gurantee whatsoever that the customer will get that 888 number when 888 becomes availible. If anyone knows differently, please let me know. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Things are finally falling into place on this as Judith Oppenheimer has mentioned in articles to the Digest in recent issues. The next article in this issue from Ms. Oppenheimer issues a sort of final warning to all concerned. PAT] ------------------------------ From: callbrand@aol.com (CallBrand) Subject: Last Chance for 800 Number Protection Date: 29 Jan 1996 11:29:47 -0500 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: callbrand@aol.com (CallBrand) Here's an unofficial update from Thursday's FCC meeting, based on a press release. Pending a final rulemaking from the FCC, the Common Carrier Bureau has directed that 800 replication submissions are to be accepted through midnight, February 1. 888 early reservation will then open on February 10, with the intervening week used to code the replication submissions for set-aside, so that they are not included in the 888 general release. This is applicable only to commercial (not residential) 800 numbers -- those 800 numbers billed under commercial tariffs. Finally, the Bureau "encouraged" carriers to communicate this information to their subscribers, but did not "order" them to do so. So if you want your 800 number protected in 888, it's on you to get it done. Judith Oppenheimer, President, Interactive CallBrand A leading source of information on 800 issues. CallBrand@aol.com, 1 800 The Expert, (ph) 212 684-7210, (fx) 212 684-2714 http://www.users.nyc.pipeline.com:80/~producer/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: So, users have a few more days this week to deal with this. It might be wise to chat with your carrier today if you have not already done so. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 12:01:23 -0600 From: Paul J Zawada Subject: Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > ...then it was quite common to hear the clicks and pops when you > dialed into it followed by one or two rings you heard in your ear > *then* it would cut over and send back busy signal. In 1974 telco > cut from that direct to the new (at the time) ESS. The subscribers > (including me: WEbster-9-4600) were beside themselves with joy. PAT] This may have more to do with switching to out-of-band signaling than the type of switch. (Although if the original WEbster9 switch was particularly slow, the end-result could have been the same ...) Depending on the switching path, some switches would start sending the ring signal to their subscriber as the route was being setup to the remote switch. Without common-channel signaling, this process could take a particularly long time. In order to assure the calling party that their connection did not drop off the end of the network someplace, the local switch would start sending a ring signal until the route was setup to the far-end switch. The end result was that a subscriber would hear a busy from the far-end switch after one or two rings from the local switch. Paul J. Zawada | Sr. Network Engineeer zawada@ncsa.uiuc.edu | National Center for Supercomputing Applications +1 217 244 4728 | http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/People/zawada ------------------------------ From: bhorne@neu.edu (Bill Horne) Subject: Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company Date: 29 Jan 1996 12:30:46 GMT Organization: Northeastern University, Boston, MA. 02115, USA Sounds like a panel office. If you ever get to see one working, it's worth the trip: I worked in a panel office in 1972. There are lots of flat contact panels: at the base of each panel, a horizontal drive shaft rotates continuously. The connections are made by vertical rods that go up and down, driven by mechanical clutches which are controlled by relays. Bill Horne bhorne@lynx.neu.edu ------------------------------ Date: 29 Jan 96 07:48:22 EST From: Steve Hayes <100112.606@compuserve.com> Subject: Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company Sorry to jump in a bit late, but I was sure that someone else would make the following observation: Most often, the "answer before the first ring" phenomenon has nothing to do with such exotica as ISDN or IVR systems. Most companies of course are using PBX systems with ground start trunks. When a call comes in on a good old-fashioned ground start trunk, the CO immediately applies the ground on tip to warn the PBX not to try to use it for an outgoing call. As others have noted, the ringing voltage and/or the ringback tone that the caller hears may not start for a couple more seconds (and the ringback tone and ringing voltage may not coincide either). Many PBX systems signal the incoming call to the attendant as soon as the ground on tip appears. It seems to be a matter of pride among attendants to pick up an incoming call within a fraction of a second after they see it. This very often is before any ringing at all takes place. As someone who has worked quite extensively on answer recognition methods for COCOT phones (yes, go ahead, blame me for everything), I can tell you that this is a real headache. Usually, we rely on the ringback tone to tell us that the call is switched through and to allow us to judge the signal level to expect when the call is answered. When the call is answered before ringback, it isn't at all easy to distinguish between switching clicks and pops and voice. Fortunately, those horrible switching noises are much less common now than they used to be. Please note that the above relates to the North American phone system. Others may vary. Here in the UK, I haven't noticed any excessive haste in answering calls (to put it mildly). Steve Hayes [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A long time ago an operator on a cord board taught me how to answer incoming calls super-fast before the calling party heard a ring. The half of the cord used to answer trunk lines was left plugged in to the jack all the time, but the switch for that particular cord was always left pushed backward. When the line was seized, the operator would immediatly see the associated supervision lamp blink on/off rapidly just once for a tenth of a second or so as the seizure occurred. The operator would then just flip that key and respond. As often as not, the caller had yet to hear a single ring. Even if the operator was not looking right at that cord, she could hear a very slight 'tick' as a relay in the switchboard jumped at the same time. This was about 1965, and prior to that I had always wondered how when calling RAndolph-6-1200 (the electric utility offices) it would never ring in my ear. Within a couple seconds of dialing the final digit, there would be a single click and the operator would answer 'Edison'. I worked there as a phone operator midnights for about six months and that is where I learned that trick. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jrhodes@jrhodespc.nwest.attws.com Subject: Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company Date: Mon, 29 Jan 96 06:48:05 PDT Organization: AT&T Wireless Services, Inc. In article , writes: > Pat, in the case of end to end SS7 between local and remote CO's, is > not the ringing sound presented by the originating switch? I > understood that with SS7 the voice channel is not opened up between > local and remote until the remote goes off hook. Under this scenario, > their is simply signalling between local and remote switches over the > SS7 link and a voice channel is not "wasted" until it is determined > the caller has answered the phone or the call is transfered to voice > mail. > In the case of calls to non SS7 switches I suspect that a voice > channel is opened and the ringing would be sent on that channel. I > could be wrong on ringing but I do know that SS7 does look ahead to > avoid opening channels when the destination line is busy. This is wrong and the misconception is widely held. SS7 ISUP signaling is faster than the alternatives, hence there is some channel usage savings, but circuits are "in use" during call setup and ringing. Even calls to a "busy" line take inter-switch circuits away from the pool of circuits that are available for a short period of time. An IAM (Initial Address Message)contains the circuit id for a call setup between two switches. There is nothing else that can be done with this circuit while the call is being setup. It is reserved. An inter-switch call routes from switch to switch, each switch sending an IAM to reserve a circuit between the two switches, until the destination line's switch receives an IAM. At this point a SSB (subscriber busy) message can be returned, and the SSB will cascade thru each intermediate switch to free up the circuit reserved by the IAM. If the destination line is not "busy", then an ADC (Address Complete) message is cascaded back. I skipped COT (Continuity) mainly because I don't think it makes sense to test a digital trunk's continuity. When the ADC is received, the backward direction for voice is enabled on the reserved circuits, so that the caller can hear the far-end ring. If the destination line answers, an ANS (Answer) message is cascaded back, so that the forward direction for voice can be enabled. The ANS message is used to mark the call billable at the caller's switch, so if you don't get an ANS message there won't be a conversation path! No accidental free calls due to a lost message (which happens frequently when there is congestion on the SS7 signaling links). While signaling systems such as C-5 are able to tear down circuit reservations when the called destination line is "busy" like SS7 ISUP, C-5 is unable to play announcements like "Line Out of Service" from the caller's switch. SS7 ISUP is able to send back CFL (Call Failure) with a reason code that is translated to a announcement at the caller's switch. Again, SS7 ISUP only ties up the circuit breifly, so there is savings, but during the call setup a small piece of the network's capacity for billable calls is diminished. Jeffrey Rhodes at jcr@creator.nwest.attws.com ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company Date: 29 Jan 1996 02:07:23 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn In article , bill@InterActive.ns.ca says: > Pat, in the case of end to end SS7 between local and remote CO's, is > not the ringing sound presented by the originating switch? I > understood that with SS7 the voice channel is not opened up between > local and remote until the remote goes off hook. Under this scenario, > their is simply signalling between local and remote switches over the > SS7 link and a voice channel is not "wasted" until it is determined > the caller has answered the phone or the call is transfered to voice > mail. This is, generally speaking, not true. At least I'm not aware of any case in the US where this is the case. In an end-to-end SS7-signaled call, a 'busy' condition will usually be signalled to the caller by the originating switch, but ringing sound is provided by the terminating switch, just like it was prior to SS7. If the voice channel is not allocated at the time the call is set up, then there's always the chance that when the called party answered that no line would be available, or that some other condition that prevented a proper connection would occur. And, it makes no sense to 'reserve' but not set up a channel, as it couldn't be used for any other purpose anyway. It is my understanding that the SS7 specification allows for originating-switch ringing, but that is not used (at least in the US). Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: Re: I Don't Hear the Ring When I Call a Company Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 02:52:52 GMT > The thing about that exchange also was that if the called party's > single line was busy ... then it was quite common to hear the > clicks and pops when you dialed into it followed by one or two rings > you heard in your ear *then* it would cut over and send back busy > signal. That sounds very much like the Panel Dial System -- one of the first common-control switching machines. Like crossbar, it used control elements not dedicated to individual calls, but like step-by-step, the controlled switching fabric used sequential addressing. There were large numbers of Panel Dial central offices installed in major cities -- we had lots of them in Washington, DC, where I grew up. A characteristic of that system was that call progress transitions were often delayed by several seconds. This caused the apparent answer before ringing, ringing before busy, etc. The last Panel Dial switch in the Bell System was the Bigelow Office, in Newark, NJ. (It was also one of the first installed.) This switch was `retired in place' in the early 1980's, and its subscribers were transferred to a nearby ESS switch. An article by switching pioneer Amos Joel, and published in the Bell System Technical Journal at the time, stated that the Panel Dial Switch was, at the time, the only switching technology every put into production that had now experienced its entire product life-cycle. Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: uunet!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 [The Man in the Mooney] ------------------------------ From: kevin@mcs.com (Kevin R. Ray) Subject: Re: 708/847/630 Split Date: 29 Jan 1996 12:06:27 -0600 Organization: MCSNet Services Neal McLain <103210.3011@compuserve.com> writes: > Re the pending 708/630/847 split: As of today, Thu Jan 25 1996, which is five days after the new area code has taken affect it *DOES NOT WORK*. I have had people from SC, GA, MA, WI, CA, MI, TN and a couple of other states trying to get through on 847 with no luck. 708 (as expected) worked. The long distance carriers used range from MCI, Sprint, and AT&T. Talking with Ameritech I was informed that is was *MY* responsibility to contact the remote telephone companies to inform them that they need to reprogram their switches accordingly. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Have you noticed that the caller-id being transmitted still shows 708 also? I asked a service rep when caller-id would start showing 847 as the areacode for the person originating the call and she said 'not until sometime in April ...'. That seems strange doesn't it? PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 06:44:10 CST From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: Southern New England Telephone SNET now has a website: http://www.snet.com There is a lot of promotional information, on residential, business, cellular, data, calling-card, etc. at this website. Unfortunately, I didn't find any history of SNET of Connecticut telephony located at this website. SNET (Southern New England Telephone) is one of the `other' former Bell Operating Companies. Prior to the breakup of the Bell System effective 1984, SNET and Cincinnati Bell were the two BOC's where AT&T owned only a minority share of the stock. Since divestiture, Cincinnati Bell retained the blue post-1970 `Bell' logo, while SNET went to a streamlined star logo. It seems that they have even changed from the star logo. SNET was not associated with NYNEX; neither was Cincinnati Bell associated with Ameritech. SNET's operating LEC territory is virtually all of the state of Connecticut. A small local independent LEC telco provides LEC telephone services in Woodbury CT, while New York Telephone (now NYNEX) has had two exchanges nearest to New York City- Greenwich CT & Old Byram CT, which are also in the New York City LATA. SNET has its own Connecticut LATA, and while there is Equal Access in (most? all?) of Connecticut, SNET also provides an inter-LATA toll service which can also be chosen as a primary carrier (and has its 10-XXX/101-0XXX code) or accessed with an 800 number. Cincinnati Bell (and other independents) provide similar toll services. I haven't found any webpages (yet) for Cincinnati Bell. Since the 1984 divestiture of AT&T, Cincinnati Bell and SNET are `considered' to be `independent' operating telephone companies. But if all of the other *Bell* telcos have been separated from AT&T, aren't they *all* more-or-less *independent* telcos? And who knows... we might have *all* of these once sister/cousin telcos invading each other's territory with local exchange competition! MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jan 96 16:30:00 EST From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: US West Spends $1M Providing Substitute Cellular Service Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. [I said] > If I were the Colorado PUC, I'd have opened up the underserved areas to > competition ages ago. [Pat noted] > John, I am not sure merely opening the door to competition would > help all that much. The competition basically has two choices: > [run their own wire which would take them as long as it'd take US West > or lease US West's nonexistent facilities] Hey, it said that the power and CATV were in place. Nice new CATV plant, it'd take a pretty stupid CATV operator not to see that opportunity. (Well, I suppose that rules out 90% of the CATV operators in this country, but anyway ...) John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - Stanford econ prof ------------------------------ From: psyber@usa.pipeline.com (psyber@usa.pipeline.com) Subject: Re: 708/847/630 Split Date: 29 Jan 1996 11:36:35 GMT Organization: Pipeline USA On Jan 23, 1996 21.18.59 in article <708/847/630 Split>, 'Neal McLain <103210.3011@compuserve.com>' wrote: > Re the pending 708/630/847 split: > The press release contains some interesting tidbits: > - The test number for 630 is 630-204-1204 (but no test > number was given for 847). That number, according to BellCore, and my digging is 1-847-958-1204...tested it today. :-) > For a copy of the map, send a self-addressed stamped > envelope (32 cents) to: > Neal McLain > 2305 Manor Green Drive > Madison, WI 53711 -OR- hit the Ameritech web page, and browse the area code info there. A map is included; simply print it out on YOUR home printer for next-to-nuthin' :) Their URL: www.aads.net/news/service/areacode John Cropper, aka Psyber Nexus Information Services psyber@usa.pipeline.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well his offer to send it for a 32 cent stamp and envelope is certainly next to nothing in cost. Here is an oddity for you: That 847-958-1204 number works from outside 847, but if someone like myself who is in 847 tries to merely dial 958-1204 we get just a rapid re-order signal. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 01:32:49 -0500 From: draperk@io.com (Draper Kauffman) Subject: Dollars For Domain Names? How much is a "good" domain name worth? A situation has come up where a large company wants a domain name already owned by a small company that is one of our customers. There's no trademark conflict, or any other legeal grounds for demanding that the small company turn it over, so it's strictly a commercial deal. The two companies are trying to decide what's a fair price. Details: The small company is a consulting firm and personal business. The domain name is the owner's initials. It has used the domain name for two years. Changing the domain could cost perhaps $1,500 for re-registration, reprinted cards and letterhead, new artwork, etc., plus a considerable amount of time and aggravation for the owner. The buyer has the same initials. It is a media company with a seven- or eight-figure marketing budget. It sells software and CD-ROMs as well as other products, and wants to open a Web site using the domain name under discussion. It has looked at other good names, and none are currently available. Two questions: What have other people been paid for domain names, under what circumstances? What do you think is a fair market price for this domain name? Answers sent to me by email will be kept in confidence if you request it. Otherwise, please post your answer, as I'd like to see other people's comments on any answers. Thanks! Draper Kauffman ILLUMINATI ONLINE ** FULL, FAST INTERNET SERVICE ** NO BUSY SIGNALS! Shell+PPP accounts from $15/month, unlimited remote access for $10/month. For full terms and services, email info@io.com, Web to http://www.io.com, telnet to io.com, or log in by modem at (713) 850-9435 or (512) 448-8950. FREE WEB PAGES *** FRIENDLY 24-HOUR HELP *** FIRST 2 WEEKS FREE! ------------------------------ From: dreuben@interpage.net (Doug Reuben) Subject: Need Blocks of Local Numbers With Call Forwarding Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 02:49:37 EST We have a need for a group of local numbers which can be forwarded to 800 numbers. We won't need to reforward them very often (if at all) once they are initially forwarded to a given 800 number, and it does not make a difference where the localnumbers are in the US or Canada. We simply need to be able to attain, from time to time, a local number which can be forwarded to an 800 number if a given customer of ours requests it. "Remote Call Forwarding" from the phone co. is expensive, costs a lot to set up, and can take a while. We need something cheaper and which can be activated on short order (a day or two). (Many customers need to have international access for one of our 800#'s, and rather than get into DID issues right now, it would be easier just to assign a local, non-800 number anywhere in World Zone 1 (US, Canada, etc.) which callers from around the world can dial, especially callers in countries which do not have the facilities to call US 800 numbers (as do callers in the UK].) Any help/info/costs would be appreciated. Please e-mail, post, or call with any info. Thanks in advance! Doug Reuben * dreuben@interpage.net * +1 (203) 499 - 5221 / 800-624-6964 Interpage Network Services -- http://www.interpage.net, telnet interpage.net E-Mail Alpha/Numeric Local/Nationwide Paging, WWW Fax and E-Mail <-> Fax Svcs ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #30 ****************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Jan 29 22:55:10 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id WAA11680; Mon, 29 Jan 1996 22:55:10 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 22:55:10 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601300355.WAA11680@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #31 TELECOM Digest Mon, 29 Jan 96 22:55:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 31 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Opinion Piece in NYT; Responses Needed (Dave Farber) Writers Defend Hype on Hackers (Tad Cook) Computer Intelligence Society? (Mike MacGregor) The Intelligent Network: What Exactly is it? (David M. Wigglesworth) DLD Digest Censored in Germany (Van Hefner) Tcom Industry Employability (Nick Yuran) GSM Telephone Blocked (Vincent Pillet) ANI/Caller-ID Questions Regarding ISDN Service (Mike Parker) Questions About Cable Converter Box (TELECOM Digest Editor) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 07:07:00 -0500 From: Dave Farber Subject: Opinion Piece in NYT; Responses Needed Passed along to the Digest FYI: To: cypherpunks@toad.com From: jrochkin@cs.oberlin.edu (Jonathan Rochkind) > The New York Times, January 2, 1996, Business, p. 14 > Viewpoint: J. Walker Smith > Standoff in Cyberspace Gulch > In the new frontier that is cyberspace, a showdown is > shaping up as the law moves into town. On one side is a > band of cybercitizens bent on protecting their privacy as > they explore this unmapped territory. On the other are the > lawmakers charged with safeguarding all cybercitizens from > crime, even if it means forcing them to give up some of > their privacy by, say, signing in as they enter town. > This is how the public debate over cyberspace security has > been framed. And on-line users are, indeed, worried about > security. Yankelovich Partners surveyed 400 randomly > selected on-line users, aged 16 and older, by telephone in > mid-October and found that 90 percent agree that better > Internet security is needed to insure that personal and > financial information is not accessible to unauthorized > people. Nearly 80 percent believe it is too easy for one's > credit card number to be stolen if used on the Internet. > And almost 70 percent agree that pornography on the > Internet has gone far beyond reasonable bounds. This op-ed starts out by portraying the two 'sides' as 'lawmakers safeguarding from crime", and "citizens bent on protecting privacy"--which I'd say is fairly accurate. The next paragraph, however, discusses the fact that almost everyone agrees that 'better internet security ' is necessary is support for the lawmakers side of things. It goes on to say: [...] > A cyberspace that offered privacy, security and decency > would clearly be preferred. But recognizing that this > simply may not be technologically achievable, most on-line > users put security and decency ahead of absolute privacy. > Fifty-three percent of cybercitizens agree that > guaranteeing Internet security is more important than > worrying about the privacy of each user. The rest of the opinion piece only gets worse -- the author thinks that, while privacy is a good goal, "in no way should [privacy] distract regulators from maintaining order and decency on this new frontier, nor should it be allowed to defeat the progress of commercial ventures." Now, first of all, the cypherpunks are clearly an entity that values _both_ privacy and security, and doesn't see them as at all contradictory. They're two sides of the crypto coin. The very same encryption that can make it possible to set up secure credit card transactions also makes it possible to use anonymous remailers -- and the security isn't harmed by people with anonymous shell accounts or access to the net. Chaum's digicash could theoretically provide security _and_ anonymity, without any contradiction. Now, Walter Smith probably wouldn't be satisified with cypherpunkian solutions -- he doesn't want anonymous communications _regardless_ of whether we also get secure credit card transactions, and would be perfeclty happy with crypto available to everyone, and a law against anonymous communications on the net. But, regardless of his own opinion of privacy/anonymity and security individually, in this piece he portrays them as linked, and in fact mutually damaging. There is a danger of this view becomming commonplace -- whenever we encounter it, we should take pains to argue that privacy/anonymity and security _aren't_ mutually exclusive, are sometimes mutually _enhancing_ (ITAR restrictions make anon remailers and secure financial transactions a pain in the ass to set up legally). And we should make it clear that there are a lot of people out there who value both extremely highly, and don't see any need to sacrifice one for the other. [I'm not sure of the proper email address to send a response to this viewpoint, but you might try "viewpts@nytimes.com", which is the proper place to submit "viewpoints", ie op-ed pieces in Business section of the NYT]. Very interesting also, is that Smith explicitly says that privacy concerns shouldn't be allowed to "defeat the progress of commercial ventures". It's unclear exactly what the 'progress' that Smith is talking about is, that would be defeated by putting too much emphasis on privacy. But the previous paragraph mentions "users will find it in their self-interest to reveal more and more about themselves so the interactive system can cater easily to their needs and preferences ... 71 percent of respondents found it highly desirable to be able to receive customized information, while only 35 percent felt the same about a guarantee of anonymity." Smith appears to be saying that the interests of commercial ventures in amassing data about what consumers visited what web sites, and what consumers are likely targets of customized marketting (customized information?), should take precedence over the interests of citizens in keeping their information private! Many on cypherpunks are used to thinking of business interests as if they match cypherpunks interests, I think -- certainly they seem to where ITAR is concerned, at the moment. But it's good to remember that 'business interests', at least as interpreted by some businesses, are going to contradict cypherpunks interets. Unfortunately, business interests often seem to have the advantage in the U.S. legislative process -- with this in mind, lobbying action from 'public interest' groups like the EFF, and us as individuals, is more important when it doesn't line up with business interests (protecting anonymity) then when it does (getting rid of ITAR). Large corporations are lobbying for loosening ITAR, and we can help them, but when lobbying for allowing anonmity, if it comes down to that, we'll have fewer/less powerful allies. Also, clearly in this survey, they asked two independent questions "Do you find it desirable to be able to receieve customized information" (71% said yes), "do you find it desirable to be able to guarantee anonymity" (35% yes, which is actually enhearteningly higher then I would have thought). In the context of his opinion piece, though, he clearly sets them up against each other -- what if the surveyed had been asked "When guaranteeing anonymity comes into conflict with allowing commercial ventures to send you customized adverts, which is more important"? Obviously, that question is biased also, but my point is that it's important to make this connection in people's minds. Here, there might _be_ a tradeoff -- and consumers frequently get up in arms about how anyone can get their credit report, or their driving record, or whatever. It's important that we create a connection between anonmity on the net, and empowerment to keep personal information personal -- we need to link the "customized information" which Smith's surveyees were so enamored of, to the privacy invasions posed by credit reports and such, that consumers already know about and know they don't like. [I'm going to try to make myself write a letter to the NYT in response to that viewpoint, making some of these points I'm saying it's important to make, but you should too. :) ] ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: Writers Defend Hype on Hackers Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 15:47:56 PST Writers Defend Hype on Hackers BY PAUL ANDREWS Seattle Times SEATTLE -- America's most wanted cyberscribes are battling nagging criticism that they overhyped computer crimes to sell books. Computer security expert Tsutomu Shimomura and newspaper technology writer John Markoff signed books in Seattle Thursday as part of a nine-day tour promoting their recently released book, "Takedown" (Hyperion), about computer hacker Kevin Mitnick. Shimomura is the San Diego Supercomputer Center security expert who helped track down Mitnick. Markoff, Shimomura's longtime ski buddy, is a San Francisco-based {New York Times} technology writer. In the fall of 1994, a hacker believed by some Internet service providers to be Mitnick created havoc with the service providers' computer systems, stealing passwords, corrupting files and keeping system operators up all night fending off his attacks. In February 1995, the FBI arrested Mitnick in Raleigh, N.C. He was charged with 23 counts of assorted theft and computer crimes. All but one were subsequently dropped in a plea bargain, and Mitnick is in a Los Angeles jail awaiting a federal court hearing, scheduled for Monday, on the remaining charge. At the time of his arrest, Markoff labeled Mitnick "America's most-wanted cyberthief," and Shimomura was portrayed as a brilliant digital samurai who had tracked down Mitnick on a personal vendetta after the latter attacked Shimomura's own computer. Markoff's coverage contained at least one error and repeated others' exaggerations about Mitnick's prowess. In his work, Markoff asserted that Mitnick had nearly destroyed the WELL, a Sausalito, Calif. online service, an allegation the service has denied. The {New York Times} printed a correction. It was also asserted that Mitnick had himself stolen 20,000 credit-card numbers, but that, too, was later called into doubt when the numbers showed up in others' possession. Other charges -- of $4 million in damage to a Digital Equipment Corp. computer and the possession of corporate trade secrets worth billions of dollars -- were subsequently discredited. There's no question, however, that Mitnick has served jail time and been through numerous scrapes with law enforcement officials over the past 15 years. Defense attorneys once argued successfully that he was a computer addict whose sickness left him not responsible for his actions. No one who has endured a computer virus or hacker attack has much sympathy for intruders such as Mitnick. Shimomura and Markoff said they intended to perform a public service with their book, exposing the mind and methodology of a notorious 32-year-old Los Angeles computer intruder who has spent much of his life making things hard on computer-system operators and law enforcement authorities trying to track him down. But word got out that Shimomura and Markoff had accepted a $750,000 book deal with movie and residual options worth $1 million or so just days after Markoff's front-page stories highlighted the cybersleuthing talents of his collaborator-to-be. The online world smelled a rat. Discussion groups on the Internet and the WELL charged Markoff with conflicts of interest. Shimomura was accused of setting a trap for Mitnick so he could track the hacker down and become a cyberstar. Markoff said they did not pursue the case with the intention of turning it into a movie deal. Once it became evident that such a deal would occur, Markoff and his editors mutually agreed that he would no longer write about the case for the {New York Times.} Another source of contention is the author of a competing book, who has suggested Mitnick did not perform the break-in that led Shimomura into pursuit. "The sophistication of the attack virtually precludes Kevin from having done it without some help," Jeff Goodell told the Associated Press. Goodell wrote Dell Publishing's forthcoming "The Cyberthief and the Samurai." (Shimomura and Markoff said that although Mitnick might have had help, there's no doubt he broke into Shimomura's computer.) Paradoxically, Mitnick has wound up becoming almost a sympathetic character, portrayed as the victim of a couple of self-promoters out to make a buck. "There's some mechanism in American culture that wants to turn criminals into heroes," said Markoff. "And I believe I see this process going on now by which Kevin Mitnick is going to be a genuine American hero." A potential ally to the glamorization is a competing book by Mill Valley, Calif. author Jonathan Littman. "The Fugitive Game" (Little, Brown) shows Mitnick to be a clever, likable if somewhat untrustworthy scam artist with a sense of humor and gift for "social engineering." That's the term used to describe wheedling and lying to corporate and government underlings to obtain what should be protected documents and data. "The simple, unglamorous truth was that Kevin Mitnick, whatever his threat to cyberspace and society, was not that hard to find," writes Littman, who will appear on tour in Seattle on Wednesday. Ironically, both books agree -- despite Markoff's "most-wanted" tag -- that Mitnick was more a "grifter" and small-time con artist than a threat to society. "I don't think hackers do what they do with a charitable philosophy," Littman said, "but they do perform a service. Mitnick has shown that security is not a priority and hackers can read your mail, and that the FBI and others need to get up to speed on this stuff." Markoff defended his stories, saying he was acting as any reporter would in trying to alert the American public to security holes on the Internet. "When the FBI investigated him (Mitnick) and issued a warrant, the warrant was for breaking into a Pacific Bell computer while he was working for this company (a detective agency)," Markoff said. "I don't buy this thing that he's a pristine Robin Hood." In Seattle last fall, Mitnick lived as "Brian Merrill" in a University District apartment for five months while working as a computer assistant at Virginia Mason Medical Center. Detectives working for Cellular One (now AT&T Wireless) tracked the hacker to a basement apartment and kept him under surveillance for two weeks. They did not know it was Mitnick, however, and authorities took no action. It is unlikely Mitnick will ever face charges here. If he is convicted in the federal-court case in Los Angeles and serves time, authorities here doubt they will continue the case. Without Markoff writing about the case for the {New York Times}, one wonders how long the hacker will remain in the public eye. "Whether he is a good guy or bad guy isn't so much the issue," Markoff said. "The issue is Kevin Mitnick as harbinger of this world we're living in. He illustrated a set of vulnerabilities to this network. We're moving all of our commerce into this online world, and the network is not designed to provide the kind of security and privacy it needs to provide." "We wanted to demystify how this is done," Shimomura said. "I wanted to debunk this myth that this guy was a superhacker, that it is impossible to track these hackers down." As if three books were not enough, cyberspace provides more. A World Wide Web page -- http://www.takedown.com -- contains documents and voice recordings of Mitnick not found in any of the books. ------------------------------ From: Mike MacGregor Subject: Computer Intelligence Society? Organization: TRLabs, Networks & Systems Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 11:33:11 -0700 Hi Pat, Back on Jan. 17 in TELECOM Digest volume 16, issue 20, message 5 there was a note about something called the "computer intelligence society telecom archives", which supposedly was at ftp://cis.cybercom.net. At least from my site, there's no DNS entry for this. Any clues? Thanks, Mike MacGregor, TRLabs #800, 10611 - 98 Ave., Edmonton AB, T5K 2P7 Voice: (403) 441-3814 FAX: (403) 441-3600 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: All I know is what I saw in the original item. Perhaps someone who knows about the site or the archives will submit a correction or clarification. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 11:29:10 -0500 From: David M. Wigglesworth Subject: The Intelligent Network: What Exactly Is It? I have had this question posed to me recently and felt that I couldn't really answer it well enough. Perhaps readers of TELECOM Digest have their own ideas of what it is all about? David ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 00:31:40 -0800 From: vantek@northcoast.com (VANTEK COMMUNICATIONS) Subject: DLD Digest Censored in Germany Pat, I have just been informed that my publication Discount Long Distance Digest will no longer be available to our subscribers in Germany. It seems that the ISP we use to store our World Wide Web Homepage, FTP Archives and Mailing List has another client who's neo-nazi material has been banned for viewing by the German Government. Since the German ISP's are not sufficiently technically competent to manage blocking access to this single user's site, all 1,491 customers of Webcom Communications (webcom.com) in Santa Cruz, California, will have access to their sites shut-off by Deutsche Telekom, one of only two major ISP's in Germany (Compuserve is the other). Unfortunately, this means that we will no longer be able to send our readers in Germany our telecom-realated news articles. I know that we have several subscribers in Germany, some have even called me from overseas to ask questions, give feedback, etc. I feel very badly that they will be left out in the cold because of this. I absolutely do NOT support these Nazi wacko's views, but banning over 1,400 providers Homepages with no regard to content is eerily reminiscent of Hitler's tactics during the 30's and 40's. I guess they feel that the end justifies the means. Since we both serve many of the same subscribers, I would greatly appreciate it if you could publish this note to let me bid my (former) German subscribers a fond farewell. Hopefully we will be able to serve you again someday, somehow. Van Hefner - Editor of Discount Long Distance Digest http://www.webcom.com/longdist/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am sorry to have to be the bearer of this bad news to your German readers. Perhaps also you could try to serve them through email or via a different ISP. Over the weekend I had occassion to correspond with Computer Underground Digest about an ISP who wrote saying he would never 'censor' anyone who wanted an account. Your ISP may have felt the same way, and now in the process has managed to harm many innocent users like yourself as a result. I think we will see a lot more of that this year. It has already happened as we know with countless news groups whose only 'crime' was they happened to be located in the 'alt' hierarchy. When Compuserve made the decision to drop 'alt' on account of some of the totally outrageous stuff there the Germans were protesting, well poof! there went lots of good groups in the process now no longer getting forwarded by Compuserve. Your ISP apparently thought it was okay to allow the Nazi people free reign at his site, and now in the process all you legitimate users have lost out. Have you or other subscribers there been in contact with the ISP to convince him to get rid of that client or face losing the rest of you instead? A lot of ISPs are getting pressured -- even harassed -- by a group calling itself the American 'Civil Liberties' Union. They are being told 'you do not have the right to pick and choose among users; you do not have the right to decide what traffic you will pass on your network; it is censorship and a violation of the First Amendment when you refuse access to a user or group of users based on their speech.' Unfortunatly, a lot of ISPs are buying into that argument. A fellow writing to CuD even had the audacity to say he 'agreed' with the theory that the ISP's have the right to use their private property as they wished. Isn't that special! He did say he hoped they would not exercise that right however, preferring 'free speech' as the way to operate the net instead, with one speech piled on top of another speech, all the while the meter ticking as users wade through one pile of sewage after another to get to wherever they really want to be. Hopefully the ISPs won't fall for the guilt-tripping that is going on now about how they have some sort of moral and ethical obligation to provide a platform for everyone who comes along. The print media, with all it has to lose in the demise of the First Amendment, never fell for that song and dance, and neither have radio or television stations. They print and say *exactly what they please*, and they permit their columns or airwaves to be used *exactly as they please* period. The 'new-breed' of publisher/broadcaster/information provider we call Internet Service Providers should do the same. It only makes good sense to allow a wide diversity of opinions and ideas -- that is even a very good business decision quite often -- but not to the extent other users are harmed in the process. I guess where Discount Long Distance Digest and 1490 other users of that site are concerned, the ACLU would say 'Van Hefner be damned! At least the Nazis have their free speech on that site, no matter who else got hurt in the process.' PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jan 1996 23:31:45 -0500 From: npyuran@clark.net (Nick Yuran) Subject: Tcom Industry Employability How employable would an individual with a BS in Russian and an MA in Telecommunications be in the telecom industry? Are there any major US telcos operating in the Former USSR? What is the relative value of an MA vs. MS in Telecommunications in the telecom industry? Thanks in advance for any opinions on the matter. Nick Yuran (npyuran@clark.net) ------------------------------ From: Vincent Pillet Subject: GSM Telephone Blocked Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 11:41:17 +0000 Organization: UPC Hi, Could you help me to answer to my GSM question? I have bought a GSM telephone in Spain using the Airtel service provider. It's work quite well. BUT, the telephone itself is "blocked". That mean that I MUST use a spanish provider during ONE year. In a few months I will back to France (I'm French) closing my contract in Spain and opening a new one with a France Provider. Airtel says that I have to wait the end of my contract (on year contract) to be able to use my telephone in France. The telephone will reject all SIM card except spanish one. Airtel ask me for $250 CA to "unblock" the telephone before the end of my contract. (I don't want to use the roaming possibilities) It seems that the constructor of my telephone (Alcatel) have a contract with Airtel, selling telephone at a low price but blocking" it. Do you know how to "unblock" telephone ? Mine is an Alcatel HC400. Thanks for your help. Vincent PILLET Tel.: +34-3-401 71 87 FAX : +34-3-401 70 55 E-mail: vincent@ac.upc.es WWW: http://www.ac.upc.es/~vincent ------------------------------ From: parker@megatek.com (Mike Parker) Subject: ANI/Caller-ID Questions Regarding ISDN Service Date: 29 Jan 1996 17:20:28 GMT Organization: Megatek Corporation - San Diego, CA Reply-To: parker@megatek.com A recent post brought up something that I was wondering about ... For PRI ISDN what phone number information is being brought in and available? - ANI? - Caller ID information? How about for your standard BRI ISDN subscriber getting an incoming call? ANI? Caller ID? I am confused as to how both of these services and ISDN are implemented and work? together and how much information is presented and how for ISDN. Thanks, Mike ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 15:43:05 EST From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Questions About Cable Converter Box I have a couple of questions about a cable television converter box I got recently, and am hoping some of you will be able to answer or explain what is going on. Our local cable company here in Skokie is TCI Cable. They provide quite a few things, depending what you wish to pay them for, including 63 channels of television, 30 channels of background music you can receive by plugging a device they give you into the back of your existing radio/music system, and the 'SEGA game channel'. For the 63 television channels, I think we get about 20 channels of 'basic' along with another 20 channels of 'extended basic'. There are about 10 premium services, three or four 'pay-per-view' channels, and five or six public access channels including one devoted to the Skokie (1) village government (2) community college (3) public library (4) high school (5) elementary school. Another one is for anyone who wants to do so to just do their thing. My question concerns the way I receive it. On the main television in our living room, we have a VCR attached which allows up to 124 channels; these are numbered 2 through 125. TCI Cable operates on channels 1 through 63. On all the channels on the VCR on which there are associated *unblocked* cable channels, we receive it just fine. Those cable channels which are blocked present us only with a blue-background screen and silence. Above channel 63 we get a couple of odd things: Something which the VCR refers to as 'channel 77' presents just a lot of snow on the screen and static. This is likewise the case on 'channel 98' and 'channel 125'. Does anyone have any idea what causes these three oddballs? When I load the channel presets from 'TV' rather than from 'CATV' I get the usual over-the air channels but then in addition I get the non-existent 'channel 17' which turns out to be the TCI Cable 'TV Guide to Todays Programs' which if selected via CATV is on cable channel 21. The little television I have in my room is a totally different thing. It is an older television with 13 VHF channels and 83 UHF channels. If I attach the cable to the antenna on it, all I get is whatever TCI offers on channels 2 thru 13. If I put a cable converter box on it I get all the cable stations, but with peculiar results. On my old cable box the available channels were 00 (zero) through 59, for a total of sixty. Everything came in where TCI said it would with open channels (or paid premium channels) viewable. Unlike the television upstairs, if a cable channel is scrambled, then I get it anyway but with a scrambled picture. The television upstairs just gives a blank screen with no sound or picture. I am wondering why on my little television I get the scrambled channels but with all the horizonal focus messed up? Does the upstairs set 'know' to not even bother presenting these? My other question concerns the new cable converter box someone gave me for Christmas. It has seventy channels (my old one had sixty) and on the new unit they are labled 2 thru 71. Channels 2 thru 53 work fine. Channels 54 through 61 on this box either do nothing at all *or* they repeat some earlier channels. For instance, 55 and 56 repeat channels 5 and 6. Starting at channel 62 on the box I get everything from there up exactly 8 channels below. For example 62 on the box is 54 on the cable; 70 on the box is 62 on the cable; 71 on the box is 63 on the cable, etc. Also, channel 58 on the box is the mysterious channel 1 on the cable; the one that TCI insists can only be received with an addressable converter which you get from them. It is scrambled, but the audio is quite plain and although scrambled I can easily discern that channel 1 is purely 'adult programming'; TCI mentions it only very briefly (one or two sentences) in their monthly program guide. There is no mention of those programs in the guide book. The lady I spoke with at TCI to inquire seemed embarassed to discuss 'channel 1' and gave me an 800 number to call where it 'can be turned on if you want it'. Our upstairs television has no provision for channel 1 on the television or the VCR, nor does it do anything on channel 58 other than give the regular programs there. This is a Radio Shack 70 channel cable converter #15-1287. Does anyone know why channels 54-61 are not where they belong and why they resume at 62 (as 54) and work upward from that point exactly 8 channels out of alignment? All Radio Shack tech support would tell me is 'you cannot get channels 5-6, and channels 55-56 on the same box'. Does anyone know anything else of interest about this converter box? Here are the specs given: Input bandwidth 54-462 mhz Output channel 3 or 4 Input/output impedence 75 ohms Noise figure 11 db Cross Modulation -60 db (70 channels in each at +15 db mV) Fine tuning range +/- 3mhz in 125 khz steps Frequency stability 300 khz Output level 10db mV Input return loss 6 db Output return loss 6 db Local oscillator leakage 10 db mV maximum at input Power consumption 14 watts at 120 volts AC 60 hz In the book, the above line originally said 'AV' instead of 'AC' and it was carefully repaired to say 'AC' with a tiny piece of paper glued on top of the original letters. This was a new unit from Radio Shack. Anyone have any idea how to get the music channels that TCI refers to? I've seen the demo box at their office; it appears to just be a converter box similar to mine. Can my box be modified? Any ideas why channel 1 shows up on the box as 58? Other comments, ideas or fun projects? PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #31 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jan 30 18:41:09 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id SAA02698; Tue, 30 Jan 1996 18:41:09 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 18:41:09 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601302341.SAA02698@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #32 TELECOM Digest Tue, 30 Jan 96 18:41:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 32 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Bell Atlantic - CWA Settlement Details (John Dearing) PC-Based Voice Mail (Mickey Ferguson) Ameritech Plans to Close Payment Offices (Nigel Allen) Problem While Roaming to Dutch Network With SFR Subscription (E. Tholome) Re: DLD Digest Censored in Germany (Van Hefner) Re: Seeking Cellular Mailing List (Bob Keller) Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box (Tom Horsley) Re: Dollars For Domain Names? (Robert McMillin) Re: Dollars For Domain Names? (Michael P. Deignan) Re: Caller Pays Cellular Service (John R. Levine) Re: ISDN vs Cable Modems (Gerry A. Brown) Re: Remote Dial Tone? (Herlan Westra) Re: Remote Dial Tone? (Paul Cook) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jdearing@netaxs.com (John Dearing) Subject: Bell Atlantic - CWA Settlement Details Date: 29 Jan 1996 21:21:36 GMT Organization: Philadelphia's Complete Internet Provider Here are some highlights of the recent tentative agreement between Bell Atlantic and the CWA. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The following are "Common Issues" that have been tentatively agreed to by both sides. WAGES & COMPENSATION Wage increases of 10.6% over three years. Wage increase retroactive to 12-31-95, not to expiration of old contract. $1,500 ratification bonus to be paid six weeks after contract is ratified. Profit sharing for CWA represented employees. Base amount is $300 per year for 1996 and 1997 years of contract. Team-based incentive pay up to 5% of base wages with no base wages at risk. Amount of incentive to be determined by line of business unit meeting certain business related targets. PENSIONS Pension bands increased 12% over three years. 10% retroactive to 9-30-95, 1% on 1-1-97 and 1% on 1-1-98. Additional spousal joint and survivor annuity options. Continuation of pension "cashout" option thru 12-98. 4% raise in pensions for retirees. RETIREE HEALTH CARE Highlights are no retiree premuim contributions for the lenght of contract. The earliest any retiree would be subject to any contribution would be 2002. Emphasis on coordinated care. EMPLOYMENT SECURITY & RELATED ISSUES All broadband work from office to terminal/TAP/ONU assigned to core bargaining unit techs. Contractors now doing this work to be phased out. In Pennsylvania, renew headcount guarantee of 504 Outside Plant Techs and eliminate limitation on loaning OPTs to do service Tech repair work up to NID. Standard Income Security Plan (ISP) of $1,000 per year on net credited service (NCS) up to a max of 30 years ($30,000), retroactive to 8-6-95. Enhanced ISP of $2,000 per year of NCS up to $60,000 which must be offered prior to layoffs in the affet=cted title/workgroup. HEALTH CARE No huge changes here. Some improvements in Managed Care with some new emphasis on wellness and preventative care. Managed preseciption plan. -------------------- This is just a summary of the contract. Looking at it, it appears to balance the needs of the company to be flexible about job assignments and deployment of work with the employment security needs of a workforce that is seeing the very nature of their jobs change on a monthly basis. The contract also appears to be in line with what most of the other RBOCs negotiated last summer with their unions. I'm glad this is all behind us now. All that is left is the ratification vote which should be soon. John Dearing jdearing@netaxs.com ------------------------------ From: Mickey Ferguson Subject: PC-Based Voice Mail Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 05:38:01 +0000 Organization: Stac In article I wrote: > I've got my brand-new Pentium-75 at home running Win95 (OK, no major > workhorse, but quite a step up from my old 386SX-25!). I'd like to > find a nice program to handle my answering machine types of functions > at home. Nothing too fancy, just something to use my modem to answer > the call and store it on my PC hard disk, and then I can retrieve my > messages either at my leisure from my desk, or maybe even retrieve > them remotely by entering some kind of access code. Any suggestions? > Of course, price is also a consideration! (Of COURSE! ) I have received several responses, none of which I particularly like. So I guess I'll have to wait until it's time to buy a new modem, when I'll get one that's voice capable, or just stick with my ancient answering machine. (Sigh!) To comment on the products listed below, I've heard nothing but bad things from everyone concerning the product made by Reveal called "Voice Mail for PC". It may indeed be a good product, but I saw so many complaints in their CompuServe Forum (which I admit is where one is likely to see only problems and not compliments) that I'm steering clear of it. I never heard anything about the SUPERVOICE from Cheyyene Software or BitFax-Pro from Pacific Image Communications, other than that they both require voice-capable modems, an option I wasn't pursuing at the moment. Here are the responses, edited somewhat for brevity: ========================================================================== From: vasco@exit109.com (Jose Vasconcellos) Date: Fri, 29 Dec 95 12:46:51 GMT You'll need a voice capable modem. I like the AT&T based solutions. I'm using MS Phone and it works fine; has everything I need. It is distributed with new modems; unfortunately you can't buy it at a store. It works well with the MS Fax. It is TAPI compliant so I don't have to turn it off when I want to make a data call. If I were you I would only consider TAPI based packages. ========================================================================== Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 12:12:41 -0600 (CST) From: Dave LeVasseur You might take a trip down to your local Wal-Mart or equivalent discount store and look for a product made by Reveal called "Voice Mail for PC". It costs under $50 and enables your PC to act as an answering machine and/or speakerphone. They include a low-cost but functional microphone but you will need a soundcard to complete the system. I have one installed on my PC at work and when I have it set up it will answer a special extension number. Rumor has it that many modems are now being shipped with voice capability, so you might go that route instead, unless you already have a sound card. ========================================================================== Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 08:22:11 -0600 (CST) From: Dave LeVasseur In-Reply-To: <30E97AB8@smtpgateway.stac.com> On Tue, 2 Jan 1996, Mickey Ferguson wrote: > Do you by any chance have any more information on this company? I've never > heard of them, and I'd like to call them and maybe get a little bit more. Reveal is a spin-off of Packard Bell that was recently purchased by Creative Labs, the SoundBlaster people. We purchased ours via mail-order, direct from Reveal at: Reveal Express 1932 West 4th St. Suite #101 Tempe, AZ 85281 I can't find their sales number, but "direct" support is: 800/326-2222. > Does it add a new board into your system? Hook up on a com port? It connects to com1 or com2 via a DB25 or DB9 connector (converter supplied by Reveal). > Do you know how well it interacts with such things as your (fax/data?) modem > (hooked up on a separate com port)? I have only two com ports, one of which is tied up by a link to our in-house minicomputer. I switch back and forth between my modem and the "Telesound Voicemail" device manually for now, but will use an A/B switch as soon as I get my hands on one. > ... This sounds like a much nicer solution, but > since I already have a 14.4 modem without this capability, and these new > data/fax/voice modems cost $239 for a 28.8 modem, I can't justify it right > now. Same here, which is one of the reasons I thought the Reveal solution was worth checking out. > Thanks for any additional input you can provide. I haven't done any *extensive* testing of the system, other than basic experimentation (calling an extension within Midcom, calling the device to have it record an incoming message). It is a little tricky with respect to feedback, so correct settings of the sound card's mixer is crucial to ease of use. ========================================================================== Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 23:40:46 +0530 (IST) From: Parag Palsapure Get the SUPERVOICE (pacific soft.) or BitFax-Pro (Cheyenne) Both support voice/data/fax and you can retieve your messages (fax and voice both) by telephone. If you are using Linux, how about vgetty ? ========================================================================== From: Parag Palsapure Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 17:27:38 +0530 (IST) In-Reply-To: <30F301AE@smtpgateway.stac.com> from "Mickey Ferguson" at Jan 9, 96 03:59:00 pm > I called 800 information in the US and asked for Pacific Software, and the > number I got was to a company who knew nothing of a product called > SUPERVOICE. And I don't know who Cheyenne is, either. Can you help me a > little more here? And are these modems you are talking about, or software > packages to connect to a regular modem? > (This is all for Win95, so running any Linux programs isn't an option...) I am very sorry that I typed in the wrong name : the corrected this is here : Pacific Image Communications Inc. 919 South Fremount Avenue, Suite 238, Alhambra, CA 91803 Tel: 818 457 8880, fax : 818 457 8881 pcimage@aol.com Cheyyene Software Inc. 55, Bryant Avenue, Roslyn, NY 11576 (800) 243-9462 I don't have the fax number. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 01:17:18 -0500 Subject: Ameritech Plans to Close Payment Offices From: ndallen@io.org (Nigel Allen) Organization: Internex Online, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Ameritech has announced plans to shut down the offices where customers can pay their phone bills. The company says it will be increasing the number of agency locations (not owned by the telephone company) that accept payments. However, I don't know whether how large a fee these agency locations charge to accept payment, or how long it takes a payment made at an agent to be credited to a customer's account. The company's press release, somewhat misleadingly titled "Ameritech Increases Number of Payment Agent Locations", can be found at the following URL: http://www.ameritech.com/news/releases/dec_1995/payments.html Nigel Allen, Toronto, Ontario, Canada ndallen@io.org http://www.io.org/~ndallen/ CV available on request ------------------------------ From: tholome@francenet.fr (Eric Tholome) Subject: Problem While Roaming to Dutch Network With SFR Subscription Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 22:03:37 +0200 Hi there, My boss recently came up with a question that we haven't been able to solve yet: his wife has a GSM mobile station with a subscription to SFR (one of the two French GSM network operators). She has Call Forward Conditional (i.e. on no reply, on busy and on unreachable) to her Voice Mail. When she roams to the Dutch GSM network and switches her mobile station off, calls to her GSM number don't hit voice mail (they are just sent to treatment). This doesn't happen when she roams to other foreign networks such as English GSM networks. The only possible explanation that we could think of was that the Dutch network maybe does not implement IMSI attach/detach + her Voice Mail cannot be reached from outside France (this seems to be a fact of life with SFR's Voice Mail, but would need to be double checked). Does anybody knows more about this? Is anybody from the Dutch GSM network listening and able to give an explanation? Any hint would be appreciated! Eric Tholome | displayed with | private account 23, avenue du Centre | 100% recycled | tholome@francenet.fr 78180 Montigny le Bretonneux |___ pixels! ___| phone: +33 1 30 48 06 47 France \________/ fax: same number, call first! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 22:49:14 -0800 From: vantek@northcoast.com (VANTEK COMMUNICATIONS) Subject: Re: DLD Digest Censored in Germany Pat, Thanks very much for posting my message about DLD Digest being "banned" in Germany, because of the censorship policies in that nation. From what I have read from the owners of Webcom, they will NOT be getting rid of the neo-Nazi's, or other "objectional" Website operators, anytime soon. Since this is a legally "grey" area, without much prescedent, Webcom feels that if they were to start censoring ANY of their sites, that they would be responsible for the content of ALL sites operating on their server. They would much rather operate as a common carrier (such as telephone companies) than as an online service or publisher, like Prodigy or America Online. They are also very adamant about not wanting to censor or remove pages operated by Website owners who are not breaking any (U.S.) laws, but are simply expressing their views (however warped they may be), as is guaranteed to them by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I should also note on a personal level, that the owners of Webcom "condemn anti-Semitism, racism and hate unequivocally and in nothing but the strongest terms". Both of the founders of the company originally met while working for an organization which worked for "peace and non-violence". The president of the company lost his grandmother in a Nazi concentration camp. They definately do not support this particlular WWW site operator's opinion, but will defend their right to keep the site open. We will not be switching servers, because we feel that no matter where we go, someone in some country may find some of the content on sites operated by our fellow website operators objectionable. Thus, we would eventually end-up right back where we started from. I wonder how long it will be until access to servers at aol.com and prodigy.com (two services that now provide WWW Homepages for their subscribers) will be shut-down? I have listed a URL below for a Homepage I have created, which contains a statement from the owners of Webcom, as well as their e-mail addresses and Webcom's URL. Their sites (especially the neo-Nazi Homepage) seem to be rather jammed at the moment from people trying to log on. This situation has made "Zundelsite" more poplular than ever, unfortunately. Van Hefner - Editor Discount Long Distance Digest http://www.webcom.com/longdist/64/webnews.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Van, you made the decision which suits you. We obviously disagree on how it should have been handled. ISP's who feel they have some First Amendment obligation to service every kook and hate monger who come along are sadly mistaken. Their other, legitimate clients like yourself get hurt in the process. It would be too bad if all or most of the clients at the ISP abandoned him and went elsewhere wouldn't it? PAT] ------------------------------ Organization: Robert J Keller PC (Federal Telecommunications Law) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 07:04:49 -0500 From: Bob Keller Subject: Re: Seeking Cellular Mailing List In TELECOM Digest V16 #29, Joe E. Herbers inquired about a cellular-specific mailing list. I am not sure what list is mentioned in the FAQ (don't have time to go look right now), but to get some current information on the CELLULAR mailing list send a message to: listproc@comnets.rwth-aachen.de with the command information cellular in the body of your message. To subscribe to the list put the command: subscribe cellular in the body of the message. The list is limited to cellular, but the traffic is extremely light. Often weeks go by without a post. Hope that helps. Bob Keller (KY3R) mailto:rjk@telcomlaw.com http://www.his.com/~rjk/ ------------------------------ From: tom@ssd.hcsc.com (Tom Horsley) Subject: Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box Date: 30 Jan 1996 13:09:05 GMT Organization: Harris Computer Systems Corporation Reply-To: Tom.Horsley@hawk.hcsc.com > The television upstairs just gives a blank screen with no sound or > picture. I am wondering why on my little television I get the scrambled > channels but with all the horizonal focus messed up? Well, I know next to nothing about cable boxes, but this behavior is not due to the cable box, but rather is thanks to your new TV being "smart" enough to not try to show poor quality signals. Your older television is too stupid to decide for you that you don't want to watch such a poor quality signal, so it lets you go ahead and try to watch it anyway. With my new "smart" TV, even on unscrambled channels, I get this sometimes when the reception is poor (you wouldn't think you'd get poor reception on cable, but that's another story :-). Tom.Horsley@mail.hcsc.com Home: 511 Kingbird Circle Delray Beach FL 33444 Work: Harris Computers, 2101 W. Cypress Creek Rd. Ft. Lauderdale FL 33309 Support Project Vote Smart! They need your support in non-election years too! (email pvs@neu.edu, 1-800-622-SMART, http://www.vote-smart.org) ------------------------------ From: rlm@netcom.com (Robert McMillin) Subject: Re: Dollars For Domain Names? Organization: Charlie Don't CERF Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 23:12:07 GMT On 28 Jan 1996 23:32:49 PDT, draperk@io.com (Draper Kauffman) said: > How much is a "good" domain name worth? Here's another question: how much is an IP address worth? If there were a market for IP addresses at, say, $5 each, that would make an A-class address space worth about $84 million if you could use every address. Not bad! (Of course, if you subdivided it into C-class addresses, you'd have to subtract the unusable addresses from that, but still ...) And, I suspect $5 is pretty low compared to what people might be willing to pay. Put it this way: it would DEFINITELY prompt the military and everyone else who currently owns all those juicy A- and B-class IP addresses to subdivide them as C-class addresses. Now, if we could convince everyone to simultaneously change the way they do routing. Robert L. McMillin | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Netcom: rlm@netcom.com WWW: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/rl/rlm/home.html ------------------------------ From: kd1hz@anomaly.ideamation.com (Michael P. Deignan) Subject: Re: Dollars For Domain Names? Date: 29 Jan 1996 19:41:53 -0500 Organization: The Ace Tomato Company In article , Draper Kauffman wrote: > How much is a "good" domain name worth? Its worth whatever the big company is willing to pay for it. The existing domain name has recognition and a certain amount of goodwill. The company will need to be compensated for that, plus whatever else it can get as a profit. This post brings up an interesting point, one which I posted to news.admin several weeks ago. If companies do indeed "own" domain names, then the Internic, which currently maintains the top-level .com domain, cannot arbitrarily reassign a domain name that someone fails to pay the Internic's extortion of $50/year. Personally, I've been trying to find an attorney that will file a class action lawsuit to seek injunctive relief against NSI and prevent them from "charging" for domain names that were registered prior to their announcement of a $50/year "maintenance fee", since there is no contractual basis for this charge (i.e. I never signed a document that said I agreed to pay NSI $50/year for them to maintain my domain name.) In the same injunction, I want NSI to be prevented from reassigning the domain names currently registered under party X's name to another company/party (something they have threatened to do if you don't pay your $50/yr.) So far I've had no luck. Any budding attornies out there? MD ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Jan 96 08:37:00 EST From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Caller Pays Cellular Service Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > US West has entered into a billing and collections agreement with > some cellular carriers to offer Calling Party Pays to their cellular > customers. ... In all areas you will be billed for the cellular > airtime charges associated with the call in addition to any > applicable long distance charges. Do they say anything about what happens if you try to make an inter-LATA call to one of these numbers? I've never heard of an IXC agreeing to bill for anyone else's charges. so there are basically two possibilities: the call completes at the regular toll rate and nobody pays for the airtime, or the IXC blocks the call as it does to other surcharged prefixes such as 976. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - Stanford econ prof ------------------------------ From: gbrown@interramp.com (Gerry A. Brown) Subject: Re: ISDN vs Cable Modems Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 09:12:46 -0800 Organization: gerry Brown associates > I live in central Seattle. I am about to sign on for ISDN service > from a provider as well as buy about $1000 worth of ISDN equipment to > allow me to telecommute, and hopefully run my X application from home > using 128 K service (2 bonded B channels). Russ, Why in the world are you paying $1000? A top of the line ISDN modem costs only about $400 on the street. I highly recommend either the 3Com Impact or the Motorola Bitsurfer. The newer models support Multilink PPP (2 bonded B channels). Good Luck! gerry ------------------------------ From: Herlan Subject: Re: Remote Dial Tone? Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 21:52:50 -0500 Organization: http:\\brainiac.com\herlan\ Bob Keller wrote: > distance plan along with my cellular. I would like to be able to call > one of my home lines from my downtown office (or from anywhere else, > for that matter) and then access dial tone for dialing back out. Many electronic key telephone systems have a remote access feature that allows you to do just that ... if you want to invest in the equipment. However, it is a security risk. If you can do it, so can someone else, unless you change the access codes frequently. Herlan Westra http://brainiac.com/herlan/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jan 96 11:57:00 EST From: Proctor & Associates <0003991080@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: Remote Dial Tone? Bob Keller rjk@telcomlaw.com writes: > How can I set up a personal system that allows me to dial from any > other number into my home office line, access dial tone from the > remote location, either on the same line (the one I just called into) > or on a separate line? Our 46300F3 Secured System Access Line will do this. It has security (via a programmable security code that you dial before it lets you into the other line) and a 2-way voice repeater to give you some amplification. There is a cheaper model (46300F1) without the voice repeater, and another model (46300F1) with a ringing generator for use where you want added security on some dial-in device, such as a modem or PBX maintenance port. It can also be programmed to dial the user back before allowing access. Contact Proctor and Associates for more info. Paul Cook Proctor & Associates ph: 206-881-7000 15050 NE 36 St. fx: 206-885-3282 Redmond, WA 98052-5378 email: 3991080@mcimail.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #32 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jan 30 20:23:02 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id UAA10753; Tue, 30 Jan 1996 20:23:02 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 20:23:02 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601310123.UAA10753@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #33 TELECOM Digest Tue, 30 Jan 96 20:23:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 33 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box (Ray Hazel) Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box (John Higdon) Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box (Martin McCormick) Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box (Garrett A. Wollman) Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box (jlbene@aol.com) Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box (Edward T. Spire) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 30 Jan 96 14:14:37 PST From: razel@toe.net.com (Ray Hazel) Subject: Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box Organization: Network Equipment Technologies, Inc. Boy, you pose a lot of questions ... here are some answers: The cable box TCI provides is programmable. This means that they can pretty much place a cable channel where ever they want in the cable box sequence. Thus, when you "look" at channel 58 via your TV/VCR (scrambled though), you recognize what TCI presents to you on channel 1 ... if you pay for it. Probably the "Spice" channel ... supposed to make the "Playboy" channel tame in comparison. Which may explain the embarrasment you mentioned. The wavy "loss of horizontal sync" picture is just that. The horizontal sync pulse is suppresed quite-a-bit and shoved over to the sound carrier. The cable box "decodes" this and restores it to the channel you have the cable box send the program to the tv on (channel 3 or 4). Most TV's blank out the picture when they can't latch onto a sync pulse satisfactorily, hence the blank (blue?) screen you mentioned. You might check out the "program schedule". Sometimes they will mention that certain channels appear elsewhere "without converter". Elsewhere is where you will find them on the straight connection to the VCR and TV. You will probably find snow where the "program schedule" says it is normally. Can't help on the music ... it'll be interesting to see what others say about it, though. Hope this is helpful. Ray Hazel razel@net.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yes, your information has been helpful. I received quite a few replies and am including several of them in this issue. The adult programming is provided by 'Spice' and you are correct that it makes the Playboy Channel look like something from Disney. 'Spice' occupies the channel from 9 pm until 5 am each day. Another service called 'Action' is on at other hours. The latter is all R-rated while the former is totally X-rated, and sort of resembles the adult bookstore peepshow variety of film with closeups that leave nothing to the imagination. In between movies during the 'Spice' hours, a woman comes on selling 'Doc Johnson marital aids' and sex toys, etc which can be ordered with a credit card. More responses follow. PAT] ------------------------------ Organization: Green Hills and Cows Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 14:40:32 -0800 From: John Higdon Subject: Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box At 10:55 PM on 1/29/96, Patrick A. Townson wrote: > Anyone have any idea how to get the music channels that TCI > refers to? I've seen the demo box at their office; it appears to > just be a converter box similar to mine. Can my box be modified? Probably not. The DMX service occupies the equivalent of six television channels with a specially coded digital signal that yields around 30 high-quality audio channels. It has its own addressing system and, most importantly, the special audio decoding system. The service is provided on most systems via a separate box that is either rented or purchased. As mentioned, the boxes are addressable, so one must pay for the service to get it, even with the box. John Higdon | P.O. Box 7648 | +1 408 264 4115 | FAX: john@ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | +1 500 FOR-A-MOO | +1 408 264 4407 | http://www.ati.com/ati | ------------------------------ From: Martin McCormick Subject: Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box Date: 30 Jan 1996 21:26:42 GMT Organization: Oklahoma State University Stillwater, OK In article ptownson@massis.lcs. mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) writes: > 63 channels of television, 30 channels of background music you can > receive by plugging a device they give you into the back of your > existing radio/music system, and the 'SEGA game channel'. > My question concerns the way I receive it. On the main television > in our living room, we have a VCR attached which allows up to > 124 channels; these are numbered 2 through 125. The channel arrangement of cable television incorporates the 12 VHF channels that we can get over the air in to its overall scheme. The first thing to clear up some of the confusion is to understand that all the rest of the cable channels represent 6 megahertz blocks of spectrum between roughly 50MHZ and 1GHZ. One channel assignment system which seems to be more or less a standard is the Gerald system which assigns letters to all the channels that aren't 2-12. These special channels mainly use frequencies that are used by police, business, the military, etc for radio communication. When things are working right, the signals going through the air don't leak in to the cable system, (ingress) nor do the cable programs leak out, (egress). Also, the 12 VHF tv channels are split in to a low band, (2-6) and a high VHF band, (7-13). Channel 2 starts at 54MHZ and 6 ends at 88MHZ. Channel 7 starts at 175MHZ and 13 ends at 216MHZ. In between TV channels 6 and 7 is the FM broadcast band, the aviation band, military and satellite frequencies, the 2-meter amateur radio band, and the VHF high band which is crammed full of commercial and government communications systems used for paging and 2-way radio operations. In the parallel universe of cable, the frequency of 108MHZ starts channel A and then continues with channel B, C, etc until the channel between 168-174MHZ which I believe is channel I. The next channel is TV channel 7 both on cable and over the air, and the numbers count up until 13 at which point the cable and air worlds diverge again. Cable folks call channels A-I the "low-mid-band." Above TV channel 13, the Gerald designations start again with double letters such as AA, BB, etc. To further mix things up, most VCR's, cable-ready TV's and cable converters don't pay much attention to the Gerald channel designations, but keep numbering the channels such that Gerald channels A-I become 14-23 despite the fact that over-the-air television has UHF channels 14-69 which cover a totally separate range of frequencies. We have a television that if connected to an antenna will autoprogram with the over-the-air scheme and, if connected to a cable, will use the cable channel frequencies so that if you punch up channel 14 on cable, you get Gerald channel A but if you do the same connected to an antenna, you get the range of 470-476MHZ for channel 14. The cable industry calls channels AA and others above channel 13 the high-mid band and somewhere above 400MHZ it is known as the superband. The way in which different manufacturers handle some channels in the FM broadcast band and below TV channel 2 seems to be highly dependent upon the brand and model of the tuning system as there appears to be no standard. > Those cable channels which are blocked present us only with > a blue-background screen and silence. More than likely, the video circuitry in the VCR does not like the scrambled signal and rightly does not see it as valid video. It may have a muting circuit which engages like a squelch to keep out the noise. > Above channel 63 we get a couple of odd things: Something which the > VCR refers to as 'channel 77' presents just a lot of snow on the > screen and static. This is likewise the case on 'channel 98' and > 'channel 125'. Does anyone have any idea what causes these three odd > balls? No, but our television allows one to override the channels that were originally thought to be bad so that you can see all the snow you want on any blocked channel. It could also be that the VCR is receiving digital data on those channels that fools the video processor in to thinking that there is a good signal and not to be muted. The circuitry that separates the video from the snow is probably not very smart and is only looking for vertical sync or some other common component of a video signal to know when to unmute. As for why the little television gets the scrambled signals with a bad picture but the VCR and larger television get no picture at all, that is due to the fact that the VCR and large TV detect the scrambled picture as no signal at all. One of the more common methods for scrambling TV signals is to ruin the sync portion of the signal which tells your television when to start scanning a new frame of video. There is also information which synchronizes the color circuitry at the beginning of each horizontal line so that your TV knows what color is supposed to be what in the picture. Descrambler boxes "know," so to speak how the sync was ruined and can restore it to look like it should. The little TV probably doesn't have any fancy video muting circuit and its sync circuitry hunts aimlessly for the pulse that should lock it in step with the signal. The VCR's sync circuit has the same trouble with the scrambled picture, but you don't see it due to the mute. As for channel 1, this probably is one of those signals with altered or inverted synchronization. The designers of that particular system must think they have done a good job even though the sound is still normal. The inverted sync does make the sound buzz a little, but it is normally quite clear. Our cable system also has several channels like that and that was the system they used in 1992 for the infamous NBC Triplecast of the Summer Olimpics. There are lots of different variations on the scrambling game besides the sync inversions and video polarity reversals. Cable companies use signal traps placed on your tap which absorb channels or ranges of channels which you haven't paid for. They also inject strong carriers near the color burst frequency and then trap them out on those subscribers who want the channel. As for the music service, this is most likely something like DMX or Digital Music Express which is probably multiplexed in with the SEGA data in some format like MPEG or Musicam. The cable company just fills one of those 6MHZ-wide TV channels with binary data that turns in to music with the proper decoder. This answers your question about receiving the music on an ordinary cable box. Probably, one of those odd static-filled channels is all the music and the SEGA channel rolled in to one bit stream. Maybe others can correct me on the finer points and fill in some gaps. Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK 36.7N97.4W OSU Center for Computing and Information Services Data Communications Group ------------------------------ From: wollman@halloran-eldar.lcs.mit.edu (Garrett A. Wollman) Subject: Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box Date: 30 Jan 1996 12:29:43 -0500 Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science In article , TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > My question concerns the way I receive it. On the main television > in our living room, we have a VCR attached which allows up to > 124 channels; these are numbered 2 through 125. TCI Cable operates > on channels 1 through 63. Unfortunately, this doesn't really tell you much. There are EIA standards for the numbering of cable channels, but not all cable systems follow them. Generally speaking, channels 2-6 are the standard VHF low-band channels also used on TV (although some systems may use channel 4A, at a slightly different frequency from TV channel 4). Channels 7-13 are the standard VHF high-band channels used in broadcast TV as well. Channels 14-22 are located in the gap between the FM band and channel 7, which is used by aircraft, hams, and various other forms of mobile two-way radio. (That's why in leaky cable systems, you will often get a lot of interference on channel 19.) Channels 23-53 correspond to a large segment of the VHF high band mostly reserved by the government. From channel 54 on up, things tend to lose grip of the standard. On my cable system, channel 56 is actually the official channel 99, which on my TV set (but not VCR) shows up as channel 0. Starting at EIA cable channel 64, the cable and broadcast bands overlap again, although they are not precisely aligned. Furthermore, some cable systems located in high-signal areas modify their converters to re-map the broadcast signals onto different channels. For example, if you live close to a broadcast channel 5, the cable company might reprogram your converter to show you channel 55 when you select channel 5, to avoid interference caused by the real broadcast channel 5 leaking into the cable system. > Anyone have any idea how to get the music channels that TCI > refers to? I've seen the demo box at their office; it appears to > just be a converter box similar to mine. Can my box be modified? It is very likely a digital music service. Garrett A. Wollman | Shashish is simple, it's discreet, it's brief. ... wollman@lcs.mit.edu | Shashish is the bonding of hearts in spite of distance. Opinions not those of| It is a bond more powerful than absence. We like people MIT, LCS, ANA, or NSA| who like Shashish. - Claude McKenzie + Florent Vollant ------------------------------ From: JLBENE@aol.com Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 09:48:44 -0500 Subject: Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box To answer some of your questions: Your little old TV will receive scrambled pictures as you see them; with no horizontal sync, because that is how they are scrambled and broadcast. Your main TV, as with many newer TVs or VCRs, will blank(fill with solid color) the screen when it cannot lock to the horizontal sync. Maybe this was done to cooperate with cable companies to make it more difficult for people to attempt descrambling? or could it also be done to eliminate the loud white noise and snow when a tuner receives no signal? For the new cable box: if you've ever noticed on some cable boxes, a switch located on the back or bottom says STD/HRC/IRC, this allows selection of different types of cable systems. I don't know the exact specs, but channels 5 and 6 on the STD system are at the same carrier frequency as the broadcast stations, but on one of the other selections the carrier is shifted slightly. This may be why these channels show up higher in the spectrum, as a way to eliminate the STD/HRC/IRC switch. Many newer tuners will tune even to the offset channels because their automatic tuning has a wider range to lock onto a carrier. Now, channel 1: This channel was always allocated in the broadcast spectrum, but was typcially reserved for the UHF tuner on older, non-cable ready sets, and therefore nothing was ever broadcast at this frequency. The cable companies have grown in spectrum and seem to be using many higher numbers, but why not use channel 1, especially when, in many instances, one would need to rent a converter from them to view this channel. I'm not sure about the strange channels high in the spectrum, but I have noticed similarities on my own system. John ------------------------------ From: Edward T Spire Subject: Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 09:30:14 -0600 TELECOM Digest Editor wrote: > My question concerns the way I receive it. On the main television > in our living room, we have a VCR attached which allows up to > 124 channels; these are numbered 2 through 125. This is a newer, "cable ready" TV. Normally, you can switch a setting on a set like this between two positions, "normal" (or something that indicates "broadcast") and "cable". When you have plugged a cable feed directly into such a set, you should select "cable" for this setting. > TCI Cable operates on channels 1 through 63. On all the channels on > the VCR on which there are associated *unblocked* cable channels, we > receive it just fine. Those cable channels which are blocked present > us only with a blue-background screen and silence. This is a "feature" of your set. If it does not detect a clear signal on a channel, it displays nothing. You see, there are two ways they "block" a channel, and both of them amount to modifying the signal. One common way is to supress some of the sync signals, which causes a picture that breaks up terribly. With this method, the soud comes through fine. There's another method that produces snow on the screen and no sound. Your cable box can correct either of these signal deficinacies, if TCI will program it to do so. Or you can buy or build a decoder that will do the trick for you, but you should still be paying for anything you decode. > Above channel 63 we get a couple of odd things: Something which the > VCR refers to as 'channel 77' presents just a lot of snow on the > screen and static. This is likewise the case on 'channel 98' and > 'channel 125'. Does anyone have any idea what causes these three > oddballs? These are blocked channels that your TV is not filtering out, as described above. The algorithm used to detect a clear signal is confused about these channels. I can put the set directly on one of these channels, and it will alternate between fuzzy screen and blue screen, depending upon the signal content. > When I load the > channel presets from 'TV' rather than from 'CATV' I get the usual > over-the air channels but then in addition I get the non-existent > 'channel 17' which turns out to be the TCI Cable 'TV Guide to > Todays Programs' which if selected via CATV is on cable channel 21. This is the setting I mentioned above. Leave it on CATV when you have the cable plugged directly into the set. > The little television I have in my room is a totally different thing. > It is an older television with 13 VHF channels and 83 UHF channels. This set is not cable ready, and you will get very poor results plugging the cable feed directly into the set. > If I attach the cable to the antenna on it, all I get is whatever > TCI offers on channels 2 thru 13. If I put a cable converter box on > it I get all the cable stations, but with peculiar results. > On my old cable box the available channels were 00 (zero) through > 59, for a total of sixty. Everything came in where TCI said it would > with open channels (or paid premium channels) viewable. Unlike the > television upstairs, if a cable channel is scrambled, then I get > it anyway but with a scrambled picture. This older set doesn't try and screen out bad signals ... > The television upstairs just gives a blank screen with no sound or > picture. I am wondering why on my little television I get the > scrambled channels but with all the horizonal focus messed up? Does > the upstairs set 'know' to not even bother presenting these? YES! > My other question concerns the new cable converter box someone gave > me for Christmas. It has seventy channels (my old one had sixty) > and on the new unit they are labled 2 thru 71. Channels 2 thru 53 > work fine. Channels 54 through 61 on this box either do nothing > at all *or* they repeat some earlier channels. For instance, 55 and > 56 repeat channels 5 and 6. Starting at channel 62 on the box I > get everything from there up exactly 8 channels below. For example > 62 on the box is 54 on the cable; 70 on the box is 62 on the cable; > 71 on the box is 63 on the cable, etc. Cable companies do play games with channel location, and I don't know why. Normally they will move things around, and then program their boxes to move them back. A substitute cable box that does not decode premium channels sounds like a waste of money to me. > Also, channel 58 on the box is the mysterious channel 1 on the > cable; the one that TCI insists can only be received with an > addressable converter which you get from them. It is scrambled, > but the audio is quite plain and although scrambled I can easily > discern that channel 1 is purely 'adult programming'; TCI mentions > it only very briefly (one or two sentences) in their monthly > program guide. There is no mention of those programs in the guide > book. The lady I spoke with at TCI to inquire seemed embarassed > to discuss 'channel 1' and gave me an 800 number to call where it > 'can be turned on if you want it'. Our upstairs television has > no provision for channel 1 on the television or the VCR, nor does > it do anything on channel 58 other than give the regular programs > there. Yep, you need a cable ready TV to get this. This is an example of their moving channels around. The adult material is sent on channel 58, scrambled, and the box decodes it and moves it to channel one. Note that there is no channel one in a broadcast setup, only in catv mode, so perhaps they cannot even send it on the coax as channel 1 ... There are a number of web sites that provide tutorial information on all this, as well as selling various boxes. Search for cable TV ... Ed Spire Voice: 708-696-4800 ext 69 The Workstation Group Fax: 708-696-2277 6300 River Road, Suite 501 Email: ets@wrkgrp.com Rosemont, Illinois, USA Web: http://www.wrkgrp.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You say, 'a substitute cable box that does not decode channels sounds like a waste of money'. I am not all that interested in getting all the premium channels. In addition to the basic and extended basic channels we receive HBO. There is more than enough to watch, and I seldom spend more than about an hour a day with television, if that much. Our situation is the cable has a jack in several rooms and I have that small television sitting on the table by my computer. The old box which I got some time ago was about fifteen years old and was pretty messed up. Had I not gotten this new one as a gift I would have probably managed without it. I don't think there are any legal boxes available which do decoding as well are there? My thanks also to the several others who wrote me who are not included here including James Bellaire for sending along the chart showing the channel assignments. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #33 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 31 00:10:02 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id AAA29414; Wed, 31 Jan 1996 00:10:02 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 00:10:02 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601310510.AAA29414@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #34 TELECOM Digest Wed, 31 Jan 96 00:10:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 34 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: DLD Digest Censored in Germany (Tor-Einar Jarnbjo) Re: DLD Digest Censored in Germany (Robert Levandowski) Re: DLD Digest Censored in Germany (Eduardo Kaftanski) Re: DLD Digest Censored in Germany (David O'Heare) Re: DLD Digest Censored in Germany (Garrett A. Wollman) Re: ANI/Caller-ID Questions Regarding ISDN Service (Brian Brown) Re: ANI/Caller-ID Questions Regarding ISDN Service (Hendrik Rood) Re: Ameritech Plans to Close Payment Offices (John Hines) Re: Ameritech Plans to Close Payment Offices (John R. Grout) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bjote@cs.tu-berlin.de (Tor-Einar Jarnbjo) Subject: Re: DLD Digest Censored in Germany Date: 30 Jan 1996 22:05:08 GMT Organization: Technical University of Berlin, Germany VANTEK COMMUNICATIONS (vantek@northcoast.com) wrote: > I have just been informed that my publication Discount Long > Distance Digest will no longer be available to our subscribers in > Germany. It seems that the ISP we use to store our World Wide Web > Homepage, FTP Archives and Mailing List has another client who's > neo-nazi material has been banned for viewing by the German > Government. > Since the German ISP's are not sufficiently technically competent to > manage blocking access to this single user's site, all 1,491 customers > of Webcom Communications (webcom.com) in Santa Cruz, California, will > have access to their sites shut-off by Deutsche Telekom, one of only two > major ISP's in Germany (Compuserve is the other). > Unfortunately, this means that we will no longer be able to send our > readers in Germany our telecom-realated news articles. I know that we > have several subscribers in Germany, some have even called me from > overseas to ask questions, give feedback, etc. I feel very badly that > they will be left out in the cold because of this. I might be able to add some information about this blockage, and unfortunately not to your favour. If you beleive that Deutsche Telekom has blocked service to www.webcom.com just for their own subscribers (through T-Online) you must be wrong. In Germany all scientific insti- tutions are connected to the "Wissenschaftsnetz" (WiN) or "Scientific net", a backbone through Germany. As I have my internet-account on the Technical University of Berlin, I luckily don't have very much with Deutsche Telekom to do, except that I have to pay for my dialup connection to the university, but back to WiN and your web-site. WiN is of course run by Deutsche Telekom (as the monopoly they have), and the blocking is actually made in one of the gateways serving the WiN network, which means, I would assume, that not only the DT customers, but also all the people which are served by WiN are affected by this block. If someone is able to do something about it, you should perhaps try, just as a protest, to assign a different IP-address to the web-server as traceroutes to both 206.2.192.65 and 67 gets through, only the route to s1000e.webcom.com (206.2.192.66) is currently blocked. Strangely no one has been talking about this in Germany, but perhaps it still has to be discovered by someone (like me). The debate will probably continue; are the ISPs responsible for the information they carry? German superiour court has already decided that Deutsche Post and Deutsche Telekom are _not_ responsible for the information they carry in mail and telephone calls, but obviously the internet is something special, which has to be governed by politicians with no ideas of what it really is. I hope I can get back with more information about this, if there is any interest. With regards from Germany, Tor-Einar Jarnbjo, bjote@cs.tu-berlin.de [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Please do send reports from Germany on this as you are able to do so. PAT] ------------------------------ From: rlvd_cif@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Robert Levandowski) Subject: Re: DLD Digest Censored in Germany Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York Date: Tue, 30 Jan 96 20:13:58 GMT In Moderator Pat writes: > A lot of ISPs are getting pressured -- even harassed -- by a group > calling itself the American 'Civil Liberties' Union. They are being > told 'you do not have the right to pick and choose among users; you > do not have the right to decide what traffic you will pass on your > network; it is censorship and a violation of the First Amendment > when you refuse access to a user or group of users based on their > speech.' Unfortunatly, a lot of ISPs are buying into that argument. > A fellow writing to CuD even had the audacity to say he 'agreed' > with the theory that the ISP's have the right to use their private > property as they wished. Isn't that special! He did say he hoped > they would not exercise that right however, preferring 'free speech' > as the way to operate the net instead, with one speech piled on top > of another speech, all the while the meter ticking as users wade > through one pile of sewage after another to get to wherever they > really want to be. Pat, Does the telephone company have the right to refuse service to a customer because they might use the telephone to make calls to Nazis? Does the government have the right to ban books because they make pro-Nazi claims? In this country, the answer is a resounding NO. Personally, I think that the Nazis, Neo-Nazis, and any other similar racist, fascist, or otherwise Hitleresque group are the scum of the earth, and I have no use for them. However, that doesn't give me the right to say they can't talk all they want. In fact, I think the very best way to keep such groups from power is to LET them disseminate their propaganda far and wide. It's ludicrous. It keeps them out in the open, exposed to public ridicule. If there are people out there who would become Nazis after reading a pro-Nazi book, I sincerely doubt that they'd be any more socially acceptable if they -hadn't- read the book ... or the Internet posting, for that matter. > Hopefully the ISPs won't fall for the guilt-tripping that is going > on now about how they have some sort of moral and ethical obligation > to provide a platform for everyone who comes along. The print media, > with all it has to lose in the demise of the First Amendment, never > fell for that song and dance, and neither have radio or television > stations. They print and say *exactly what they please*, and they > permit their columns or airwaves to be used *exactly as they please* > period. The 'new-breed' of publisher/broadcaster/information provider > we call Internet Service Providers should do the same. It only makes > good sense to allow a wide diversity of opinions and ideas -- that > is even a very good business decision quite often -- but not to the > extent other users are harmed in the process. This assumes that the ISP is a publisher, like a newspaper, that exercises editorial control over each and every posting. That's not a very accurate model. ISPs are more like telephone companies -- a de-facto common carrier, that passes along traffic without editing it, and only acts when complaints about customer usage are received. Pat, the villain here is not the ISP that believed our forefathers actually meant what they said when they wrote the Bill of Rights. If anyone is acting against the best interests of your readers, it is the German government. That government has decided to flex its muscles in an attempt to impose German morals on a worldwide network. It makes me wonder how long it will take for the German people to tell their leaders, "Enough! We don't need to be protected from ourselves!" Instead, the German government acts as if Germany is a German shepard with a swastika on its collar, ready to ravage the world with Nazism again if the government loosens its grip on the leash one little bit. I sincerely doubt that is the case -- no German I know matches that stereotype. The German people I have known have been fine, upstanding examples of humanity. It is unfortunate that their government is generating a poor image. Do you REALLY think that an American ISP should deny service to one person because a foreign government finds their statements objectionable? With no due process? No violation of American law? Should ISPs give in to virtual blackmail in fear of being shut off to German users? The law is the law, and the law of THIS country is: you have the right to freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, and of religion; you have the right to due process, and a fair trial for any alleged crime; and you have the right to be a boorish, sadistic, racist idiot. We don't have to like it, or condone it, but we don't have the right to censor it. Rob Levandowski University of Rochester -- Rochester, New York rlvd_cif@uhura.cc.rochester.edu [Opinions expressed are mine, not UR's.] [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Here we go again on what is 'censoring'. As long as you have the ability to speak, write, transmit your ideas and messages to others, you are not being censored. Whether or not I or anyone else allows you to use their computer in the process has no relevance as long as you are free to set up your own computer and network. Did the government ever tell the Nazis they could not do that? Why are you claiming your free speech rights are more important than my rights to use my property as I desire? You say telephone companies do not have the right to deny service to someone based on their speech, and then you compare an ISP to a telco. Well Rob, I have seen lots of telcos, and you don't come close to resembling one. Telcos are common carriers. Would you like to have common carrier status? Are you prepared to keep all the books and records and logs required of a common carrier? Have you ever formally applied for such status either with the state or federal government? Are you prepared to have the government regulate your business as they do common carriers including telcos? You want the benefits you see common carriers having with none of the obligations that go along with such. Whenever you change your rates do you have a tariff on file I can go inspect at a government agency? Then you had better not talk about being a common carrier. PAT] ------------------------------ From: ekaftan@howard.netup.cl (Eduardo Kaftanski) Subject: Re: DLD Digest Censored in Germany Date: 30 Jan 1996 13:03:18 -0300 Organization: NetUp, lo nuevo en proveedores Internet In article : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well Van, you made the decision which > suits you. We obviously disagree on how it should have been handled. > ISP's who feel they have some First Amendment obligation to service > every kook and hate monger who come along are sadly mistaken. Their > other, legitimate clients like yourself get hurt in the process. It > would be too bad if all or most of the clients at the ISP abandoned > him and went elsewhere wouldn't it? PAT] I, as a Digest subscriber, don't feel your 'We' in the second line of your answer is valid. I personally don't feel any ISP should filter what their customers offer as content. I run an ISP myself, and would never close somebody's account unless they violate local laws. It it stated in their contract that it is their sole responsability and that they disclaim our firm of any responsability. I seriosly think once I start filtering, we become co-responsable for content, something I don't wan't. Eduardo Kaftanski NETup, la puerta de acceso a la Internet ekaftan@netup.cl http://www.netup.cl/ F: +56-2-2510346 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: That 'we' referred to Van and myself, not to myself and (of necessity) any other person reading this. Filtering is not the same as simply refusing service to persons you do not want as customers. It is not the same as simply editing your active file or system .newsrc file to reject newsgroups you are not interested in distributing. Using your logic, it would seem that any site which has expelled Jeff Slaton or Kevin Liptsitz as a user is now somehow responsible for what all their other subscribers do since the ISP was 'selective' about not allowing those two subscribers on the system. Speaking of Jeff Slaton, why am I not seeing weeping and wailing and knashing of teeth whenever *he* gets removed from a site? Why am I only seeing this posturing when the Nazis and KKK and pedophile activists are involved? You know guys, you might at least try to be consistent with your bogus free speech arguments. I have an IQ somewhere above 90, and I took a course or two in logic along the way. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 15:54:26 +0000 From: david (d.) o'heare Subject: Re: DLD Digest Censored in Germany Reply-To: bj059@freenet.carleton.ca Organization: Northern Telecom In article , vantek@northcoast.com (VANTEK COMMUNICATIONS) wrote: > I have just been informed that my publication Discount Long > Distance Digest will no longer be available to our subscribers in > Germany. It seems that the ISP we use to store our World Wide Web > Homepage, FTP Archives and Mailing List has another client who's > neo-nazi material has been banned for viewing by the German > Government. [snip] and then Pat said: > Over the weekend I > had occassion to correspond with Computer Underground Digest about an > ISP who wrote saying he would never 'censor' anyone who wanted an > account. Your ISP may have felt the same way, and now in the process > has managed to harm many innocent users like yourself as a result. [snip] Umm, Pat, it seems that the people doing the harming are those who can't figure out how to cut the (to them) offensive stuff without cutting everything. The service provider does just that -- provides (at a cost) a service (internet connection) to those who choose to use it. They are not the only provider around. If you don't like their rules, find a provider with a set of rules that you do like, or try to convince your existing provider to change the rules. Take a stand if it's important to you; vote with the one thing that commercial folks understand -- your dollars. I am not a Nazi; I am about as apolitical as they come. I won't stand for people trying to force their political ideas on me. Turn it around: violence on television offends *me* -- does it therefore follow that nobody should be able to watch television? David O'Heare +1 613 729 4830 (H) email: bj059@freenet.carleton.ca [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Hey, I never said the people in the German goverment who are handling this on their end had their act together. I think it is incredible that (for example) Compuserve does not or did not understand how to block delivery of information on a node-by-node basis. They have done it in some aspects of thier system for *years* all the while some of their experts were telling them they could not. I think it rather incredible that Van Hefner's ISP did not immediatly work with the Germans to block delivery of the offensive Web pages while still allowing delivery of the other parts of his system. Probably the Germans pay their technical advisors on this more in a day than I get in a year from the skimpy love offerings people send to my post office box -- and beleive me, it is skimpy. And yet the fools cannot figure out what to do! I could go and show them what to do, and probably so could you or several of the readers here. But no, the three-ring circus atmosphere seems to be more to their liking. Add in a large quantity of guilt tripping on the First Amendment on this side of the water for good measure. PAT] ------------------------------ From: wollman@halloran-eldar.lcs.mit.edu (Garrett A. Wollman) Subject: Re: DLD Digest Censored in Germany Date: 30 Jan 1996 12:02:39 -0500 Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science In article , PAT writes: > ISP's who feel they have some First Amendment obligation to service > every kook and hate monger who come along are sadly mistaken. The First Amendment has absolutely nothing to do with it. s/ISP/Telco/g Does it make the situation any clearer? If you want to claim to be a publisher, that's fine. That makes /you/ legally responsible for everything you `print'. If I were in the WWW service bureau business, I sure as hell wouldn't want to be in that position. I suspect my lawyers wouldn't want me there, either. Garrett A. Wollman | Shashish is simple, it's discreet, it's brief. ... wollman@lcs.mit.edu | Shashish is the bonding of hearts in spite of distance. Opinions not those of| It is a bond more powerful than absence. We like people MIT, LCS, ANA, or NSA| who like Shashish. - Claude McKenzie + Florent Vollant [TELECOM Digest Editor's note: Why don't you wake up and smell the coffee also? Being a 'publisher' is not the same as being an 'editor' and neither of the above is the same as being a 'circulator'. The Charles Levy Circulating Company in Chicago distributes literally thousands of magazines and newspapers. Because they choose to not circu- late the {Weekly World News} does not make them responsible for what the {New York Times} says in its paper which they *do* distribute. An ISP is a distributor or circulator of electronic publications, some of which are as elaborate as this or any e-zine/journal; others of which amount to only single messages entered into the news stream by a single person who was jointly the author/editor/publisher. The lady who runs the newspaper/magazine stand at the train station does not carry detective magazines any longer. She carries several dozen magazines and newspapers, but the fact that she dislikes the blood and gore in the detective story magazines (and so refuses to stock them) does not make her responsible for some libelous remark which appears in {Readers Digest}. According to your lawyers, I guess she or Charles Levy should be held responsible. Perhaps you ought to find some other attornies. An ISP gets thousands of 'publications' for distribution to his customers. In turn his customers use him to distribute their 'publi- cations'. Note: they are they author, they are the editor, they are the publisher. Using facilities they rent from the ISP they publish whatever it is they publish. The ISP is free to select and choose whatever he wants to circulate. The ISP is not editing their speech in any way. He is saying he will circulate or distribute one thing, and he will not circulate or distribute something else. He alone has the right to make that choice, and if -- as a couple of you in this issue have suggested -- you wish to stock or carry or circulate garbage and trash at your site, then go ahead and do so. But let's can the crap and stop the BS about free speech. If/when I see you leaping to the defense of poor little Jeff Slaton who can't find a site anywhere willing to accept him as a customer, then I might give more credence to your concerns about accepting the alt.sex. young.boys.binaries newsgroup because your ACLU lawyer says you have to. When I see you insuring that Kevin Lipsitz, female imperson- ator and magazine salesman to the net is allowed complete access to thousands of newsgroups on an unhindered basis day after day, then I might believe you when you claim you cannot 'censor' the KKK for fear of getting on some slippery slope. An ISP can operate his site as he pleases; why are so many embarassed or reluctant to admit it? Because of the trash they carry which (a) they enjoy reading and (b) makes money for them in increased subscriptions, that's why. PAT] ------------------------------ From: brianb@cfer.com (Brian Brown) Subject: Re: ANI/Caller-ID Questions Regarding ISDN Service Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 18:56:11 GMT Organization: ConferTech, international parker@megatek.com (Mike Parker) wrote: > A recent post brought up something that I was wondering about ... > For PRI ISDN what phone number information is being brought in > and available? > - ANI? > - Caller ID information? We have several circuits from a LEC and several from an IXC. So far, we have had no problem getting ANI over the IXC PRI circuits. The LEC will only pass Caller ID info. We get the BTN no problem on long distance circuits, but no Advanced DSS Trunk A-number on our LEC's circuits. > How about for your standard BRI ISDN subscriber getting an incoming > call? ANI? Caller ID? My understanding is that as a non-telco customer you are limited to Caller ID, since BTN or ANI usually overrides the presentation (privacy) bit, which is used to restrict presentation of Caller ID (e.g. *67). Telcos need the BTN for billing purposes even when the presentation is restricted. > I am confused as to how both of these services and ISDN are > implemented and work? together and how much information is presented > and how for ISDN. ISDN has three numbers which are passed when a call is presented: A-number, which represents the calling party information (either CPN, calling party number, which is generally what is delivered as Caller ID, or BTN, billing telephone number, which is generally referred to as ANI). I'm pretty sure the B-number is the endpoint destination number, and the C-number is the original dialed number (B!=A if the call is transferred). The B-number is like DNIS on a T1 or DID over DID trunks. There's actually a whole ton of stuff passed upon call setup; I'm looking for the same information to get the whole D-channel call setup spec. Anyone know where to find out what info is presented? Brian Brown ConferTech, International ------------------------------ From: hrood@xs4all.nl (Hendrik Rood) Subject: Re: ANI/Caller-ID Questions Regarding ISDN Service Date: Tue, 30 Jan 96 21:43:49 GMT Organization: Elephantiasis In article , parker@megatek.com (Mike Parker) wrote: > A recent post brought up something that I was wondering about ... > For PRI ISDN what phone number information is being brought in > and available? > - ANI? > - Caller ID information? It has to be CLID, for submitting ANI there are some extra features (Calling Line ID restriction Override) to get all the information you get with ANI (that's every number from people dialling in). CLIRO has to be supplied by the phone company that runs your central office switch. > How about for your standard BRI ISDN subscriber getting an incoming > call? ANI? Caller ID? The same answer as above. CLID is equal on PRI and BRI ISDN. ANI and CLIRO is not official supplied in most countries. But it is sometimes provided at 911-equivalents. > I am confused as to how both of these services and ISDN are > implemented and work? together and how much information is presented > and how for ISDN. In ISDN it is possible to send the ASCII (text) information, but this depends on the software installed in the public switch. The protocols in the network between the public switches are the same for CLID on ISDN and PSTN, only the last part to the customer differs. ir. Hendrik Rood Stratix Consulting Group BV, Schiphol NL tel: +31 20 44 66 555 fax: +31 20 44 66 560 e-mail: Hendrik.Rood@stratix.nl ------------------------------ From: jhines@Mcs.Net Subject: Re: Ameritech Plans to Close Payment Offices Date: 30 Jan 1996 18:13:53 GMT Organization: MCSNet Internet Services Reply-To: jhines@Mcs.Net In , ndallen@io.org (Nigel Allen) writes: > Ameritech has announced plans to shut down the offices where customers > can pay their phone bills. > The company says it will be increasing the number of agency locations > (not owned by the telephone company) that accept payments. However, I > don't know whether how large a fee these agency locations charge to > accept payment, or how long it takes a payment made at an agent to be > credited to a customer's account. If its an authorized Ameritech agent, they take no fee out from the customer, and the payment while it takes a couple of days to be posted, comes with a receipt number which if called in to the phone company allows immediate credit. From personal experience, if you pay at 5pm and call in the receipt number, your phones will be back on by 10pm. Some people take phone bills, and just mail them in. Currency exchanges fall in this category. The place I pay my phone bill (Ameritech agent) does this for the GAS company. john ------------------------------ From: j-grout@glibm5.cen.uiuc.edu (John R. Grout) Subject: Re: Ameritech Plans to Close Payment Offices Date: 30 Jan 1996 19:38:27 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Reply-To: j-grout@uiuc.edu In article ndallen@io.org (Nigel Allen) writes: > Ameritech has announced plans to shut down the offices where customers > can pay their phone bills. > The company says it will be increasing the number of agency locations > (not owned by the telephone company) that accept payments. However, I > don't know whether how large a fee these agency locations charge to > accept payment, or how long it takes a payment made at an agent to be > credited to a customer's account. The press release talks about doubling the number of "mechanized agents", who are "linked into company payment systems, which allows for customer payments to be quickly credit to their accounts", from "just over 500" to 1050. It also mentions that there are about 1000 "non-mechanized" agents who "collect Ameritech bill payments as a customer convenience" ... payments made through them "typically take longer" than those made through "mechanized agents". Last year, our local power company ("Illinois Power", IP) also stopped collecting customer payments in person. However, they clearly stated that all the agents they established to replace their payment centers would _not_ charge a fee ... instead, these agents pay so much a month to IP for a hookup to its billing system, and then get a percentage of each bill they collect for IP. However, I wouldn't be so sure about what Ameritech calls "non-mechanized" agents ... if any of them are sleazy check-cashing places, they'll be charging a fee ... the ones here in Champaign-Urbana have claimed all along (and still do) that they are "agents" for paying bills to Illinois Power ... but, if you ask them why they charge a fee for doing so when the mall down the street doesn't, they change the subject. John R. Grout Center for Supercomputing R & D j-grout@uiuc.edu Coordinated Science Laboratory University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: A long-time agent for Ameritech/Illinois Bell in Chicago is Howard Ridge Currency, Inc. They are bona-fide agents for all the utility companies here as well as being payout agents for the state welfare program and a few other large creditors. They always have four or five tellers on duty and even then if two 'events' occur on the same day (for example, eight days into an Illinois Bell billing cycle when all the deadbeats are down to a day or less to make their payment or get cut AND it also happens to be a date for a welfare payout cycle) the line stretches out the door and down the street, deadbeats waiting in line with welfare recipients. The tellers wear headsets and have speed dial phones at their windows. They use the online terminals to enter the utility payments, but it is still recommended that if you are cut off you notify telco by phone. This will get restoration in usually a few minutes to an hour where merely relying on the payment in the terminal will not get restoration until the batch is balanced and run later that night. You approach the window and slide your money and payment coupon in through the little opening. In a classic example of the hand being quicker than the eye, the money is grabbed instantly and tossed in the teller's cash drawer. He looks at you sort of scornfully and says, "Are you cut, Mr. Townson?" Glancing around to see if anyone can hear I say quietly to him, "they cut me a couple of hours ago." The teller reaches over and taps just a single button on his phone. He sits there a minute or two, and then speaks saying "Howard Ridge operator 07 reporting on , , online as trans- action ." Click, he punches another button and disconnects. "Sorry it took so long," he says, "the collectors at Ameritech let their phone ring seventeen times and then when they do pick up all they say is 'hold' and you sit and wait for them to come back. And supposedly on the number we use to call them, they answer on a priority basis." I ask him when does he think my service will be back on. He said it would be on by the time I got back home ... and it was. It used to be the armored truck came to Howard Ridge from Ameritech twice a week on Tuesday and Friday. If you really wanted to stall, you went in just after the teller cash cutoff on Tuesday, meaning the armored truck would not even get your check until Friday and Ameritech remittance processing would not see it until Monday at the earliest and probably Tuesday a full week later. It would not hit your bank until Thursday, meaning you could pay with a check to get your service back on and not have to have the money in your account for seven or eight days. Then one day a large sign was hung on the wall in the Howard Ridge waiting area where all could read it: NO MORE STALLING ! ------------------ Effective on new procedures are in place on all utility payments. All checks which are presented to Howard Ridge as payment are deposited the same day by Howard Ridge *direct to the Federal Reserve Bank*. Your account is debited the next day and Howard Ridge credits the utility's account at the Federal Reserve Bank with the amount of your payment. Your creditor will be made aware of checks which were drawn on in- sufficient funds usually within 24-48 hours of their presentation. NO MORE STALLING ! ------------------ I had to test it and see. Gave the teller a check at the last possible minute to keep from getting cut off. Sure enough two days later it was NSF. About noon the third day after I had gone in to pay, my phone rings: gruff voice says, "Townson? This is Bob Smith at Ameritech. I'll give you until five o'clock to redeem that check or I'll cut you again ...". Off I rush back to Howard Ridge and the teller punches it up on the terminal and says with a smirk on his face he assumes this time it will be cash. No more stalling, indeed! Even though the check is made payable to whoever you owe money to, i.e. North Shore Gas, Commonwealth Edison, Ameritech, it never gets endorsed that way, or even endorsed at all. A machine stamps the back saying 'credited to the within named payee by Howard Ridge Currency, Inc. as agent for payee.' They do not charge the customer a fee. Everything they earn comes from commissions paid by their clients. If the check bounces, then Howard Ridge reverses the process with your creditor -- as noted -- informed immediatly. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #34 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 31 00:47:08 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id AAA02314; Wed, 31 Jan 1996 00:47:08 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 00:47:08 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601310547.AAA02314@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #35 TELECOM Digest Wed, 31 Jan 96 00:47:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 35 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson CFP - Gigabit Networking Workshop GBN'96 at INFOCOM'96 (James P. Sterbenz) Call for Papers Mobicom96 (Br Badrinath) AOL Helps Solve Murder Case (Robert A. Virzi) Serious Computer Problems On January 1, 2000 (Dave Keeny) New Telecom Resource Available (Lois Philips) Nokia Cell Phone Programming Help Wanted (Edward A. Kleinhample) Call Waiting Light With Ameritech Voice Mail (Edward T. Spire) Rolm PBX and Ameritech Centrex (John N. Dreystadt) Hearing Radio on Phone Line (David Sandler) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: James P.G. Sterbenz Subject: CFP - Gigabit Networking Workshop GBN'96 at INFOCOM'96 Organization: GTE Telecommunications Research Laboratory Date: Tue, 30 Jan 96 15:26:46 -0500 Gigabit Networking Workshop GBN'96 - Call for Participation 24 March 1996 - San Francisco, California, USA Sponsored by the IEEE ComSoc Technical Committee on Gigabit Networking in conjunction with INFOCOM'96 Purpose and Format: The purpose of this workshop is to provide a forum for presenting and discussing very recent work in gigabit networking and to raise relevant issues to the general networking community in a timely manner. It will take place from 8:30 AM until 5:00 PM with lunch provided. There will be an open business meeting of the Technical Committee on Gigabit Networking following the workshop at 5:00 PM. The workshop will consist of a number of short informal presentations and discussion on current research and implementation, hot topics, position statements, and controversial issues relating to high bandwidth networking. The focus is on end-to-end issues including transport and higher layer protocols, host and network interface architecture, operating systems, emerging applications, deployment and management of large networks, economic and regulatory issues, security and privacy, and other societal impacts. We are particularly interested on the theme of high performance distributed information access designed to scale to gigabit giganode networks with a high (number of users) x (throughput per user) product, including: -- high-performance authentication and security (hardware and software solutions, and their trade-off) -- low latency name resolution (e.g. URL and URC) and name service (e.g. URL and DNS) -- high-performance distributed IPC, shared memory, and file systems -- high-performance information access and interactive service support -- high-performance low latency transactions, session control, and network signalling There will be significant blocks of time reserved for interactive discussion sessions. Suggestions for additional topics are welcome (email to giga@tele.pitt.edu and Cc: to jpgs@ieee.org); controversial topics and outrageous viewpoints are encouraged. Presentations will appear in the online proceedings of the workshop, under URL http://info.gte.com/ieee-tcgn/conference/gbn96. A summary of the workshop submissions and discussion session will appear in IEEE Network Magazine, and presentations may be invited for publication as full papers in a venue to be determined. Submission: Submission of a one page abstract is due 23 Feb 1996, and must be in plain text by email to the program chair at jpgs@ieee.org. Please include the text "GBN'96 Submission" in the Subject: field; all submissions will be quickly acknowledged (otherwise contact the program chair to confirm receipt). Notification will be made by 1 March 1996. At the time of the workshop, an electronic annotated version of the presentation foils will be due for inclusion in the online proceedings. Submission in postscript and/or HTML is encouraged; if these formats are not possible, plain text will be accepted. Registration: Registration for the workshop will be handled as part of INFOCOM'96 registration; INFOCOM'96 information is available: on the WWW http://www.research.att.com/~hgs/infocom96 email request to schulzrinne@fokus.gmd.de Additional copies of the GBN'96 CFP and additional information on the workshop are available: on the WWW http://info.gte.com/ieee-tcgn by anonymous FTP ftp://ftp.gte.com/pub/ieee-tcgn/conference/gbn96/cfp.txt email request to jpgs@ieee.org. Program Chair Program Committee James P. G. Sterbenz Joseph Evans, University of Kansas GTE Laboratories Dave Feldmeier, Bellcore 40 Sylvan Road MS-61, Aloke Guha, Network Systems Waltham, MA 02254 USA Bryan Lyles, Xerox PARC +1 617 466 2786 Ira Richer, CNRI jpgs@ieee.org Dick Skillen, Nortel http://info.gte.com/jpgs Richard Thompson, University of Pittsburgh Joe Touch, USC/ISI ------------------------------ From: badri@cs.rutgers.edu (Br Badrinath) Subject: Call for Papers Mobicom96 Date: 30 Jan 1996 11:02:46 -0500 Organization: Rutgers University LCSR SECOND ACM INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MOBILE COMPUTING AND NETWORKING 1996 (ACM MobiCom'96) November 11-12, 1996 (Tutorials on Sunday, November 10, 1996 Rye Hilton, Rye, New York, USA Sponsored by: ACM CESDIS NASA IEEE Sigcomm, Sigmetrics, ComSoc Sigops, Sigact The wireless communication revolution is bringing fundamental changes to telecommunication and computing. Wide-area cellular systems and wireless LANs promise to make integrated networks a reality and provide fully distributed and ubiquitous mobile computing and communications, thus bringing an end to the tyranny of geography. Furthermore, services for the mobile user are maturing and are poised to change the nature and scope of communication. This conference, the second of an annual series, serves as the premier international forum addressing networks, systems, algorithms, and applications that support the symbiosis of portable computers and wireless networks. PAPERS Technical papers describing previously unpublished, original, completed, and not currently under review by another conference or journal are solicited on topics at the link layer and above. Topics will include, but are not limited to: * Applications and computing services supporting the mobile user. * Network architectures, protocols or service algorithms to cope with mobility, limited bandwidth, or intermittent connectivity. * Design and analysis of algorithms for online and mobile environments. * Mobile network protocols * Performance characterization of mobile/wireless networks and systems. * Network management for mobile and wireless networks. * Data management in mobile computing * Service integration and interworking of wired and wireless networks. * Characterization of the influence of lower layers on the design and performance of higher layers. * Security, scalability and reliability issues for mobile/wireless systems * Mobile computing * Mobile agents * Power management * Wireless multimedia systems * Satellite communication * Location-dependent applications * Distributed system aspects of mobile systems * Adaptive applications interfaces suitable for mobile systems * Architectures of wireless and mobile networks and systems * Traffic integration for mobile applications All papers will be refereed by the program committee. Accepted papers will be published in conference proceedings. Papers of particular merit will be selected for publication in the ACM/Baltzer Journal on Wireless Networks and the ACM/Baltzer Mobile Networks & Nomadic Applications Journal. HOW TO SUBMIT Paper submission will be handled electronically. Authors should Email a PostScript version of their full paper to: mobicom96@gucci.mirc.gatech.edu This Email address will become operational on March 1, 1996. In order to print the PS versions of the papers, authors should ensure that their papers meet these restrictions: - PostScript version 2 or later - no longer than 15 pages - fits properly on "US Letter" size paper (8.5x11 inches) - reference only Computer Modern or standard Adobe fonts (i.e., Courier, Times Roman, or Helvetica); other fonts may be used but must be included in the PostScript file In addition, authors should separately Email the title, author names, full address and abstract of their paper to the program chairs. All submitted papers will be judged based on their quality through double-blind reviewing where the identities of the authors are withheld from the reviewers. Authors' names should not appear on the paper or in the postscript file. TUTORIALS Proposals for tutorials are solicited. Evaluation of the proposals will be based on expertise and experience of instructors, and the relevance of the subject matter. Potential instructors are requested to submit at most 5 pages, including a biographical sketch to Arvind Krishna (krishna@watson.ibm.com). PANELS Panels are solicited that examine innovative, controversial, or otherwise provocative issues of interest. Panel proposals should not exceed more than 3 pages, including biographical sketches of the panelist. Potential panel organizers should contact Tom LaPorta (tlp@boole.att.com). STUDENT PARTICIPATION Papers with a student as a primary author will enter a student paper award competition. The student will receive a cash award of $500,- US Dollars. A cover letter must identify the paper as a candidate for the student paper competition. IMPORTANT DATES Submissions due: May 1, 1996 Notification of acceptance: July 15, 1996 Camera-ready version due: August 31, 1996 For More Information: Please contact Ian F. Akyildiz (ian@ee.gatech.edu) or Zygmunt J. Haas (zjh1@cornell.edu), the Program Co-Chairs. WWW/GOPHER INFORMATION This CFP and other ACM related activities may be found in http://info.acm.org/sigcomm/mobicom96 (for WWW browsers) GENERAL CO-CHAIRS: HAMID AHMADI RANDY KATZ IBM T. J. Watson Research Center Computer Science Division Room H3-C04 EECS Department P. O. Box 704 University of California Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 Berkeley, CA 94720-1776 Tel: 914-784-7219 Tel.: 510-642-8778 Fax: 914-784-6205 Fax.: 510-642-5775 Email: hamid@watson.ibm.com Email: randy@cs.Berkeley.edu PROGRAM CO-CHAIRS IAN F. AKYILDIZ ZYGMUNT J. HAAS School of ECE School of Electrical Engineering Georgia Tech Cornell University Atlanta, GA, 30332 Ithaca, N.Y. 14853 Tel.: 404-894-5141 Tel.: 607-255-3454 Fax.: 404-894-5028 Fax.: 607-255-9072 Email: ian@ee.gatech.edu Email: zjh1@cornell.edu TUTORIAL CHAIR LOCAL CHAIR ARVIND KRISHNA BOB FLYNN, Polytechnic University IBM T.J. Watson Research Center P.O. Box 704, H3-D32 VICE CHAIR Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 TOM LaPORTA, AT&T Bell Labs Tel.: (914) 784-7965 Fax.: (914) 784-6205 PUBLICITY CHAIR Email: krishna@watson.ibm.com B.R. BADRINATH, Rutgers Univ. TREASURER STEERING COMMITTEE CHAIR RAJIV JAIN, Bellcore IMRICH CHLAMTAC, Boston Univ. PROGRAM COMMITTEE Rafael Alonso, Matsushita Labs Victor Bahl, DEC Brian Bershad, U. of Washington Ramon Caceres, AT&T Imrich Chlamtac, Boston U. Tony Dahbura, Motorola John Daigle, U. of Mississippi Maurizio Decina, CEFRIEL JJ Garcia Luna, UC Santa Cruz Mario Gerla, UCLA Peter Honeyman, U. of Michigan Pierre Humblet, Eurecom Tomasz Imielinski, Rutgers U. David Johnson, CMU Phil Karn, Qualcomm Mark Karol, AT&T Jay Kistler, DEC Barry Leiner, ARPA Jason Ying Bin Lin, NCTU Teresa Meng, Stanford U. Mahmoud Naghshineh, IBM TJ Peter O'Reilly, GTE Labs Charlie Perkins, IBM TJ Ray Pickholtz, GWU Dhiraj Pradhan, Texas A&M Chris Rose, Rutgers U. Krishan Sabnani, AT&T Mischa Schwartz, Columbia U. Martha Steenstrup, BBN Gordon Stuber, GaTech David Tennenhouse, MIT Marvin Theimer, XEROX Mehmet Ulema, Bellcore Newman Wilson, D. Sarnoff RC Parviz Yegani, Qualcomm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 11:12:56 -0500 From: rvirzi@gte.com (Robert A. Virzi) Subject: AOL Helps Solve Murder Case Pat- This is from Edupages, a effort by John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas. In case you haven't seen it, it certainly has telecom relevance. Subscription info follows. -Bob AOL RECORDS USED TO SOLVE MURDER CASE Fairfax County, Va. police recently obtained a search warrant for electronic files relating to participants in an American Online chat room in an effort to solve a murder in New Jersey. The victim had met his alleged assailant through a "men for men" chat room, and investigators say several other chat room participants helped in disposing of the body. One of them, a 24-year-old woman, is now charged with tampering with the evidence. An AOL spokeswoman said that it is the company's policy to comply with subpoenas, and that although it does not keep records from chat rooms, it does keep records of e-mail for five days before they are purged. "We certainly respect and abide by our customers' right to privacy, but we are also going to follow the law. We have 4.5 million customers -- that's the size of a city. When we have some problems, we have to deal with it responsibly." (St. Petersburg Times 28 Jan 96). To subscribe to Edupage: send a message to: listproc@educom.unc.edu and in the body of the message type: subscribe edupage Emmitt Smith (assuming that your name is Emmitt Smith; if it's not, substitute your own name). ... To cancel, send a message to: listproc@educom.unc.edu and in the body of the message type: unsubscribe edupage. (Subscription problems? Send mail to educom@educom.unc.edu.) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Edupage is a fine service which I suggest all telecom readers become familiar with. They have many interesting articles, such as the one above. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Dave Keeny Subject: Serious Computer Problems On January 1, 2000 Date: 30 Jan 1996 21:48:34 GMT Organization: Telecommunications Techniques Corporation I don't remember seeing this topic come up in this group. I hope it's not an old discussion. I replied to a misc.consumers post on this subject and felt the issue might be of some interest to this group's readers. I snipped the original post ( news:4eigof$21k@shore.shore.net ), but those interested should still be able to read it in misc.consumers since it is recent ... ikrakow@shore.net (Ira Krakow) wrote: > Just read an interesting article by Joe Celko in the January 1 issue of > DATAMATION about computer related problems when the century turns (from > December 31, 1999 to January 1, 2000). I did some experiments on my PC [SNIP] I've been writing software professionally since ~1981, and I remember having discussions back then about storing dates and calculating date differences. The prevailing sentiment was to just use the last two digits of the year, since storage was at a premium (this was back when the Z80 processor was cutting edge) and, hell, the equipment would be obsolete *long* before the year 2000. I've since moved away from accounting/database programming, but I wonder just how much software exists out there that was designed with the same philosophy -- but won't manage to become obsolete or upgraded before those last two digits wrap back to zero! We developed one system, for example, that would log phone messages and interoffice communications, archive them on disk for a period of time, and then purge messages older than X days/weeks/months. If any of those systems are still out there (doubtful), when the evening of 1/1/2000 arrives *all* of their archives will be erased. I don't believe the sky is falling, but there will, without a doubt, be some MAJOR unpleasantness for some people and businesses. May you live in interesting times, Dave [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually yes Dave, we have discussed this here in the past, but not for quite a while now so I guess it is good for another go-around. There were jokes about this problem on the net as far back as the early to middle 1980's as I recall. I have forgotten the various suggested fixes to the problem. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Lois Philips Subject: New Telecom Resource Available Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 17:28:23 -0800 Organization: BellSouth New Telecom Resource Available We thought the readers of this newsgroup would be interested to know that BellSouth has announced our new World Wide Web site at: http://www.bellsouth.com The new site includes the latest BellSouth headlines, links to other BellSouth Internet sites and an archive of company news releases. Other information available include: financial information; the latest Annual Report; Chairman and CEO John L. Clendenin latest speeches; information on ISDN; information on the BellSouth Foundation and how it works; and a search tool that will help you find where on the site something is located. For those who are interested in knowing all about BellSouth for the long term, a listserver has been established for automatic distribution of all future press releases or statements as they are sent out. To subscribe to the listserver, send an e-mail message to majordomo@bellsouth.com. Leave the subject line blank and in the body of the message type: subscribe bellsouth. Although this is the first Web site for BellSouth Corporate Headquarters, BellSouth subsidiaries have had sites up since early in 1995. The BellSouth Business System's site, available at http://www.bell.bellsouth.com, is the longest running of the BellSouth companies' sites and has recently undergone a re-design to accommodate the latest technology -- Java. BellSouth Small Business and the BellSouth Tennessee Headquarters group have each launched a site recently, located at http://www.smlbiz.bellsouth.com, and http://www.tn.bellsouth.com, respectively. Both sites have been designed to provide lots of information to visitors. BellSouth Wireless (http://www.bwi.bellsouth.com), BellSouth Cellular (http://www.com/bscc), and BellSouth Mobile Data (http://www.bls.com/bmd) each have sites in various stages of construction. Additional BellSouth sites are scheduled for completion in 1996. ------------------------------ Date: 30 Jan 96 13:24:39 EST From: Edward A. Kleinhample <70574.3514@compuserve.com> Subject: Nokia Cell Phone Programming Help Wanted I have a Nokia 2120 dual-mode cellular phone. Does anyone known how to put this phone into programming mode in order to enter information about an alternate system into the NAM memory. Ed Kleinhample Consultant - Land O' Lakes, FL ------------------------------ From: Edward T Spire Subject: Call Waiting Light With Ameritech Voice Mail Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 09:51:03 -0600 I use Centel right now, so I don't know about this stuff ... I sent an employee home, and set him up with Ameritech lines, ISDN and a small centrex common block for call switching capabilities, and their voicemail on one of the centrex lines. He bought himself a phone that has a call waiting indicator that gets turned on by the Ameritech voicemail! How does this work? I'm moving my central office to Ameritech territory later this year (before the 708 grace period expires) and if I can find a device separate from an expensive phone that will display this call waiting indicator, I'll wire the new central office so that the personal centrex lines actually appear in the individual offices so the call waiting lite can display (right now the centrex lines go through the Iwatsu key system (for intercom capability) and I bet the call waiting signal will not get through that way, and the key system phones would not display it anyway ...) Ed Spire Voice: 708-696-4800 ext 69 The Workstation Group Fax: 708-696-2277 6300 River Road, Suite 501 Email: ets@wrkgrp.com Rosemont, Illinois, USA Web: http://www.wrkgrp.com ------------------------------ From: johnd@mail.ic.net (John N. Dreystadt) Subject: Rolm PBX and Ameritech Centrex Date: 31 Jan 1996 03:40:54 GMT Organization: Software Services We are moving soon and I just discovered how much the local "product" line has changed in Ameritech. Most of my experience was in the IXC area rather than the local carrier. We need about 12 lines for incoming/outgoing voice as well as four lines for data. An Ameritech agent suggested Centrex backing up to the Rolm PBX that we are taking with us in the move. Using Centrex with a PBX sounds very odd to me but I was wondering if anyone in the audience had experience with this suggestion (either with Rolm or some similar small company PBX [50-100 station size PBX]) and how they liked the resulting service. Prior to this we had some FGA circuits on the outgoing side but this type of circuit was discontinued and we can't move them. Sigh. Thanks in advance. John Dreystadt ------------------------------ From: sandler%asabet.dnet.dec.com@mrnews.mro.dec.com (David Sandler) Subject: Hearing Radio on Phone Line Date: 30 JAN 96 16:04:28 Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation - Marlboro, MA I have a two line phone at home with one line plugged into a wall jack a few feet away and the other line plugged into a wall jack across the room using a 25 foot cord. On the line with the 25 foot cord I always hear radio signals in the background. On the same line in another room and from a much smaller cord in the same jack there are no radio sounds. The other line on that phone does not have radio sounds either. I tried replacing the cord because my old cord had a cut in it and was taped up but the new one still has the radio sounds. I would like any suggestions besides using a much shorter cord because I need to be able to reach at least 12 feet. Thanks, David ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #35 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Jan 31 14:13:13 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id OAA18429; Wed, 31 Jan 1996 14:13:13 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 14:13:13 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199601311913.OAA18429@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #36 TELECOM Digest Wed, 31 Jan 96 14:13:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 36 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Smith, Clarke, and Comsats (was Re: Dilbert Meets AT&T) (Bill Higgins) Re: Dollars For Domain Names? (Jack Wilson) Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box (R.R.M. Tweek) Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box (James Bellaire) Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box (Stan Schwartz) Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box (Jeff Bamford) Re: Trends in Fraud on GSM and Analog Cellular (Tim Casey) Re: The Intelligent Network (Robert Rosenberg) Re: Southern New England Telephone (Stuart Zimmerman) Lithium Powered Motorola Micro Tac Elite Flip Phone For Sale (J. Cohen) Re: 708/847/630 Split (John Hines) Re: ANI/Caller-ID Questions Regarding ISDN Service (Dave Habedank) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: higgins@basil.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey) Subject: Smith, Clarke, and Comsats (was Re: Dilbert Meets AT&T) Date: 31 Jan 96 00:05:26 -0600 Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory In article , robertr@icu.com (Robert A. Rosenberg) writes: [The story "QRM Interplanetary" by George O. Smith] > appears in his "Venus Equilateral" novel (and its > replacement "The Complete Venus Equilateral" which has the one new VE > story written after VE was published). VE was a manned space station > that was in an L5 orbit (60 degrees ahead of Venus) and was a relay > station between Venus, Earth, and Mars. By way of relevance to teleco m... We just celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of Arthur Clarke's scheme to put radio relay stations in 24-hour orbits around the Earth. When he published this, Clarke considered it wholly original, but "It seems quite possible, as John [R. Pierce of Bell Labs] once suggested to me, that the 1942-1944 Venus Equilateral stories of George O. Smith may have set me thinking seriously about communications satellites... I take no particular credit for thinking of it in 1945. If I had not done so, ten people would have thought of it in 1946, and thereafter in geometrical progression." [From Clarke's foreword to Pierce's book *The Beginnings of Satellite Communications*, San Francisco Press, 1968.] Smith was certainly gifted at conveying the joy of engineering and the glee that techies find in coming up with a new idea and making it real in solder, wires, and tubes. For the anniverary, by the way, I attended a reception thrown by the British Interplanetary in London which was part of a teleconference between Arthur Clarke in Colombo, Sri Lanka, the director of NASA in California, and and Intelsat official in Washington. Not a particularly remarkable feat these days, I suppose, but it served to remind me just how important Clarke's idea has become to our world. Does he, as some suggest, deserve a Nobel Peace Prize? Bill Higgins Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Internet: HIGGINS@FNAL.FNAL.GOV Bitnet: HIGGINS@FNAL SPAN/Hepnet/Physnet: 43009::HIGGINS ------------------------------ From: deejay@netcom.com (Jack Wilson) Subject: Re: Dollars For Domain Names? Reply-To: deejay@msilink.com Organization: ... working on it. Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 01:57:05 GMT In article kd1hz@anomaly.ideamation. com (Michael P. Deignan) says: > In article , Draper Kauffman > wrote: >> How much is a "good" domain name worth? > Its worth whatever the big company is willing to pay for it. > The existing domain name has recognition and a certain amount of > goodwill. The company will need to be compensated for that, plus > whatever else it can get as a profit. > This post brings up an interesting point, one which I posted to > news.admin several weeks ago. If companies do indeed "own" domain > names, then the Internic, which currently maintains the top-level .com > domain, cannot arbitrarily reassign a domain name that someone fails > to pay the Internic's extortion of $50/year. The way InterNIC *should* be administering its hostname database is that database entries, once assigned, should require no maintenance fees, whereas the actual publicizing of database entries (i.e. DNS service, online availability of contact information) is a service that InterNIC should feel free to charge for. Requiring upkeep fees just to prevent others from posing as your company is, I agree, extortion. > Personally, I've been trying to find an attorney that will file a > class action lawsuit to seek injunctive relief against NSI and prevent > them from "charging" for domain names that were registered prior to > their announcement of a $50/year "maintenance fee", since there is no > contractual basis for this charge (i.e. I never signed a document that > said I agreed to pay NSI $50/year for them to maintain my domain > name.) On the other hand, did they contractually agree to provide database services indefinitely for free? Not if you got the same deal I did: I snagged a domain name at one point (before the fees) and I didn't see any contract. All I got was an e-mailed note from them saying, "your domain name has been assigned... if you see errors, contact us." But again, maintenance fees just to not reassign your domain name are unreasonable. > In the same injunction, I want NSI to be prevented from > reassigning the domain names currently registered under party X's name > to another company/party (something they have threatened to do if you > don't pay your $50/yr.) So far I've had no luck... Keep trying, you just might have a case ... Jack Wilson deejay@msilink.com (netcom account will be defunct soon) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Coming in the next issue of the Digest on Wednesday afternoon/evening, an excellent report on hijacking of domain names, or spoofing at its finest; raised to an art. I found it a fascinating report and think you will like it also. PAT] ------------------------------ From: tweek@netcom.com (R R M Tweek) Subject: Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 01:58:41 GMT In article , wrote: > Now, channel 1: This channel was always allocated in the broadcast > spectrum, but was typcially reserved for the UHF tuner on older, > non-cable ready sets, and therefore nothing was ever broadcast at this > frequency. This is in error. There use to be a channel 1 over the air. When the frequency was re-allocated to the mobile radio services (commercial and amateur) rather than re-align the entire channel structure to go from 1-12, they simply deleted channel 1. It would have been no problem for a TV manufacture to locate a UHF detent position between positions 13 and 1 if channel 1 still existed, after all, they are the manufacturers. > The cable companies have grown in spectrum and seem to be > using many higher numbers, but why not use channel 1, especially when, > in many instances, one would need to rent a converter from them to > view this channel. The over the air channel 1 filled the bandwidth between 48 and 54 mhz. There are SEVEN cable channels located below (in frequency) channel 2. > I'm not sure about the strange channels high in the spectrum, but I have > noticed similarities on my own system. On some systems, you might notice that Ch 98 and 99 are duplicated on Ch 0 and 1. A lot of times you might be getting a harmonic of the signal. Sometimes you might be picking up a channel which is actually being transmitted on two different cable channels. The dual-transmission is a little trick some cable companies have used to catch cable bootleggers. Many of the "authorized" cable boxes are "addressable" and "programable". The Hacked boxes ignore any of the CableCo's programing signals (ie: turn off authorization) so the CableCo programs all authorized boxes to tune into the frequency for say channel 88 when the display reads channel 1. (The user is not aware of the change) The unaltered pay-channel is sent out over the frequency for 88, while a similar hacked transmission goes out over the real channel 1 frequency. The only difference between the two broadcasts is that the Channel 1 broadcast is running an offer for a free Bon Jovi T-shirt to the first 2000 callers to an 800 number. None of the "authorized" viewers will see the free t-shirt offer ... but that's ok ... there really aren't any t-shirts anyway. Also, on some of these addressable boxes, (Z-tac, etc) if a channel is not authorized, the box (not the TV) will not pass any signal to the output. I would guess that if Pat took his downstairs box to the old TV, he would see that the old TV now doesn't show scrambled fuzz. Or better yet ... Take the old set and run it off the same converter as the good set, and you'll see that the difference is probably because the authorized box is remapped and the Radio Shack one is using the standard cable mapping. BTW: I'm a little loose in my use of "authorized box" above. By "authorized" and "unauthorized", I refer to decoder boxes and not to converters such as the RS box). tweek@netcom.com tweek@tweekco.ness.com tweek@io.com DoD #MCMLX SP-3 Fodder-Line: Rogue Agent Hubbard Thetan Scientology Clear OT Course Clam http://www.io.com/~tweek/ tweek@ccnet.com OT-7 Dr. Doo's little Llama ------------------------------ From: bellaire@iquest.net (James Bellaire) Subject: Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 21:36:02 EST About the cable boxes and a-6 to a-1 being lower ... most of that was from memory, sorry for the errors. As I mentioned, numbering varies by company. The Music channels I know of are digital and most likely would not be able to be picked up by simple solder connections in a store-bought box. Unless RS is selling better equiptment than they need to. Most cable tuners simply shift a section of the frequencies on the inside down to the 60 MHz to 72 MHz (CH3/4) range. If you have your TV set on the wrong channel (3 with the box set to output on 4) your channels will be off by one. The expensive tuners that TCI rents can digitally decode a signal (although TCI backed away from 100% digital channels last year). We actually had two sets of channels being broadcast over the system, with analog channels being tuned by any 'cable ready' device and digital ones that could only be viewed with the 'black box'. Note that these were normal extended channels like CNN and CSPAN, not porn. The store bought tuners are useless with digital channels. At the time the company was giving away the boxes (loaning without rental). A note on scrambled channels: If your system is using an analog scrambling system then you will have noise transmitted next to the video signal within the channel they want to block, and a filter on the cable feeding your house. Or they may just filter out the channels you don't pay for and you will recieve clean static. All depends on the percentage of customers using the channel. If over 50% it would be cheaper to broadcast clear on the system and block the non-subscribers. James E. Bellaire (JEB6) Twin Kings Communications bellaire@tk.com Use information only for Good! ------------------------------ From: Stan Schwartz Subject: Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 23:51:09 -0500 Pat, One question you asked was whether the TV and/or VCR "know" not to present unwatchable channels. The answer is well, yes. I'm sure you'll get a much more technical answer than mine, but my later-model VCR's all present a blue-screen (the Sony can be changed to green or pink) instead of scrambled channels. As far as channels "00" and "01", these have been added recently as one way to block the kiddies from watching the "adult" services. If mom and dad don't have a box, there's no way for a regular TV to tune to these frequencies (without modification), so the kids can't even watch (and/or listen) to these channels scrambled. You can't have channels 5-6 and 55-56 on the same box? I guess no one has told TimeWarner/Charlotte about that, because we get all of those just fine. (BTW, TW Charlotte is also kind enough to show us WGN from your neck of the woods and WWOR from my home town). As far as cable FM, you can split the coax, attach a 75/300 transformer, and attach the forks to your favorite radio. Tune away on the FM band. In Charlotte, we have stations that read the Charlotte Observer and USA Today for the blind. BTW, you might have missed it during the holiday fray, but NPA 843 was announced for the shore counties of South Carolina, permissive begins in late '97 and mandatory in early '98. South Carolina just split last month from 803 into 803/864. They don't seem to have as much growth as North Carolina, yet they're doing splits like crazy. Stan [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Likewise, TCI has stuff on 5-6 as well as on 55-56. It was only in the Radio Shack instruction book for the converter box that Radio Shack said 'this converter box cannot get things on 5-6 *and* on 55-56. If you get a bad picture on 5-6 then look for those stations on 55-56 instead where you will get a good picture.' As it turns out, I get 5-6 very well, 55-56 are the repeats and they are in very poor condition. None the less, between the 71 channels on the box, I manage to get all 63 of the available offerings (although some are scrambled, of course.) What normally would be on 55-56 as per the TCI listings is like everything from 54 and above just bumped up exactly eight channels, i.e. 55 on 63, 56 on 64, all the way to 63 on 71. PAT] ------------------------------ From: aa423@freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Jeff Bamford) Subject: Re: Questions About Cable Converter Box Date: 30 Jan 1996 15:30:38 GMT Organization: Hamilton-Wentworth FreeNet, Ontario, Canada. TELECOM Digest Editor (ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu) wrote: > On all the channels on the VCR on which > there are associated *unblocked* cable channels, we receive it just > fine. Those cable channels which are blocked present us only with > a blue-background screen and silence. Your VCR is simply "muting" the channels that you don't get because there is no signal, or if the signal is scrambled it thinks that there is no signal. Check for option called "Video Mute" (or something similiar) if you can turn it off you should get the static / scrambled signals back. > Above channel 63 we get a > couple of odd things: Something which the VCR refers to as 'channel > 77' presents just a lot of snow on the screen and static. This > is likewise the case on 'channel 98' and 'channel 125'. There might be a signal present there that the VCR thinks is a signal, and hence displays the channel. > Does anyone > have any idea what causes these three oddballs? When I load the > channel presets from 'TV' rather than from 'CATV' I get the usual > over-the air channels but then in addition I get the non-existent > 'channel 17' which turns out to be the TCI Cable 'TV Guide to > Todays Programs' which if selected via CATV is on cable channel 21. I don't have the exact channel specs. here, but I believe that Cable 65 is equivilent to UHF 14, Cable 66 is UHF 15 etc. This continues up to about 94 or 95. The high 90's channels are into FM area (88 - 108MHz). It then continues with cable 100 corresponding to some different UHF ending with cable 125 being UHF 69. (Note: the correspondance is not exact but is generally within the tolerance of the TV's tuner). > The television upstairs just > gives a blank screen with no sound or picture. I am wondering why > on my little television I get the scrambled channels but with all > the horizonal focus messed up? Does the upstairs set 'know' to > not even bother presenting these? It can't sync on the signal so it gives up and gives a blank screen. Our RCA television will tune in a scrambled signal but it takes it five times as long to tune it in as a normal channel. It's trying to display the picture properly, but of course it can't since it is scrambled. Jeff Bamford Phone: +1-905-570-0130 fax: +1-905-570-1161 E-mail: jeffb@audiolab.uwaterloo.ca Looking for an audio consultant who has studied Ambisonics, Dolby Surround and Stereo? Check out: http://audiolab.uwaterloo.ca/~jeffb/consult/ ------------------------------ From: casey@phx.sectel.geg.mot.com (Tim Casey) Subject: Re: Trends in Fraud on GSM and Analog Cellular Organization: MOTOROLA Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 16:43:01 GMT In article 1@massis.lcs.mit.edu, clearcom@iafrica.com () writes: > [snip] > Higher levels of technology, integration and encryption have made GSM > less vulnerable to "re-chipping" or cloning than AMPS or TACS, with > the GSM champions asserting that GSM is almost impervious to this > problem. [snip] > I am involved in South Africa with establishing the GSM Equipment > Identity Register (EIR), which is a database of handsets that are > blocked or are being traced on the GSM networks following loss or > theft from the legal owners. [snip] I am interested in what you mean by "integration and encryption." What have you integrated? Does encryption mean the control channel(s), audio, or both? Also, is "I&E" involved in your work with EIR, or are you addressing a separate problem? Tim Casey Motorola, GSTG Scottsdale, AZ USA casey@email.mot.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Jan 96 11:40:41 -0400 From: Robert Rosenberg Subject: Re: The Intelligent Network In response to David Wiggleworth's question: > The Intelligent Network: What Exactly Is It? The Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN) is a set of capabilities being created as a result of the functional partitioning of traditional telecommunications switching. By partitioning a telephone call into: 1) the transport, 2) control of information transport, 3) and the operational and administration aspects related to the call and then off-loading these three functions from the big switch to specialized processors, the phone companies can acheive greater control over their network and promise customers shorter turn-around time in the creation of new service. New services deployment is closely realted to the control of transport handled by service switching points and signal transfer points in the SS#7 network, while the back end service control point houses the service data bases, and service management systems provide the software development environment. Furthermore, according to an Insight Research study on enhanced services: "To be in a position to offer enhanced services, the phone companies are changing the fabric of their networks and creating the Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN). The AIN was originally conceived by the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) as a means to significantly cut the time for new services development. Although turn-around time for new services is still an important aspect today, AIN is also now the RBOCs' last, best hope to prevent telephony intelligence being drawn from their networks into the customers' premises or into their competitors' long distance, wireless, and cable TV networks. Without AIN, the local telephony business will quickly become a true commodity activity with the added value delivered by outsiders. "SS#7, the signaling network which controls the phone network, is evolving to support AIN services. On the one hand, this will free carriers from proprietary switching system hardware and software and from being locked into the capabilities that these switching systems provide. On the other hand, this does require significant system integration capabilities, something that will have to be addressed by carriers in the near future." Hope this answers your question, Tara D. Mahon tara@insight-corp.com The Insight Research Corporation reports@insight-corp.com (201) 605-1400 phone, 1440 fax www.wcom.com/Insight/insight.html ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Jan 96 11:50 EST From: Stuart Zimmerman <0007382020@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: Southern New England Telephone Mark J Cuccia wrote: > SNET now has a website: http://www.snet.com > SNET has its own Connecticut LATA, and while there is Equal Access in > (most? all?) of Connecticut, SNET also provides an inter-LATA toll > service which can also be chosen as a primary carrier (and has its > 10-XXX/101-0XXX code) or accessed with an 800 number. Thanks for pointing this out. The website seems to be new. While it is copyrighted in 1995 and the information is only current through approximately Sept. 1995, I looked a couple of weeks ago and it was not yet available. It looks like it might have been available as some sort of internal beta. Equal access is available in the vast majority, but not not all of Connecticut for Interstate calls. Intra-LATA toll calls are being converted to equal access as well. Beginning last November and scheduled to be finished by the end of this year (on an exchange by exchange basis), customers who know to ask, can select other long distance carriers to be their dial-one carrier for Intra- State (including Intra-Lata) calls. Does anyone know of any other areas which have this type of equal access yet? SNET - which is often locally referred to as sNOT ;) - recently announced that is was abandoning video dialtone service and getting into Cable Television and would directly compete to provide CATV service in most or all of Connecticut over the next dozen or so years. I guess CATV is more interesting to them than ISDN. (I asked for information on ISDN six months ago, and I still have not heard. The WWW page says that they are "in trial" for ISDN - whatever that means.) Stuart Zimmerman Fone Saver, LLC Stamford, CT "Helping Consumers Save on Long Distance" 007382020@mcimail.com 1(800)313-6631 ------------------------------ From: J. Cohen <76247.3275@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Lithium Powered Motorola Micro Tac Elite Flip Phone For Sale Date: 30 Jan 1996 16:59:01 GMT Lithium Powered Motorola Micro Tac Elite Flip Phone for sale. Top of the line, less than 1 year old. Features VibraCall and Digital Answering chip. Includes 2 Slim Lithium Batteries (worth over $500), 1 Extended Lithium Battery, 1 NiCad Battery, 1 Smartcharger, 1 hands-free car set, 1 car adapter, box, manual. Best offer over $825.00. cohen@nku.edu 76247.3275@compuserve.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Why would anyone purchase a cellular phone *used* which would cost nearly a thousand dollars? How much did this phone cost to start with new, and what could possibly make it worth that much? Am I missing somthing here? PAT] ------------------------------ From: jhines@Mcs.Net Subject: Re: 708/847/630 Split Date: 30 Jan 1996 18:15:29 GMT Organization: MCSNet Internet Services Reply-To: jhines@Mcs.Net In , kevin@mcs.com (Kevin R. Ray) writes: > Neal McLain <103210.3011@compuserve.com> writes: >> Re the pending 708/630/847 split: > As of today, Thu Jan 25 1996, which is five days after the new area > code has taken affect it *DOES NOT WORK*. I have had people from SC, > GA, MA, WI, CA, MI, TN and a couple of other states trying to get > through on 847 with no luck. 708 (as expected) worked. > The long distance carriers used range from MCI, Sprint, and AT&T. > Talking with Ameritech I was informed that is was *MY* responsibility > to contact the remote telephone companies to inform them that they > need to reprogram their switches accordingly. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Have you noticed that the caller-id > being transmitted still shows 708 also? I asked a service rep when > caller-id would start showing 847 as the areacode for the person > originating the call and she said 'not until sometime in April ...'. > That seems strange doesn't it? PAT] I got a call back from Ameritech repair service two weeks ago and the caller ID unit read "I BT CO" so they are not exactly up to date on the changes. john ------------------------------ From: Dave Habedank Subject: Re: ANI/Caller-ID Questions Regarding ISDN Service Date: 31 Jan 1996 05:29:56 GMT Organization: Netcom parker@megatek.com (Mike Parker) wrote: > For PRI ISDN what phone number information is being brought in > and available? > - ANI? > - Caller ID information? Can be translated either way in the 5ESS. However, you'll find most LEC's will only provide Caller ID because 1) some switches don't send ANI and 2) Privacy concerns (*67). > How about for your standard BRI ISDN subscriber getting an incoming > call? ANI? Caller ID? Ditto. The specific feature (and info element) is called CPNBN (calling party number / billing number). There are options for CPN Only, CPN Preferred, BN Only, and BN Preferred. Again, generally the LEC has rules or tarriffs covering their assignment). The display text info element (what you see on an ISDN display), is calling number info. > I am confused as to how both of these services and ISDN are > implemented and work? together and how much information is presented > and how for ISDN. You don't indicate what area you are from, but for Ameritech, I believe we only offer CPN (but I'm only a lab rat). > Thanks, > Mike You're welcome, Dave ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #36 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Feb 1 01:09:12 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id BAA16680; Thu, 1 Feb 1996 01:09:12 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 01:09:12 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199602010609.BAA16680@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #37 TELECOM Digest Thu, 1 Feb 96 01:09:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 37 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Administrivia: Technical Difficulties Once Again (TELECOM Digest Editor) Businesses Will Spark Internet Revolution, Dave Dorma (Mike King) UC Berkeley Short Courses on Broadband Communications (Harvey Stern) Domain Hijacking, InterNIC Loopholes (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Re: Question About Cable Converter Box (TELECOM Digest Editor) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: TELECOM Digest Editor Subject: Administrivia: Technical Difficulties Once Again Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 00:30:00 EST I began preparation of this issue of the Digest at 4 pm Tuesday, now some eight and a half hours ago. The telnet link has been up and down and up and down since then. When it is up it is *extremely* slow with five to ten seconds or more elapsing between keystrokes pressed and their display back on my screen. The smallest typographical error may take five minutes to repair, waiting for the cursor to reach the right place on the screen. On several occassions nothing would move for perhaps five minutes at a time, and then a message on the screen saying 'disconnected from host'. Redial, start again, encounter busy signals, try again, get connected, telnet still in *horrible* condition and very slow. It works for twenty minutes and collapses again. 475 mailer daemons today; I zap them all without looking at any of them. Over 200 letters from people who would like to see things in the Digest. I cannot begin to get near it. Two mail loops have started today caused by idiots running 'vacation' programs who have them misconfigured. Both caused large floods, and I had to shut my own autoreply off for awhile until the remains of those two got in. This thing has gotten totally out of control. Finally I gave up and dialed in direct long distance to Boston; this phone call will cost me about fifteen dollars I suppose, but there was no other way to connect to the site. Believe me, its nothing personal toward any of you but I had to delete about six hundred messages in the waiting queue, as there is no way they would all get used anytime soon. I really do not know what to do or where to go with this Digest any longer. Some of you on the tail end of the mailing list will probably not even see this message until late Thursday night perhaps 18-20 hours from now because of the sluggish way mail gets delivered. I guess I will try breaking the list up in different ways and seeing if that helps any. But the more time I spend trying to do maintainence on this entire program, the less time can be spend actually getting the messages out to you. Sorry for laying all this on you, but I just feel very disgusted and angry right now. Hopefully I will get this whole mess under control sometime soon. PAT ------------------------------ From: mk@TFS.COM (Mike King) Subject: Businesses Will Spark Internet Revolution, Dave Dorma Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 16:22:26 PST Forwarded to the Digest FYI: ----- Forwarded Message ----- Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 12:09:00 -0800 From: Teresa.Ruano@pactel.com (TELESIS.EA_SF_PO:Teresa Ruano) Subject: NEWS: Businesses Will Spark Internet Revolution >>>>NEWS FROM PACIFIC BELL<<< Pac Bell Exec: "Business Needs Will Spark Faster Internet Revolution" Desktop Will Serve As On-The-Job Training Wheels For Workers In Next Decade For Immediate Release: January 31, 1996 Contact: Dave Miller 916-972-2811 Washington, D.C. -- The much-vaunted ability of the Internet to change everything from the way we communicate to the way we learn, earn, shop and essentially live can only happen if 50 million technophobic Americans learn to use the Information Superhighway soon, contends Pacific Bell President and CEO Dave Dorman. In a major speech today at ComNet'96, a global internetworking conference, Dorman predicted that, for most Americans, their "Internet-friendly" education will occur not in the nation's classrooms, but rather in its workplaces. Dorman was a featured speaker at ComNet, one of the nation's largest industry trade shows with nearly 50,000 attendees and more than 400 exhibitors. "The question we haven't focused on enough is: How do you make technophiles out of 50 million technophobes in a short time?" Dorman asked. "Kids are learning in school. But what about the rest of the country? I think the answer is: people will learn on the job. Business use of the Internet -- that's the shortcut to the Information Superhighway." During his speech to conference attendees from the networking and telecommunications industries, Dorman forecast major growth in business use of the Internet, especially for global e-mail, noting that Pacific Bell started offering a full range of Internet access services to business customers in September 1995. The company will become the nation's first regional Bell company to offer consumer and small business dial up access service in April. "Internetworking" Dorman said he sees "internetworking" -- integrating the Internet into the business environment -- with customers, business partners as well as internally -- as the "next big competitive advantage opportunity. "Here's my thesis: TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol -- the language of the Internet) is rapidly becoming the de-facto standard of both inter-enterprise data communications and internal business process management. "Until recently, business automation has been mainly about migrating paper systems to electronic platforms. Now it's about the development of breakthrough applications for reaching customers and making transactions easier and more efficient. In a word: reengineering." Dorman noted the broad goals of reengineering and internetworking are virtually the same: lower costs, quicker cycle times, better customer service. He cited examples of several companies using the Internet for business advantage. "WalMart in the last decade became the largest retailer in America and most analysts believe electronic inventory management made it possible. Internetworking gave each store the flexibility to order independently. Now re-stocking at WalMart takes 36 hours. The industry average is still six weeks." Meanwhile, at Federal Express, thousands of customers track their tens of millions of packages via the Internet. "You simply enter the Airbill Tracking Number in the field provided, and voila -- a detailed status appears." And at Wells Fargo, Dorman said, banking got a boost over the Internet. "They were the first bank to allow account holders to access account balance information over the Internet." In the auto industry, Dorman added, consumers can use the Internet to car shop via a nationwide dealer inventory database. And the list goes on and on. Internet Growth Dorman said the Internet is experiencing explosive growth. "Seventeen percent of the adult population of this country now has access to the Internet -- at work, at home, or at school. That's 37 million people. Of that number, 2/3 got it since last July. You can call that growth. I call it an explosion." Among business, Forrester Research says more than 50 percent of big companies will use the Net for business transactions this year -- 70 percent by 1997, Dorman said. Consider the growth of E-mail, he added. Last year -- 1995 -- for the first time, the Internet carried more pieces of first-class mail than the U.S. Postal Service: 95 billion messages to 85 billion messages and more personal computers were purchased than televisions. To naysayers who point out the six percent penetration figure for household on-line usage, Dorman said he's not worried. "These things tick for a long time. Then they explode. "After its first ten years in operation, the Internet had 2000 host computers. Eight years later, 1 million. Three years from now, the planning number is 100 million." Customer readiness is key Dorman said the only barrier to all this growth is user skill. But he predicted it's a barrier that will fall. "Oh, I know everybody's read about the 'enormous gulf' that separates the 'wired elites' from the 'unwired clueless.' "I guess it makes good copy. But I challenge it. I ask you to give me just ten seconds and think for yourselves: How long did it take you to get comfortable with that Mac of yours or that PC? How long did it take the receptionist in your office? "For most of you, there are only two possible answers: a matter of days or a matter of hours depending on your motivation at the time. "And that is what's new: motivation. "Over the next couple of years as reengineering marries internetworking, millions of currently unwired employees, in every industry from mining to music, are going to get an offer they can't refuse. They'll take it. They'll learn ... They'll find their work more interesting, more productive, more fulfilling, more fun." This will lead to personal use, Dorman predicted, which opens the door to mass market demand for Internet offerings. "They'll then look at the vast array of new broadband applications coming on-line for personal use ... and they'll say: sure, I can do that." [NOTE: A more complete version of the speech will be available on the Pacific Telesis Web site later today.] -------------------- Mike King * mk@tfs.com * Oakland, CA, USA * +1 510.645.3152 ------------------------------ From: southbay@garnet.berkeley.edu Subject: UC Berkeley Short Courses on Broadband Communications Date: 1 Feb 1996 00:11:06 GMT Organization: University of California, Berkeley U.C. Berkeley Continuing Education in Engineering Announces 5 Short Courses on Broadband Communications, Wireless Networks -MODERN TELECOMMUNICATIONS -NETWORKS FOR DIGITAL WIRELESS ACCESS -ATM DATA COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS -SONET/ATM-BASED BROADBAND NETWORKS -VIDEO COMPRESSION AND VISUAL COMMUNICATION ***************************************************************** SONET/ATM-BASED BROADBAND NETWORKS: Systems, Architectures and Designs (February 28-March 1, 1996) It is widely accepted that future broadband networks will be based on the SONET (Synchronous Optical Network) standards and the ATM (Asynchronous transfer Mode) technique. This course is an in-depth examination of the fundamental concepts and the implementation issues for development of future high-speed networks. Topics include: Broadband ISDN Transfer Protocol, high speed computer/network interface (HiPPI), ATM switch architectures, ATM network congestion/flow control, VLSI designs in SONET/ATM networks. This course is intended for engineers who are currently active or anticipate future involvement in this field. Lecturer: H. Jonathan Chao, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Brooklyn Polytechnic University. Dr. Chao holds more than a dozen patents and has authored over 40 technical publications in the areas of ATM switches, high-speed computer communications, and congestion/flow control in ATM networks. MODERN TELECOMMUNICATIONS: Wide Area Networks, Personal Communication Systems, Network Management and Control, and Multimedia Applications (February 29-March 1, 1996) This course is designed as a gentle but comprehensive overview of telecommunications including current status and future directions. This course traces the evolution of telecommunications, starting from its voice roots and progressing through local, metropolitan, and wide area networks, narrowband ISDN, asynchronous transfer mode, broadband ISDN, satellite systems, optical communications, cellular radio, personal communication systems, all-optical networks, and multimedia services. Lecturer: Anthony S. Acampora, Ph.D., Professor, Electrical Engineering, Columbia University. He is Director, Center for Telecommunications Research. He became a professor following a 20 year career at AT&T Bell Laboratories, is an IEEE Fellow, and is a former member of the IEEE Communications Society Board of Governors. NETWORKS FOR DIGITAL WIRELESS ACCESS: Cellular, Voice, Data, Packet, and Personal Communication Systems (March 6-8, 1996) This comprehensive course is focused on the principles, technologies, system architectures, standards, and market forces driving wireless access. At the core of this course are the cellular/microcellular/ frequency reuse concepts needed to enable adequate wireless access capacity for Personal Communication Services (PCS). Presented are both the physical-level issues associated with wireless access and the network-level issues arising from the inherent mobility of the subscriber. Standards are fully treated including GSM (TDMA), IS-54 (North American TDMA), IS-95 (CDMA), CT2, DCT 900/CT3, IEEE 802.11, DCS 1800, and Iridium. Emerging concepts for wireless ATM are also developed. This course is intended for engineers who are currently active or anticipate future involvement in this field. Lecturer: Anthony S. Acampora, Ph.D., Professor, Electrical Engineering, Columbia University. He is Director, Center for Telecommunications Research. He became a professor following a 20 year career at AT&T Bell Laboratories, is an IEEE Fellow, and is a former member of the IEEE Communications Society Board of Governors. ATM DATA COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS: Internetworking, Signaling and Network Management (April 18-19, 1996) This short course examines the key issues involved in designing and implementing high-performance local and wide area networks. Topics include: technology drivers, data protocols, signaling, network management, internetworking and applications. Lecturer: William E. Stephens, Ph.D., is the Head of the Wireless and ATM Networking Group at the David Sarnoff Research Center. Prior to this he was Director, High-Speed Switching and Storage Technology Group, Applied Research, Bellcore. Dr. Stephens has over 40 publications and one patent in the field of optical communications. He has served on several technical program committees, including IEEE GLOBECOM and the IEEE Electronic Components Technology Conference, and has served as Guest Editor for the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications. VIDEO COMPRESSION AND VISUAL COMMUNICATION (June 3-4, 1996) Video Compression and Visual Communication is a rapidly evolving multidisciplinary field focussing on the development of technologies and standards for efficient storage and transmission of video signals. It covers areas of video compression algorithms, VLSI technology, standards, and high-speed digital networks. It is a critical enabling technology for the emerging information superhighway for offering various video services. In this course, we will fully treat video compression algorithms and standards, and discuss the issues related to the transport of video over various networks. Lecturers: Ming-Ting Sun, Ph.D, is director of Video Signal Processing Research, Bellcore. Dr. Sun has published numerous technical papers, holds four patents, developed IEEE Std 1180- 1990, was awarded the Best Paper Award for IEEE Transactions Video Technology in 1993 (with Tzou), and an award for excellence in standards development from the IEEE Standards Board in 1991. He is currently the express letter editor, IEEE Transaction on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology (CSVT), and associate editor, IEEE Transactions of CSVT. He was chairman and now serves as secretary of the IEEE CAS Technical committee on Visual Signal Processing and Communications. Kou-Hu Tzou, Ph.D., is manager of the Image Processing Department, COMSAT Laboratories. Dr Tzou won the Best Paper Award for IEEE Transactions Video Technology in 1993 (with Sun). He holds 6 patents, has served as an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems, is currently associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, and served as a guest editor for Optical Engineering Journal special issues on Visual Communications and Image Processing in 1989, 91, and 93. He is the committee chair of the Visual Signal Processing and Communication Technical committee, IEEE Circuits and Systems Society. For more information (complete course descriptions, outlines, instructor bios, etc.) send your postal address or fax to: Harvey Stern or Loretta Lindley U.C. Berkeley Extension/Southbay 800 El Camino Real Ste. 220 Menlo Park, CA 94025 Tel: (415) 323-8141 Fax: (415) 323-1438 email: southbay@garnet.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ From: Rishab Aiyer Ghosh Subject: Domain Hijacking, InterNIC Loopholes Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 07:07:14 PST While filling in details for modification of my domain (dxm.org) I realised that I haven't seen much written on domain hijacking. We all know about mail spoofing, which let's you pretend you're someone else. Mail spoofing is one-way - you can send, but not receive. This is the same with IP spoofing, where you pretend to be a trusted machine, but again you can send but not receive. Unlike IP spoofing, which can lead to major security breaks (you can become root on someone else's machine), domain hijacking is not so much a security issue as a commercial one. Domain hijacking uses loopholes in InterNIC domain registration procedures to completely take over a domain, allowing you to send and receive e-mail, and other traffic such as ftp/www. As I haven't seen this explained, and have seen no warnings for sysadmins, here goes: To do 'IP hijacking' (receive packets as well as send) you will need to modify routing tables all over the place, where you're not likely to have access. To do domain hijacking, you would need to modify DNS entries in several nameservers, to which again you're not likely to have privileged access. On the other hand, if you could associate an existing domain with a nameserver you _do_ control (root access on any machine connected to the Net is enough for this), your lack of access to the present nameservers would become irrelevant. So, 1. set up a nameserver on your machine, with address, cname or MX records as required for the victim domain address - victim.com. You can do fancy things with nslookup on victim.com's existing nameservers to find out what's required. Make sure the MX, address and cname records in your machine point to machines under your control. 2. send a modify domain mail to hostmaster@internic.net, with your machine as nameserver replacing any existing ones. The InterNIC has no authentication procedures for normal hostmaster requests, so your modification will get processed. 3. Ta DA! Wait for InterNIC to update its records and broadcast changes to other nameservers. From then on, a lookup for victim.com will go to ns.internic.net, find that ns.evil.org is the nameserver, and send all mail to @victim.com to victim.evil.org, route traffic to www.victim.com to www.evil.org, whatever you want. This is not a security risk? No. But, to quote a delightfully low-key document from InterNIC, "[such] an unauthorized update could lead a commercial organization to lose its presence on the Internet until that update is reversed." Ah. But that update will be reversed only when victim.com's sysadmins realise what's happened. If evil.org is clever enough, it will not halt the mail flow, but forward everything on to victim.com (after keeping a copy, of course). It could act as a proxy server to www.victim.com, accessing all URLs (using victim.com's real IP address) on demand and relaying them to browsers who are actually looking at www.evil.org. And so on. Unless victim.com's admins are particularly observant, they may not notice a thing. How many sysadmins out there do what victim.com could have done? I.e. run nslookup on victim.com regularly to check that the nameservers listed are as they should be, and if they're not, to immediately send a new update to InterNIC? Not many, I believe. On the other hand I know no case of domain hijacking actually taking place. But I don't know specific instances of WWW credit card fraud either. That delightful InterNIC document I mentioned is the draft paper on the InterNIC Guardian Object, first out in November 1995, latest version out earlier this month. It's an internal InterNIC proposal for a "Guardian Object" which would guard any other object (such as a domain name, or individual, or hostname, or even another guardian). It would allow a range of authentication methods, from none (very clever) and MAIL-FROM (easy to spoof) to CRYPT (1-way hash, like Unix passwd) and PGP (using public keys stored at InterNIC). All domain and other templates will be changed to work with guardians. The procedures in the original draft looked easy enough; the latest ones are formidable. Incidentally, this draft appeared two months after the InterNIC started charging. The wonders of the profit motive. Rishab ps. I'm not quite back on the Cypherpunks list yet, so please Cc responses you feel are important to me at rishab@dxm.org. pps. I quite forgot. The URL for the latest Guardian Object draft: ftp://rs.internic.net/policy/internic/internic-gen-1.txt ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 21:32:28 EST From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Re: Question About Cable Converter Box I may have the answers now to my question about the way the cable box has things set up. I got from Radio Shack a list of what cable channel designation goes with each 'indicator' on the box. I don't think my questions as posed here before were entirely clear. I realize that over-the-air channels are not going to be numbered the same as cable channels except by coincidence in the range of 2-13. Also I should have made it clear if I did not that every indicator on the box does indeed match with what cableco says will be at that location. But this is only true up to box indicator 53. That is, cableco 2 is box 2 and cableco 10 is box 10, etc all the way to cableco 53 and box 53. It is only from box 54 upward to box 71 that box is at variance with cableco 'channels'. Radio Shack explains it thus in email to me from someone who ask to not have his name used here: Box indicators 2 thru 13 are cableco 2 thru 13. In the case of TCI-Skokie these are the Chicago area over-air VHF channels and other things filled in the blank spots as follows: Box Cableco Contents 2 2 VHF over-air 2 WBBM-TV CBS 3 3 Cable market place; there is no VHF 3 in Skokie 4 4 Home Box Office; there is no VHF 4 in Skokie 5 5 VHF over-air 5 WMAQ-TV NBC 6 6 Skokie Village Govt. PA; there is no VHF 6 in Skokie 7 7 VHF over-air 7 WLS-TV ABC 8 8 UHF over-air 50 WPWR; there is no VHF 8 in Skokie 9 9 VHF over-air 9 WGN-TV 10 10 Encore; there is no VHF 10 in Skokie 11 11 VHF over-air 11 WTTW 12 12 UHF over-air 32 WFLD; there is no VHF 12 in Skokie 13 13 UHF over-air 20 WYCC; there is no VHF 13 in Skokie You may have noted that simply attaching the cable to your television antenna -- given the proper impedence of course -- allows viewing of the above by tuning the channel selector knob. That is not true where higher numbered channels are concerned. Beginning at Box Indicator 14 cableco has two designations for their channels as follows: 14 14 or A UHF over-air 66 WGBO 15 15 or B Oakton Community College PA 16 16 or C Niles North High School PA 17 17 or D UHF over-air 26 WCIU 18 18 or E UHF over-air 38 WCFC 19 19 or F UHF over-air 44 WSNS 20 20 or G Showtime 21 21 or H TCI online 'TV-Guide' 22 22 or I Disney Channel 23 23 or J WEHS Home Shopping 24 24 or K Skokie Village Library/Library Network PA 25 25 or L Unassigned PA 26 26 or M Old Orchard Junior High School PA 27 27 or N Unassigned PA 28 28 or O Bravo/PA at certain hours of day (shared channel) 29 29 or P Pay Per View 30 30 or Q Pay Per View 31 31 or R Cinemax 32 32 or S The Movie Channel 33 33 or T UHF on-air 62 WJYS 34 34 or U TBS Super Station 35 35 or V TCI Public Access Programs PA 36 36 or W Discovery Channel Cableco does not use lettered designations X, Y or Z in this system. Their designations continue with AA, BB, etc. 37 37 or AA CLTV News (Chicagoland TV News) 38 38 or BB CNN Cable News Network 39 39 or CC Sportschannel 40 40 or DD Comedy Central / Video Hits One (shared channel) 41 41 or EE MTV Music Television 42 42 or FF QVC Quality Values Shopping Network 43 43 or GG TNN The Nashville Network 44 44 or HH Nickelodeon / Nick at Night 45 45 or II Headline News 46 46 or JJ The Weather Channel 47 47 or KK AMC American Movie Classics 48 48 or LL Lifetime 49 49 or MM ESPN Sports Network 50 50 or NN FX Fox Cable 51 51 or OO TNT Turner Network Television 52 52 or PP USA Network 53 53 or QQ C-Span 1 Cableco continues with channels 54 through 63, but these are mapped differently in the Radio Shack unit. The Radio Shack unit assigns the next eight indications to cable channels A-1 through A-8 but in an irregular order as follows: 54 A-6 Unknown use by cableco 55 A-7 Unknown use by cableco; VHF 5 seen here. 56 A-8 Unknown use by cableco; cableco 6 seen here. 57 A-5 Unknown use by cableco 58 A-4 Cableco remaps to bogus 'channel 1' pay per view 59 A-3 Unknown use by cableco 60 A-2 Cableco remaps to bogus 'channel 0' pay per view 61 A-1 Unknown use by cableco Perhaps some of the channels marked as 'unknown' use are remaps of the other pay per view channels, i.e. 29 and 30. Perhaps they are used for 'addressing' schemes for pay per view purposes. Cableco continues with channels using double letter designations following QQ as noted above. These then resume on the Radio Shack unit as follows: 62 54 or RR CNBC Cable News/Business 63 55 or SS A&E Arts and Entertainment Network 64 56 or TT EWTN Eternal Word Television Network 65 57 or UU The Family Channel 66 58 or VV BET Black Entertainment Television 67 59 or WW Court TV 68 60 or XX Faith and Values 69 61 or YY ME-U Mind Extension University 70 62 or ZZ STARZ! A relatively new premium entertainment network 71 63 or AAA Previews. This advertises the other networks. To further answer your questions, box indicators 54-61 are simply the places where Radio Shack chose to install the group of cable channels designated A-1 through A-8. Your cableco does in fact operate 'straight through' from channels 00 (zero) through 63 for a total of 64 channels with channels zero and one 'outside the reach' of most subscribers who have not specifically requested cableco's device for receiving those channels. As you pointed out, cableco offers the 'SEGA Game Channel' as well as a digital music service. It is my opinion that channels A-1 through A-8 are probably used to provide these services, with remapping for SEGA quite possibly done to channel zero. I say this based on your description of box indicator zero on your old converter box and box indicator 60 on your Radio Shack unit having the 'same kind of static and interference' and that static and interference being different in nature than that which appears on other idle or premium-pay blocked box indicators. You also asked about user-modifications to allow additional 'channels' to be received on the Radio Shack unit, and for proprietary and legal reasons I am unable to discuss the subject of any 'mods' with you. ------------------- And the above is how Radio Shack answered me. Now I guess what I would like to know is if the channel selector chip in the unit is addressable in ways other than described. Can, for example, any traces be cut (or jumpered) to expand the range of coverage for use in systems with more than 70 channels, or where the channel is something that is unreachable on this box. PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #37 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Feb 1 01:59:25 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id BAA19187; Thu, 1 Feb 1996 01:59:25 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 01:59:25 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199602010659.BAA19187@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #38 TELECOM Digest Thu, 1 Feb 96 01:59:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 38 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: "The VRML Sourcebook" by Ames/Nadeau/Moreland (Rob Slade) FTC Cracks Down on Hi Tech Scams (Tad Cook) How to Track PCS/SMS Developments? (Dale Whiteaker-Lewis) Sourcecode For VC Application (Ciaran Conway) A Reference Site for ISDN, Eathernet, Frame Relay (dstorm@fast.net) Some Interesting Cell Phone Oddities (John Grossi) Collisions on LAN While Using Fiber Optics (Jim Bynum) NameFinder Plus Hiccups (was Re: 708/847/630 Split) (Andrew C. Green) ICB, Gimmick No More (Mike Dudley) Cellular Fraud Detection (Yves Moreau) Re: CO/NY Turns Off Call Forwarding to 800 Numbers (Steve Forrette) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 17:31:37 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "The VRML Sourcebook" by Ames/Nadeau/Moreland BKVRMLSB.RVW 960117 "The VRML Sourcebook", Ames/Nadeau/Moreland, 1996, 0-471-14159-3, U$29.95/C$39.50 %A Andrea L. Ames %A David R. Nadeau %A John L. Moreland %C 22 Worchester Road, Rexdale, Ontario M9W 9Z9 %D 1996 %G 0-471-14159-3 %I Wiley %O U$29.95/C$39.50 416-236-4433 fax: 416-236-4448 800-263-1590 800-567-4797 %P 650 %T "The VRML Sourcebook" The Virtual Reality Modeling Language, or VRML, is a "space description" language. It can be used as a standard for creating "3-space" artificial reality scenes. VRML also has the hypertext "linking" capability of HTML, the basis of the World Wide Web, and so, with an appropriate browser, can be used to create three dimensional extensions to the Web. This book provides a good introductory tutorial to the Virtual Reality Modeling Language for basic and intermediate usage. Within the limits of the printed page, the authors have provided a clear and solid introduction. Creating, rotating and moving simple and even complex shapes is given lucid and step-by-step explanations. (One suspects that instancing could have been covered earlier.) One wishes, though, that the "sourcebook" contained a bit more information about where to get, and how to use, VRML browsers. Even the simplest discussion of shapes and rotations can boggle the mind's eye when constrained to "dead trees": VRML is definitely a "hands-on" type of activity. Coverage of advanced topics varies. The discussion of illumination is good, whereas use of the Transform Matrix is very strictly limited. Basically, this book will give you a firm grasp of the essentials and syntax, but you will have to look to other sources to get beyond simple objects. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKVRMLSB.RVW 960117 Vancouver roberts@decus.ca | "Metabolically Institute for rslade@freenet.vancouver.bc.ca| challenged" Research into slade@freenet.victoria.bc.ca | User rslade@CyberStore.ca | politically correct Security Canada V7K 2G6 | term for "dead" ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: FTC Cracks Down on Hi Tech Scams Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 10:12:29 PST Two versions of the same report follow: FTC cracks down on `high-tech' scams Los Angeles Times In a crackdown on "high-tech" scams, the Federal Trade Commission and authorities in 21 states unveiled 85 lawsuits against businesses pitching mostly worthless investments in federal paging licenses and 900 number partnerships. The FTC said companies involved in the alleged schemes had set out to raise more than $250 million from investors, mostly through high- pressure telephone calls. The FTC said the companies targeted elderly people, often asking whether they had retirement accounts they could tap for investments. The lawsuits were filed by the FTC and the states over the last two weeks as part of a coordinated investigation into what authorities said was a fast-growing fraud. Fifty of the lawsuits were filed against businesses in California, most of them operating in the Los Angeles area. As part of the crackdown, the California Department of Corporations said that on Jan. 18 it obtained court orders against 41 individuals and companies, barring them from continuing to sell investments. All but one of the actions involved 900-number partnerships. The depart- ment said that targets of its investigation sought to raise from investors $225 million of the $250 million identified by the FTC. The FTC said victims have lost sums ranging from $1,000 to $400,000. Authorities said victims of high-tech scams typically are told that investments are risk-free when in fact the opposite is true. "By using information superhighway hype, they are making consumers believe that for $1,500 and no business experience they can get in on the ground floor of an emerging industry," Jodie Bernstein, director of the FTC's office of consumer protection, said at the news conference. Authorities said that in the 900-number investment schemes, investors were sold stakes in so-called "information provider" partnerships. Instead of owning a 900 number outright, investors are pooled in limited partnerships responsible for leasing phone lines, paying for national promotion, and paying fees to any endorsers used in advertisements. Since the market is so competitive, investors typically lose money, authorities said. In the paging license investment scams, victims are offered federal licenses for a paging frequency in a portion of a major city in exchange for a fee of $1,000 to $12,000. Authorities said investors are told they will be able to sell or lease their license to a large paging company for a substantial profit when in fact major paging companies don't buy or lease licenses because they don't need them. Investors end up losing their licenses because under federal rules, they must use them or lose them. Published 1/31/96 in the San Jose Mercury News. ------------------ Another version of the same report, with some different details: Federal, State Crackdown on High-Tech Investment Scams WASHINGTON (AP) -- A crackdown on investment scams peddling paging licenses and "900" telephone services resulted in scores of charges, but investors are unlikely to get back the millions they lost, federal and state regulators said Tuesday. "Paging licensing and `900' number scams are the latest in a long line of swindles to be pawned off on an American public that seems to be blindly in love with anything and everything that is labeled `high tech'," said Dee R. Harris, president of the North American Securities Administrators Association, a group of state securities regulators. Harris, along with counterparts with the Federal Trade Commission, announced said 20 state regulators cracked down on telemarketing firms peddling these risky investment schemes, resulting in 85 charges against people or companies. In six cases, federal judges froze company assets and appointed receivers to run the business, officials said. The status of the other cases couldn't immediately be determined. Exact investor loses are unknown, but Harris said the schemes raised more than $250 million nationwide. Investors' recoveries are expected to amount to only pennies on the dollar, he said. The firms duped investors into believing they could make enormous profits by selling or reselling Federal Communications Commission licenses for paging businesses. "The defendants never tell consumers that they'll be competing with established companies to develop these exciting systems," said Jodie Bernstein, consumer protection director at the Federal Trade Commission. In other instances, investors aren't told the real costs behind the sales of limited partnerships in "900" pay-per-call telephone ventures. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 10:22:40 CST From: Dale Whiteaker-Lewis Subject: How to Track PCS/SMS Developments? My company is interested in supplementing/replacing two-way FM radios with another device of the same or smaller form factor that would provide both point-to-point voice (including offsite phone connections) and multicast alphanumerics or voice. I have observed that, if I were in Europe, I could select GSM-based digital cellular with SMS (Short Message Service) to provide a phone that was also an alpha-pager. With the SMS/CB (Cell Broadcast) option, I could broadcast short messages to phone users in my workgroup. Question #1: At such time as SMS/CB is offered on some PCS service in my area (Austin, TX) will this be a reasonable solution? Question #2: Is there a better solution for these requirements that anyone can suggest? Question #3: What are the best online resources for tracking the development and deployment of PCS services (including SMS) in the US? Thank you in advance for any assistance. ------------------------------ From: Ciaran Conway Subject: Sourcecode For VC Application Date: 31 Jan 1996 13:52:34 -0000 Organization: Broadcom Eireann Research Ltd, Dublin, Ireland. Hi Folks, Can anyone tell me if there can be found a freely available VC application such as CU-SeeME which can be controlled by another independent application. I am trying to develop a system which uses as one of its components a VC application and also Multimedia Mail and other applications. One overall managing application is to be designed which controls the use of each component in a way that provides an overall 'service'. Unfortunately most, if not all VC programs I have found come 'as is' with all their own control and management bound into the one executable. Does anyone know where I could find any VC application which provides an API for the developer to be able control parameters like frame rate, number of video windows , destination user etc..So far all of these must be specifed by the user at runtime, as opposed to the developer. Alternatively, is there freely available source code to be found anywhere for VC applications? The closest I have found so far is CUSeeME but it offers no such 'external' API. If you have any ideas, or comments please let me know. Thanks in advance, Ciaran Conway CIARAN CONWAY BROADCOM Eireann Research Ltd. Phone : +010 353 1 6761531 Clanwilliam Place FAX : +010 353 1 6761532 Dublin 2 IRELAND email : cc@broadcom.ie ccmail : CConway_at_BROADCOM@ccgate.broadcom.ie WWW : www.broadcom.ie ------------------------------ From: dstorm@fast.net Subject: A Reference Site For ISDN, Eathernet, Frame Relay and More Date: 31 Jan 1996 15:02:18 GMT Organization: FASTNET(tm) PA/NJ/DE Internet Here is a great reference site. Check out ISDN, Frame Relay, Ethernet, and Video Conferencing. New reference information updated regularly. Also available is a keyword searchable database of hardware vendors. Internet Computer Xchange http://www.planet.net/icxc PO Box 939 dstorm@planet.net Cherryville, PA 18035 USA 610-767-1001; Fax 610-767-8795 "The Searchable On-Line Database of Computer, Data Communications and Telecommunications Hardware Vendors, Consultants and Service Companies" ------------------------------ From: jgrossi@bbn.com (John Grossi) Subject: Some Interesting Cell Phone Oddities Date: 31 Jan 1996 15:14:28 GMT Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) I noticed some odd problems with roaming ... In northern VT you can't call anywhere at all (numbers like 0 and 911 say "I'm sorry but that number has been disconnected") This behavior seems to exist in most of Vermont north of say exit 2 on I-89. I've gotten service to work in Rutland, and along I-91 as far as St. Johnsbury (but it cuts out if you get further into the Northeast Kingdom). Service works fine for me in Quebec (both Montreal and Sherbrooke). Another interesting one is the area covered by US Celluar (downeast Maine). Service works fine from 7am to 7pm, outside that time period an operator will come on the line and ask you for a credit card number. I've gotten this behavior from US1 in Bucksport all the way out to Campobello Island (when you switch to a New Brunswick carrier and everything is fine) This stretch and the one down Maine 9 are the only ones I've had this problem on. Bangor and vicinity work fine. Another interesting carrier oddity is whatever carrier runs the cells in the Southern Tier of NY. You can make one call, then you get locked out. I've gotten this behavior from the Catskills to Bath (Steuben Cnty. bottom of I-390) on Rte. 17 I know I could call customer service but I'm just curious ... John Grossi Associate Engineer Bolt, Beranek, & Newman Inc. (617) 873-4152 10 Moulton St. Cambridge Ma. 02138 jgrossi@bbn.com ------------------------------ From: mijyppah@primenet.com Subject: Collisions on LAN While Using Fiber Optics Date: 31 Jan 1996 19:58:03 -0700 Organization: Primenet My company is using SynOptics - LattisHub 2813, 2803 as well as some fiber links to other building on our ethernet 10BaseT LAN system. Something about our using the fiber spans is causing us to get approximately 50% collisions. We have this happening at several different locations throughout out our system, ie different cities. Can anyone point me in the right direction as to what is causing this? Why the fiber? Please email me at byr@epng.com if you have any possible ideas. I'll post the solution on the forum as soon as I get it resolved. Thanks for your support folks! Jim Bynum byr@epng.com or mijyppah@primenet.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 08:56:47 -0600 From: Andrew C. Green Subject: NameFinder Plus Hiccups (was Re: 708/847/630 Split) > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Have you noticed that the caller-id > being transmitted still shows 708 also? I asked a service rep when > caller-id would start showing 847 as the areacode for the person > originating the call and she said 'not until sometime in April ...'. > That seems strange doesn't it? PAT] Here is more strangeness on the same subject: I wanted the name and address for a 708 number in a classified ad. Calling Ameritech's automated NameFinder Plus service ((312) 796-9600) yielded "no listing" for that number. That was strange, since it looked like a big-business number ((708) 674-9000, which eventually turned out to be Grossinger Pontiac, a large Lincolnwood, IL car dealer). On a hunch, I punched it in as 847 instead, and it worked. Anyone who doesn't guess the new area code correctly (or even know that it's been changed) will be out of luck, however. To confirm my suspicions, I entered my own 708 home number (which I've had since 1989) and it came up blank. Entering the same number under 847 yielded the right answer. This seems like a needlessly abrupt switchover -- and with no verbal clue for the caller as to what they might try next if their 708 request goes nowhere ... A weird footnote to the above: The above happened yesterday; I tried NameFinder Plus again just now to verify the details before posting. It still failed to find my number under 708, my old area code, but when I entered the 847 version, it read the entry _backwards_: "THE NAME IS..." (pause) "622 WEST CENTRAL ROAD" "THE ADDRESS IS..." (pause) "ANDREW C-AS-IN-CHARLEY GREEN" With the appropriate keypad commands, I was able to replay the "name" and "address" portions separately and verify that it really was mixed up. Subsequent calls did not go wrong, but it does seem as if Ameritech may want to go over the programming a bit closer ... and since they need another round of debugging anyhow, it would be kind of them to flag the records of numbers with new area codes to tell the caller what to dial in the future. Andrew C. Green (312) 266-4431 Adobe Systems, Inc. (formerly Frame Technology) Advanced Product Services 441 W. Huron Internet: acg@frame.com Chicago, IL 60610-3498 FAX: (312) 266-4473 ------------------------------ From: Mike Dudley Subject: ICB, Gimmick No More Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 04:11:28 -0800 Organization: The Internet Access Company I service and support a fairly significant base of international telecommuncations agents. We provide International Callback services. I find information on the international arena, particulary interesting and useful. The reason I wanted to post was to encourage others to continue to send enlightening information on the international markets. Such as the recent post on Deutsch Telecoms recent rate and service restructuring. As the Callback industry continues to mature, new products are needed to stay at the forefront of the market. Over this past year or so we have seen the introduction of, X25 packet switching protocols for switch triggering, Internet related callback platforms, feature intense platforms and Sofware for data related call reorigination, to name a few. Also, on the politcal and cultural fronts we had a number of positive developments. In July, the US Commerce Dept in cooperation with the US State Dept. issued a communique to all US Embassy's that specifically endorsed the proliferation of callback services and encouraged them to take steps that support this position. Also, on June 15,1995 the FCC made its official ruling that ICB does not violate US nor International Law. Finally, AT&T was rebuked in Federal Court in a lawsuit against one of the major ICB providers. So 1995 was indeed a very positive year for the ICB industry. With annual sales coming in just under $500 million worldwide in the entire call reorigination industry *catergory (includes programs such as AT&T's USA Direct), and roughly 100 facilties based operators currently operating, ICB is poised for tremendous advances in technology and growth. Current projections for 1996 are $700-$800 million and reaching One Billion in 1997. I'd be interested in hearing from other TELECOM Digest readers that may have an interest in this industry. Specifically developers that may bring cutting edge technology to the table. I'd encourage anyone to contact me directly if you feel you may have some service or product to enhance our service. Michael Dudley mdud@tiac.net http://www.tiac.net/users/mdud ------------------------------ From: news@chaos.kulnet.kuleuven.ac.be Subject: Cellular Fraud Detection Date: 31 Jan 1996 14:12:28 GMT Organization: K.U.Leuven Hi, I am looking for some good pointers on Cellular Fraud Detection using Traffic Analysis. Would anyone know where to find good info on the subject? And would anyone know how effective the existing pieces of software for traffic analysis are? Thanks for any pointers, Yves Moreau Department of Electrical Engineering K.U.Leuven Belgium ------------------------------ From: stevef@wrq.com (Steve Forrette) Subject: Re: CO/NY Turns Off Call Forwarding to 800 Numbers Date: 1 Feb 1996 06:50:21 GMT Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn In article , dreuben@interpage.net says ... > For some unknown reason, CO/NY no longer allows callers to forward > their calls to 800 numbers. The person whom I spoke to had > no idea why this had been effectuated, but hazzarded a guess that it > may have had to do with "fraud". > I'm not sure what sort of fraud can be perpetuated by forwaring calls > to an 800 number which can not be accomplished by forwarding to a > non-800 number, so I really have no idea why this is a fraud issue at > all. (Could it have to do with FORWARDED calls to an 800 displaying > the ANI of the "outdial" port with 800 services which offer > ANI->Caller ID, and CO/NY not wanting people to get the outdial ports? I have my account with AT&T Wireless (AKA Cellular One of Seattle), which is a fully McCaw-owned system and has been for some time (since the beginning?), and is where McCaw headquarters are located. On the system here, all calls to 800 numbers, whether via calling direct from the cellphone or via call forwarding, deliver the ANI of the "outdial" port of the switch, not the actual cellular number, even though we have cellular Caller ID here. So, blocking forwarding to 800 numbers would not help in keeping the outdial port numbers secret. (As an aside, I once had the occasion to mention the outdial number to a Cellular One tech, and it helped greatly in diagnosing the problem I was having. He was quite surprised that I knew what it was!). > CO/NY will also be offering (or are being forced to offer) Caller ID > from Cellphones, with per-call and per-line blocking, *67 and *82 > codes (which currently are accepted but don't do much of anything -- > all calls show "Out of Area"). Perhaps it has something to do with > this, but I doubt it. We got cellular Caller ID here a few months ago, and it had no effect on forwarding to 800 numbers. I can still forward (busy/no answer or immediate) to 800 numbers without a problem. It appears that calls to 800 numbers still go out the old MF-signaled trunks to the LEC, as the true calling number is not delivered (the call setup time to calls forwarded to 800 numbers has not changed - further evidence that SS7 is not being used). But, inbound calls to and from the LEC are now going over SS7. One artifact of this is that if you have immediate call forwarding (or busy/no-answer forwarding when the phone is not "registered"), the call will forward to the destination number almost immediately. Before, it would take a few seconds, since both the inbound and outbound legs of the call would go over MF facilities. > I'm not sure if any of these have to do with the AT&T takeover during > the past summer (evidenced by the especially annoying and non-standard > "Dial 1 for all calls" requirement -- no other northeast "A" system > requires this, making it especially confusing for roamers, which is > precisely NOT what cell companies should be doing), or it is a result > of the fraud protection feature (which still causes problems with > incoming calls in Poughkeepsie) but overall, NACN integration and the > availability of features while at home and roaming has been reduced to > an good extent in the "post-ATT" period as compared to before AT&T > acquired McCaw. We still have full functionality here in Seattle, so I doubt it has anything to do with the AT&T takeover. Another interesting thing about the Caller ID service is that the original calling number is not passed to the landline destination for forwarded calls unless you subscribe to cellular Caller ID. For example, let's say that I have my cellular number forwarded to landline B, and landline A calls my cellular number. Since I have cellular Caller ID, my Caller ID box on landline B will display A's number when A calls my cellular number and is forwarded back into the LEC network. But, this does not happen if I don't subscribe to cellular Caller ID. This is different from the way landline phones work, which pass Caller ID data on forwarded calls whether or not the forwarding line subscribes to Caller ID. This is not an issue for me, but I would be particularly upset at this state of affairs if I was an analog cellular customer, and thus had no option to subscribe to cellular Caller ID. I wonder if AT&T wireless would allow you to subscribe to Caller ID with an analog phone, solely to get the forwarding pass-through behavior? As for the "must dial 1 for all calls" requirement, all of the McCaw systems seem to follow the rule "must dial 1 for toll," and "roamers must always use the area code." I was disappointed when the 1 requirement was added (it was several years ago out here), but I've found that it comes in handy in knowing whether or not a call is toll. These two rules work in combination as well, so that if you're roaming on a system, you can dial just 10 digits for a local call, but must use 1+10 digits for a toll call. So, when you're roaming in an unfamiliar area, you can determine if a call is going to have toll charges in addition to the roaming charges, even if the call is inter-NPA. Until last year, Houston Cellular ("A" system, and part of the NACN) had a rule that non-toll calls must *not* be preceeded by a 1. This screwed up forwarding to a local Houston number when roaming in Houston. To turn on no-answer transfer, you'd dial "*721713xxxxxxx". If someone called your home number while you were registered in Houston (meaning the phone is on or was on in the past 15 minutes or so), the home switch would forward the call to Houston. When the Houston switch figured out that you were no longer on the air, it would try to execute the forwarding instruction, but would reject it, and played a recording that said "It is not necessary to dial a 1 when calling this number." Of course, the caller had likely dialed my Seattle number as a local call, and *hadn't* dialed a 1! Or if they were calling long distance, they'd try it again without a 1, only to be told by their local switch that "You must first dial a 1 when calling this number"! I was never able to contact intelligent life at Houston Cellular. Boy, did I notice the difference between a McCaw system (which has the best customer support in my experience) and an independent. Despite hours of trying, I was never able to find anyone at Houston cellular that could even understand a description of the problem, let alone the cause. The problem went away about a year after they joined the NACN, presumably because of complaints by their local customers of needing two speed dial entries for each number, one for when they were home, and one when they were roaming. BTW, you couldn't just use "*72713xxxxxxx" to get around the problem, because then the home switch would reject it because of the lack of a 1. Steve Forrette, stevef@wrq.com ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #38 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Feb 1 19:24:11 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id TAA28488; Thu, 1 Feb 1996 19:24:11 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 19:24:11 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199602020024.TAA28488@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #39 TELECOM Digest Thu, 1 Feb 96 19:24:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 39 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Chris Schefler is Doing Just Fine, Thank You (Mercury News via Tad Cook) Zundel Mirror Sites (Declan B. McCullag) Pager Service Question (Peter Mott) Tale of a Cat (Paul L. Moses) Wanted: Isoetec Single-line Station Card (Jim Thatcher) Northen Telecom Ethernet Status (Allan Bourque) US Source of GSM SIMs and Service (Osman Rich) Iwatsu IDS-128 Memory Batteries (John W. Warne) Book Review: "The Whole Internet for Windows 95" (Rob Slade) Re: Rolm PBX and Ameritech Centrex (Joseph Bergstein) Ameritech Cellular Brownouts (Mark Peacock) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Cook Subject: Chris Schefler is Doing Just Fine, Thank You Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 09:29:57 PST Santa Cruz Webber's got hot one by tail By David Plotnikoff San Jose Mercury News CHRIS Schefler says he's doing just fine, thank you -- sticking to his guns and trying to keep his mind on business. Indeed, Schefler, the president of Web Communications, a tiny Santa Cruz Web-access company with 1,500 members, sounds just fine -- for a man who just had a giant flaming chunk of international telecommunications controversy fall out of the blue and into his lap. Schefler's strange days began a week ago, when Deutsche Telekom, Germany's national phone company, blocked its one million on-line customers from reaching all Web sites maintained at Schefler's company. Deutsche Telekom, the country's largest Internet provider, did it -- under pressure from German prosecutors -- because one of the 1,500 self-publishers who store materials on the Web Communications server is a somewhat notorious Toronto man named Ernst Zundel, who asserts the Holocaust never happened. Why, with hundreds of racist sites on the Web, did DT single out Schefler's Santa Cruz firm as a menace to German society? "That's odd. I really couldn't tell you why," says Schefler. "So far, they haven't had any explanation at all." Schefler says no amount of pressure from the German phone giant is going to pressure him into booting Zundel -- or anyone else who chooses to self-publish controversial material on his site. This concept -- defending the practice of even the speech you loathe the most -- takes on added significance here when you consider Schefler's maternal grandmother died in a Nazi concentration camp. "We basically told everyone from the very beginning that although we unequivocably condemn anti-Semitism, we don't monitor, police, censor or edit anything on the site. Period. It's essential that we retain the status of a common carrier," Schefler explained. "If we were to edit or restrict content in any way, it's possible we could be viewed in court as a publisher responsible for all content." Schefler says his membership is "1,000 percent" behind him. What about those customers who rely on his service for business and don't particularly want to be part of a noble test case? "There have been spirited discussions, but nobody's leaving so far." In the end, what if protecting this one person's right to speech ultimately led to the closing of the platform for all members? "We're feeling it certainly could develop into a situation that could threaten our business. Really, it's a complex situation, and there are a lot of other things we'd rather be dealing with right now. Still, we're up to the challenge. We felt it was inevitable that something of this nature would come along sooner or later." Without getting into the diverse legal standards for speech that exist in Canada, Germany and the United States, here's my take on why Deutsche Telekom's move to block is a gross mistake: -- Blocking access to an entire Web server to stop one person's speech is like blocking access to an entire telephone area code simply because one person is running a phone-sex service. -- There are at least 100 racist sites on the Web, and probably many more. Not only is it impractical to block them all -- it's also impractical to block even one. As of Tuesday, the materials on Zundel's site had been duplicated and moved to another Web server, thereby defeating the ban. -- By stepping in and disrupting the marketplace of ideas, Deutsche Telekom actually increased demand for the neo-Nazi material. Schefler said the disputed section has been flooded with traffic since the story broke. Toronto. Santa Cruz. Berlin. Three cities, with three very different measures of what constitutes words fit for consumption in the public sphere. So whose standard will become the global standard? I don't know the answer. I do know this global problem is squarely in our neighborhood now and moving closer to home by the day. The federal telecommunications reform bill that may be voted into law in the next few days contains such broad and vague "indecency" provisions for Net speech that they establish a new prurience standard for digital speech quite unlike the constitutional standard applied to other print media. We could see www.penthouse.com heading into federal court, followed by the guy who uploads James Joyce's "Ulysses," followed by ... me. There is a chance that if this bill passes in its current state, paper-and-ink versions of some articles I've written would be legal, while the on-line versions could land me in prison. We can no longer pretend this is some clueless foreign government's mess. This is our clueless government's mess -- and it's about to land in our laps. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 14:36:53 EST From: Declan B. McCullagh Subject: Zundel Mirror Sites [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This next message could have been titled "Other Locations on the Net Where Hate and Discontent Are Welcome and Propogated." But I won't title it that. PAT] Pat: As a sporadic but longtime reader of TELECOM Digest, I was suprised to read your rant against the ACLU and EFF. I don't believe either organization is trying to mandate that ISPs must carry particular material. Rather, they're arguing that it's a *bad idea* for ISPs to adopt a role of censor, no matter how hateful the material. I've attached a message announcing mirrors of Ernst Zundel's holocaust revisionist web site that I thought you or your readers might find interesting. Since I wrote it, three new mirrors have gone online. -Declan ------------------------ The German government has forced its largest Internet provider, Deutsche Telekom, to censor access by hostname to Ernst Zundel's holocaust revisionist web site. Zundel's pages were also what sparked the Simon Wiesenthal Center's letter to ISPs and universities, arguing that they should restrict what users publish. Zundel's site now is under siege from a barrage of mail and http attacks. Just Rich (rich@c2.org) and I have set up mirrors of the Zundelsite, at Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon University. I do not agree with Zundel's views. Instead, the mirror archive exists to demonstrate the folly and the danger of Internet censorship. My mirror is in the AFS directory: /afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/declan/www/Not_By_Me_Not_My_Views/ You can access it from the following web servers at these URLs: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/declan/www/Not_By_Me_Not_My_Views/ http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~declan/Not_By_Me_Not_My_Views/ http://web.mit.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/declan/www/Not_By_Me_Not_My_Views/ These servers are fairly robust and load-balanced, and I believe it will be difficult for attacks to succeed against them. In addition, anyone with access to the globally-distributed AFS network can just cd into the above AFS directory and read Zundel's files. Some German AFS sites include, but are not limited to: afs-math.zib-berlin.de fh-heilbronn.de geo.uni-koeln.de lrz-muenchen.de hrzone.th-darmstadt.de mathematik.uni-stuttgart.de rhrk.uni-kl.de rrz.uni-koeln.de rus-cip.uni-stuttgart.de tu-chemnitz.de urz.uni-heidelberg.de I'll remove the files and provide a pointer to the Zundelsite when and if the attacks and censorship attempts stop. Deutsche Telekom's hostname-based censorship has already cut off German users from over 1,500 U.S. businesses on www.webcom.com, including electronic and computer businesses, art stores, online banks, and and even the Port Douglas Visitors Bureau for Queensland, Australia. If the German government forces Deutsche Telekom to block access to web servers at Carnegie Mellon University, MIT, and Stanford University, it will be slicing off communications with three of the most respected universities in the United States. Declan The Stanford University mirror, run by rich@c2.org, is at: http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~llurch/Not_By_Me_Not_My_Views/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Well, if you are going to have that up at MIT -- where I have my archives -- then I guess it is time for me to consider moving my archives somewhere else. I don't wish to share the same space with them. If freedom of speech is what you call it, then you can have my share of it also; I'll remain silent henceforth. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Peter Mott Subject: Pager Service Question Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 13:13:18 -0500 Organization: The MathWorks, Inc., Natick, MA 01760 Are two way pages usable? -- my interest has developed from my experience. I have been using a pager since 12-sep-1995 to tie into a software production system. I was led to believe that I could expect 95+% reliability. I had this until I upgraded my pager service to cover a wider region. At that time my reliability dropped to the point I was missing 30+% of my pages. The paging company never got this straightened out and I dropped their coverage on 19-Jan-1996. That company was mobilcomm, the service was nationwide. I am now on a trial with Skytel Two-Way. Two way paging provides the software production environment the knowlege that I haven't responded to a page. For the most part the service has been reliable. They admit to having kinks to work out of their system, and my environment picks up on a lot of those kinks. During my trial I am issuing pages on an hourly basis. -------------------- Peter Mott ----------------- mott@mathworks.com | The MathWorks, Inc. http://www.mathworks.com | 24 Prime Park Way | Natick, MA 01760-1500 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 12:37:06 EST From: theseus@dgs.dgsys.com (Paul L. Moses) Subject: Tale of a Cat I have a rather strange situation to relate, and need a few points of clarification from any telco people out there. I am an attorney assisting one of my neighbors who has been harassed by telephone. What happened: My neighbor likes to feed the birds and squirrels in the courtyard of the apartment complex where we both reside. She noticed a cat killing birds for several days, and on Tuesday she went up to the cat and saw its collar. The collar had a veternarian phone number and a home phone number, both in Maryland (We live in Virginia). Thinking this cat had gotten lost, she called the vet and got a local number for the owner. She then called the owner's number and left a message informing him of the cat's whereabouts, along with her number. When the owner received this message, he called my neighbor back and inexplicably became enraged at the idea that she had touched his cat. He called her six times Tuesday afternoon, continuing to berate and threaten her. She stopped answering the phone after the first few calls. On one of the subsequent calls, he left a message saying, "I work for a telephone company and I am going to look up your phone number and find out where you live." Possibly not-so-coincidentally a stranger showed up on her doorstep (on the third floor) later that night. She didn't answer the door. Furthermore, he called the local police that afternoon and two officers showed up in our apartment complex asking about my neighbor and the cat! To be completely clear: My neighbor did not take the cat anywhere, simply checked its collar and made a phone call. She got in touch with the phone company and they told her to file a police report (which she did), and to use *57 to trace any subsequent calls he makes. My questions are: 1) What should she do with the tape of the man's threat to abuse his company position and search for her home address? Who is the proper authority to handle this? The local police say it is a federal matter, but I can't imagine the FCC getting involved. The FBI? 2) How can we find out *which* phone company this person works for, so that we can alert them to the fact that their employee has a cavalier attitude towards the privacy of customer records? 3) How exactly does *57 work on the telco end of things? Is it a sort of souped up version of *69 that also writes the last number called into a log of suspicious calls? 4) My neighbor has a telephone number for this person, but is very concerned and does not want to reinitiate any contact. Is there any sort of reverse directory search that either she or the proper authorities can perform? I won't post the number to this list, but I would like to know what options exist, and under what conditions. Thanks, Paul ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 10:37:14 -0700 From: Jim Thatcher Organization: Novell, Inc. Subject: Wanted: Isoetec Single-line Station Card I am looking for a Single-line station card for an Isoetec 96 Key system. This card provides six digital station ports and four standard telco (single-line) analog ports. I am interested in working or non-working cards. Please respond either to this group, or by direct e-mail to thatcher@itsnet.com or jethatcher@novell.com. Thanks, Jim Thatcher (thatcher@itsnet.com) ------------------------------ From: a10271@email.mot.com (Allan Bourque) Subject: Northen Telecom Ethernet Status Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 18:09:38 GMT Hello, Does anyone know the status of NT's plans to implement PTP access to their Meridian 1 PBX's? At one time rumor was that the 'ethernet' port on the commercial processors (81 51C, 61C etc) was planned for this type of connectivity. I am looking into putting 18 NT PBX's on a PTP for both remote access and alarm monitoring. Has anyone else out there tried this? If so, an email on how and what would be appreciated. Best, Allan ------------------------------ From: Osman Rich Subject: US Source of GSM SIMs and Service Date: Thu, 01 Feb 96 07:49:00 CST I remember reading an article some years ago that announced the availability of GSM SIMs in the US. I *think* the offerer was AT&T, but a search of digest indices bore no fruit. The upshot of the announcement was that you could get a SIM card (and account management, billing) from a US supplier. All you would then need to do for your overseas travel would be to rent a phone locally, but all of the benefits of SIM based subscriber personality would be available to you. Likewise, your bill would be in US currency and from a US supplier, substantially simplifying the transaction. Does anyone remember what I'm talking about or is this simply more evidence of my loss of sanity? Rich Osman Nokia Telecommunications (I don't make cellphones, but I work for a company that does.) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 13:48:11 EST From: John W Warne Subject: Iwatsu IDS-128 Memory Batteries We're looking for a source for the small, black memory batteries for some Iwatsu IDS-128 hybrid "PBX's." These batteries support the memory during power outages, and "die" after three or four years. Iwatsu has discontinued all support on the -128 some five years ago and cannot supply new batteries. Several vendors that used to supply the units are no longer able to do so. Please E-Mail warnejw@sbac.edu if you know of a source (or you *are* a source!). Thanks. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 12:35:03 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "The Whole Internet for Windows 95" by Krol/Ferguson BKKROL95.RVW 960102 "The Whole Internet for Windows 95", Krol/Ferguson, 1995, 1-56592-155-0, U$24.95 %A Ed Krol krol@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu %A Paula Ferguson paula_ferguson@msn.com %C 103 Morris St., Suite A, Sebastopol, CA 95472-9902 %D 1995 %G 1-56592-155-0 %I O'Reilly and Associates %O U$24.95 800-338-6887 fax: 707-829-0104 nuts@ora.com %P 650 %T "The Whole Internet for Windows 95" The largest part of this book is identical to Krol's "The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog" (cf BKKROL.RVW). New Windows 95 specific meterial has been added to the chapters on email, the World Wide Web, telnet and ftp. As well, there are appendices on establishing a network connection with Win95 (both with and without MSN (Microsoft Network)), MSN itself, a comparison of Internet Explorer and Netscape, and special attention to online resources for Win95 users. The basic Inteernet material is as clear as ever. The Win95 content is likewise easily understandable for Internet users who are new to the operating system. This book could act as a realistic introduction to the Win95 tools as it not only gives operating details but also analyses shortcomings and limitations. The appendix on establishing an Internet connection is particularly useful. (I did note some minor discrepancies between actual Win95 screens and the content in the book. This may be due to discrepancies in Win95 itself: MS support people have given odd information in regard to similar features.) Both a good introductory Internet guide for Win95 users and a helpful review of the Win95 Internet functions. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKKROL95.RVW 960102. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. Rob Slade's book reviews are a regular feature in the Digest. roberts@decus.ca rslade@vanisl.decus.ca aa046@freenet.victoria.bc.ca "So, concerning the above message, you think Rob Slade is responsible?" "Heavens, no! I think Rob Slade is terribly *ir*responsible!" Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER) ------------------------------ From: Joseph Bergstein Subject: Re: Rolm PBX and Ameritech Centrex Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 13:06:25 -0500 Organization: University of Maryland University College > We are moving soon and I just discovered how much the local "product" > line has changed in Ameritech. Most of my experience was in the IXC > area rather than the local carrier. > We need about 12 lines for incoming/outgoing voice as well as four > lines for data. An Ameritech agent suggested Centrex backing up to > the Rolm PBX that we are taking with us in the move. Using Centrex > with a PBX sounds very odd to me but I was wondering if anyone in the > audience had experience with this suggestion (either with Rolm or some > similar small company PBX [50-100 station size PBX]) and how they > liked the resulting service. Sounds odd to me too! Of course Ameritech wants to sell Centrex. With a ROLM PBX there really shouldn't be a normal good reason to require Centrex lines. There are low end key sysetms which are often used to "front end" Centrex, but not a ROLM PBX. Furthermore, in some jurisdictions, it is against the law or tariff to use both Centrex and PBX on same terminating circuits. I once had an experience where I wanted to order some Centrex circuits terminating at the same service point where all my PBX trunks come in, and I was told it was against tariff to do so. We got around the problem by ordering Centrex service on separate bill. One use we did make for Centrex even with PBX was for interconnecting small nearby offices to the central "home office." ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 96 19:13:36 CST From: Mark Peacock Subject: Ameritech Cellular Brownouts Over the past 45 days, I've noticed that my Ameritech cellular service is roaming in fewer and fewer places. Places where I used to be able to roam but can no longer include: Phoenix, Northern New Jersey, Philadelphia and Orange County California. Since I spend about 60% of my time among these cities, the value of my Ameritech service has decreased significantly. Fed up, I finally called Ameritech Cellular customer service this evening. After navigating my way through their IVR front-end, I spoke to one of the nicest customer service reps I've ever encountered. She told me about a policy of roaming brownouts that Ameritech has instituted because of cellular fraud. She gave me the following list of brownout markets: Hartford, CT Phoenix, AZ Minneapolis, MN Philadelphia, PA St. Louis, MO Balitimore, MD Miami, FL Washington, DC Memphis, TN Boston, MA Atlanta, GA Los Angeles, CA New York, NY South Bend, IN To be able to roam again I have to change my cellular number. Unfortunately, the CSR who handled number changes wasn't in (I called about 6:30pm ET). She doesn't come in tomorrow morning until 10:00am, but either she or the number changer will give me a call as soon as she gets in. This isn't going to do me a lot of good, however. I'm sure that I'm going to have to go to a cellular distributor to get my phone reprogrammed, but I fly back out west at 6:00pm. A very nice CSR, but unfortunately, Ameritech hasn't allowed her to be as useful as she is nice. Just before hanging up, I asked her is Ameritech Cellular has sent something out to subscribers about the brownout policy -- maybe a notice in the nice four-color news letter that comes with each bill. No, she didn't think so, but they probably should. She was too nice yell at, so I thanked her and hung up. Is it my imagination or is this stealth brownout policy bad customer service? [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Which Ameritech market are you in? Could you explain what is meant by 'brownout'? Does that mean all roaming has been discontinued in those places? What good would changing your number do? When I talked to Ameritech in Chicago the other day specifically about roaming, not a word was mentioned on this. Please advise further details. PAT` ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #39 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Feb 1 21:29:08 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id VAA09013; Thu, 1 Feb 1996 21:29:08 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 21:29:08 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199602020229.VAA09013@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #40 TELECOM Digest Thu, 1 Feb 96 21:29:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 40 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Web Sites Get Ready for US Presidential Election (Tad Cook) Trouble-Shooting 800 Set-Aside Submissions (Judith Oppenheimer) BellSouth Seeks Clearance to Offer Long Distance (Mike King) Disappointed in Long Distance MLM Scheme (Dan Pock) AT&T Helps Restrict Sales Calls ... From Competitors! (Paul Cook) Order Entry System For NT SL-1 (Allan Bourque) Tel America Information Wanted (Dale Nemec) Telex to E-Mail Access (Van Schallenberg) PCS and Cellular Expert Needed (Tara D. Mahon) Last Laugh! Missing Person (Richard John Standing) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tad Cook Subject: Web Sites Get Ready for US Presidential Election Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 12:14:07 PST Web sites get ready for U.S. election BY MICHELLE RAFTER Reuters LOS ANGELES -- In 1960, presidential debates broadcast with the latest technology -- television -- helped spur a telegenic John Kennedy's victory over the not-ready-for-prime-time Richard Nixon. Will this be the year that another new technology -- the Internet -- puts Bill Clinton's re-election campaign over the top or helps one of the Republican contenders topple him? Cyberspace enthusiasts are betting it will. Although the Internet played a small role in the 1992 campaign, and again in the 1994 congressional contest, only in the past month or so has it emerged as a potentially powerful campaign tool. World Wide Web sites devoted to the 1996 presidential campaign are as numerous as politicians' campaign promises. Almost all of the candidates, from the well-known to the obscure, have campaign headquarters on the Web. And major news organizations including {Time Magazine} and CNN are constructing campaign Web sites of their own, as are voter's rights organizations such as Project Vote Smart and Rock the Vote. The activities do not stop there. Republican candidates Richard Lugar, Bob Dornan and Maurice "Morry" Taylor have agreed to participate in an online debate from Feb. 5 to 11 that is tentatively slated to take place on the respective Web sites of the {San Jose Mercury News} (http://www.sjmercury.com/) and {U.S. News & World Reports} (http://www.usnews.com). Debate organizer Jim Warren, a long-time electronic democracy advocate, hopes more Republican contenders will sign on before the debates start, especially as more news organizations commit to cover them. Warren said online debates and Web sites serve a dual purpose, allowing candidates to detail their philosophies in a way that would be impossible on TV, and at a fraction of the cost, while increasing politicians' Internet awareness. America Online subscribers congregated in the service's news chat room Tuesday morning were not overly enthusiastic about an online debate. Whether they are online or on TV, debates are not of much consequence, one subscriber said. Another said, "Online political debates are like voting by mail. They eliminate the effort that demonstrates interest." But analysts and online executives reckoned it was only a matter of time before campaign fever and Net fever collide. "It's a big deal," said Gary Arlen of Arlen Communications in Bethesda, Maryland. "But is it a version of electronic democracy, or more of the madness?" The online services have jumped onto the campaign bandwagon as well, with Prodigy, America Online and others erecting campaign bureaus with news, photos, chat rooms, message boards and links to politics Web sites. Such services are a hit with subscribers, said Prodigy President Ed Bennett. "We know online subscribers tend to be very involved," Bennett said. "We know they're upscale and have a higher propensity to vote. They're very involved and smart and seem to care about these things. In the past when Prodigy's done anything about elections we've had tremendous traffic." On the Web, non-partisan sites offer everything from campaign finance records to candidates' speaking schedules to information on registering to vote. The best way to find them all is by using a Web directory such as Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com/), InfoSeek (http://www.infoseek.com) or Alta Vista (http://www.altavista.digital. com) and searching for the keywords "politics" or "election" or "campaign." Among some of the newer, or more interesting sites: -- Time and CNN have teamed up to create All Politics (http://AllPolitics.com), which mixes news and commentary with political history, candidate profiles, and extras such as trivia contests. CNN's Brooks Jackson writes a "Spin Patrol" column that takes on the campaign spinmeisters. -- Less flashy, but just as meaty is Campaign 96 (http://www.vote-smart.org/campaign-96/), put together by Project Vote Smart, the non-profit organization. Although it may not have the production values of AllPolitics, Campaign 96 has some excellent features, including detailed campaign finance records, and results of a Project Vote Smart poll that spells out what candidates would support if elected. -- One of the more hip sites on the cyberspace campaign trail is Rock the Vote (http://www.rockthevote.com/), a entertainment-tinged effort put together by the non-profit group of the same name and its partner, AND Interactive. This is one of the only places on-line where you can find the dates of the New Hampshire primary (Feb. 20) and the annual Grammy Awards (Feb. 28) on the same page. Others include: Politics USA Campaign 96 (http://politicsusa.com/PoliticsUSA/campaign96/), Radio Iowa: Campaign Countdown (http://www.learfield.com/countdown/index.html), Hotwired's Netizen (http://www.hotwired.com/netizen), and Voter Link (http://www.sjmercury.com/), which begins Feb. 4. Official candidate Web sites include: -- Clinton -- http://www.whitehouse.com/ -- Bob Dole -- http://www.dole96.org/ -- Pat Buchanan -- http://www.buchanan.org/ -- Steve Forbes -- http://www.forbes96.com/ -- Lamar Alexander -- http://www.lamar.com/~lamar/ -- Phil Gramm -- http://www.gramm96.com/ -- Alan Keyes -- http://www.keyes.gocin.com/ -- Morry Taylor -- http://www.webcom.com/(tilde)morry96/ -- Richard Lugar -- http://www.iquest.com/lugar/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Actually, Mr. Clinton is violating the law by using whitehouse.gov for his election site. He is *not* permitted under the law to use government resources in this way. The site whitehouse.gov is intended for government business. I think someone had better force him to set up his own site. I realize it is a very grey area when a seated president runs for re-election as he will apparently do, and much of the time he is on the government payroll this summer will be spent politicking (as it will for the other congress people in the race) but at least they are using their own computers I assume, and not one belonging to the government. Hopefully Clinton will be removed from office. PAT] ------------------------------ From: callbrand@aol.com (CallBrand) Subject: Trouble-Shooting 800 Set-Aside Submissions Date: 1 Feb 1996 17:33:16 -0500 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: callbrand@aol.com (CallBrand) For those of you who've been able to get your RespOrgs to submit your 800 number(s) for set-aside in 888 pending the FCC rulemaking on replication, the next hurdle is February 8. On February 7th, Database Services Management Inc. will overnight "acceptance/rejection" reports to all the RespOrgs. A legitimate rejection is AT&T putting in for set-aside on an MCI number; any RespOrg putting in for set-aside on a non-working (transitional) number; or a subscriber putting in for set-aside on a number that is not assigned to their account. That sort of thing. However, an ERROR rejection is one created by a mismatch in the files, due to keyboarding error, typographical error, etc. RespOrgs will have only two days to race any error rejections back to DSMI for submission, before February 10th, the date that 888 advance reservations are slated to commence for new 888's. This office has already received written confirmation from some RespOrgs, on behalf of our clients who's submissions were handled earlier, of accepts/rejects/resubmits. We are now asking RespOrgs to provide written confirmation of acceptance (or the need to resubmit, etc.) upon receipt of the latest report from DSMI, on February 8th. Some carriers have been more cooperative regarding written comfirmations than others. If you have the clout/contacts/sheer determination etc. -- persevere. We suggest that the best protection for your 800 numbers resides in you ensuring that this an accountable process. Good luck! Judith Oppenheimer, President, Interactive CallBrand A leading source of information on 800 issues. CallBrand@aol.com, 1 800 The Expert, (ph) 212 684-7210, (fx) 212 684-2714 http://www.users.nyc.pipeline.com:80/~producer/ ------------------------------ From: mk@TFS.COM (Mike King) Subject: BellSouth to Seek Clearance to Offer Long Distance Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 16:26:26 PST Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 18:30:02 -0500 From: BellSouth Reply-To: info@corp.bellsouth.com FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For Information: February 1, 1996 Bill McCloskey (202) 463-4129 Tim Klein (404) 249-4135 BELLSOUTH TO QUICKLY SEEK CLEARANCE TO OFFER CUSTOMERS LONG DISTANCE IN TOTAL TELECOM PACKAGE WASHINGTON--Congress today approved Bell entry into the long-distance business, and BellSouth said it is expending every effort to begin offering its customers the quality choice and absolute convenience of a full-service telecommunications company. "We are making the last preparations in anticipation of President Clinton's signing the bill, and we are moving aggressively to meet all checklist requirements so our customers can benefit from this law as soon as possible," said John L. Clendenin, Chairm an and CEO of BellSouth. This legislation requires a checklist of steps leading to a fully competitive marketplace. In addition, the legislation, which was given final approval by the House and Senate today, fully opens the video market to BellSouth, allowing the company to compete on equal terms and conditions with existing cable TV companies. This new law allows Bel lSouth to market its cellular and local services together and via the manufacturing relief, lets BellSouth participate in the research, development and design of telecommunications equipment to better meet our customers needs. The Telecommunications Act of 1996, which President Clinton has pledged to sign, is an attic-to-basement rewrite of the communications law which opens up many competitive choices for customers and new growth-market opportunities for BellSouth. "It gives us the opportunity to provide all our communications services through all of our sales channels to all of our customers," Clendenin said. "It allows us to grow by providing what our customers have asked for--the convenient availability of a range of communications services from a company they rely on, BellSouth." "BellSouth intends to aggressively compete for our customers' long-distance business, and we have been working actively for months to meet the requirements of the new law so we can make all communications services available through one-stop shopping in th e very near future," Clendenin said. Clendenin also announced that BellSouth is establishing BellSouth Long Distance as a subsidiary to handle the company's entry into that business and that William F. Reddersen, currently senior vice president-broadband, will head the long distance effort. Reddersen's new title is group president-long distance and video services. "Bill has more than 18 years experience in long distance," said Clendenin. "He has proven himself as an excellent marketer who is focused on the customer and delivers what they want, when they want it. He's the ideal person to lead our long distance and video efforts." "For our cellular customers, our networks are ready, our systems are ready and our marketing plans are in place," Reddersen said. "We'll begin selectively offering quality, cellular long-distance service to our customers in a matter of days after the Pre sident signs the bill." "We plan to aggressively market our services wherever we serve customers, including our new Personal Communications Service (PCS) wireless customers in the Carolinas and eastern Tennessee when we inaugurate that service at mid-year," he continued. In anticipation of this legislation, BellSouth has been aggressively pursuing changes in the regulatory environment. "In eight of our nine BellSouth states, we have price regulation and related regulatory structures in place which facilitates our entry i nto long distance. In addition, we are well along in negotiations of interconnection agreements with other service providers, especially in our largest states of Florida and Georgia. We believe this will allow us to demonstrate to the Federal Communicat ions Commission at an early date that we have met the bill's checklist requirements for entry," Reddersen said. "We intend to aggressively meet all of the law requirements so we can serve our customers." "We have always been a leader in providing quality services -- including short-haul long distance--and we intend to extend that into these new long-distance and video markets," Reddersen pledged. BellSouth is on schedule to begin its video trial in Chamblee, Georgia, near Atlanta and is proceeding with franchise-approved video efforts in Vestavia Hills, Ala.; World Golf Village, Fla.; and Daniel Island, S.C. Passage of legislation will speed up t he process by eliminating some of the regulatory hurdles BellSouth had faced. BellSouth is a $17.9 billion communications services company. It provides telecommunications, wireless communications, directory advertising and publishing, and information services to more than 25 million customers in 17 countries worldwide. ### For addition information about BellSouth Corporation, visit our website at http://bellsouth.com ------------------- Mike King * mk@tfs.com * Oakland, CA, USA * +1 510.645.3152 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 16:37:49 -0800 From: nadaniel@earthlink.net (Dan Pock) Subject: Disappointed in Long Distance MLM Scheme The following is a letter that I sent a friend of mine after he had hastily signed up for a Long Distance carrier's multi-level program that I was researching as a possible source of extra income. It attracted me at first because they do not ask for an initiation fee, (unlike most multi level programs.) You may check them out at http://www.teleport.com/~list/fci/po2681568.shtml After looking a little closer at the proposition I felt obligated to at least try to enlighten my friend to fact that this is a scam. --------------------- Dear Mike, Well, you know the old saying, "If it looks too good to be true, it probably is." I just got my stuff in the mail from FCI and now I am convinced that this is just another scam like all of the other MLMs out there. The only winner is the long distance company. Everyone else loses. Here is how it works. First of all, under no circumstances are we ever allowed to talk to a human being. By faxing a question to FCI I was able to get a call back from a represetative who left a message on my machine but did not answer the question directly and did not leave a number where I could call and talk to him. Second, the commission structure works as follows. Because you signed up under me you are a level 1 member on my down line. I make 1% of your long distance bill. When you sign someone up they are a level 2 on my down line and I get 0.25 % of their long distance bill. (La Dee Da!) It stays at 0.25% until we get to the level 6 people which by now we hope there are a lot of them. On the level 6 members we get 5% of their long distance phone bill. The question that I faxed to them is this: If my level four person decides that he is not making enough money and decides to drop out, what happens to my level 6 member under him? Does he remain at level 6 so that I continue to get paid 5% on his long distance phone bill or does he bump up to level 5 in which case I make a useless 0.25%? The answer on my machine went something like this: "... If someone in your down line drops out then everyone in their down line bumps up under you. Thank you for faxing us and have a nice day. Oh by the way, feel free to fax us if you have any further questions." I suppose that one could still make money at this as long as everyone in your down line are stable members, But it has been my experience that people who join MLMs are rarely in it for very long. I hate being scammed. It really pisses me off. FCI members pay 12.9 cents per minute while Candace Bergen can get us 10 cents per minute. 12.9 cents would be worth it if we could really make a prophet on the deal but this is just a lot of nonsense. Sincerely, Dan ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Feb 96 13:32 EST From: Proctor & Associates <0003991080@mcimail.com> Subject: AT&T Helps Restrict Sales Calls ... From Competitors! There is a little article in the lower left corner of page B1 of this morning's (2/1/96) {Wall Street Journal} (reserved for light humorous items) which says that AT&T has sent a letter to their customers offering to help restrict telemarketing calls from MCI and Sprint. AT&T offers to send form letters addressed to their competitors on behalf of their customers which say "As soon as possible, please remove my name and number from your calling list. I DO NOT want to be called by your company." The article goes on to say that "Under FCC regulations, companies that solicit customers by phone are required to keep a list of customers who don't want to be called." MCI and Sprint are naturally critical of the letter, but the reporter goes on to wonder how many people would actually respond to this, given the cash incentives that are often dangled in front of customers who might switch. Paul Cook Proctor & Associates Redmond, WA 3991080@mcimail.com ------------------------------ From: a10271@email.mot.com (Allan Bourque) Subject: Order Entry System For NT SL-1 Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 20:39:36 GMT Hello, I am currently looking at replacing a mainframe order entry application with a PC or UNIX based order entry system for our telecom dept. We use Switchview for data admin, but the order entry screen/billing etc. seems to be lacking. The ultimate goal would be to have the CSR input the order into the system, then have the system upload the order into the PBX. Does anyone know of a product that can do this? I know that this is a rather broad question, but I am looking for leads. Switchview was supposedly doing a re-write, but I have not seen anything from them other than what they already offer. Any response via email would be appreciated. Best, Allan Bourque Telecom Analyst Motorola Inc. a10271@email.mot.com ------------------------------ From: dale.nemec@edi.org (Dale Nemec) Subject: Tel America Information Wanted Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 14:58:00 GMT Organization: Electronics Diversified, Inc. (EDI) [Info@EDI.Org] Hi everyone! I have been approached to join the marketing team of Tel America Inc., a long distance prepaid calling card company. It is a Network Marketing plan, with no limit to the levels of people below you. Has anyone heard of this? Do you have any advise? Please email privately to dale.nemec@edi.org, or post your opinions to this group if you feel it would benefit others as well. Thanks in advance! Dale Nemec Electronics Diversified, Inc Quotations / Inside Sales / Sysop 1675 N.W. 216th Avenue Internet email: Sysop@EDI.Org Hillsboro, Oregon 97124 USA http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/EDI_Online Voice: 800-547-2690 EDI Online BBS: 503-690-0972 (2400-19200,8,N,1) Phone: 503-645-5533 or e-mail to Info@EDI.Org Fax: 503-629-9877 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: You might want to read the item earlier in this issue from the fellow who got involved in MLM. Generally MLM is bad news. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Van Schallenberg Subject: Telex to E-Mail Access Date: 01 Feb 1996 02:35:49 GMT Organization: Oklahoma State University, Stillwater OK I am compiling a list of electronic mail systems that can receive messages from the international telex network. Could anyone provide information about systems with this capability? The following are the one that have been determined so far. E-Mail Telex Telex First line Service Number Answerback of text ________ ______ __________ __________ Easylink (a) (a) Compuserve 3762848 COMPUSERVE (b) AT&T Mail (a) (a) MCI Mail (a) (a) Notes: (a) Unique to each electronic mail account. (b) First line of text is "TO:" followed by the Compuserve account number, for example: TO: 73162,123 Thanks, Van Schallenberg schall@osuunx.ucc.okstate.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 01 Feb 96 17:08:52 -0400 From: Tara D. Mahon Subject: PCS and Cellular Expert Needed The Insight Research Corporation, a leading provider of telecommunications market research reports, is looking for an analyst in the areas of PCS and cellular communications. The candidate must have excellent knowledge of PCS and cellular market issues, including current and future trends, key players, and the proposed PCS service plans. Please send your qualifications to my attention at the email (or snail-mail) address below. Thank you, Tara D. Mahon tara@insight-corp.com The Insight Research Corporation www.wcom.com/Insight/insight.html 354 Eisenhower Parkway (201) 605-1400 phone Livingston, NJ 07039-1023 USA (201) 605-1440 fax Comparative Market Research and Competitive Analysis for the Telecom Industry ------------------------------ From: Richard John Standing Subject: Last Laugh! Missing Person Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 19:31:43 +0000 Organization: University of Reading, U.K. A friend of mine at Reading University was typing at the computer when the end of his tie got caught between the keys. Each tap of the keys seemed to pull more of his tie in and after about four words he disappeared completely. We have dismantled the computer and there is no sign of him. Is he legally dead or is he still dwelling in some far off corner of the Internet? Can his parents sue for negligence and if so who should they sue? The University? The computer manufacturer? The Net itself? Please e-mail me if you know of a solution to the problem. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would say sue the net itself. It is probably our fault for not requiring warning notices to be posted at the time of login. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #40 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Thu Feb 1 22:13:14 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id WAA12718; Thu, 1 Feb 1996 22:13:14 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 22:13:14 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199602020313.WAA12718@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #41 TELECOM Digest Thu, 1 Feb 96 22:13:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 41 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Pacific Telesis CEO Praises Telecom Legislation (Mike King) Infohighway Too Fast For Fidonet; Internet Gateway Closing (Dave Leibold) Re: 888 for Toll-Free v. 88X Ring-Down Points (Mark J. Cuccia) Cable Modem Web Page (David Gingold) Contractor References Wanted For Installation (Conrad Hoskins) Help For New 330 Area Code in Ohio (Steve Chilinski) Re: Nokia Cell Phone Programming Help Wanted (Vance Shipley) Re: Call Waiting Light With Ameritech Voicemail (Greg Abbott) Re: ANI/Caller-ID Questions Regarding ISDN Service (Kelly Daniels) Re: ISDN vs Cable Modems (Bob Larribeau) Re: ISDN vs Cable Modems (Kevin Kadow) Re: ISDN vs Cable Modems (Henry C. DeBey) Re: ISDN vs Cable Modems (Robert 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 America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: mk@TFS.COM (Mike King) Subject: Pacific Telesis CEO Praises Telecom Legislation Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 18:24:52 PST ----- Forwarded Message ----- Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 17:46:39 -0800 From: tltinne@legsf.PacBell.COM Subject: NEWS: Pacific Telesis CEO Praises Telecom Legislation NEWS FROM PACIFIC BELL: Pacific Telesis CEO Praises Congressional Passage of Telecom Reform Legislation "The long national telecom policy debate is over," said Pacific Telesis Group's CEO Phil Quigley in response to the passage by both houses of the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1995. "Today, after years of rough drafts, Congress drew a blueprint for the future of the telecommunications industry. And we're pleased that President Clinton has indicated he will sign the bill. "Telecommunications, in all its forms, will be the engine that drives America's economic and job growth in the 21st century. But for far too long, our national telecom policy, if it can be called that, has been a crazy quilt of outdated laws, conflicting court decisions and contradictory regulatory policies. We have had a de facto industrial policy that has partitioned markets and has hobbled our industry and our economy for years. "Today, an overwhelming majority in Congress ended the gridlock and articulated a practical telecommunications policy for the future. In short, today lawmakers voted for competition. "This is an extraordinary step forward for consumers, who will eventually have countless new options for their local telephone service, long distance and cable television service. Once legislation is implemented, consumers will finally have what they have wanted all along -- a choice among a variety of full-service communications providers offering services at prices they can afford. "When President Clinton signs this bill, the United States will finally have a modern national telecommunications policy. It isn't perfect -- it represents many compromises on all sides, including ours. But we finally have a clearer view of the road ahead. "This is an extraordinary accomplishment, and we congratulate the Members of Congress and their staffs who have spent months, and in some cases, years, to bring this about. "Pacific Telesis and the other companies in this industry now have our marching orders. Our mandate is to move forward from the hearing room to the marketplace to prove to the American people, Congress, and the Administration that today's vote is the beginning of an extraordinary new era in telecommunications for the United States and for the world. "It's time to make it happen." Pacific Telesis Group provides telecommunications services in California and Nevada. Mike King * mk@tfs.com * Oakland, CA, USA * +1 510.645.3152 ------------------------------ From: Dave.Leibold@superctl.tor250.org (Dave Leibold) Date: 01 Feb 96 19:42:30 -0500 Subject: Infohighway Too Fast For Fidonet; Internet Gateway Closing [The following appeared on a rather official Fidonet source. Fidonet is a major network of bulletin board systems, based on POTS dial-up modem connections. 1:1/31 has been Fidonet's flagship 'Net gateway for years. Unfortunately conditions on cyberspace has brought matters to this point. The content that follows is that of Burt Juda's (via Ken Wilson, a Fidonet admin type in Canada)] * Message Forwarded on by Ken Wilson (1:12/12) * Original Dated: in netmail From: postmaster To: Ken Wilson (1:1/212) ---------- Forwarded Message Begins ---------- * Original message addressed to: Multiple Recipients. (1:1/31). * Carbon copies sent to: 28 other recipients. *** The Free Ride is Over! *** ===================== Effective March 1, 1996, the Internet Gateway at 1:1/31 will be *shutting down*. At that point, there will be NO MORE "default" gateway for E-Mail coming INbound from the Internet for Zone-1. The reasons for this termination of service are numerous ... o Most recently, an excommunicated SysOp has gone on a rampage of forging subscription messages to subscribe numerous FidoNet addresses to numerous unwanted Internet mailing-lists in a deliberate attempt to "break" the FidoNet routing structure and the gateway structure. Many of the other gateways have already shut down operations. o Many of the *C routing systems have taken it upon themselves to either "bounce" (many doing it improperly addressed) or to deliberately "bit-bucket" NetMail coming from the gateway. I can no longer deal with the voluminous NetMail being received from End-Nodes querying what has happened to their inbound E-Mail coming thru the gateway. o The gateways systems and the "f###.n###.z#.fidonet.org" address syntax was designed for "casual mail", not for subscribing to massive mailing-lists and such. Many people have found ways to deliberately by-pass the controls at the gateways and subscribe to mailing-lists, forcing the inbound traffic to route in thru the gateways and clogging up the FidoNet routing structures. These days, it is fairly easy and inexpensive to get an account with any of the many Internet Service Providers thoughout the country. Those that really need to subscribe to mailing-lists should go that route. o The original intent of setting up the .fidonet.org domain was to have gateways situated geographically close to the Nodes they serve so that the load would be distributed and routing problems on the FidoNet side would be reduced. As of this writing, there are only 34 Nets out of the 431 Nets in Zone-1 which have their INbound E-Mail coming in via gateways other than the "default" gateway. The existing gateway operators and gateway software authors have always been willing to help a new gateway with their setup. The *Cs at the Net level just haven't done their part to strive for getting local gateways in place in their Nets. It just doesn't seem fair to me to keep relying on ONE gateway and the Backbone routing structure to handle over 90% of the Zone's traffic, does it? o People have been writing software which does NOT conform to proper addressing specs which have severly impacted operations of the gateway without even consulting me or even letting me know that their programs exist. o I find that I no longer have the time nor inclination to keep supporting a gateway where folks continue to break the rules of its use and bypass the controls. FidoNet in general has taken this service for granted for far too long. People seem to feel that Free use of Internet E-Mail is something they get automatically when they are granted a Node Number in FidoNet. o The I.E.E.E., the organization who has been providing the resources and bandwidth for the flow of all this traffic can no longer support the endeavor. Some services *will* CONTINUE to be provided ... o The Domain-Name-Service, which tells the Internet world where to send traffic for destinations within the .fidonet.org domain (and which defines which addresses are 'valid') will continue to be operated. However, the "default MX-record" which sent all undefined traffic for those Nets which did not otherwise have another gateway declared, will be DELETED! o We will continue to operate the DNS until such time as the InterNIC removes the .fidonet.org domain. Since the InterNIC will expect and annual service fee of $50.00 for the domain in March, it is possible that the .fidonet.org domain may dissappear. I do not plan on paying this fee out of my own pocket. o We will continue to operate the gateway at 1:13/10 (our other gateway address) on a REGISTERED-ONLY basis. This means that there will be a process whereby INDIVIDUAL Zone-1 Nodes will be able to Register to use the gateway and have an Internet address assigned. Incoming E-Mail for all REGISTERED systems will be packed on HOLD and must be picked up by direct Poll. NOTHING will be routed via the Backbone (except Bounces back to UNregistered Nodes). (Please see instructions below for Registering to use 1:13/10) How to Register to use the Gateway at 1:13/10 --------------------------------------------- To register your system to use the gateway services at 1:13/10, simply send a File-Request for REGISTER to 1:13/10. This will pass your Primary address into a function process that will dynamically re-configure the related configuration files and routing during the next hourly update process. After that, you should be able to use the gateway and any E-Mail coming INbound from the Internet will be packed on *HOLD* at 1:13/10 for your system to pickup. Note that your system is assigned a special address, which is NOT in the old 'f###.n###.z#.fidonet.org' syntax. Do NOT advertise that address as it will NOT be valid. Point systems may NOT register and may NOT use this gateway. Burt Juda Postmaster/Hostmaster (Feel free to distribute this as widely as possible) Fidonet : Dave Leibold 1:259/730 Internet: Dave.Leibold@superctl.tor250.org ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 13:51:04 CST From: Mark J Cuccia Subject: Re: 888 for Toll-Free v. 88X Ring-Down Points On 24 Jan 1996, Dave Leibold wrote: > Do Sprint and MCI have access to telco "inward" or remote operators? > If they are precluded from access to them, there'd be no point to > having MCI and Sprint operators know about the manual points. I do have an MCI account, where I dial a 950-1022 or 1-800 number and punch in an MCI `calling-card' number along with the number I wish to call. MCI operators will dial out to numbers for locations *which they serve* via their *own* network. BUT the last time I tried to have an MCI operator place a call and bill it to my home telephone number -- the number I was calling from ... they said that they couldn't bill it that way -- rather I could bill it collect, 3rd-party, or to my MCI Card/ Account number. When I've asked MCI or Sprint operators to place calls to countries that are not dialable, to non-dial locations within dialable countries, or to countries which have been dialable (on AT&T) but not thru MCI or Sprint (this was a few years ago), they told me to hang up and then dial 10-288-0 (an AT&T operator). I don't know if MCI operators can now handle calls similar to the way AT&T (the Bell System) always has ... I don't think that it is worth it for them. I don't know if `other' carrier operators even can access the far-end's LEC telco operator for busy-line-verification or emergency interrupt on long distance number. MCI and Sprint (and other) Operators can be reached as 10-XXX/101-XXXX+ 0(#)/00, or simply 00 if the carrier's operator is also the primary fg.D carrier. They can also be accessed via their 950-XXXX and 1-800- numbers... sometimes by timing out on their dialtone, sometimes by touchtoning in a `0(#)'. > An NPA-NXX finder (http://www.natltele.com/form.html) still had those 88x > entries when I recently checked. 888-828, for instance, is Indian Cabins, > Alberta which is just a few km shy of the Northwest Territories border > (60 deg N lat.). This point is little more than a road stop that appears > to be served by radiophone. The store has a radio payphone (or formally, > "coin station"), for instance. The resident population of Indian Cabins > is approximately eight, thus precluding a full exchange facility (but > perhaps not a "toll point" arrangement that assigns numbers from the > nearest exchange to set up a direct-dialable service). > A check of all the Alberta points, for instance, yielded a usual batch > of 403 NXX, then the manual 888 points (whose NXX had something of a > correspondence to alphabetical order; perhaps the initial assignment > of 888 manual points were alphabetical, with new entries added later). > The only pseudo-NPA left listed for Alberta was 889 with two points: > 889-393 Birch N.T. (Northwest Territories off an Alberta network?) and > 889-424 Pine Point. I took a look at www.natltele.com/form.html today and found those 88X entries. But this website's info is as of 30 June 1995. I would like to know exactly how the 888-XXX points have been shifted to which other 88X-XXX codes. > The new area codes available in the NANP open some interesting > possibilities... maybe +1-299 for Greenland? Some folks near Boston > might object if the French Territory of St Pierre & Miquelon were to > be included in this way (e.g. +508 to +1-508)... I do know that Bellcore is `protecting' the 52X codes (521-529) from assignment for the present, since there are billing conflicts and cellular roaming conflicts with Mexico (+52). There are not any internal Mexican area codes beginning with `0', therefore 520 was not a problem when it was assigned to Arizona recently. The 500 special area code (PCS or whatever) can `spill-over' into 533, and then 544, and then 566, 577, etc, similar to the way 800 is spilling over into 888, and then 877, 866, etc. Notice that Bellcore has `skipped-over' 511 (an N11 form code) and 522, as well as 555. 522 is not (presently) a future spillover for 500 due to Mexico, even tho' Mexico is not `supposed' to be a part of the NANP/WZ-1. Also, notice that for 800, they did skip over 899. The 89 code is probably `reserved' due to its use on International Calling Cards. Haiti would also present a problem if it were to become a part of the NANP. Its country code +509 is also the same digits as eastern WA, NPA 509. I don't know what Bellcore might be `protecting' in this matter, but I too would be interested in finding out! > Finally, it would be interesting to hear what NPA code assignments > might be "protected", that is not available for assignment as a > regular area code. 670 and 671 might be protected for assignment to > Mariana and Guam. Billing codes (like the old 88x ones, now needing > a renumbering) are another matter. There may be other protected ranges > of codes to allow for future expansion of the number of digits. Then > there's that contentious issue of whether anyone is bound to get NPA 666, > or even 382 if dial letter combinations are considered. I wouldn't like to have area code 666, nor would I like to actually call any numbers in that area code. Maybe they should use it for `spill-over' if the 900 PAY-PAY-PAY-per-call special area code were to fill up. I've always equated 900 special NPA and 976 special c/o code with the Biblical meaning of 666! :-) MARK J. CUCCIA PHONE/WRITE/WIRE: HOME: (USA) Tel: CHestnut 1-2497 WORK: mcuccia@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu |4710 Wright Road| (+1-504-241-2497) Tel:UNiversity 5-5954(+1-504-865-5954)|New Orleans 28 |fwds on no-answr to Fax:UNiversity 5-5917(+1-504-865-5917)|Louisiana(70128)|cellular/voicemail ------------------------------ From: David Gingold Subject: Cable Modem Web Page Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 20:26:36 +0000 Organization: Massachvsetts Institvte of Technology I have recently put together a web page cataloging on-line information about cable modems. The URL is: http://rpcp.mit.edu/~gingold/cable David Gingold MIT Research Program on Communications Policy MIT Laboratory for Computer Science ------------------------------ From: Conrad_Hoskins@mindlink.bc.ca (Conrad Hoskins) Subject: Contractor References Wanted For Installation Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 21:09:11 GMT Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada I have been looking supported feedback on a company out of Tucson , Arizona that has done work for McCulloch Corporation.The name of the company is Teledata Interconnect Incorporated.I would like to know if anybody has heard of them, and if so any feedbackwill be appreciated. The work they have done is in fiber-optics and Lans,telephone systems as far as I know. Conrad _Hoskins@mindlink.bc.ca ------------------------------ From: Steve.Chilinski@uunet.uu.net Subject: Help For New 330 Area Code in Ohio Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 06:24:06 GMT Organization: Gateway to Internet Services Hi, I run a call center, and need some information badly. What is the quickest way to get information from Ameritech regarding the exact locations of telephone exchanges, especially with the new 330 area code coming here to Northeast Ohio? They have a tollfree number, but it is not updated at all. Any ideas? Also, does anyone know where I can pick up color LATA maps of Ohio? Thanks, Steve ------------------------------ From: vances@xenitec.xenitec.on.ca (Vance Shipley) Subject: Re: Nokia Cell Phone Programming Help Wanted Organization: Telco Consulting Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 23:16:28 GMT In article , Edward A. Kleinhample <70574.3514@compuserve.com> wrote: > I have a Nokia 2120 dual-mode cellular phone. Does anyone known how to > put this phone into programming mode in order to enter information > about an alternate system into the NAM memory. *3001#12345

Vance Shipley, vances@xenitec.on.ca [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I should have been able to remember that from my old Radio Shack cell phone a few years ago, but somehow I did not. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 15:48:19 CST From: Greg Abbott Reply-To: gabbott@uiuc.edu Subject: Re: Call Waiting Light With Ameritech Voice Mail > I use Centel right now, so I don't know about this stuff ... Text deleted... > He bought himself a phone that has a call waiting indicator that gets > turned on by the Ameritech voicemail! > How does this work? I'm moving my central office to Ameritech > territory later this year (before the 708 grace period expires) and if > I can find a device separate from an expensive phone that will display > this call waiting indicator, I'll wire the new central office so that > the personal centrex lines actually appear in the individual offices > so the call waiting lite can display (right now the centrex lines go > through the Iwatsu key system (for intercom capability) and I bet the > call waiting signal will not get through that way, and the key system > phones would not display it anyway ...) I just recently purchased several devices which do just what you are asking for. They are small boxes, about 4x4x3/4 with a red LED on the top, upper left hand corner. The light flashes rapidly when a message is waiting and is dark when there are no messages waiting. This particular unit has a post-it note pad attached to the top as well. It requires power from a DC wall transformer. You need to make sure that your telco has switching equipment which is capable of sending the CLASS signal. This signal is much like CID data, the message waiting box simply decodes the signal and acts accordingly. We pull our dial tone from an Ameritech CO, so it would seem likely that their other offices can offer this service as well. We purchased our units from: Telephone Equipment Supply, Inc. 5138 Highway 160 South Grand Rapids, MN 55744 (218)326-9633 Good luck. GREG ABBOTT INTERNET: GABBOTT@UIUC.EDU 9-1-1 COORDINATOR COMPUSERVE: 76046,3107 VOICE: 217/333-9889 METCAD FAX: 217/384-7003 1905 E. MAIN ST. PAGER: 800/222-6651 URBANA, IL 61801 PIN # 9541 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 20:34:39 -0800 From: Kelly Daniels Subject: Re: ANI/Caller-ID Questions Regarding ISDN Service > For PRI ISDN what phone number information is being brought in > and available? > - ANI? > - Caller ID information? > How about for your standard BRI ISDN subscriber getting an incoming > call? ANI? Caller ID? > I am confused as to how both of these services and ISDN are > implemented and work? together and how much information is presented > and how for ISDN. In response to the above, Caller ID is a parameter in addition to ANI sent in the SS7 stream of the call. The Originating telco looks at the orignating dialed string and determines if the caller requested the call be blocked. The originating telco, also looks if there is a privacy indicator. If the Caller ID is not blocked then any designated transport carrier (PIC or Terminating LEC) who is connected via SS7, can deliver the caller ID Parameter to the terminating telco. The terminating telco looks at the called party inidcators to determine if the called party subscribes to caller id. If the called Party does the terminating telco delivers the caller id (they also look at a flag to see if calling name is available; if so they initiate by another dip into LIDB). ANI on the other hand is another paramater that is sent in the SS7 stream. That is always passed between the carriers originating, transperting or terminating the call. If SS7 is not present in anyone of the networks, the caller id parameter is not supported, even though ANI is. Kelly ------------------------------ From: Bob Larribeau Subject: Re: ISDN vs Cable Modems Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 06:46:39 -0800 Organization: Larribeau Associates Gerry A. Brown wrote: >> I live in central Seattle. I am about to sign on for ISDN service >> from a provider as well as buy about $1000 worth of ISDN equipment to >> allow me to telecommute, and hopefully run my X application from home >> using 128 K service (2 bonded B channels). > Why in the world are you paying $1000? A top of the line ISDN modem > costs only about $400 on the street. I highly recommend either the > 3Com Impact or the Motorola Bitsurfer. The newer models support > Multilink PPP (2 bonded B channels). The reason to buy a more expensive ethernet box is performance. You will be lucky to get 80 kb/s with two B-channels on the RS232 boxes. Personally, I have not seem them go over 70 kb/s. You can get 115 to 120 kb/s minimum from an ethernet box. On compressible files I have seen some of the Ethernet boxes go up to 300 kb/s. I think this performance is well worth the money. Bob Larribeau ISDN Consultant ------------------------------ From: kadokev@ripco.com (Kevin Kadow) Subject: Re: ISDN vs Cable Modems Date: 01 Feb 1996 15:23:15 GMT Organization: Ripco Communications, Inc. In article , Gerry A. Brown wrote: >> I live in central Seattle. I am about to sign on for ISDN service >> from a provider as well as buy about $1000 worth of ISDN equipment to >> allow me to telecommute, and hopefully run my X application from home >> using 128 K service (2 bonded B channels). > Why in the world are you paying $1000? A top of the line ISDN modem > costs only about $400 on the street. I highly recommend either the > 3Com Impact or the Motorola Bitsurfer. The newer models support > Multilink PPP (2 bonded B channels). Perhaps he is buying not an ISDN TA (Terminal Adapter) but an ISDN LAN Bridge or router, such as the Pipeline 25 or Gandalf Lanline? For these, $1K is a good price. The difference between the two is that a regular TA simply takes the ISDN 64K channels, perhaps performs BONDING and sync-async HDLC, and presents the raw data as a serial signal. Your PC is then responsible for correctly handling any compression, PPP encapsulation, and the like. A LAN Bridge or Router takes in the ISDN, handles the compression and PPP encapsulation, authentication, and error correction, and converts between ethernet (connected to one or more machines) and ISDN. Instead of needing a PPP driver on the connected machine, "all" you need is an ethernet card and driver software. The benefits of an ISDN<->Ethernet device are that it makes it easier to connect multiple machines, takes the load of PPP and compression off your computer, and improved performance. The primary disadvantages are price, inability to use the device as an ISDN-speed modem (e.g. no V.120 mode) and reliance on the quality of the vendor's firmware implementation of PPP. For reviews of some ISDN TA's and Bridges, see my web page at: http://www.msg.net/ISDN/ ------------------------------ From: Henry C. DeBey Subject: Re: ISDN vs Cable Modems Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 13:56:34 -0800 Organization: Internet Way George Gilder wrote: > Russ Welti wrote: >> Saw a real cool web page for TCI cable, about a service called >> @Home... >> Can anyone state that this is not just "posturing"? Will it really >> happen that soon and at that speed and at that cost? Do you know what this 10 megabit service will cost? Will it be 10 megabits to the user all of the time or is the 10 megabits shared amongst other cable subs? Thanks, Henry ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 13:58:01 -0800 From: rlm@netcom.com (Robert McMillin) Subject: Re: ISDN vs Cable Modems On 23 Jan 1996 18:47:04 PDT, Russ Welti said: > I'd be an idiot to invest in ISDN right now, right? Dunno -- I'm thinking of making the plunge myself. However, you might check out Dan Kegel's ISDN Web Page at http://alumni.caltech.edu/~dank/isdn It's really cool and well-maintained, with comprehensive links to all the manufacturers I know of producing ISDN equipment. Also, you might want to look at his pages describing ADSL and SDSL, possible (substantially faster) replacements for ISDN, which are links off the above. If you live in the Los Angeles area, you can get a VERY OLD (i.e., last updated 8/95) ISP list, which includes a list of ISPs supporting ISDN at http://www.primenet.com/~lclee/laoc.html. Larry Lee (lclee@primenet.com) is the maintainer. I have talked to at least one ISP that's been bought out (ex-cloverleaf.com, now quick.net) who's tried to get the listing changed for months... so if you're reading this, Larry, fix it! Robert L. McMillin | rlm@helen.surfcty.com | Netcom: rlm@netcom.com Www: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/rl/rlm/home.html [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And I would also remind you to see the earlier message in this issue regards the new web page for cable modems at lcs.mit.edu maintained by David Gingold. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #41 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Feb 2 12:40:27 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id MAA02055; Fri, 2 Feb 1996 12:40:27 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 12:40:27 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199602021740.MAA02055@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #42 TELECOM Digest Fri, 2 Feb 96 12:40:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 42 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Yes, the Telecomm Bill Passed Thursday (Shabbir J. Safdar) House Prohibits Free Speech on Abortion (various writers via M. Solomon) 888 Test Numbers Yet? (Dave Levenson) 888 Test Number Wanted (Gerry Wheeler) MCI Requires 10-Digit DNIS? (Fred Thompson) Employment in Minneapolis: Telephony Products Engineer (hrd@softrix.com) Need 800 Number Answering Service (Todd Larsen) Re: Businesses Will Spark Internet Revolution, Dave Dorma (Lisa Hancock) Re: ANI/Caller-ID Questions Regarding ISDN Service (Jack W. Lix) Re: Ameritech Cellular Brownouts (Henoch Duboff) Re: DLD Site Censored in Germany (John R. Covert) A Response in the Censorship Debate (E. Allen Smith) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: shabbir@VTW.ORG (Shabbir J. Safdar) Subject: Yes, the Telecomm Bill Passed Thursday Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 00:51:34 -0500 Reply-To: vtw-announce@VTW.ORG It was passed by the House 414-16, and then by the Senate 91-5. Senators Leahy (D-VT), Feingold (D-WI), Simon (D-IL), McCain (R-AZ), and Wellstone (D-MN) all voted against the telecomm bill. Excellent analyses of the bill have been done by the ACLU, CDT, and the EFF; there's no need to repeat them here. We'll have some unique content on the bill in Friday's BillWatch, including a statement from Feingold about the bill. In the meantime, we encourage everyone to keep an eye on the many organizations that are preparing the court challenge. This last year of legislative fighting was not without gain. The Internet as a voting block didn't get its way in everything, but we definately did a tremendous amount given our newness to the arena. Most of all, the fight isn't over yet. I can't say I've ever seen so many people falling all over each other to become plaintiffs for the Court challenge. I spoken to three reporters this week who have committed to writing stories that violate the law. We've even received email from one person asking us how he can intentionally violate the law. I'm afraid it's just too easy, no complicated directions are required. The legislative process is exhausted; we played the game and got some of what we wanted, but not everything. The potential damage to the net has been minimized to the best of our abilities. Let's now look to the courts and put our support behind those who will argue the cases to defend our free speech rights. We're behind you 100%. Shabbir J. Safdar * Online Representative * Voters Telecomm. Watch (VTW) http://www.vtw.org/ * Defending Your Rights In Cyberspace * [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And now all that remains is for the president you so eagerly voted for and put into office to sign the legislation ... but it will apparently get even nastier than expected if the message which follows is true. Read on .... PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 01:01:02 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: House Prohibits Free Speech on Abortion Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Forwarded to the Digest FYI: From: gep2@COMPUTEK.NET Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 19:34:24 -0600 Subject: [NetWatch]: House prohibits free speech WARNING: This is a -very- discouraging message. The repugnant Radical Right has just struck a shocking blow in their rabid war to shut down free speech of we American citizens, and even DISCUSSION of topics that they don't want people to be able to talk about in public. JUST before House voting, an amendment was tacked on to the new Telecommunications Reform Act which prohibits the mere DISCUSSION of abortion on the Internet. I'm including the report as forwarded to me by a friend at my ISP (the source is the Web page version of the electronic newspaper, "The American Reporter".) Note that there is no longer even any PRETENSE that the Congress' pious supposed obligation is to "prevent sexual abuse of children". This is censorship, pure and simple, of a politically hot topic. If this becomes law (as appears to be certain) and is allowed to stand by the courts, it's worth considering the implications to every other puppet dictatorship around the world, who no doubt will feel compelled to block any discussion of topics THEY don't like being discussed on the Internet, either. The editor of the American reporter has advised us subscribers by E-mail that: > Discussion of abortion on the Internet is now prohibited under the > final version of the telecom reform bill enacted by the House by a > vote 414-16 at half past 1 this afternoon, Washington time. Enactment > in the Senate of the same version is a virtual certainty, and the > White House has already announced the President's support for the > bill. I guess the revolution starts here. :-((( No matter WHAT your stand on the abortion issue, I would *certainly* hope that this flagrant attack on our rights as citizens to at least TALK about any issue (including controversial ones) makes you as angry and outraged as it does me. "Freedom of speech" means DAMNED little if it doesn't include talking about things that makes someone, somewhere, uncomfortable. We need to make absolutely certain that not ONE SINGLE ONE of these idiots in Washington EVER gets elected to a responsible office EVER again. <---- Begin Forwarded Message ----> Return-Path: John@CompuTek.Net Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 18:47:55 -0600 From: John Haynes Subject: Re: House prohibits free speech To: gep2@CompuTek.Net This is what the web page says: CENSORSHIP UPDATE ON A VOTE OF 414-16, THE HOUSE HAS PASSED THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACT OF 1996 WITH AN AMENDMENT THAT PROHIBITS DISCUSSION OF ABORTION ON THE INTERNET. THE SENATE IS EXPECTED TO TAKE UP THE BILL SHORTLY. A HIGHLY INDECENT ARTICLE DEVOTED TO THE TOPIC WILL BE PUBLISHED HERE UPON THE SIGNATURE OF THE PRESIDENT. John Haynes 73s de KC5PWL 147.180 MHz John@CompuTek.Net Gordon Peterson http://www.computek.net/public/gep2/ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The validity of this report on a ban regards discussion of abortion is not confirmed as of my sending out of this issue of the Digest Friday morning. Here are some additional thoughts by long time, *responsible* netter Lauren Weinstein, followed by another report which attempts to confirm the abortion discussion ban where the internet is concerned. PAT] Subject: Re: House prohibits free speech Date: Thu, 01 Feb 96 22:30:58 PST From: PRIVACY Forum Hold on a minute. I'm not convinced we're getting the straight story. Any anti-abortion-discussion amendment would have been bigtime news. It sounds to me like someone is trying to conclude that discussion of abortion is "indecent" under the indecency control provisions that are in the bill. In any case, this is all a moot discussion. They'll pass the bill, and it will enter the court system and work its way up to the Supreme Court, which will probably decide that certain controls over what minors can get at are reasonable. It's worth noting that the Supreme Court has permitted the FCC to continue controls over indecency on radio, but the list of "indecent" topics is restricted even then (mostly involving "patently offensive" discussion of sex, excretion, and so on). Any other topic-specific restrictions that someone might *actually* try to tack on (abortion, twinkies, green eggs and ham) are political posturing, not survivable legislation. --Lauren-- Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 17:01:24 -0800 From: dwiner@well.com (DaveNet email) Subject: Censorship Bill Passes US Congress Serious News from Dave Winer's Desktop Released on 2/1/96; 4:55:32 PM PST I had a humor-filled DaveNet piece in the pipe when news came in that the Telecommunications Reform Bill, the first major rewrite of US communication law since the 1930s, had passed both houses of the US Congress. It passed the House this morning, by a vote of 414 to 16. It was voted on and passed by the Senate later today. According to reports attributed to Reuters and the New York Daily News, and confirmed by CBS News, a measure was added to the House version of the bill which would make it illegal to transmit information about abortion thru the Internet. Reports said that the abortion censorship measure was inserted by Republican Congressman Henry Hyde of Illinois and it would classify such information as obscenity, making it illegal to send or receive it on a computer network. If true, it's heavy stuff. Stay tuned... Dave Winer Tune it in! [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Indeed, very heavy stuff. If any dis- cussion about abortion becomes illegal, then how will places like Compuserve which get wire service news from the Associated Press be able to carry news reports on abortion? In fact, if this is true and a ban on abortion talk is included, once *your* president Bill Clinton (he never was *my* president) signs the measure, will it be illegal to report it here since of necessity that would include mention of abortion? Does anyone know if this last part, what I will call the 'Henry Hyde add-on' is in fact true? PAT] ------------------------------ From: dave@westmark.com (Dave Levenson) Subject: 888 Test Numbers Yet? Organization: Westmark, Inc. Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 15:23:18 GMT In order to test some CPE for 888 readiness, we would like to be able to place calls to 888 numbers now. Ideally, these calls would act as much as possible like normal subscriber numbers -- i.e. they should produce audible ring, then return answer supervision, and perhaps play a voice recording before disconnecting. Can anybody out there help us? I know we'll be able to get our very own shiny new toll-free 888 number next month, but I'd like to be sure now that we're ready to process calls to 888 numbers. Thanks, Dave Levenson Internet: dave@westmark.com Westmark, Inc. UUCP: uunet!westmark!dave Stirling, NJ, USA Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 [The Man in the Mooney] ------------------------------ From: gwheeler@gate.net (Gerry Wheeler) Subject: 888 Test Number Wanted Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 16:37:16 GMT Organization: SpectraFAX Corp. Reply-To: gwheeler@gate.net Is there an 888 area code number I can call to see if my PBX is set up correctly? I suppose I could try 888-555-1212, but I hate to bother those folks. Gerry Wheeler 941-643-8739 voice SpectraFAX Corp. 941-643-5070 fax Naples, FL gwheeler@gate.net ------------------------------ From: fred@csn.org (Fred Thompson) Subject: MCI Requires 10-Digit DNIS? Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 16:08:14 GMT Organization: SuperNet Inc. (303)-296-8202 Denver Colorado I have heard a nasty rumor that MCI will soon require its digital customers who receive DNIS to handle 10-digits of DNIS. (Currently most of our equipment only gets 4- that's all we care about). Anyone have any more information on this? As I heard, the logic is that, since all traffic on IXC circuits has a called party number of 800, that 7-digit was sufficient until the advent of 888, but as I said, we only receive 4. BB ------------------------------ From: hrd@softrix.com (Softrix HRD) Subject: Employment in Minneapolis: Telephony Products Engineer Date: 1 Feb 1996 02:49:03 GMT Organization: Softrix, Inc. Location: Minneapolis, MN Required Skills: Experience with telephony, public switched telephone network, modems, PBX, telephony protocols, call signaling and routing. Must have knowledge of both analog and digital phone systems. Experience in analog and digital circuit design, and firmware design. BS required. Industry Experience: 2+ Years Salary: to $50K + Benefits Please send your resume immediately by e-mail (preferred) to : hrd@softrix.com or by Fax to : 908-271-9401 SOFTRIX, Inc. 1308 Centennial Ave., #194 Piscataway, NJ 08854 ------------------------------ From: hotinoc@primenet.com (Todd Larsen) Subject: Need 800 Number Answering Service Date: 01 Feb 1996 17:44:01 -0700 Organization: Primenet Oakwood Corporate Housing is looking to outsource our incoming 800#. We currently handle over 5,000 calls per month via menu prompt. We are looking for bid submissions from companies which currently handle telephone answering centers, staffed 7 days per week. If you know of a company like this, please e-mail Todd Larsen at tlarsen@rbrealty.com or call 310/444-2393. Thanks. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@cpcn.com (Lisa) Subject: Re: Businesses Will Spark Internet Revolution, Dave Dorma Date: 1 Feb 1996 22:41:51 GMT Organization: Philadelphia City Paper's City Net I disagree, at least in the short term. A recent article in the {Wall Street Journal} reported the Internet/WWW was a big disappointment to many people. A lot of people set up web sites, got some inquiries, but no sales. For users, especially lay users, typing in the complex character sequence for a http address scares them off and creates errors. Further, reliability of systems leaves much to be desired. Sending graphics over phone lines, even 14.4, is still slow. Despite high sales of PCs for residential uses, the percentage of PCs in homes remains rather low. Only a fraction of those have modems that are used, and many modem users do only specific things, such as logging into work. When the small BBS's got popular, a lot of people predicted they'd be the new way people communicated. In practice it was a fad. A lot of people passed through, but didn't stay. The big online services find the same situation -- they get many new signups, but they don't stay. I can't predict the future -- maybe 25 years down the road personal email transmissions will be everywhere. But at present, we still have a very long road to climb. ------------------------------ From: jwl@netcom.com Subject: Re: ANI/Caller-ID Questions Regarding ISDN Service Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 15:24:07 GMT In Article, (Brian Brown) wrote: > parker@megatek.com (Mike Parker) wrote: >> There's actually a whole ton of stuff passed upon call setup; I'm >> looking for the same information to get the whole D-channel call setup >> spec. Anyone know where to find out what info is presented? The D channel spec's are called out in Q.931 from the ITU. AT&T and other switch vendors have thier own version but Q.931 gives the basics everyone follows (then adds thier own flavoring). When a call is placed on BRI/PRI, the calling terminal usually includes its own phone number in the call setup. When a call comes in, a call id value is given which can be either the one the caller gave the network or one the network determined (a bit indicates which is being presented). Can someone please explain the difference betweeen call-id, ani, dnis, etc. Cheers, Jack W. Lix jwl@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: hd@chai.com (Henoch Duboff) Subject: Re: Ameritech Cellular Brownouts Date: 2 Feb 1996 09:49:46 GMT Organization: CHAI.COM In article , mpeacock@dttus.com says: > Over the past 45 days, I've noticed that my Ameritech cellular service > is roaming in fewer and fewer places. Places where I used to be able > to roam but can no longer include: Phoenix, Northern New Jersey, > Philadelphia and Orange County California. Since I spend about 60% of > my time among these cities, the value of my Ameritech service has > decreased significantly. Here in Philadelphia, PA, the Comcast Metrophone company sent out a mailing indicating that folks who leave the coverage area need to call customer service ("simply dial *611" [and hold forever]) to "register" with them. They then turn on out of area usage of the phone. (That's right -- no roaming till you call them!) You let them know when you're back, and they re-implement the "security zone." Apparently, this is being done automatically unless you tell them otherwise (for example, people who travel to work out of the area). Also,they have started the PIN program. After dialing the phone number and pressing SEND, one enters his PIN and the send key again after hearing a tone (and it's tough to hear it when in a noisy vehicle). They'll let you disregard the first cloned-phone mammoth bill if you don't have the PIN and get cloned. If you still refuse to use a PIN, the next cloned bills are on you. I think cellular service companies are implementing anti-fraud measures at the expense of customer convenience. Bell Atlantic Mobile doesn't have the "security zone" and PINs are voluntary as well. However, I'm locked in my contract for a little while, so it would be costly to switch ;-( Henoch Duboff hd@chai.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 01 Feb 96 16:23:25 EST From: John R. Covert Subject: Re: DLD Site Censored in Germany Pat wrote: > ISP's who feel they have some First Amendment obligation to service > every kook and hate monger who come along are sadly mistaken. Pat -- there are two kinds of ISPs: (1) Common Carriers (2) Online Services Note: I'm using these two terms for the lack of any better terms. The law is actually much more complex, and I only know a little more about it than you do. We should all become better informed. Common Carriers have an obligation to "service every kook and hate monger who comes along." AT&T, the local Telco, etc., are REQUIRED BY LAW to provide service to all comers, regardless of whether they agree with the views of their customers. They are, by virtue of being common carriers and being required to carry everything, also COMPLETELY IMMUNE from prosecution for illegal acts that their customers might do using their system. Online Services, on the other hand, are different. They pick and choose their customers and they regulate content. They may have a right to decide to decide with whom they do business, but they are also subject to the same anti-discrimination laws that any business must follow. But court cases have held (or at least real lawyers are claiming that it is the case) that once you begin to regulate content, you also begin to share some of the liability for the content you allow. Thus while you may be correct that ISPs don't have an obligation to service every kook who comes along, many will choose to do so in order to limit their own liability, just as the phone company limits its liability by not being in the business of controlling the content of telephone conversations. /john [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I suppose you are correct, but it is a bitter pill to swallow isn't it ... For readers here who don't know of Mr. Covert, let me make a quickie introduction: He is a very long time netizen. He, like Lauren Weinstein who is quoted earlier in this issue is a charter subscriber to this Digest. By that, I mean they were both here for Volume 1, Issue 1 back in August, 1981. They made the transition to this Digest from the old Human-Nets that summer. There are not many charter subscribers left, at least on this list. I've always appreciated the words of caution and advice from each. Both of you guys have seen a lot here over the years; not just in this Digest but overall on the 'net'. Who would have ever thought in those days that things would come to the point they are at now? I suppose it was inevitable. To close this issue of the Digest, and I would hope the discussion thread in so far as this group is concerned, a thoughful response sent by E. Allen Smith to a piece I wrote in {Computer Underground Digest} which appeared about a week ago. Although that peice in its entirity did not run here, I have expressed those same thoughts in many Notes appended to messages which have appeared here. I do not think I need to reprint my peice from CuD in order for most of you to know where I stand. Mr. Smith disagrees, and does so in a very thoughtful way, so the final word -- at least for now -- will be his. Please continue reading. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 21:17 EDT From: E. ALLEN SMITH Subject: A Response in the Censorship Debate Since Mr. Townson and others do not appear to understand the idea of allowing speech with which one disagrees, I will explain. In providing a space for communication, one may make, at its core, two different choices. The first such choice is to allow all speech that is within the stated purpose of the space in question. For instance, a moderator to a newsgroup or mailing list may restrict postings to ones meeting the purpose for which the group or list was established. A university computer science department may restrict the newsgroups it carries to comp.* and news.* groups, since these are the groups within its purpose. A for-profit ISP may restrict the groups to which WWW space is given to those who pay, since the purpose of the ISP is to make money. In such a case, the individual or organization is neither ethically nor (properly) legally responsible for the speech in question. The proper legal description of an individual or organization who has made such a choice is a "common carrier." The second such choice is to allow only speech with which one agrees. Such a choice has been made by online services such as AOL, Prodigy, and CompuServe in not carrying material they deem indecent or obscene. Such a decision is also made by an ISP who refuses to provide space to a group with which that ISP disagrees. By so doing, that individual has chosen to take on responsibility for the speech the person allows, since the person can then make the choice not to carry it. In the Prodigy case, it was correctly found that the individual or organization bears legal as well as ethical responsibility for such speech. Either choice is valid; except for a governmental body, it is the right of a provider to make that choice. Another way to phrase this right is that freedom of the press is freedom for the person who owns the press. However, one may condemn someone for making a given choice, although it is their right to make that choice - a right that one would fight to protect. I, and others, condemn the Neo-Nazis for making the choice to spew their hateful propaganda. I, and others, also condemn the choice of any ISP who decides to limit web space for such groups. I, and others, also condemn the choice of the Wiesenthal Center to call for such limits. I, and others, would equally condemn the choice of any ISP who decided to limit web space for those against such groups. I, and others, condemn the latter because we believe that the best response to wrongful speech is more speech, not cutting off that wrongful speech. Mr. Townson has claimed that the Neo-Nazi propaganda will go unanswered; this claim is false. Such organizations as the American Jewish Committee exist, among other purposes, to make opposing speech. Furthermore, I am in support of the principle of capitalism that it allows for transactions without irrelevant social considerations. This principle protects both Neo-Nazis and other groups condemned by the majority, such as homosexuals. Mr. Townson has criticized ISPs for providing space for a profit. Does he oppose property and other rights because a police officer is paid to protect them? Does he censure that police officer for protecting rights out of self-interest? Does he oppose efforts to heal the sick because a paid doctor is carrying them out? Does he censure that doctor for doing what is good out of self-interest? While not having a self-interested motive for doing what is good is praiseworthy, doing so for the sake of self-interest is no cause for condemnation. Doing evil, whether for the sake of self-interest or not, is cause for condemnation. And any ISP who censors is doing evil. Sincerely Yours, Allen Smith [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thank you for your very thoughtful commentary to conclude this thread here. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #42 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Fri Feb 2 13:32:35 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id NAA07071; Fri, 2 Feb 1996 13:32:35 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 13:32:35 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199602021832.NAA07071@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #43 TELECOM Digest Fri, 2 Feb 96 13:32:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 43 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Shame in the USA (Dave Weiner, others via Monty Solomon) India Licenses and Regulates Internet Providers (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Government Services Training Network Features SC Web Site (Brian Moura) Verifone-Netscape Package to be Developed in India (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Indian Government to Protect Sport Broadcasting (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) India Says No to Personal Handyphone Systems (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Book Review: "The Internet Edge in Business" by Watkins/Marenka (Rob Slade) Re: Call Waiting Light With Ameritech Voice Mail (S. Rowe) Re: Call Waiting Light With Ameritech Voice Mail (Gerry Wheeler) Still More Nokia Cell Phone Programming Help Wanted (Edward Kleinhample) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 11:28:03 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Shame in the USA Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Begin forwarded message: Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 20:02:21 -0800 From: dwiner@well.com (DaveNet email) Subject: Shame in the USA ---------------------------------------- Special Report from Dave Winer's Desktop Released on 2/1/96; 7:54:38 PM PST ---------------------------------------- More info is coming in... The act has passed both houses of the US Congress. President Clinton has said he will sign it. The bill may also restrict discussion of abortion on the Internet. --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Rory J. O'Connor, rjoconnor@aol.com, Washington correspondent for the San Jose Mercury-News, confirms this: "Technically, the language was sucked into the bill when Hyde added a technical amendment that was supposed to cover obscenity on the Internet. But he and pro-choice Rep. Nita Lowey, D-NY, engaged in a scripted exchange on the House floor (called a colloquy) in which Hyde said he didn't mean it and she said, thanks, I understand. "That exhange gives a court something to use in a case involving the language (a "sense of Congress") that satisfied all but the most ardent critics of the bill. That happened at about 2:30, well before the final vote." --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- From Lori Fena, lori@eff.org, Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation: "Thanks for highlighting the dark side of the telecom bill, I think you'll be amazed at how much of the press coverage in the next few days will just focus on how pleased the economic dereg winners are, and how the religious right feels like this is a 'home run.'" --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Thanks Rory and Lori! A few comments... Many people believe this law is unconstitutional. Seems that way to me. I'm not a lawyer, but I am a US citizen, raised with the basic right to say what I want to say, with certain limits that make sense. This law seems to cross into areas that are protected by the US Constitution. I grew up in a country where it was none of the government's business if I want to write or read about sexuality. As I've said in earlier DaveNet pieces, when I was growing up, my family subscribed to magazines that included sexual imagery. I don't feel it harmed me in any way, quite the opposite! Sexuality is one of the most beautiful things about humanity. To outlaw something so important will create a national wound and an international crisis. This is also a major step backwards thru evolution. It will create incomplete children who become unhealthy adults. Further, to limit discussion of abortion, one of the most gut-wrenching social issues, is totally unthinkable. It's possible to respect anti-abortion advocates, even if you believe they're wrong as I do, but to attempt to make it illegal to disagree with them reeks of totalitarianism. This is not something a reasonable person can support, even if they're opposed to abortion. Who would have ever thought this could happen in the United States? And other countries will follow our lead. Shame on us! It's an election year. Dig we must! Dave Winer The AP Story... ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 11:47:25 EST From: rishab@dxm.org (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Subject: India Licenses and Regulates Internet Providers In the context of recent events in Germany and China, it is interesting to note that, despite horrid rumours about high license fees for ISPs, the Indian government is "not considering" blocking portions of the Net for security or moral reasons. The Telecom Secretary appears relatively progressive, and has invited me to send an alternative proposal for datacom policy. I would like letters of support: read on. -Rishab India's Department of Telecommunications (DoT) charges a licence fee of $50,000 per _annum_ for BBS operators, and nearly twice as much for e-mail providers. It is preparing to finalise a policy for Internet service providers; as it doesn't understand the distintion between Internet _networks_ (MCI, Sprintnet etc) and "retail" providers (the geek in the garage), it is planning to charge well over $100,000 in annual licence fees. This is totally against the opinions of Telecom Secretary R K Takkar, as expressed to my newsletter, The Indian Techonomist, some months ago. I spoke to Mr. Takkar for some time, providing him the "education" that he asked for in my newsletter and that large datacom companies here have been curiously averse to give him. He appreciated my point of view, and invited me to send a proposal for an alternative datacom policy, which I have done (and which is summarised below). I hope to meet him next week to follow this up. As a major part of my call for removing restraints is based on the Internet's treatment by other world governments, I would like letters of support to show this. My proposal may appear tame, but it isn't really. It will allow small ISPs to pay as little as $150 a year in licence fees; reduce the (high) likelihood of cartels between large companies; and entrench electronic free-speech at (some) parity with other media. (Note that the DoT has said that it is "not considering" blocking access to parts of the Net for reasons of morals or security. This despite the local media's loudly proclaimed discovery that the Net is 97.34% paedophile, or whatever.) Highlights: 1. Definitions: - The category for E-mail providers becomes redundant, leaving international gateway, national network, and "retail" service providers - Content providers have constitutional protection as electronic publishers - BBSes do not require licensing, being content providers 2. Goals: - Licence fees not for revenue generation, but to ensure responsibility (unavoidable. Mr Takkar's words) - Licence fees based on telecom infrastructure costs, not revenues (at the moment, a licence is almost like income tax) - Regulation required for free and fair competition (see below) - TRAI should also handle datacom regulation, and datacom consumer complaints (the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is likely to be very independent of the government, headed by a former Supreme Court judge) 3. Regulation: - Equal access to gateway, network and service providers (to prevent denial of service and cartels, very likely here without explicit rules preventing them) - Rationalisation of DoT leased line tariff structure (now, a network costs more than the sum of its parts! too complicated to explain briefly) 4. Licensing: - Uniform fee structure for gateway, network and service providers (say 2.5% of leased line costs, which are known as they are provided by the DoT) - Barriers to entry greatly reduced (minimal ISP pays $150 p.a) - However, total licence fee revenue for DoT not significantly reduced (important for success of this proposal; large nationwide network may still pay $100,000+ thanks to its huge leased line requirements) The full text of the proposal will be made publicly available on the Net sometime next week. Those who would like to see it, and a template for a letter of support, should send me mail at dcom-appeal@dxm.org. I would like letters from non-commercial organisations, lobby groups, policy bodies, and so on, but NOT datacom companies (I wouldn't mind _personal_ letters of support from them, but they wouldn't do for the DoT). I would particularly like to see something from Hong Kong, which I have used as a good example of how to do things in Asia. Thanks, Rishab The Indian Techonomist - newsletter on India's information industry http://dxm.org/techonomist/ rishab@dxm.org Editor and publisher: Rishab Aiyer Ghosh rishab@arbornet.org Vox +91 11 6853410; 3760335; H 34 C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA ------------------------------ Date: 02 Feb 96 11:09:28 EST From: Brian Moura <76702.1337@compuserve.com> Subject: Government Services Training Network Features SC Web Site City of San Carlos Press Release For More Information, Contact: Brian Moura, City of San Carlos (415) 802-4210 Internet e-mail: scarlos@crl.com Internet web: http://www.ci.san-carlos.ca.us/ John Fillo, GSTN (800) 624-2272, extension 4961 CITY OF SAN CARLOS FEATURED IN GSTN VIDEO New Internet Web Address & Features Also Announced SAN CARLOS, CA -- January 30, 1996 -- The City of San Carlos and the Government Services Television Network (GSTN) announced today that the San Carlos on Internet service is being featured in this months GSTN video. GSTN provides videos that are used by over 850 government agencies in the United States and Canada for training and news as well as for rebroadcast over the government access channel of local cable TV systems. The San Carlos Internet service will be part of a Money Watch segment entitled "Local Government and the Internet". The segment provides examples of how the City of San Carlos has used the Internet to better inform the public about police, fire, parks and City services. It also features an interview with San Carlos Assistant City Manager Brian Moura who offers tips to other government agencies on how they can use the Internet to provide better information to the public in their communities. San Carlos Mayor Don Eaton stated "One of my priorities this year is for the City of San Carlos to continue to work cooperatively with other government agencies. I am pleased that the Government Services Training Network (GSTN) has selected our San Carlos on Internet project as the subject of this months "Money Watch" segment. I hope that it will provide helpful tips and advice on how other cities and counties throughout the U.S. and Canada can start similar services for their citizens." NEW INTERNET WEB ADDRESS AND FEATURES ------------------------------------- The City of San Carlos also announced today that it has changed the address of its Internet server to http://www.ci.san-carlos.ca.us/ and that the San Carlos on Internet Web server now features new graphics that are designed to appear faster to users who access the service through America On Line. According to City Manager Mike Garvey: "Were changing the San Carlos on Internet Web server address for two reasons. First, the new address is much shorter and easier to remember. More importantly, the new address conforms to the new Internet addressing standard for cities with Web servers. When the City of San Carlos started its San Carlos on Internet information service in May, 1994 , there was no standard way to reach cities on the Internets World Wide Web. Since that time, many cities have created Web servers so that a standard City naming scheme was developed. Now that there is a city standard, this change brings San Carlos into compliance with this program." Improved support for America On Line (AOL) users was added due to the large number of people who access the San Carlos on Internet Web site through America On Line. Brian Moura, San Carlos Assistant City Manager and Webmaster said: "Over the last few months weve noticed that many people have been visiting our Internet site through America On Line. To improve our Internet area for these people, we have tuned our Web pages starting this month with new graphics software from Johnson-Grace called "ART Press". This software "recognizes" the America On Line Web browser and sends it graphics and images in a special format that can be read and displayed faster than if conventional software was used. We hope that this new feature adds to the enjoyment and effectiveness of our San Carlos on Internet program for America On Line users." ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT SERVICES TRAINING NETWORK (GSTN) ----------------------------------------------------- The Government Services Training Network (GSTN) is a partnership of the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), the National Association of Counties (NACO), the National League of Cities (NLC), Public Technology, Inc. (PTI) and Westcott Communications. Using the editorial and video talent at Westcott Communications in Carrollton, Texas, GSTN visits innovative cities and counties throughout the United States and Canada to bring the best practices in public administration to over 850 subscribing cities and counties. This enables these agencies to receive a constant flow of new ideas to improve their agencies and to share with their top managers and employees. GSTN videos can also be shown on the government access channel of local cable TV systems to provide information to the public and college students about the "state of the art" in public administration today. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 11:54:00 EST From: rishab@dxm.org (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Subject: Verifone-Netscape Package to be Developed in India The Indian Techonomist: weekly summary, February 4, 1996 Copyright (C) 1996 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh. All rights reserved Verifone-Netscape package to be developed in India January 30: Verifone Inc, which recently announced a tie-up with Netscape Communications Corp to develop a comprehensive package for Internet commerce, will develop much of the software in India. Verifone has a three-year- old research centre in Bangalore, the software capital of India, run by its wholly-owned subsidiary Verifone India Ltd. The research centre takes advantage of India's large English speaking technical workforce - paid far less than similar staff in the US - as well as its tax structure full of benefits for software exporters. However, Verifone is also targeting the Indian market for financial security products, as it believes there is a potentially enormous market for smart cards and the like and has been talking to a number of Indian banks about the possibilities. Meanwhile, India's Department of Posts has announced that several of its huge network of postal savings banks (located in most post offices, particularly in rural and remote areas) will accept smart cards. They will be used for savings, cash withdrawals, and as a passbook, storing all account information on a chip on the card. The Indian Techonomist: weekly summary, February 4, 1996 Copyright (C) 1996 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (rishab@techonomist.dxm.org) Tel +91 11 6853410; Fax 6856992; H-34-C Saket New Delhi 110017 INDIA May be distributed electronically provided that this notice is attached ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 11:55:11 EST From: rishab@dxm.org (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Subject: Indian Government to Protect Sport Broadcasting The Indian Techonomist: weekly summary, February 4, 1996 Copyright (C) 1996 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh. All rights reserved Possible legislation to protect sport broadcasts February 2: The Indian government, in yet another legal battle over rights to sport broadcasts, has suggested resort to legislative action if it fails in court. At issue is the 1996 Cricket World Cup, which is expected to have a global TV audience of two billion viewers, and will involve matches in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The government broadcasting monopoly, Doordarshan, had bought both terrestrial as well as satellite and cable rights for India. However, it allegedly failed to pay the third installment of the fee in time (it claims the payment was only delayed by two days), and the rights were immediately granted to Rupert Murdoch's STAR network. STAR would like to broadcast the match over its Prime Sports channel, but does not have the permission (or infrastructure) for terrestrial broadcasts over India. WorldTel, which owns the all the rights through an arrangement with the World Cup organisers, is willing to negotiate a sale of terrestrial rights to Doordarshan. Doordashan finds this galling; it may lose the considerable amount it has already paid (some $30 million). Besides, it was buying satellite rights as well to thwart STAR's competition. The case is now with the Supreme Court, which is likely to rule against Doordarshan as the breach of contract, however minor, appears clear. In that case, the government may issue an ordinance to protect major sport events from exclusive coverage on satellite channels, similar to moves being planned in Britain (again, perhaps not coincedentally, against Mr Murdoch). In another cricket- related case a year ago, the Supreme Court had judged the government broadcasting monopoly unconstitutional, and ordered a liberalising of broadcasting, in the public interest. The government has prepared some very progressive legislation, although it has not come into effect yet. But in this latest case, Doordarshan will argue that keeping this major event from 400 million terrestrial TV viewers in India will not be in the public interest, after all. The Indian Techonomist: weekly summary, February 4, 1996 Copyright (C) 1996 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (rishab@techonomist.dxm.org) Tel +91 11 6853410; Fax 6856992; H-34-C Saket New Delhi 110017 INDIA May be distributed electronically provided that this notice is attached ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 11:56:21 EST From: rishab@dxm.org (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Subject: India Says No to Personal Handyphone Systems The Indian Techonomist: weekly summary, February 4, 1996 Copyright (C) 1996 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh. All rights reserved India says No to Personal Handyphone Systems February 2: India's Department of Telecommunications (DoT) ruled out separate licences for Personal Handyphone Systems, the Japanese wireless multi-purpose communications service similar to American PCS. Japan's Association of Radio Industries (ARIB) had organised a seminar for govenment telecom officials to explain PHS technology and its uses. The DoT felt that PHS could be used as an alternative to wireless in local loop (WLL), which is included in the licences for basic telecom services. DoT sources said that PHS could complement mobile cellular communications, but that the government was not interested in bringing in separate providers for PHS. This could perhaps create a backdoor for basic service providers to get into mobile services; on the other hand, the WLL included in basic services is for fixed communications. There are already a fair number of competing providers of paging services throughout the country, and two competing private cellular services in the four "metro" cities - Delhi, Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. The government received bids worth over $90 billion for its tender for nationwide basic services (one in each region, to compete with the DoT's own service) and cellular services outside the metros (two private providers per region). The bidding process and the government's selection of the winners are currently being challenged in the Supreme Court. The Indian Techonomist: weekly summary, February 4, 1996 Copyright (C) 1996 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (rishab@techonomist.dxm.org) Tel +91 11 6853410; Fax 6856992; H-34-C Saket New Delhi 110017 INDIA May be distributed electronically provided that this notice is attached ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 12:26:08 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "The Internet Edge in Business" by Watkins/Marenka BKINEGBS.RVW 960103 "The Internet Edge in Business", Watkins/Marenka, 1995, 0-12-737840-5 %A Christopher Watkins cwatkins@algorithm.com %A Stephen Marenka %C 955 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139 %D 1995 %G 0-12-737840-5 %I Academic Press Professional %O publisher@igc.org jmills@acad.com app@acad.com 619-699-6362 %T "The Internet Edge in Business" This book covers a lot of ground which other Internet business books don't. There are chapters on encryption, file formats and searching for email addresses. The material is quick and easy to read, and gives an overall impression of the net in a short span of time. There are, however, shortcomings. The content is very terse: not only technical details but realistic impressions of usage may be missing. Most of the material is good, but there are factual errors. (The chapter on viruses has as many mistakes as facts.) Finally, while an attempt has been made to point out some business functions of the net, there is nothing like a convincing business case for the non-specialist company. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKINEGBS.RVW 960103. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. Rob Slade's book reviews are a regular feature in the Digest. Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca | "Remember, by the Institute for rslade@vanisl.decus.ca | rules of the game, I Research into Rob.Slade@f733.n153.z1/ | *must* lie. *Now* do User .fidonet.org | you believe me?" Security Canada V7K 2G6 | Margaret Atwood ------------------------------ From: S. Rowe Subject: Re: Call Waiting Light With Ameritech Voice Mail Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 09:14:05 -0800 Greg Abbott wrote: >> I use Centel right now, so I don't know about this stuff ... > I just recently purchased several devices which do just what you are > asking for. They are small boxes, about 4x4x3/4 with a red LED on the > top, upper left hand corner. The light flashes rapidly when a > message is waiting and is dark when there are no messages waiting. > This particular unit has a post-it note pad attached to the top as > well. It requires power from a DC wall transformer. You need to make > sure that your telco has switching equipment which is capable of > sending the CLASS signal. This signal is much like CID data, the > message waiting box simply decodes the signal and acts accordingly. > We pull our dial tone from an Ameritech CO, so it would seem likely > that their other offices can offer this service as well. If you don't get CLASS signalling, I've run into another product (web browsing, where else?) that detects stutter dial tone and does much the same thing. I have one at my office and it works like a charm (we poor California saps don't get CLASS until the CPUC wakes up). It's also battery powered (I'm always running out of plug space, so that's nice for me.) I got mine direct from Practical Telephony, the place that makes them. Their web page is at http://www.notifycorp.com (that's where I ordered mine). ------------------------------ From: gwheeler@gate.net (Gerry Wheeler) Subject: Re: Call Waiting Light With Ameritech Voice Mail Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 16:37:19 GMT Organization: SpectraFAX Corp. Reply-To: gwheeler@gate.net Edward T Spire wrote: > He bought himself a phone that has a call waiting indicator that gets > turned on by the Ameritech voicemail! How does this work? I've seen this done on analog (POTS) phones before. It gets used in hotels, among other places. It's also available on some PBXs for analog phones. (If your person is using some other type of phone, ignore this. :-) When the phone is onhook, the usual loop voltage (about 48 v) appears across the phone, because it is a open circuit and there is no current flowing. The call waiting indicator is a neon bulb (or an electronic equivalent) which won't light at that voltage. But, by putting a higher voltage (about 100 volts?) on that loop, the voltage *will* be enough to light a neon bulb. So, the message waiting feature just determines what voltage is applied to the phone's loop. Gerry Wheeler 941-643-8739 voice SpectraFAX Corp. 941-643-5070 fax Naples, FL gwheeler@gate.net ------------------------------ Date: 02 Feb 96 10:07:19 EST From: Edward A. Kleinhample <70574.3514@compuserve.com> Subject: Still More Nokia Cell Phone Programming Help Wanted > Vance Shipley (vances@xenitec.xenitec.on.ca) replys: > *3001#12345 Next quiz for the Cell phone gurus out there: The dealer that programmed my phone, obviously a devout Florida State fan, apparently felt like taking revenge on me for rubbing in that my Alma Mater, The University of Florida, had a somewhat better season than FSU. He proceeded to program a message into my phone that says "NOLES RULE!" whenever the phone is powered on. This is obviously unacceptable. Does anyone out there in netland know how this message is programmed (or more to the point, changed) to something more correct with the universe (like perhaps "GATORS RULE!")? TIA, Ed Kleinhample Consultant and GATOR fanatic - Land O' Lakes, FL. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #43 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Feb 5 12:20:24 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id MAA05674; Mon, 5 Feb 1996 12:20:24 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 12:20:24 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199602051720.MAA05674@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #44 TELECOM Digest Mon, 5 Feb 96 12:20:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 44 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Beyond Area Code 888: What Next? (Paul Robinson) Getting Listed in Telecommunications Directory (Nigel Allen) Re: Call Waiting Light With Ameritech Voice Mail (C. Wheeler) Re: Call Waiting Light With Ameritech Voice Mail (Hendrik Rood) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 05 Feb 1996 11:50:15 EST From: Paul Robinson Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company/TDR, Inc. Silver Spring, MD USA Subject: Beyond Area Code 888: What Next? (This message is the same as that sent to the FCC; it has been slightly reformatted for posting to Usenet). I. Before the Federal Communications Commission 5 Feb 1996 Petition for General Rulemaking Title: Beyond Area Code 888: What Next? ---------------------------------- FOR PETITION AND PROPOSAL FCC FOR NEW RULEMAKING USE ---------------------------------- Petitioner: Tansin A. Darcos & Company/TDR, Inc. (Successor to Tansin A. Darcos & Company) Address: Tansin A. Darcos & Company/TDR, Inc. 8604 Second Ave #104 Silver Spring MD 20910 E-Mail: BEYOND-888@TDR.COM X.400: C=US; S=DARCOS; ADMD=MCIMAIL, DDA.UN=5066432 Submitted By: Paul Robinson Addressed To: Federal Communications Commission Office of the Secretary of the Commission 1919 M St NW #222 - Mail Stop 1170 Washington DC 20554 Federal Communications Commission Common Carrier Bureau 1919 M St NW #500 - Mail Stop 1600 Washington DC 20554 Facsimile: +1 202 418 2825 Comes now the petitioner Tansin A. Darcos & Company/TDR, Inc., who respectfully submits the following proposal before the Commission. Beyond Area Code 888: What Next? | February 5, 1996 | Tansin A. Darcos & Company/TDR, Inc. | FCC No. II. Prior Issues In a petition "In the matter of NPA 800 and NPA 888" ("previous petition"), which was submitted by Tansin A. Darcos & Company prior to its becoming incorporated, the Commission issued an order granting in part and denying in part the previous petition. That order ("Commission's Order") was titled "In the matter of Toll Free Service Access Codes" CC Docket 95-155, released October 5, 1995. Due to other matters, the Commission's Order was not seen by the petitioner until after the closing date for submitting responses to the Order. Petitioner was therefore unable to submit a timely response to the Commission's Order, but the comments in this petitition do not directly respond to the issues in that Order anyway and thus a separate petition would have been needed in any case. III. Why a new petition is necessary In reading the Commission's Order, other than one issue, petitioner essentially had no significant response because it was felt that the Commission's Order was at least a reasonable attempt to alleviate the problems raised by the petition, i.e. the shortage of available Toll Free telephone numbers. Currently, in April of this year there will be added the 888 NPA ("Area Code 888") as an addition to NPA 800 ("Area Code 800") for use for persons wishing to subscribe to a Toll Free telephone number to allow them to receive telephone calls at no charge to the caller. In the Commission's Order, it was noted that when the 888 Area Code is exhausted (as the 800 Area Code is becoming), Bellcore, (the organization that assigns new Area Codes), would then use 777 (or 877, as the commission mentions as another possible code in its Order), 666, 555 and so on for additional codes. It was this portion of the Order - the suggested recommendation of what codes that might be used once the 888 code was exhausted - that petitioner felt should be clarified by the Commission BEFORE the new code(s) were assigned. The issues raised with respect to that item represented, in effect, in petitioner's opinion, a different issue which should be handled separately, thus the current petition is being issued as a separate matter. This petition also proposes a solution - not necessarily the only solution - to what the petitioner believes to be a real and significant issue which should be examined by the Commission. The petitioner notes that there is no question that additional Area Codes will be used after 888 is exhausted, and whatever codes are used, they will have to use one of the new Area Codes which use the digit 2 through 9 as the second digit of the Area Code. What this petition raises is the issue of WHAT number(s) will be used for those future Toll Free Service Area Codes. This issue should be settled in a reasonable manner when haste is not necessary, and long before it becomes a problem. Doing so in this manner would also give other parties the opportunity to respond. IV. New issues raised by this petition The manner in which Toll Free Area Codes are assigned should be clear, consistent and obvious. It should be simple enough for the average person to understand, and be reasonably easy to set up with respect to vendors of electronic telephone systems, private branch exchange ("PBX") equipment, and telephone switching equipment, that the means to do so not be excessively complicated. This would be following in the general practices of the Commission that its actions be in the public interest, convenience and necessity. It should also be done in a manner that doesn't conflict with other well-known services and not cause problems of a religious nature. The current plan provides this year to use Area Code 888 for further assignments of Toll Free numbers. Beyond this, it has been suggested that other codes such as codes using all three numbers being the same be used for this purpose. It is petitioner's opinion that this scheme lacks two critical needs: consistency and conciseness. First, it would be extremely confusing if Area Code 555 was used, when the 555 exchange is used - with limited exceptions in Area Code 800 - generally to refer to directory assistance. Second, for religious reasons, it might not be appropriate to use Area Code 666 at all. For example, it has been reported that the Social Security Administration will issue an applicant a different Social Security Number if the applicant complains that the number 6 appears three times in a row in the number originally assigned to them. If these Area Codes are dropped from the scheme, then the system being used is not consistent. If they are used, the system is still not concise because you still have 800, then 888, then 777, then 666, then 555, then 444, and so on. Alternatively, there was a proposal to use a doubled digit preceded by 8, i.e. to use 877 next, then 866 and so on. Again, this seems to have little thought to it and is going to be difficult to understand for the average person. Whatever method is going to be used - if it is not consistent and concise and easy to understand - is going to be confusing to the general public. It would be better if a simple, compact and concise method of assignment of new Toll Free service codes beyond 888 was used. This petition proposes such a method. The petitioner wishes to emphasize that this is not considered the only method which is to be used, but that it is based on what appears to be a simple and consistent method of developing new Toll Free service codes. There may be other even easier methods of developing the next code(s) to use after 888 based on comments by other respondents to this petition, if the commission opens an inquiry into the issues raised herein. V. Background for the proposal outlined in this petition Petitioner wishes to note that the Area Code 800 is available to allow Toll Free calling in World Zone 1 for essentially any customer who wishes to purchase the service, i.e. a customer in Canada, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, etc. may obtain a number beginning with 1-800 for use in terminating a call in that country just as a customer in the U.S. may do so. However, for the purpose of this petition, Petitioner is not considering the matter of a customer of an 800 number in a World Zone 1 country outside of the U.S., although the issues raised here will be of some importance to customers in those countries, the issue at hand will be of minimal significance since the issue raised by this petition is WHAT numbers will be used in the future. Currently, the Toll Free number system is set up to allow calls from points in World Zone 1, either all or (usually) part. Calls outside of the area which is assigned international code 1 were unable to dial calls into Area Code 800. This has changed in part with the development of a means for a party to pay for that portion of the call that leads from their country to the United States. Once the call had been transported into the U.S., the transport company would then place the call over the Toll Free network, thus allowing a party to reach someone on an 800 number. This has, to a degree, assisted owners of 800 numbers, since many of them published advertisements targeted for persons in Europe or elsewhere outside of North America, unaware that their 800 numbers cannot be dialed from outside of World Zone 1. An idea came to me as a result of a report in the electronic newspaper Telecom Digest, which is published on the Internet as Usenet newsgroup comp.dcom.telecom. A correspondent to Telecom Digest reported that for calls to 800 numbers, the telephone system in Australia was requiring the caller to dial 1-880, plus the 7-digit number assigned to the 800 Area Code subscriber, in effect, overlaying NPA 880 ("Area Code 880") on Area Code 800 as if Area Code 880 and Area Code 800 were one and the same. The caller paid for the portion of the call to the United States; the called party paid for the call from the point of presence the call was transferred to in the U.S. to the eventual destination point of the dialed number as if it were an 800 Area Code direct dialed number from that point. So it occurred to this petitioner, why couldn't that be done on an actual basis, and if that were done, why not simplify the whole system in an equivalent manner, thus possibly solving the issue of Toll Free codes for the next 20-50 years or more? Or why not expand upon this and use the two digit code to indicate Toll Free service code, and make the Toll Free service code of the subscriber 8 digits in length? VI. Substance of the proposal It was petitioner's thought that the first two digits of all NPA codes that begin 88 be reserved exclusively for use as Toll Free NPAs. In other words, "Area Code" 880 through 889 be reserved for use as the Toll Free block for use in assignment of numbers for that purpose. This solves the issue of being concise, since all Area Code numbers beginning with 88 are set aside for Toll Free service. To be consistent, each long distance carrier and responsible organization ("resp-org") that assigns Toll Free telephone numbers could also have Area Code 880 be identical to Area Code 800, allowing a caller to use either Area Code to reach precisely the same number. How this would be consistent is that it could be "well known" and publicized that the "Toll Free" numbers are all 1-88 plus 8 digits, similar to the way it was "well known" that the Toll Free numbering system is/was 1-800 plus 7 digits. The Toll Free service code range could then be expanded to 8 digits, by having all Toll Free service codes be considered a ten-digit number beginning with 88 (with 800 numbers presumed to be Area Code 880). Those implementing toll-restriction devices or toll-restrictions in PBX software could implement ALL of the Toll Free codes that will be placed into service over the next few decades long before it is necessary to do so, thus saving customers money since they would not need to purchase expensive upgrades or have expensive trained personnel perform the same. In short, petitioner's request looks like a "win-win" situation for everyone: the issue can be resolved long before it is despirately necessary; it can be solved in a manner easy to implement; it is simple for the customers (both the owners of Toll Free codes and the users of the Public Switched Telephone Network who dial those numbers); it doesn't require anything unusual be done (since new codes will be needed beyond 888, the only question is WHICH numbers); and it leaves a large, consistent bank of numbers to use when additional Toll Free NPAs are needed. VII. Why Petitioner considers the alternative solution to be unacceptable. Using the all-same-digits for additional Toll Free Service codes means that the numbers are "all over the place", e.g. first 800, then 888, then 777, and so on. Also, either 555 is going to be used, which will certainly confuse people, or it will be set aside, in which case the proposal isn't consistent, and will also confuse people. If 999 is used as a code, it then eliminates the possibility of that code perhaps being used as a relief code when Area Code 900 is exhausted, perhaps 15 or 20 years from now. Also, if 999 is set aside as a future relief code for premium surcharged audiotex and other services ("Premium Services"), PBX and toll-restriction device makers can program this code into their systems in advance of it being used. VIII. Reasons which would require the Commission to act upon this petition: This issue concerns the future continued operation of the Toll Free service portion of the Public Switched Telephone Network, and as such is considered a part of the Commission's jurisdiction. The particular code(s) which will be used when Area Code 888 is exhausted will be a matter of a tariff filing before the Commission in any case. Only the Commission can issue an order binding upon all local exchange carriers, resp-orgs and long distance carriers, and the issue is such that some concise, consistent and easily understood method be developed BEFORE additional codes beyond 888 are needed. That developing a consistent, concise system for Toll Free service codes beyond Area Code 888 is in the public interest, convenience and necessity. IX. Reasons why this should not cause a burden upon local exchange carriers or resp-orgs. - Long Distance Companies, resp-orgs and Local Exchange Companies will have to implement some additional Area Code(s) when Area Code 888 becomes exhausted a few years from now. - Using the equivalent of an 8-digit Toll Free service code, e.g. 88 plus 8 digits, would allow carriers and resp-orgs using computer programs to identify them using a simple 8-digit code in the future instead of having to identify the entire Toll Free code. Thus, a method such as this should be LESS of a burden than having a mish-mash of different hard to follow and inconsistent set of Area Codes for Toll Free service. - NPAs 880 thru 887 and NPA 889 are not now in use and thus assigning them for this purpose causes no hardship to anyone. - Doing the assignment now gives all parties involved years to be ready for this change and to be aware of it well in advance of when the need occurs. - The plan can be implemented with considerable time in advance of when Area Code 888 becomes saturated and near to exhaustion, instead of (again) waiting until the last minute and causing hardship to customers who want new Toll Free service codes and can't get them, or to resp-orgs who find that they are also unable to assign new codes. The following reasons were stated in petitioner's Previous Petition and are still applicable: - Local Exchange Carriers must already implement NXX style Area Codes. - Something has to be used; this change would simply set a consistent standard as to the exact format to be used. - Issuing an order will not impose an unecessary burden, excessive costs or unusual hardship. - Issuing such an order will not constitute a significant change to the environment or otherwise require an environmental impact report. X. The petitioner respectfully prays for, and requests of the Commission that it grant the following relief: 1. That a consistent, concise method of numbering additional Toll Free service codes when more are needed beyond Area Code 888 be developed. 2. That the method be devised early, well in advance of when it is needed. 3. That the method be easy to understand by the general public. 4. That it provide sufficient expansion for more Toll Free service codes in a manner that is simple to implement for resp-orgs, long-distance carriers, local telephone companies, and other similarly situated entities. 5. It be easy for designers of software and other applications wishing to restrict toll and other calls on PBX and other telephone systems to allow calls to Toll Free numbers by allowing calls to all potential NPAs over the forseeable future. 6. One possible - but not necessarily the only - method which satisfies these criterion be to use all Area Codes which begin with 88x exclusively as Toll Free service codes and to reserve them for that purpose. 7. That if such a method as stated in paragraph 6 is used, i.e. using other NPAs beginning with 88 as the first two digits, that Area Code 880 be used as an overlay to Area Code 800 so that the method be consistent, allowing callers to be aware and owners of Toll Free service codes to then be able to advertise, Toll Free numbers as being 88 plus 8 digits. 8. That if a method (which is considered by this petitioner to be less than satisfactory and is not recommended) for the Toll Free service codes used beyond 888 is to consist of using all three digits of the Area Code to be identical, that all such code numbers - 222, 333, 444, 555, 666, 777 and 999 - be set-aside by the Commission at the same time and not be available for assignment as regular telephone Area Codes. 9. That if a method as stated in paragraph 8 is used, that Area Code 555 not be assigned for this purpose due to the possibility of confusion between the typical directory assistance number in each Area Code 555-1212 and the use of an Area Code 555. 10. That the commission may in any case decide to issue an order that Area Code 555 be removed as a possible NPA for other uses in order to prevent possible confusion by the general public. 11. That if a method as stated in paragraph 8 is used, that the commission order Area Code 999 not be assigned for Toll Free service, but be set aside for the eventual use in the future when Area Code 900 is exhausted, for use as a relief code for Premium Services. 12. That the commission order that Area Code 999 (or, in the alternative, Area Code 990) be set aside as a relief NPA for use for future Premium Services or other services when Area Code 900 is exhausted. 13. That the Commission may decide to order the setting aside of Area Codes 990 thru 999 for future use as relief codes for Premium Services or for other services in a similar manner to that which was proposed in this petition. 14. That the Commission order that the same telephone number (now 555-1212) be reserved in all Toll Free Area codes exclusively for use as the number for Directory Assistance for toll-free numbers. 15. That the Commission order that all Directory Assistance numbers in toll free area codes be overlaid to be the same service in all cases, so that no matter which Toll Free Area Code the caller dials before the directory assistance number, that they will always reach directory assistance for toll free numbers, e.g. 888-555-1212, 880-555-1212, 800-555-1212, 887-555-1212 all be the same number, or the equivalent number in whichever area codes are assigned beyond 888 as additional toll-free area codes. 16. That the Commission issue such other relief as is reasonable and proper. Respectfully Submitted, this Monday, February 5, 1996. Paul Robinson General Manager Tansin A. Darcos & Company/TDR, Inc. C:\FCC\888-POST.TXT ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 14:47:50 -0500 From: Nigel Allen Subject: Getting Listed in Telecommunications Directory Organization: Internex Online, Toronto, Ontario, Canada A Detroit publishing company, Gale Research Inc., is preparing a new edition of its {Telecommunications Directory}, which it describes as "an international descriptive guide to telecommunications companies, services, systems, and related organizations in the field." This includes academic programs that deal with telecommunications, telecommunications-related consulting firms (including those operated on a part-time basis by academics), law firms with a special interest in telecommunications, telecom consultants, telecom-related publications, telecom research centers, as well as Internet service providers and telecommunications carriers. Associations of telecommunications users and labor unions representing telecommunications workers may also be listed. You may want to get your organization listed in the directory. There is no charge to be listed. I will be glad to send a questionnaire for the directory to anyone who requests one, or you can obtain one by going to http://www.io.org/~ndallen/tdq.txt Nigel Allen, Toronto, Ontario, Canada ndallen@io.org http://www.io.org/~ndallen/ ------------------------------ From: C. Wheeler Subject: Re: Call Waiting Light With Ameritech Voice Mail Date: 5 Feb 1996 16:16:51 GMT Organization: CCnet Communications - Walnut Creek, CA gwheeler@gate.net (Gerry Wheeler) wrote: > When the phone is onhook, the usual loop voltage (about 48 v) appears > across the phone, because it is a open circuit and there is no current > flowing. The call waiting indicator is a neon bulb (or an electronic > equivalent) which won't light at that voltage. But, by putting a > higher voltage (about 100 volts?) on that loop, the voltage *will* be > enough to light a neon bulb. So, the message waiting feature just > determines what voltage is applied to the phone's loop. Of course it must be AC. And it has to be a relativly high freqency. 100 VAC at a low freq would make the ringer sound on a POT set. Signals for neon message waiting indicators are usually above 1 KHz. ------------------------------ From: hrood@xs4all.nl (Hendrik Rood) Subject: Re: Call Waiting Light With Ameritech Voice Mail Date: Sun, 04 Feb 96 19:29:44 GMT Organization: Elephantiasis In article , gwheeler@gate.net (Gerry Wheeler) wrote: > Edward T Spire wrote: >> He bought himself a phone that has a call waiting indicator that gets >> turned on by the Ameritech voicemail! How does this work? > I've seen this done on analog (POTS) phones before. It gets used in > hotels, among other places. It's also available on some PBXs for > analog phones. (If your person is using some other type of phone, > ignore this. :-) > When the phone is onhook, the usual loop voltage (about 48 v) appears > across the phone, because it is a open circuit and there is no current > flowing. The call waiting indicator is a neon bulb (or an electronic > equivalent) which won't light at that voltage. But, by putting a > higher voltage (about 100 volts?) on that loop, the voltage *will* be > enough to light a neon bulb. So, the message waiting feature just > determines what voltage is applied to the phone's loop. Which was the reason one of my colleagues blew up his modem-card in his notebook, just connecting the plug from his desk-telephone. (Just a warning, for those travelling around with notebooks ;-)). These too simple inventions are not allowed and used in the public network. The solution there is something like CLASS on the analog acces-line and sending the Message Waiting Indicator (MWI) via the SS#7 network. At this moment MWI is not finished as a standard, so you can see a mix of intermediate solutions invented by the phone company or their switch-suppliers. Most phone-companies still not use the SS#7 signalling for the Message Waiting indicator and directly connect a voice-mail system to the local exchanges. In the Netherlands PTT Telecom performs a voice-mail trial with the Message Waiting Indicator supplied as a different dialling-tone. So you are only alerted when you go off-hook. ir. Hendrik Rood Stratix Consulting Group BV, Schiphol NL tel: +31 20 44 66 555 fax: +31 20 44 66 560 e-mail: Hendrik.Rood@stratix.nl ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #44 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Mon Feb 5 16:22:10 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id QAA00690; Mon, 5 Feb 1996 16:22:10 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 16:22:10 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199602052122.QAA00690@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #45 TELECOM Digest Mon, 5 Feb 96 16:22:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 45 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson 3rd CFP Conf. Smart Card Research & Advanced Applications (Pieter Hartel) Juvenile Bomb Plot Plans Came From Internet (Tad Cook) FTC Crackdown on Internet and Telco Fraud Schemes (Tad Cook) Kids and Rotary Phones (Mike Wengler) California Finally Gets CID (Bruce Roberts) References Wanted On Excel Telecommunications (Tarsha Williams-Moseley) A Pager Got My Number Even Though I Didn't Call the Pager (Jay Bardhan) Telecom Archives on CD Rom (TELECOM Digest Editor) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: pieter@fwi.uva.nl (Pieter Hartel) Subject: 3rd CFP Conf. Smart Card Research and Advanced Applications Date: 5 Feb 1996 11:18:11 GMT Organization: FWI, University of Amsterdam CARDIS 1996 SECOND SMART CARD RESEARCH AND ADVANCED APPLICATION CONFERENCE September 18-20, 1996, Amsterdam, The Netherlands AIMS AND GOALS Smart cards or IC cards offer a huge potential for information processing purposes. The portability and processing power of IC cards allow for highly secure conditional access and reliable distributed information systems. IC cards are already available that can perform highly sophisticated cryptographic computations. The applicability of IC cards is currently limited mainly by our imagination; the information processing power that can be gained by using IC cards remains as yet mostly untapped and is not well understood. Here lies a vast uncovered research area which we are only beginning to assess, and which will have great impact on the eventual success of the technology. The research challenges range from electrical engineering on the hardware side to tailor-made cryptographic applications on the software side, and their synergies. Many currently existing events are mainly devoted to commercial and application aspects of IC cards. In contrast, the CARDIS conferences aim to bring together researchers who are active in all aspects of design of IC cards and related devices and environment, such as to stimulate synergy between different research communities and to offer a platform for presenting the latest research advances. CARDIS 1994, sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and held in November 1994 in Lille, France, has successfully brought together representatives from leading IC research centers from all over the world. CARDIS 1996 will be the second occasion for the IC card community in this permanent activity. CARDIS 1996 will be organised jointly by the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science at Amsterdam (CWI) and the Department of Computer Systems of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). SUBMISSIONS Submissions will be judged on relevance, originality, significance, correctness, and clarity. Each paper should explain its contribution in both general and technical terms, identifying what has been accomplished, saying why it is significant, and comparing it with previous work. Authors should make every effort to make the technical content of their papers understandable to a broad audience. Papers should be written in English. Authors should submit: * 16 copies * of a full paper * typeset using the Springer LNCS format (see instructions below) * not exceeding 20 pages in length * printed double-sided if possible * addressed to Pieter H. Hartel Univ. of Amsterdam Dept. of Computer Systems Kruislaan 403 1098 SJ Amsterdam The Netherlands In addition, each submission should be accompanied by information submitted via WWW, (http://www.cwi.nl/~brands/cardis.html) or submitted via email to cardis@fwi.uva.nl that consists of: * a single postal address and electronic mail address for communication * complete title, author and affiliation information * the abstract of the paper * a small selection of the keywords that appear on this call for papers, which best describe the contribution of the paper Proceedings will be available at the conference. It is intended to publish the proceedings in the Springer LNCS series. Authors of accepted papers may be expected to sign a copyright release form. IMPORTANT DATES Submission deadline March 1, 1996 Acceptance notification May 15, 1996 Camera ready paper due July 1, 1996 Conference September 18--20 1996 THEMES Technology/hardware 1 IC architecture and techniques 2 Memories and processor design 3 Read/Write unit engineering 4 Specific co-processors for cryptography 5 Biometry 6 Communication technologies 7 Interfaces with the user, the service suppliers 8 Reliability and fault tolerance 9 Special devices 10 Standards Software 11 The operating system 12 Models of data management 13 Communication protocols IC Card design 14 Tools for internal or external software production 15 Validation and verification 16 Methodology for application design Electronic payment systems 17 Road pricing 18 Internet payment systems 19 Untraceability Algorithms 20 Formal specification and validation 21 Identification 22 Authentication 23 Cryptographic protocols for IC cards 24 Complexity Security 25 Models and schemes of security 26 Security interfaces 27 Hardware and software implementation 28 Security of information systems including cards 29 Formal verification of transaction sets 30 Protocol verification IC Cards, individuals and the society 31 IC cards and privacy 32 Owner access of data 33 IC cards: political and economical aspects 34 Is the IC card going to change legislation? 35 Patents, copyrights Future of ic cards 36 Innovative technologies 37 Moving towards the pocket intelligence 38 Convergence with portable PCs, lap tops etc ... 39 PCMCIA Innovative applications 40 Design methodology of applications 41 IC cards and the information system 42 Examples of new applications 43 Requirements for innovative cards Standards 44 Emerging standards 45 Compliance and approval ORGANISATION Steering committee chairman: Vincent Cordonnier (Rd2p, Lille) Local organisation: Pieter Hartel (Southampton, UK and Amsterdam, The Netherlands) Stefan Brands (CWI, The Netherlands) Eduard de Jong (QC consultancy, The Netherlands) General Chairman: Pieter Hartel (Southampton, UK and Amsterdam, The Netherlands) Program Chairmen: Pierre Paradinas (Rd2p/Gemplus, France) Jean-Jacques Quisquater (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) Program committee Stefan Brands (CWI, Amsterdam) Andr\'e Gamache (Qu\'ebec, Canada) Louis Guillou (CCETT, France) Josep Domingo-Ferrer (Univ. Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain) Pieter Hartel (Southampton, UK and Amsterdam, The Netherlands) Hans-Joachim Knobloch (Karlsruhe, Germany) Pierre Paradinas (Rd2p/Gemplus, France) Reinhard Posch (Graz, Austria) Jean-Jacques Quisquater (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) Matt Robshaw (RSA Laboratories, USA) Bruno Struif (GMD, Germany) Doug Tygar (Carnegie-Mellon, USA) LECTURE NOTES IN COMPUTER SCIENCE Advice to Authors for the Preparation of Camera-Ready Contributions to LNCS/LNAI Proceedings The preparation of manuscripts which are to be reproduced by photo-offset requires special care. Manuscripts which are submitted in technically unsuitable form will be returned for retyping or cancelled if the volume otherwise cannot be finished on time. In order to make the volume look as uniform as possible the following instructions should be followed closely. ************ * PRINTING AREA: Using 10-point font size for the main text the printing area should be 12.2 x 19.3 cm. 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It is desirable that on all pages the text appears in the middle of the sheets. * REMARK 1: If your typesetting system does not offer the variety of font sizes needed for the preparation of your manuscript according to these instructions, you may choose a different (larger) font size and a correspondingly scaled printing area (12-point font size for the running text, for example, corresponds to a printing area of 15.3 x 24.2 cm and to a final reduction rate of 80%). * REMARK 2: You are encouraged to use LaTeX or TeX for the preparation of you camera-ready manuscript together with the corresponding Springer style files "llncs" (for LaTeX) or "plncs" (for TeX) to be obtained by e-mail or by ftp/gopher as follows: Mailserver: Send an e-mail message to svserv@vax.ntp.springer.de containing the line get /tex/latex/llncs.zip for the LaTeX syle files or get /tex/plain/plncs.zip for the TeX style files. Sending "help" to the server prompts advice on how to interact with the mail server. The style files have to be unzipped and uu-decoded for use. In case of problems in getting or uu-decoding the style files please contact "springer vax.ntp.springer.de". Ftp: The internet address is "trick.ntp.springer.de", the user id "ftp" or "anonymous". Please enter your e-mail address as password. The (above mentioned) files reside in "/pub/tex/latex/llncs". Gopher: Point your client to "trick.ntp.springer.de". ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: Juvenile Bomb Plot Plans Came from Internet Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 23:54:53 PST Boys nabbed, accused of plotting bomb BY ELLEN WULFHORST Reuters NEW YORK -- Three 13-year-old boys have been accused of plotting to blow up their school after learning how to build a bomb over the Internet, police said Friday. The boys were arrested Wednesday after other students at Pine Grove Junior High School in Minoa, New York, heard rumors of their plans and police were alerted, said Capt. William Bleyle of the nearby Manlius police department. The boys planned to break into the school on Saturday and plant a home-made fertilizer bomb in the office, he said. One of the boys, believed to be the ringleader, admitted to police that the three eighth graders learned how to build the bomb from instructions they found on the Internet, the global network accessible from home computers. "The information is very easy to find," Bleyle said. "It's at your fingertips. They just called it up." He said police found diesel fuel, a bag of fertilizer and other items -- the basic materials to build a bomb -- at the first boy's house. The boys found the information using a computer at home, not at school, said Gary Minns, superintendent of the East Syracuse-Minoa school district, about 250 miles northwest of New York City. The school is not hooked up to the Internet but had been considering it, he said. "It goes way beyond what we would consider a prank," Minns said. "Especially from Oklahoma City and the knowledge and awareness of the devastation these things can cause, to think they were even considering doing this type of thing is extremely disturbing." Officials believe the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City blast was caused by a fertilzer bomb in a truck outside the Alfred P. Murrah federal building. At least 167 people died. The three boys had built and tested a bomb in a field behind an elementary school, Bleyle said. That bomb caught fire but did not explode. All three, who are being charged as juveniles, are accused of conspiracy, he said. They have been suspended from school. Police were still investigating their motives, Bleyle said, adding "It was definitely to effect destruction on the school. It was not an idle threat. There was actual intent to carry this through. The destruction could have been enormous." Just under 1,000 students attend the junior high school in Minoa. Two of the accused boys live in Minoa and the third in nearby Kirkville, Bleyle said. --------------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But look at the bright side of it. At least after this week they will not be able to use the Internet to find out where to take their girl friends to get abortions nor will they be subject to seeing naked pictures of other boys and girls on the net sent to them by a bunch of perverts, err, I mean Secret Service agents trying to entrap them, etc. :) :) PAT] ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: FTC Crackdown on Internet and Telco Fraud Schemes Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 23:56:53 PST Federal, Florida Regulators Crack Down on High-Tech Investment Fraud By Robin Fields and L.A. Lorek, Sun-Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.--Feb. 3--To Chicago bus driver Hector Quesada, a North East Telecommunications infomercial looked like a road map to early retirement. The sales pitch: Investors could make easy money reselling valuable Federal Communications Commission paging licenses. Quesada, 49, invested $48,000 with North East, based in Deerfield Beach. But he hasn't seen a penny in earnings and may never see his original investment returned. "I lost more than half of my savings," he said. "Now I don't know if I can ever retire, if I can support my family." Federal Trade Commission officials estimate investors nationwide lost more than $250 million to telemarketers peddling paging licenses and "900" numbers between March and October 1995. Federal and state regulators fought back last week with a national crackdown, dubbed "Project Roadblock," that took aim at 60 telemar- keting firms, including ten in South Florida. The Federal Trade Commission, the North American Securities Administration Association and 21 state agencies brought civil complaints against 85 people and companies. In six cases, federal judges shut down businesses. In the other cases, orders were issued prohibiting telemarketers from doing business in specific states. North East Telecommunications, which also did business as Strategies Telecom and Tannen Advertising, was among the local companies named. Federal judges froze the company's assets and appointed receivers to run the business, said Detective John Calabro with the economic crimes division of the Broward County Sheriff's Office. "This high-tech fraud could be as big as the oil and gas deals of the '80s and the land deals of the '70s," Calabro said. "Instead of the old land rush, it's the airwave rush." Regulators said investors were led to think they could make profits of 200 percent or more by leasing or reselling FCC licenses for paging businesses. But the companies selling the paging licenses neglected to tell clients that the FCC almost always forbids leases and resales, and that to make money off the licenses directly, license-holders would need to invest millions more in communications hardware, said David Frankel, attorney with the FTC. A doctor in Orlando said he spent $15,000 on three FCC paging licenses with one of the companies. The licenses cost only $20 each from the FCC and are worthless without a paging business, Frankel said. "They were so aggressive. They were calling two or three times a day. They told me they were calling from the World Trade Center in New York," said the doctor, who asked that his name not be disclosed because he's so ashamed. "But after I gave them my money, when I wanted to get hold of them, I couldn't reach them. They would never return my calls." Mark R. Goldstein of Lighthouse Point, director of Tannen Advertising and vice president of Strategies Telecom, was arrested by sheriff's officials last week. He was charged with operating an improperly licensed business, a third-degree felony. Goldstein also uses the alias Steve Collins, said the FTC's Frankel. Goldstein's lawyer, L. Van Stillman of Boca Raton, declined to comment. In another high-tech pitch, investors in "900" number businesses were told they could double their money by buying into a partnership similar to investment arrangements made in oil and gas wells, Frankel said. Federal officials say they discovered that a California company selling partnership interests for $5,000 falsely told investors that their investments were "backed by a U.S. Treasury bond that secures their principal 100 percent." But the promised "900" businesses never got off the ground. Instead of setting up phone lines, telemarketers took investors' money and paid out sales commissions and expenses, regulators said. Paging license and 900-number schemes exemplify how high-tech investment promoters use hype about legitimate emerging technologies to defraud consumers, said Chuck Senatore, regional director of the Securities and Exchange Commission in Miami. "Anything that sounds like it's hot in the marketplace is ripe for fraud," Senatore said. The 900 numbers and paging licenses are just the latest high-tech investment businesses gone sour. Last May, the SEC charged Boca Raton-based Comcoa Ltd. and its founder, Thomas Berger, with fraud and selling licenses that the SEC considered unregistered securities. Comcoa received about $16.5 million from investors nationwide for specialized mobile radio licenses from the FCC, according to court records. Con artists exploiting the burgeoning interest in the information superhighway also have peddled investments in wireless cable, which would send television signals by microwave to special antennas, Senatore said. Legitimate wireless cable networks could become a low-cost alternative to conventional cable. But some promoters were collecting investors' dollars and never building the new networks, Senatore said. "If there were ways for people to get 250 percent returns on their investment, then the smart money would be there," Senatore said. "But if something is returning that high a profit, then the risk has to be off the charts." While many consumers lack savvy about emerging technologies, not everyone falls for high-tech-tinged telemarketing pitches. Joyce Sheppard of Boynton Beach said a representative for USA Channel Systems Inc. of Los Angeles tried to persuade her to pay $8,000 for pager licenses in Arizona, New Mexico and Wisconsin. "She said you'll be like MCI and AT&T starting off on the ground floor," Sheppard said. "She said I'd have so much money, I'd just pass it down from generation to generation." Instead of investing, Sheppard passed on information about USA Channel Systems to the FCC. On Tuesday, regulators in Alabama, South Carolina and Wisconsin filed cease-and-desist actions against the company. USA Channel Systems officials were not available for comment. A recorded message on the company's telephone lines said the company was not accepting calls. Regulators and consumer advocates applauded Sheppard's response. Despite the actions filed in Project Roadblock, investors' recoveries are expected to amount to only pennies on the dollar, said Nicholas Evans of the North American Securities Administrators Association. "We have good luck getting some money back but are rarely successful in getting all of it," said Robert Friedman, assistant director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "That's the nature of the beast." [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Many people in other areas of the USA have always looked at South Florida as a fraud-hive. Some of those guys have really just about ruined the telemarketing industry with their outlandish pitches, etc. When someone calls on the phone to sell you something, *always* start out alert, and insist on a way to identify the caller before going any further. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 09:48:31 -0500 From: wengler@ee.rochester.edu (Mike Wengler) Subject: Kids and Rotary Phones Mark J Cuccia wrote: > ... while your ten year old might be able to program a VCR and > download all kinds of material from the Internet, etc ... one school > recently put in a rotary dial phone, and the children did *not* know > how to use it!?!?!?! My nephew, at the age of about 7, was presented with a rotary phone in a home he was visiting when he asked to call home. He picked up the handset, looked at the dial for a few seconds, and proceeded to "dial" his number by sequentially placing his fingers in the correct holes without turning the dial! I wonder if there are words *we* use for which we've forgotten the real meaning. My nephew certainly knows the expression "dial this number" without having any connection to dialling! > Maybe parents who are concerned about their kids running up bills > calling 1-900 & 976 and the like PAY-PAY-PAY-per-call numbers should > just get a rotary dial phone and keep a touchtone phone locked up for > their own use! :-) They would figure out how to "hack" the dial phone in a few minutes ... Mike Wengler http://www.he.net/~wengler/ for no-surcharge calling cards and low LD rates ------------------------------ Subject: California Finally Gets CID From: bruce.roberts@panasia.com (Bruce Roberts) Date: Mon, 5 Feb 96 09:47:00 -0800 Organization: Panasia BBS - North Hollywood, CA - (818) 763-1158 - No Fees! Reply-To: bruce.roberts@panasia.com (Bruce Roberts) From the "Briefly" column, Business section, {Los Angeles Times}, 1 Feb- ruary 1996. "Court OKs Caller ID Without PUC Restrictions: The service, which lets telephone users see a caller's number before answering, can be launched June 1 in California without the privacy measures ordered by a state agency, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled. The court said the state must follow federal rules, which require display of a caller's number to a fee-paying customer of the service unless the caller has taken steps to block the display. The court said the Federal Communications Commission acted within its authority in overriding the state's rules. Citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding disclosure of phone numbers to police, Judge Arthur Alarcon rejected the Public Utilities Commission's argument that privacy rights of customers with unlisted numbers would be violated." Bruce Roberts, bruce.roberts@panasia.com ------------------------------ From: WILLIAMST@folly.cofc.edu Date: Mon, 05 Feb 1996 08:25:42 EDT Subject: References Wanted on Excel Telecommunications Organization: College of Charleston I just joined the Excel Team as a marketing rep. Since joining, I've discovered that this company has been around for the last six years. Can anyone share some information about this company? Thanks in advance, Tarsha Williams-Moseley P O Box 20944 Charleston SC 29413 williamst@folly.cofc.edu ------------------------------ From: jbardhan@demon.ceh.servtech.com (Jay Bardhan) Date: 5 Feb 1996 00:25:48 GMT Subject: A Pager Got My Number, Even Though I Didn't Call the Pager Organization: ServiceTech, Inc. I had an interesting experience the other night. I was going about my normal life when I received a few hangup calls. I thought that they were just pranks, but the last time, the person stayed on the line. "Who is this?" she asked. I said that I didn't know. She went on to explain that several times that evening, she had seen on her pager my house's phone number, She called once, and when the person picked up, it didn't sound like anybody that she knew. I had not called any numbers that I didn't know whom I was calling. I had merely called a few friends, and nothing extraordinary. Does anyone know how this could have happened? Thank you, Neil [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Probably what happened was some dimwit friend of hers was trying to page her and somehow got the digits reversed or came up with an entirely wrong number instead which was punched in for the pager. Let's hope whoever it is, they do not have it mis-programmed in a speed dialer or something so you (and the lady) get these harrassing calls night and day for a month. I recall telling here about the First National Bank of Chicago and their fax machine which was mis-programmed to repeatedly call some family in Germany at three in the morning German time. That went on for close to a month before anyone at the bank corrected it, and then only after someone at Illinois Bell leaned very hard on telecom people at the bank. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 12:41:02 EST From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Telecom Archives on CD Rom It is coming soon ... I am making arrangements now with Walnut Creek CD ROM in Concord, California. I was going to hold off and not announce it at all until it was ready to go, but I just feel quite excited about this and wanted to let everyone know. More details will probably be available in the next two or three weeks, including pricing, and how to order, etc. Everything from the very beginning through the end of 1995 will be included. Of course, the Archives will continue to remain a free, and open to all resource on the net as well. PAT ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #45 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Tue Feb 6 10:27:21 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id KAA11455; Tue, 6 Feb 1996 10:27:21 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 10:27:21 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199602061527.KAA11455@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #46 TELECOM Digest Tue, 6 Feb 96 10:26:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 46 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Gore and Clinton Statements on Telecommunications Bill (B.K. Douglas) Telecomm Bill and Indecency (Neal J. Friedman via Monty Solomon) Post Office Phone Cards (John R. Levine) US West: Custom Ringing Numbers (fil@asu.edu) Book Review: "Zen and the Art of the Internet" by Kehoe (Rob Slade) How Do Discount Carriers Work? What Equipment Do They Use? (N. Karunanithi) Feb 4, 1965 Richmond, IN Telco Fire Archives on Web (George Goble) Need Fax-on-Demand Interface (Brian Rankin) Embedded Real-Time Micro Kernel With C Source (starcom@n2.net) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: bkdougla@rockdal.aud.alcatel.com Date: Tue, 6 Feb 96 08:07:42 CST Subject: Gore and Clinton Statements on Telecommunications Bill I guess he's going to sign it. --------------------- Title:1996-02-01 VP Statement on Telecommunications Bill Vote Document-Date:Thu, 1 Feb 1996 20:16-0500 Document-ID: PDI://OMA.EOP.GOV.US/1996/2/1/16.TEXT.1 THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Vice President For Immediate Release February 1, 1996 STATEMENT OF THE VICE PRESIDENT ON PASSAGE OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS REFORM LEGISLATION Passage today of the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996 is an historic event that will change forever the way every American lives, works, learns, and communicates. The overwhelming bipartisan support for this legislation demonstrates America's commitment to ensuring that all citizens benefit from the information superhighway. This legislation will not only create jobs, it will help connect every schoolchild in every classroom in America to the information superhighway by the end of this decade. As the President said in his State of the Union address, this legislation is critical to give families control of the programming that comes into their homes through television. Also, in the interest of promoting diversity of voices and viewpoints that are so important to our democracy, this legislation will prevent undue concentration in television and radio ownership. For the past three years, this Administration has promoted telecommunications reform that provides private investment, competition, universal service, open access and flexible regulation. With passage of this bill, we believe that this goal has been met. I congratulate members of the House of Representatives and the Senate on their diligence and vision in passing this landmark legislation. ----------------- Title:1996-02-01 President Statement on Telecommunications Bill Vote Document-Date:Thu, 1 Feb 1996 20:00-0500 Document-ID: PDI://OMA.EOP.GOV.US/1996/2/1/15.TEXT.1 THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release February 1, 1996 STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT I wish to congratulate the Congress for passing the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1995. As I stated in my State of the Union Address, America needs this legislation and this kind of bi-partisanship to build our economy for the 21st century, to bring educational technology into every classroom and to help families exercise control over how the media influences their children. For the past three years, my Administration has promoted the enactment of a telecommunications reform bill to stimulate investment, promote competition, provide open access for all citizens to the Information Superhighway, strengthen and improve universal service and provide families with technologies to help them control what kind of programs come into their homes over television. As a result of this action today, consumers will receive the benefits of lower prices, better quality and greater choices in their telephone and cable services, and they will continue to benefit from a diversity of voices and viewpoints in radio, television and the print media. I want to thank the bipartisan leadership of the conference that produced this landmark legislation -- Senators Pressler and Hollings and Representatives Bliley, Dingell, Fields and Markey. I also want to thank all those in my Administration from the Justice Department, the Commerce Department, and the Education Department for their hard work on this bill over the past three years. And I want to give a special thanks to Vice President Gore who began talking about the Information Superhighway nearly 20 years ago and who I know is very proud to see this legislation enacted today. With this legislation today we are building the information superhighway that will lead all Americans into a more prosperous future. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 21:37:19 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Telecomm Bill and Indecency Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Forwarded to the Digest FYI: Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 17:11:29 -0500 (EST) From: Neal J. Friedman Subject: Telecomm Bill and Indecency MEMORANDUM TO: All Internet Clients DATE: February 2, 1996 RE: Telecommunications Act Imposes Controls on Indecent and Obscene Content on the Internet and Online Services The newly-enacted Communications Decency Act of 1996 states that it is the policy of the United States to "promote the continued development of the Internet and other interactive computer services." But, for the first time, it puts the federal government in the business of regulating the Internet and online services. The legislation does not go as far as some had feared, but further than others had hoped. The statute prohibits the use of interactive computer services to make or make available an indecent communication to minors. It defines indecency as: "any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs." This definition has been upheld in other cases involving the broadcast media. The bill's supporters expect that it will withstand the inevitable Constitutional challenge. Indeed, Congress provided that any challenge should first go to a special three-judge panel and then directly to the Supreme Court. The Conference Committee Report accompanying the bill argues that the new indecency prohibition will "pose no significant risk to the free-wheeling and vibrant nature of discourse or to serious literary, and artistic works that can be currently found on the Internet, and which is expected to continue and grow." The language requires that the communication must be knowing and specifically exempts online service providers who merely provide access to the Internet. The Conference Report states that the intent is to focus on "bad actors and not those whose actions are equivalent to those of common carriers." This is good news for those service providers who only host content for others and exercise no control over the content. But, the legislation goes on to state specifically that it is not the intent of Congress to treat online services as common carriers or telecommunications carriers for other purposes. If the online services were to be considered as common carriers, they would be insulated from liability for any content on their systems. Thus, the question of liability of online services for defamation and copyright and trademark infringement remains unclear. The legislation also provides a "Good Samaritan" defense for service providers who have taken "in good faith, reasonable, effective and appropriate actions under the circumstances to restrict or prevent access by minors" to prohibited communications or have restricted access to indecent content by means of a verified credit card, debit account, adult access code, or adult personal identification number. The role of the Federal Communications Commission is restricted under the new law. The FCC is only permitted to describe measures that are reasonable, effective and appropriate to restrict access to prohibited communications, but it cannot give its approval to such measures nor can it penalize any service provider for failing to use the measures. The new law also prohibits states from exercising control over content of online services. States can control content entirely within their borders so long as the control is not inconsistent with the federal law. Some state legislatures had, in reaction to publicity over alleged pornographic and indecent content online, considered bills that would have put tight restrictions on content. The full text of the entire Telecommunications Act of 1996, incorporating the Communications Decency Act of 1996, and the Conference Report are available on our World Wide Web site: http://www.commlaw.com. Sincerely yours, PEPPER & CORAZZINI, L.L.P. By:___________________________ Neal J. Friedman Neal J. Friedman | Pepper & Corazzini, LLP |Voice: | njf@commlaw.com | 1776 K Street, N.W. | 202-296-0600| Telecommunications| Suite 200 |Fax: | & Information Law | Washington, D.C. 20006 | 202-296-5572| Web Server: http://www.commlaw.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 05 Feb 1996 16:27:29 -0500 From: John R Levine Subject: Post Office Phone Cards The U.S. Postal Service and American Express have teamed up to sell prepaid phone cards. They have extremely attractive designs based on postage stamps, with card collectors in mind, and come in values from $5 to $100. If you have the serial number of a card, you can get a replacement if you lose it. The rates are in keeping with other prepaid cards, much higher than normal calling cards, although the $2.33 rate could be darned attractive if they let you place calls to Inmarsat numbers. CALLS FROM THE U.S. TO: $5 CARD $10 CARD $20 CARD $50 CARD $100 CARD U.S., USVI, PUERTO RICO .56 .50 .44 .40 .33 NOWHERE HIGHER THAN 3.89 3.50 3.11 2.80 2.33 Regards, John R. Levine, Trumansburg NY Primary perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies" and Information Superhighwayman wanna-be ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Feb 1996 00:23:58 GMT From: fil@asu.edu Subject: US West: Custom Ringing Numbers Organization: Arizona State University I am having some difficulty working with US West to get my custom ring numbers to work properly. My home telephone number is in the 602-945 exchange, which uses a 5ES switch. On my phone line, I have call waiting, voice mail (on busy/no answer) and two additional custom ring numbers. I then have a ring detector which routes one of the custom ring numbers to a fax machine, the other to an answering machine. My main number rings into voicemail. Currently, calls to all three numbers (main and both custom ring numbers) are forwarded to voice mail on busy/no answer. And the call waiting alerts me when incoming calls are made on custom ring numbers. What I need to have happen is when calls are placed to either of the custom ring numbers, the caller receives a busy signal. Call waiting and voice mail would NOT work. I know that Ameritech in Ohio WAS able to provide me with this type of service. US West seems unable to provide such service. Is there anyone who could either help me get US West to program my line this way, or any other suggestions on if it can be done or not? All help is much appreciated! fil@asu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 05 Feb 1996 14:31:29 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Zen and the Art of the Internet" by Kehoe BKZENINT.RVW 960123 "Zen and the Art of the Internet", Kehoe, 1996, 0-13-452914-6, U$23.95 %A Brendan Kehoe brendan@zen.org %C 113 Sylvan Avenue, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 %D 1996 %G 0-13-452914-6 %I Prentice-Hall, Inc. %O U$23.95 FAX (515)284-2607 800-428-5331 beth_hespe@prenhall.com %P 255 %T "Zen and the Art of the Internet" "Zen" is, itself, one of the very widely known and highly regarded resources on the net. It was also the first introductory guide to the Internet published in popular book form. It is slightly larger (physically, due to a larger typeface in this edition) than it was, but is still my most highly recommended book for Internet newcomers. Kehoe has done a marvelous job of presenting the essentials, plus a few interesting tidbits, while holding off from reproducing reams of resources from those already available on the net, itself. I should, having given these accolades, admit to a decided bias: this is my type of book. Those who are not happy with concepts and only wish to know what button to press may find the book frustrating. Mail, ftp, news, telnet and a number of other tools are covered, but Kehoe does not reproduce, wholesale, help screens from elm and tin. Since the specific programs you will use all have help features, Kehoe evidently does not feel the need to waste paper explaining how to use a program that you may not, indeed, need to use. I agree, and it is refreshing to see at least one Internet guide which gives clear explanations of the essence of the Internet tools without having to fill space with specifics which you will be able to get from the programs themselves. (In response to the draft of an earlier review, Kehoe stated that Internet providers should be also providing documentation for any system specific features. He also mused on the bewilderment newcomers must feel when confronted with a shelf full of 400 to 800 page guides for a system whose basics are supposedly fairly simple. Again I concur.) Probably for the same reason, Kehoe does not reproduce an annotated, or even expurgated, .newsrc file or "list of lists." Some may say that this is a lack on the part of the book and that it is less interesting for not providing such a directory. These resources are, however, readily accessible on the net (Kehoe tells you where to find them) and cannot, in book form, be anything more than an outdated and possibly misleading first indicator. Two "lists" which Kehoe *does* provide are of ftp and telnet sites. Such sites are harder to find, and these lists are quite useful. With this fourth edition, Kehoe has added some World Wide Web material, including HTML. In twelve pages (plus a handy reference card), he manages to provide enough information for neophytes to start building their own Web pages. There is, of course, nothing wrong with the large guides with all of their lengthy references. As the same time, most newcomers will want a gentler, smaller introduction, rather than being dumped into a vat of data. For those to whom the sound of few pages flipping is as music, this is definitely your book. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994, 1996 BKZENINT.RVW 960123. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. Rob Slade's book reviews are a regular feature in the Digest. DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca rslade@vanisl.decus.ca DECUS Symposium '96, Vancouver, BC, Feb 26-Mar 1, 1996, contact: rulag@decus.ca ------------------------------ From: karun@faline..bellcore.com (N. Karunanithi) Subject: How do Discount Carriers Work? What Equipment do They Use? Date: 5 Feb 1996 19:54:26 GMT Organization: Bellcore Recently I have been seeing offers for low rate long distance calling services both within and outside U.S.A. Some of the companies claim that they can provide much lower rate than established long distance providers like ATT, MCI and Sprint. For example, these "big" long distance companies charge anywhere 76 cents to $1.24/minute to call India. Where as "other" companies claim that they can offer for as low as 59 cents/minute without any switching fee, monthly service charge etc. They are also willing to provide complete billing record and they claim that their meter increments in 1/10th of a minute rather than rounded figures used by these "big" companies. 1) Any idea as to how they operate? 2) How is the quality of their service, quality of the call etc? 3) What kind of infrastructure/hardware do they have? 4) What kind of billing mechanism do they have? Another offer that I see is pre-paid calling card to India and other countries. Here one has to pay in advance and buy a card for, say, $100. The cost per minute in these deals range from 39 cents to 69 cents to India. They also offer pre-paid call-back facility so that individiuals from a fixed phone from, say India, can call any number in U.S.A and get charge to this U.S. account. 1) Is it legal to do so? 2) How do these things work compared to a regular long distance company? 3) Who controls such a network? 4) What kind of hardware/infrastructure do they have? 5) How is billing done? 6) Is there a place where I can find these details? I am curious about these services and would like know/share your experience/knowledge. Please send your response to me so that I can compile and post it later. Thanks in advance, Karun ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 08:47:07 -0500 From: George Goble Subject: Feb 4, 1965 Richmond, IN Telco Fire Archives on Web Pat, You asked me to post when it was ready; here it is. I got copyright permission from the {Palladium-Item}, Richmond, IN, newspaper located (then) across the street from General Telephone when G.T. burned in 1965, to display the images on the web and include in the Telecom Archives. There are 1-bit scanned images from microfilms of various issues of the Palladium-Item detailing the fire, disruption, and the attempts to implement manual plugboard service after the fire (DDD had just come about 1 year before the fire). WWW URL is http://ghg.ecn.purdue.edu/richfire ghg [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks very much for going to all the trouble on this. To bring newer readers up to date on this, many or most of you are familiar with the big fire in Hinsdale, Illinois in May, 1988 at Illinois Bell. Quite a few of you may even recall the telco fire in New York City in the mid-1970's. The Hinsdale fire occurred during the lifetime of this Digest and is covered extensively in the Telecom Archives. The fire at General Telephone in Richmond, Indiana was equally disasterous, but occurred thirty years this week. It was an entirely different era in the telecom industry, and unlike the Hinsdale fire in 1988 and the fire in New York a dozen years earlier which both affected major urban areas and sophisticated switching equipment, Richmond was and is just a small town in central Indiana. The URL George Gobel has installed tells about the tragedy and the months of work which followed getting telephone service back on line. I recommend you visit his Web site today and read the story as it was reported in the newspapers thirty years ago. George, if any of this can be translated to ASCII text, please forward it to me for the Telecom Archives as well. A still earlier fire in the 1940's destroyed an Illinois Bell central office in Maywood, Illinois. I don't have any files on that one, but perhaps someday will have something in the archives on it. PAT] ------------------------------ From: brianr@netcom.com (Brian Rankin) Subject: Need fFx-on-Demand Interface Organization: Overseas Unix Support Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 01:30:47 GMT I need a fax-on-demand voice interface. I have a Unix fax server (VSI Fax); all I require is a front-end to provide a telephonic interface. I've investigated several solutions, but they cost between $15,000 and $30,000. Surely there must be a simple voice menuing system out there for well under $1000!!!! I am experienced with Unix and fax software; all I need is a front-end that can pass the information to the Unix box -- I can take it from there. The front end must be a voice menu that can pass document numbers & phone numbers to the Unix box, possibly thru a serial port. Does anyone have any recommendations? Sincerely, Brian Rankin brianr@netcom.com ------------------------------ From: starcom@n2.net Subject: Embedded Real-Time Micro Kernel With C Source Date: 6 Feb 1996 03:42:23 GMT Organization: N2 Networking Our product CRTX is a real-time embedded micro kernel written in ANSI C with no assembly required. CRTX is ideal for small embedded applications using such processors as 8051, 68HC11, 80188, DSPs and ideal for data communication applications. CRTX is written in ANSI C, with source for under $100.00. Visit our web site at: http://www.n2.net/starcom. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #46 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Feb 7 12:46:20 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id MAA04168; Wed, 7 Feb 1996 12:46:20 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 12:46:20 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199602071746.MAA04168@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #47 TELECOM Digest Wed, 7 Feb 96 12:46:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 47 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson GTE Launches ADSL Data Trial (William Kula) Book Review: "The New Internet Navigator" by Gilster (Rob Slade) UPT and UTMS Information Wanted (Sven Lehmann) FCC 888 Deployment Conference Call This Morning (D. Kelly Daniels) Sprint Nixes QuickConference (tm) (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 America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 6 Feb 96 17:44:46 CST From: William Kula Subject: GTE Launches ADSL Data Trial February 6, 1996 SUMMARY: GTE to test Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL). High-speed technology trial to involve small and mid-sized businesses, residents. IRVING, Texas -- Responding to the growing demand for faster Internet access, and the need for small businesses and individuals who work at home to quickly connect to enterprise networks, GTE Telephone Operations today announced that it has begun testing the use of Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) technology as part of a public data trial in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. The six-month trial, designed to test the high-speed communication capabilities of ADSL over existing telephone lines, will initially involve the Irving Public Library system, ProTech Books (a sister company of Taylors Bookstores) and area GTE employees. The trial will be expanded to other participants. Using ADSL technology, customers can simultaneously make standard voice calls and use their personal computer to send or receive information to and from remote offices or the Internet at speeds 10 times faster than Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), and more than 50 times faster than a conventional 28.8 kbps dial-up modem. ADSL service is provided by connecting a pair of modems to each end of a telephone line; one in the telephone company's central office and the other at the customer premise. As a high-speed modem technology, ADSL operates over existing twisted-pair copper telephone lines that carry regular telephone service, and can simultaneously transmit data at speeds up to 6.144 Mbps downstream, and up to 640kbps upstream. During the local trial, data will be transmitted at speeds up to 4 Mbps downstream, and up to 500kbps upstream. At 4Mbps, 200 pages of text can be downloaded in less than one second, and a typical World Wide Web page with graphics and text can be downloaded in less than one-tenth of a second. ADSL Could Provide Customers With More Choices. "The trial will enable us to learn how ADSL operates in the public network, and determine if a commercial offering is prudent," said Jeff Kissell, assistant vice president of business product management for GTE Telephone Operations. "If the trial is successful, we believe ADSL has the potential to expand our high-speed data portfolio, become an alternative to cable modems, provide customers with more choices, and fill a market niche that is in high demand by small businesses and telecommuters who want fast, affordable access to the Internet and enterprise-wide networks." Small to mid-size businesses, non-profit organizations, libraries and residential customers can benefit from ADSL, according to GTE's ADSL product manager Sean Dalton. "Given its eventual projections of bandwidth, ADSL is a beneficial service for companies that require high-speed data access, but for whom T-1 and Frame Relay service are cost prohibitive," said Dalton. "Likewise, today's dial-up customers will enjoy using on-line services at greater speeds than ever offered before." Libraries, Businesses, Residents Participate In ADSL Trial "ADSL holds great promise for becoming a widely used high-speed on-ramp to the Information Highway," said Dr. Robert Olshansky of GTE Laboratories in Waltham, Mass., which has provided the network design and systems integration for the data trial. "ADSL will enable GTE and other telephone companies to use the existing copper-line telephone network and off-the-shelf computer networking equipment to provide high-speed data connections from customers' computers or local area networks to the Information Highway." Computers at Irving's Central and Northwest branch library will be equipped with ADSL modems to create a virtual private network between the two locations and provide visitors and employees with Internet access, electronic messaging and desktop business conferencing capabilities. ProTech Books, also located in Irving, a seller of computer and high-technology books, kits and guides, plans to use the ADSL technology to give customers and employees greater access to, and use of, the Internet. ADSL modems are being provided specifically for the trial by Westell Technologies of Oswego, Ill., and Aware, Inc. of Bedford, Mass. Routers and switches used to provide connection between the ADSL access lines and the Internet are being provided during the trial by Bay Networks, Inc., of Billerica, Mass. Irving, Texas-based GTE Intelligent Network Services (GTEINS) is providing Internet access during the trial. GTE Telephone Operations is the largest U.S.-based local telephone company, providing voice, video and data products and services through more than 23 million access lines in portions of the United States, Canada, South America, the Caribbean and the Pacific. Its parent organization, GTE Corporation, is one of the largest publicly held telecommunications companies in the world. The following was included as an attachement. Please use UUDECODE to retrieve it. The original file name was 'ADSLrls3.TXT'. begin 666 ADSLrls3.TXT M8`T*#0H-"D9R;VTZ"4)I;&P@2W5L82P@1U1%(%1E;&5P:&]N92!/<&5R871I M;VYS+"`R,30O-S$X+38Y,C0@*$%F=&5R(#8@<"YM+BP@,C$T+3DV-"TV.#(U M*0T*16UA:6PZ('=I;&QI86TN:W5L84!T96QO<',N9W1E+F-O;0T*#0I&96)R M=6%R>2`V+"`Q.3DV#0H-"@T*4U5-34%263H)1U1%('1O('1E&%S("TM("!297-P;VYD:6YG('1O('1H92!G"UM;VYT:"!T2!I;G9O;'9E('1H92!)6QO65E2!R96=U;&%R('1E;&5P:&]N92!S M97)V:6-E+"!A;F0@8V%N('-I;75L=&%N96]U'0@8V%N M(&)E(&1O=VYL;V%D960@:6X@;&5SF4@8G5S:6YE2!S M97)V:6-E(&%R92!C;W-T('!R;VAI8FET:79E+"(@2!O9B!'5$4@3&%B M;W)A=&]R:65S(&EN(%=A;'1H86TL($UA7-T96US(&EN=&5G&%S+6)A2P@<')O=FED:6YG('9O:6-E+"!V:61E;R!A;F0@9&%T82!P Subject: Book Review: "The New Internet Navigator" by Gilster BKINTNAV.RVW 960123 "The New Internet Navigator", Gilster, 1995, 0-471-12694-2, U$24.95/C$34.95 %A Paul Gilster gilster@interpath.net %C 22 Worchester Road, Rexdale, Ontario M9W 9Z9 %D 1995 %G 0-471-12694-2 %I John Wiley & Sons, Inc. %O U$24.95/C$34.95 800-263-1590 800-263-1590 212-850-6630 Fax: 212-850-6799 %P 735 %T "The New Internet Navigator" There are, of course, a great many Internet guides. Even if you include only the longer guides, with resource information and suggested destinations, I have no less than thirteen on the shelf. "The Internet Navigator", has, from its first edition, distinguished itself by the utility and accuracy of its material. By and large, this is an Internet guide like other Internet guides. A bit of an introduction and some history, then coverage of the major applications (email, ftp, telnet) and the more esoteric ones (gopher, WAIS, World Wide Web). Right from the front cover, though, Gilster avoids the "whole Internet" bias of so many guides and aligns himself with the dial-up user. There is, in fact, a whole chapter devoted to the use of email to access Internet resources; particularly useful to those on commercial online services, business "mail only" connections or Fidonet. There is, perhaps, no one specific that sets this among the top four books that an Internet user must have. It is more a matter of tone and completeness. Gilster is friendly without being sarcastic; mature without being dictatorial; explanatory without being verbose; and comprehensive without being in any way boring. It is, of course, very much easier to point out the flaws. Although Gilster explains "why UNIX," there is a heavy emphasis on the specific commands of mail, trn, elm and other UNIX specific programs. (In the chapter on email Gilster now does give some coverage to Eudora.) In spite of minor shortcomings, however, this book has a very comfortable feel to it. The material is clear and well-written, with little attempt at the sarcasm or barbed wit of some other beginner materials. One positive factor may be the grouping of functional items together, so that archie, for example, is covered in the chapter on ftp. There is only one icon; a very helpful little ship which points out Internet accessible resources for the item under discussion. The bibliography is, perhaps, more exhaustive than useful. Overall, I highly recommend this either for the beginner to the Internet, or as a very helpful reference for the seasoned Internaut. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994, 1995, 1996 BKINTNAV.RVW 960123. Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. Rob Slade's book reviews are a regular feature in the Digest. DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters roberts@decus.ca slade@freenet.victoria.bc.ca Rob_Slade@mindlink.bc.ca Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER) ------------------------------ From: rufus@mailhost.uni-koblenz.de (Sven Lehmann) Subject: UPT and UTMS Information Wanted Date: 6 Feb 1996 20:01:15 GMT Organization: University Koblenz / Germany Reply-To: rufus@mailhost.uni-koblenz.de Anyone out there who can say something about UPT (Universal Personal Telecommunication) or UMTS (Universal Mobile Telephone System)? Primarily I am looking for information on those topics above described in manuals, books or reports. Who can help me? Sven O. Lehmann rufus@informatik.uni-koblenz.de Institute for MIS Research NeXT/MIME/PLAIN: ok University of Koblenz Fon: +49-261-9119-492 Rheinau 1 Fax: +49-261-9119-487 D-56075 Koblenz Germany ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 08:05:33 -0800 From: D. Kelly Daniels Subject: FCC 888 Deployment Conference Call This Morning FCC Toll Free Access Code Meeting. DSMI and All Resp Orgs are set for final Replication verification taking place today (2/7/96 and our company and clients are done). The Reservation date of 2/10 is still a go. All Resp Orgs are ready. The 3/1/96 activation date is ready. NORTEL -- Significant patch will be provided to customers on February 12, 1996. Reported by Joe Kingery. This is a BCS 36 patch. The DMS 200 Tandem is not affected. The problem affects the call gapping. The problem is occurs when call gapping report occurs at the time a switch comes up during a software load. GTE -- is having trouble with the testing of network call routing. While it was identified that GTE was testing SCPs that were not yet scheduled for loading, GTE was unable to find a single point of contact at the Reps Org who managed downloading information to a SCP. The NOF representative announced that they do provide a list to industry representatives to contact for each Resp Org (sometimes it is the SCP owner). Even though GTE did reach the right people on the NOF list, the SCP manager as the Resp Org single-point-of-contact was unable to answer GTE any significant questions. In response to a Mary DeLuca questions as to how late will testing occur and how would the last date affect the readiness of the network for deployment ... the industry felt the last SCP loads was 2/19/96 and last IC testing is 2/21/96. Pacific Bell -- First SCP was loaded last week-end and all End-Office loads were done for all but the DMS 100's and the testing started two-days ago. The second SCP will be loaded next week. The earliest NOF start date is February 19th for Pac-Bell. Call Through Testing is taking place with some ICs now. Northern Tell 100 patch will be delivered 2/12/96. (183 DMS 100 offices and 11 DMS 200 Tandems) AMERITECH -- One SCP went up last week-end. Another one tonight. Some end-offices are DMS 100 (275). None are in the testing now and will now be scheduled for later and closer to March 1. SBC -- Turned up it's first SCP last Week-end and no problems; they are not running BCS 36 so no DMS 100 problems have been encountered. Bell Atlantic -- Only two ICs downloaded test numbers for the RBOC to test and they did on 2/2 but the schedule was for testing 2/6. They did not find the test records for 2/6 from 2/5. 20 DMS 100 affected. AT&T noted that some of the failing reports are because the test numbers were not supposed to work from the whole area. Example, AT&T downloads to SMS that an 800 test numbers should work in North America. But because four are active, the others do not show up. Therefore the Resp Org should see a report that the report may show twelve but they should have sixteen and it is only four that have failed even though 26 SCPs should have been loaded if we were live. USW -- The Denver SCP loaded fine last week and the Tempe area SCP should load on Monday. The DMS problem seems to be insignificant. 18 DSM 100 affected. NYNEX -- No real problem and no problems with DMS encountered. Bell South -- 209 DMS 100 loaded of 232 and no problems encountered. 95% of all end-offices are loaded network wide. IC testing should begin 2/15. Of the 23 remaining, everything should be okay by 3/1/96. Question raised on why some are having the problem and others are not. The answer is that call gapping reporting happens at the time of software or loads. Questions could any of the switches go down if the call gapping problem occurs. The Answer is no. The Call Gapping in Pac-Bell where the problem occurred, was set for every three minutes. The load of new software goes away if the call gapping (patch is RJ127) is removed. The patch is becoming part of a General Release. In the mean-time if the switch goes down and restarts, the problem could occur, but the patch is part of a general download and so many switches will get the patch before the switch goes down. First right of refusal (replication). The next FCC order dealing with Toll Free Access Codes will not address this issue. The question keeps coming to the CCB and they are taking a lot of time t o answer congressman and commission requests. Time that could be spent on other issues which can be answered now. Shortly, the CCB should release to the commission with the next order. Hoarding, Reservations and datelines into SMS will all be addressed in the next CCB recommendation to the Commission. Remember it was unprecedented and a short-cut for the CCB to be ordered by the Commissioners to make an Order. Even then the CCB remanded some of the decisions back to the Commissioners. The CCB has finished it's recommendations on some of the remaining issues and is forwarding that te the Commissioners in the next couple of days. The Commissioners have no date for an announcement of further order involving docket 95-155. Next 888 meeting is 21th and 28th of February. ------------------------------ From: lreeves@crl.com (Les Reeves) Subject: Sprint Nixes QuickConference (tm) Date: 7 Feb 1996 05:46:36 -0800 Organization: CR Labs This past Friday I decided to check out some of Sprint's other features. With "Fridays are Free", *everything* billed on a Friday is free. This includes 0+, Collect, Third party, etc. So I got out my shiny new FONCARD, and read the instructions for using the Sprint QuickConference (tm) feature. QuickConference is limited to two parties, unlike AT&T's Alliance (tm), which I think is limited only to the number of trunks in a 4E toll switch . So I make a 0+ call using my FONCARD, then press the * key for two seconds, per the instructions. I am then supposed to get a tone, dial 12, and 0+ the number of the second party to be conferenced. I try this several times, and it does not work. So I try making the same call through their 800 operator service number (800.877.8000). Still no go. At this point I call the Sprint operator, and explain my problem. I am told, as if being read from a script, "Oh, we had some problems with hackers who figured out how to use QuickConference to make fraudulent calls, so we had to discontinue the service". I asked if there was any planned replacement for the feature, and the operator said no. Hmmm. So I did a little snooping, and it turns out Sprint did indeed have a big problem with fraud on QuickConference. It seems that the feature worked on *all* calls, 1+ or 0+. So all a hacker had to do was find a local number that was RCF'd (remote call forwarded) to a long distance destination using Sprint. As soon as the call starts to go through, the hacker presses the * key for two seconds and he has just created his own Sprint calling plan called "Everyday is Free". One would think that Sprint would have had enough brains to reprogram their switches so that the QuickConference only worked on 0+, as it should have been in the first place. But they didn't. They just nixed the feature. The instruction card that came with my FONCARD was printed in August of 95, so I assume this "hacker problem" only turned up recently. I used to have a lot of respect for the technical savvy of Sprint. Lately I'm beginning to wonder if their technical folks are being driven by ex-marketing nitwits who used to work for Telesphere. Les Reeves -- lreeves@crl.com Home - 404.881.8279 -- P.O. Box 7807, Atlanta, GA 30357 ISDN - 404.875.1274 -- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And is it true what I am hearing that Sprint is being very discriminatory about *who* they allow to sign up for the 'Friday is Free' program? Is it true as some contend, that if your voice sounds like 'you come from India' that the Sprint reps are claiming you cannot get on the program? Might this be because Sprint knows they are going to lose out big time with a customer who spends all day Friday on calls to India and other middle/far east points? You have just until the end of this month to get signed up for the 'Friday is Free' program at Sprint. Remember, the deal is you pay them fifty dollars per month minimum guarantee, and they in turn give you up to a thousand dollars in calls per month free of charge provided your calls are made on Friday over the next year. You do *not* need to have a business phone to sign up for this. Bottom line is [($1000 * 12)=$12,000 less ($50*12)=$600] = $11,400 in free calls over the next year provided you schedule your calls properly. Of course don't phrase it to them quite in those words when you call. What you want to sign up for is the 'Business Sense' program. Insist on talking to a rep who can help you with it. And if your voice accent makes you 'sound like someone from India' and the reps tell you that you are not eligible to use the program, then let Les Reeves know about it. He has some other suggestions which may help you. This is really a great offer from Sprint. I think it is almost as good as their 'free fax modem promotion' a couple years ago which they tried to weasel out of when several hundred readers of this Digest signed up. In fact, it is a better deal, since those modems were nowhere near worth eleven thousand dollars each. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #47 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Feb 7 13:25:02 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id NAA07465; Wed, 7 Feb 1996 13:25:02 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 13:25:02 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199602071825.NAA07465@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #48 TELECOM Digest Wed, 7 Feb 96 13:25:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 48 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Book Review: "Internet Yellow Pages" by Hahn (Rob Slade) Cable Box Piracy Results in Indictments (Atlanta Journal via Tad Cook) Teleglobe Response to CRTC Decision (Mark Boutet) BellSouth Network Withstands Winter Onslaught (Mike King) Excel Telecommunications and Multi-Level Marketing (Journal via Tad Cook) Call For Papers: Speech Technology for Telecommunications (Murray Spiegel) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 07 Feb 1996 12:22:00 EST From: Rob Slade Subject: Book Review: "Internet Yellow Pages" by Hahn BKINTYLP.RVW 960123 "The Internet Yellow Pages", Hahn, 1996, 0-07-882182-7, U$29.95 %A Harley Hahn %C 2600 Tenth St., Berkeley, CA 94710 %D 1996 %G 0-07-882182-7 %I Osborne McGraw-Hill %O U$29.95 800-227-0900 1-800-2-MCGRAW FAX: 1-717-794-2080 %O lkissing@osborne.mhs.compuserve.com %P 830 %T "The Internet Yellow Pages" An Internet "Yellow Pages" is no less ambitious a project than a "White Pages," probably more so. The pace of change on the Internet is rapid, and ill-suited to the long lead times of book publishing. In addition, the volume and range of information on the net is staggering. Nevertheless, even the very brief "catalogues" found in introductory guides tend to be a lot of fun and serendipitously useful. This is fun. The "coke servers" are here, addresses for famous people, programming resources, UFO theorists, software utilities, government information and all the various and varied topics of the net. There are cartoons and graphics included; about two per page; which seem to take the place of the advertising in a regular yellow pages directory. This is useful. For Internet resource people, this is a lot faster than "grep"ing the active-groups and list-of-lists files when the persistent "What can you do on the Internet?" question pops up. The closest competition, "New Riders' Official Internet Yellow Pages" (cf BKNRYLPG.RVW) is more formal but actually contains fewer listings, and is not as likely to find information on what you are looking for. This needs work. The entries lean heavily on gopher entries and are light on mailing lists. The large format and 800 pages of listings look impressive until you see the amount of white space and number of cartoons. (The white space ("yellow" space?) *does* make the layout attractive and easy to read.) The subject categories could stand some input from a "real world" document such as a real yellow pages directory or the Sears list of subject headings. The index is vital, and needs the most work of all in order to make this a major reference work. I also note a slight degradation in the quality of the information in this edition. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994, 1995, 1996 BKINTYLP.RVW 960123 Distribution permitted in TELECOM Digest and associated publications. Rob Slade's book reviews are a regular feature in the Digest. Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca | Lotteries are a tax Institute for Rob_Slade@mindlink.bc.ca | on the arithmetically Research into rslade@cyberstore.ca | impaired. User rslade@vanisl.decus.ca | Security Canada V7K 2G6 | ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: Cable Box Piracy Results in Indictments Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 08:30:45 PST Nebraska Outfits Accused of Pirating Scientific-Atlanta Cable TV Boxes By Bill Rankin, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News ATLANTA -- Feb. 7 -- A company accused of pirating Scientific-Atlanta cable television converter boxes and illegally reselling them was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Atlanta. United Imports Corp. of Omaha, Neb., has long been considered a nemesis to the cable TV industry. Also indicted were Gene Abboud, 63, of Council Bluffs, Iowa; his 34-year-old son, Joe Abboud of Omaha; and affiliated companies, M.D. Electronics and G&A Distributing Inc. "This is a very significant case which involves a complicated scheme and adversely affects both cable equipment manufacturers and cable companies in general," Assistant U.S. Attorney Martin Weinstein said. The charges include wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud cable TV companies and money laundering. Prosecutors also moved to collect $324,700 in forfeited assets. Weinstein said the Abbouds are expected to surrender in Nebraska. They will be tried in U.S. District Court in Atlanta. Cable converter boxes enable TVs to receive cable signals. But the Abboud companies illegally inserted descrambling devices into the boxes and resold them, giving viewers the full range of premium cable channels (such as Cinemax, HBO and Showtime) and "pay-per-view" programming without paying the fees, the indictment said. The indictment charges the Abboud companies with illegally selling cable boxes to a number of customers in metro Atlanta. One customer was Paul Harr, a Scientific-Atlanta employee who assisted in the investigation, the indictment said. Federal prosecutors also said the Abboud companies broke security tabs on the boxes and removed the serial numbers so they couldn't be traced. The Abbouds attracted customers through advertisements in magazines, posting a toll-free phone number for orders. "It's been a huge problem to the industry," said Jim Allen, director of the National Cable Television Association's theft office in Washington. "This indictment represents one of the most comprehensive cases of this kind that I've seen." Pirated cable TV boxes cost the industry an estimated $4.7 billion in lost revenues each year, he said. The indictment said that from August 1992 through February 1993, the Abboud companies spent $813,641 for thousands of cable converter boxes that were altered and then resold. Of this total, $573,690 was spent solely on Scientific-Atlanta boxes. During that time, the indictment said, the Abboud companies took in $3.8 million in revenues from the sale of modified boxes. In motions filed in a 1993 Nebraska case, United Imports said its descramblers are legal. The company notes that it requires customers to sign a form attesting they will not use the boxes to steal access to premium channels. Joe Abboud declined to comment Tuesday on the indictment. FOR ONLINE SERVICES: Visit Access Atlanta, the online edition of The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, on Prodigy (jump to: ACCESS ATLANTA), and The Atlanta Journal and Constitution Web edition on the World Wide Web. Point your Web-browsing software to http://www.ajc.com ------------------------------ From: MBoutet@Teleglobe.CA Date: 6 Feb 96 16:57:27 EST Subject: Teleglobe Response to CRTC Decision TELEGLOBE SATISFIED WITH CRTC DECISION GRANTING IT NEW REGULATORY REGIME Montreal, February 5, 1996 - Teleglobe Canada is satisfied with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission's decision to grant the Company a new price-cap regime for the regulation of its telephone services and which replaces for all its activities the current framework based on controlling profits. Teleglobe is the first telecommunications company in Canada to obtain such a regime. The CRTC decision is a result of an application filed by Teleglobe in December 1994. The decision also confirms that non-Canadian traffic, i.e., traffic that neither originates nor terminates in Canada, does not fall under the CRTC's jurisdiction and that, as a result, it is not subject to regulation. Teleglobe's business plan calls for aggressive development of this market segment, which last year recorded the strongest growth of all sectors in which the Company was involved. "A price-cap regime will provide Teleglobe with a more flexible operating framework, one that is better suited to current market realities," commented Meriel Bradford, Teleglobe Canada's Vice-President, Government and Regulatory Affairs. "However, it is clear that in a fully competitive environment such as the one we have proposed to the Canadian government in November 1995, and which would mark the end of the Company's exclusive mandate, further deregulation of the Canadian overseas telecom market would be needed," she added. The variance between the annual rate reductions of 8% called for in the CRTC's decision and the 6% reductions set forth in Teleglobe's original proposal will have to be compensated for by increased productivity. In its proposal, however, the Company had not ruled out the possibility of further lowering its rates to respond to market pressures. It should also be noted that the 10.62% reductions which Teleglobe will have to implement by April 1, 1996 are based on prices which were in effect on January 1, 1995. Since that time, the Company has already introduced significant rate reductions. Teleglobe hopes that the telephone companies and other distributors which make up its clientele will pass on these savings to Canadian consumers, in compliance with the CRTC's wishes. Canadian prices for intercontinental telecommunications are already among the lowest in the world. The CRTC decision will also lighten Teleglobe's regulatory burden by reducing the required number of reports and studies on its operations. Montreal-based Teleglobe Canada Inc. is a leader in the global intercontinental telecommunications industry, operating a network of satellites and submarine cables that links Canada with nearly 240 countries and territories. Its parent company, Teleglobe Inc., is listed on the Montreal Exchange, the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Vancouver Stock Exchange under the symbol TGO. For further information, please contact: Mark Boutet Teleglobe Canada Inc. (514) 868-1390 ------------------------------ From: mk@TFS.COM (Mike King) Subject: BellSouth Network Withstands Winter Onslaught Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 15:18:44 PST Forwarded to the Digest FYI: Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 15:58:16 -0500 From: BellSouth Subject: BellSouth Network withstands winter onslaught Reply-To: info@corp.bellsouth.com BellSouth Network Withstands Winter Onslaught; Crews Brave Cold to Restore Service to All For more information: Clifton Metcalf 704-565-3329 (pager) February 3, 1996 CHARLOTTE-Although the phones are still ringing for the vast majority of BellSouth customers, repair crews will again work through the night to help restore service to those affected by the weekend ice storm. Clifton Metcalf, BellSouth Public Information Director, said approximately 300 customers in the Charlotte area were knocked off the line by the second major winter storm of the season. "Our network has held up exceptionally well," he said. "The design of the network, the fiber optic facilities, and our ability to generate emergency electrical power have meant that most of our customers never lost phone service. Right now, our most pressing problem is the lack of commercial electric power." BellSouth's central offices all have their own backup electrical generators, with additional reserve batteries, to provide power in the event of a commercial outage. Digital Loop Carrier systems, which are essentially distribution hubs serving neighborhoods or similar areas, have backup batteries but lack built-in generators. "If commercial power is interrupted, the batteries power the DLC until we can bring in portable electric generators," Metcalf said. "Our crews worked around the clock last night and today deploying more than 250 generators. They will continue to work tonight and tomorrow to install the 160 generators which are on the way from Georgia and South Carolina." In addition to swelling streams and rivers with water, the storm has swollen BellSouth's network with calls, Metcalf said. "We usually experience a heavy calling volume during a winter storm," he said. "People don't want to go out and, with the phone system working, it is natural to want to call their neighbors. If customers could keep those calls brief, or even postpone them, it will help keep the network available for critical or urgent calls." Nearly 800 BellSouth technicians are working across the state to restore service to all customers across North Carolina. Statewide, about 3,000 of BellSouth's 2.1 million customers are out of service. ------------------- Mike King * mk@tfs.com * Oakland, CA, USA * +1 510.645.3152 ------------------------------ From: Tad Cook Subject: Excel Telecommunications and Multi-Level Marketing Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 15:31:30 PST This article is about seven weeks old, but perhaps it bears reading, given all the questions we see in TELECOM Digest about Excel. Tad Cook tad@ssc.com Seattle, WA Excel Long-Distance Service Thrives on Multilevel Marketing By Shelley Emling, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News ATLANTA -- Dec. 21 -- Bill Williams won't say how much money he makes each month, but his sly grin indicates that he makes a lot. Last year, Williams was skeptical when friends told him about a long-distance telephone company called Excel Telecommunications Inc. "Your mother always told you that when something looks too good to be true, it probably is, but this time it really is true," said Williams, 61, who once sold insurance and real estate. Williams is one of hundreds of thousands of people nationwide, including hundreds in Georgia, who have bought into the Dallas-based company's version of the American dream. Excel has distinguished itself from rivals in the $400 billion-a-year industry of buying long-distance telephone service in bulk from carriers with networks and reselling it. While major carriers such as AT&T and MCI spend millions on advertising, Excel relies on an old sales technique: multilevel marketing. "It's one of the hottest cult companies in the business," said Jeffrey Kagan, president of Kagan Telecom Associates, a consulting firm. "It seems that everyone is asking about this company now." Excel has risen to number eight among nearly 600 other carriers, providing phone service in every state except Alaska. It has made major inroads, particularly in the South, with its emphasis on recruiting family and friends. Among the company's most high-profile salesmen are southern high school and college athletic coaches, who have a vast network of contacts. "This can be very profitable, but the money's not always as easy to make as they make it sound," Kagan said. "Excel has these rah-rah meetings, where everyone gets so enthused it's almost like a religion." Just last month, about 4,000 people gathered at the Gwinnett Civic Center to hear ebullient, motivational-type speeches from Kenny Troutt, who founded Excel in 1988, and from South Carolina Secretary of State Jim Miles, whose wife, Betty Sue, is an Excel representative. Multilevel marketing hasn't had a stellar reputation, although companies such as Amway Corp. and Mary Kay Corp. have successfully used the technique for years. Some multilevel plans are simply pyramid schemes, which are illegal in Georgia. These schemes usually don't depend on the sale of a product or service, and generally collapse under their own weight once the market for new memberships inevitably becomes saturated. However, Excel seems to have a solid reputation. In Georgia, the Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs has received only a handful of complaints against the company, and each time someone sought a refund, they got it. The state Public Service Commission has received no complaints. Excel is a member in good standing of the Dallas Better Business Bureau, which has received dozens of inquiries about the company. Still, there is one caveat. "People think that they can just do this kind of thing on the side, but they can't," said Carolyn Mills, a spokeswoman for the consumer affairs office. "You have to work hard to make lots of money with this kind of multilevel business." So how do people make money with Excel? The key is to not only sign up long-distance customers, but to bring people into the organization -- which the company calls a "downline" -- who will then bring in more people, and so on and so on. A representative earns a percentage of all income that is earned within their downline. They also earn bonuses for new recruits. Most people sign on with an initial investment of $195 for a sales kit. Excel officials say they price their long-distance rates a "hair" below those charged by AT&T. AT&T officials said they were familiar with Excel, but declined to comment. "We encourage people to sign up neighbors, family members and friends, people who won't switch telephone service just because they get a check in the mail," said Chris Dance, Excel's vice president of legal affairs. Williams has signed up friends and relatives, and the more business they bring in, the more money he makes. He bought a new Buick Regal, and can take time off when he wants. More importantly, he hopes, Excel can give him a way in a few years to earn enough residual income to keep him and his wife comfortable in retirement. "Once you get this business started, you can't stop it," Williams said. "I was making good money before, but nothing like this." ------------------- [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But I still say, as a general rule of thumb, MLM schemes are not good deals. There has to come a time when things get so saturated there is no one left to be signed up. The only people who make money in MLM schemes are the ones who think them up and get involved early. If you want to be in the long distance resale business, it is far better to do so directly as an agent for a carrier, not via 'downlines' and 'uplines'. PAT] ------------------------------ From: spiegel@din.bellcore.com (Murray F Spiegel) Subject: Call For Papers: Speech Technology For Telecommunications Date: 6 Feb 1996 17:59:51 GMT Organization: Speech Technology Research Group (Bellcore) Reply-To: spiegel@bellcore.com CALL FOR PAPERS THIRD IEEE WORKSHOP ON INTERACTIVE VOICE TECHNOLOGY FOR TELECOMMUNICATIONS APPLICATIONS =-=-=-=-=-=-=-= September 30 - October 1, 1996 The AT&T Learning Center 300 N Maple Ave Basking Ridge, NJ 07920 USA Sponsored by the IEEE Communications Society =-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The third of a series of IEEE workshops on Interactive Voice Technology for Telecommunications Applications will be held at the AT&T Learning Center, Basking Ridge, New Jersey, from September 30 - October 1, 1996. The conference venue is on 35 semi-rural acres and is close enough (1 hour) for side trips to New York City. Our workshop will be held immediately before ICSLP '96 in Philadelphia, PA, approximately 80 miles from our location. The IVTTA workshop brings together application researchers planning to conduct or who have recently conducted field trials of new applications of speech recognition, speaker identity verification, text-to-speech synthesis over the telephone network. The workshop will explore promising opportunities for applications and attempt to identify areas where further research is needed. Topic areas of interest: - ASR/verification systems for the cellular environment - User interface / human factors of applying speech to telecommunications tasks - Language modeling and dialog design for "audio-only" communication - Experimental interactive systems for telecommunication applications - Experience in deployment & assessment of deployed ASR/verification systems - Text-to-speech applications in the network - Speech enhancement for telecommunications applications - Telephone services for the disabled - Architectures for speech-based services Prospective authors should submit one-page abstracts of no more than 400 words for review. Submissions should include a title, authors' names, affiliations, address, telephone and fax numbers and email address if any. Please indicate the topic area of interest closest to your submission. Camera-ready full papers (maximum of 6 pages) will be published in the proceedings distributed at the workshop. Due to workshop facility constraints, attendance will be limited with priority given to authors with accepted contributions. For further information about the workshop, please contact: Dr. Murray Spiegel, Bellcore, 445 South Street, Morristown, NJ 07960 USA Phone: 1-201-829-4519; Fax: 1-201-829-5963; E-mail: spiegel@bellcore.com For full information, visit our web page: http://superbook.bellcore.com/IVTTA.html Send abstracts (fax or email preferred) to: Dr. David Roe IEEE IVTTA '96 AT&T Bell Laboratories Murray Hill, NJ 07974 USA Phone: 1-908-582-2548; Fax: 1-908-582-3306 E-mail: roe@hogpb.att.com SCHEDULE Abstracts due (400 words, maximum 1 page): Mar 15, 1996 Notification of acceptance: May 1, 1996 Submission of photo-ready paper (maximum 6 pages): Jun 15, 1996 Advance registration to be received before: Jun 15, 1996 Late registration cut-off: Aug 30, 1996 IVTTA '96 Evening welcoming reception: Sep 29, 1996 IVTTA '96 Conference: Sep 30 & Oct 1, 1996 WEB PAGE Check our web page for late breaking news and developments: http://superbook.bellcore.com/IVTTA.html REGISTRATION INFORMATION Early registration (prior to June 15, 1996): Day-only: $390 Full: $650 Late registration (Jun 15 - Aug 30, 1996): Day-only: $465 Full: $725 IEEE members: charges are $25 less Additional proceedings: $25 Day-only registration includes all technical sessions, welcoming reception, lunches, snacks, banquet, and a copy of the proceedings. Full registration includes all of the above plus: dinner on evening of arrival, breakfast both days, two nights lodging at the conference center, and use of the center facilities (jogging track, exercise center, pool, etc). WORKSHOP COMMITTEE GENERAL CHAIR REGISTRATION & FINANCE Candace Kamm Dick Rosinski AT&T Bell Laboratories AT&T Bell Laboratories cak@research.att.com rrr@arch4.att.com PROGRAM CHAIRS PUBLICITY David Roe Murray Spiegel AT&T Bell Laboratories Bellcore roe@hogpb.att.com spiegel@bellcore.com George Vysotsky LOCAL ARRANGEMENTS NYNEX Science & Technology David Pepper george@nynexst.com Bellcore dpepper@bellcore.com INTERNATIONAL STEERING COMMITTEE Sadaoki Furui, NTT PROCEEDINGS Matthew Lennig, BNR Jay Naik David Roe, AT&T Bell Laboratories NYNEX Science & Technology Christel Sorin, CNET naik@nynexst.com George Vysotsky, NYNEX ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #48 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Feb 7 14:42:07 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id OAA14079; Wed, 7 Feb 1996 14:42:07 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 14:42:07 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199602071942.OAA14079@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #49 TELECOM Digest Wed, 7 Feb 96 14:42:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 49 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Did the NetCensors Blow it? (Ronald G. Rowe) Responses to Telecom Bill (Djung Nguyen) Betsy Bernard to Head Pacific Bell Communications (Mike King) Update on Sprint Fridays Are Free (keith@tcs.com) GTE Offers InContact Virtual Number Service (William Kula) Phone Board For x86 Solaris (Mark Fanty) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: ROGOR@delphi.com Date: Wed, 07 Feb 1996 05:27:48 EST Subject: Did the NetCensors Blow it? There has been much concern, speculation, rumor and often contradictory information about the Communications Decency Act (CDA) incorporated in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that was passed by Congress last week, and its impact on our freedom of speech on the Internet. The censorship we've been hearing about goes way beyond "cyberporn" to the banning of "indecent" material on the Net -- the same kind of "indecency" you can find in books, magazines, art, movies, etc. in almost every library, bookstore, news stand, museum, theatre, video store and cable system in the nation. In the name of "protecting our children," our "representatives" in Congress have gone way too far in attempting to block access to material on computer networks that children can hear and see all around them in our society. I dare say the majority of Net users (myself included) don't have all the facts and legal expertise at our fingertips to know how this legislation will actually affect the Net if it does stand up to court challenges. But I'm also sure that many members of Congress, as well as many members of the legal profession, are on equally shaky ground when it comes to technical expertise in data communications and information technology, in particular as it relates to the operation of the Internet. With this in mind, I've been looking over the text of the CDA, as provided by the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) on their Web site at http://www.cdt.org/ ... This is purely speculation, but I come away wondering if those who are attempting to censor the Net may have blown it, at least from the point of view of trying to wipe out access to "indecent" material on the Web and on the Internet in general. In my opinion, in their lack of understanding of the technology of the Internet, the authors of the "decency act" appear to have left a huge hole in the legislation -- a hole as big as a House of Representatives! I believe this may have given us a piece of legislation that the NetCensors might be unable to use as they had intended for the purpose of sanitizing the Internet of the "indecent" material that they find so offensive. If the wording of the critical portions of the CDA as passed in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 is indeed as quoted in the CDT Web site, I believe it may in fact NOT legally prohibit "indecent" material from being made generally available to the public via most, if not all, of the mechanisms used to transfer information over the Internet. I will address the specific sections of the CDA in question below: Section 502 (1) (omitting the paragraphs dealing with telephone harassment) provides for fines or imprisonment for anyone who: "(1) in interstate or foreign communications- "(A) by means of a telecommunications device knowingly- "(i) makes, creates, or solicits, and "(ii) initiates the transmission of, any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass an other person;" or "(B) by means of a telecommunications device knowingly- "(i) makes, creates, or solicits, and "(ii) initiates the transmission of, any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene or indecent knowing that the recipient of the communication is under 18 years of age regard less of whether the maker of such communication placed the call or initiated the communication;" [ ... paragraphs (C), (D) and (E) omitted ... ] or "(2) knowingly permits a telecommunications facility under his control to be used for any activity prohibited by paragraph (1) with the intent that it be used for such activity" Section 502 (2) provides for fines or imprisonment for anyone who: "(1) in interstate or foreign communications knowingly- "(A) uses an interactive computer service to send to a specific person or persons under 18 years of age, or "(B) uses any interactive computer service to display in a manner available to a person under 18 years of age, any comment, request suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs, regardless of whether the user of such service placed the call or initiated the communication; or "(2) knowingly permits any telecommunications facility under such person's control to be used for an activity prohibited by paragraph (1) with the intent that it be used for such activity" To summarize, the CDA thus prohibits anyone from: 1) knowingly using a telecommunications device to transmit "obscene" or "indecent" material for the purpose of harassment, 2) knowingly using a telecommunications device to transmit "obscene" or "indecent" material to a person known to be a minor, 3) knowingly using an interactive computer service to transmit "offensive" depictions or descriptions of sexual or excretory activities or organs to a minor, or 4) knowingly using an interactive computer service to DISPLAY "offensive" depictions or descriptions of sexual or excretory activities or organs such that they are available to a minor. Thus the CDA prohibits "obscene" or "indecent" material only if it is "knowingly" transmitted to someone known to be a minor, or if it is "knowingly" transmitted in order to "annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass" someone. It also prohibits "patently offensive" material, as described above, if it is "knowingly" transmitted to a minor, or if it is "displayed in a manner available to" a minor. Most material posted or made available on the Internet is not "knowingly" transmitted to minors, but material on the Net that is available to the general public could be accessed by minors. However, what the legislation prohibits is very specifically the use of an interactive computer service to "DISPLAY" the above-described offensive material "in a manner available to" minors. Material that is placed on a computer may consist of ASCII files, binary files, graphics files, HTML files, sound files, video files, etc. If the computer is connected to the Internet and running server software, these files may be made available to be retrieved by users on other Internet computers via FTP, Gopher or HTTP client software, such as a browser. As I interpret it, the CDA as enacted does NOT prohibit placing the above- described offensive material on an Internet computer where it could be retrieved by an unsupervised minor cruising the Net, since placing the material in question on the server computer is NOT "DISPLAYING" it, but merely STORING files that contain information coded in various formats. These files are then available to be retrieved by a user on a remote computer and may then be DISPLAYED BY THE USER. Further on in the CDA text, the term 'access software' is defined to mean: "software (including client or server software) or enabling tools that do not create or provide the content of the communication but that allow a user to do any one or more of the following: "(A) filter, screen, allow, or disallow content; "(B) pick, choose, analyze, or digest content; or "(C) transmit, receive, display, forward, cache, search, subset, organize, reorganize, or translate content." This provides further evidence that to "display" material can legitimately be considered to be an action performed by the USER accessing the material, and not an action of the PROVIDER of the material or of the Internet site on which the files containing the material are stored. As the CDA is worded, it is thus the user on the remote computer who would be breaking the law if he/she retrieves files containing offensive material from a site where they are stored, and knowingly "displays" the offensive material in such a way that it is available to a minor. A person placing the files on the Internet server so that they are available to be retrieved and displayed has NOT violated any of the provisions of the CDA! If this interpretation is correct, it would be a rather fitting reversal of what our legislators thought they were enacting. Instead of prohibiting "indecency" on the Internet, it appears that the CDA may actually place the responsibility on the person who accesses the offensive material to ensure that it does not become available to a minor, and that it remains the parents' responsibility not to leave their children to play unsupervised in the middle of the information superhighway. This is, of course, simply my opinion, and I have no idea how much validity it may have in legal terms. There are still other objectionable aspects of the CDA, but I am hoping that this may provide some ammunition to counter the attempts of the NetCensors to use the CDA to sanitize the World Wide Web and turn the Internet into a "DisneyNet" where adults are denied access to anything that might be inappropriate for children. I submit this for the legal gurus to ponder. Any feedback is welcome. Ronald G. Rowe National Project Director Coalition of America a public service project of: Rowe Communication Services 2828 Cochran St. #283, Simi Valley, CA 93065 Phone/Fax: (805) 579-3825 (voice calls: press "5" when machine answers) Voicemail: (805) 378-5530 E-mail: rogor@delphi.com [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think much reliance will be placed on 'knew or *should have known*' to get around the 'knowingly' argument you present above. In other words, they will claim you 'should have known' how your submission would be distributed. Whether or not that will hold up, I do not know. Like the fellows discussed earlier today with the pirate cable boxes who made their customers sign statements promising not to steal premium shows from the cable figuring they would be in the clear legally since they could later claim they did not know the purchasers of their boxes were just liars and cheats, a judge or jury may not always be convinced that your round-about way of doing things is any more than a facade; just some thinly-veiled BS. Whether you 'knew or should have known' will probably be decided on a case-by-case basis with the context of the item's placement on the net an all-important part of the decision. On the one hand it might seem prudent henceforth for persons who distribute 'adult' material on the net to preface each submission with a disclaimer saying 'this material is not to be viewed or retained in any form by persons under the age of eighteen'. This would show that the author/distributor made a reasonable effort to keep the material out of the hands of minors. But if this disclaimer is added, it also implies that the author/distributor 'knew' there was a likelyhood the material would reach a minor, therefore he 'knowingly' distributed it. It would be difficult or impossible for someone like myself -- or any of the long time netizens here with our technical knowledge of the net to claim we 'had no idea' minors would see something we posted. On the other hand, a new user who posts something 'indecent' might be able to get away with it. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Feb 96 01:32 EST From: Djung Nguyen <0005398513@mcimail.com> Subject: Responses to Telecom Bill Patrick, Thought you might like to read what some people are saying about the Bill. DJ [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Thanks for passing along the summary which follows. Note that none of them say anything about the situation on Internet; most are full of praise for the new legislation. PAT] . . . . . . . 'Telecom Olympics Begin' INDUSTRY HAILS BILL PASSAGE; BELLSOUTH, BELL ATLANTIC ANNOUNCE PLANS Telecom industry hailed overwhelming congressional passage late "Let the Games begin!" declared CTIA Pres. Thomas Wheeler. "The Telecommunications Olympics began today." BellSouth (BS) said it's "expending every effort" to enter long distance quickly and said it's "moving aggressively" to meet checklist requirements to get into market. Nynex applauded Congress "for making history" and said bill sets stage for "real competition." Pacific Telesis (PT) said approval was "giant step" toward new communications policy. ********************************************************************** AT&T Chmn.-CEO Robert Allen said bill, while helping "move the battle from one of policy debate to the marketplace," fell short of what company had sought. But, he said: "We believe that with the important improvements made since last summer, the bill is a solid balance that will move the industry toward full competition." Joseph Nacchio, exec. vp-consumer, downplayed long distance competition from LECs, saying: "We've got 600 competitors. What's 6 more?" ********************************************************************* Sprint said it was "pleased." In long statement, it reviewed problems with earlier versions of legislation and said conference report "improved substantially" over earlier drafts. Richard Devlin, exec. vp-external affairs, said true competition depends on LECs' complying with actions required by checklist. "If they forthrightly comply with all of the requirements to open local telephone markets to competition, the promise of competition will be realized." MCI didn't immediately comment. ********************************************************************* CTIA hailed lawmakers for "bold action" on all issues to generate competition, citing removal of "outdated and unnecessary regulations" on wireless services. Bill also will promote full and active competition giving full range of benefits, Wheeler said. "The legislation approved brings policy in line with technological and competitive developments in the communications marketplace," he said. ******************************************************************* RBC executives cheered action. BS Chmn.-CEO John Clendennin: "It gives us the opportunity to provide all our communications services through all of our sales channels to all of our customers." Nynex Chmn.-CEO Ivan Seidenberg said passage was victory for consumer, who he said "will find out what true choice really means." Thousands of jobs will be created in Nynex region, he said. PT Vp-Washington Tom Moulton said bill gives consumers more choice and said passage was "an extraordinary accomplishment." ********************************************************************** Bell Atlantic will apply for long distance authority in five states within five days of President Clinton's signature on bill, "to begin breaking the oligopoly of AT&T, MCI and Sprint." Company expected to meet checklist requirements in 12-15 months to qualify for long distance. "This landmark legislation will end Balkanization of our nation's communications industries," Chmn.-CEO Raymond Smith said. ********************************************************************** Ameritech Chmn.-CEO Richard Notebaert said that "in one day, this industry has gone from 1934 to the year 2000 and beyond." Legislation is "truly a framework for the information age." U S West and SBC Communications didn't immediately react to passage. ********************************************************************** CFA said bill falls short of stimulating competition. "For every step taken to encourage competition, the bill has provisions which undermine its goals," said Bradley Stillman, telecom policy dir. "Instead of promoting head-to-head competition between cable, telephone and other communications companies, the bill allows mergers and corporate combinations that will drive up cable rates and undercut competition." CFA also complained about provisions giving broadcasters spectrum for advanced TV: "Congress is giving corporate welfare to a broadcast industry which is already very healthy." ********************************************************************* NAB Pres. Edward Fritts said legislation "includes critical regulatory reforms that will help free, over-the-air broadcasters compete in the 21st Century... While we recognize that all issues surrounding the transition to... advanced television have not been finalized, we firmly believe the FCC's long- standing bipartisan plan is sound and we ultimately expect Congress to endorse it." He said NAB also believes "it would be inappropriate for further spectrum auctions to be included in any budget agreement" between Congress and Administration. One industry executive said his company supported passage but "quite frankly, we wish the broadcast industry was deregulated as fully as are the telephone and cable companies. However, navigating the shoals of the House and Senate is a real accomplishment in itself." ********************************************************************** Gary Chapman of LIN Bcstg., head of Local Station Ownership Coalition (representing 16 licensees with 50 TV stations), expressed disappointment that legislation didn't repeal TV duopoly rule, but welcomed fact that "Congress has recognized that changes in the local media marketplace necessitate reevaluating the FCC's duopoly policy." Coalition is "confident" Commission will rescind rule, he said: "This must be done in a time frame which will enable local broadcasters to respond to the enormous competitive forces unleashed by this seminal legislation." ********************************************************************* NCTA Pres. Decker Anstrom called passage "a landmark day for competition, consumers and communications. [Bill] provides a blueprint for competition and choice, opening up the video, local and long distance markets... and the cable industry is ready to compete." CATA Pres. Steven Effros said: "We are very pleased that this long legislative process has finally yielded results. Although we could have certainly written one that would have been better for cable, it is, nevertheless, good for both the industry and the public." ********************************************************************* Newspaper Assn. of America Pres. John Sturm praised congressional action, saying bill "will foster the development of competition ... give newspapers of all sizes competitive methods for distributing electronic services and spur growth of new and innovative electronic products." ********************************************************************* NASUCA gave lukewarm reaction to bill's passage, saying that "while some proconsumer changes were made to the legislation by the Conference Committee, there is still work to be done to ensure the legislation results in true competition and benefit to consumers." ********************************************************************* Personal Communications Industry Assn. said bill is "long overdue and will bring consumers the benefits of marketplace competition in the wireline industry." Trade group was particularly pleased with provision setting national policy for siting antennas and towers. ********************************************************************** Independent Directory Publishers Assn. issued statement lauding bill for provision assuring access to telco subscriber lists on "timely and unbundled basis under nondiscriminatory and reasonable terms." ********************************************************************* Teleport Communications Group said FCC should look to Wash. state for model in developing local market competition. "The bread-and- butter issue for local exchange competition is economic reciprocal compensation," said Gail Schwartz, vp-public policy. ********************************************************************** Assn. for Local Telecommunications hailed passage as "July 4 and Bastille Day rolled into one," said Pres. Heather Burnett Gold. USTA Pres. Roy Neel said "this is a monumental achievement" that will permit full competition. ******************************************************************** END. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: No one seems that concerned about the Internet do they ... in everything I have read to date, perhaps three or four sentences were devoted to the subject of 'indecent material on computer networks'. PAT] ------------------------------ From: mk@TFS.COM (Mike King) Subject: Betsy Bernard to Head Pacific Bell Communications Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 14:32:57 PST Forwarded to the Digest, FYI: Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 13:08:52 -0800 From: tltinne@legsf.PacBell.COM Subject: Betsy Bernard to Head Pacific Bell Communications Feb. 1, 1996 FOR MORE INFORMATION Mary Hancock (415) 563-4020 (415) 394-3620 SAN FRANCISCO - Pacific Telesis Chairman Phil Quigley today named Betsy Bernard to head Pacific Bell Communications, the holding company's new long-distance subsidiary. As president, Bernard will lead the company into the long-distance market, expected to be opened to the Regional Bell Operating Companies by telecom legislation awaiting final passage on Capitol Hill. "Betsy brings a wealth of experience in the long-distance business to Pacific Bell Communications," Quigley said. "I expect the experience and insight gained will be put to excellent use as we enter this new market." Bernard, 40, joined Pacific Bell April 1, 1995. Prior to that she spent 18 years at AT&T where she held several positions, including vice president of customer service-AT&T data communications services, vice president of business network sales and vice president of product management-general business systems. She holds a master of science degree in management from Stanford University, a master of business administration degree from Fairleigh Dickinson University and a bachelor of arts degree in political science from St. Lawrence University. Bernard said she expects Pacific Bell Communications to provide long-distance service 12 to 16 months after the pending telecom legislation is passed and after a local competition checklist mandated by the legislation is met. "Local competition is well underway in California," Bernard said. "The California Public Utilities Commission has an aggressive schedule that has encouraged more than 60 companies to come to California to compete for local phone customers. "The California market will see the most competition in local service," she said. "The long-distance companies are mining long-distance gold in our hills, taking immense profits out of the state, and they will do their best in the local market to lock in all of the customer's communications service. "What the legislation will do is provide the balance needed to permit real competition in all communications markets to move forward," Bernard said. "Our entry into long distance will end the game of 'Let's Pretend.' Let's pretend there's competition in long distance. "The battle of the discount plans will need to be retired, and the real competition can begin. With zero market share, there's lots of room for growth," she said "You can expect price, service and value packages from Pacific Bell Communications that will provide the incentive for our California customers to chose us to provide their long-distance service." Pacific Bell Communications is a subsidiary of Pacific Telesis Group, a diversified telecommunications corporation headquartered in San Francisco. -------------------------- Mike King * mk@tfs.com * Oakland, CA, USA * +1 510.645.3152 ------------------------------ From: keith@tcs.com Subject: Update on Sprint Fridays are Free Date: 6 Feb 1996 19:31:43 GMT Organization: TCSI Here are some answers to typical questions: 1. Can residential users sign up? Different customer service folks at Sprint may give you a different answer on the issue of whether they will sign up high-volume residential users. It is not clear that Sprint has a coherent policy on this. Apparently the 800 347-3300 signup number is quite busy. An alternative is: (800) 366-1046, which may or may not work outside California. The Sprint people also gave me a guaranteed nationwide number: (800) 869-0050 which will likely put you into a callback queue. I asked a random person at (800) 366-1046 whether high-volume residential users were allowed to sign up for the Sprint Business Sense program. The nice lady said "yes", and explained the $.16 domestic rate and free Fridays. So at least with this number, you should have no problem. 2. What about calling cards? The original articles on the Fridays are Free program did not emphasize one of the most amazing features of this promotion. You can get up to three calling cards, which are also free on Fridays for domestic origination. Give them to trusted associates or relatives to share the free calling. It's almost like getting free Fridays for four people for the price of one. 3. What if I have two lines? You can aggregate the lines with a common bill, one $50 minimum, and a maximum of $1000 per month free for the combined bill. You can also ask for separate bills, with a separate $50 min and $1000 max for each line. I'm not sure, but I think separate lines would each qualify for three calling cards. I'm sure that Sprint would prefer that you aggregate the lines. You may find it advantageous to do so, since for domestic calls at .16, $1000 represents 100 hours per month! 4. Do my free Fridays start at activation? You really do need to check with Sprint after getting activated. As nearly as I can tell, if you are activated before midnight Thursday night, you should have a free Friday. If your line is activated during Friday, then you need to wait a week. That way you get the full 24 hours for all 52 Fridays. 5. Has Sprint lost their minds? It remains to be seen. This is an attention-getting promotion that, viewed in isolation, is likely to lose money for them. If they can provide good customer service (including no reorder tones on Fridays!) and if they can follow-up with aggressive programs to retain their new customers a year from now, this may be a reasonably effective way to "buy" an increased market share. But I can't help but think that they should have capped the free Fridays at $50 per month per line, rather than $1000 regardless of the number of lines. But then, an offer like that wouldn't have seized the attention of the telecom community. And I absolutely delighted in (politely) blowing off the AT&T salesperson at home last night, saying sure I'd switch if he could give me Fridays free! (No offense intended; it's just a real time saver not to have to play the musical phone plans game for a whole year!) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: As Les Reeves also has pointed out, there are some discrepancies between what Sprint reps are telling the people who call to inquire. Keep working at it until you find a rep who will sign you up. All the phone numbers above should help you get through to someone who knows about the program. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Feb 96 14:24:34 EST From: William Kula Subject: GTE Offers InContact Virtual Number Service In article , writes: > We have a need for a group of local numbers which can be forwarded to > 800 numbers. It does not make a difference where the local numbers > are in the US or Canada. > "Remote Call Forwarding" from the phone co. is expensive, costs a > lot to set up, and can take a while. We need something cheaper and > which can be activated on short order (a day or two). > Many customers need to have international access for one of our 800#'s > from around the world. GTE has introduced a new call management service that may be helpful to you. InContact(SM), has been used to accomplish your stated goal. Local InContact(SM) POTS numbers are currently available in the Los Angeles, Dallas/Ft.Worth and Tampa markets. Here's how the service works: The InContact number is a virtual number associated with a default termination line number selected by the subscriber. When the virtual number is called, InContact uses SS7 and inteligent network technology to check a data base controlled by the subscriber. The incoming call is then routed to any number the user has selected. Features are controlled through an 800 number access to an IVR unit. (Yes, we know the limitations of 800 numbers too, so POTS number access is available for users outside the 800 number calling scope.) To make the service more flexible than just remote call forwarding, InContact has time-of-day, day-of-week scheduling to automatically change the termination number. Some customers want to filter calls and the service offers a call acceptance list of up to 20 numbers, selected by the user. The list limits call completion to only the selected numbers. An access code is also offered to over-ride the filter. Non-completed calls, at the subscriber's choice, can be terminated or routed to a designated number such as voice mail or TAD. All of the scheduling, forwarding, lists and functions can be controlled on a real time basis, by the subscriber from any DTPF phone. Provisioning also occurs on a real-time basis by calling 1-800-GTE-FIND (1-800-483-3463). The service is active within 90 seconds after entering the order. The InContact service is a tariffed offering in California, Texas and Florida but is available to any credit-worthy customer regardless of LEC boundaries. Here's what it costs: Monthly Recurring Charges TX CA FL Basic number and forwarding NA $ 9 $ 9 (Includes 3 speed forwarding numbers) 1 or 2 Programable Forwarding Schedule (each) NA 2 2 1 Call Acceptance List NA 2 2 1 or 2 Caller Access Codes (each) NA 1 1 All of the above Residential $12 $12 $12 Business $17* $12 $12 *TX rates are under revision to be the same as CA and FL subject to approval of Texas PUC. There is a non-recurring charge for initial or subsequent order entries that vary by state and class of service but no NRC charge for line termination. The subscriber is responsible for any toll charges that result from forwarding, but there are no other usage sensitive charges. ------------------------------ From: fanty@cse.ogi.edu (Mark Fanty) Subject: Phone Board For x86 Solaris Date: 7 Feb 1996 06:25:51 GMT Organization: Oregon Graduate Institute (formerly OGC), Beaverton, OR I'm looking for a telephone board for an Intel box running Solaris. Seems like these should be getting common by now, but if you are not running windows, it is tough. LINKON has one, but is it rather more high powered than what I need -- single line; just play and record. Mark Fanty Center for Spoken Language Understanding fanty@cse.ogi.edu Oregon Graduate Institute of Science & Technology (503) 690-1030 PO Box 91000 fax (503) 690-1306 Portland, OR 97291-1000 (shipping: 20000 Walker Rd./Beaverton, OR 97006) ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #49 ***************************** From ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Wed Feb 7 17:34:03 1996 Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.3/NSCS-1.0S) id RAA01996; Wed, 7 Feb 1996 17:34:03 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 17:34:03 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (Patrick A. Townson) Message-Id: <199602072234.RAA01996@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #50 TELECOM Digest Wed, 7 Feb 96 17:34:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 50 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Two Dozen Short Comments/Questions (TELECOM Digest Editor) Call Processing Definition (Dave Parker) Telecommunications Issues With Japan (Karen Yates) In Need of Information About Nokia 191 (Dave Wong) V&H Coordinate to Lat Long Tool? (Jim Orr) SL1 (Northern Telcom) Switch For Sale (Peter Brackett) Info/References Requested on Telco Electronic Business Services (Columbus) Help Wanted With Cellular Phone Purchase (Lisa Hancock) Telco/Internet Questions (Rajinder P.S. Bhandari) Information Needed on California LATAs (Christine Ruiz) Will US Phone Work in Iceland? (Foster Schucker) Will US Phone Work in Britain? (Dave Curley) Dialogic Drivers/Header Files Needed (Sam Ismail) Information Needed on ISDN PRI Load Boxes (Greg Eccles) Question About Ringing and Battery (kirbywa@aol.com) Fax Software For Windows (Tully Pettigrew) Please Explain *56 (Joe Plescia) Hardware Engineers - Digital Scope.FAQ (John Seney) Who's 800 (or 888) Number am I Calling? (Glenn Foote) Where is Best Database For New Area Codes and Exchanges? (Michael Vislocky) Consultant Recommendations Needed (Chuck Cobb) Channel Bank Wanted (Ron Johnson) Need Discount Source For Computer Parts (D. Gregory) Network Maps Needed (Henoch Duboff) Questions on Network Integrity, Reliability (Dawei Bai) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 500-677-1616 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at ftp.lcs.mit.edu and are available by using anonymous ftp. The archives can also be accessed using our email information service. For a copy of a helpful file explaining how to use the information service, just ask. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, TELECOM Digest receives a grant from Microsoft to assist with publication expenses. Editorial content in the Digest is totally independent, and does not necessarily represent the views of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 15:12:01 EST From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Two Dozen Short Comments and Questions Every day in the mail I get a wide array of questions and comments on all kinds of telecom topics. Some are only of interest to the writer, others are questions that have come up here so often I hate to start new threads going on them. Today, *you* handle my mail! This issue of the Digest is devoted to a couple dozen questions I received in the mail just in the past two or three days. Any of you who wish to tackle these questions presented are welcome to do so. Yes, 24 items in this issue; all very short and most asking questions or seeking advice. **Please write direct to the author, and NOT to the Digest** DO NOT send me copies of your replies to these individuals. And guess what! My incoming mail queue is down to only about three hundred items waiting for attention at this point. PAT ------------------------------ From: dparker@router.scherers.com Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 12:58:27 -0500 Subject: Call Processing Definition Dear All, I am interested in various definitions of call processing. PAT, I would certainly be interested in your definition. Thanks, Dave Parker, Marketing Manager Scherers Communications, Inc. and SCG Carrier Services, Inc. Audiotext, Conferencing Calling, Internet Services 800-356-6161; dparker@scherers.com ------------------------------ From: world@onramp.net Date: Tue, 06 Feb 1996 13:27:38 CST Subject: Telecommunications Issues with Japan I am a marketing researcher in Dallas, Texas. The Sun and Star program of the Japanese government will be in Dallas this year. We are very fortunate to have it here. A group I work with will conduct a seminar on the "Art of Doing Business with Japan" for the telecommunication industry in Dallas. I have been asked to identify telecommunication issues between Japan and the U.S. that would be appropriate to discuss at the seminar. Would you be so kind as to jot down some obvious issues that would point me in a direction. I know this is a broad inquiry, I'm a little lost as where to begin. Thanks so much. Karen Yates International Small Business Development Center Marketing Researcher World Trade Center Dallas, Texas ------------------------------ From: drait@calweb.com (Dave Wong) Subject: In Need of Information About Nokia 191 Date: 6 Feb 1996 17:40:29 GMT Organization: CalWeb Internet Services, Inc. If anyone out there has an ascii text file with all the programming codes for the Nokia 191, could you please email them to me? Gracias ... drait@calweb.com ------------------------------ From: jorr@czn.com (Jim Orr) Subject: V&H Coordinate to Lat Long Tool? Date: Tue, 06 Feb 96 19:11:38 GMT Organization: Electric Lightwave, Inc I am trying to make an accurate map of telco POPs vs our fiber routes. The easiest way to do this is to use the V&H Coordinates from the LERG, convert them to Latitude and Longitude and use one of the many mapping programs to make an overlay map with very little human intervention. Problem: V&H and Lat/Long do not match. I don't have the tool to convert them. Please HELP. Email to jorr@czn.com ------------------------------ From: bracketp@cuug.ab.ca (Brackett, Peter, 403 239-4197) Subject: SL1 (Northern Telcom) Switch For Sale Date: 5 Feb 1996 16:17:27 -0700 Organization: Calgary Unix Users' Group We are moving and have an old SL1 switch for sale or donation. We are located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Because of the customs/border issues it will probably have to be a Canadian arrangement. Please email bracketp@cuug.ab.ca for more details. Regards. ------------------------------ From: columbus@euronet.nl (Columbus) Subject: Info/References Requested to Telco Electronic Business Services Date: Tue, 06 Feb 1996 06:16:26 GMT Organization: Euronet Internet As part of a study I'm trying to get an overvieuw of services provided by Telecom operators to their customers electronically. This type of services are often grouped under the term "Electronic Commerce". I'm very interested in examples of Telco's around the world which offer their customers services like ordering, delivery, service, billing, debt-collections by electronic means. The technology could very from EDI to smartcards, file tranfer to direct system access by customers or WWW. Chris ------------------------------ From: hancock4@cpcn.com (Lisa) Subject: Help Wanted With Cellular Phone Purchase Date: 7 Feb 1996 00:02:02 GMT Organization: Philadelphia City Paper's City Net I'd like to get a cellular phone. There's a dizzying array of phones -- the "flip", "bag" and permanent-installed. And there's a dizzying mix of service plans and ads. Many ads offer one component dirt cheap or free -- like the phone for 1c, then all sorts of "activation, landline termination, etc" described in the fine print, along with a clause saying you're obligated for $5,000 in case you don't keep the service for your entire life. So ... could someone describe the components of cellular phone service -- the telephone units themselves; and the various facets of the service plans. I'm NOT asking for specific brand recommendations, rather, I just want to understand the operations so I can choose intelligently. Any suggested questions to ask the sales people would be great. P.S. How does one evaluate which carrier to use? Thanks! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Feb 96 11:37:36 CST From: Rajinder P.S. Bhandari Subject: Telco/Internet Questions I have three questions for you: 1. Is there any data available for ISP revenues for telcos/cable companies? (i.e., the total ISP market broken down by various players) 2. Are there any applications on the Internet available now/coming soon, which would be of special interest to telcos? 3. Are there any electronic resources which offer the latest news/analysis in the telco world? Thanks in advance! Raj ------------------------------ From: boxer1@ix.netcom.com (Christine Ruiz ) Subject: Information Needed on California LATAs Date: 7 Feb 1996 10:05:12 GMT Organization: Netcom Can anyone help with pointing me in the right direction to research for information on LATAs in California. I need to construct a map showing the relationship between LATA boundaries, and state boundaries and how these LATAs are identified. I understand what the acronym LATA means, (Local Access and Transport Areas), and the role it plays as far as Dial-Up long distance services. I am having trouble turning that into something tangible as far as putting something up on a chart. ------------------------------ From: foster@omni.voicenet.com (Foster Schucker) Subject: Will US Phone Work in Iceland? Date: 6 Feb 1996 20:32:24 GMT Organization: Voicenet - Internet Access - (215)674-9290 Is it allowable to use a US made telephone in Iceland? A friend wants a cartoon telephone and I'd like to send one from here. Thanks!!! Foster Schucker ------------------------------ From: dac@skye.batnet.com (Dave Curley) Subject: Will US Phone Work in Britain? Date: Wed, 07 Feb 1996 01:35:46 GMT Organization: Wombat Internet Guild Can anyone tell me if a home phone or answering machine purchased (and used) in the US will work in Britain, and what extra bits one would need to buy if any one would require to make it plug into a BT socket? Thanks much, Dave ------------------------------ From: dastar@crl.com (Sam Ismail) Subject: Dialogic Drivers/Header Files Needed Date: 06 Feb 1996 21:31:56 -0800 Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access (415) 705-6060 [Login: guest] Does anyone have the very latest Dialogic driver and C interface header files for the four-port voice processing boards? If you do, could you please send me a copy? Or, if you have the number to their BBS, that would be cool too. Please e-mail me the goods if you got'em. Thanks. ------------------------------ From: eccles@bostech.com Date: Wed, 07 Feb 96 10:40:25 EST Subject: Information Needed on ISDN PRI Load Boxes Hi, I am looking for information on ISDN test equipment. My specific requirements involve testing multiple PRI lines with relatively high call volumes (60K per hour). I have been using an Ameritech AM2-DX but I am interested in what other products are available. Please let me know if there is anything you can do to help. Greg Eccles Software Manager Bostone Technology ------------------------------ From: KIRBYWA@aol.com Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 13:10:19 -0500 Subject: Question About Ringing and Battery I have a question I hope someone can help me with. Normally the ring signal from the central office is superimposed on the (-48V) office battery. If the office battery was removed during ring signals, (fully balanced), would this cause a problem for devices such as caller ID boxes? ------------------------------ From: tully@netspace.net.au (Tully Pettigrew) Subject: Fax Software For Windows Date: Wed, 07 Feb 1996 12:50:14 +1100 Organization: NetSpace Online Systems I am after some information about fax software for a windows based network. In particular I would like to know some of the best products on the market, how easy they are to use, how things like OCR work with them. Any recommendations of products or places to look for more information would be greatly appreciated. Tully Pettigrew tully@netspace.net.au ------------------------------ From: Joe Plescia Subject: Please Explain *56 Date: 6 Feb 1996 21:10:03 GMT Organization: Plescia.Com Reply-To: jplescia@plescia.com Does anyone know what *56 is on an ISDN line? I get a msg that says "forward to=" but it does nothing. Also it only responds with that msg on the primary DN. The isdn line is connected to a 5E running version 9. If anyone knows please email me with information. I checked the front of phone book and it has another code for forwarding. Thanks in advance, joe p Visit our WWW SITE http://www.plescia.com Joseph P Plescia-Plescia Photo email jplescia@plescia.com 201.868.0065 201.868.0475fax Photofinishing, Studio, Imaging Paging, Beepers, Cellular Phones ------------------------------ From: john@wd1v.mv.com (John Seney) Subject: Hardware Engineers - Digital Scope.FAQ Organization: MV Communications, Inc. Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 10:13:01 GMT Either go to my Home Page or send me an EMAIL with "SUBSCRIBE SCOPE.FAQ" on the subject line. John D. Seney |_|_|_|_| E-mail: john@wd1v.mv.com 144 Pepperidge Drive |_| |_| WWW http://www.mv.com/ipusers/wd1v Manchester, NH 03103-6150 |_|_ _|_| Skytel Page: 5956779@skymail.com VM + Auto-Pager: 603-533-3472 | | | | | AX.25: wd1v@wb1dsw.nh.usa.noam LeCroy Sales Engineer + Applications/Sales/Customer Service + 800-553-2769 [See Latest Digital Scope.FAQ on my Home Page] ------------------------------ From: glnfoote@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Glenn Foote) Subject: Who's 800 (or 888) Number Am I Calling? Date: 7 Feb 1996 14:14:09 -0500 Organization: The Greater Columbus FreeNet In many areas of the country it is possible to find out who owns a number. The information is available as a "reverse directory" feature. Does anyone know of a similar feature, or service, regarding 800 (or 888) numbers? Failing that, there was, once, a "national" plan where the NNX of the 800 number told you were the 800 number was located, as to state and maybe even region ... if memory serves there were a few other things like the band (area covered) that were in the mix. With the numbers now transportable, it is likely that such a look up table would have little accuracy today, but is there some type of a substitute method for locating at least, the state where the 800 number is located? ** Glenn "Elephant" Foote ...... glnfoote@freenet.columbus.oh.us ------------------------------ From: mav@netrunner.net (Michael Vislocky) Subject: Where is Best Database For New Area Codes and Their Exchanges? Date: 7 Feb 1996 17:44:27 GMT Organization: Network Orange, Inc. New area codes are added so frequently that it is hard to keep database files up to date. What is the best source of information for area codes and their exchanges. (Especially new area codes and the exchanges they take from older ones ...) Michael Vislocky Network Orange, Inc. ------------------------------ From: Chuck Cobb Subject: Consultant Recommendations Wanted Date: Wed, 07 Feb 1996 13:57:58 -0500 Organization: The Internet Access Company Reply-To: chuckc@tiac.com The company I work for is in the business of providing interactive voice response systems and related applications such as voicemail. We are looking for a consultant who can help us develop a strategy and plan for worldwide testing and certification of our products to meet international regulatory requirements in a number of different countries. Any recommendations would be appreicated. Thanks, Chuck Cobb chuckc@tiac.com ------------------------------ From: rjohnson@scsn.net (Ron Johnson) Subject: Channel Bank Wanted Date: Wed, 07 Feb 96 11:42:49 GMT Organization: South Carolina SuperNet, Inc. We are in need of a Channel bank with 24 lines etc. We prefer a NewBridge 3624 mainstreet. But if the price is right we will consider others. Please Email me back at rjohnson@scsn.net. Thanks in advance!! ------------------------------ From: dgregory99@aol.com (Dgregory99) Subject: Need Discount Source For Computer Parts Date: 07 Feb 1996 16:49:22 -0500 Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Reply-To: dgregory99@aol.com (Dgregory99) I am new to this news group and the internet and, not sure if this is an appropriate topic. However, does anyone know of a company selling video cards, monitors and other computer stuff at good prices? ------------------------------ From: hd@chai.com (Henoch Duboff) Subject: Network Maps Wanted Date: 07 Feb 1996 19:58:32 GMT Organization: CHAI.COM Hello, Does anyone know of any sort of map of the various networks, such as SPRINTLINK or MCI, in a .GIF or .JPG format? I find the TRACROUTE information fascinating, but have no idea what most of it actually means. Any pointers toward beginners' literature? Regards, Henoch hd@chai.com ------------------------------ From: daweibai@ernie.Princeton.EDU (Dawei Bai) Subject: questions on network integrity, realibility Date: 07 Feb 1996 18:37:28 GMT Organization: Princeton University Hi, there, I'm a fresh Ph.D and just got an offer from a telecomm- unication company conducting network integrity and realibility business. I'm very excited about this opportunity and would like to know more about this area. I would appreciate any advise and information from you. Basically, I would like to know more on the following: 1) what areas does this business cover? 2) what kind of knowledge is essential to it? 3) how about the future of the business? Well, anything else you want to add is welcome. You can send your message either to me directly. Thanks a lot! David [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And to those of you who wish to tackle the various questions in this issue, my thanks also. I hope you will also check out the Digital Scope FAQ mentioned in this issue if that is of interest to you. I get *so many* small inquries and comments like this each day that perhaps once a week or so I should run them all and let you readers deal with them individually. PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #50 *****************************